The mission starts.
'Let's see if this improvised magical Surveillance and 'Hacking' system is actually practical.'
I leaned back against the brick wall of our makeshift command post, letting my Hamon flow into the pendulum again with practiced ease. The crystal began to pulse with soft light, and my perception exploded outward like an invisible tide washing over the Marine base.
WHOOOOOM!
The sensation never got old—suddenly being able to perceive everything within my range in perfect detail. Every corridor, every room, every person became as clear to me as if I were standing right beside them.
When I layered my Mantra on top of that physical mapping of the Hamon Pendulum, the result was the magical thing I privately called 'Clairvoyance'—the ability to not just see and hear everything in the area, but to read the emotions and surface thoughts of every person within range.
'Alright, here we go again.'
The three-dimensional map of the base filled my mind with perfect clarity—every corridor, every room, every Marine going about their evening duties with the kind of lazy complacency that suggested they'd never actually expected anyone to be stupid enough to rob them.
'Well, surprise. We're exactly that stupid.'
I could feel Nami several meters away, approaching the eastern side of the Marine base with that peculiar mixture of excitement and professional focus.
'Again, she's actually enjoying this.'
Most people would be terrified about breaking into a military installation, but she's not only calm about it she was actually feeling this strange delight I have no explanation of.
'I can only guess that when you've spent years stealing from unforgiving pirate crews, regular Marines probably seem like easy targets.'
I watched through my Clairvoyance as she approached the service door of the Marine base, moving with a silent and fluid grace that seemed almost impossible given her choice of footwear.
'Like, how the hell does she move that silently in high heels? Those things click on every surface known to man, yet she's moving like a ghost.'
That's got to be some kind of supernatural ability. No normal person should be able to sneak around like that while wearing what could be called wooden blocks strapped to their feet.
The half-asleep guard at the service door might as well have been a decorative statue for all the good he was doing. His thoughts were a sluggish river of boredom and fantasies about what he'd eat when his shift ended.
He didn't even twitch as Nami slipped past him, her steps made absolutely no sound as she approached the entrance, and I found myself genuinely impressed despite my cynicism.
'The word 'Professional' doesn't begin to cover it. She's not just good at this—she's frighteningly good at this.'
Nami paused at the service door and pulled out the golden compass, holding it close to her face.
"Can you open this door for me?" she whispered, placing the compass against the metal surface.
Of course, she wants to test the 'magical' abilities. Can't just pick the lock like a normal thief—has to see if her mysterious crewmate can deliver on his promises.
I could tell immediately that it was a simple lock—the kind that she could have picked in under ten seconds with her tools. Hell, she could probably just steal the key from Sleeping Beauty over there without him noticing. But she wanted to test the compass's supposed abilities.
'Fine. Let's give her a proper demonstration of "magic."'
I drew the Barbossa sword partially from its sheath. With a focused thought, I reached out to the lock with the sword's mystical ability and took control of the door's simple mechanism.
'Usually, I would need to see the thing I am controlling to use the sword ability, but it looks like seeing the thing through Clairvoyance counts.'
CLICK!
The lock disengaged with a soft and barely audible sound. Through Clairvoyance, I could feel Nami's pleased mood as the door swung open without any visible effort on her part.
"How Convenient," she murmured with obvious satisfaction, slipping inside the base with the fluid motion of someone who'd done this countless times before.
'Convenient for her, annoying for me. Do you have any idea how much concentration it takes to maintain this level of perception while also manipulating objects remotely? But I suppose that's the price of maintaining a convincing facade.'
Sanji shifted beside me in the alley, his nervous energy practically radiating off him in waves.
"Everything going well?" he asked, his voice carrying that particular strain that came from worrying about someone you cared about.
"So far," I replied quietly, not taking my focus off Nami's progress through the base's corridors.
She had paused at the beginning of a hallway, pressing herself against the wall with practiced ease, the golden compass held up like a divination tool.
"Is there anyone in the right hallway?" she whispered to the device.
Using the Barbossa sword's power, I manipulated the compass in her hand, making the pointer swing to the word "No" with deliberate precision.
When she saw the answer, she immediately started moving—in the wrong direction.
'Oi! What are you doing? The armory is the other way!'
I quickly made the compass vibrate in her hand while pointing the pointer to the word "Wait," hoping she'd notice before she walked directly into a group that was about to come through that area in about three minutes.
But Nami didn't stop. She just glanced at the compass and continued moving toward what I could clearly sense was a dead end filled with Marine soldiers.
'Come on!'
I manipulated the direction pointer to point toward the armory where the Seastone was stored, making it swing with enough force that she couldn't possibly miss the movement.
"I know, I know," she whispered, as if the compass could actually hear her. "But I need to get to the changing room first. Need proper camouflage if I'm going to be walking around like I belong here."
