Chapter Text
Everyone’s curled up with the wolves and around each other in the dead of the night.
Luffy is using a wolf as a scarf. Zoro sleeps by a tree, upright and only half resting so he would be alert to any disturbances. Anne is with Robin, Aisa, and Laki in the tent, and Gin is outside of it with Kamakiri, blocking the entrance. Usopp slumps over a random spot in Sanji’s general vicinity. Chopper lay by Gan Fall’s cot, Kinoko right by him.
Nami keeps the fire going as Wyper inspects the pieces of her arm, shearing down pieces of wood to match the shape.
(“I can’t weld down all the steel in just one day, so you’ll have to deal with wooden parts. I’ll only use steel for the most vital spots, and coat the rest in the same lacquer we use in our shields. It’ll still be sturdy and it’ll be less conductive to Enel’s lightning.”)
(“If we live this battle I’ll make a better one later.”)
“They put it through your bones and connect it to the nervous system?” Wyper grimaces, “and you’re saying they have machines that can detect heart rates and blood pressure levels so they can monitor you during surgery?”
“Uh, yeah?” Nami says, “well, medical technology is something you’d have to ask Chopper. We don’t have much of it on our ship so I can’t show you either.”
Wyper’s face is still stuck in that grimace as he carved through the wood to match the blueprints in his lap. “Next thing you’re gonna tell me they have the ability to see through human skin to check inside.”
Nami is silent.
Wyper curses, “you’re not fucking with me are you?”
Nami shakes her head. “You’re going to have some intense culture shock if you ever find yourself down on the blue sea.”
Wyper scoffs at that, setting down the piece he was working on to start on the next. He inspects the metal plating and tries to mentally calculate where he’d need to shear through-- a Heat-Dial charged dagger would be enough...
“So you’d have something for nerves as well? Something magical like that and that’s how you guys achieve prosthetics like yours?”
Nami hums, “well, not really. The nervous system is tough to explore, so we don’t have a way to accurately work on the nerves without using human sensors.”
Wyper looks at her. “And in a language I can understand?”
Nami chuckles. “So basically, I stay awake for the whole surgery, and if they hit something that hurts, they’re doing it right.”
Wyper accidentally cracks the metal plate in clean two.
His eyes are stuck on Nami and he’s very mortified.
“Shit,” he says.
Nami chuckles bashfully at the attention. “Oh c’mon, it was so long ago. I barely remember it now,” she says dismissively. Her eyes soften at the thoughts, and she glances toward her flesh hand. “I want to draw the map of the world-- I need my hands.”
Wyper had set down one half of the broken piece, beginning to weld down the chipped edge with the Heat Dagger.
A hand.
Wyper has maintained prosthetics before-- even built some, to order. But he has never made a hand , much less something made for delicate work, for a delicate purpose.
Delicate? That wasn’t quite the right word.
“Are your maps so important?” he asks. He doesn’t understand. He doesn't understand why someone would be so desperate just to get fingers. You could fight without it.
Nami’s answer comes unhesitantly. “Of course they are,” she says, and the sharpness in her voice is tinged with mischief, her smile wide and wild, “I mark the way forward, always. So as long as I’m here-- we’re never stuck in one place.”
Moving forward, is it?
The desire to keep pushing forth, growing, advancing-- that was something she will brave the seasons to overcome.
(She was like a Sky Island. Like Skypiea, like Weatheria, or other standard sky islands that follow the currents of the weather to traverse. She will keep going, finding new places, and never stop evolving.)
Wyper sets down the metal piece, reaching for the wires, screws and gears that Usopp had set out for him.
Nami lives her dream. Wyper supposes that everyone on this pirate crew has a dream like that-- something that promises an ever-expanding journey ahead of them, and something they would risk their very lives to do, over and over again.
Maybe that was what piracy meant-- people that went straight ahead for their dreams, letting nothing, not even human limits or missing limbs stop them.
“What happens when you reach the end?” he asks.
What happens, when you reach the end of your dreams? Surely, whatever they wished for was a goal, and that goal was finite, even if it seemed so far in the future.
(Upper Yard has always seemed like a distant pipe dream for Wyper, and yet, here he was.)
For a long moment, Nami didn’t seem to have an answer for that.
“Then we find a new reason to live,” Nami says, smiling gently. “Dreams don’t end. They grow, bigger and bigger-- and for me… the journey, the heart-- my nakama , they’re part of my map too. They’re what makes my maps fill with soul.”
(Her days of drawing maps out of spite are over. No Fishmen will push her down, no punishments will come if she fails to draw one. Her days of drawing to survive are also over. No need to scrounge the black markets for money to keep a night of lodgings, no need to sell her skills for refuge on a merchant’s ship, no longer.)
(She was free under her Captain’s flag, and she will draw because the maps are in her heart.)
Wyper considers that answer for a moment-- and then he says nothing, turning back to the metal piece in his hands, continuing to carve the pieces.
Usopp wakes up halfway through Nami trying her hardest not to scream into Zoro putting her arm back on.
“Ah, so it does hurt.”
“Always does, would hurt less if she stayed still."
"That's a lie and you know it Zoro I hate you!"
Usopp finds Sanji’s leg around his arm-- he’d been using it as a hug-pillow and well, he’s glad he woke up before Sanji kicked him to kingdom come, but Usopp looks around for an embarrassing amount of time before realizing why his vision wasn’t clearing up.
He kneads his fingers into his eyes and after a few blinks he decides to keep them closed.
“What time is it?” he murmurs, groggily.
“Ah, Usopp,” Zoro’s voice comes as a response, “too early. Go back to sleep.”
