...Well, it's finally come to this. You guys all know what's coming.
Thanks to dreamwalkerlisa for the Follow.
MusicOfMadness - I cried when I first saw it, when I saw the special episode, and when I watched it again so that I could write this scene!
xenocanaan - Maria won't be remembering everything for a loooong time. She remembers random chunks in each arc, so each time it'll be something a little different to look forward to. :)
Tsukino Aisuru - A - MEEEEEERYYYY!
And now...
Chapter 37 - A Ship's Sorrowful Farewell
"Hey, Usopp! Are you there?"
"Where did you run off to? Come back!"
Maria cracked an eye open and watched from her new sleeping spot - to the right of the Going Merry's figurehead - as Luffy and Chopper went around the ship looking for the long-nosed sniper who had helped them get Robin back. The amnesiac had been trying to sleep, but as soon as the crew had scattered around the deck near the figure head, Luffy had somehow gotten it into his head that he wanted to talk to Usopp.
Somehow, Usopp had managed to scramble out of everybody's sight as soon as the captain had said his thoughts out loud. And now Chopper was helping their captain search for the sniper.
Maria glanced over at the figurehead of the Merry, her eyes running over the scratched white paint and the metal plating that went all the way around one portion of the neck.
"You've been through a lot, haven't you?" Maria murmured quietly, her eyes moving up to the painted eyes of the figurehead. The amnesiac has seen memories where she talked strange creatures that had Devil Fruit abilities without eating the actual fruit; she didn't see why she couldn't talk to the ship like Luffy and Usopp seemed to.
"And you've spent every single day with this crew," Maria continued. "Considering how roughed up you are, it must've been a wild ride, right?" Her face softened slightly. "I wish that you had a voice...hearing about their adventures from your perspective would be pretty interesting..."
"Seriously, I just saw him!" Luffy complained, having Chopper carry him away from the cabin door.
Since Luffy's body was still exhausted, he couldn't exactly move around on his own two feet. However, why Chopper was carrying him in Brain Point, Maria didn't have a clue.
"STOP PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK!" Luffy bellowed, thrusting his fists into the air. "GET OUT HERE OR I'LL KICK YOUR ASS!"
"Kick your ass!" Chopper repeated.
Maria watched the two turn to look at a mass of red fabric sitting next to Sanji. As soon as Usopp had disappeared from sight, he had come up from the lower level of the cabin and had sat down where Usopp had been a moment ago.
"Hey, do you know where he is, Sogeking?" Luffy asked. "You're his friend, right?"
Of course, everybody except for Luffy and Chopper knew that Usopp and Sogeking were the same person.
Sogeking fidgeted as Luffy spoke, but then he quickly jumped up and turned around, folding his bandaged arms across his chest. "No need to fear! He took a different boat and went on ahead by himself."
Luffy and Chopper gained wide eyes, and Sanji stood up without a word and clocked Sogeking in the head with a foot.
Maria found it amusing that Sanji decided to keep his foot there and that Sogeking didn't fall down and instantly start to complain about the pain.
"But why?" Chopper asked.
"That doesn't make any sense!" Luffy agreed. "It's his ship, right?"
"You have got to be kidding me," Zoro muttered from Maria's immediate right, where he was sitting on the deck railing. "If they don't know who he is already, then what is it going to take?"
"Maybe you should take his mask off right in front of them," Maria suggested, glancing up at the swordsman. "I think that's usually how they do it in this kind of thing."
"Nah. They'd probably think he was Usopp's twin brother or something."
"I checked everywhere," Nami suddenly reported. "Looks like we're the only ones on the ship."
"That's pretty strange," Sanji commented, looking over at the navigator. "The Merry didn't sail itself here, did it?"
Maria frowned thoughtfully as an orange flash moved through the back of her mind. "It could be possible that the entire ship was possessed. There are recorded incidents of Pokemon possessing appliances. I think I made friends with one that liked to play practical jokes on people by possessing household appliances and scaring them. His favorite was to possess someone's fridge and eat everything that was in it."
Luffy and Chopper stared at Maria with wide eyes while Robin blinked a couple times, a curious expression in her eyes.
Zoro snorted. "Yeah, sure. Like that exists."
"Easy for you to say. You didn't run into the Rotom when he was on a pranking spree."
"Well, even if they do exist, we should be glad that they aren't around here," Sanji commented. "We've got one bottomless pit to worry about, and he's more than enough." He jabbed a thumb in Luffy's direction.
