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It was the sound of crying that brought Bell-mère back to consciousness; she’d recognize the sound of one of her girl’s tears anywhere. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself standing on the hill outside of town. Night had fallen at some point, though Bell-mère didn’t have time to question that—or how she’d gotten here—when she saw Nojiko kneeling on the ground in front of her, sobs shaking her small shoulders as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Nojiko, what’s wrong?” Bell-mère dropped to a knee in front of her daughter and reached out to touch her, but when Nojiko just curled in further on herself, Bell-mère pulled her hand back, unsure. Every instinct screamed at her to pull her daughter into her arms, but something made her hesitate.
“I don’t know what to do, Bell-mère,” Nojiko hiccuped between sobs.
Bell-mère’s insides twisted. “Tell me what’s wrong, baby.”
Nojiko sniffed. “Arlong took Nami. I couldn’t protect her like you always told me to. I’m sorry.”
Bell-mère stiffened. Arlong . She remembered Arlong and his cronies coming to the house and demanding more money for the three of them than she could pay. She hadn’t hesitated to pay for her daughters’ survival—she would rather die than say they weren’t hers. She remembered Arlong pointing his gun at her and then…
It didn’t matter. If Arlong had Nami, Bell-mère had to do something.
“Go home, Nojiko,” Bell-mère said before taking off running toward the village. “I’ll take care of this.”
Nami , she thought desperately as she ran. What did pirate scum like Arlong want with her daughter? What would they do to her? Nami was smart and brave and Bell-mère knew she was going to do great things one day, but she was still a child . Bell-mère might not have much, but she’d done her best to give her girls a real childhood.
Cocoyashi was surprisingly quiet as Bell-mère ran through—except for the tavern. Bell-mère paused to peer in a window and gritted her teeth at the sight of a dozen Fish-Men lounging at tables, laughing and demanding liquor as jaunty music echoed around the room. Several young waitresses hurried between tables, bringing tankards and taking orders before retreating behind the bar and wiping tears from their eyes.
Bell-mère’s hands balled into fists as she surveyed the scene, but she knew she couldn’t do anything against that many Fish-Men on her own; she needed to focus on finding Nami.
And that meant finding Arlong.
But the captain wasn’t among the celebrants in the tavern, so Bell-mère slipped away from the window and kept moving. If Arlong had Nami anywhere, it was probably his ship, which meant that was where Bell-mère was going.
I’m coming, Nami , Bell-mère silently promised her daughter before sneaking her way up the gangplank. As she stepped onto the deck, she was mildly surprised to see it empty before remembering most of the crew seemed to be in the village. She glanced around before noticing a lone figure in the crow’s nest—the night watch.
One watchman was easy enough to evade, and Bell-mère moved from shadow to shadow until she made her way below deck. Muted voices were coming from behind the door at the end of the hallway, so Bell-mère slowly made her way down the hall, doing her best to step carefully and avoid any creaking floorboards. By the time she reached the door, she was certain one of the voices on the other side of the door was Arlong’s—she’d never forget the sound of that monster’s voice as he pointed his pistol at her.
Her eyes widened and she froze as the door suddenly opened, leaving her exposed. Shit! A hulking Fish-Man in a dark blue gi stepped out into the hallway. Bell-mère waited for the pirate to see her and raise the alarm, but his eyes never even flicked in her direction as he made his way down the hallway and disappeared onto the deck.
That was lucky , Bell-mère thought, watching the empty space where the pirate had just been before shaking her head and peering into the room. It was an office with a shelf full of books and trinkets as well as a large desk at the center. But Bell-mère only had eyes for the pirate behind the desk, a sheet of parchment in his hands. Her blood boiled at the sight of Arlong, and her body moved before her mind registered it.
“Arlong!” she screamed, rushing inside, pulling an arm back. “Give me my daughter back!” She leaped over the desk in one motion and prepared to make contact with her strongest punch—
—and stumbled as she went right through Arlong and his chair.
“What the hell?” Bell-mère demanded as she whirled around. That wasn’t possible. But Arlong hadn’t so much as blinked at her arrival. Letting out a frustrated yell, she reared back and tried to punch him again, but her hand went right through Arlong’s face. The Fish-Man raised a hand and absently scratched his cheek.
Bell-mère pulled her arm back and stared at it, her stomach sinking as realization dawned.
The last thing she remembered was facing Arlong as he pointed his pistol at her and pulled the trigger.
She had no idea how she’d gotten onto that hill with Nojiko.
Nojiko hadn’t looked at her at any point.
