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Nami looked perplexed at the parchment in front of her. She wasn’t expecting it, and neither was she expecting Morgans to have an intern seagull mistakenly leave it hidden in her tangerine grove. She made a mental note to bargain a reduced rate for their next periodical from that damn bird. But this one wasn’t news, it was something far more precious. Or at least of more importance considering the author of this letter. She could’ve wagered on how this got here or how to execute the biddings of the letter, but this needed strategy. A war commission maybe and she had to recruit the help of her wayward crewmates for this.
“Yo, you called for a meeting?” a disheveled Zoro appeared with a Robin-arm gently nudging the sleepy first mate to Nami. Shortly followed by the clawing cry of their chef
‘NAMI-SWANNN! Oh you, why are you here” Sanji growled noticing Zoro’s glance towards him.
“I could be asking the same about you. What good are you if not for feeding”
“Nami-san specifically called for me! If you’ve accidentally wandered your stupid face in here, the toilet is down the alleyway where you could flush yourself”
“Oh yeah? How about I take you for swirly, swirly-brow!”
“Enough!” the popping vein on Nami’s forehead spoke. “I wish I didn’t need either of you but considering you two are Luffy’s right-hand men…”
“Me right, him ass-hand or something” Zoro muttered
“Rich coming from someone who probably can’t tell his own right from his ass”
Nami’s rage emanated like a primordial Haoshuko Haki causing the tiring twosome to cease their endless fighting.
“ANYWAY, I saw this letter this morning in the grove, and it’s addressed to Luffy”
“Luffy, hunh. Is it a declaration of war?” the more calm but concerned Jimbei pressed as Sanji, Zoro and Robin’s expressions tightened.
“Worse” Nami said solemnly.
The air inside the accounting room suddenly felt dense. The straw hats were no strangers to ill-fate, danger and calamity. But never once had their navigator looked this serious. Robin’s feet moved back as Jimbei subconsciously held her hand in support. Sanji and Zoro tightened their fists as they braced for impact as the words came out from Nami’s mouth
“It’s a love letter”
Sanji let out a sound of anguish compared to a wounded animal, Jimbei’s pupils dilated in shock, Zoro mindlessly walked towards Nami to read the contents of the paper as Nami shook in pain. Zoro began crumpling the ends of the paper as he read out loud the last paragraph to the cursed letter
“…I await your reply, my beloved king. As you sail the seas and vanquish evil far and wide, I look at the moon every night knowing you are looking at it too. I long for the day I become your wife and I cook meat for you every day.
Love, your Hancock”
“Look, I love Luffy and will give my life for him, but why the fuck does the most beautiful woman on this planet, not counting you both of course, have to have the hots for him!!” Sanji wailed
Robin softly offered a shoulder of consolation to Sanji as Nami and Jimbei started to profusely sweat.
“Sanji-kun, you missed most of our last visit to Amazon Lily last time after Black beard’s attack, so you probably barely remember anything about Boa Hancock, one of the most powerful former warlords of our times. I had met her prior to our last visit, back when Luffy was sent there by Kuma. She is…a formidable woman”
“Yeah, this jackass was so hard up he turned into stone within seconds of seeing her. Even after she released it, you took four days to come back to complete senses” Zoro fumed in Sanji’s direction.
“Forgive me for having a pulse! Brook doesn’t even have a pulse and he got petrified too!”
“Speaking of which, Nami-chan, didn’t you and Robin-chan have a private chat with the empress” Jimbei asked
Nami cowered remembering what went down that night. Boa had permitted the Straw hats to enter the island when she learnt that Luffy had rushed to check up on her after news of Blackbeard’s attack on Boa reached him. After he found out that old man Rayleigh had dismissed Teach, Boa insisted that Luffy stay for at least a few days on the island, to which he agreed through a bribe of meat feasts every night of his stay. Nami recalled seeing Boa’s glowering dagger eyes pierce her.
“So, you are the Nami Luffy spoke of” Boa had threateningly said. Nami swore she had never felt more in danger before. Even burning down the WG’s flag felt less dangerous than being in the same room as Boa Hancock. After much pleading and reassuring that she thinks of Luffy as nothing but a brother, Nami went for broke
“In fact, we can help sweeten Luffy to your proposal”
Boa’s eyes sparkled and her demeanor instantly turned into that of a teenage girl in love.
