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Nami wakes to an almighty roar of thunder ripping the sky in half. She's not even fully awake by the time she's flung herself out of bed and burst her way out of the doors onto the deck, orders on the tip of her tongue, ready to defend the Straw Hats from the weather on pain of death.
From around her, she can hear her crewmates also throwing themselves into defensive positions. She feels Nico Robin glide past her from their bedroom, arms crossed as she activates her Devil Fruit. Franky runs by shortly afterwards, up towards the steering wheel.
Usopp bellows, "Cannon fire!"
Cannon fire?
Nami manages to peel her sleep-caked eyes open.
The deck is a swarming mass of Straw Hats in absolute chaos, but - she turns her exhausted gaze skyward - there's no storm. It's black and clear and the stars are starting to fade; morning will come in three or four hours, she guesses.
So what was that terrible, terrible noise?
Cannon fire, her sleep-addled brain offers. Usopp said cannon fire.
She bolts to where she is needed.
Robin and Zoro stand primed on the front of the deck, Zoro's hands on his swords, Robin's hands sprouting from every surface. They are the defence against cannonballs that cannot be avoided.
Usopp and Sanji stand starboard and port respectively, loading cannonballs and Coca Cola into the Thousand Sunny's magnificent artillery with fervour. They are the Straw Hats' offensive power. Nami does not have time to watch them, but the determined look on cowardly Usopp's face and the cool stream of smoke climbing out of Sanji's cigarette comfort her. She is safe with her boys on the front lines. Chopper will join them soon in his Heavy Point form as an extra pair of hands - right now, his hooves are busy setting up a first aid station by the tree swing on the grassy deck.
She runs up towards the prow, passing underneath Luffy. Luffy has hoisted himself up on a net attached to the mast, barking orders out and directing traffic. He knows how to be a Captain when he wants to be. Brooke scrabbles up the net beside him, up towards the Crow's Nest, from where he can see their attacker and direct Nami, who will direct Franky.
This is her place in the chaos, here.
Nami bounds up the forecastle and plants herself beside her cyborg crewmate, whose large hands grip the wheel firmly. She checks the Log Pose, she checks their current course, the waves beneath them, and the wind in their sails, and then is ready. The last person, the one their next move rides on, is Brooke.
In the time she took to reach the helm, Brooke reached the Crow's Nest and pulled out his tarnished golden telescope, swinging it in a deliberate, 360 degree motion.
All is silent.
Everybody awaits the call to arms.
Brooke clears his throat. Nami feels Franky tense, fibre optics coiling beneath his skin.
When Brooke speaks, however, it's in a confused lilt.
"Er...there doesn't appear to be an enemy."
"What?"
"The enemy is invisible!"
"So what do we do?"
"No, I don't believe the enemy is invisible. We would see unusual movement on the water indicating their presence if that were so. Invisible does not mean incorporeal," Brooke says maturely, casting a glance at Nami.
Nami obeys the silent order, looking out at the ocean. Other than the normal ebb and flow, there is no movement. The water is actually lovely. Nami would've considered a midnight swim if the threat of danger wasn't looming over them.
"Brooke's right," she says, "nothing. And nothing in the sky either?"
A moment of pause. Everyone takes in their surroundings.
Nothing.
"Then what was that noise?" Chopper asks.
"I didn't hear anything and I was on deck," Zoro grunts. "I was woken up by all of you."
"You'd sleep through the apocalypse," Usopp points out. "Everybody else heard it, so it's not a hallucination or anything, if that's what you're suggesting."
"I thought it was thunder," Nami admits, "but the sky is clear."
Luffy doesn't say anything. Instead, he lets out a long, annoyed, exhausted, tantrum-like whining noise. Nami feels exactly the same.
"So there was nothing?" Franky asks, scratching his sideburns, tired and confused.
"Well, there must've been something. We all heard that...that...noise. I've never heard anything so terrifying. You really didn't hear anything, you useless moss-for-brains? Even though you had a front row seat?" Sanji puts two cigarettes in his mouth and lights them with a trembling hand.
Zoro snarls. "I didn't hear thunder and I didn't hear cannon fire, stupid cook."