The pirate hadn’t seen her in the hallway.
Her punch, which was known to take down men twice her size, had gone through Arlong. Twice.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?”
Bell-mère flopped onto the oversized couch against the wall (she didn’t let herself wonder how that worked), dropping her face into her hands. Dead , she thought hysterically. I’m dead and apparently some kind of ghost.
Bell-mère had never particularly believed in ghosts, though she’d never outright dismissed the idea either—she’d seen stranger things while with the Marines, after all. Still, discovering that they were, in fact, real and she was now one took some adjusting to.
And no one had ever accused her of being particularly well-adjusted.
After giving herself a few minutes to wallow, Bell-mère shook herself. Her existential crisis was less important than finding Nami. Bell-mère smacked her cheeks with her hands then rose to her feet. Before making for the door, though, Bell-mère stuck her tongue out at Arlong and pulled a few faces. With one final middle finger in the pirate’s direction, Bell-mère left his office and got to work.
“Nami?” Bell-mère called, despite knowing her daughter wouldn’t hear her, as she wandered down the twisting hallways of Arlong’s ship, walking through doors—snickering a little each time because that was objectively pretty freaking cool—to check rooms and back out again when she didn’t find her daughter.
She was starting to think Nami might not be on the ship after all when she walked through a door and found herself in the brig. It was dim, and Bell-mère had to squint as her eyes adjusted to the weak lighting, but there was an unmistakable lump in the farthest cell.
“Nami!” Bell-mère rushed forward and right through the bars as she recognized the lump as her daughter; the girl had her knees pulled up to her chest and was crying silently.
Bell-mère let out a cry of frustration as she went right through Nami. What was the point of being here if she couldn’t do anything? Why had she come back just to be helpless? Her daughters were hurting, and Bell-mère couldn’t do a damn thing about it. All she’d done was die and leave them alone—to the mercy of Arlong and his pirates. Some mother she’d turned out to be.
With a resigned sigh, she sat beside her daughter, listening to the muffled sounds of Nami’s stifled tears and watching her shoulders shake. She didn’t know how long she sat next to Nami, offering the little comfort she could, before Nami finally went quiet, having cried herself to sleep.
“Bell-mère,” the girl murmured in her sleep.
Bell-mère’s chest clenched, and she reached over to run a hand through Nami’s hair, though she nearly let out her own sob when her hand went through Nami’s head. Pulling back, Bell-mère swallowed. “I’m here, kiddo. I’ll always be here.”
What else was she going to do with her afterlife?
Nami sat in a chair, one thin arm in the hands of a Fish-Man, who was tattooing Arlong’s Jolly Roger into her skin, the other curled tightly around her middle. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she was biting down on her lip until it bled, but she refused to cry out. The Fish-Man would occasionally glance at her with an assessing look before shrugging and turning back to his work.
For her part, Bell-mère stood next to Nami. She’d walked out of the brig alongside her daughter when a hung-over Fish-Man had come down to bring her to see Arlong. She’d watched as Nami had sniffled one final time before squaring her small shoulders and raising her chin to Arlong, agreeing to become his navigator in return for the chance to buy Cocoyashi Village from him.
To prove herself loyal—a collaborator, as far as the people of Cocoyashi Village would be concerned—Nami had been required to take on the tattoo of the Arlong Pirates, and she had agreed without hesitation.
At ten years old, Nami had shown more bravery than many of the men Bell-mère had served with.
“My brave girl,” she’d whispered in Nami’s ear over and over until it was over.
“Nojiko.”
“Hello, Genzo,” Nojiko said, looking over her shoulder to see the sheriff approaching before turning back to the mikan tree to which she was tending. “How can I help you?”
At fifteen, Nojiko was the sole caretaker of the mikan orchard. It was hard work, but Nojiko had never shied away from that, Bell-mère thought proudly. Her daughters had taken different paths in the last three years, but they’d been equally brave, and Bell-mère couldn’t be prouder of their strength.
“They’re meeting again tonight.”
Nojiko pressed her lips into a thin line. “Those fools. It’s like they want to throw their lives away needlessly.”
“You know that’s not true,” Genzo said. “They’re scared, and many of them are hungry—they can barely afford to pay Arlong’s taxes and cover their own needs.”
“We’re all struggling,” Nojiko replied coolly. “But it’s a dishonor to those who’ve sacrificed themselves to die recklessly.”
“Nojiko—”
Bell-mère’s daughter raised her chin and turned to face Genzo. “Tell me when the meeting is, Genzo. I’ll talk to them.”
