"What happened to you guys?"
Johnny and Yosaku look like they've gotten the worst sleep of their lives. Clothing disheveled, dark bags under their eyes--
"Are you guys imitating Gin?"
"OBVIOUSLY NOT!!"
They were at the port, ready to sail.
"Anyways," Johnny says, placating Yosaku before he goes on a rant about scary drunk fishmen and horror movie situations, "it's been nice meeting you again, Zoro-aniki, but we're really overstayed our welcome. We'll go our own way from here."
Zoro hums, leaning over the railing of the Merry. "What, really? Well, it really wasn't a problem for us, though."
"No, no, we've been in your kindness long enough!" Yosaku insists, "we need to be independent! Seeing Usopp-aniki and Luffy-aniki has made us very sure of that now!"
Then, in a muttered voice, Johnny adds, "we'll go crazy if we stay here any longer."
Zoro raises an eyebrow, "what was that?"
"Nothing, nothing!" Yosaku assures.
"We're bounty hunters, anyways. It's better if we find our own way from here," Johnny says, and they both move into their cool-guy poses, "it's good bye now, but may we meet again in the future."
Zoro leans his chin into his palm, smiling at that.
They've always been two clingbugs he didn't mind having around, but seeing them willingly cast off to grow their own legs made him feel a little proud of them.
"Well, good luck on that, whatever you do, I guess."
"Same to you, Anikis!"
Beside him, Gin leans against the railing. He's looking at his own wanted poster, a thumb running across the number eight in 18 million.
His picture's just his usual uninviting, indifferent mugshot, and his prestige is just as terrible as always-- maybe worse. He's gone from being known as Krieg's underdog right up into a rabid one.
(He didn't read that article fully, but the reports all say he's no longer a Krieg pirate. He's not sure how to feel about it.)
(His bounty is higher than Krieg's now. He's not sure how to feel about this, either.)
"You sure you don't want to make one last break for freedom?" Zoro says in an almost teasing manner, and Gin retaliates with a swift swing of his fist against Zoro's shin.
Zoro screeches, very shortly, curling into his knee for a moment-- before the next punch is thrown and Gin dodges with a large swerve to the side.
All the while, Kinoko has a very comfortable roller coaster ride on top of Gin's head.
Monkey D. Luffy is currently throwing a tantrum.
"Why did Nami get oneee! This isn't fair! I'm the Captain of the crew! The Captain!!"
"Yes, captain , but you haven't done anything yet," Sanji says, dusting off his hands from the final bag of flour he had to move into the galley.
"I beat up Don Pringles."
"They're blaming that on Gin."
"What?! NO FAIR!"
Cue baby whining. Sanji scowls at the octopus tangle of limbs and high-pitched wailing in the air, and he feels the sudden, undying urge to just step .
"Luffy?" Usopp calls from afar, his voice strangely lilting like a mother talking sweetly to her child, "do me a favour and help me read the newspapers."
"Ehhhhh?!"
"C'mon, captain, help a blind guy out. You can read, right?"
Luffy pouts, "yeah I can read!" he gets up, scrambling for the newspaper in Usopp's hand before sitting down angrily beside the sharpshooter, "uh," he squints, "must- mister- mystery man… did a mystery thing..."
"Really? What else?"
"Reading-- leading? A mystery word… something something...pirate."
Sanji watches as Luffy is impressively distracted from his tantrum, working intensely to decipher the news article about himself that he's somehow butchering.
Usopp had already gotten his tools out, shearing down an oddly-shaped wooden carving with the sanding machine. He's only half listening to Luffy, but it's enough to entertain the boy.
Wow , Sanji thinks, Usopp's good at taking care of kids.
Then he realizes. Wait a minute, that means my captain is an absolute child!
"Is there really no quick way to get him a bounty now?" Sanji says, crouching down and talking beside Usopp's ear where the captain can't hear. "He's going to be miserable for the whole week."
Usopp hums, absent-mindedly, "Nami's working on it."
"Nami-san's working on what ?"
"Yeah," is Usopp's noncommittal response.
"Answer my question."