"Didn't you even feel it? The whole damn ship vibrated!" Franky protests.
"You're saying there was no noise at all, Zoro? Truly, nothing?" Robin asks. Her voice and manner are composed as always, but Nami can tell even Robin's patience is wearing thin.
Zoro makes an unusual face.
"Well, there was noise...but it can't have been that loud..."
"So you did hear something!" Usopp accuses.
"Not cannons! Not thunder! Not THAT loud!" Nami recognises the facial expression now. It's one he usually only reserves for her, when she gets under his skin.
It's defensive.
"Zoro...just tell us what happened." Nami offers him an open-ended statement. The crew moseys over from their battle placements to stand in a circle to hear what Zoro has to say.
"Nothing happened. You're all a bunch of over-reacting drama queens." Yup, defensive alright. Zoro doesn't have much of a vocabulary, but he will try his tongue at words when Sanji is pissing him off, or, like now, when he's defending his honour.
"What're you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding anything. I. Did. Not. Hear. Cannons. Or. Thunder."
"Okay, let's relax," Chopper raises his little cloven hooves and pats Zoro on the leg. "Let's start with what we know. All of us except Zoro heard a very loud noise which woke us all up. Zoro did hear something, however. Is that right, Zoro?"
Zoro's weakness is Chopper. He turns his face downwards in a movement very unlike him.
"There was a noise."
His facial expression has changed. Defence, Nami can recognise. This is a face she doesn't recognise. Robin raises an eyebrow, like she does know what it means. Zoro's going red, like a hot plate.
"Can you tell us what it was?" Chopper asks kindly.
"It...may have been me. But I don't see how. It can't have been that loud."
"You made the noise?" Luffy glares, accusatory. Steam starts coming off Zoro's face. You could fry an egg on him.
"I...I made a noise...but I'm telling you, it can not have been the noise you heard. It can not have been that loud."
"Just spit it out, man," Franky urges, "so we can all go back to bed."
"...pardon me," mutters Zoro, his face blazing red, shocking everyone more than the noise itself did. Zoro does NOT say 'Pardon me'.
"I...farted."
Dead silence.
Nami dies. As in, she literally passes away. Her soul leaves her body. Franky catches it as it descends through the floorboards.
Luffy starts laughing. Not his normal, unique shishishi. Not the joyful belly laugh he often shares with Usopp. Not even the raucous holler he saves for when something really gets him going. This is a sick, painful laugh, almost a scream. He drops to the ground, clutching his stomach, tears pouring out of face. He's not smiling, but he can't stop laughing. It’s just coming out of him uncontrollably, like vomit.
Nobody else seems to know how to react. Franky busies himself returning Nami's soul to the mortal plane, but it's so awkward, because everyone else is frozen stiff. Luffy rolls on the floor, Franky fiddles with Nami's ectoplasm, and everyone else stares.
Zoro coughs.
The sound breaks Usopp's seal.
"You...are telling me...that you let off...and it was so loud...it woke up the whole entire ship."
Zoro folds his arm and glares, glares as ferociously as he possibly can, muscles flexed so powerfully his veins thrum like they're going to burst.
Sanji adds a couple more cigarettes to the ones already in his mouth. There's now 5, all burning at different lengths. He looks cowed.
"I'm sorry," he says eventually, and it's genuine and sad. "This is all my fault."
"Sanji?" Robin places a worried hand on his arm. "What's wrong?"
"This is me, my fault. I'm the cook. I feed you all. What have I been feeding the Marimo that he - he's capable of that?" Sanji looks like he wants to commit honourable seppuku. "I am ashamed. Of myself."
This sets Brooke off laughing. He tries so hard to muffle it, but eventually the Yohohoho! breaches his non-existent lips and he's on the floor beside Luffy. Robin's mouth twitches uncontrollably at the sides, but she maintains her composure.
Zoro is looking murderous.
"Well," Robin says levelly. "I think now that we know it was a...misunderstanding...I think we can retire to bed. We are all a bit tired, I think."
