I stood near the helm of the Going Merry, my hands resting on the railing as Crocus began to speak.
The old man's voice carried across the strange artificial sea inside Laboon's stomach, and despite everything—the absurdity of our location, the two unconscious Baroque Works agents tied up on deck—I found myself listening with complete attention.
'Fifty years. The whale has been waiting for fifty years. That's not dedication, that's...' I couldn't finish the thought.
"It started a long time ago," Crocus said, settling back into his chair with the kind of weariness that spoke of telling this story too many times. "Back when Laboon was just a baby whale, small enough that you could have mistaken him for a regular creature instead of the island-sized monster you see now."
"A baby?" Luffy asked, his eyes wide with curiosity. "But it's huge!"
"He wasn't always," Crocus replied. "Fifty years ago, Laboon followed a crew of pirates from the West Blue. The Rumbar Pirates, they called themselves. Good men, mostly. Musicians and dreamers. They came through Reverse Mountain just like you did."
"They had a baby Island Whale with them," Crocus continued. "Laboon. The little thing had followed their ship all the way from the West Blue, attached itself to the crew like they were its family."
"They had a baby whale following them? That's so cool!" Luffy's eyes lit up with that dangerous combination of interest and emotional investment that usually preceded him doing something reckless.
"It was," Crocus agreed, and there was something in his voice—nostalgia mixed with regret.
"The Rumbar Pirates stayed here for a while to repair their ship. I was already the lighthouse keeper then, and I got to know them. Good people. The kind who'd share their last meal with a stranger."
'Also, the kind who make promises they can't keep, apparently. Though to be fair, most people don't account for mortality when making long-term commitments.'
"They wanted to take Laboon with them," Crocus said, his expression darkening. "But the Grand Line... It's no place for a baby whale. Too dangerous. So they made a decision."
"They left it behind," I said flatly, already seeing where this was going.
Crocus nodded slowly. "They asked me to take care of Laboon until they returned. Promised they'd be back in three years after they'd completed their journey through the Grand Line. Said they'd come back to get him, take him on more adventures in safer waters."
The silence that followed was heavy with implication. Fifty years was a long time to wait for a three-year promise.
"But they never came back," Sanji said softly, his usual bravado absent.
"No," Crocus confirmed. "They never did. And Laboon... Laboon kept waiting. At first, he was patient. Playful, even. But as the years passed and there was no sign of them…He started ramming his head against the mountain. Over and over. Like he thought his friends were on the other side, trapped, unable to get back to it."
'Because that's what hope does when it curdles into desperation. It transforms logic into delusion, turns waiting into self-destruction, makes you slam your head against impossible barriers because acknowledging the truth is too painful.'
The whale's body began to shift beneath us, responding to the sedatives as it started its slow ascent toward the surface. Crocus stood, gesturing toward his artificial island.
"We should move. Once Laboon surfaces, we can exit through the main passage."
"There's a passage?" Zoro asked, sounding simultaneously impressed and annoyed that he hadn't thought to ask about it earlier.
"Through that door," Crocus pointed toward the massive metal gate we'd seen earlier. "It's a tunnel I built through Laboon's body. The only way I can properly treat its wounds, given the size."
Crocus's 'island' began moving toward the gate, and we guided the Going Merry to follow.
And there it was—a passage carved through living tissue, reinforced with metal supports and what looked like a combination of medical equipment and structural engineering that should have been impossible.
"Whoa!" Luffy's eyes were wide with fascination. "This is so cool! You built all this inside him?"
"Over many years," Crocus confirmed, moving his island-ship alongside the Going Merry as we both proceeded through the tunnel. "It was the only way to properly treat his injuries. The external wounds from ramming the Red Line, the internal damage... without this access, I couldn't have kept him alive."
"How long did this take you?" Usopp asked, his engineering mind clearly fascinated by the structural aspects.
"The initial tunnel? About five years," Crocus replied casually, as if this were a normal construction project. "The refinements and improvements? I'm still working on them. There's always something that needs maintenance or upgrading."
"Five years," Sanji breathed. "You spent five years building a tunnel through a whale."
"It was the only way to properly care for Laboon." Crocus shrugged. "You can't exactly ask an Island Whale to lie down on an examination table."