"Uhh-- WAIT NOOO SANJI! My Kabuto MK VII! NOOO!"
The fishmen are there to see her off when Nami departs.
That doesn't exactly spare them from Nami's final wallet-stealing stunt, though.
In fact, only Kuroobi had been wise enough to stand away from the chaos. His overly cautious manner finally came in handy, and he was going to hold this against Choo for the next month as a retaliation for the fishman's obnoxious teasing the evening prior.
When Nami lands on the deck, she lands with a pile of thick wallets and a bright, beaming grin on her face.
The reaction on the ship is a healthy mixture of 'what the fuck', 'what the fuck', and 'oh Nami-san is so beautiful', bracket three exclamation marks.
Gin is obviously the former, but at this point, he's not going to retort anymore.
Nami waves at the island until they've gone over the horizon, and by then, her cheeks are tired. It doesn't stop her from smiling at the crew, though. "Sanji-kun, get the booze out, we're toasting."
"Huh, isn't it usually the captain that calls for it?" Gin raises an eyebrow.
Almost immediately as he says it, Luffy punches his arms into the air with a declaration. "Booze! We're celebrating!!"
"Nevermind."
The worst thing about the situation was probably how Sanji is already in the middle of the deck with a barrel and beer mugs, like he'd seen this coming ages ago.
Gin knows that this crew is small and their stock is currently full, but as a former first mate of a huge fleet, he's very well aware that rationing food is better than lavishing on it.
Sure, they should eat it before it goes bad but even so, he's not a fan of meaningless parties such as this one. They already drank a whole village dry yesterday and somehow they're still up for drinking?
"This is still a terrible way to ration resources."
"Yes, mother," Sanji sneers at him.
Gin makes his way toward the cabin where his tonfas are kept. In honour of Sanji being a painfully nice guy, he's not going to murder him. Instead, Gin's going to smash a hole in the deck in retaliation.
"C'mon, Gin!" and here comes Luffy, the rubber arms of doom, and Gin suddenly feels like he's wearing the world's most uncomfortable boiler suit with all the loops of arms around himself. "It's a toast! You have to be here!"
"It's a waste of booze."
"NOoooo! TOast! C'mooon!"
Gin did not sign up for a baby captain, but it's what he ended up with. He regrets everything.
He's tugged into the center, taking a mug. Kinoko is there too, sitting her fat butt in the center of the makeshift table, squinting birdily like some avian sage.
"Alright then!" Luffy bounces onto his feet, lifting his mug. "All of us are here now! So to our new comrades, CHEERS!"
Gin has to admit, he thinks this childish partying is fine too.
(Well, all things considered, it's fun.)
He could drink to his heart's content, because he didn't need to spend every waking hour making sure the ship ran, making sure the crew was trained, making sure they were on a course, and making sure the captain held authority.
Here, no one cares about that. Things are done in leisure, and the journey is enjoyed more often than large progress is made.
Unlike his days as the Commander of the Krieg pirates-- here, he could unwind. He could be a child among the children, and live without worry.
(Living without worry, huh.)
(Once upon a time, that had been his dream .)
And maybe, just maybe , Gin wants himself to think, just for a while… that on this ship, he can go for it again.
For days he can just sleep his worries away, without leaving one eye open.
For a life without the constant requirement of a murderer's nightly vigilance.
"What are you doing?"
The seas are calm, the winds are choppy, and the News Coo has raised their prices. Nami's pretty miffed about the latter two, but she'll enjoy the peace while she can.
Except, Usopp is making a mess of carving wood on the deck and Nami's concerned about wooden shards flying around in the breeze. What if it gets in someone's eyes? It won't be sanitary to have food nearby either, and with the erratic wind direction, that just might be possible.
"Making a bow," Usopp responds, thumb running around the edge.
Nami's expression scrunch into confusion. "Well, that's new."
"So is that gigantic battle axe in the female cabin, but you don't see me talking about it," is Usopp's immediate, sarcastic response.
Nami frowns, "Usopp, be real with me. Are you actually blind or are you just screwing with all of us?"
"...Find out in the next chapter of Usopp's East Blue adventures."
