Chapter Text
Mia hadn’t gone back to her room, like she was supposed to. Her mom always said to give him privacy when Dad was on the Den Den Mushi for work.
But her feet hadn't moved from the third step of the stairs, and she'd stayed there with her knees pulled up and the little rope figure in her lap.
She could hear him through the wall.
At first, it was the voice she recognized. It was calm, like it always was when he was working. She had grown up with that voice. It was the one that was always in charge.
Then it changed.
"I understand the regulations."
"Yes, I'm aware of that."
"I'm not asking for an exception to security protocol. I'm asking for one item to be delivered. A handmade figure. It poses no conceivable—"
The other voice cut him off. She couldn't make out the words but she could hear the tone.
Her dad stopped talking for a moment.
"He's nineteen years old," he said. His voice was lower now, but she could still hear it just fine."He saved my daughter. I'm not asking you to open his cell. I'm asking you to hand him something made of rope and fabric that a child spent two weeks making because she wanted him to know someone hadn't forgotten him."
The other voice came again. This time it lasted longer.
Her dad stayed quiet for a bit.
When he finally spoke, his voice was different.
"I see," he said flatly. "Thank you for your time."
The Den Den Mushi clicked.
Mia stared at the little figure. The tiny straw hat, the button eyes, and the scar under his eye she had carefully drawn. She had spent so much time on it.
She heard footsteps in the kitchen and a chair scrape back, then silence. She waited and a moment later there were slow footsteps toward the hallway.
Her dad appeared in the doorway. He still had his uniform on. The medal was now gone. She didn't know where it was now.
He looked at her on the stairs and didn't seem surprised to find her there.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
"They said no," Mia said.
"Yes." He didn't look away from her. "They said no."
Mia nodded once and didn’t cry. She was too tired for it. She looked down at the figure in her hands, at the tiny hat and the careful scar.
"Because of the rules," she said.
"Yes."
She turned the figure over slowly. The note was still tucked into its hands. I will never forget you. She'd written it three times before she was happy with how it looked.
"Will they ever change the rules?"
Her dad was quiet for a moment.
Then he came and sat down on the step beside her. He was too big for the stair and it creaked under his weight. He looked at the figure in her hands.
"I don't know," he said. "But I haven't finished trying."
Mia looked at him.
His face looked tired in a way she hadn’t seen before. Not like after work or bad weather. Not even like when he came home late. This was different.
"You argued with them," she said.
"Yes."
"I heard you."
He nodded slowly. "I know."
She looked back at the figure.
"He saved me," she said quietly. "And nobody will do anything."
Her dad didn't answer that. There wasn't really an answer for it.
After a moment, he put his arm around her. She leaned into him the way she used to when she was smaller, before she'd decided she was old enough not to need that anymore. Right now she didn't care about that.
"I'm not giving up," he said. His voice was barely a whisper. "You hear me? I don't know how yet. But I'm not done."
Mia held the figure a little tighter.
"Okay," she said.
She didn’t know if she fully believed him, but she wanted to. He was still there on the creaking step and he hadn’t given up.
That was something.
They both heard her mom, but neither of them called out.
They just sat there together on the step until the house went still.
The fire had burned low.
No one had bothered with it for a while. The orange and red flames were gone now, leaving behind only smoke and blackened wood.
More than two weeks.
Nami turned the Log Pose over in her hands for the fourth time that evening, watching the needle spin uselessly.
Seventeen days.
Luffy had already spent over a week inside Impel Down. Just thinking about that was horrifying enough.
Stop counting. It doesn't help.
She counted anyway.
Meanwhile, they were stuck on a nameless island. Franky had spent days trying to make the Sunny seaworthy again with help from the others, but every repair seemed to uncover another problem. It was more damaged than he'd first thought. The Coup de Burst still wasn't working properly, and they never seemed to have enough materials. They'd even tried using the Mini Merry to search for a Eternal Pose, only to discover the nearest islands were too far away for a boat that small.
Usopp sat closest to the campfire with the newspaper spread open across his knees. He’d had it since morning. Nami had watched him reread the same sections over and over all day, like he was hoping the words would change somehow.
But he hadn’t said much. Every time he voiced his fears lately, the mood among the crew only seemed to get worse and she knew he was afraid of doing that again.
“They gave Roen, Nori's husband a promotion,” he said carefully. "The marine who arrested Luffy. Commodore now.”
A pause. “And there’s a new photo.”
Nobody asked him to go on. Nobody told him to stop.
