"Even if she is the God of Navigation, I still didn't think she mattered to you that much," Tashigi replied. "I thought the main thing was navigation and her beauty. After all, Nami... she's mind-blowingly beautiful," the girl admitted with a heavy sigh, as though there were something shameful in saying it or as though it might somehow be news to anyone. "Even though I've heard about Boa Hancock, who's considered the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, I have trouble imagining a woman more beautiful than Nami." She voiced one of the phrases most commonly heard whenever the red-haired navigator's beauty came up.
Despite her words, not even a trace of envy could be heard in Tashigi's voice. And understandably so. One could envy only people who walked on the same ground as you, not those flying high in the sky. In the latter case, nothing remained but admiration. So she admired.
"When I first met her, she looked more like an awkward teenager than an adult woman," Zoro admitted just as honestly, remembering his first meeting with Nami.
"Seriously?!" Tashigi did not believe him. "An awkward teenager?! Nami?!"
Intellectually she understood there was nothing strange about it—everyone had once been a child—but understanding was one thing and trying to picture it another. Her imagination simply refused to cooperate. She could not visualize it.
"At the time, we were simply looking for a good navigator who would fit our family, and Luffy chose a cat burglar famous in certain circles," the swordsman explained calmly as he continued walking ahead of her. "Back then none of us could've imagined what she would eventually become. ...Though if you think about it, the same can be said about every one of us to some degree," he added after a brief pause. "Meeting Luffy became a turning point in our lives. Less so for some, like me, and far more for others, like Nami, but that meeting changed all our fates considerably."
Zoro involuntarily began slowing until he stopped altogether, sinking into thought. The young man clearly did not realize how strongly Tashigi's presence beside him affected his emotional state. Before she appeared, he could go several days without saying a word to anyone, opening his mouth only when necessary or during rare periods of good humor. Nobody in the family found his taciturn nature strange or uncomfortable; they simply accepted it as part of him. Tashigi's arrival, however, had not only fully awakened Zoro's inner sensei, leaving him heavily addicted to lecturing people, but also improved his social skills in the best possible way. Undeniably, he became most talkative in the girl's presence, but even without her, he now opened his mouth much more often.
"What were all of you like before you met Luffy?" Tashigi asked with almost childlike curiosity, stepping around the motionless Zoro and looking into his face.
As with Nami, she could not imagine the other family members looking or behaving any differently from how they did now. If a beauty capable of driving people insane had once been an awkward teenager, then what about everyone else? Who had they been? What had they been like? The girl was seized by curiosity very unlike her usual self.
"Sanji barely changed," Zoro answered immediately, emerging from his thoughts. "Aside from being much weaker and noticeably worse at cooking, in every other respect he's exactly the same as when I first met him," he continued, beginning to walk again.
"Sanji cooked badly?!" Tashigi could not believe that either.
Before ending up aboard the insane family's ship, the girl had never suspected food could be so delicious. In the past she could not understand who in their right mind would pay several million berries for a single meal, but now she found nothing surprising in it. A meal prepared by a cook on Sanji's level genuinely was worth that kind of money. Tashigi had no doubt that relying solely on his skills as a cook, the young man could have built a business empire of his own. She also had no doubt that among his clients there would be plenty of wealthy ladies willing to pay him with more than money. For someone who adored women so passionately, he had clearly chosen the wrong life path. On the other hand, women could not bring his dream of the All Blue into reality, the legendary sea he could talk about without stopping.
"No, he cooked well even then," Zoro explained. "The difference is that back then he cooked well for an apprentice cook. Now he's a master chef who cooks well."
The girl walking behind him nodded in understanding. Indeed, no matter how impossibly gifted an apprentice might be, they could hardly compare with an ordinary master of the craft. With time such an apprentice would inevitably surpass that master, but first they needed all the required skills and knowledge, then experience on top of them. Present-day Sanji was exactly that genius apprentice after gaining the necessary experience.
"What about Ryu and Yosaku?" Tashigi asked.
"You already know they started as bounty hunters, same as me."
"If you count it that way, all of you started there."
"No." Zoro shook his head. "The only real bounty hunters were me, Ryu, and Yosaku. Luffy called himself a pirate before he ever met me, so every one of us joined a pirate specifically. Even when we later hunted bounties, we always considered ourselves pirates rather than bounty hunters. On the other hand, the only difference for our family between living under a pirate flag and without one is that we can't earn money through bounty hunting anymore. Everything else? Personally, I haven't noticed any difference at all. Before, we constantly killed people and nobody liked us for it. Now we constantly kill people and they still don't like us. If it weren't for the possibility of getting bounties on our own heads, I wouldn't understand the point of becoming pirates at all."
