11 Chapter 11 (1/2)

A/N: Good news everyone, I lied! Had a bit more free time, motivation, and ideas to actually finish this chapter! So here you go.

Nami's PoV:

Hey there, my name is Nami. I am from the Cocoyasi Village in the chain islands of Conomi.

In my earlier years as a kid, I was an orphan. My mother, Bellamere, took me and my sister Nojiko in and treated us as if we were her own children.

Back in those days, we were... not very privileged to say the least. We barely had enough money to sustain ourselves. Everyday was a new challenge to survive. Even with all of that, my mother never once complained nor did she blame us in the least and I love her for that until the day I die.

Bellamere was a former marine officer. Our house was located a bit away from the rest of the village. There, we had a big enough yard to grow a tangerine orchard and often times oranges were what we had for dinner.

Two of my favorite things in the world are money and tangerines. Ironically, I hated them with a passion back then.

I would often get embarrassed of the very clothes on my back that Nojiko had grown out of. I'd slap myself a thousand times if I could go back in time.

I had a dream back then, I still do, and it is to make the very first complete map of the world. It all started when I went to the local library and the book that I read had me entranced. The book was about sea navigation and map drawing.

I wanted the book badly...but we were much too poor to spare money on a book. I resorted to stealing which I was caught and scolded for by Genzo and my mother.

Genzo is the village peacekeeper. He wears a brown police uniform fitted with a pinwheel on top of his hat to make us smile.

One day, the incident that would forever remain a scar in my mind occurred.

Arlong and his group of detestable pirates came and proclaimed the Conomi islands to be his territory. He demanded money of every man, woman, children, and even the elderly. For each adult, one had to pay 100,000 Beli and half for kids. Everyone had to pay once every month, those who couldn't were mercilessly killed without exception.

As you probably have already guessed, we simply didn't have the money to pay the fees.

The only money that we could spare was enough for one adult. My mother..... she used that money to pay for Nojiko and I. Since she didn't have enough money for herself, Arlong shot and killed her right in front of me and my sister's eyes.

After finding out that I was good at drawing maps and had navigational skills, the hateful pirates took me away from my sister and branded me with his mark which I consider equivalent to a slave brand.

That day is and will forever be the single worst day of my life.

Going back to see my sister, my fellow villagers had shunned me because of the tattoo that had been placed on my left shoulder. I didn't care about what they thought of me. I gritted my teeth and endured years of torture for the sake of my sister and the people I grew up around.

I had been forced to draw maps after maps for the pirates, in exchange for leaving my village alone unless they did something against him and his crew.

Arlong had made me hate my pure and innocent dream of becoming the best navigator in the world.

Many had died trying to free the Conomi islands. Ranging from brave civilians, to bounty hunters, and even other pirate crews. No matter how long we waited, the marines would not make a move. Every time someone came up to Arlong Park to challenge the dictator, a small amount of hope would arise within me... but those hopes would be squashed just as quickly as they came.

I had tried every method I could think of to try and assassinate that bastard but nothing that I tried ever even scratched him.

I tried stabbing, ambushing, poisoning, and any other methods I could come up with. Each one deadlier than the previous, but each one failed without exception. Every time I had failed I would suffer harsh punishments and eventually, I along with every human under his reign of terror gave up any hopes of killing him.

Arlong and his crew of fishmen were naturally 10 times stronger than humans, not to mention pirates like them who had been fighting for most of their lives. The kicker here is that all of them could breathe under water.

My only hope was a deal that I had managed to strike with Arlong. The deal was that I would buy off the village with 100 million beli. The one thing that I had noticed during my unhappy stay with them over the years was that Arlong always held his promises if they were made with money as the incentive.

I don't know the extent with which he is honest with his deals concerning money is but that's the only thing that has me going. It HAS to work, it is quite literally my only salvation! To end the reign of terror that has been going on for 8 years now and counting.

