Title: On the Ocean Blue

Written By: NikoArtagnan

Genre: Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

Rating: T, will eventually go to M

Summary: An outcast from Earth is flung headfirst into a hostile, unforgiving world, and finds themselves tagging along with a very particular crew of misfit pirates, and the boy who wants to be the King of them all...But this isn't the world of One Piece you thought you knew, and there are terrible things lurking in the shadows...

Chapter-Specific Warnings: Non-consensual mental alteration, mental health issues


Chapter Eight:

A Lonely Man Walking In A Lonely Fog


USOPP

He was going to die.

Oh, he didn't want to die, especially not now, not when his friends needed him so much. But he couldn't move – his bones felt like jelly, he ached all over, and he felt as though his muscles had turned to 1,000 pound weights – and he knew that here, facing a man who could make any part of himself explode, that was a death sentence.

"USOPP!" Luffy screamed as Mr. 5 cocked the gun.

The sniper closed his eyes. Why wasn't he stronger? Why wasn't he faster? Why wasn't he cleverer? Sanji and Zoro wouldn't be in this position if they'd been in his shoes. They would have beaten the crap out of Mr. 5, saved them all.

Nami and Vivi would have managed to talk their way out of this, somehow. They were ridiculously smart, and Usopp knew Nami could talk a man out of the shirt on his back if she tried hard enough.

He saw Carue's singed body lying some yards away, the wax steadily choking the rest of the life from his friends' still bodies, and Luffy – red-faced, hoarse from screaming, and burned down one side – fighting to get past Mr. 3. He saw the still, wax-coated form of the fallen Elbaf giant, and Usopp wished – oh, by the Gods, how he wished – he was stronger, a real "warrior of the sea".

'I'm sorry,' he thought to his nakama. 'I tried, I really did. But that wasn't good enough. I've never been good enough, and now my friends and I going to die because of it.'

He tried so very hard not to cry.

He would not disgrace himself by crying like a baby, not in front of Luffy. There was the faintest puff of air, and Usopp gritted his teeth, waiting for the end. The Baroque Works' agents were all laughing, Luffy was screaming-but then.

Then he heard someone yelling – "SORU!" – and then there was a figure standing between him and certain death, shadowed by the glaring light of the overhead sun.

"Tekkai," the figure said, voice as cold as ice and harder than diamonds, and the air bomb rushing towards them flattened as it slammed into the figure's outstretched palms, dispersing – harmlessly – into the air around them.

He stared. 'Who-?' He thought wildly, but then the figure knelt down, and the words caught in his throat.

It was Ciel.

Ciel Russo, with a mischievous laugh and grin for anyone who cared to look twice in his direction, who moved like a cobra when he walked, who knew how to press Sanji's buttons better than anyone – including Zoro – who flirted outrageously with Nami, and who loved his cats more than anything.

Ciel Russo, who knelt in front of him, with eyes the color of jade, muscles pulled tight and taut in a face pale with fury, the sun blazing around his head like some deity's golden crown.

"What do I need to do, Usopp?" the man asked quietly.

His mouth worked, trying to form words, but he coughed instead, and blood filled his mouth, spilling over his lips. When he managed to get himself under control and looked back up at Ciel, he felt something deep inside of him cringe away in terror.

Ciel's face was blank, not an expression on it but for the eyes.

In his home village, they'd often have fall festivals, with sweet treats, lively music, and enormous bonfires made from fallen leaves. Sometimes they'd chop down whole trees and use them to fuel the fires. Usopp remembered watching one when he was about five, watching an oak crisp and burn in the flames, and at the very heart of the twelve-foot high bonfire, he could see a painfully bright green flame, the color of emeralds.

Ciel's eyes burned like that green fire did, with a slow, intense fury, but the hand he laid on Usopp's cheek was gentle. He scooped the oil soaked rope up in his other.

"You did very well, kiddo," Ciel said. "Yer friends are alive. I'll take it from here." Then he paused, looking – of all things – uncertain, before sighing. "Oh, fuck it," he whispered, and pressed a finger to Usopp's head.

The sniper let out a groan of relief as something warm stole beneath his ribs, healing the bruising and internal damage. Even as the warmth continued to ease his aches, one end of the rope was placed in his hand.