"How does it work?" Nami asked, her mind clearly intrigued by the engineering feat. "Doesn't it hurt the whale to have this tunnel through its body?"
"The tissue regenerates around it," Crocus explained. "Similar kinds of procedures are done to cows, to monitor their inner organs and provide fast treatments. Moreover, Island Whales have remarkable healing capabilities. As long as I maintain the structure and keep it clean, Laboon barely notices it's there."
As we moved closer toward the large metal door that marked the tunnel exit, Luffy suddenly perked up.
"Hey! Old man! You're a doctor, right?" Luffy looked at the old man and asked.
Crocus looked wary, as if he could sense where this was going. "Yes..."
"Join our crew!" Luffy declared with his characteristic lack of subtlety. "We need a doctor! You can take care of us and stuff!"
The old man laughed—a genuine sound that carried decades of weariness and perhaps a hint of nostalgia.
"I appreciate the offer, boy," Crocus said, his smile softening his usually stern features.
"But I'm too old for that kind of adventure. My seafaring days are long behind me. Besides..." He glanced up toward the ceiling, or more like Laboon. "Someone needs to look after that stubborn whale."
But while my crewmates marveled at the architecture, my mind kept circling back to Crocus's story. To the image of a creature so determined, so focused on a single promise, that it had literally spent decades battering itself against an immovable continent.
The worst part wasn't the determination itself. It was the fact that I understood it. Completely.
'How many years will it take before I start ramming my head against my own impossible barriers? Before the constant searching, the endless collection of Devil Fruits, the desperate hope that one of them will be the key to going home becomes just another form of self-destruction?'
I know that having an unshakable will is necessary for impossible goals. I've learned that lesson the easy and the hard way.
But time doesn't care about determination. Time erodes everything eventually—mountains, promises, hope itself.
'And we're not meant to be alone in this world. No matter how much you want to be a loner, no matter how single-mindedly you pursue something, eventually something or someone will slip past your defenses. Will make you question whether the goal is worth the cost.'
I glanced at Nami, who was still standing close to me, her attention on the tunnel walls but her awareness clearly on me.
She looked back at the same moment, our eyes meeting for a heartbeat before I looked away.
'I'm not that dense, okay. I know what's happening. I've gone through enough of these to recognize the signs. The way she gravitates toward me. The way she finds excuses to stand too close. The way she looks at me when she thinks I'm not paying attention.'
And that's exactly why I've been avoiding acknowledging it. Why I've been keeping everyone at arm's length, maintaining professional distance, refusing to let anyone get too close.
'Because the moment I acknowledge it, the moment I admit that I care about these people as anything more than temporary crewmates, I start taking steps toward giving up. Toward accepting that this world might be my home. That going back might not be worth the cost.'
Crocus climbed a ladder built into the tunnel wall, reaching for a massive wheel mechanism. With surprising strength for a man his age, he began turning it, and the outer gate started to open with a metallic groan that echoed through the passage.
Light flooded in—real sunlight, not the artificial illumination of Laboon's stomach. The sight of it hit harder than I'd expected, a reminder that we'd been trapped inside a living creature for what felt like hours but had probably only been a fraction of that time.
"Finally!" Luffy cheered from his perch on the figurehead. "The Grand Line! We made it!"
"We were technically in the Grand Line when we entered the whale," Zoro pointed out.
"But now we're REALLY in it!" Luffy insisted with his characteristic inability to be bothered by technicalities.
His enthusiasm was infectious—I could see Usopp's tension ease, could hear Sanji's relieved exhale, could feel the collective unwinding of stress that had been building since we'd been swallowed.
But my own relief felt... complicated. Tainted by something I couldn't quite name.
'We're out. We're alive. We made it through the impossible entrance and survived being eaten by a mountain-sized whale. This should feel like a victory.'
It didn't.
"Hachiman?"
I turned to find Nami standing beside me, her expression concerned in that way that suggested she was starting to read me better than I was comfortable with.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly, her voice pitched low enough that the others wouldn't overhear. "You look... I don't know. Off."
'Off. That's one way to describe the existential dread currently eating away at me.'
"I'm fine," I said automatically, keeping my gaze on the horizon where the Grand Line stretched out before us.
"You don't look fine." She moved closer. "You've been quiet since Crocus told us about Laboon. More quiet than usual, I mean."