So I went off on many voyages, sometimes lasting for months. Almost every pirates that I came across were robbed blind of all their valuables. Sometimes my heists would fail and I would pay for it. This happened during the first few trips that I had gone on. My process often contained a lot of betrayals. I would join them and when they let their guards down for long enough, I would steal all of their money and treasures and make my escape.

Every pirate I came across were all the same detestable scums of the earth. Maybe not as bad as the Arlong Pirates but they were still despicable. My mind had been set ever since I met the Arlong Pirates, I hated every single one of them with more than a passion.

On my current voyage, I went to steal a special map from a marine base located in Shells Town. The marines stationed there were exactly as I expected.... corrupt. This further proved my conviction of stealing from them.

This special map contains the way to the famed Grandline. Many legends, myths, stories, and folklores have been passed around about that mysterious sea but none were proven to be facts among the civilians of the East Blue. The only definitive thing that everyone agreed on was it's other name, the ”Pirate's Graveyard”.

Said to be the doom of so many pirates that, sinked ships littered the ocean floors and that none came back out alive. I had planned to steal the map and make my way there so that I could rob the assumed massive number of pirates there. I am confident about my navigation skills and could probably make it back alive. If only I knew how wrong I was.

To my dismay, the map was no longer in the hands of the marine captain 'Axe Hand' Morgan, but instead, someone had beaten me to the punch. The map was stolen by the Buggy Pirates, with the captain, Buggy 'The Clown' having a ”massive” bounty of 15 million Beli. This bounty is one of the largest bounty in all of East Blue.

Finding out that the map I seek was elsewhere, I obviously made my way to the place rumored to be occupied by the Clown Pirates. This place was called Orange Town.

After taking all of the money in the base, I prepared my small boat and set a course for Orange Town. This was the time I met the people that would forever change my life for better or for worse.

<Scene Change>

Third Person's PoV:

A certain raven haired pirate captain was currently being held within the massive beaks of the giant bird that he had carelessly tried to capture.

This pirate was none other than the straw hat wearing man named Luffy.

After they had ran out of food which was mostly eaten by the captain himself, he had tried to obtain even more food when he spotted the seemingly small bird that had flown above them. This turned around and bit him quite literally in the butt.

The oblivious 17 year old was promptly dropped down upon the island they had been heading towards when a larger-than-normal cannon ball had hit the bird that had been approaching it.

Once Luffy hit the ground, leaving a crater, the strawhatted boy jumped out of the hole he had just made and calmly wiped off the dust that had stained his clothing.

”Whew.. that stupid bird separated me from my crew..” the pirate captain sighed out with an amused tone as he looked around the desolate town. He noticed that there weren't any people around and some buildings had been either destroyed or desecrated after being vandalized.

”H-hey! Wh-who are you, y-you bastard!?”, questioned a man from behind Luffy. He was stuttering in a bit of fear because he just witnessed a man fall from at least a 1,000 meter drop and shook it off like it was nothing.

”Who me?” The young man pointed at himself. ”I'm Monkey D. Luffy. The man who's going to be the Pirate King!” He proudly proclaimed.

All the fear were washed out of the man's mind as he just deadpanned. He couldn't even bring himself to laugh at the clearly lunatic in front of him. The other two that were with him had the exact same expressions on their faces.

”Don't you know that this is the territory of the ”great” captain Buggy!? Scram before we kill you!” Another unnamed man beside him threatened.

After hearing the name 'Buggy', Luffy's face brightened. He didn't expect to find the man who Josh said had the map to Paradise so quickly. He thanked his luck and approached the trio in front of him.

”Aaaah... you know Buggy? Take me to him!” The unnamed trio were a bit stunned by the boy's demand. They were even more surprised by the obvious delight he had shown on his face when he asked them.

Thinking that the boy in front of them might know their captain personally, however unlikely that was, they lead him to their base of operations. This base was once a bar and was 2 stories tall. Right now, the Buggy pirates were situated on the roof of the building.