Nami yelps, then in a rushed, frantic voice, “y- yeah, all’s fine, nothing’s wrong-- OUCH!” she hisses very sharply. “Be gentler with that!”
“Huh. I wonder if I should’ve shaved that gear down a bit more,” that’s Wyper, observing the process like it was an educational sight.
“Nah, it’s fine, it’s just weird cause the wood’s rougher than metal,” Zoro grunts, and then twists the screw again. “And there,” he says, like Nami didn’t just almost claw his arm out with her flesh one, “done.”
“Huh, that was more complicated than I thought,” Wyper mumbles, “but whatever. I need to assemble the last pieces of the outer shell, so don’t move yet.”
“Sadists. I trusted a bunch of sadists,” Nami whimpers, “Usopp, we’ve made a horrible mistake. Save me.”
Usopp hums, feeling around for his walking stick.
“Ah, is that so,” he muses, reminding himself internally that she’s just joking. “Since I’m awake, I’m going to go fix up the Merry. See ya.”
“In this darkness?” Nami turns to him. “It’s so misty out, and there’s barely any light. Why don’t you at least wait till morning?”
“Ah, it’s so dark, it’s so misty, we can’t see anything,” Usopp deadpans, standing up and dusting himself off. Dryly, he adds, “what a nightmare.”
Nami slumps into her hands in defeat. “Oh just go already.”
Victoriously, Usopp begins making his way through, carefully, meandering through human limbs and tree roots. Zoro follows him, now that he’s no longer needed in the arm-assembling department, and Usopp doesn’t address it.
If any sky sharks appear, I’ll kill them.
Zoro’s thoughts were entirely on the lake when Usopp hauled materials and tools over their little boat, drifting slowly toward the sacrificial altar. Zoro even left a hand on his sword, looking everywhere except toward Usopp who was waiting quietly.
“Hey Zoro, have we ever told you about the third type of Haki?” Usopp brings up the conversation, and Zoro isn’t really in the mood but he hums to indicate he’s still listening. “Well, there’s Observation, Armament, and then there’s Conqueror’s.”
Zoro sees a sky shark slowly, very hesitantly, surface-- but Zoro locks his gaze on the creature and gives it the absolute look of death, because if that bugger dares interrupt Usopp’s storytelling that thing is becoming sashimi in an instant .
Meekly, the skyshark sinks back down under the water.
“It’s super rare!” Usopp says, cheerfully. “It’s also called the Will of the Supreme King-- you can kinda guess from the name, right? Unlike Armament or Observation, it’s not something that can be trained, you have to be born with it.”
Zoro raises a brow. “So you and Nami don’t have it?” he says.
Usopp nods, “well, we don’t seem much like leaders, do we?”
(They do, actually, and have taken similar roles in the past-- but they weren’t a holder of a desire equivalent to a King , and that was the distinction that mattered.)
“So what does it do?”
“Well, it’s the willpower part of the whole willpower aspect. Armament is an enhancement of strength and defenses. Observation is an enhancement of senses and awareness,” Usopp hums, “so Conqueror’s is an enhancement of… self? Charisma? Authority?”
“Sounds superficial,” Zoro mutters, unimpressed.
Usopp slumps, “I have failed in setting a good impression. I apologize, every Conqueror we meet in the future. I have failed you.”
Zoro’s rebuttal to that is interrupted by the sound of a mallet upon a wooden hull-- and they both wrench their heads around toward the ship in alarm.
“What the-- someone’s there?”
Usopp stands up, and his voice is bitter. “I knew it…”
Why would anyone be on the ship? Zoro didn’t see anyone else leave the camp. Nami would’ve told him. Much more, Usopp would’ve said something-- no, Usopp knew . Usopp knew, that’s why he came here.
Usopp hastily scrambles up out of the boat the moment it hits the sacrificial altar, and Zoro barely manages to stabilise the boat before Usopp overturns it in his hurry, tripping over the space between the dock and the boat and taking a feetful of water before hastily clambering back up, rushing up the altar’s steps.
Zoro could’ve yelled when Usopp slips there, nearly taking a faceful of rock stairs before finally reaching the top on his hands and knees.
“Usopp!” Zoro hisses, chasing immediately-- but he stops.
Someone stood before Usopp, little and short, barely up to Usopp’s height when the man was on his knees. Almost as tall as Aisa, at most.
Usopp reaches around, and the child reaches their hand out too-- but Zoro sees the very moment the hand phases through Usopp’s.
Usopp feels it.
“Merry?” he calls, and Zoro’s blood goes cold. “It’s you, right? Merry?”
The little raincoat-wearing figure also seemed surprised, but that face bloomed into a smile. This time, when they approached with a leap, Usopp gathered the little figure into his arms and hugged firm and tight and full of joy.
Almost immediately, the figure dissipates again, the grip Usopp manages on Merry goes through her, and she falls, phasing through Usopp’s limbs to land on the ground once more.
She relents a bashful giggle.
“What the…” Zoro arrives at the top, looking at the little figure that picks up her little mallet and smiles up at him with her little faceless expressions. That made no sense-- but he rubbed his eyes back, unable to really grasp this little figure’s shape either.
It was like a mirage-- there, not really, perhaps he catches a form, but it fades when he focuses too hard. Even though it was right in front of her.
“Zoro, this is a Klabautermann,” Usopp says.
Merry hustles up to Zoro’s side, waving a hand at him, and Zoro hesitantly crouches down. He manages to touch the figure, for an astral second, and Merry giggles ecstatically at the contact before twirling back around, heading back toward the ship.
“What…” Zoro breathes, “what is that?”
Usopp stands up, and gestures toward the materials they’d brought over. Zoro hurries down to grab them, and then they make their way up the ship together.