Bell-mère felt a surge of pride in Nojiko; she was just as brave as her sister, but she showed it in different ways, from the tattoos she proudly displayed in solidarity with Nami to her determination not to see more meaningless bloodshed.
While Nami had decided to fight back against Arlong from the inside, Nojiko did her best to keep the villagers alive. Every few months, some people would start whispering about rising up against the Fish-Men, and Nojiko would remind them of those they had lost and how much they still had to lose.
“The day Arlong’s men showed up in Cocoyashi, my mother could have lied about having daughters and paid the toll to save herself,” Nojiko would tell them. “She refused, and Arlong killed her. She died so we could live. And I intend to keep living to make it up to her. I would give anything for another hug from her or to hear her laugh again.”
She would look around the room, making eye contact with each person before continuing. Bell-mère never got tired of watching her speak, controlling a room like she did. “You all have people who would miss you the way I miss my mother. I have no respect for anyone who throws something so valuable like their life away recklessly. My mother wouldn’t either.”
And, inevitably, the meetings would disperse as the villagers returned to their homes and their families to live another day. “Okay,” Genzo agreed, a relieved smile on his face.
“How much do you have now?” Nojiko asked, sliding a mug of coffee in front of a yawning Nami. She’d woken up that morning to find her younger sister asleep on the couch after returning from one of her errands for Arlong. She turned back to the counter to fill a mug for herself and then sat down across from her sister.
Bell-mère watched her daughters from the couch, smiling. It did her heart good to see her daughters still close; Nami always visited Nojiko when she returned from a trip, though she made sure to arrive from the back, as she was no longer welcome in the village. Nojiko had argued with her for years to let the villagers know what she was up to, but Nami refused to let her.
“Let them think whatever they want. The people who matter know,” she would say, and Nojiko would let it go.
“Fifty-four million berries,” Nami said before taking a long drink of coffee. She put the mug down and grinned. “I’m over halfway there, Nojiko!”
Nami had been working for the Arlong Pirates for six years, and once Arlong had started letting her leave the island, she’d taken full advantage of the chance to steal from pirates and other criminals to chip at the price of the village. Bell-mère went with her sometimes, watching as her daughter used some of the tricks she’d picked up from her and others she learned on her own to swindle the lowest of the low of their berries.
“Do you really think Arlong will keep his end of the bargain?” Nojiko asked for the nth time.
Nami’s eyes narrowed. “He has to. I’ll make sure of it.”
“If anyone can, it’s you, Nami,” Nojiko said, and Bell-mère nodded her agreement.
“Luffy, help.”
Bell-mère, heart in her throat, watched as the young pirate captain pulled the straw hat from his head and placed it on a tearful Nami’s head. Her daughter looked gobsmacked.
“Okay!” he declared. “Let’s go.”
Bell-mère stood next to her kneeling daughter, watching as Luffy, followed by Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji, started the walk toward Arlong Park. As the four figures disappeared down the road, Bell-mère looked down at Nami. Her brave, beautiful daughter, blood dripping down her arm from the self-inflicted knife wound in the shoulder and tears running down her flushed cheeks, stared after the four pirates with wide eyes, as though she couldn’t understand what they were doing.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” Bell-mère said fondly, kneeling next to Nami. After eight years as a ghost, it wasn’t any easier not being able to hold her girls. “Genzo was right. You’ve done more than enough.” She smiled. “I’m so proud of you.” Nami was like Bell-mère—she struggled to ask for help. Finally asking Luffy for help was perhaps the bravest thing she’d ever done.
Bell-mère looked back in the direction the four pirates had gone, thoughtful. She didn’t know why, but she was hopeful. There was just something about Monkey D. Luffy…
As Monkey D. Luffy emerged from the ruins of Arlong Park, calling her daughter’s name, Bell-mère found herself wiping away tears. After eight years, her daughters were safe, and her own murder had been avenged, even if the young pirate captain didn’t know or care anything about that. Bell-mère found she didn’t mind in the slightest. During her time with the Marines, it had been hammered into her head over and over that pirates were selfish, dangerous, villainous scum who needed to be stopped. Her experience with Arlong hadn’t challenged that perception.
Bell-mère looked back at Nami, whose flowing tears were now happy, and found herself smiling. Luffy, however, was proving to be quite the exception. In life, she never would have wanted her daughters to become pirates, but death, it seemed, had offered some perspective.
Looking back to Luffy, Bell-mère whispered, “You’ve found yourself one hell of a captain, kiddo.”