'Because his story hit too close to home. Because I just spent the last half-hour hearing a living metaphor for my own situation destroy itself through sheer determination. Because I'm starting to wonder if I'm just another fool chasing an impossible promise.'
"It's nothing," I replied, but even to my own ears, the words rang hollow.
She didn't look convinced. Her eyes searched my face, looking for something I couldn't afford to give her.
After a moment, she seemed to accept that I wasn't going to elaborate, but the concern didn't leave her expression.
I turned my attention back to the sea, watching the blue waters spread out in all directions.
The Grand Line. The most dangerous ocean in the world. The thing that had broken even the mightiest of sailors.
'How many years will it take for this sea to erode my determination?'
The question sat in my chest like a weight. I'd been in this world for two years already—two years of fighting, surviving, collecting treasures, and Devil Fruits. Two years of telling myself it was all in service of going home.
But unlike Laboon, I didn't have the luxury of single-minded devotion. I was human. Weak. Subject to things like shifting priorities and formed connections, and the simple, terrible passage of time.
'The answer is clear. It'll take way less than fifty years. Way less. Because I'm not built for that kind of unwavering focus. Nobody is.'
The uncertainty was the worst part. Even if I managed to reach the One Piece—and that was a massive 'if'—who knew if it would be enough?
Who knew how many Devil Fruits it would take to power whatever portal my Stand could create?
Who knew if it would even work at all?
'And if it doesn't work? If I reach the end of the Grand Line and find that the One Piece isn't enough? How long will I keep searching? How long before "I need to find a way home" becomes "I should probably find a way home" becomes "maybe someday I'll find a way home"?'
I could see the path clearly. Could trace the steps from determination to acceptance. It would happen gradually, imperceptibly. I'd form connections—was already forming them, if I was being honest. I'd develop priorities that had nothing to do with returning home. I'd find reasons to stay that seemed more important than reasons to leave.
'And one day, I'll wake up and realize I've put the search on the back burner. That I've given up without ever consciously deciding to give up. That I've become just another person who abandoned their promises because the Grand Line broke something fundamental in their soul.'
The image that formed was visceral and unwelcome: me, years from now, having built a life here. Having accepted that this was my world now. All while my family back home had long since moved on, had mourned and accepted my loss, had filled the hole I'd left behind.
'They won't wait fifty years. Nobody waits fifty years. They'll grieve and they'll heal and they'll continue living, because that's what people do. And if I ever do find a way back, I'll be returning to a place that's already replaced me.'
Luffy's attention had already moved past the scenery. He turned back to look at Laboon, his expression thoughtful in the way that usually preceded him saying something either profound or profoundly stupid.
"Man, those pirates sure are taking their time coming back," he observed.
The silence that followed was broken by Sanji's exasperated sigh. "They're not coming back, you idiot. This is the Grand Line. They're dead. They have to be dead after fifty years."
Luffy's eyes widened, and he immediately turned to me.
"Hachiman! Is that true?"
'Why is it always me? Why do I have to be the one to explain basic mortality to our captain?'
I sighed, feeling the weight of the conversation settling on my shoulders.
"The Pirate King, Gold Roger, took less than fifty years to rise from a nobody to being the Pirate King," I said, watching their faces register shock.
"His famous final voyage—the one where he conquered the Grand Line and became a legend—took only three years."
The silence that followed was absolute.
The effect was immediate. Nami gasped. Usopp's mouth fell open. Even Zoro looked surprised, and that man treated most revelations with stoic indifference.
"Three years?" Nami whispered. "But that means..."
"Even if they were 'taking their time,'" I continued, forcing my voice to stay level, "with fifty years passed, there's only one logical conclusion."
'And if the greatest pirate who ever lived could do it in three years, what does that say about a crew that's been gone for fifty? The math isn't complicated. It's just cruel.'
"So..." Zoro said slowly, working through the implications. "If it only takes three years to complete the Grand Line, and those pirates have been gone for fifty years..."
"They're dead," Sanji finished bluntly. "Have been for decades, most likely."
I found myself looking at Laboon again, at the scars that covered its massive head. Each mark was a testament to years of futile determination, of refusing to accept a truth that everyone else could see clearly.