“You could?! Oh, that is wonderful, now I don’t need to kill you Nami-san!”
“So, this is your fault” Zoro grumbled.
“Hey! You weren’t there! She was a war lord. Jimbei, you know what I’m talking about!”
Jimbei nodded in agreement.
“We should get going, Luffy might think we’re having a second breakfast if we stayed here too long” Robin said ushering them out to the deck where their naïve captain was resting on a hammock; the irony.
“We can just fake it. Luffy can’t read or write, so we can basically write whatever we want and forge a reply” Nami gleamed “like this, watch. Hey Brook! Write us a love song will you”
“Why yes! I have one already! It goes like this
Oh, my dear, for you I write this sea shanty
But first, allow me to see your panty”
Nami tossed Brook overboard before realizing he would need to be fished out.
“Not your brightest moment” Zoro murmured soaking wet with a skeleton draped on his shoulder.
“Shut up. Okay I got this. Hey, Luffy! What do you think about love”
Luffy cocked his sleepy head up from the supine position “hunh?”
“You know, love!”
“I love you guys?” he looked confused “and Ace and Sabo”
“No, not that. Like, when someone looks at Chopper. How do you think they feel”
“hungry”
Jimbei put his hand on a deflated Nami and signaled that they regroup in the evening.
“Hey Sanji, can ya feed Nami. She sounds hungry”
---
“I know, let’s get him drunk and make him confess” Zoro declared as he hollered out to Luffy to grab a drink with him. It would’ve gone well had Zoro not gotten drunk before Luffy and ended up briefly steering the Sunny to what could only be fishman island.
He sheepishly apologized as Sanji got the last laugh as Franky tearfully made Jimbei promise to “never ever die” and leave Zoro in charge again.
--
Ussop was let in on the secret and he made the grave error of joking about how they should put a bow around Chopper and ship him off to Amazon Lily as a gift. Chopper ended up having to fix him up he got bitch-slapped by a thousand devil-hands in the middle of the night. Robin claimed she has no idea what any of that was about.
--
“I will teach Luffy how to cook the empress a box of chocolates. After all a way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach” Sanji volunteered.
“That…could just work” Nami mused. Zoro wanted to say that was the dumbest idea since sliced bread, but he didn’t know for a fact since he wasn’t the one who sliced that bread.
“Luffy come make some chocolates with me” Sanji put his hand around Luffy whose brief caution was immediately overcome by the sheer excitement for food.
It was all going well until they started to temper the chocolate and Sanji said
“And this way the chocolate can be molded into any shape! Sort of like Mochi”
“Mochi! Like that bastard Katakuri, why I ought to,,,” Luffy rounded up his fists in red hot anger.
“No, Luffy don’t!” but it was too late. A Sanji shaped hole emerged in the back of the ship which fortunately would not cause the Sunny to sink.
--
“I should just hand myself over to her and you can find a new navigator” Nami cried as she began to pack her belongings.
“Can I try?” Robin smiled. Nami, defeated by stupid, nodded in resignation.
Moments later she emerged with a paper in her hand with what looked like writing. Nami’s eyes widened as she read through its contents before she leapt into an embrace. Sanji and Zoro grabbed the paper in shock and began to read it.
“How did you…!” Sanji exclaimed “this is definitely Luffy. How, what” Zoro and Sanji had only now begun to understand Nico Robin’s bounty
She tilted her head with an innocent smile and just said “easy”
Moments earlier
“Hey Luffy. You remember Boa, right?”
“Hammock? Yeah sure. Why?”
“What would you like to say to her”
“Hmmm, nice meat, snake has cool vibes”
“Anything else?”
“Oh yeah, if BB bothers her, I’ll punch him shitless”
“Why would you do that”
“Coz she’s cool that way”
“Cool”
“Cool. Hey Robin, what’s bounty again?”
“Loads Luffy”
“Sweet. See ya for dinner!”
--
‘Dear Hancock
I like your meat and your snakes.
If BB comes at you I’ll kill him coz I think you’re cool
Luffy’
--
Morgans would get the scoop he wouldn’t have dreamed of – Rumored use of ancient weapon was actually the explosive ‘Love Haki’ from Snake Princess Hancock.