"It's a mugshot." He swallowed. "From when they processed him at Impel Down. He's holding a board with his name and number on it."
There was a pause that lasted too long. "He looks like he's already been there for years."
Nami didn’t ask to see it. She already knew she couldn’t look at it at all.
Zoro sat across the fire, arms crossed, eyes on the burned wood. He didn't speak.
Sanji stood a little further away before drifting back toward the group. He didn’t seem to take much pleasure in cooking anymore. He was already on his eighth cigarette in just a few hours. Nami had been counting without meaning to.
It wasn’t normal. Even for him.
Chopper had already told him to look after his health.
The little reindeer was pressed against Nami’s side, hooves tucked close in his lap. His fur was damp beneath his eyes. She hadn’t moved away. She wasn’t sure when she had started leaning into him.
Robin sat with her book open in her lap, a page she hadn’t turned in over an hour. She was just staring at it.
Usopp folded the newspaper carefully and set it face-down on the sand.
The headline was still visible through the back of it, backwards and faint in the dying light.
WORLD GOVERNMENT CELEBRATES CAPTURE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS PIRATES. MONKEY D. LUFFY IMPRISONED IN IMPEL DOWN.
It was Zoro who noticed the ship first.
He lifted his head and looked out over the dark water. Nami followed his gaze a little more closely this time, and something in her stomach tightened before she even understood why. At first it was just a silhouette against the horizon, with no lights and no flags.
Zoro was on his feet. His hand rested near his swords. "Company," he said.
They watched it come.
When the small boat scraped onto the sand and the man in it stood, Nami recognized him before Robin even said his name. She’d seen him in Water 7, after Enies Lobby, when they were sailing away and he was still on the shore throwing cannonballs at them with his bare hands like it was the most normal thing in the world. And before that, there had been that first encounter with Luffy, when they all found out at the same time that this man was his grandfather.
He was here again, alone on the beach, his face serious in a way that felt off somehow. Garp carried a small wooden box under one arm.
Zoro stepped forward. "Stop there."
The old marine stopped.
“You’ve got about thirty seconds,” the swordsman said, “to explain why I shouldn’t cut my way through you right here.”
"You could try," Garp said flatly "But I didn't come here to fight."
She spoke before Zoro could say anything else.
"Then what did you come here for? You're a Vice Admiral. You're his grandfather. And he's been in the worst prison in the world for over a week and you show up here in the middle of the night without lights."
"Like I didn't want anyone to know I was here," Garp said. "Yes."
He crouched and set the wooden box on the sand in front of him. He didn't open it. He just stepped back.
She didn't want to look at it, but she did. When she stepped forward, she crouched and lifted the lid.
Inside, folded carefully on a bed of cloth, was a straw hat.
The brim was worn. There was a tear along one edge that hadn't been there before.
Oh.
She didn't pick it up right away. She couldn't. She just stared at it.
It's his hat and he's not wearing it. He's not here.
She'd known that. She'd known that for seventeen days. She'd read the newspaper and she'd looked at the mugshot she'd told herself she wouldn't look at and she'd known.
But somehow she hadn't known until right now, with his hat in a box in the sand, folded by someone else's hands.
This is real, she thought. This is actually real.
She lifted the hat carefully with both hands. It weighed almost nothing.
Behind her she heard Chopper make a sound that wasn't quite a word.
She held the hat against her chest and looked at Garp. "They were going to destroy it," he said quietly. "I logged it as evidence. They didn't question me."
She nodded once. She didn't trust her voice.
"Tell us," Zoro said. "What they did to him."
Garp was quiet for a moment. Then he sat down heavily on a piece of driftwood. "The transport from Enies Lobby took six hours," he said. "Before they loaded him onto the ship, they put a muzzle on him."
Nobody spoke.
"Not the standard kind. The sort they reserve for prisoners considered exceptionally dangerous." He paused. "He wore it for six hours."
Six hours.
Nami's fingers tightened around the brim of the hat. Luffy could barely stay quiet for six minutes. She couldn't imagine it.
She pressed her lips together and didn't speak.
"I saw him before they took him to the Gates of Justice," Garp said. His eyes flicked briefly to Chopper. "The restraints were high-concentration seastone and the gunshot wound in his leg had reopened."
Chopper's head snapped up. "Gunshot? But Luffy's made of rubber..."
"Seastone bullets," the marine interrupted. "Rare and expensive, but they exist."
The little reindeer went still.