Bell-mère stood alongside the people of Cocoyashi, an amused tilt to her lips as she watched Nami sprint through the thankful villagers—completely unaware they were being pickpocketed as a final gesture of farewell. She snorted as Nami jumped onto the small caravel the upstart pirate crew had arrived on.
As she’d watched Nami prepare to leave the previous night, she’d found herself wondering what came next for her . Bell-mère still didn’t know what had caused her to come back—she’d long since figured out that not all people who die become ghosts; otherwise, she would have seen far more than the girl who sometimes followed Roronoa or the long-nosed woman who occasionally appeared near Usopp. She must have come back for a reason, and the only one she could think of was making sure her girls were okay.
With Arlong’s defeat, her girls were free. They could choose the lives they lived from here on out. Wasn’t that her goal achieved? Bell-mère had half expected to fade away or see some bright light to walk into or whatever happened when ghosts… stopped being ghosts? Moved on? Whatever.
But she was still around.
Bell-mère let out a surprised yelp—thank the Seas no one could hear her—as she felt herself tugged forward, as though a fishing hook was reeling her in, over the water and onto the deck of the small ship. She stumbled as she came to a stop near Nami. As she straightened, she noticed Luffy wrapping Nami in a rubbery hug while Sanji made heart-eyes at her. Bell-mère rolled her eyes and glanced around, noticing Roronoa taking up a spot against the railing and promptly shutting his eyes while Usopp stood at the wheel.
“Madam Navigator,” Usopp called, drawing Nami’s attention. “Do we have a heading?”
Nami looked momentarily startled before turning to Luffy, her lips pulling up in a sharp smile. “To the Grand Line, right, Captain?”
“Shishishi, that’s right!” Luffy crowed. “I’m going to be King of the Pirates.”
“And you need someone to get you there. Zoro’s sure not going to do it,” Nami said, smirking.
“Oi,” the swordsman called out, but everyone ignored him.
As she watched her daughter stride over to the wheel to confer with Usopp, Bell-mère turned around to see the shrinking Cocoyashi Village, somehow knowing exactly where Nojiko stood on the shore. She smiled.
Making sure her daughters were okay wasn’t just about seeing Arlong defeated, Bell-mère realized. It was making sure they could achieve all their dreams. And she would be there to see it. For both of them.
As the months went on, Bell-mère followed Nami through the many wild adventures of the Straw Hat crew, though she also took plenty of time to return to Cocoyashi and watch as Nojiko continued to look after the orchard alongside Chabo. Under her care, the orchards thrived, and Nojiko eventually expanded the business—a dream Bell-mère had never had the chance (or know-how, honestly) to achieve.
Watching her daughters grow into strong, intelligent, and brave young women, Bell-mère could not have been prouder.
And she couldn’t wait to see what would come next.
Bell-mère had seen a lot of unbelievable things in her years with the Marines—the world had turned out to be a helluva lot bigger than Cocoyashi—and the world had gotten even stranger after her death, considering she was a ghost and all. She’d even encountered a few other ghosts in her travels with Nami and her crew. The world, especially the Grand Line, was a freaking weird place, she’d come to learn.
A walking, talking, music-playing skeleton, though? Well, that was beyond even Bell-mère’s weirdest dreams.
Brook seemed harmless enough. Oh, his requests to see women’s panties had Bell-mère wanting to knock him upside his bony head, but Nami took care of that well enough on her own. And he was quite the talented musician.
Bell-mère could have sworn over the first few nights that his sightless eyes were, at various points, looking at her. It was unsettling, having those gaping black holes directed her way, especially when no one had so much as acknowledged her presence except the other ghosts who occasionally popped by in nearly a decade.
But Brook didn’t speak to her until about a week after he’d first come aboard the Thousand Sunny .
It was a quiet night aboard the ship, moonlight illuminating the deck as Bell-mère made her way up to the top deck toward Nami’s small tangerine grove. As a ghost, Bell-mère didn’t need to sleep, so during the night she would roam the ship; she often found herself returning to the trees—the reminder of home and of peaceful days spent with Nami and Nojiko grounded her in a way little else could.
“Excuse me, young lady.”
Bell-mère started and turned to see Brook standing by the railing. Bell-mère raised an eyebrow at the skeleton. “Are you talking to me?”
Brook nodded. “I am.”
Bell-mère blinked in surprise. “So, you can see me. ”
“I can, though I have no eyes, yohoho,” he chuckled. “Speaking of seeing things, might I see your panties?”