Nami spins her batons.
Usopp scrambles to his feet, "Zoro, save me!"
Well, all jokes aside, Nami sits down beside Usopp to look over the materials. "I think you'll need better bowstrings if you want it to be useful outside this sea," she suggests. "Why the sudden new arsenal, though?"
"Why the sudden gigantic battle axe?"
"It was a gift form Haruta," Nami hisses at him, evidently irritated. "And I, unlike you, have the ability to wield it."
Usopp scowls at that, "I'm perfectly capable at archery."
"Usopp, you're blind," Nami says, disbelief in her tone.
Usopp frowns, like he's offended at this betrayal of trust. He looks into the sky, "oh, almighty aiming god, can I become an archer?"
Kinoko makes a long caw.
Usopp promptly translates, like he's proving a point, "the almighty aiming god says yes," in an obnoxious matter-of-fact tone.
Nami groans, "Noko-chan, don't encourage him!!"
Gin stares incredulously at the luxurious meal in the galley.
"Sanji, this is a--"
"--terrible way to organize resources, yeah I get it you shithead. Just sit down and eat."
Gin has his tonfas with him this time, so nothing stops him from putting a hole into the wall. Usopp even makes a sad whimpering noise when it happens.
And Gin is just about done with this.
He throws his hands into the air. "Oh I've had enough! What if an emergency happens and we need to stretch out our food supply?! Don't just use all you have carelessly!"
Gin's got the entire Krieg annihilation starvation issue set out in trauma file number five-hundred and thirty, and his entire seaman experience just screams hell fucking no to the five star meal before him.
Sure, he'll eat it if it's there, but what the fuck Sanji?
They have no idea how long it'll take before they get to the next island, and who knows if they'll be able to restock as much as they did on Cocoyashi with two bounties on the crew!
So Gin tugs Sanji out of the door, closes it, and there the arguing begins.
"Don't just cook everything you find! Think of what's perishable and what's got a longer shelf life!"
Seeing all this food on the table just hurts his guilty conscience. Gin's never seen that much food for so little people in his entire goddamn life.
"Don't underestimate Luffy's stomach, you dipshit," Sanji returns with equal ire, though his swearing has the least heat in the entire exchange, "that's my job on this ship. You don't tell the chef how to cook his meals, got it?"
Sanji's job as the cook-- make sure nutrients are well balanced, prevent food-related illnesses on the ship, manage the food stock, and et cetera.
But here's Gin, the currently jobless member of the crew, sticking his nose in.
It's not as if Sanji and Gin are on bad terms in any meaning of the situation. In fact, if there's someone on the crew Gin would die happily for, it would be Sanji because of the debt he still doesn't believe he's repaid.
And no matter how much anyone denies it, Gin definitely has the most experience in sailing than the rest of them. Aside from Nami and Usopp's mysterious situation, of course.
Sanji would have had a similar amount of sea-time, but Gin is older, and he had been First Mate of Krieg. He's got the commanding and navigational experience that Sanji, chore boy and kitchen apprentice then sous chef, did not have.
"Sailing on the Baratie and sailing on a pirate ship are entirely different things," Gin snaps back lowly, "what's your sailing experience? Or have you been in nothing but restaurants your entire life?"
Sanji twitches at that. "Don't push your luck, you little shit," he hisses, "I sailed on a cruise ship when I was younger."
Gin crosses his arms, "that means you have no experience making exact amounts of food for small amounts of people."
Sanji tuts.
"Hit the nail on the head, didn't I?" Gin mutters. "You think that since Strawhat's a glutton, you can just cook till everyone's full and Luffy'll deal with the leftovers?"
Sanji clicks his tongue. Seems like that was right, too.
Gin grabs the chef by the collar. "Pirates don't get as much food stock and we don't have a lot of opportunities for supply runs. You don't think of it all in the same mindset as you had on the Baratie!"
Sanji keeps a hand on Gin's, glaring firmly. Gin might be right, but Sanji's not one to let anyone walk all over him. They're not even at the Baratie anymore-- his final fence was shattered and he could go wild all over again.
