The memory overtakes him again, a tide returning inevitably to the shore. Within seconds, a nineteen-year-old young man is once again eight and fragile. He is inside a past self, and yet feeling like nothing much has changed.

He stands in his mother's bedroom, located in the only secluded wing of the Upper Yard temple, its rooms untouched by all except the elder monks who journey each morning to pay respects to the lonely woman. As if she is already dead, they look with cloudy eyes to the far-off future while she lives and breathes before them. And Usopp, while looking at the black gossamer that curtains his mother's neck and her glassy obsidian skin, can only think that such a person doesn't belong in this world.

She's been sick for a year. Like a spring she spits scarlet over her robes. Usopp once thought that she would never run out, but it takes more than blood to keep a life together. As he stood by her bedside, a ring of elder gurus at his back, he knew this would be their last day together. He had known it since he first awoke in the morning. He had run to her side to escape it, only to find his premonition coming true.

As he denies it in his heart, he tells the lie that will make her feel better.

"Dad came back today," he says hoarsely, lips trembling in a forced smile. "He was really exhausted from his trip, so he's resting. But after he's had some tea, he'll come see you. You just have to wait a little longer."

With a weak laugh his mother says, "Tell him to take his time."

"It won't be much longer now!" Usopp asserts desperately.

His mother's sweat-covered palm rests on his cheek. "I know," she says kindly.

Tears well in Usopp's eyes, one for each year he'll have to spend without her. She strokes his face gently, his hero until the end. Her wings unfurl from under her body, spreading wider than the horizon, and encircle his tiny body in billowing folds of black silk. She is weightless. She is perfect. She shields him from the truth and all that will be expected of him in the future.

"You're doing well. You're such a strong boy, just like your father," she whispers shakily into his ear. Her conviction vibrates through his entire body. "Someday you'll be stronger than anyone."

"I don't care about getting strong," Usopp forces out through a stream of tears. He clasps the palm on his cheek with both hands. "I want to be like you. I want to be strong in the real way. I want to become a monk and search for truth."

Her eyes narrow in an exhausted smile-glittering pearls in a deep, black ocean.

"But you're so good at lying," she says with pride.

Usopp chokes out a muted sob disguised as a laugh. "You don't think I can? Just watch, someday I'll be a guru, just like you. When you come to morning meditation, we'll bow to each other as equals."

"It's not a matter of being able to," his mother says mysteriously, her face bleeding delight. "But I'll look forward to the day you make your convictions come true."

A/N: This story was originally meant for the 2016 One Piece Big Bang, written in collaboration with ohhhnnooo from tumblr, who did a lovely piece of artwork for it and many character designs, despite the fact that it wasn't finished in time. This fic has been over a year in the making, and is still far from completion. Even this much-around thirty pages-is the product of obsessive writing and rewriting. I've poured my soul into every line of this fic, and plan to keep working until it runs its course. I owe a huge chunk of my recent development as a writer to this story.

I also owe the existence of this fic to my artist partner, who helped me do folkloric research, who supported me, and was kind and understanding even though I wasn't able to give a finished product by the end of the event. I am publishing this fic before its completion so that if I never get to finish it, at least this much will exist as a testament to how much my partner meant to me. They gave me the courage and the opportunity to better myself as a writer. I intend to continue using this story to grow. Please let me know what you think.

Quick note for the first sections: Shugendo is basically an esoteric sect of Buddhism, the main characteristic of which is a spiritual pilgrimage into the mountains. Yamabushi are Shugendo priests. There's not a lot of deep research I was able to do about this particular sect, so the portrayal of Buddhism I have here is a bastardization of Zen Buddhism and Hinduism. Please allow your suspension of disbelief to take over, and if there are any concepts or words you don't understand, don't fret too much. The ideological meat of this story will lessen and be taken over by friendships and plot points.

Before long, the elders are ushering him away, insisting he get to bed. He knows he won't be able to sleep, but his mother needs rest. She needs rest more than anything else in the world. He knows this, but he can't shake the feeling of words left unsaid. He imagines a barrier between them, holding back what she really wanted to say.

As he leaves, she waves goodbye. "I'll see you tomorrow," she says. Usopp knows she means it. He lets himself be guided out of the room, the wings of the elders stirring the air restlessly.

The next day, he rises first thing in the morning to return to his mother's room and greet her body.