"I agree," Franky sighs, dispelling the bizarre atmosphere as he stretches. He kicks Luffy and Brooke to try and get them up.
The Straw Hats (Zoro especially) let out an internal sigh of relief. The night's bizarre adventures are over now, and the crew is keen to forget all about it and crawl back into bed. Nami realises they're all in their pyjamas, and she rolls her eyes at the pathetic mess they must look.
Running about in their pyjamas for a giant fart.
Nami groans and drops her head into her hands in disbelief. Of all their antics, this is in the running for most ridiculous.
"There's just one thing I want to do first," Chopper huffs seriously. Luffy hiccups beside him.
"Don't worry about the mess. Just clean up tomorrow."
"No, not that. Zoro,"
(Why me? thinks Zoro. I've had enough attention to last a lifetime).
"Before you go to bed, I'd just like to give you a quick check up. Excessive flatulence could be a sign of a digestive problem."
Robin cracks it.
And when Robin cracks it, so do the rest of the Straw Hats.
Nami can't help it. She absolutely loses her marbles all over the place.
She grabs onto the nearest Straw Hat and laughs so hard into their shirt that her cheeks hurt. Brooke and Luffy resume their positions on the floor, rolling around like dogs in the grass. Usopp busts his gut and collapses beside them.
Sanji's the one Nami's holding onto, and it's a testament to how funny the situation is that he doesn't even notice the gorgeous girl literally clinging to him in fits of giggles. He's too busy trying to catch the cigarettes falling out of his mouth as he laughs, too busy trying to stop the slobbery drooling that accompanies the laughter, which is not at all gentleman-ly. Franky yowls into his hands and Robin, composed, collected, ever-cool Robin guffaws so uncharacteristically over the side of the ship that retrospectively Nami wishes she'd gotten a photo of it. In the moment, all she knows is this is the funniest thing that has ever happened to her.
Zoro wants Death to consume his soul.
"Okay," he manages to choke out to Chopper. His spirit is broken. He is a shell of a man. What would Milhawk think if he saw him? Shame.
After uncountable minutes, Nami finally recovers, gasping deeply, desperate for oxygen. Sanji kindly and without perversion steadies her by her waist as she stands up from where she was doubled over, and as soon as she’s functional he speed walks away, hacking up a lung. The lamp in the kitchen flickers on after a few minutes.
Nami rubs her eyes with her palms, stars sparking in the gloom behind her eyelids. Fatigue from laughing and being jerked awake in the middle of the night hits her suddenly and threatens to swallow her. Her face hurts. Her stomach hurts. There’s bile in her throat. Luffy and Usopp are sniffling at her feet, leaning against each other’s shoulders. Robin, Brooke and Franky have put their heads together. There are contented smiles on their faces, mirth dancing in their tired eyes, like they were exhausted parents woken by their children in the middle of the night for something ridiculous but were unable to be mad about it (which is exactly what this is, Nami supposes). Zoro’s face is turned away, and Chopper is listening to Zoro’s guts churn under his stethoscope.
Unable to keep her eyes open any longer, Nami goes to pick Luffy and Usopp up and put them to bed so she can crash too when Sanji calls for the crew across the boat. She looks up to see his silhouette in the kitchen door, backlit by the warm yellow kitchen light.
“Midnight snack?”
Nami’s too tired to remember much after this. She remembers stumbling into the kitchen, feeling how stuffy and warm it was inside on this summer night caught in the climate of the nearest island. She remembers the delicious hot chocolate touched to her lips, and the painful rumbling chuckle that spread through the rest of the Straw Hats that were sat around the dining room table when Sanji presented Zoro with a fibre supplement instead of a tasty drink. She remembers crashing into bed, sinking the empty mattress with her weight, Nico Robin absent, sat outside with the sounds of the night, which lulled Nami into a dreamless sleep.
Nami remembers fondly (albeit with some disgust) the event the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that. She makes sure she holds onto the memory for decades, until finally the Straw Hat pirates start producing offspring, at which time she is finally able to relay the event to a rapt audience, reducing for a moment in time the Greatest Swordsman in the World to Just a Man, who probably has irritable bowel syndrome.