Nami involuntarily glanced down to her left. Sanji, feeling his Goddess's gaze, immediately began to wag his tail… except he was human, so he didn't have a tail. Paradoxically, this didn't stop everyone from imagining him wagging that nonexistent tail.
"I'm worried about Sanji-aniki," Johnny sighed heavily, shaking his head.
"Alright, I'll take him with me," Nami said, pouting slightly, causing almost all the guys present to freeze for a moment. The girl had always used her attractiveness to her advantage, even before joining the crew, but if before she used her beauty solely for business — gaining the trust of pirates to then steal all their money — now she used it casually and on everyone. A kind of weapon of mass destruction with an inexhaustible supply of ammunition. Not to mention that virtually any gesture, even the most ordinary, when performed by Nami, turned into a spectacle that was impossible to look away from. Like her deliberately pouty lips, for example. "I'll see how he looks in white," she continued nonchalantly, "because I haven't seen him wear anything other than those black suits. And I'll pick something out for Usopp too."
"So, it's settled."
An hour later, their ship docked right in the city port, causing quite a stir. A more sensible choice would have been a small rocky peninsula to the east, half a kilometer from Loguetown, but as usual, something snapped in Luffy's head:
"Where is it written that the Pirate King should hide from anyone?!" he said indignantly when he was advised not to draw attention and to anchor away from the city. "And besides, now that we're official pirates, we have to attack and plunder some port, or else what kind of pirates are we?! So the next port, we absolutely raid!"
It was immediately clear to everyone that, at best, they had no more than an hour before the whole city would be in an uproar — not just the guards, but all the residents. Because the photo of ship of "Pirate Slayers'" had appeared on the newspaper pages so many times in the last month that only a blind person wouldn't recognize them now, and even then, someone would quickly tell them. However, as soon as Nami's heels began clicking on the concrete surface of the pier, the frightened and agitated buzz abruptly ceased, as if someone large and invisible had flipped a similarly large and invisible switch. Jaws dropped, things were dropped, people stumbled on flat ground and bumped into various obstacles, and everywhere — everywhere! — that Nami walked, she left a trail of stunned silence. The crowd at the dock instantly forgot about the other "Pirate Slayers," not even remembering that Nami herself was one of them. No one paid attention to the drooling Sanji, whom Nami was leading by the hand, no one even noticed him, although Nami was holding his hand!
"You know, Luffy-aniki, I think you won't even have to declare war on anyone," Johnny shared his thoughts, as the male members of the crew remaining on the ship watched Nami slowly walk away from the ship. "I feel like we'll have to fight the whole world anyway... especially if she gets even more beautiful over time... if that's even possible."
"I thought it was impossible to be this beautiful," Yosaku replied. "So, I'm not sure of anything anymore."
"Nami has just stopped being an ordinary girl, so you can be sure she'll get even more beautiful in the future," Luffy said as he unwrapped an ice cream, as usual, from who knows where. "Although, I admit, I didn't expect anyone could be this beautiful."
"I wonder what the 'Pirate Empress' looks like?" Johnny said. "She's supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world, but I can't imagine anyone more beautiful than our Nami."
"I've never seen her picture," Yosaku sighed dreamily.
"And a poster," Zoro spoke for the first time.
"Maybe it's all a lie?" Johnny suggested.
"She's been called 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World' for too long for it to be a hoax," Luffy said, shaking his ice cream in disagreement.
"True," Johnny had to agree.
"I suggest we stop wasting time," Yosaku headed toward the gangway. "Soon, there will be no room to move with all the guard soldiers, and we have things to do. We're already incredibly lucky that this place is full of gullible idiots... I think they only noticed our ship when we were already docked."
"Exactly!" Johnny hurried after him.
"Then it's time for us too," Luffy agreed with them.
"But what about the ship?" Usopp asked. "The marines might sink it!"
Usopp was genuinely concerned about the ship; after all, the Going Merry was a gift from his beloved Kaya.
"Don't worry," Luffy dismissed casually. "They definitely won't sink the ship right in the harbor; they'd have to be complete idiots to do that since they'd have to clean it up themselves. If we had dropped anchor to the east of the city, where you all originally wanted to, then yes, there would be something to worry about. But in the harbor? No need to worry. The worst that can happen to the Going Merry is that it gets guarded… you can think of it as an honorary guard: it won't stop us from sailing."
Usopp frowned slightly. Luffy's words had a certain logic to them, but they didn't exactly reassure him. What if there was some overly ambitious idiot among the marines? However, Usopp couldn't do anything about it; he couldn't fight all the marines alone. Ultimately, deciding to rely on Luffy — after all, he had far more experience in such matters — Usopp followed his… family. Not just a crew or friends, but a real family — something that was still new to him.
As they reached the city entrance, a whole squad of marines came rushing towards them. They had been the closest to the dock when some guards stationed to maintain order in the port urgently requested reinforcements. The lieutenant who responded first didn't even listen to the full explanation from the guards — the key word was 'pirates', and the rest didn't matter! — and immediately sent his men to the port. Of course he did! Finally, he had a chance to prove himself! Pirates were a rare sight nowadays, so apart from petty thieves, there was no one else to catch in Loguetown, but was that work for a real marine? He dreamed of a hero's deed! And in the past month, he had been deprived of this opportunity six times. Pirates had been more active this month than they had been in a long time, but each time the lieutenant was either off-duty or serving too far from the landing site of the pirates. But not this time! Now he would definitely fulfill his dream! However, as is often the case with dreams, they were mercilessly shattered by harsh reality. One could even say that the lieutenant's dream was not just killed but brutally burned and then scattered to the wind. The sentry only needed one glance at the small group of people they encountered at the port entrance to instantly regret his initiative. In the East Blue today, only the dead could not identify "Pirate Slayers," — and even then there were options.