“It’s a wood fairy, something of legends. Spirit of a ship, that kind of thing,” Usopp is vague about it as he goes.
It comes from a ship that’s loved. It’s the embodiment of a long, war-torn ship, a physical representation of a soul that has sailed as many seas as its passengers, an entity.
And it only shows up in the coming of disaster. At the end of the line.
“So you’re dying?” Zoro asks, horrified.
Merry is by the mast, nailing down a steel plate around the most burnt parts. Merry chuckles, stopping briefly in her work to look over.
“Don’t worry!” her voice rings out in their heads, reverberating, beautiful, heavy. “I’ll carry everyone for just a little longer.”
Usopp stifles his tears. Zoro bites his lip, looking away.
“It’s because of the damage today, isn’t it?” Zoro says, with a heavy sag of his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have left the altar--” but an apology wouldn’t mean a thing.
Zoro looks down to see the Merry approaching him, still smiling as she shook her head frantically. She didn’t say a word, but Zoro understood.
(It’s not anyone’s fault but her own weakness as a ship that wasn’t built to sail these seas.)
Usopp’s eyes are brimming with tears, and his words are laced with the sniffles he refuses to let out-- but he walks up-- and begins to help fix the ship.
“It’s everyone’s fault,” Usopp says.
Cricket had already said it-- Merry wouldn’t be enough for the Knock-up Stream, not even at her best, not even if she were a galleon. Even Adam Wood wouldn’t have survived the trip unscathed. It was them that doomed the Merry, and yet, there just wasn’t a way they would’ve forsaken the trip. There was no way Merry would have allowed them to say no, she was as stubborn as everything else on this crew.
“We did our best, and it still wasn’t enough. We’re sorry, Merry.”
Usopp holds up the piece of steel, and Merry cheerfully nails it down, undeterred by the sullen words. She smiles, and she sings, and she giggles.
“It’s okay!” once again. “I’ll carry everyone for just a little longer.”
Because that is what she will do, that is her job, her mission, her one and only desire-- and she swears that she will do it well.
Zoro pries off the broken wings of the ship to use as scrap material, Usopp takes down the rigging to replace burnt ropes, and Merry follows them in step, fixing herself up, pathwork but she feels brand new. The sails were still a little burnt, but it wasn’t as if they had a way to fix them yet, so they left it be.
She felt warm, and she felt loved.
She smiled, and was happy when both Zoro and Usopp smiled back.
When they were done and the Merry was as fixed as they could, Merry danced happily over the bow, cheering to herself like a little child, running across the bow in her little raincoat, giggling in excitement. She scrambles up the mast, leaps down from the crow’s nest, and looks out from the figurehead, before raising her hands and cheering victoriously.
Then she drops before Zoro and Usopp.
“Thank you, guys!” she says, raising her hands so Zoro could give her a double high-five. For Usopp, she leaps into a running hug that actually contacts for just half a second, then she phases through and sprawls facefirst behind him.
She picks herself up and laughs.
“Then, you guys go fight and find treasure!” She spread out her arms. “I promise I’ll be here waiting for all of you when you’re done.”
Usopp finally lets that ugly sob escape from him, burying his face in his palm as he cries out, “oh, Merry.”
Merry chuckles, like she’s laughing at crybaby Usopp, and then she waves at Zoro before turning, and vanishing, right as daylight broke over the treeline.
Zoro lets out a heavy, suppressed breath. He has no idea how long he’s been holding it, but it hurts.
“Merry…”
There was no way they could tell anyone else about this right now. Especially not Gin and Chopper. Especially not Luffy. Especially not…
“Zoro,” Usopp says, “let’s tell them after everything’s over?”
Yeah, that sounds best.
-
-
“I THOUGHT YOU WERE OKAY WITH SPIDERS?!?”
“NOT IF THEY CAN BITE MY HEAD OFF, SANJI-KUN SAVE ME???”
“NO! NO ABSOLUTELY NOT! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!”
Usopp trips over a tree root and faceplants. He lifts his head and sobs, really loudly, “SAAANJI-KUUUUN?!?”
“MY FUCKING GOD ARE YOU ANNOYING!”
An arm comes to him, grabbing him by the forearm and throwing him over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes, cursing loud and violent. A furry murder spider arm, the size of a Blue Sea tree, stabs right in the spot he’d just left, and Sanji books it.
Usopp clings really hard, and Sanji is running like his life depends on it. The huge tarantula, probably bigger than Merry, is chasing after them, all eight eyes blinking curiously in their direction.
It was barely daylight-- only some Shandians were awake, getting ready for the day-- but their screaming had woken up the entire camp and probably the whole forest as well.
“I thought you were the big and strong man, Sanji-kun!” Usopp wails.
“Spiders are out of my league! Spiders! Are a no!” Sanji yelps, and shrieks when he turns around to see it again, “someone burn this sight out of my eyes! Get it away from me!”
“Ah, my,” the two shrieking men dash past Robin, and Sanji does an emergency stop as she stands by to contemplate the sight before her. “How intriguing. Even animals have grown to an inexplicable size.”
“R- Robin-chan!” Sanji addresses, “wait! That thing’s venomous, we need to get away from here--!!”
Robin smiles.
“I will be fine, Mister Cook, but there are some ruins ahead, and I would find it troublesome if Mister Spider ran wild there, so...” she crosses her arms before her, and arms sprout from the spider’s appendages, throwing it into disarray. “Cuarenta Fleurs… Clutch.”
Sanji’s eyes were stuck on the huge arachnid as Robin grabs each limb with five of her own-- and then began to twist, folding it into several directions at once, creating sickeningly loud cracks as she crumpled the massive creature into a blanket roll of what it once was. And then, the hands dissipated.