"He could barely stand."
Across the pile of wood, Zoro hadn't moved. But something had changed in him.
Zoro hadn't moved, but his eyes never left Garp. Nami didn't like the look on his face.
She'd seen it before.
It usually meant someone was about to pay for something.
"I asked them to remove the muzzle," Garp said. "They showed me an authorization signed by Fleet Admiral Sakazuki."
He paused for a moment. "There was nothing I could do."
Franky's fist closed slowly on his knee.
Garp looked at the ground.
"I didn't see him again after he was taken into Impel Down."
He paused for a moment. "But Level Six has new procedures now."
Nobody spoke.
"Prisoners are branded. Given identification numbers and they implant a tracking chip beneath the skin." His jaw tightened slightly. "Every prisoner can be located at any time."
He sighed.
"As far as I know, removing the chip isn't simple. Some prisoners have tried cutting them out themselves."
The old marine still didn't look to them.
"It didn't end well."
Chopper went very still. She recognized it immediately. When things got bad enough, the doctor always took over first.
There was only one thought that stayed with Nami after hearing about the chip:
They'll always find him.
"His cell is on Level Six," Garp said. "Even your worst enemy... you wouldn't wish that place on them."
He stopped. Rubbed a hand over his face. Said nothing.
"Tell us," Zoro said.
The old man exhaled slowly.
"Stone walls, no window, no bed, chained to the floor. Two meals a day, if they bother. No contact with the outside world."
There was another silence then.
"That’s it."
Brook’s bones made a soft creaking sound when he moved, but he stayed silent.
"And who's running Level Six now?" Robin broke the quiet.
"Magellan was removed after the breakout. Hannyabal was promoted to Chief Warden, but for Level Six they brought in someone new. His name is Talgera Morn. I didn’t know anything about him at first, so I looked into it.”
Nami’s fingers kept finding her orange hair, twisting it without her noticing. She didn’t want to hear more, but she knew she had to.
The old marine continued.
"His Devil Fruit ability works on emotion. On the things that keep a person going. When he's near you, the good things become unreachable. What stays is everything you'd rather not carry."
Chopper pressed his hooves together tightly. "For someone already weakened by seastone... surrounded by that every single day..."
He couldn't finish it. He just shook his head.
"They brought Morn in specifically because of the breakout," Garp said. "They needed someone who could make sure it never happened again. Someone who didn't need walls or weapons. He's very effective."
Then Sanji spoke. He still had his back to the group, lighting another cigarette even though the one before hadn’t burned down yet.
"A muzzle," he said. Just that.
Nobody answered.
"Six hours." He dropped the cigarette into the sand.
"He had that thing on him for at least six hours and you were standing right there." He still didn't turn around. "With your rank and your legend and everything you are. And they showed you a piece of paper and you looked away."
"Sanji," she said quietly.
"I'm not done." His voice didn't rise. That was somehow worse. "I want to understand. Because we have been on this beach for a week and a half and I have been cooking meals for eight people when there should be nine and I keep setting out the wrong number of plates and then remembering.." He stopped. "So I want to understand exactly what couldn't be done."
Oh.. Sanji. I didn't realise.
She understood completely. It was routine. She still found herself unconsciously accounting for supplies for Luffy too.
"If I had moved against Sakazuki's orders," Garp said, "I would have been removed from service. Maybe arrested."
"Good," their cook said. "Maybe you should have been."
The words landed hard.
"And then there is no one who can still walk into Level Six," the man said. "No one with access. No one who can reach him at all."
"Reach him.” The word came out sharper than she meant. She looked up from the hat.
"You keep saying that. What does reaching him actually mean? What does it do for him? He's chained in the dark with a chip under his skin and some man whose power makes him forget why any of it matters." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. "What exactly are you reaching him for?"
"Because that place will try to make him forget who he is," Garp said. "That's what it does. That's what it's designed to do. The dark, the cold, the silence, the isolation, Morn in that corridor every day. All of it works together until a person stops being a person."
He looked at her directly. "I can walk in there and remind him that the world outside those walls still exists. That someone knows his name. That people are coming for him." His voice dropped. "Without that, he has nothing."
She held his gaze for a moment.
“Visits,” Franky said. It was the first word he’d said since Garp arrived. Like he was trying to make sense of something that didn’t fit in his head. When he finally looked up, his eyes were red. He didn't hide it.
“You’re telling us visits are what’s keeping our captain together.” His voice came rough. “Our captain. The guy who never stops moving, never stops laughing, never stops being the loudest person in any room.”