"How about you cool your head for one shitty second before I toss you overboard?!" Sanji snarls.
And just a little bit of him realizes that he did get something from his biology, after all.
His temper. His tendency for violence.
(It's all there, obscured but definitely there .)
(And it makes him so angry that he's ignored that history for so long and guess what? Someone here can actually make that part of him come back out.)
(Two. Two people.)
And Gin has the gall to scoff. "You know that's only doing me a favour, right?"
That's it.
"Shut up, you suicidal edgelord!" Sanji smashes his forehead right into Gin's.
It got ugly really fast, and eventually, because the others kept staring at them instead of helping, Kinoko came down from her perch to stop the scramble for pantry ownership.
(Luffy won.)
Last time around, there were three major factors in Luffy's early bounty earning.
And that was him taking down the big three of East Blue in tandem: Buggy the Clown, Foul Play Don Krieg, and Saw-Toothed Arlong.
This time around, the third factor in the equation are the Sun Pirates instead of Arlong himself. Luffy didn't take down the Sun Pirates this time, and instead, he drew two top executives with high bounties to his side.
"Of all things, they think I defected from Oyaji!" Nami sounds positively offended at the implication, a mug of sake in her hands as she sits on the deck.
Usopp picks up the bottle and refills her mug, because a drunkenly ranting Nami is a Nami you don't defy, even if the moon is high in the sky and they're supposed to be the lookout for the night.
(It's okay, Usopp has his Haki stretched out.)
"Could you believe that? Not even Luffy is that suicidal!" she rants. Then she scowls, "wait, actually, he is. Not the point!"
Monkey D Luffy, the mysterious crew-stealing pirate, is definitely on the Marines' radar. All that's left is to actually get his danger levels and his picture set, and who knows, he might break another record on his own.
"They're not wrong about me betraying the Don, though."
They turn up to see Gin, apparently not as asleep as they all thought. For a moment, Usopp was really glad that they weren't chatting about future-specific things today.
Anyways, Usopp gestures with his hand, and Kinoko makes her way from the railing toward the galley.
"But they just assumed you were the one to cause the whole mess! Isn't that rude?" Nami whines. "Life of a pirate-- getting blamed for everything under the sun! Geez!"
Gin settles down beside them so they sit in an almost circle. Kinoko returns with a tea cup and Usopp pours out some sake for the Man-Demon.
"It's true that I'm bitter, having to take Strawhat's credit from him," he admits, downing it all in one shot, "but it's nothing to get drunk over."
"Says you, then chugs," Usopp grimaces, receiving the cup again to pour out another fill.
Seems like he's the only functioning lookout tonight, and he's the blind one. It's over. This ship is doomed.
Gin looks tired-- he sounds tired, but none of them ask why he's awake, none of them tell him to go back to sleep.
(Because they understand.)
"So, how does it feel to have the second highest bounty in East Blue, Gin?" Nami asks.
Gin scoffs instead of answering, and Nami just laughs. She's too drunk to bother chasing for an answer, and Usopp can feel Gin's internal conflict without words.
So Usopp changes the subject.
"Are we headed for Loguetown?" Usopp asks.
No one misses the way Gin flinches at the mention of it, but they don't react to it.
"No," Nami says, her tone a little somber. "The winds are against us for at least the next week, you know how that place is-- it opens when it wants to, and spits us out when it feels like it. We're better off loitering for now."
Gin takes a sip of his sake.
"You guys talk like it's alive."
Usopp suppresses a groan, "oh, you have no idea."
Nami sighs. "Don't be a drama queen, Usopp," she chides. Then she turns to Gin, "it's not exactly alive-- but well, it's definitely unnatural. It has clear weather just in time for a ship to come in, but the moment the ship heads toward the Grand Line--"
Gin straightens, remembering something, "a storm will brew?"
Nami smiles. "Yes!" she says, "and it's one of the first mysteries of the Grand Line-- because only those that follow the storm can find the lighthouse."
Gin has to put down his cup, jaw dropped.
He did know about the unnatural storm because he remembers yelling his throat out at everyone on Don Krieg's fleet to get their asses in gear-- but he didn't specifically know that was a necessary parcel of the path.