'How many more scars will it accumulate before it finally gives up? Or will it just keep going until the damage becomes fatal, until the act of holding onto hope literally kills it?'
"Oh, come on!" Usopp protested, and there was something desperate in his voice.
"You're all becoming just like Hachiman with your cynical worldviews! We don't know for sure that they're dead! There's still hope, right? I mean, even the whale hasn't given up!"
'Great. Now I'm apparently infecting the crew with my realistic worldview. As if being pessimistic was contagious.'
"It really is a touching tale," Usopp continued, looking around for support. His eyes landed on Crocus. "Isn't that right, old man?"
Crocus was silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of a truth he'd been carrying for far too long.
"Yes, it is a touching tale," he agreed. "But the truth is crueler than that."
The air seemed to chill as we waited for him to continue.
"I have a trusted source," Crocus said slowly. "Information that I received decades ago. Those pirates... they ran away."
"They what?" Usopp's voice cracked with disbelief.
"They fled through the Calm Belt," Crocus continued, his tone matter-of-fact despite the horrific implications. "Abandoned their promise, abandoned Laboon, and ran."
"The Calm Belt?" Nami's face had gone pale. "But that's... that's almost impossible to navigate. It's filled with Sea Kings!"
"They risked the Calm Belt rather than stay in the Grand Line," Crocus confirmed. "And even if they survived it, they would never want to come back here. Not to this sea where common sense has no role, where everything about the environment is random, bizarre, and unforgiving."
He took a breath.
"The Grand Line has a terror that takes over weak minds. And theirs were weak."
Zoro's expression had darkened to something dangerous. "They were that scared? So terrified of the Grand Line that they'd rather face Sea Kings and never come back than keep their promise?"
Crocus didn't answer, but his silence was confirmation enough.
"So they just... left?" Usopp's voice cracked. "They just forgot about the whale?"
"Probably convinced themselves it was for the best," I heard myself say. "Probably told themselves the whale would move on, find its own kind, live a normal whale life. Whatever lies let them sleep at night."
'Just like I'll probably tell myself one day. "My family will be fine. They'll move on. I can build a new life here." Whatever narrative makes giving up feel like growth instead of failure.'
Nami looked at me sharply, something in her expression suggesting she'd caught the bitter undercurrent in my voice.
I turned to Crocus, needing to understand something that had been bothering me since he'd started this story.
"Why didn't you tell the whale?" I asked. "You've been living with this whale for how long? You must have a way to communicate. Why not tell him the truth—that its friends aren't coming back?"
Crocus's expression grew even more weary. "I did. More than once, actually."
"And?"
"He refused to listen. In fact, it was then that he started ramming his head against the Red Line." Crocus gestured toward the massive wall visible in the distance.
"He's convinced they're on the other side. That if he just tries hard enough, if he breaks through the barrier, he'll find them waiting."
'Oh. Oh, that's... that's worse somehow.'
"So he knows," Nami said slowly, "but he can't accept it."
"It's too late for him to go back to the West Blue," Crocus explained.
"He's too large now, too old. He can't reunite with his pod, can't return to a normal whale's life. All he has is the waiting. And the scariest thing for him—the most terrifying possibility—is that all that waiting was for nothing."
The words hit like a physical blow.
Sunk Cost Fallacy.
'He…has invested fifty years of his life into this promise. Admitting it was wasted, that he sacrificed his entire existence for people who abandoned him immediately—that's more terrifying than continuing to destroy himself.'
I stared at the whale's massive form, at the scars covering its head from decades of self-inflicted trauma. A creature so committed to a broken promise that it would rather die slowly, painfully, than admit the truth it already knew.
'That's…could also happen…right?'
In twenty years, thirty years, however long it takes. I could also reach the point where I know that I'm never getting home, that I'm just going through the motions, but admitting it will be more terrifying than continuing to throw my life away.
'And this is not even the worst scenario.'
The worst scenario is that after all of those decades of mad searching, I find myself back home, but not at the time when I was transported to this world, but when decades have passed in that world too.
'After all, there was no guarantee that I would be able to return to that point in time.'
From the start, it was my own assumption that I could return to the moment I disappeared from my world. But there is a very high possibility that it was a different thing entirely, something that needs a different process altogether.