There was so much wrong with those words that Tashigi could not immediately decide which part to comment on first.
"People don't usually become pirates because they want a bounty on their heads," she said, wrinkling her forehead slightly as though she had developed a headache. "I'm not saying such people don't exist, but usually only small-time trash thinks that way, trying to prove their importance by earning a larger bounty. A normal person becomes a pirate after breaking the law and not wanting to go to prison or the gallows. And pirates mostly make their living attacking merchant ships and undefended ports. The more damage they cause civilians, the faster their bounty grows."
"Our family values freedom, but we'd never sink so low as attacking merchant ships and undefended ports," Zoro frowned. "If only because Nami would never let us degrade that far."
"Actually, Luffy-san talks rather often about wanting to attack some port," Tashigi reminded him. "I think he even has that desire written in his notebook."
That idiotic notebook full of equally idiotic wishes. Or goals? Much as she hated admitting it, the girl had long suspected that the notebook contained goals rather than wishes. And now, after learning the Straw Hats' true ages, her suspicions only grew stronger. She also only now remembered the crossed-out item. Something about a new method of training a new family member. Could that item be hiding the reason behind all the strange things about Usopp?
"I already told you today: when you're dealing with Luffy, watch what he actually does instead of listening to what he says," Zoro replied, bringing Tashigi's wandering thoughts back to the conversation. "Nami would never let him attack an ordinary port. Only some pirate port or smuggler's port."
"I'm not sure Luffy-san would be satisfied with that," Tashigi expressed her doubts.
"Depends on the circumstances and the size of the port," Zoro disagreed. "With Luffy, it's difficult to say anything with certainty in advance."
"Agreed, but you've led the subject somewhere else again," the girl frowned.
"As far as I can tell, I'm simply answering your questions."
"...All right. You started talking about Ryu and Yosaku but never finished."
"You mean what they were like before? Then, honestly, they were a pair of skinny weaklings who somehow survived long enough to meet Luffy and me," Zoro answered exactly as promised, without embellishment. "The old you could've beaten them in two or three seconds. The current you wouldn't even bother drawing your sword."
"...Seriously?"
"Why would I lie?"
"The contrast with Ryu and Yosaku now is just too extreme."
"Nami once risked her life for pathetic pocket change too." Zoro shrugged involuntarily. "We were the ones who taught her how to steal properly."
"How?"
Raising one hand and clenching it into a fist, the young man declared with complete seriousness:
"Beat up the entire crew and turn them over to the Marines for the bounty. Then auction off their ship and everything aboard it."
Tashigi was not certain that method could even theoretically be called robbery, but she chose not to object. A far more interesting question concerned her now.
"What was Luffy-san like before?" she asked what was perhaps her most important question of the day.
Zoro, walking ahead, visibly shuddered, and his expression darkened noticeably.
"...He's always been, and remains, a person everyone else in the world should stay far away from," the young man finally answered after a brief pause. "Our family was very lucky to get Nami. The rest of the world was much luckier that we did."
Tashigi felt a slight chill in her chest as the atmosphere changed so abruptly. The friendly young man beside her transformed in an instant into someone capable of inspiring fear through his presence alone. Yet that exact feeling helped her remember another important detail.
"...Luffy-san once said that Nami is the one member of the family nobody should ever touch under any circumstances."
Stopping, Zoro slowly turned toward the girl frozen behind him. Under the now-bottomless weight of his gaze, Tashigi felt as though a mountain several kilometers high had appeared above her. It took considerable effort not to recoil when the young man raised his hand and lightly brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. Then, still without a word, he turned and continued walking, leaving behind a pale, faintly trembling girl covered in cold sweat. Tashigi did not immediately realize she had been holding her breath and badly needed air. Yet she had received the most eloquent answer she had ever heard in her life, especially among those in which not a single word had been spoken aloud. Once again her view of Nami was completely overturned. The strong and courageous girl now seemed unbelievably weak and fragile to Tashigi. Far too weak and fragile to reliably restrain the monsters standing behind her. What if something happened to her one day? What then?
BOOM!!!
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