The pained, dying cry of the spider was quickly silenced as Zoro emerged from the treeline, taking this as his cue to dive in and dice the beast to pieces. It was still alive until you took the head, after all.
Zoro huffs. “Shrieking all morning, you’re so damn noisy,” Zoro mutters at Sanji and Usopp, annoyedly sheathing his swords before walking off, like none of this was his concern.
Robin chuckles at that, “I’ve heard that tarantulas are quite a delicacy. At this size, I suspect we might have to abstain from those venomous fangs, but I have heard they taste like luxury crab. I’m looking forward to breakfast, Mister Cook.”
And then she sprouts a few dozen arms, slowly carting away the chopped-up carcass with her, back toward camp.
Sanji and Usopp observe in baffled silence.
“I think I’m in love,” Sanji says.
“...with which one?” Usopp asks.
Sanji hisses out a sharp, “obviously not the mosshead?!” but he’s stomping extra angrily when he marches back to ward the campsite, and he’s going to immediately start a fight with Zoro when he gets back to everyone else. “Also what the hell, I have to cook this thing? I have to??”
In the end, the Shandians did the butchering for them while Sanji whimpered in defeat in the corner.
“Okay sure , I will eat it, but dude ,” Sanji buries his hands into his face, “what are you guys, barbarians ?”
“Wyper’s the Berserker, so there’s that,” Kamakiri says.
“But Gin’s the Berserker,” Anne says, confused. Gin pats her on the head and assures her he isn’t using that name anymore, so it doesn’t matter. She’s still confused.
Wyper is snoring loudly over a fallen tree, and Nami is nowhere to be seen. Her eyes had sparkled with a promise of taking her new limbs for a run before she just vanished.
“Oh heyyy! This is yummy!” Luffy cheers, hugging a huge spider leg for himself. They had boiled one just to test it out and he’d already snatched one. “Sanji, you sure you don’t wanna try?”
“What the-- Luffy, that’s half-raw, you moron! Put that back in the damn pot, you insufferable rube !”
“You’re both Berserkers,” Anne says, pulling Gin to Wyper, like they needed to bond. They already hate each other’s guts, especially after Gin’s leaf-skirt remark. “But one of you’s an angel and the other of you’s a demon.”
Gin and Wyper glare at each other, only in proximity because Anne is holding their hands.
“I’ve seen squid more menacing than your poor excuse of a demon personality,” Wyper mutters.
Gin grinds his teeth, “huh? At least I’m recognized for an actual reputation, you wing-totting disaster of a fucking character design.”
“Your Blue Sea reputation means nothing up here, demon . You think your fancy clothing’s a statement of some sort? You privileged shithead?”
“At least I’m wearing something, mister angel . Have some shame!”
As they hold their weapons tight to their sides, a twist and helft up a shoulder away from smashing skulls and blasting faces-- Anne looks between them and nods sagely. “Looks like they’re getting along well. I’m glad.”
“No no no,” Sanji has to retort, “Anne-tan, no matter how you look at it, they don’t .”
The Shandians are surprisingly willing to share a meal of huge Tarantula (though Aisa is very strategically not told what they were eating,) before they set off, roaring out a battle cry as the ceasefire ends. They even helped the crew get Merry down from the altar before leaving, which was a great help.
In the very same moment, a similar cry sounds from the other end of Upper Yard, and god’s army mobilises as well.
No one mentions the new bandages on Wyper’s arm. They’re too focused on Nami’s ecstatic reaction to her new limbs-- it seems her leg got an upgrade too-- that they don’t quite register the stern air surrounding the Shandians.
Aisa nods toward them, but she’s less than convinced. They look at her like it’s their last battle-- and for some of them, it definitely would be. And yet, they leave her on the Going Merry, Wyper fixing Usopp a firm look before they turned around, and to war they went.
Aisa is a warrior, so she will swallow her fears and let them go.
-
-
Nami cheerfully inspects her new limbs.
The Heat Model limbs were incredibly weighty, but in exchange it had incredible durability. The Winter Models prioritised dexterity, so you could always move your fingers-- but in exchange, the durability suffered.
Wyper had spent the night working on and altering the materials, and by morning, Nami found herself with one hell of an impressive piece of work. It didn’t have the same flexibility in her fingers, since Wyper didn’t have too much time to figure out exactly how to fine-tune the pieces for it, but in exchange, it was durable, and most importantly, it had upgrades.
“I pop it like this and--” a blade protrudes from the forearm, spanning the length of where her ulna should be. A simple flick of her wrist slots it back in, and another reveals a hidden gun barrel at her carpal section.
Nami beams when Luffy and Chopper make awed sounds, approaching her with interest. Anne keeps her distance, but she still looks over, mildly interested.
“Can you fire--”
“Ah,” Nami says, surprised that she’s also excited to say that, “it’s not quite a laser beam, but I’ve got a flamethrower in my arm!”
“OOoooh!!!”
“Do it! Do it!”
Gin grinds his teeth at them, and all three simultaneously straighten. Robin chuckles, and Zoro sighs.
“Geez, take this seriously,” Gin says.
“We are!” Nami assures, echoed a little belatedly by Chopper, and then by Luffy, who very seriously runs forward to pick up a fascinating stick. “Taking this. Very seriously.”
Gin sighs.
Zoro hums, looking around. “I still think it’s a high imbalance to just leave Usopp and the Shit Cook on the ship, Nami,” he says, though it’s too late to fix that now, “is there a reason why you specifically didn’t want us to be split evenly?”
Anne nods at that. “Aisa, Weird Knight, and the Merry-- they have to protect a lot more than they can fight,” she says. “If they get attacked, they might have trouble.”