When Usopp came back to his senses, he was crouched in a small glade a few hundred meters below the main temple grounds in the Upper Yard. Tall, solemn aspens leaned over him in concern. The Skypeia mountain belt was a seemingly endless system of these glades, lined with aspens, conifers, and colorful shrubbery. They were walled in by ivy-roped rock faces that sloped into the higher, jagged mountainside. He liked these glades more than the Upper Yard grounds, bare of everything except bushes, a few trees, and the looming multi-branch temple, which was located at the highest peak at nearly twenty-nine thousand feet. Up there, one could almost reach up and touch the clouds. That scared Usopp.

No, he much preferred the glades and the forest farther down. There he could forget that the Upper Yard temple pierced the sky and connected heaven and earth. He could also indulge in memories of his mother, before she got sick. He remembered many days spent with her leading him cheerfully through the dense forests, teaching him the names of resident birds and how to call them. A trail of clover and dandelions sprang up from under her feet with each step. The birds always came at her call.

Man, he missed her. Even after all this time, she still hung around, no farther gone than the moment just before her death. His eyes roamed over the glade, sun-kissed trees and small white butterflies dancing in the spring air. They filled him with hope-a stronger sense of her presence.

The young man had lived in the Upper Yard with the yamabushi all his life. The temple complex was home to a few hundred tengu, all training their bodies and minds to live as ascetics. They weren't the only tengu in the Skypeia mountain belt, but most of the others kept their distance. Whether out of respect or disdain, Usopp wasn't sure. The ascetics, of course, only cared about their practice and meditation. To them, the Upper Yard was the path to nirvana.

To Usopp, even more so, this place was his heritage. His grandfather, the former Skypeia daitengu, once led a fleet of a thousand tengu in a war to protect the mountains from human expansion and deforestation. Within a year, he and the humans quickly struck a treaty, the humans swearing not to disturb grounds above the lowest strata of the forest. He was a fierce, proud man who commanded respect and fear.

And then Usopp's mother was born. A bodhittsava in the form of a child, she brought peace into her father's heart with a single look the very first time she opened her eyes. Within the first few years of her life, the great daitengu dissolved his fighting force and established the Upper Yard temple, and dedicated himself to chasing transcendence through Shugendo. In his two-hundredth year of life, he disappeared on an annual pilgrimage, leaving behind no trace but his robes, his gesa, and a few feathers. A friend of the daitengu took over leadership, but Usopp's mother was the true driving force of the temple. She expanded the complex, gave lessons regularly, and remained perfect.

But Usopp was different. When he was born, unlike his mother, he was given very little tantric instruction. He didn't officially become an initiate until a few years after she died, and yet he'd lived in the temple all his life. Usopp's mentor, the elder priest Pagaya, once let slip that the elders thought Usopp would never take asceticism seriously. They had been waiting him out.

The sound of ambling footsteps drew Usopp out of his thoughts. He turned and saw Pagaya approaching. The man stopped a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back, and smiled gently.

"Hard at work on your scriptures?" he called out. Usopp looked down to see he had mindlessly scratched the beginning of a tantra into the dirt.

"Um … y-yeah," he answered sheepishly, rising to greet his teacher.

Pagaya chuckled, "You have no trouble remembering the texts, but as always, your heart is somewhere far away." He nodded toward the temple grounds that climbed high into the clouds. "Are you prepared for your lesson?"

"Can we … um … do it out here? It's really stuffy inside the temple," Usopp asked. That was a lie-rather than being stuffy, the Upper Yard felt too open and free. It made him feel like he might float away at any moment.

"I suppose," Pagaya conceded with an easy shrug. "Though I do wish you would spend more time in the temple. The other priests are becoming suspicious of you."

Hurt, Usopp muttered, "Because of what I am?"

"Because you spend so much time out of the mountains and in the towns," Pagaya answered good-naturedly, but Usopp caught the sympathetic glint in his eye.

Usopp and Pagaya sat on the grass, legs folded. The older man waited knowingly as Usopp stared at the grass, chewing a troubling thought.

"There's something I've always wanted to know," Usopp began hesitantly, "But I feel like I shouldn't ask."

"Go ahead," Pagaya encouraged.

The younger man's eyes drifted up to the wide, blue sky laced with tree tops. "The other monks say that mom's disease came because she got involved with dad. Was it ... because he's human?"

With certainty, Pagaya answered, "No."

"Then, because he's a criminal?"

"No," his teacher sighed, shaking his head. "They don't blame your father so much as they blame your mother. We all had high expectations of Banchina. She believed more steadfastly than any of us. But she abandoned her practices to chase your father."