"Besides, we can't be the only ones on this ship." The swordsman brought the conversation back around to Nami's original point. "Someone was calling us. The whole crew heard it, except for her." Zoro nudged Maria with one of his black boots, causing the amnesiac to scowl up at him.
"I have a name, you know," Maria muttered.
"So you don't know who it was?" Kokoro asked, hands resting on her hips.
"No," Robin spoke up from further down from Maria's side of the figurehead. "Just a voice beckoning us to the sea."
"Come on, you guys! The answer is obvious!"
Maria turned her head and looked at Luffy curiously, as did the others.
"I'm telling you, that was Merry's voice we heard!" Luffy declared.
"What?" Chopper repeated in surprise. "You think so?"
Maria blinked a couple times out of surprise. "The ship does have a voice?"
"Come on, Merry!" Luffy called, grinning and waving at the figurehead. "Say something else!"
"I think we'd know by know if the ship could talk," Zoro commented dryly.
"You know, as ridiculous as it may sound, I was thinking the same thing," Nami commented from the lower portion of the deck. "But there's no way, right? It's impossible..."
Nami trailed off, leaving everyone sitting in silence. Maria's eyes trailed back to the figurehead, and she looked at the sheep's head with a curious expression.
What kind of ship are you?
"Hey, look - there's a ship coming!"
Maria turned her head to look at Luffy, who was looking out as something that was behind the amnesiac - or, rather, in front of the ship. She turned around, and her eyes widened when she caught sight of what was in front of them.
"It's a Galley-La Company ship," Sanji noted.
"What's it doing out here?" Maria asked, getting up to her feet and looking out at the large ship in front of them. She could hear cheers coming from the ship's deck and could see faint figures waving in their direction. "And who's on board?"
Luffy let out a laugh from behind the amnesiac. "Ahoy! What's up, Ice Pops?"
"Ice Pops?" Maria murmured. She looked up again at the ship in front of them, and her eyes widened when she caught sight of a certain blue-haired, bandaged mayor.
"Ice-for-Brains?" Franky asked from nearby. "Huh."
"Ice-for-Brains?" Maria repeated, glancing over at the cyborg. "You two know each other?"
"Oh, yeah. He and I go way back." Franky gave the teen a grin.
"Huh."
There came a creaking noise from somewhere on the ship, and suddenly the deck beneath Maria's feet lurched forward at an angle, causing the teen to yelp in surprise as she was thrust into the deck railing, but not overboard.
"What just happened?" Maria demanded in a panicked yelp, turning around to look back at the others. Her startled confusion turned into a confused frown when she saw that not all of the ship had been lurched into the odd angle the front deck was at.
"Merry!" Sogeking murmured, pain in his voice as he got to his feet from where he had fallen.
"Hey! Their ship's breaking apart!" someone on the Galley-La ship called. "Why's it breaking apart all of a sudden?"
"There's nothing sudden about it," Sanji muttered from where he was sitting on the deck. "We all knew this was going to happen."
Maria blinked a couple times before she remembered what exactly it was that the shipwrights had said was wrong with the ship. The keel...
Luffy half sat up from here he was lying and looked at Sanji in confusion.
"Before we left, they told us that the Merry was unfit to sail," Sanji remained the captain.
"Well, yeah, but..."
"What happened to you, Merry?" came Nami's concerned voice from the lower deck.
Curious, Maria moved around the deck using the railing to keep herself from sliding back. Once she managed to reach the end that led down the stairs, however, the amnesiac stopped short in shock.
It looked like something had ripped through the ship, leaving a jagged rip that not only went through the deck, but most of the inside of the ship as well. It was a miracle that the Merry hadn't started sinking yet!
Maria let out a hiss of sympathetic pain. "Ouch."
"Ice Pops, help! Merry's in trouble!"
Maria turned her head and caught sight of Luffy now kneeling on the figurehead, looking up at the Galley-La ship. She let go of the railing and let herself slide back down to where she had been standing when the break had occurred.
"Can't you do something?" Luffy continued. "You got here just in time - you're all shipwrights, aren't you? I'm begging you, don't let her die now! Merry's more than just a ship - she's a member of our crew! If it wasn't for her, we all would have died back there! So come on! Do something!"