"Hold this for me," Ciel ordered and closed his hand into a fist around it. "Can you do that, Usopp?"

He nodded, still dumbfounded and a little bit light-headed from the warmth seeping into his skin.

"Good man." The dark-haired man stood, letting the rope hang loose around his wrist, the end clasped tightly in in his hand. "Let's do this then."

Mr. 5 pointed the barrel of the gun at Ciel, who didn't even flinch. "Just where do you think you're going, hm?"

Ciel laughed, a dark, awful sound and shook his head. "Moron." Then he disappeared.

Usopp barely had enough time to clench his hand around the rope end he held before it shot out of his grip. He couldn't believe what he was seeing – or rather, what he wasn't seeing. The dark haired man was moving so fast he seemed to teleport from place to place, landing lightly on one section of the wax, before disappearing to the next, leaving sections of the oil-soaked rope embedded in his wake.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! Mr. 5 shot again and again, trying to hit Ciel, but every last shot missed. He felt himself smile so wide it was painful.

He quickly lunged for his bag, to get something to light the rope, only to get crushed flat into the ground by a surprising weight against his back.

"I don't think so. Crescendo Stone," Miss Valentine said. She turned to look down at him, smiling unpleasantly as Usopp choked under the sudden and crushing weight. "I wonder how many kilos you can stand? 10 kilos? 30 kilos?" Usopp felt the ground cave under the pressure being forced into and through his body and spat blood, his ribs creaking dangerously.

How were they going to win? He couldn't reach his slingshot or anything to start a fire, not with his bag so far away and this monster crushing his internal organs. Usopp kept reaching for his bag, but his eyes looked furiously around the battlefield, looking for anything that could start a sufficient fire to light the rope. Then he saw it.

"Luffy!" he cried out, choking as the weight increased. "Luffy, use Mr. 3's flame to light the rope!"

His captain stopped, skidding back several feet. "What?"

"LIGHT THE DAMN ROPE WITH THE FIRE, LUFFY!" Usopp hollared with all the air he still had left in his lungs. "IT'LL SAVE THE OTHERS!" 'C'mon, Luffy, use that tiny brain of yours and think, damn it!'

Luffy's eyes lit and he turned back to Mr. 3. One rubbery hand shot out and latched around the bottom of the three, right below the flame. He immediately began dragging the Baroque Works' officer to the rope.

"Everyone wake up! Wake up!" He yelled.

Usopp sighed in relief, only to choke in shock as the weight on his back increased tenfold.

"You little shit," Miss Valentine snarled, the rage contorting her face into something awful. "How dare you interfere with us! 100 kilos! 200 kilos! 300 kilos!"

Usopp would have screamed, had there been any air left in his lungs. 'Damn it Luffy, h-hurry up!'

"Tetsu-tai ken!" And then he heard Miss Valentine scream and the pressure left his back. He was hurriedly pulled out of the crater the officer had forced him into, and cradled against a hard body. His limbs flopped uselessly, his cheek resting against a thickly muscled shoulder, and then the world was a blur of color.

When everything finally stopped moving, he was nestled in the thick roots of one of the large trees bordering the battleground, with Carue laying on the ground beside him, Gin and Shere Khan curled around the injured bird, and Ciel standing in front of him.

"Close yer eyes, Usopp," the man said, leaning over him and bracing his arms above Usopp's head.

Usopp closed his eyes.

There was a tiny puff of noise, then a riotous wave of color burst like fireworks behind his eyelids. He could feel the insane heat through the very tree itself, which trembled and groaned, so strong was the fire.

'The tree,' Usopp thought to himself, dazed and delirious from the pain and the heat, 'sounded like it was crying.'

"It's okay," Ciel was whispering – whispering to the tree? – and Usopp managed to open his eyes, if only for a brief second.

Ciel's eyes glowed like emeralds baked in the heart of the sun, and vines of pure, green energy vanished into the tree, keeping it steady.

"It's okay," Ciel whispered to the tree. "I have you, my love, just stay standing."

Usopp closed his eyes as the inferno blazed, and waited for it to recede, his mind capable of taking nothing else.