Pagaya turned his eyes to the sky as well. "The other gurus ... took her disease as karmic retribution."

That drove a wedge into a deep crevice in Usopp's heart. Too deep to fix if it pushed open any further.

"What do you think?" he asked meekly, drawing his knees to his chest.

The older man remained silent for a moment, contemplating the clouds. Then he turned and answered rationally, "I think none of us on this mountain are at a state of oneness with the universe where we can declare what is and what isn't a sign."

"But what do you think?" Usopp pressed.

A smile cracked Pagaya's tense expression.

"I believe your mother did so much good, that only a vile disease could balance out her karma."

Usopp giggled nervously, pulling his head down so far his long nose bent against one of his kneecaps. "You're saying that just to make me feel better."

"Why should I?" Pagaya asked lightly, and he was right.

"You'd be the first to say something so nice about her. You'd be the first to say anything, at least to my face. Seems like nobody else cares."

Though, Usopp guessed, having the resolve to not tie yourself too tightly to your emotions is exactly what being an ascetic is all about. Most ascetics left families and loved ones behind and never saw them again. Based on this rule, Usopp and his mother should have been thrown out as soon as he was born, but Pagaya said the elders owed her father. They owed her, too. And somewhere deep inside, just like Usopp, they still saw her as a woman long transcended.

Usopp and Pagaya sat in difficult silence for a while longer, listening to the gentle whisper of wind through the trees. The quiet voices of the other ascetics somehow carried all the way to the glade in unintelligible bursts.

"Usopp," Pagaya asked calmly, "Do you believe it's worth your time to be here? Studying the texts, seeking to develop your own soul?"

The young man's head shot up. "How can you ask that? Of course I do! Transcendence is the most worthy endeavor!"

"I mean, is it worth it for you?" Pagaya clarified, confusing his student even more.

"What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.

"To ascend, you have to give up everything. The only truth of this world is oneness with the earth and the universe. And what that feels like …" Pagaya dipped his head sheepishly. "I'm still trying to catch that feeling myself. But what I've been told … and what little I've experienced …"

He closed his palms together in a circle, drawing in towards one another at an unhurried pace, as if magnetized.

"Every vision, sound, and feeling flies away, until there are no colors, no sensations, no differentiations. A vast emptiness and fullness pressing in at the same time, until you're everything and nothing at once. Do you understand?"

Pagaya laughed when Usopp slowly shook his head. "Let me ask you this, then-do you know what day it will be a week from today?"

A half-realization washed over Usopp's face, tugging down the corners of his mouth. "The beginning of this season's pilgrimage."

Pilgrimages-the critical component to the ascetics' practice. Each season the elder yamabushi and a few master gurus left for a couple months to tackle the most dangerous mountains in the Skypeia belt. And each time, they brought along a number of initiates, upon whom they bestowed secret teachings. In preparation, each member underwent intense physical training, particularly in rock climbing. During these exercises, no trainees were allowed to use their wings. And because the elders refused to speak of what took place on these sojourns, an initiate's first pilgrimage was an abyssal leap of faith-a test, and a rite of passage.

Each year since becoming an initiate, Usopp had been prepared to make the journey. He eagerly awaited the birth of a new season. But each season when the time came, the elders told him he couldn't go with such a disordered spirit. When he asked which part of his spirit was faulty, they merely directed him to the tantras, the in-person lessons, and the six virtues. Even Pagaya held his tongue on the subject.

"You going to tell me I can't go again?" Usopp asked with a huff, looking away.

"If I say you can't, you won't accept that, will you?" Pagaya sighed. "Because you don't understand the problem."

"And you're not going to tell me what the problem is," Usopp guessed.

Pagaya pursed his lips briefly, contemplating a nearby tree. "Let me ask you this, then-why do you want to go on a pilgrimage so badly?"

"Shouldn't the answer be obvious?" Usopp gaped in exasperation. "How else am I supposed to receive the masters' teachings?"

The elder's soft eyes narrowed calmly. "And if you receive those teachings, what purpose shall you use them for? Will you apply them to yourself, or someone else?"

Usopp froze, searching his memory for a concrete answer to the question. "I … don't I use them to better myself and make myself one with the universe?"

"Are the two concepts separate to you? I always thought they were one and the same."

The young man fell silent, looking at the ground. He couldn't think of a response. A voice inside him shouted, "of course they are the same. Of course I know that." But it shouted into a deep chasm of emptiness, reflecting until its resonance was a mere echo of its cage.