Maria tightened her grip on the deck railing, looking up at the mayor of Water 7 with expectant concern. She had been there for the final verdict from the shipwrights, but she didn't want to believe that they could just give up on the ship so easily.
The amnesiac bit her lower lip as she watched Iceberg bow his head.
"She's fought hard for you..." Iceberg murmured, his voice cutting through the air, "but it's time to let her rest."
Maria looked over at Luffy, and noticed that his fight-ready expression had changed to one of slight shock.
"Besides, I've already done everything that I can."
Maria turned her head to look back at Iceberg with an expression of confusion. "What?"
"Last night, during Aqua Laguna, after I had finished the repairs to the Rocket Man and seen you off, I was walking to the shelters when I heard what sounded like a wooden mallet hitting against something on Scrap Island. I went down in order to check it out, and I found your ship beached there and turned on its side. I thought the damage that had been done to it was from Aqua Laguna, but the damage to the keel had been from much further back. I was investigating the keel when I heard the voice."
Sogeking made a noise, and Maria glanced back to look at him. He was gripping the deck railing behind him so tightly, the amnesiac wondered if it was going to break.
" 'I want to sail' is what it said," Iceberg continued. "I don't know what came over me, but I did what I could to repair the ship and make her decent. When I had managed to upright it and I came back to myself, I was about to leave when I heard the voice speak again. It said 'thank you'. Then the ship turned and she was washed out to sea."
Maria put her hand over her mouth in shock, and she looked over at the figurehead again.
"This is a miracle," Iceberg concluded. "There's no other word for it. The miracle of a ship that's gone beyond its limits, to see you one last time."
Wow...
"As you know, I've been a shipwright for many years. But I've never seen a ship as incredible as this one. It's lived a wonderful life."
Considering how little Maria knew about the ship, the amnesiac found herself surprised when tears started to build up in her eyes. Wiped the tears off her face and looked at her wet fingers in complete confusion.
What is this? Why am I crying?
On the figurehead, Luffy shifted. Maria turned her head to look up at her captain when he bowed his head and closed his eyes, his face shadowed by his hat.
"I understand," Luffy stated quietly.
Maria stiffened a little bit when she heard Luffy say that.
Time Break
Maria stood in the long boat with the other Straw Hats, watching Luffy standing on his own directly in front of the broken ship that had carried the crew so far. The amnesiac rubbed along the wood of her phoenix staff with the thumb of her right hand as she stood next to Sogeking, who had his arms folded across his chest.
"Well, guys," Luffy stated without turning around. "You ready?"
"Yeah," Zoro replied from where he stood on Sogeking's other side.
Luffy lifted a stake of wood up from a small pile of burning coals. Maria had set fire to them when the shipwrights had brought out everything the Straw Hat had asked for. The captain had said he wanted to do this properly, and Iceberg had agreed that this way would be for the best.
Although, it didn't exactly help that the shipwrights had all gawked at Maria when she had pulled her staff out of nowhere before placing her left hand on the coals in order to set them ablaze.
"Merry, I know the bottom of the sea is a dark and lonely place," Luffy stated, holding the torch out over the edge of the boat. "But don't worry - we're here to see you off."
Maria could barely see Luffy moving the torch from where she was standing, but she sensed more than saw the flames start to burn at the wood. Maybe it was an after-effect of her abilities?
"I'm sure you wish that he's here, but it's probably best that Usopp isn't around," Luffy added. "I don't know if he could take this."
"Well?" Zoro asked, not taking his gaze off the ship. "Is that true?"
Maria glanced over at Sogeking curiously, wondering what his answer would be.
"Of course it isn't," Sogeking murmured quietly. "We must all say our farewells someday. Every man knows that. We must all hold back our tears."
Maria gave the sniper a sad look, then looked back at the ship. The fire suddenly branched out over the outside of the ship, causing the amnesiac to swallow as Luffy tossed the torch he had been holding into the water. Then he pushed against the wood that hadn't been touched yet, allowing for the captain to start to float back towards the others.
"Luffy knows that," Sogeking added. "He knows what has to be done."
Maria watched as the fire started to spread from the rip in the wood over the other parts of the ship, climbing up the rigging and covering the crow's nest before going after the front half of the ship.
She knew that, if Luffy wanted to, he could say the word and the amnesiac could use Flash Fire to stop the burning instantly...but that wasn't going to happen.
"Thank you for carrying us for so long and so far, Merry," Luffy murmured.