“It’s fine!” Luffy says, brightly, “after all, Sanji and Usopp are strong, right?”
Gin and Zoro still fix Luffy some skeptical looks, but Anne sighs at the answer, resigned to just believing. Chopper brims with confidence, and Nami smiles warmly. Robin watches, observing the unquestionable faith that Luffy had in his crewmates-- and she hums, filing that information away into the recesses of her mind.
“Plus, I wanted to find my gold for myself,” Nami says. She didn’t go last time around, so why not this time?
Zoro scoffs at that. “It’s always gold with you.”
Anne, Chopper and Zoro were going because they didn’t get to go anywhere yesterday. Robin and Nami were sincerely looking for the lost city. Gin was going, simply because as Quartermaster, he needed to be there in case these utter morons overestimated Merry’s capability of holding gold in her storage. Luffy went without saying, though.
“Hey, Nami,” Chopper speaks up, approaching her-- Nami notices he’s found a stick too, tapping it along the way like Luffy was doing-- “between you and Usopp right now, who’s stronger?”
Nami blinks at that question.
She briefly notices how everyone else had gone quiet, looking toward her for the answer as well. It was completely innocent-- but it was foreign to Nami. No one had ever bothered to compare her and Usopp, except for who’s weaker. They would always rather compare Luffy, Sanji, and Zoro, and sometimes Jinbei. Never Nami and Usopp.
(Did that mean that Nami and Usopp were considered some of the stronger members of the crew?)
Nami chuckles at that. Imagine.
“It depends on how you’re judging us,” she says. She firmly believes Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji can defeat someone of their caliber, even now. Gin, she wasn’t sure. But by experience alone-- she and Usopp came out undeniably on top.
So how exactly do you scale their power?
(You just can’t. Battle ethics just weren’t something you could firmly rank like that, when it came to fighters like Nami and Usopp.)
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I haven’t seen Usopp go all out in ages.”
But if Nami had to admit to herself…
“But to be honest… what does ‘all out’ even mean for us, anyway? I don’t think I really know anymore. We’ve never been power-based fighters to begin with,” Nami says, chuckling. “I’ve changed, Usopp’s changed. Maybe one day we’ll see for sure.”
Later, when the huge snake separates them all and sends the Gold team split off in different directions-- Nami finds herself deciding against returning to the ruins immediately.
She could faintly ascertain their locations. Robin, Gin, and perhaps Luffy and Chopper as well, could probably get there in a while-- but Zoro was hopeless. And since Anne was with him, she was also lost. How unfortunate.
But, oh well, it’ll turn out fine.
For now though…
Nami leaps, dodging the attack of a goat-faced member of god’s militia, wincing when the branch she stood upon shattered at a single palm touch.
“Blue Sea dweller intruding upon god’s land,” the goat seethes, and a dozen more emerge from the treeline, surrounding Nami immediately. “I’m afraid you must die here.”
Nami looks around-- and her heart rate picks up. She’s not scared. Isn’t it amazing? She’s not scared at all. “Was that an Axe Dial?” she asks instead, “that’s so cool! Can I have it?”
The goatman blinks, taken aback. “Wha-- did you not hear me, you imbecile? I said--”
“I know,” Nami assembles her Clima Tact immediately. “My bad. I shouldn’t need to ask permission, do I? I should just steal it instead, since I’m the Burglar Cat and all.”
Perfect opportunity to test out her new arm, huh?
“Nami, that bitch,” Gin mutters spitefully, “she could’ve totally curbed the fucking snake but she didn’t She deliberately didn't. I know she deliberately didn’t.”
Robin walks, a ways away from him, inspecting the wildlife and the greenery. “It seems the crew holds a strange amount of confidence in Miss Burglar Cat. Is it because she holds the most experience among the crew?”
Gin looks back at her, a little reluctant.
Man, why did he have to be the one stuck with her? He knows her the least! This is awkward.
“Probably,” he says.
Nami wouldn’t ever lose a fight-- if she wanted to fight it, that is. Maybe it’s because Gin has never seen her lose one, unlike with Zoro and Sanji. And Luffy just didn’t have the ‘perpetually dependable’ air about him. It was always Nami that stood like an unbreakable stone.
(Huh? Gin wonders why he doesn’t quite feel the same way for Usopp.)
(He was, by far, the most unassuming figure in the crew. While Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy exuded the air of someone that could handle themselves in a fight-- even Chopper was an element to be wary of, since he was a beast and all-- but Usopp, never.)
“Then, why is she not the captain, or even the First Mate?” Robin wonders out loud, wrenching Gin out of his thoughts. “Ah… would that be a rude question to ask? My apologies.”
Gin hums at that. “Not really,” he mumbles. “It’s just how things worked out.”
Robin accepts that as it is.
“So what about you?” Gin says, after another moment of awkward silence was too hard for him to bear. “Why’d you join this crew? We’re a mess, from authority to hierarchy to even ship roles,” he says. “You could’ve gone with anyone else. Even Croc himself.”
And Robin took a moment to really think to herself.
If she knew Crocodile could successfully escape, would she have gone back? Definitely not. She stabbed that man, and that man stabbed her in return. If she went back to him… would he still protect her under his wing?
“No,” she says, “I couldn’t have.”
She knew better than to bite off more than she could chew.
Gin didn’t have anything to say to that. Robin worked closest with Crocodile-- she knew him better than Gin possibly could.
It was like with Krieg. He was ordered to shoot himself-- but if Gin returned to Krieg’s side, there would no doubt be immediate discharge. There was no place for Gin in the krieg pirates, if they ever still existed.
“Then I guess you’re stuck with us now,” Gin says, and if there was a hint of fondness in his voice, he wasn’t too sure what to make of it either. “I do hope you’re getting comfortable, because it’s quite a hell of a ride.”