Usopp didn't know if anyone else saw it, but when Nami and Vivi had latched onto Ciel after the man had produced a perfectly whole Eternal Log from his bag, the dark-eyed man had…

Had flinched.

It had only lasted for less than a second, but Usopp had seen it, he knew it had happened, before Kel managed to master himself and return the hugs – faking an ease Usopp could see the man didn't have.

He'd never seen anyone – in his life – that uncomfortable with another human touching them.

No, wait…he had seen it before. Back when he was little, when his Mama had been the main doctor on the island, a pirate ship had been wrecked in a vicious storm, and the only one who had survived had been a man – a slave to the pirates.

He'd remembered wanting to go ask the man questions about what it was like to live with pirates – because then he'd been too young to realize what the man had gone through – but his Mama had told him not to, eyes tight and sad and hard.

She told him then-…"Not all pirates are like your father, and most people fear the skull and crossbones for a very, very good reason."…-and he'd watched through the window as the man woke up, delirious and confused and his Mama had gone to help him.

What had happened next had scared him deeply-

…His Mama moves slowly towards the man staring at the wall, like she is approaching a wild animal, and lays a hand on his shoulder as Usopp watches. The man flinches, sharp and involuntary, and whirls around, pressing his back against the wall, all the while letting out these half gasps and cut-off noises that could be words but aren't anything coherent.

Usopp doesn't know why this man is so afraid of his Mama. His Mama is the best doctor in the village, warm and kind and strong, full of glittering, colorful stories from her time as a Marine patrolling the Grand Line, and with capable, gentle hands that could heal anything from a cut on the knee to bullet wound. Obviously this man didn't know anything, Usopp decides.

His Mama whispers now, quiet and gently, "My name is Banchina, what's yours? It's a beautiful day outside, if you're feeling better I'll take you outside so you can see the sun, feel it on your skin. It's a wondrous feeling, isn't it, the sun? Warmer than most people can bear, I've often found, but I love it. When I was a Marine, I spent hours on the deck basking in the sun. My men used to laugh at me, called me a lizard. But after we spent months on end battling our way through storms that threatened to overturn the ship and seeing only gray skies, they realized why I liked it and joined me after a while. They called themselves 'Banchina's Lizard Squad", can you believe it? Such idiots. Anyway, do you feel up to eating anything…"

On and on his Mama speaks, softly and slowly, until the terror and pain that darkens the man's eyes and tenses his shoulders begins to seep away. Tears spill over the man's cheeks and he weeps like a baby into Banchina's arms.

A year later, the man will leave Syrup Village, headed for the home that was stolen from him. He's as healthy as Usopp's Mama can make him, but he never does quite stop flinching when someone touches him without his permission…

-and he still remembered that man to this day.

Even though that man and Ciel were as different as night and day – no one could ever accuse Ciel Russo of being fearful of anything – that fear in the man's eyes had been the same fear that flickered through Ciel's. He found his eyes drawn towards the dark-haired man as he smirked at a fuming Sanji – Usopp snorted at how easily Ciel pushed all of Sanji's buttons – and he wondered what had put that fear in Ciel's eyes.

What could make a man with such skill and power so wary of other humans?

Later, as they sailed away from Little Garden, Usopp caught the taller man watching him with dark, cold, inexplicably sad eyes, and felt his soul shrink away in fear.


Usopp yawned, idly casting a look out over the sea before turning back to the blueprints he'd been working. It was how he spent the night watches he so often volunteered for. It was generally quiet at night, perfect for working on his weapons and inventions.

He smiled ruefully. He'd learned quickly not to work on certain ammunition whenever there was a chance Luffy could interrupt. The spices and Tabasco he worked with were not to be mishandled – he learned his lesson the last time Luffy knocked a whole vial of it into his unprotected eyes. He shuddered.

He looked up at the sky through the light fog the ocean had shrouded the ship with, only to blink as a voice reached his ears.

"Are you goin' to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine…"

He didn't recognize the voice, hauntingly deep and hypnotizing. Then a shiver of fear wrapped around his spine. He'd heard stories about voices like that. Voices that could convince a man to walk off his ship and be dragged down to the deep by women with ragged hair and too many teeth.