Usopp asked himself why bettering himself and becoming one with the universe should be separate. He wondered what "bettering himself" even meant, if not spiritual transcendence. No answer came to him-only the memory of his mother's sickly breaths, her flowering footsteps, and the light of joy that came to her face whenever she told a story about his father.

"Let me ask you one last question," Pagaya continued, his face filled with sympathy for Usopp's troubled expression. "Do you have anything left to prove to this world before you leave it behind? Or, do you have anything left to prove to yourself?"

Usopp looked anywhere but his teacher, heart thumping wildly for a reason he didn't understand. When he eventually did make eye-contact, he saw the elder wracked with a pity completely uncharacteristic of the distant mask most priests maintained.

"All creatures feel desire. But if you don't know the source, it becomes infinitely harder to quell." Pagaya took a sweeping look around, then with another sigh, straightened up and pinned his student with a firm look. "Usopp, I think you still have a lot of love left for this world, and the people in it. Your attachment to your mother proves that. I think you still have goals left, but you don't know the true nature of them. And that's because you don't know enough about yourself."

"Sure I do," Usopp bristled. "I'm the son of Banchina, and grandson of our daitengu. I'm their legacy. I'm my mother's wish."

As soon as he said this, he realized his mistake. His chest was filled with traitorous pride-the trait of a true fool. The trait that all tengu hated and struggled against the most.

"You definitely were your mother's treasure," Pagaya conceded. "That might be why even though you want to be a yamabushi so badly, you have no direction. She wished on you a little too much and gave you too little instruction. Though, the blame for that falls on your elders as well."

Usopp leaned forward, bending almost in half, and cradled his head in his hands. He'd worked so hard for almost a decade, given up so much of his life, and yet the progress he thought he'd made vanished right before his eyes.

"Does this mean I have to start over from the beginning?" he asked quietly. "What about the pilgrimage?"

He felt a calloused palm rest on his head and he had to remind himself, this man had scoured mountainsides with his bare hands and thought nothing of the danger. A man like that had taken pity on Usopp's vastly inferior struggles.

"You've worked hard for many years. I believe that counts for something," Pagaya declared warmly. He placed both hands on Usopp's shoulders, bidding him to raise his head. It felt like he was seeing his teacher for the first time, haloed by sunlight, and his nose-just as long as Usopp's-casting a faint shadow. "The pilgrimage is a week away. Take that time to reflect on yourself as best you can. When the time comes, if you still want to go, I will take you with me. No one will tell you 'no'-even if your spirit is still conflicted."

Eyes wide as saucers, Usopp couldn't help but ask, "Why?"

"Because I believe that if we open the path to you, you will succeed. I cannot explain how, but I see it in you."

Pagaya got to his feet slowly, bones popping, until he towered over Usopp. His wings unfurled, just a touch smaller than those of the other elders, each white feather dripping honeyed light. He offered Usopp a hand.

"The lesson's over for today. What do you say we recite yesterday's lesson over some lunch?"

Usopp took his hand, eagerly getting up. But even standing shoulder to shoulder to Pagaya, he felt just as small in comparison as he did when he was on the ground looking up.

A hearty late-afternoon lunch made tantric instruction a lot easier for Usopp to bear. Even more so because Pagaya snuck in a fresh peach-a rare treat among the humble rations of plain rice gruel and fish. While Usopp mindlessly repeated scripture, the realization stole over him again-Pagaya was right. He'd memorized a number of basic texts, but not yet internalized their messages. His mouth merely moved on autopilot.

Only a week until the pilgrimage. By that time, he had to get a grip on himself.

After he and Pagaya parted ways Usopp fetched a cloak from his room, along with his mother's fan. Made of nine brown-bodied feathers with pale red tips, it glinted briefly in the light before he whisked it beneath the cloak and fastened it around his waist. He pulled the cloak shut with one hand and retrieved his staff from his bedside. He gave one longing look at his modest bed before leaving.

Usopp made a hasty exit through the main temple grounds. He managed to avoid being seen by any of the other tengu, but no matter how quick he moved, they'd soon know where he went. He'd inherited his mother's steps-within a few hours thin patches of tiny, yellowish clover would sprout, trailing all the way down the monumental temple steps and into the lower, forested strata of mountains. It wasn't enough to endanger him of being caught by humans, but an observant tengu would be able to track him easily.

Near the base of the temple steps, Usopp saw the back of a familiar young woman. She held a crude wooden spear at her side.