He pressed a hand over his face. When he lowered it again, he didn’t look like himself anymore.
“And he’s sitting in the dark on a stone floor,” he said, “and the best anyone can do is show up and sit across from him.”
“Yes,” Garp said. “Right now. That’s the best I can do.”
Franky let out a shaky breath. “That’s not enough,” he said. “Not even close… bro.”
"No," Garp said quietly. "It isn't."
The honesty of it silenced everyone.
Usopp had been staring at the sand for a long time. When he spoke his voice came out small. "He lost Ace," he said. "He almost didn't survive losing Ace and now he's in there alone and you're the only family he has left and you're telling us you're going to keep visiting him." He looked up.
His eyes were wet, tears dripping from his long nose. "That's it? That's all?"
"That's all I have," Garp said. "Until you get there."
Nami looked down at the hat and ran her fingers over it.
We have to come faster.
Ever since Garp started talking, Zoro had stood by the dying fire with his arms crossed. He hadn't moved an inch. Now, he looked the old sailor straight in the eye. When he spoke, his voice was soft yet utterly resolute.
"You go back there," he said. "You walk through those gates and you sit across from him and you make sure he knows we're coming."
Garp looked straight at Zoro, not flinching.
"And you don't stop. Not once. Not until we get there."
Nami looked at Zoro's face.
There it is. That's what I didn't want to see.
His expression was completely impassive. But his eyes weren't just angry. They were colder and more relentless than that.
She'd seen that look before.
Someone was going to pay for this. Probably all of them.
"I won't," Garp said.
"Good." Zoro held his gaze for a moment longer. Then he looked away. "Because if you do, I'll find a way in there myself just to drag you back."
Nobody laughed, but something shifted slightly.
She looked down at the hat. At the worn brim and the new tear along the edge. Someone had been careless with his treasure. She wondered who.
He needs to come home. That's all.
She looked at Garp. "Then keep going," she said. Her voice was steady. It cost her something. "Keep making sure he's still Luffy when we get there. Because we're coming and we need him to still be him."
The old marine held her gaze. Then he nodded once.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small sealed case. She took it before he'd fully extended his arm.
"Eternal Pose," he said. "It points to Raijin Island. Two days' sail from the Gates of Justice in good wind."
"The Gates won't open for a pirate ship," Robin pointed out.
"No. But they open for marine vessels. There's a patrol route that passes Raijin Island on a three-day cycle. Single ship, mid-sized crew, standard rotation."
He paused for a moment, thinking. Perhaps he couldn't believe that he was actually saying this.
"They won't be expecting trouble from that direction."
"You're telling us to steal a marine ship," Zoro said.
"I'm telling you it's the only way through those gates that doesn't end before it starts." Garp stood and brushed sand from his coat. "Once you're through, Impel Down is not what it was two years ago. The chip means they know where every prisoner is at every moment. Level Six has measures that weren't there before." He looked at each of them in turn. "I won't pretend I know how you get to him or how you get him out."
He let that sit.
"Technically it's impossible," he said.
Nobody argued.
"But two years ago, breaking in was technically impossible too." Something moved through his voice. "I don't know if you can do it." He looked at the hat in her hands. "But I know what you are. And I know who you're doing it for."
He turned and walked back toward the water.
"Garp."
Zoro's voice stopped him at the waterline. The old man didn't turn around.
"When you go back to see him," Zoro said. "Tell him the ship's ready."
A silence that stretched long enough to mean something.
"He already knows you're coming," Garp said. "He's known since before they closed those gates."
He climbed into the small boat and rowed back toward his ship without looking back. Within minutes the dark had taken him and the only sound left was the low push of waves against sand. Nami stood on the beach and watched until there was nothing left to watch.
Seventeen days. And now we have a direction.
She looked down at the Eternal Pose in one hand and the hat in the other.
Brook's bones were still trembling. He quickly picked up his violin again. The bow moved slowly across the strings. The sound that came out was soft and calm, something that soothed him as well.
They sat down for a moment on a piece of wood by the dying fire. Her legs were shaking, but she didn't put the hat down.
I'm keeping it safe. Until you come back for it.
Nami looked down at the hat. She remembered laughing the first time Luffy called it his treasure. Back then it had just looked like an old straw hat. Nothing special. She didn't think that anymore.
Somewhere inside Impel Down, Luffy was still there.
We're coming.
She held the hat a little tighter.