Bell-mère felt a surge of annoyance. “If I weren’t a ghost, I’d knock your skull clean off, you pervert.”
“So, that’s a…?”
“No!”
Brook leaned back against the railing with a sigh. “Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.”
“What?” Bell-mère asked, startled.
“Nami-san is your daughter, right?”
Bell-mère frowned. “Why would you say that?”
“You’re always near her,” Brook said. Though he had no lips, Bell-mère had the distinct impression that he was smiling. “Looking after her. And you spend your nights among Nami-san’s trees—the ones she has from home.”
Bell-mère was quiet for a long moment; her immediate instinct was to deny, to not give this strange… individual personal information. But it had been so long since she’d had a proper conversation that it didn’t seem worth it. Besides, he was one of Nami’s nakama now.
“I am,” she finally said. “I adopted Nami and her sister when they were young and raised them in the East Blue until I died.” She frowned. “How can you see me, anyway? No one else has been able to.”
“I ate the Yomi Yomi fruit,” Brook said. “It revived me after my first death, and it seemed to have a few other… side effects, yohoho.”
“Side effects? Like seeing ghosts?”
“That seems to be one of them,” Brook agreed. “Truth be told, I wasn’t sure at first. After all, I’ve only been out of the Florian Triangle and interacting with other people again for a week now, but I could see you the moment I stepped on the ship. But when no one else seemed to be able to see you, I realized—”
“—that I was a ghost,” Bell-mère finished. That actually explained a lot. He’d kept sneaking glances at her because he was trying to figure out if he was looking at a real person or a ghost.
“Precisely,” Brook agreed.
Intrigued, Bell-mère made her way from the trees to join the skeleton. She hopped up on the railing—as a ghost, she didn’t have to worry about falling—and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her legs.
“So, my lady—” Brook started, but Bell-mère cut him off with a snort.
“I’m hardly a lady, Mr. Skeleton. My name is Bell-mère.”
“Brook,” he replied in return. “Nice to meet you, Bell-mère-san.”
“Nice to meet you, Brook.”
“I confess to being out of practice speaking with other people,” Brook said after a few quiet moments. “Would it be gauche of me to ask why you’re still here?”
“Maybe, but I don’t care,” Bell-mère replied easily. She’d never been one to care that much for social graces, after all. “I had unfinished business when I died.”
She told him about finding Nojiko and Nami in the Oykot Kingdom, bringing them home, and raising them as her own. She told him about Arlong’s arrival, his demand for tribute, and her death—and her surprise at returning as a ghost. She talked about the years she watched over her daughters while Arlong ruled over Cocoyashi, using Nami for his own ends. And she told him about the arrival of Luffy and the other Straw Hats, Arlong’s defeat, and Nami’s decision to sail with him.
“For a long time, I thought my unfinished business was seeing Arlong defeated,” Bell-mère said. “But when he was gone and I was still here, I realized it was really to watch over my girls and see them achieve their dreams. And so I watch over them both.”
“I can understand that,” Brook said. “I have my own unfinished business, you might say.” At Bell-mère’s curious look, he explained, “I have an old friend I mean to reunite with.” And he, in turn, told her about a young whale who was separated from his pod and was adopted by some pirates and a promise to meet again.
“Bell-mère-san,” Brook said after finishing his story. “It’s been a long time since you and Nami-san have spoken, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Would you like to?”
Bell-mère stiffened. “What?”
“I could be a medium between the two of you,” Brook offered. “So you could finally speak.”
Bell-mère was speechless. Speak to Nami? After all these years? Her first instinct was to jump at the opportunity—to take the chance to tell Nami how proud she was of the woman she had become, that she was glad she had found her people and was achieving her dreams. To tell Nami that she loved her.
But then Nami would know Bell-mère was still here, watching over her. She would know Bell-mère had been with her all this time and had seen everything she had been through. And would likely be there in the future.
With a sad smile, Bell-mère shook her head. “That’s a kind offer, Brook, but no thanks.”
“No?” Brook echoed in surprise. “Why not?”
“Nami has spent too much of her life trapped in the past,” Bell-mère said. She laughed self-deprecatingly. “I’m a ghost, Brook. I’m a thing of the past. Nami is finally living in the present on this ship, and I couldn’t be happier for her. If she knows I’m here—that I’ve been here all along—it would just pull her back into the past. She wouldn’t be able to live her life to the fullest, and that’s the last thing I want for her.” She grinned at Brook.
“I know she’s going to achieve her dreams—both of them are. Their futures are bright, and I can’t wait to see them.”