'And I would stand there, baffled, having got what I wanted, but in the most twisted way possible. '
The image was visceral, horrifying. Me, years from now, after decades of hunting for Devil Fruits and legendary treasures, after going through all of this, and finally make it back home.
I found out that it was already too late, and everyone else had moved on—my family, my friends, my entire old life continuing without me like I'd never existed, and there was no place for me in it anymore.
It is very cruel, I can succeed in the most twisted way I can imagine, so much so that my success not only has no meaning, but it becomes a curse.
Or I don't, and by the time I realized what was happening, I'd already be too invested to stop. The sunk cost would be too high. Admitting failure would hurt more than living the lie.
'It is here where your unwavering determination turns into your prison, shackles, and plight.'
Sanji stepped forward, his cigarette trailing smoke as he spoke. "Old man, aren't you the same? Those pirates betrayed you, too, didn't they?"
"What do you mean?" Crocus asked, though his expression suggested he knew exactly what Sanji was getting at.
"You've been here for fifty years taking care of this whale," Sanji said, his voice carrying an unusual seriousness. "Watching it destroy itself over pirates who ran away. Haven't you done enough? Why do you keep staying?"
'Valid question. What makes someone commit their entire life to another's self-destructive behavior?'
Crocus was quiet for a long moment, his weathered face unreadable.
"I can't leave him like this," he finally said. "If I did, Laboon would kill himself ramming his head against that wall. We've been together for fifty years. It's a strange relationship, but... I can't abandon him."
'Codependency. The word comes to mind unbidden. Two creatures locked in a cycle of mutual destruction, unable to break free because the sunk cost is too high for both of them.'
But something about that didn't sit right with me. Something was missing from this equation.
"Don't you have a goal?" I asked, the question coming out sharper than I'd intended. "Or anything you wanted to do? The whale can't move on—it's an animal operating on instinct and emotion. But you're different. You understand what happened. You understand those pirates aren't coming back."
So why tie yourself to someone else's self-destruction? Why let their inability to move forward become your prison too?
The crew turned to look at me, then at Crocus. Even the old man seemed surprised by the directness of the question.
He stayed silent for what felt like forever, his eyes distant, looking at something far beyond the horizon.
"I did," he said finally. "Once, I had a goal."
'Wait, what?'
"You did?" Nami asked, her voice filled with genuine surprise. "Then why didn't you—"
"I chased it," Crocus interrupted gently. "I sailed the seas. I was a ship's doctor once, remember? Left for a few years to pursue my dream."
'That…made sense, I suppose, but it doesn't explain—'
"I didn't achieve it," Crocus continued, a small smile playing on his lips.
"But I had a glorious adventure. Saw things most people never dream of. I thought... I hoped that maybe my leaving would help Laboon move on, too. That he'd see me pursue my dream and realize he could do the same."
The smile faded.
"But when I came back, he was still here. Still waiting. Still ramming his head against the wall. The result was exactly the same."
'He tried to break the cycle. Actually, tried to pursue his own life, his own goals. And it worked for him somehow. But the whale just kept destroying itself anyway.'
I stared at the massive creature, its scarred head a testament to decades of futile hope, and felt something cold settle deeper into my chest.
'Both of us have things we want on the other side of that wall. But while mine is still unconfirmed—still maybe, possibly achievable—what this whale wants is known to be nonexistent. The pirates are gone. That's a confirmed fact.'
The parallel was uncomfortable in its clarity.
So, what happens when I find out my goal is equally impossible? When I confirm that there's no way home, no amount of Devil Fruits or legendary treasures can open a portal between worlds? Or the even more cruel one that it would take a very long time, that it would consume me completely, and everyone else has already moved on with their life.
'Will I end up like this whale—too old, too invested to do anything else? Just going through the motions until I destroy myself? Or somehow succeed but in the most tragic way possible?'
But then another thought intruded, equally uncomfortable.
'Or should I leave myself a way out? Give myself permission to build something else here, pursue other goals, so that when—if—I realize going home in the way I envisioned it is impossible, I have something to fall back on?'
That thought felt like betrayal even as it formed.
'But if I leave a way out, if I let myself get that attached to this world, to the people here—isn't that just setting myself up to give up? Taking the easy path that everyone else takes?'
My goal is impossible by definition. Any rational person would call it delusional. So the moment I give myself permission to have backup plans, won't I just... slide into them?