"Conis!" he called out. She whipped her head around, twin braids flying, and flashed him a smile-as much as her beak would allow, anyway.

"Heading out to town again?" she asked.

Usopp nodded with a sigh. "McKinley around?"

"No, he left for a few minutes to check on some of the officers stationed on the ground."

"And left you in charge?" Usopp teased. "You think you can handle it?"

She beamed, "Of course! I'm plenty strong." She flexed an arm in illustration.

She really was strong. After all, she was a member of the White Berets, a group of tengu dedicated to defending the Skypeia Belt-and by association, the temple. They'd kept the mountain belt safe for as long as Usopp could remember, breaking up territorial disputes between creatures of the forest and monitoring human activity. They actually lived in Angel Valley, far below the Upper Yard-guarding the temple steps was merely an act of goodwill, one that the Berets went through a lot of trouble to achieve. Nobody from the Upper Yard requested the help, or came down to thank them, though sometimes they shared some food as a peace offering.

Unlike most of the tengu in the temple, the White Berets were mostly lower-ranked, beaked koppa tengu with far smaller, snow-white wings. Most of them could fly, but only for short distances. Conis was no exception. Her delicate wings beat her shoulders with excitement as she gave Usopp an expectant look.

"So, if you're going to town," she began, "does that mean you're going to do 'that thing?'"

"What thing? I'm not sure what you're talking about," Usopp said, putting his hands on his hips. "I'm just going to march down through the forest, like I always do-"

He made a show of strolling jauntily past until she grabbed his elbow.

"Your nose!" she laughed. "What about your nose?"

"My nose?" Usopp hummed coyly, then crossed his eyes and looked down. "Oh no, you're right! What would the humans think? I better fix this before I go!"

Conis' eyes were aglow as Usopp theatrically brandished the fan from under his cloak.

"The great Banchina's phoenix-feathered fan!" Usopp announced with a gleeful shout, giving the fan a spin. "This is an item you can't get just anywhere! You'd never believe the trouble I went through to obtain it for my collection! Why, it was thirty years ago, on a precipitous cliff beside the temple, that I-"

"Just do the thing," Conis cut him off eagerly.

Grinning widely, Usopp declared, "The audience has spoken! Then, right before your eyes, watch this nose ... disappear!"

Then he gently fanned his nose, but much to his apparent, wide-eyed surprise, instead of shrinking it grew twice its size! Conis let out a delighted shriek, covering her mouth with a hand.

"Oops! I used the wrong side," Usopp enunciated with true showmanship. He flipped the fan around in his hand and fanned again until his nose shrank all the way down to a small, perfectly unassuming triangular nose. "There we go."

Clapping happily, Conis giggled, "I'll never get tired of that. Though, if you want to look even less conspicuous, why don't you take off that cloak?"

"I'm afraid my robes would give me away," Usopp answered, but Conis was probably right. Some humans did become yamabushi, so it wasn't like they were rare.

Furthermore Usopp had, for reasons he didn't quite understand, been born without wings. He could easily make himself forget that fact until times like these, when he faced the edge of human civilization with both familiarity and a feeling of trespassing.

Conis shrugged, "I'm sure you'll be alright."

"Yeah. I'll be back by tomorrow afternoon," Usopp promised. "I'll bring something for you."

"Sure," she said, eyes glittering. "Oh, and when you go back up to the temple … don't forget to say hi to dad for me."

He nodded cheerfully and turned to begin the long journey down the rocky mountainside and into the forest.

Near the edge of Syrup Village, not far from the town square, a stunning white three-story mansion rose high into the sky. Only a half a dozen other settlements surrounded the plot, most of them keeping a reverent distance of over three hundred feet, allowing for a yard that was huge yet not quite huge enough for a mansion so nice. The edges of every palatial window glimmered with the delicate lattice of a snowflake.

Usopp reached the mansion in the late evening. Creeping around the house, he peered into a window on the left side and saw a familiar young white-haired girl sitting at a desk. Her porcelain nose was buried in a book. He rapped lightly on the glass to get her attention, and she responded immediately, clambering over.

"Kaya!" Usopp greeted as the window opened.

"You always know when to show up," she said affectionately. "I was just finishing today's reading."

"Your folks around?" Usopp asked.

"They went out for a while. You can come in if you like, but Merry's still here, so we'll have to be quiet."

She helped him climb into the study then shut the window. As Usopp removed his cloak he peered at Kaya's paper-cluttered desk. Ever since she secured an apprenticeship a year ago with a local doctor, her desk was blanketed with work. Many documents were written in a foreign script, making Usopp's head spin at the mere sight. He supposed this was the difference between a well-bred daughter of an aristocrat and filthy mountain hicks like himself.

