The small boat bumped gently against the pier. Darian jumped out, securing the ropes to a bollard before offering a hand to Nami.
"Phew, finally here."
Darian looked at the town. It was distinctly Western in style, with colorful brick buildings and cobblestone streets, but an eerie silence hung over it.
"Sailing is so boring," Nami complained, stretching her arms. "Next time, bring some entertainment."
She glared at Darian. Her complaint was mostly because he had spent the last hour "entertaining" himself by groping her under the guise of checking the temperature, leaving her skirt damp and her patience thin in the chilly sea breeze.
"Sigh..." Darian patted his stomach dramatically. "I guess the monotonous life of a sailor isn't for me."
"Let's go, idiot." Nami ignored his theatrics and started walking toward the town.
As they left the pier, Darian glanced to his left. A small, beaten-up dinghy was moored next to theirs. It was empty.
Coincidence? Or fate?
He shook his head and followed Nami.
"Everyone ran away," Nami whispered, observing the deserted streets. Shops were boarded up, and there wasn't a soul in sight. "The Buggy Pirates must have scared them all off."
Her expression darkened. The empty town reminded her of Cocoyasi Village—another place held hostage by pirates.
"Damn pirates," she hissed.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion ripped through the silence.
The ground shook violently. A row of houses just two streets away disintegrated into rubble and dust.
Darian reacted instantly, pulling Nami into his arms to shield her from the debris.
As the dust settled, Nami coughed, looking bewildered. "What... what was that?!"
Darian looked toward the town center, where smoke was rising. "That was a Buggy Cannon. It looks like the clown is testing his firepower again."
"Using a town for target practice?" Nami's anger flared hotter. "That bastard."
Darian squeezed her shoulder. "Hey. Didn't you want to steal his treasure? Let's go teach him a lesson. We'll take his money and his map."
Mentioning the loot worked like magic. Nami perked up instantly.
Guided by Nami, the two of them circled around the back alleys, avoiding the main streets where Buggy's men were celebrating.
"Nami, have you been here before?" Darian asked, amazed by her confidence.
"Nope!"
"Then how do you know where to go?"
"Intuition!"
Darian stared at her. Over the last two days, he had realized Nami's "intuition" was borderline supernatural. She could predict weather changes before they happened and sense danger like a radar. He wouldn't be surprised if she was a latent user of Observation Haki.
She led them straight to the roof of a large tavern that the Buggy Pirates had converted into their headquarters. They moved silently across the tiles.
BOOM!
Another explosion, this time from the roof itself. The building shook.
Nami flinched, instinctively leaning into Darian.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Heavy footsteps crunched on the roof tiles nearby. Darian and Nami looked up.
Emerging from the smoke was a green-haired man with three swords at his waist, clutching a bleeding wound in his side. He was dragging a heavy iron cage. Inside the cage was a boy wearing a straw hat.
Darian's eyes widened.
Zoro and Luffy.
Even without Nami meeting Luffy at the start, fate had dragged them together. Luffy had clearly gotten himself captured, and Zoro—judging by the blood—had just taken a stab wound from Buggy to save his idiot captain.
The two groups stared at each other in silence.
"Hey!" Luffy blinked, pointing a rubbery finger. "Zoro, look! There are people down there!"
"Idiot, shut up!" Zoro hissed, grimacing in pain. "Keep your voice down!"
Seeing that the Straw Hats were in the middle of a stealth escape (or as stealthy as they could manage), Darian simply smiled and waved. He gestured for Nami to keep moving.
They slipped past each other on the roof like ships in the night.
"Weird guy," Luffy muttered as Darian disappeared.
"Who cares?" Zoro grunted, dragging the cage. "Just don't make me carry you."
But Zoro glanced back one last time. He was surprised. The man he had just seen... he was irritatingly handsome. Like, distractingly so. What kind of pirate looks like that?
"Do you know them?" Nami whispered once they were clear.
"Nope," Darian lied smoothly. "Just seemed like an interesting pair."
The explosion on the roof had sent the Buggy Pirates into a panic, searching for the green-haired swordsman. This chaos was the perfect cover for Darian and Nami.
Nami scanned the cluster of buildings surrounding the tavern. Her eyes narrowed, scanning the layout, the guards, and the subtle signs of occupancy.
"There," she pointed to a nondescript house next to the tavern. "The treasure is in the basement of that one."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"The guards are facing inward, not outward," she whispered. "And they look bored, not alert. That means they're guarding something static."
Darian shook his head in amazement. She really was a genius thief.
They slipped into the house. The ground floor was empty, but snores echoed from the basement stairs.
At the bottom of the steps, a single pirate was asleep in a chair, a key ring around his neck.
Darian stepped forward. He placed a hand gently on the pirate's forehead.
Zzzt.
A precise, lethal jolt of electricity surged from his fingertips into the pirate's brain stem. The man stiffened once, then went limp. He died in his sleep, painless and silent.
Darian unhooked the keys and unlocked the heavy iron door.
Creak.
Inside, the flicker of their lantern illuminated a mountain of gold.
"Jackpot!"
Nami squealed, rushing forward. She grabbed a handful of coins, letting them rain down. She snatched a golden crown from the pile and placed it on her head, striking a pose.
"We're rich, Darian! Rich!"
While Nami rolled in the money (literally), Darian walked over to a small, unassuming chest on a separate table. He flipped the latch.
Inside was a rolled-up parchment.
"Nami," he called out. "Look."
Nami froze. She dropped the crown and ran over. "Is that...?"
Darian unrolled it. It was a detailed map of the Grand Line's entry point.
"The chart!" Nami gasped, snatching it from his hands. "It's real!"
She examined it with glowing eyes. For a navigator, this was worth more than the gold pile behind her.
Darian glanced back at the "mountain" of gold. Upon closer inspection, a lot of it was copper coins mixed with gold, and the "golden" crown was just gilded.
Pirate economics, he thought with a sigh. Quantity over quality.
Still, it was a solid haul.
"Pack it up," Darian said. "Before the clown realizes he's been robbed."
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