"It's not all that hard to get past the storm in the first place-- this is just the Grand Line's first way of weeding out the cowards of the four blues, y'know?" Nami says, raising her metal arm in a show of guts. "Like, go for it at its worst, or you're not even worth the entrance! Or something."
Usopp chuckles at that, a fond memory of tearful pleading and strong gales suddenly in his head.
He takes his first large gulp of sake for the night.
"Anyways, if we're going to go through Reverse Mountain again--" Usopp pauses when Gin drops his cup.
The Man-demon fumbles for it and manages to salvage most of it, but Nami and Usopp are both staring at him now.
And their expressions curl up in some sort of scrutinizing pity.
Gin would've busted their heads for daring to offer some form of empathy, but he only manages to look away, pretending to drink a little more.
Usopp turns back to Nami.
"Money?" Usopp asks.
Nami hums, "a little over twenty thousand beri right now, with all the wallets I stole."
"I guess our first step now is to find a place to treasure hunt?" Usopp says, "right. What happened to our plan to raid Goa?"
Nami facepalms, "if you really want to go with it, you talk to Luffy about it."
Usopp frowns, "yeah, my bad."
Captain has final rules on where they go, after all. And Captain said Grand Line, so Grand Line it has to be.
(Luffy definitely wouldn't want to go all the way back home for some funny revenge-- Luffy had never cared for the king of Goa Kingdom and it will stay that way until Sabo punches them himself.)
Nami shrugs. "To begin with, we can't really waste that much time going back and coming here again-- it'll be trouble if we miss out on meeting Uncle Gon, right?"
Usopp chokes on his sake.
Gin looks confused. "Uncle Gon?"
Usopp is dying.
With all the casual movements of a master, Nami slides a cup of water in his direction.
"Don't mind him, just an inside joke of ours," she says, turning to Gin. "But we should probably go somewhere nearby so we can go into Loguetown right as the storm lets up… which will probably be in a week or so."
And suddenly, Gin finds himself looking at a much-more detailed sea chart than the chart Nami has displayed in the writing room.
The entirety of East Blue, down to the waves to the line of the Calm Belt and many more islands than Gin has found himself raiding as a Krieg Pirate.
A completed navigational chart of East Blue.
Gin stares at it, in shock. He can't see well in the darkness-- but as a sailor, he knows. He knows just how valuable this map is.
(Did Nami draw this?)
"Ah, can you see?" Nami asks. "Should I light a candle?"
Oh, Nami can see in the dark? And Usopp's blind, so he doesn't need a candle. Gin found that rather interesting-- after all, they acted like they were used to espionage and strategy meetings in the middle of the night.
(Well, it's not Gin's business.)
"I'm fine, the moonlight is enough," he says, because he doesn't want to be an inconvenience for the two. He's just a bold little eavesdropper stealing a drink, after all.
"We're around here," she gestures around the sea between Conomi and Loguetown, "we're edging on the low tidal areas of the Red Line, so the only islands around here are a Marine base, and Baratie in the further distance."
Gin makes a confused noise. "Then what's this?" he gestures at a large piece of land marked with a red X right by their current location.
Nami pauses at that.
"Oh," she says, "I forgot I drew that in. Wait, this isn't our usual map? Oops. Sorry, I just noticed," she slaps her forehead.
"Are you drunk?"
"No, I don't get drunk," Nami sounds offended. Then she hiccups.
"It just makes her a little giddy and she likes to lose herself in the high," Usopp says, pouring out a glass of water for the girl, who snatches it. "She has the amazing ability to become sober immediately when she wants to, but yeah, she's drunk."
"I said I'm not."
"Okay, want another glass of water, Nami?"
"Yeah."
"That will be one thousand beri."
"I'll throw you overboard, Usopp!!"
Gin watches Nami get up right there, lunging at the sharpshooter who only laughs, scrambling away with minimal noise, drunken play fighting, and lots of hair-pulling. He's now entirely convinced that the sanest creature on this ship is the bird.
But this is good sake, with a nice moon out.