"It's been so long since I've seen you," Kaya said warmly, taking and folding his cloak. She placed it on her desk, hiding her formidable studies. "How have things been at the temple?"

"Same as always, I guess," Usopp said, chuckling nervously. "Just busy. Though it looks like you get busier and busier too."

"Yeah. I'm helping out at the clinic every day. Some of the patients and staff are still cautious of me, but I think they're coming around." She sighed in exhaustion and brushed a thin wisp of ivory hair behind her ear. "There's just so much extra studying the doctor wants me to do."

Usopp winced. "Did I come at a bad time?"

"No, no, no! This is the perfect time," she assured him with a smile. "I needed a break. I've been eager to hear another one of your stories. But let me go put on some tea first."

She left the room and soon reappeared with a kettle and cups on a rose-trimmed platter. They sat together on a chaise in the corner of the room and enjoyed the blackest tea Usopp had ever sipped. While they drank, Usopp regaled her with a legendary account of the time a mountain in the Skypeia Belt stood up and began walking around. Of course, it was Usopp who volunteered heroism, gathering an army of tengu to return the mountain to its rightful place. He made no effort to sound credible. Kaya liked the unbelievable stories best, and Usopp was only too happy to lie if it meant she'd look down on him with her patient, mature smile.

After the story was over, Kaya retired her cup and asked, "Can you let me try walking in your shoes again? I think I was getting the hang of it last time."

"Really?" Usopp looked down at his geta. Most geta had two wooden pieces affixed to the sole, but his only had one-a long, rectangular block inconveniently placed in the middle of the sole. Another present from his mother.

"Didn't you almost sprain your ankle the last time?" he pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

"That was because I let go of you," she argued lightheartedly. "This time, I won't."

She badgered him until eventually he conceded and lent her his geta. He kneeled down and slipped the worn shoes onto her bony, stocking-clad feet. Once they were secure he stood and lifted her from the chaise by her hands. Even with her thin legs wobbling she remained the picture of pristine grace.

"You sure you have it?" he teased. "If you need to sit back down …"

Kaya gave a tinkling laugh, chest shuddering with light exertion. "Here, help me walk."

They teetered around the room together, each of their steps bouncing in sync. Usopp uprighted Kaya whenever she stumbled, and in return her bashful smile restored his spirit. They'd done this a few times before, Kaya in Usopp's geta, or Usopp in Kaya's formal-wear heels-without words, it somehow brought them closer.

Usopp eventually said, "I take it you've been feeling better lately. I haven't heard you cough once."

"Yeah. I still have some trouble breathing, but I feel stronger," Kaya nodded, keeping her eyes on her feet. Usopp felt a surge of relief.

Only last year she was confined to her room, unable to move from her satin sheets. On a warm spring evening that year, Usopp had perched on her windowsill and watched her body tremble with the effort of crying. She had been quite a sight-the prized daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, reduced to little more than a ghost. She was an exhibition whom dozens of neighboring families lined up to view, all anticipating the possibility of either miraculous recovery or irreparable tragedy.

And Usopp, committing himself to weekly visits while she languished, pretended away his own fear and irrational guilt by telling her tall tales.

"But we're not here to talk about me," he heard Kaya say, and caught her gaze. "Right?"

He said nothing. Their eyes remained glued to the floor as it moved beneath them, Kaya's patient ear listening all the while. The heavy silence said nothing and everything.

Eventually, Usopp breathed deep and mumbled simply, "I'm not sure where my life is going. Pagaya-sensei said this season he'll let me participate in the pilgrimage, but that I should rethink my attachment to the world before deciding."

"Why? The answer should be easy, right?" Kaya questioned, dark eyes flicking upward.

"It should be. I know that I want to go, but I ..." Usopp pursed his lips and balanced anxiously on his toes. "I don't want to leave this behind."

He let his eyes roam around the room slowly, taking in the immaculate white and gray walls, decorated delicate blue trim, ornate wall lamps, a few picture frames, and a large bookshelf beside Kaya's desk. The wealth did not appeal to him-it carried just as little happiness for Kaya. But every fixture had become so familiar over the half a decade since they met that he couldn't help feeling a strange warmth in his bones.

Kaya's feet stopped moving completely, jarring him out of his thoughts. She smiled painfully and whispered, "Is it me you're worried about? You don't have to be considerate. I'm better, I promise."

