The Duskback slipped into the shallow inlet before Cocoyashi as the sun leaned toward the west, folding gold into the sea. Villagers, small figures against the palms and low roofs, paused their work and watched the strange little convoy of ships glide in. The Going Merry rode tethered in Dez's wake like a skiff of stubborn gulls.
Dez stood at his wheel for a long moment, toe tapping the ship's rail, smoke curling from his cigar. He watched the village through narrowed eyes: shutters drawn, people huddled behind doorways, a child peering from between a woman's skirts. There was fear there, but something else, too, a wary pity, the sort that settles on faces when they imagine what the worst could do to the brave.
Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp were the first to leap ashore, impetuous as ever, before the others could form a plan. Dez and Zoro let them go, wordless agreement in the way they both shifted their weight. They'd split, cover more ground that way. Small teams, quick sweeps.
-----
Luffy's trio moved through alleys and sunbleached lanes. The air was thicker here, salty and sour. Doors opened a sliver and then closed again. A woman offered them a bowl of soup with hands that trembled; an old man averted his gaze; a boy followed them for three steps before being jerked back by his mother. Every face they passed had the same look: suspicion toward strangers, and under that, the slow, smoldering pain of people forced into silence.
They asked for a girl, an orange-haired girl by name. When they spoke the name, the sentence often died halfway across people's lips. A mother would nod once, too quickly, and the street would fold around them in sudden caution. Luffy's smile got thinner. Usopp's bravado faltered; Sanji's jaw tightened, and he moved to stand between them and anyone looking like trouble.
Eventually, a woman came out from a small house on the edge of the village arms folded, hair swept back in a practical knot. She carried herself with the wearied steadiness of someone who has run out of hope enough times to stop being surprised by it.
"My name's Nojiko," she said when Luffy asked. Her voice was a steady thing; there were no theatrics in it. She watched them with tired green eyes. "You looking for Nami?"
"Yes!" Luffy's answer was immediate, cheerful, and sharp with that single-minded heat that never cooled.
Nojiko's face softened slightly. "She's here," she said, but the way she said it carried a sad weight, like an admission rather than a report. "But she's… complicated." Her hand moved to the side, and Luffy's group leaned in.
Nami appeared not long after walking out from a narrow lane, hands tucked into pockets, her expression guarded and sharp as a blade. She scanned the faces of the three before her and then fixed on Luffy with a look that contained no surprise.
"You shouldn't have come," she said flatly. Then, without waiting for them to protest, she added, "Listen. I only partnered up with you for treasure. I'm not joining your pirate crew. Take your ship and leave the island."
Luffy blinked with his trademark vacant curiosity for a second, then frowned. "But Nami—"
"Take the ship," she repeated, voice harder, the words clipped. "I don't want you here. It's dangerous."
Something in Luffy's jaw set. He straightened, eyes bright and quiet. "We don't leave friends."
Nami's face shifted, sharp anger laced with a tired, brave hurt. "We're not friends." Her shoulders squared. Her hand brushed the tattoo at her shoulder, faint, a saw-nosed swordfish inked like a brand, and for a heartbeat, she looked away. Then she turned and strode down the lane, walking away with more speed than her words had let on. Luffy's outstretched arm hung uselessly in the air.
Nojiko watched Nami go and then sighed, an ocean-deep sound. "She's complicated," she repeated. "If she says leave, you should maybe listen. But" Her eyes slid to Luffy, then to Sanji. "If you want to help, you'll do it your way. Just don't get the whole village killed."
Luffy's mouth curled into that stubborn, sunlight grin. "We'll get her back."
Nojiko's hand found Luffy's small shoulder, and she gave it a squeeze, half admonishment, half blessing. "Then don't be fools."
-----
On the other side of the island, Dez and Zoro made their way toward the jagged silhouette that rose like a carcass on the shoreline of Arlong Park. The building dominated the coast: several stories high, a brutal, functional structure of stone and salt-stained wood, flags snapping at its highest spire where the Arlong Jolly Roger, an ugly, saw-nosed fish, flew like a taunt to the sky. An outer pool ringed the compound, open to the sea itself; it served as both moat and statement: "We take from the sea; the sea answers us."
The closer they approached, the worse the smell became: blood, salt, and the iron tang of something drowned. Bodies littered the courtyard and the ribbons of the terrace: fish-men, both unconscious and dead, lying in twisted poses. Slashes, blunt trauma, and the clean dark punctures where bullets had done their work marred skin and scales alike. The wounds were efficient, professional; this hadn't been the chaotic slaughter of a mob; it had the calculated edges of a prepared force striking a garrison.