The Sunk Cost working in reverse. Investing so much emotional energy into this crew, this adventure, that going home becomes the backup plan instead of the primary goal.
'Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Stay completely focused and risk becoming that whale—too invested to ever move on, even when it becomes in vain. Or give myself options and risk slowly abandoning the entire reason I'm fighting this fight for.'
I was spiraling into this philosophical crisis when—
CRACK!
The sound of splintering wood cut through my thoughts like a gunshot.
I whipped around to see Luffy standing on Crocus's artificial island, having just broken the palm tree clean off its base. The tree was at least twenty feet tall, but our rubber captain was hoisting it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.
"Luffy?" Nami's voice was bewildered. "What are you doing?"
'Oh no. I know that look. That's Luffy's "I'm about to do something incredibly stupid that somehow works out" look.'
Without answering, Luffy began climbing up Laboon's side with the tree still balanced on his shoulder. His rubber body stretched and contracted as he scaled the mountain-sized whale like it was a playground structure.
"What is this shitty idiot trying to do?" Sanji asked, not knowing what to make of what he was seeing.
"Is he insane?" Usopp whispered.
"Yes," Zoro and I replied simultaneously.
Luffy reached the top of Laboon's head—specifically, the open wound where the whale had been ramming against the Red Line.
And then, while we all watched in horrified fascination, Luffy stabbed the palm tree directly into the wound.
THUNK!
Laboon's roar shook the entire ocean.
[BUOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!]
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Sanji screamed.
But Luffy wasn't listening. He stood on the whale's head, the tree planted like a flag, and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"OI! WHALE! YOU WANT TO FIGHT?! THEN FIGHT ME!"
'He's... he's challenging a mountain-sized whale to single combat. Of course he is. Because why would our captain ever do anything that makes sense?'
Laboon thrashed, trying to shake Luffy off, but our captain's rubber body absorbed the impact. He stretched his arm back, pulled his fist into a massive rubber punch, and—
WHAM!
—struck the whale directly in the eye.
"LUFFY!" Nami shrieked. "STOP IT!"
But the fight had begun in earnest. Luffy targeting the whale's weak points—the wounds, the eyes, anywhere that would actually register pain for something this massive.
And Laboon, responding with primal fury, tried to crush this tiny human who'd dared to challenge him.
'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?!'
The battle continued, rubber fists against mountain-sized flesh, until suddenly—
"THIS IS A TIE!!" Luffy declared, his voice carrying across the water with absolute certainty.
'A tie? Did he seriously just declare a tie in the middle of a fight with a whale?'
Laboon's thrashing came to a complete halt, mixed with obvious confusion, as if he actually understood the concept of a temporary truce, but had no idea what was going on.
"I Am Strong, Right? You Want To Win Against me! But Our Fight Isn't Over Yet!"
'What is he doing? What is he possibly—'
"Your friends are maybe dead," Luffy continued, and I felt everyone tense at the brutal honesty.
"But I'll be your eternal rival!" Luffy grinned his signature grin, the one that had convinced me to join this insane crew.
"I'm going to sail the entire Grand Line! And when I come back here—when I've conquered this sea—we're going to finish our fight! Got it?!"
The silence that followed was deafening.
'He's... he's giving the whale a new promise. A new reason to wait. But this time it's from someone who's actually standing in front of him, someone who's proven he's willing to fight, someone who—'
[BUOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!]
The roar was different this time. Not pain, not loss—something almost like... agreement?
'No way. There's no way that actually worked. Whales don't understand complex promises or philosophical discussions about—'
But Laboon had stopped ramming his head against the wall. The massive creature floated peacefully in the water, his enormous eye fixed on Luffy with what I could only describe as understanding.
'Logic says this shouldn't work. A whale is a whale. It operates on instinct, not complex social contracts. And yet...'
Maybe logic didn't matter here. Maybe what mattered was that someone had finally acknowledged the whale's pain while simultaneously giving him something to look forward to.
Not a vague promise from people who'd already proven themselves liars, but a concrete challenge from someone standing right in front of him.
'A rival. Not friends who might return someday. Not caretakers managing his self-destruction. But an actual rival who'd promised to come back and finish their fight.'
I stared at Luffy, at our ridiculous rubber captain who'd somehow solved a fifty-year problem with a fistfight and a reckless promise.