"What? No, no!" Usopp cried, clutching her fingers tightly. "I just can't imagine you, and me, and this room, and this house … I don't want to give it all up."

And just like that, with such a simple admission, Usopp was frozen by sudden clarity. He didn't want to give this up. He didn't want to spend forever in the mountains, thinking of nothing but priesthood, and remembering friends like Kaya and Conis as a fleeting dream. It felt like pretending he never had those relationships and feelings to begin with.

Holding Kaya's fragile hands, he imagined a future where he got his wish and became a yamabushi. No matter what angle he viewed it from, he could only see an overwhelming emptiness.

"Maybe that's why Pagaya-san told you to think on it," Kaya suggested. She received a defeated nod in response. "Then you owe it to him to do what you really feel."

"I know, but the temple is my home. It's my life," Usopp croaked. "If I quit, there's no way they'll let me live there, right?"

"I can't answer that," Kaya replied with regret. "But my gut tells me that Pagaya-san won't leave you high and dry. Neither will I. If worse comes to worst, I'm sure I can find a place for you here somewhere. Maybe here in the study?"

A nervous laugh jumped out of Usopp's throat before he could stifle it. He shied away from Kaya's confused stare. Staying with her was probably not a feasible option, no matter how fun it would be. If Kaya's parents ever found him, her life would become exponentially more difficult. And if the townspeople found out that Kaya spent her free time mingling secretly with a man-a tengu, no less-her reputation would be the least of what would suffer. But even if it was impossible, he knew she'd at least try to give him shelter. The sentiment was as touching as it was scary.

"You haven't made your decision for certain, right?" Kaya continued brightly. "Consider it for a few more days. You can relax here in the meantime. You were planning to stay the night, right? Or at least, I hope you didn't intend to climb the mountain in the dark."

"If it's okay with you," Usopp said politely, but if he had any doubt he wouldn't have come.

She nodded with a cheerful smile. "Merry plans to make some peach pie tonight. I'll bring you some after dinner. Speaking of dinner, we should get you up to my room before my parents summon me. My ankles are starting to hurt anyway."

After returning Usopp's geta, Kaya led him by the hand out through the hallway and up the lofty steps to the second floor. With great exaggeration he made a show of tiptoeing behind her up to her room. Her crystal laugh carried from one end of the gray-white hall to the other.

Once they made it, she helped him get settled in, providing him with books, paper and pencil, and blankets.

"You can go out on the veranda, but just be careful," Kaya warned. "It's pretty late, and I don't think anyone will recognize you, but if someone sees a stranger near my window they might get suspicious."

"Alright," Usopp said, sitting cross-legged on her bed and pulling a blanket around his shoulders. As Kaya bade him goodbye and turned to leave, he reached his hand out and called, "Ah, wait. Can I … ask you something?"

Kaya responded without hesitation, "Of course."

"Say that I did choose to leave the temple, and they kick me out," he began slowly, "Maybe I couldn't live with you, but do you think … I could make it living in the town?"

Kaya mulled over the idea in heavy silence.

"Do you mean, 'could I pass for a human?'" she clarified. Usopp didn't respond, but he didn't need to. "I think you could. Though you'd have to give up being a tengu almost entirely. Luckily you don't have wings, so that's not a problem, but what about your nose and your staff and your mother's fan? I know how proud you are of your heritage."

"I could enjoy those things in private," Usopp conceded, rubbing an arm. "People don't have to know I'm not human."

"Well, that's true. I've known of a few non-humans to live in disguise here for all their lives. And nowadays even the kappa are somewhat accepted, though kept at arm's length," Kaya contemplated. "But they're not tengu."

"I know, I know," Usopp groaned, leaning back against the wall. "We've got a long history."

"Normally I wouldn't be so worried, but …" Kaya bit her lip with a painful expression. She pinned her gaze to the wall, refusing to look at him. "Well, after all, the chief issued that decree a few days ago …"

She looked back to find Usopp's expectant stare. He asked slowly, "What decree?"

Her eyes widened in alarm. "You … you didn't hear? Well, I guess you do live in the mountains, but I thought you visited here more often than that …"

She began nervously finger-combing her hair as she spoke.

"He declared that any tengu criminals caught by a bounty hunter could be turned in for double the price. The city is searching for insurgents from a group living in the forest." Kaya's face screwed up with melancholy disgust. "He's even authorized a number of non-human bounty hunters from neighboring cities and the countryside. Over sixty of them, if I recall correctly. The city council has arranged for basic housing for most of them."