"Tell her to make me a cambric shirt. On the side of a hill in the deep forest green. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground without no seams nor needlework. Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain…"

Sea-singers, mermaids, sirens of the deep. Usopp began shaking as the mournful words curled around his ears, urging him closer and closer to the edge of the crow's nest.

"Tell her to find me an acre of land on the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. She washes the grave with silvery tears between salt water and the sea strands…"

He didn't want to look over the edge. But he had to. What if it really was a monster? Everyone else was asleep but him, the monster could kill them all in their sleep. But Zoro and Sanji and Luffy were all really strong, and so was Ciel, so they shouldn't need him, right?

Against his will, his body inched towards the side of the crow's nest, sweat breaking out over his body, his fingers trembling-

"Usopp?"

"GYAAA!" He shrieked at the voice that came from behind him. He whirled around, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest and saw Ciel climbing over the edge of the crow's nest. The man stopped and blinked.

"Are you all right?" Ciel asked, raising an eyebrow as he took a seat opposite Usopp.

Usopp struggled to control his breathing, slumping against the wood behind him.

"Do you make any noise?" he got out, rubbing his chest.

The sound that came from the taller man would have been a snort of laughter from anyone else.

"Nah," he said, eyes twinkling with mischief. "It's too much fun watching people jump when I sneak up on them."

Usopp twitched. "Gaaah, you bastard," he said.

Ciel chortled. "Such compliments!"

Then there was a silence between the two of them, not quite comfortable, a subtle tension growing in the air as Usopp remembered what Kel had done in Little Garden.

What was Ciel, anyway? Had the man eaten some Devil Fruit? That wouldn't explain why he hadn't told any of them about it, though that could be the reason why Ciel had asked to come along. They had a Devil fruit user as a captain, they wouldn't be quite so liable to freak out because of someone's powers.

But why hadn't Ciel told them about it?

"Hey Ciel-"

"Usopp, tell me about your home."

Usopp blinked at the non sequitur.

"Uh, why do you want to know?" He asked.

Ciel smiled at him, and something about that smile made sweat break out on the back of his neck.

"Just curious. I do so love to hear stories, and you are a master storyteller, Usopp, if I could venture my own opinion. Do you think you could tell me some?"

Usopp felt his chest swell as Kel cocked his head at him, eyes shining with admiration.

"Well, I don't know-" 'And wait a minute, what was he doing? He wanted to ask Ciel what he had done at Little Garden! "-I'm not that good…"

His mind felt warm and fuzzy, like it had when he snuck a taste of his mother's spiced mead back when he was six-ish.

"Nonsense, Usopp," and Ciel's voice had taken a warm, liquid-y quality, smooth as silk on his ears, as addictive as chocolate. "Tell me. Tell me some of the stories you have in your head, and tell me the stories of your home. Syrup Island, am I right, my dear boy? Tell me stories of the leaves in autumn, the people you saw in your childhood, the food you ate for breakfast, for lunch, and dinner. Tell me stories of the girl who you gave the first vestige of that overwhelming imagination to. Tell me stories of Kaya, of Banchina, of Yasopp, dear, dear Usopp. Tell me…"

He talked. He told the other man as many stories as he could, felt the words – fictional and real, sometimes blurring the lines between the two – pour from his lips in and unstoppable flood, drowning out the little voice in his head that was screaming - What the hell is going on, what is he doing to us?! - until it could be heard no longer.

Around an hour he talked, basking in the frank and admiring attention of the older man, until Ciel offered to take the watch until dawn.

"You can get some sleep," he offered, still smiling, and Usopp really saw no reason to argue. He clambered down the ladder and all but staggered to the door that led down into the boy's room.

He stopped at the door, his mind suddenly straining, straining, desperately trying to reach something just beyond his grasp – what did I forget, what did I forget – before the exhaustion roared back into the fore of his mind.

He would no longer think about what he'd seen Ciel do with that strange power on Little Garden.

There were no longer any such memories of it in his head, after all.


Kelly looked out into the sky and let the tears come freely, swirling down her cheeks, misting into the deep, dense fog the ship was slowly passing through.

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine…" she whispered, and she had never felt more ashamed.