'Goals and promises. People make them all the time. Most abandon them at the first sign of difficulty, taking the easy path of giving up. Others cling to them so tightly they destroy themselves, like this whale ramming its head against an impossible barrier.'
But maybe there was a third option I hadn't considered.
'The people who hold on long enough, who persist despite the impossibility, who refuse to give up even when logic says they should—those are the ones who have even a chance at achieving their goals. Not a guarantee. Not even a probability. Just a chance.'
And maybe that was enough.
'Smart people give themselves ways out, backup plans, emotional exits for when things get too hopeless. And they avoid some regrets that way. But only the stubborn idiots who refuse to plan for failure have any shot at success.'
I looked at Laboon, at Luffy standing on the whale's head, at my crew watching this impossible scene unfold.
'I…don't know which path is right. The logical one that protects against future pain, or the stubborn one that might lead to achieving impossible goals. But...'
For now, at this moment, I wanted to try. Even if it meant risking everything. Even if I ended up being an old fool with nothing but regrets. Even if the sunk cost eventually became so high that I couldn't walk away.
'For now, I want to do everything I can to get home. Whatever it takes.'
The realization settled over me like a weight being lifted rather than being added. A decision was made, even if it was terrifying.
I must have been radiating something, because Nami appeared at my side with that concerned expression I'd started seeing too often.
"The gloomy air around you changed," she observed quietly. "Did Luffy's stupid stunt actually help?"
'How do women always notice these things?'
"Something like that," I replied, then hesitated before adding, "Well... Sorry...I made you worry..."
'Apologizing for being moody. Great. Next, I'll be discussing my feelings and joining a support group.'
Nami smiled—then her expression shifted into something far more calculating.
"That's fine. It'll only cost you 100,000 Berri."
"What?!" The word came out sharper than intended. "You're charging me for being concerned?!"
'Does this woman have to monetize everything?!'
"Of course," she replied sweetly. "Emotional support is a premium service."
'Oh, so that's how we're playing this.'
If that is how you want to play it, I have no problem with it. After all, I didn't survive in this world by being a gullible fool.
'Time for BargainingHiki to show its worth.'
"Fine," I said, matching her calculating smile with one of my own. "Then you would only owe me 300,000 Berri."
Her smile faltered. "What? For what?!"
"For using me as a hanging pole earlier when we almost got eaten by the whale," I replied calmly.
"And as a meat shield, when we first met Crocus. Physical support services, you understand. Far more taxing than emotional ones, due to labor costs and health insurance."
'Checkmate.'
Nami's face flushed red. "Tha-That's not fair! You should have enjoyed—"
"OI! SHITIMAN!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY NAMI-SAN?!" Sanji's voice cracked across the deck like a whip, his face a mask of jealous fury as he stormed toward me.
"Sanji-kun," Nami said, her voice dropping to a temperature that could freeze the sun, "shut it."
The effect was immediate. Sanji stopped mid-stride, his entire body going rigid like he'd been flash-frozen. His cigarette fell from his lips. His eyes glazed over. For a moment, I genuinely thought he'd died standing up.
'That's... actually terrifying. Note to self: never make Nami that angry at me.'
But that doesn't mean I will let her walk all over me like this.
I turned back to Nami, gathering my arguments.
"I-I-I didn't enjoy anything. It-It was a distraction that increased my workload and made controlling the ship harder. If anything, you should be paying everyone for risking their lives because you decided to use me as a—"
Before I could finish, Nami moved.
Her arms encircled my neck, pulling me into a hug that made my brain short-circuit.
She was close—too close—her face sliding under my hat's brim, until we were nearly nose to nose.
'Abort! Abort! This Is Not A Drill! Tactical Retreat Immediately!!!'
"See, you enjoyed it," she said, her voice carrying a smug satisfaction that told me she knew exactly what she was doing. Her expression screamed 'got you' louder than words ever could.
My face heated up. I could feel the blush spreading across my cheeks like wildfire.
'NO!! Damn it! No! I'm not losing this!'
Gathering every scrap of courage I possessed—and it wasn't much in this particular situation—I reached up and took off my hat.
'If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!!'
Then, in what was probably the most forward action I'd ever taken in either world, I placed it on her head.