Usopp balked. For Syrup Village, with a population of approximately three hundred natives, sixty was a big number. Add the number of active bounty hunters already living there and the total could be over a hundred hunters. There were about a hundred and fifty tengu in the Upper Yard temple, and many more living in the forest below. But if the hunters were skilled, being outnumbered by a couple hundred tengu might not be an issue.

"That's not the worst part," Kaya continued. "The city is offering an extra reward for any tengu 'artifacts' submitted independently of tengu bounties."

"Like fans and staffs?" Usopp squeaked, feeling for his mother's fan.

"Yes. But the most valuable prizes are tengu masks and wings. The council hasn't made any distinctions on how they're acquired, but I'm sure you can imagine."

Usopp's blood ran cold. He clutched his mother's fan tightly, willing away the image of bounty hunters, a cloud of them, a swarm of them, surging hungrily towards him and the forest.

"Wh- … why would they do that?" he gaped. "Doesn't the council realize the consequences?"

"I think they do," Kaya affirmed with an angry voice. "I think a witch-hunt is on, but they don't have the guts to admit it."

"Maybe …" Usopp began shakily, "Maybe I'd be fine. I don't have wings, or a mask …"

"But you still have the staff and fan," his friend pointed out.

"Would they really kill me over that?" he panicked, pulling the blankets tighter around himself. "They … they could just take it from me!"

"Maybe. But I doubt you'd let them do that." Kaya tucked a long strand of soft white hair behind her ear and stared at the floor. "Nobody knows what the new bounty hunters are capable of, what they're prepared to do, or if the town will be able to regulate it. Honestly, how are they to know which tengu broke what law? All tengu will look the same."

She looked back up to see him shivering. Frowning, she sheepishly clarified, "I'm not trying to convince you to stay at the temple. But I do think you should know the risks. I would've told you sooner, but I thought you came knowing the risks."

Usopp commented with a shuddering voice, "The temple is completely closed off from the world. What little I know is from what you've told me."

"Then I'll take responsibility. If you leave the temple, I'll take you in and find you a place to live," she answered with determination. A pinch of relief snuck onto Usopp's face, bolstering her confidence. "You're my friend, and I won't allow anyone to hurt you."

"I'll … I'll think about it," Usopp promised.

With an energetic nod that was only slightly comforting, Kaya said, "I'll be back soon with some food. I don't think anyone will come in while I'm gone, but if they do, you can hide in the closet." Then she left him alone.

He passed the following hour reading a romance novel she left him: the third volume of a series he'd never seen. He hadn't read anything other than scripture in a long time-not since his mother died. When he was little, she taught him just enough of human writings that he could navigate street signs and read children's books. Of course, the romance novel in his hands was far beyond him, but he understood enough to realize it was boring. Soon after, he closed the book and began drawing.

Eventually Kaya returned with a large piece of Merry's pie and beckoned him to eat on the veranda, leaving the doors open to cool the room. The peach filling made Usopp nostalgic for home. The temple seemed so far away from their joyful chatter, and yet he couldn't imagine a life where he would forsake the Upper Yard and priesthood.

As they ate, they talked about childhood memories, things they wanted to see in their lifetime, and anything else left uncovered in the years they'd known each other. Kaya's mounting frustration and despair at her illness and apprenticeship came tumbling out. And for what it was worth, Usopp managed to share just a piece of the suffering he felt as he watched his mother pass on from this world. It was only a piece, barely a few sentences, but more than he'd managed to say to anyone in years. He felt he had to make some effort. This could either be the last time they talked, or the first of many more to come.

At some point Merry came by to bid Kaya goodnight. Usopp hid on the veranda, pie fork still hanging out of his mouth, until the servant left.

"I'm rather tired," Kaya informed him. "Are you ready to sleep?"

Usopp could have continued talking and reading and drawing all night, but he nodded obediently. With Kaya still gradually convalescing, and Usopp facing a long journey home the next day, they needed rest.

They closed up the veranda, turned off all the lights, and climbed into the narrow bed-Usopp facing the wall, his back to hers like two brothers sharing a cot at an inn. Kaya bid him goodnight and began humming a lullaby to herself. Thinking nothing of anything, Usopp immediately drifted off to the sound of her voice. He dreamed of his mother, floating in an unfathomable darkness, with gold-tinged skin and a smile. Her strong black wings hid in the shadows, waiting for him to seek them out. Waiting to lift him up.