Robin’s eyes were fixed on him.
“It’s a little too late for that warning, I believe,” she says, chuckling.
Gin snorts. “Perhaps.”
Anne sighs, tightening her belt with all her paint supplies over her wait, pulling one of her overall straps back up. They’d fallen into the river in their hurry to escape, and now her socks were wet.
“If you don’t like that, they don’t wear socks,” Zoro says, when Anne still looks upset after way too long. “You’re literally the only one on the ship that does.”
Anne pouts at that. “It’s a habit,” she says.
Zoro huffs.
But Anne considers the situation, and pulls her socks off anyways, kicking off her shoes and hanging them off a long stick she was carrying around (because Luffy says sticks are cool, so of course she found one too,) to dry.
Zoro’s eyes land on her feet-- and he doesn’t avert his eyes. Anne picks up her shoes, and Zoro counts the screws, six on each leg, lining her calves two by two. She jumps down from a high point-- and Zoro catches her instead of letting her land, spinning her right over his shoulder so her upper body was behind him, her legs right there, suspended where he could see them.
Anne yelps when she suddenly has to grab onto Zoro for leverage, but she looks back, and Zoro is anything but nonchalant.
“What is that?” he asks.
Anne leans back, lifting her legs just a little, “these?”
It is when she brings attention to them that Zoro properly sees the numbers, black and scarred and imprinted into flesh-- at the bottom of her left foot.
429
Then she answers, “they’re my serial numbers?” she’s almost confused, like that shouldn’t be all too much of a surprise. “I can’t show them on the Blue Sea, but now that we’re up here, I think it’s okay, right?”
Why?
Zoro doesn’t ask that.
“Is it like Nami’s?”
Those screws were sealing something in. Though faint, there’s a straight line like a neat surgery scar between them, giving her feet the appearance of a machine’s seams.
Anne swings her legs, swaying as she thinks to herself, “no?” It’s not something that needs to be changed and maintained, like Nami’s limbs. It’s just part of her body now, and something she has learned to live with, for a long time.
“What’s Gin think about them?” he asks instead, because Gin would know. Gin would know what it is. Gin would know, if there’s anything that needs to be done.
“He doesn’t like to see it,” Anne looks around, setting her hands on Zoro’s shoulder and lifting herself up so she can see around her. “Zoro, do you know where we’re going?”
Satisfied at that answer, Zoro huffs. But he doesn't let the girl down as he walks on. “Of course I do. Unlike those other buffoons that are lost, I remember the map. We go right.”
Anne says nothing when Zoro immediately proceeds to walk left. She just rests her elbows on Zoro’s back, letting herself be carried the rest of the way as she surveys the surroundings, marveling at the beauty of the overgrown wildlife.
"I can't wait to get back to the ship," she says. "because I want to paint all of this when we have time."
Zoro chuckles at that. "you can't paint everything you see, Anne. You won't have enough paint in the world for that."
It's impossible, unachievable, that's a phrase they've all heard so many times. Zoro realizes what he's saying the moment he says it, so he smiles, like it's a challenge instead. And Anne, understanding it fully, smiles right back.
"But that's what makes it worth doing, right?" she says, and Zoro grins, proud.
“What the fuck are you still doing here.”
Luffy stops in his singing to see Wyper. “Oh heyyy, Guerilla-guy!” he grins, “I thought you went off or something?”
“We told you to go South so why the fuck are you so far East , you moron!” Wyper snaps. “Also what the fuck’s a guerilla?!”
“Huh, no, I’m going South! This place’s warmer than all the other directions,” Luffy huffs. “Grandpa said so.”
“Upper Yard is always a consistent temperature everywhere!” Wyper snaps, “why don’t you just climb up and follow the Giant Jack, use some common sense!”
Instead of being offended, Luffy just asks, “Giant Jack?”
“The huge beanstalk,” Wyper sighs.
“Ooh,” Luffy says, climbing up immediately.
Wyper stares in mild horror when Luffy’s arm stretches-- he didn’t do too much of that yesterday, seriously what the hell even was rubber, was it a Blue Sea material?
“Ah, right!” Luffy leans back and hangs upside down to face Wyper again, his hat hanging by the string, “Nami was really really happy about her arm! So thanks!”
Wyper raises a brow at that. Nami had already thanked him for it, so why was Luffy saying it too? “It’s not for free,” he reminds the boy, and Luffy just snickers.
“We know, we know!”
Luffy spins himself back up to continue climbing, and Wyper sighs in resignation.
“Do you brats really think you stand a chance against Enel in this war? As far as I can see, you’re just a pack of snot-nosed brats,” Wyper says. Sure Nami seemed like she had guts, and Gin and Zoro seemed capable-- but the blind sniper was nonchalant and their captain was easygoing. It was hard to take them seriously.
“I don’t really care about this Enel guy,” Luffy says, not at all bothered. “But if Nami wants me to beat them, I’ll do it.”
Wyper raises a brow. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Luffy huffs at that. “Yes it does,” then, “I can’t become king of the pirates if I can’t punch a god or two that gets in my way. So of course I’ve gotta beat this guy up.”
“Your baseless confidence is just appalling-- wait!”
Wyper hisses when a giant snake emerges from the woodwork, looking curiously up at Luffy. Luffy also spots it and grimaces .
“The master of the Sky?!” Wyper raises his bazooka but hesitates, “what is it doing here?!”
Luffy meeps and swings away when the snake lunges in for a bite, and he barks out a “HEY! That scared me! You’re still here, snake?!”
“Get out of the air, you idiot!” Wyper yells.