'Camouflage. Right. Because walking around a Marine base in civilian clothes would be suspicious, but a perfectly disguised Marine infiltrator is much safer.'
Well, I have to admit that's actually smart thinking. I should have thought of that myself.
Outside in the alley, I clicked my tongue in annoyance. The sound made Sanji look up from where he was nervously chain-smoking his third cigarette in as many minutes.
"Something wrong?" he asked, smoke curling from his lips.
"She's taking a detour," I muttered, manipulating the compass to point toward a different route—one with fewer soldiers and better cover.
Through my Clairvoyance, I felt Nami's amusement as the compass needle swung to indicate a new direction. She laughed softly, the sound barely audible even to my enhanced senses.
"Fine, fine, I'll go your way," she conceded, adjusting her course with the graceful movements of someone who'd spent years moving through hostile territory without being detected. "You really are a worrywart, aren't you?"
'A worrywart. Right. Because wanting to avoid failing this whole operation with dozens of armed Marines on the other side makes me overcautious.'
Sigh, at least she's somewhat cooperative. Though I have a feeling that's only because she's enjoying playing with her new toy.
I watched with grudging admiration as she moved stealthily through the corridors, dodging and maneuvering around the soldiers with practiced ease.
She wasn't just avoiding them—she was timing her movements to their walking patterns, using their blind spots and the natural rhythm of their practiced routines to remain completely invisible.
'…impressive…This isn't luck or natural talent—this is years of experience distilled into pure skill. I'm beginning to understand how she survived working for Arlong by herself for so long.'
As she approached the changing room area, Nami paused and held the compass close to her face.
"Is there someone in there?" she asked quietly.
I focused my senses into the room and immediately 'saw' three female Marines were in there, who were, apparently, taking a break from their duties to complain about their commanding officer's recent promotion policies, all because of a 'certain clumsy Ensign'.
'Three of them. And from their states, they're planning to be in there for at least another ten minutes while they finish their gossip session.'
I turned the compass pointer to the word "Yes" with deliberate emphasis.
"Is there a place to hide until they leave?" she asked, her voice carrying that particular strain that came from being in hostile territory with limited options.
'Let me see,' I swept my focus across the nearby rooms, looking for something unoccupied and accessible.
'There!' An empty office two doors down—locked, but I can handle that. It is a good view of the corridor. Should work nicely as a temporary hideout.
I pointed the compass toward the empty office and felt Nami move in that direction. When she reached the door and found it locked, she placed the compass against the surface without even asking.
'She's getting comfortable with the "magical" Hacking/Assistance. That could be useful, or it could be dangerous if she starts relying too heavily on abilities that don't actually exist.'
I used the Barbossa sword to manipulate the lock, and the door opened with a soft click. Nami slipped inside and settled into a position where she could monitor the corridor while remaining completely hidden.
'Good positioning. She's not just hiding—she's maintaining tactical awareness of her surroundings. Definitely professional-level infiltration skills.'
It was a good decision to ask for her help. I am learning a lot of things just by seeing her work.
Through my Clairvoyance, I monitored the Marines in the changing room as they finally finished their break and moved out of the area. The moment they had moved far enough away to be safe, I made the compass vibrate to get Nami's attention.
"Have they moved?" she whispered to the crystal.
I moved the pointer to "Yes" and felt her relief as she prepared to continue with the mission.
She slipped out of the office and made her way to the women's changing room with swift, silent movements.
Once inside, she began opening lockers systematically, checking the contents with the efficient thoroughness of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for.
Then, my train of thought derailed completely as Nami, like it was the most natural thing in the world, placed the compass on a nearby bench with the crystal top pointing directly at her form as she began to remove her clothes.
'What the—'
I quickly manipulated the compass to flip over, changing my focus to other areas of the base while trying to maintain some semblance of professional surveillance ethics.
'This woman has absolutely no sense of decency. Or she has too much sense of decency and is testing to see if I'm actually watching everything she does.'
Either way, this is exactly the kind of situation I was trying to avoid when I came up with this whole fake surveillance system.
"Oh, you really are shy, aren't you?" she said to the compass, her voice dripping with mischievous satisfaction. "Don't worry, I'll only charge you 200,000 Berri for the show."
"This bitch," I muttered out loud before I could stop myself.
"What's going on?" Sanji asked from beside me, his voice sharp with concern at my obvious reaction to whatever was happening inside the base.
"Nothing, just a tricky lock…" I replied firmly, returning my focus to the base while trying to maintain what little dignity I had left in this ridiculous situation.
Did she just offer me a strip show for money? I…vaguely remember something like that happening in the Manga, but that was supposed to be a gag. But now, what the hell? This is beyond being greedy or bold, it is just being perverted?!