Maria watched Luffy's boat drifting back quietly, but then she felt something small and cold land on her head right before a small, white something drifted into view.
"Huh?" Maria crossed her eyes as the white, fuzzy thing landed on her nose. It looked like snow, but...it felt warm. Strangely warm.
The warm snowflake on Maria's nose change from a friendly white to a bright, glowing yellow, and Maria's vision shifted.
The amnesiac found herself not standing on the long boat with the others, but in a cloud of visions that came and went.
Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Usopp were standing on deck, looking over a black piece of cloth - Usopp being the only one with white, red, and yellow paint on his arms.
"Paint one on the sail too, Usopp!" Luffy ordered, grinning at the skull-and-crossbones with his straw hat on them.
"Sure thing!" came the reply from the long nose.
The scene changed, showing Nami lecturing the three boys on the damage that had been done and that they had to take care of the ship as its crew. All three of them were rubbing giant sore spots on their heads.
Then...
"Hey, Luffy, what's so loud down there?" Zoro demanded, looking down from where he had been napping on top of the cabin.
"Cannon firing practice," Luffy replied, looking up from the cannon he was sitting in front of. He looked over at a tower of rock with a sour expression. "But it's not going very well."
"Let the expert aim the thing!" Usopp came over and aimed the cannon, managing to fire at the rock tower and take it down completely.
The scene changed again, and Maria found herself standing on deck in the middle of a storm.
"I'm going to the Grand Line to find the All Blue," Sanji declared, planting his foot on a barrel.
"I'm gonna be King of the Pirates!" Luffy yelled.
"To become the greatest swordsman!"
"I'm going so I can draw a map of the world!"
"I'm going...to become a brave warrior of the sea!"
Five feet broke the barrel in honor of their going to the Grand Line.
All these and more flashed through Maria's mind, and the amnesiac found herself crying as she was brought back to the present, the glowing orb now gone from her nose and the Straw Hats' ship was going up in flames.
Merry...all of your adventures... Maria held in the urge to let out a loud sniffle and start wailing. Instead, her tears started to come out even faster. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Sogeking's shoulders were shaking, and tears were starting to run down his cloak like rivers.
"I'm sorry."
Maria looked up upon hearing the unfamiliar voice echo through her mind. W-who-
"I wanted to carry everyone just a little bit further."
Maria sucked in a breath when she realized who was speaking. Merry!
"I had so much fun...I wish our adventures would never end..."
"Merry!" Chopper wailed.
Maria felt her throat constrict as she heard the pain in the reindeer's voice. After seeing everything...she knew how much the ship meant to the Straw Hats...and how much they meant to her.
"But I'm sorry I can't -"
"No, Merry!" Luffy's cry stopped the ship short.
Maria looked over at her captain, her tears continuing to flow freely, but decreasing in number.
"If anyone should be apologizing, it should be us, not you! I'm really bad at steering...I rammed you into icebergs and all kinds of stuff! I took bad care of you and ripped your sails!"
Maria closed her eyes and caught sight of Luffy sitting on top of Merry's figure head and grinning like an idiot.
"Zoro and Sanji are idiots, too - they were breaking your stuff all the time!"
The two of them were grinning like the idiots they were and enjoying themselves, drinking and poking fun at each other. The entire deck looked like a festive party.
"Usopp tried to fix you, but he wasn't very good at it! We all know that!"
Maria could hear Sogeking sniffling, but instead she saw Usopp with a hammer and nails, trying to repair the deck railing, then laughing his head off with Chopper when Luffy stuck a pair of chopsticks up his nose and started dancing around, laughing at himself.
"If anyone's sorry it's...it's us!"
Luffy's loud wails caused Maria to open her eyes again, and she saw her captain kneeling in his small boat, weeping.
The amnesiac's face shifted, and gained an expression of pain. Luffy...
"I don't mind. I was happy."
Maria looked back at the burning ship.
"I know you always treated me with love. Thank you."
The flames were starting to get stronger. Maria could barely see the burning figurehead for the fire...and her eyes were blurry with the final few tears that she had left to give.
Even if the time we spent together was short...I'm glad...that I could spend it with you."
The fire's strength increased, and the ship disappeared from Maria's sight. Her breath caught in her throat as her heart jumped, and the teen realized what it was that had just happened.
Luffy seemed to realize the same thing, because he threw back his head and howled the ship's name.
"MERRY!"
...*sniffle*