Luffy’s vine gets corroded by the snake’s venomous fangs, and he balks , frantically stretching out to get a new hold-- but the snake’s maw closes around his figure with a oomph and a muted second of horror later, there was a swallow.
The snake panics at first when the arm doesn’t go down, but a frantic scoop-and-swallow again fixes the problem, and he huffs, satisfied as he slithers off.
Wyper has one arm outstretched, his face fixed in sheer mortified silence.
Then he raises his bazooka, “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE YOU BIG SNAKE!”
-
-
“Eh? A headcount?” Aisa asks.
“That’s right,” Usopp says, sitting opposite of her, his legs crossed while she sat in a dogeza. “Let’s have a contest. See who can finish counting first?”
Kinoko settles on the handrail of the stairs, beside Pierre and Gan Fall. Sanji makes his way down the steps after ensuring their course. They were travelling at a gradual pace, since all they had to advance was the Breath Dial on Karasumaru.
“Uhhhh, eighty! One! No… three?” Aisa declares, loud in her excitement.
“Bzzt,” Usopp cuts in, arms crossed with feigned pride, “it’s eighty- four , eighty-six if we include Kinoko and Pierre.”
“Agh! So close!”
Usopp doesn’t mention that he can’t actually reach so far as the altar on the Giant Jack so he’s just guessing everywhere else. The whole point was to distract her from worrying about the Shandians, after all.
The Ship team consisted of just Sanji and Usopp, Aisa and Gan Fall, and the two birds. A very compromised team, especially considering Usopp’s handicap and Gan Fall’s injury-- but there wasn't anyone else that was willing to compromise on adventure, so they just had to deal with it.
Usopp had brought Nami’s axe out onto deck. She wasn’t bringing it with her, opting just to bring her Clima Tact for portability. Gin was eager to fight today, since his lungs were finally accustomed to the air pressure and he was full of vigor to battle. Luffy and Zoro went without saying, while Chopper and Robin were genuinely interested in finding El Dorado-- there just wasn’t anyone that wanted to stay behind except Usopp, so Sanji stayed behind too. This was the problem when your crew loved adventure too much, seriously.
“Seriously, I still think the Gold Team is way too stacked , power wise,” Sanji mutters to himself, taking a drag of his cig. “Man, I don’t even have a lady here. What a bummer.”
Usopp hums, taking something out of his bag. It’s a raincoat, and Aisa drapes it over her shoulders, citing how flowy it was. People of the sky didn’t have rains like the Blue Sea dwellers, so they never had a need for it. She runs across the ship with Kinoko by her side, entertained by Pierre, who chases.
Gan Fall and Sanji watch the scene, smiling warmly at the sight. It was nice, even in the midst of war, to have a moment of reprieve.
She was so cheerful, Sanji almost missed the moment Usopp reaches toward Nami’s axe.
Sanji reacts the second Usopp starts swinging, just in time to vault over the steps, snatch Aisa out of the ground, and bring them right out of range of a bolt of lightning that pierced through Usopp’s figure, dissipating inches before it hit any of Merry.
“U-!!” Sanji lifts his head-- and his words are stuck in his throat. They rip out at the sight-- Usopp, shakily dropping the axe as his clothes are blown through by lightning, the chars searing through his right side, his arms hanging down, painfully still. “USOPP!”
The god Enel sits at the bow of the ship, humming in interest.
“I wasn’t aware you’d noticed me! That sure startled me,” Enel says, a bite of honesty in his fake surprise. “You sure did well to dodge it partially. It appears your Mantra exceeds my expectations… but it is still lacking.”
Usopp curses.
Enel had definitely been hearing everything they’d spoken about. There was no surprising this guy. In fact-- he attacked first this time, just to test things out. That was something he didn’t do last time until he was attacked first.
If Usopp’s raw instincts hadn’t kicked in at that very moment, they’d be just as quickly taken out as last time-- and now that Nami isn’t around to take over afterward, they couldn’t afford to do that.
“You--!!” Sanji rushes forward, but Usopp hurriedly raises his arm, stopping him.
“Sanji, no!” Usopp yells. “You can’t beat him!”
The minute those words left his mouth, Usopp regretted just how foreign they felt on his tongue. Even Sanji had frozen at that, seemingly realizing that these were words Usopp had never said before. Not in this life.
Usopp was implying that someone was out of their league? Sanji couldn’t believe that. Usopp hadn’t been anything but completely confident since he lost his sight.
Huh.
How ironic.
“He was just testing me,” Usopp says. “It was just a warning shot.” That could’ve killed me if I didn’t dodge. “He’s not going to attack anymore for now.”
Behind them, Aisa ducked, really stiffly, behind Pierre and the mast, cradling Kinoko in her arms in fear. She held her breath, and Enel granted her the mercy of pretending to not notice her.
Enel smirked.
“The longnose is right,” he says, “I am not interested in any of you-- except you in particular, your Mantra interests me,” he muses, turning to Usopp. “Your flaws, however, disappoint me greatly. I suppose, if you survive to the end of this survival game, I will be impressed.”
Usopp straightens, chuckling nervously, “ah, my eyes, you mean?”
Enel doesn’t answer. That was obviously what he meant.
“Fuck that, you creep!” Sanji snaps, “what are you planning? Get away from Usopp and get the hell off our ship--!!”
Enel raises a finger.
Sanji’s entire form is engulfed by the heavenly force of nature, and to Usopp, his voice goes completely silent in an instant, as if someone had extinguished the lights of his candle between two fingers.
The entire ship goes deathly silent.
Usopp’s eyes widen-- but he can’t see a thing.