'Damn, what the hell is going on with this crew?!'
A few minutes later, minutes I spent very deliberately monitoring everything in the base except the changing room to keep what is left of my dignity—and her dignity—I felt Nami's presence shift.
When I refocused my attention, Nami had finished changing and was now dressed as a female Marine soldier. The transformation was remarkable—not just the uniform, but her entire posture and demeanor had shifted to match her new role.
'So, she also has high-level disguise skills, huh.'
"Directions to the armory?" she asked the compass, her voice now carrying the crisp confidence of someone who belonged in the base.
I provided the directions through the compass pointer, watching as she moved out of the changing room with completely different body language than before.
Her steps were faster, more confident, and she carried herself with the casual authority of someone who had every right to be where she was.
'The difference is remarkable. She's gone from stealthy infiltrator to legitimate base personnel in the span of five minutes. If I didn't know better, I'd believe she actually belonged there.'
But as she walked through the corridors, I noticed something that made me question my understanding of her skills even further.
As she passed Marines in the hallways, she somehow managed to get close enough to several of them that I was certain she was pickpocketing them.
'No way. She can't possibly be stealing from Marines while maintaining her cover identity.'
That would be insanely risky and completely unnecessary for the mission.
But then I watched her somehow acquire a rifle from one of the soldiers—a complete rifle that he'd been carrying just moments before.
'How did that idiot not notice that his weapon is gone? Are Marine soldiers really that oblivious to their own equipment?'
This is either the most incompetent military base in history, or Nami's skills are even more impressive than I thought.
I wanted to signal her to focus on the primary objective instead of unnecessary theft, but the compass wasn't exactly a prime communication tool. The limitations of my improvised system were becoming increasingly apparent.
'If we are going to do this again—and most likely we will be doing this again—I need to upgrade this into something more sophisticated, while also being easier to control, but let's leave that for later.'
In the middle of my puzzlement about her unnecessary kleptomania, Nami suddenly stopped in the middle of her walk and did something to the stolen rifle.
From her movements and the sound, she appeared to be breaking it somehow, then continued walking as if nothing had happened.
'Did she just break it deliberately. Why would…wait...unless she's planning to use it as cover for getting into the armory. A Marine with a faulty weapon would have legitimate reasons to visit the weapons storage area.'
"How are things inside?" Sanji asked, his voice tight with the strain of waiting while someone he cared about was in danger.
"She's reached the interior of the base and is making progress toward the armory," I replied, providing him with just enough information to keep him in the loop. "Her disguise appears to be effective."
'More than effective. She's practically invisible in that uniform. If I weren't tracking her with supernatural abilities, I'd be losing track of her every time she got close to a group.'
"Of course, that's Nami-san we are talking about. But man, your detection ability is really something," Sanji commented, but his tone carried a suspicious note that immediately put me on alert. "Could I have a chance of learning it too, maybe?"
'Oh, hell no. I know exactly what your perverted mind is thinking, and I am not enabling your voyeuristic fantasies.'
"It requires special talent," I replied with deliberate discouragement, then added with a tone that should have been filled with hopeless sarcasm.
"Besides, even if you somehow managed to learn it and used it the way you're planning in your perverted mind, Nami would most likely kill both of us after she charged us every penny we have as compensation."
Sanji's cigarette fell from his lips in horror at the thought of Nami's potential reaction to such behavior.
But a moment later, his expression shifted to that dreamy, romantic smile that suggested he was imagining the scenario with entirely too much enthusiasm.
"That's okay," he said with the dreamy expression of a man contemplating martyrdom. "It would be worth it."
'Yeah, this guy is a lost cause.'
Absolutely hopeless. The threat of bankruptcy and murder actually appeals to him as long as it involves Nami's attention.
'I swear I'm surrounded by lunatics.'
"Get ready,"
At Nami's call to the compass, I returned my focus to her progress while trying not to think too deeply about the psychological implications of my crew's various obsessions and character flaws.
She had reached the armory and was approaching the guards with perfect confidence. Through my Clairvoyance, I could observe the entire interaction as she presented herself to the soldier responsible for weapons maintenance.
"Excuse me," she said with the crisp professionalism of a competent Marine soldier. "I'm having trouble with my rifle. The firing mechanism seems to be jammed, and I was hoping someone could take a look at it."
Perfect cover story. She's not asking for anything unusual or suspicious—just standard maintenance that any soldier might require. And she even has the broken weapon as evidence.
The armory personnel barely glanced at her identification before he reached for the faulty rifle.
The fact that she managed to acquire proper identification without me even noticing when she took it is genuinely remarkable.
'She must have stolen that ID from one of the Marines she passed in the corridors.'
The only comment that came to mind was that she really was a professional at her specialty.