Zoro walked with a bottle of sake pressed to his chest, sipping from the neck between glances. He'd been wrapped in bandages from Mihawk's blade; the cuts across his torso still showed ragged edges even under the cloth. When he moved, a sharp wince crossed his face, using his full force still turned the wound hot and dangerous.
Dez lit another cigar and exhaled slowly. He crouched beside one of the downed fish-men and inspected the patterns of damage: a hole through a shoulder where a ricochet had taken a vital line, a ribcage crushed by a trained strike. He ran a gloved finger along the path, thinking aloud in the dry way he always did.
"These are the grunts," he said. "Not the main force. If the real crew had been here, we'd be bottlenecked and outnumbered."
Zoro hissed through his teeth. "So they left the leftovers behind." He took another swallow of sake, and after a beat added, quietly, "Good. Means the bigger wolves aren't back yet."
Dez nodded. "Yeah."
They moved through the shallow pool, water lapping at their boot, careful not to step in places scarred by dark stains. The outer courtyard was pocked with evidence of close combat.
Zoro kicked a broken plank away with a soft grunt. "Think the main force is still away, then," he said, as much to himself as to Dez. "If they come back and find this… they'll be furious."
Dez reassembled Dusk with slow, meticulous motions on the hood of a smashed statue, oiling the barrel and checking the cylinder. He pulled the speedloader from his belt and counted his rounds in one of those quiet, professional rituals; the numbers settled into the air like facts to plan around.
He had six chambers loaded in Dawn and six in Dusk, that's 6 + 6 = 12 rounds in the guns themselves. On his belt, he kept spare rounds in a bandolier—twenty-four of them. Twelve plus twenty-four equals thirty-six rounds total, ready on his person. He also had a stash of special rounds sealed in a leather pouch, six seastone slugs just in case. Thirty-six plus six equals forty-two rounds in everything he carried at the moment. Dez tapped each pouch, satisfied.
Zoro watched the counting, brow lowering. "You keep that many on you? You going to take down a fleet with two pistols?"
Dez shrugged, sliding a fresh cartridge in. "You don't bring a gun to a knife fight because you like the sound it makes. You bring it because you mean to settle things clean." He glanced up at the Park, at the broken flags and the Jolly Roger snapping like a challenge. "If...when Arlong comes back and it's ugly, I'd rather not be trying to find a replacement cylinder."
Zoro's lips curled faintly. "You don't exactly seem sentimental."
Dez rolled his eyes and closed the cylinder with a soft click. "Sentimentalities slow you down."
They stepped up onto the lower terrace and paused. From the windows of Arlong Park, the shadows watched them, the empty shapes of rooms and the curl of smoke from a single still-lit brazier. Somewhere inside, something had moved earlier; now there was a silence that meant planning, not rest.
Zoro flexed his injured chest, testing the bandages without touching the broken parts. "How long 'til this stops hurting?" he asked suddenly, honest and blunt and almost boyish in the admission.
Dez looked at him for a moment, no pity, just a practiced assessment. "Wounds like that? It could be weeks if you give it a proper chance. But you don't have that kind of luxury. If you push yourself, stall the healing, you'll walk crooked for longer. If you rest, you'll be faster later. Your call, green-haired idiot."
Zoro's smirk was half something that could have been a smile. "I'll heal. I'll be fine."
Dez finished loading the last of his spares and cinched the bandolier snug. He felt the weight settle and let himself breathe a fraction easier. The island's hush pressed in villagers watching from a distance, Arlong Park looming like a wound on the coast, the line of the horizon undisturbed beyond it.
He holstered Dawn and Dusk, the soft leather straps whispering as the pistols found their places at his hips. The familiar, solid weight there steadied him as much as the smoke and the quiet.
"Tomorrow....or later today," Dez said finally, speaking for both of them and maybe for the others too. "We do the talking a little louder."
Zoro raised his bottle and took another careful drink. The sunset bled orange across the pool, and the wind off the sea brought with it something like an oath.
They sat there for a while smoking, drinking, and counting the small certainties before the storm. The village below stayed silent, stitched tight with fear. The Jolly Roger kept flapping its harsh, fish-bitten shape in the wind.
The last light slipped away, and with it the day's excuses. They'd come to pull Nami out of whatever chains bound her. The next steps would ask for everything they had.
Dez rolled his shoulders and checked the straps again. The guns settled. The bandolier clicked. The pool whispered. The sea promised nothing but distance.