“I don’t suppose you can see it-- but I’ll tell you,” Enel says, sounding mockingly benevolent. “I just killed your friend. Now if you don’t want to end up like him…”
Usopp launches back, lifting a crossbow on one arm and firing forward, diving low with his walking stick in his other arm, arm gripping tight--
--Enel phases right through in a beam of lightning, vanishing from before him only to emerge behind him, a finger stretched forward.
“Impudence,” he simply says.
And then Usopp launches from the ground, picking himself up, and with his bare feet, he grabs onto the edge of the metal plate around Merry’s mast-- using it as a footstool to begin running up, three steps for range before leaning back fully, slingshot pulled back.
Enel dodges the projectile easily, but he doesn’t expect Usopp to spin in mid air, using the mast as a stepping stone to lunge right back toward him, aiming for his face with the flat of his foot, connecting sharp and solid as if he were plunging through a football.
The crack of a bone reverberates through the ship, and the shock on Enel’s face only grows as he realizes-- his intangible body-- had just been struck .
Usopp’s kick sends him flying to the side until he reaches the bow on the portside, smashing his face into the banister unprepared. Usopp lands around Sanji’s figure, mildly surprised to find a body there before picking him up quickly, frantically checking for a pulse.
Aisa’s breath escaped her-- and Gan Fall had never looked as horrified as he had in that very moment. Enel was confused-- very, very confused-- he reached for his face and found blood, from his mouth. The bruise on his face ached, his ears rang, from the impact.
“I don’t understand,” Enel says.
Usopp doesn’t hear him. “Sanji! Sanji, you alive? Hey!” he finds the pulse and sighs in relief, but it’s not over yet. He doesn’t call Kinoko over-- Enel wasn’t someone you could beat, even with the best eyesight in the world-- you can’t see the speed of light, after all.
“I see,” Enel says, rising-- and Usopp realizes, abruptly when Enel’s presence forms above him-- that he shouldn’t have given Enel even a second. “You are a threat.”
Usopp’s entire world explodes with pain .
-
-
(“Hey, Nami,” Chopper says, “between you and Usopp right now, who’s stronger?”)
Being on the sixth level of Impel Down meant the world was led to forget your entire existence. You would be sealed forever, unless you were to be executed. You were forced to forget the world, only feeling it in bits and pieces through the grapevine that comes down every now and then.
And much more-- the wardens, the prisoners, and the guards-- they would never let you forget who you were.
Being reminded of your own disgrace, being tormented for the man you no longer were-- that was the favourite pastime of every person in that prison.
So when God Usopp, Sniper King and Greatest Bravest Warrior of the Seas, Hero of Elbaf, writer of the Hundred Tales-- the living sensation himself- - was brought down once and for all… his life was hell in the deepest levels of sheer despair.
The torture chambers of Impel Down never had a more frequent visitor.
When Usopp closed his eyes, he could still hear them, sometimes. The screams, the begs, and the pleas. They were pathetic sometimes, defiant in others, and eventually, they were resigned, apologetic, if only to get it over with.
His occasional cellmates always told him those were all his own screams, but Usopp didn’t really know, at that point. His eyes were always closed, after all.
He didn’t know, when was the torture and when was the nightmare. When it ended and when it began. When the world ended and where he began.
He still isn’t sure, sometimes.
(“I’m not sure,” Nami admits. “I haven’t seen Usopp go all out in ages.”)
Usopp rouses-- but he can feel it. He’s been out for at least a while, and Enel is gone. Instead there’s Gan Fall and Aisa, and two ball-bodied randos, Hotori and Kotori, fending off the former god and Pierre’s attempts at defense.
“I- I can fight too!” Aisa insists, when Gan Fall pushes her back behind the mast, “you can’t stop me! You’re going to die, you’re still wounded!”
“Please, little lady. You mustn’t,” Gan Fall urges. “Pierre. Please take care of her.”
The bird croons in approval, and Kinoko is there too, evidently two shields of feathers, protecting the girl from any harm.
Usopp can see. Black and white, threads of life and soul and noise, forming through and illustrating the world with his Haki of Vision.
(And all he sees is the anger in his veins, and the desire to fight, fight, fight , his hands are free and there are weapons and the people he needs to protect are in danger.)
“Hoh-hoh!” one of them sings, “well, you think you can take us both on alone? While protecting all these deadweights? Think again!”
“Hoh! You thought it would be a Flame, didn’t you? Well too bad, it was a Flavour Dial!”
“And then nowww , Flame!”
“Go and BOOM-- Huh wait wha--!!!”
Hotori-- or Kotori, whichever he was-- yelps, when right before he activates his dial-- the sails of the Going Merry let loose at once, quashing all of them and the loose gas under the weight of tons of fabric.
“What the-- what is this?!”
Axe Dials are activated as they cut through and scramble for vision, but they’re tangled between fabrics.
Gan Fall and Aisa, at the edge, escape easily-- before looking around for the reason all the cloth could have fallen. There was no one who could have set those sails loose. So what happened? The ship couldn't have released her own sails to protect Gan Fall and Aisa, could she?
Usopp scrambles onto his feet, catching Gan Fall and Aisa’s attention as he grabs the axe-- and just as Hotori and Kotori cut their way out-- he lunges forward.
(“But to be honest… What does ‘all out’ even mean for us, anyway? I don’t think I really know anymore. We’ve never been power-based fighters to begin with.”)
The twins were rattled by the situation. Their Mantra in disarray.
So Usopp didn’t hesitate.
Gan Fall and Pierre had barely a second to reach for Aisa, wrapping hands and wings around her eyes, pulling her back so she was out of sight-- before Usopp lops their skulls right off, severing their upper heads from their jaws in one clean motion.
(“I’ve changed, Usopp’s changed. Maybe one day we’ll see for sure.”)