But my amazement didn't stop there. The moment the soldier took the rifle from her and looked away to examine the weapon, Nami immediately slipped toward a side door that led into the storage area.
She moved without any sound whatsoever, and if I hadn't been paying constant attention, I wouldn't have been able to manipulate the door lock in time to let her through.
'I think…the secret is in the timing... she timed that perfectly. She knew exactly when his attention would be diverted, how long she'd have, and where she needed to go.'
That level of precision suggests she's done this exact type of infiltration many times before.
Once inside the storage area, Nami let out a breath she'd been holding and spoke quietly to the compass.
"That went easier than I thought. Having your help really makes this simple—without it, it would have taken forever to reach here."
She held the compass close to her face, and I could see genuine gratitude mixed with that particular satisfaction that came from a job well executed.
'Again, with that strange delight of hers…but well, she's not wrong in what she said. Breaking into a Marine base solo would be a nightmare for anyone, no matter how skilled they are.'
She looked around the small storage room, examining the various lockers and containers with the systematic thoroughness of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for.
"So, where's the Seastone?" she asked.
I used the Sparrow Compass to triangulate the location. After a moment of calculation and measurement, I pointed the golden compass toward a group of lockers that contained the Seastone handcuffs and capture nets.
'There. Third row, lockers seven through twelve.'
Nami approached them with professional interest, examining the locks with the eye of someone who'd picked hundreds of similar mechanisms.
But instead of asking me to open them with the compass's 'magic', she pulled out a set of lockpicks from somewhere—I honestly didn't want to know where she'd been hiding them.
She could have asked me to open them the same way I opened the doors, but she's choosing to do it manually.
'Testing the difficulty level, maybe? Or just maintaining her skills?'
"I want to test how troublesome these locks are, as I didn't unlock these models before," she explained to the compass, as if it needed justification. "Good to know for future reference."
The answer, apparently, was "not troublesome at all".
She opened each locker in sequence with the smooth efficiency of someone who could probably pick locks in her sleep. The Seastone handcuffs and nets went into a large cloth sack she'd found in the storage room.
'Professional tools, professional technique, professional results. I'm beginning to think Nami's criminal skills are significantly more developed than any of us realized.'
Which raises the question of exactly what she was doing during those years with Arlong's crew. I reckon it wasn't a pleasant life overall.
'But now she is doing the thing with her own well, and even enjoying it. Maybe it is the perspective?'
Nami didn't stop with just taking the Seastone items. With methodical precision, she began removing regular nets and handcuffs from other lockers and placing them in the positions where the Seastone equipment had been stored.
'Another smart move.'
It'll buy us time before anyone realizes what's missing. It could be days or even weeks before they discover the substitution, depending on how often they actually review the inventory and come in contact with Devil Fruit users.
When she finished, Nami was holding a sack that was almost as tall as she was, filled with what had to be at least fifty pounds of specialized anti-Devil Fruit equipment.
'That's a lot of Seastone. Enough for all the purposes our entire crew will need them for a while, plus the contingency for the difficult individuals we might meet in the future, including one on this island.'
If we can get this safely off the base, we'll have a significant advantage in the Grand Line.
"Is there anyone in the corridor outside the armory?" she asked the compass.
I scanned the area with my Clairvoyance and found it clear, and the armory personnel were still examining her broken rifle.
I moved the compass pointer to "No."
"Okay," she said with satisfaction. "Warn me if someone comes into the corridor."
She opened the storage room door slowly, peering through the narrow opening at the two soldiers in the main armory. Both were focused on the rifle mechanism, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with the weapon.
Nami remained motionless for several minutes, watching their movements with the patience of a professional hunter waiting for the perfect shot. Then, the moment both soldiers turned their attention to some technical manual, she moved.
The exit was flawless—she slipped out of the storage room, through the main armory, and into the corridor without making a sound or drawing any attention whatsoever.
The guards looked up just in time to see... nothing. Maybe a flutter of movement in their peripheral vision, but their brains dismissed it as imagination.
"Did you see that?" one asked.
"See what?"
"I…don't know... nothing, I guess."
'Incredible. She just walked out of a secured military facility carrying stolen equipment while the guards were looking for a problem with her fake broken rifle.'
As expected, you should leave the Pro work to the Pro.
Nami continued moving through the base toward the extraction point, where Sanji would go to collect the stolen items and transport them without attracting attention.
Her movements were smooth and confident—she'd completed the hard part of the mission and was now in the relatively simple phase of reaching the first extraction point.
But as she approached the extraction point, my Clairvoyance picked up something that made my blood run cold.
A large group of Marine soldiers was suddenly moving directly toward Nami's position.
'Ah, shit.'
…
A/N: Well, That's it for now.
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