Nami froze, her confident expression cracking as surprise flickered across her face.
'NOW!!!'
Before she could recover, I hugged her back. My arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer rather than pushing away.
The effect was immediate. Her face went from smug to bright red in approximately half a second.
I smiled—actually smiled, not my usual smirk—and said, "'You' are the one who is enjoying this. So, you should pay extra for this too."
'Mutual assured destruction. If I'm going to be embarrassed, so is she.'
For a moment, she just stared at me, her face flushed, her mouth opening and closing without sound.
Then her embarrassment transformed into indignant anger, her cheeks still bright red.
"Who would enjoy looking at your creepy, dead eyes?!" she snapped, though her voice lacked its usual bite.
"They are so creepy that I am going to have nightmares! You should pay me 500,000 Berri for causing me such a traumatic memory!"
'Creepy dead eyes?! CREEPY DEAD EYES?!'
"My eyes are perfectly healthy!" I shot back, feeling my own anger flare up. "If anything, you should pay 600,000 Berri for insulting them!"
"They're unsettling!"
"They're normal!"
"You look like you're plotting someone's murder!"
"That's just my face!"
"Exactly!"
We devolved into rapid-fire bickering about money, compensation, emotional damages, and the relative market value of various types of embarrassment.
I honestly had no idea how we'd gotten here, but somehow, we were negotiating the financial implications of a hug like it was a business transaction.
"Are they finalizing a deal, having an argument, or is this just their own brand of flirting?" I heard Usopp whisper from somewhere to our left.
"I genuinely can't tell," Zoro replied.
"WE'RE NOT FLIRTING!!!!" Nami and I shouted simultaneously, still wrapped in each other's arms.
CRACK!!!!
The sound of something shattering drew my attention. I glanced over to see Sanji's frozen form literally breaking apart, pieces of ice sculpture falling to the deck like fragments of a broken heart.
'Whoops. I'd almost forgotten about him.'
Eventually—after what felt like hours of negotiation but was probably only minutes—we reached an agreement:
As long as there was no money involved from the start, we wouldn't charge each other for emotional or physical support services.
It was a reasonable compromise. Mature, even.
Nami walked away with my hat still on her head, wearing a satisfied smile that suggested she'd somehow won despite the mutual agreement.
'How does she always do that? How does she turn every interaction into a victory for herself?'
I felt emotionally exhausted, like I'd just run a marathon while solving complex equations. My face still felt warm, and I was very deliberately not thinking about how close we'd been or how she'd felt in my arms or—
'Stop. Don't analyze it. That way lies madness and further embarrassment.'
But despite the exhaustion, despite the embarrassment, I felt... lighter somehow.
'She…did that on purpose, didn't she. All of it—the monetization, the teasing, the escalation. She noticed I was spiraling into dark thoughts and deliberately dragged me out through sheer force of distraction.'
It was manipulative in a way. Using emotional tactics to shift someone's mood without their explicit consent.
'But it worked. And it came from a place of genuine concern rather than malicious intent.'
I watched her walk toward the bow, my hat bobbing with her movements, and felt something warm settle in my chest that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
'Even if I don't have answers—even if I don't know whether stubborn persistence or logical planning is the right path—having someone who looks out for me like this...'
Maybe that made the uncertainty bearable.
'She saw me drowning in philosophical crisis and threw me a lifeline made of bickering and financial negotiations. That's such a weird form of emotional support that it somehow loops back around to being perfect.'
I looked back at Laboon, at the promise Luffy had made, at the whale who'd been given a new reason to wait.
'I don't know which path is best. Don't know if I'll achieve my goal or end up destroying myself trying. But if I have people who'll drag me out of my own head when I start spiraling...'
Maybe that was enough to tip the scales toward stubborn persistence over cautious planning, without needing to worry about losing myself or becoming self-destructive.
'At least for now. At least while I still believe it's possible.'
The Going Merry rocked gently in the calm waters, the Grand Line stretching out before us like an open question. Behind us, Laboon watched with his massive eye, a creature who'd been given permission to hope again.
And me? I was still figuring out how to balance determination with self-preservation, how to pursue an impossible goal without destroying myself in the process.
But at least I wasn't doing it alone.
'That counts for something. Right?'
…
A/N: Well, That's it for now.
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