After Alabasta, the Going Merry headed east on the wind predicted by Kael and arrived right on time.
The crew was in the post-combat, somewhat euphoric mood typical of winners.
Vivi had decided to stay behind in Alabasta because it was Vivi’s home and the farewell at the docks was the sort that left the entire group silent for some time afterward.
The new member of the crew was Robin.
Robin had received Luffy’s formal invitation at dawn, in the style unique to Luffy, without any conditions, reservations or explanation.
She had agreed — not with the formal phraseology used in the chamber room, but with the clear-cut certainty of a woman who, until then, had not been sure that such an option existed for her.
She joined the crew midday, carrying a single travel pack and a book with her.
The book contained a number of rubbings.
Each rubbing was the product of twenty years.
Kael showed her the book three evenings after their departure.
She opened it on her knees and they reviewed each page one after another.
She named the stone each one had come from.
He, on his part, explained to her the information that the stone revealed when the rubbing was taken, to the extent he could decipher from the rubbing itself, and sometimes had to touch the stone to do so.
Not all rubbings contained readable information.
Some did, others did not.
Both of them marked the information accordingly — yes, no, partial — and by the time the evening had ended, they had produced a comprehensive list.
The list was very long.
They both knew this was a project that would consume a lot of time.
Neither of them mentioned it explicitly.
At some point during the evening, Robin closed the book.
Kael left to look for Nami at the bow, where he sensed that her chakra took the position it adopted when she was deep in thought, and sensed that she was thinking about something related to himself.
She was sitting at the rail, with her log open at her knee and a pencil placed carefully between her ear and head.
At the moment he walked up to her, she was not writing anything.
Her attention seemed to be focused on the last page, written with the detached look of someone trying to figure out what to do with what she had written down.
He sat next to her quietly.
The waves lapped beneath the Going Merry, the moon shone pale in the east.
For a while she was silent.
When she spoke, however, she sounded agitated and impatient, as if she could not get the right words to express what she meant.
“I have redrawn the chart.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“The region we are now crossing.
Eight hundred miles worth.
I redrew the whole chart using the information you provided.”
“Can you share with me the results?”
“It is much improved from any existing maps of the region.
I tested it at Alabasta, comparing it with two printed maps. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
They are not professional maps, of course.”
“They have nothing like your chart.”
“Yes, well.
You did the providing.”
“But I did the creating,” Nami responded sharply, with a distinct bite in her voice.
“I see.”
There was no need for further discussion.
She would not yield here; Kael had known this all along, and he was prepared for her final response.
“And what now?
With this chart?
And with the fact that for several months now, I have drawn a map of the Grand Line region that has never existed before, and all because a person capable of sensing weather several days ahead could share the results with me for free.
And with the fact that now my charts no longer belong to me, nor are they mine to a lesser extent than before.
And with the fact that I have no idea how to classify these charts, and the person, and don’t know what should be done about it.”
She did not raise her voice; after that, she remained as calm as ever, as when considering a problem in the middle of her work at the wheel.
But the matter, expressed calmly, was no less urgent because of it.
“Nami,” Kael said deliberately.
“The data belongs to me, but the shape belongs to you.
It is you who takes the information I give you and turns it into something others can navigate by, something that gives them the direction in which they can go.
The reading belongs to me; the shape belongs to you.”
She fell silent at first, and for a long time she simply looked at her log.
Finally, she closed it.
“Why do you give me the readings.”
“It is because you handle the information correctly.”
“I heard that before.”
“So it was before, and now.
It is still the case.”
“That cannot be the sole reason.”
“It isn’t.”
“Tell me why.”
He pondered for a while.
His gaze followed the moon’s movement in the sky.
He dropped his Sage Mode to its lowest level, and listened to what it was saying.
“Because I like watching you work.
This is the type of labor the world is better off for. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Because I have something nobody else has, and I want to make it useful to someone else, not just impressive for myself.
Because you accept the information without any sign of gratitude, and that is a rarity.
Because you excel at it in a manner that has taken its toll on you, and I respect that effort.
Because—”
He was cut off.
“Because what.”
He turned.
She was staring at him intently.
In the dim moonlight, he could not read her expression; his Sage Mode was perfectly adequate to the task, and yet he refrained from interpreting it at the moment, for it would mean a kind of violation that could not be undone.
“Because of you,” he finished bluntly.
Silence followed, but it was a companionable silence.
It was as if the two of them were listening to their own words hanging around in the air like the moon and the stars and the waves lapping softly under their boat.
“Navigation, when you were young, was supposed to do what?”
She lifted her eyes.
“Do you remember?”
Her senses confirmed his guess.
After a pause, she responded to his inquiry.
“I was trying to explore the regions I never saw before in order to reach them before it reaches me.
I wanted the world to be like a book in my pocket, that I could carry with me wherever I go.”
“And now?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I do not know.”
“I suppose you need time.”
She shut the log, removed the pencil from behind her ear and placed it on the rail.
“Take it.”
The waves went by; the moon continued rising higher and higher.
The two of them remained silent for quite a while; the silence was not an awkward one, but comfortable and peaceful like the silence of two souls who had spoken their hearts’ truth, and who let the words hang in the air like the stars and the waves, the moon and the Going Merry’s lines.
A while later, Nami got up.
She took her log and the pencil and looked down at him.
“Thank you.”
“At your service.”
She walked away toward her cabin.
He remained at the rail, where she left him.
He stayed there until the moon reached a higher position on the horizon, and the wind had turned in accordance with his prediction, and the Going Merry set sail in her new direction.