And hell, this navigation chart is a really good one. He picks it up and observes the expert strokes, because it seems like the strategy meeting is over for today.
He squints at the red X, noticing a little name at the edge of the island.
"Oykot Kingdom?"
And though it was faint, there was a trail drawn over it, leading from the sland to the red line and across a section of small, unnamed islands.
Gin could make out the name if he squinted.
"...Tequila Wolf?"
Zoro wakes up to see Nami and Usopp snoring on the deck, side by side but an inch apart. There was a thin blanket laid out over them, and Gin was seated by the mast, reading a map and supposedly taking lookout duty.
Zoro sits down and takes a sip on the sake as well.
And then Sanji wakes up, and cue the angry screaming of 'how dare you let Nami-san sleep on the cold wooden deck?!'
And then Zoro drags Usopp to his hammock, Nami crawls back to her bed, the sake is confiscated, the end.
"We really didn't get anywhere with our talking yesterday, did we?"
It's the morning, Nami's hair is a mess from the late night drinking. Usopp is asleep by the mast, and Zoro is awake at the crow's nest. Well, Usopp took night watch yesterday so that makes sense.
"We really didn't," Gin acknowledges.
He hands Nami her map back. He definitely didn't spend all night admiring the artistry.
"Well, Usopp's not really interested in listening to my plan because he's not the kind to navigate-- obviously, I'm glad someone else here can read a map for once," Nami sighs, rubbing a metal arm against her nape, "wait. What was your job on Krieg's?"
Gin raises an eyebrow. "First Mate. Swashbuckler if we're reaching."
"Swashbuckler-- that's the jack-of-all-trades fighter, right?" Nami asks. Then she prompts, "and on this ship?"
"Kidnap victim, as far as I'm concerned."
"Ah, you're still at that stage huh," Nami says, and it speaks volumes about their captain with just how unfazed she is. "Luffy doesn't usually recruit without your job in mind, so guess we'll have to solve it out. Any specific skills?"
"Murder."
Nami deadpans, "next."
Sanji is giving them weird looks from the stairs.
Gin hums. The crew is small, so everyone seemed to have distinct jobs on the ship, with none overlapping in the slightest. Zoro, the Swordsman and rather unofficial First Mate, seems to be the only combat-focused job so far.
On a fleet like Krieg's you'd have a squad of navigators, a team of cooks, a shifting system of lookouts and everyone else were cabin workers until battle calls.
It's not at all unusual for there to be crew members who are just specialized fighters, without any other skills necessary for voyage. Gin was content being one of those fighters.
"Alright, let's think of it this way," Nami raises her hands, "look at Luffy," she gestures at the idiot currently lounging on the sheep head, "think. What skills do you have that Luffy doesn't?"
Gin squints at that. "Logic? And, common sense, self-preservation instincts--"
"Don't bullshit, Gin," Sanji warns. "We all know your self-preservation instincts are shittier than Luffy's, don't lie."
"Shut up, Sanji. Like you can talk."
He's heard enough horror stories about Strawhat from Usopp, and to this day he still wonders if half of those lies were truths. One just couldn't ascertain authenticity here.
Was this a job interview or something? Did it really matter if he had a job or not? He could just be a cabin worker if Luffy really wanted to put a name to it.
"I was Quartermaster, so I'm capable of taking command-- not that I'd need to do that here" he says, trying to scrounge up all the information off the top of his head, "I've got basic navigational knowledge, some sailing knowledge, a bit of ship maintenance and grunt work skills."
And Nami stares at him, eyes slowly beginning to sparkle with an impressed vigor.
"You can navigate?" she says, grabbing the man by the shoulders and instantly triggering his fight or flight response out of the sheer self-preservation skills Gin swears he has. Nami's eyes are sparkling, "you can command? Take responsibility?"
And for some reason, Gin feels like responsibility was the key word there.
He grimaces.
(Exactly how much has Nami suffered to be so grateful at the aspect of a sane human being with common sense?)
Gin didn't particularly mention anything special, either. All those were common skills even a practiced sailor or fisherman would have.
"You were the Quartermaster!" Nami says, beaming, hands held together in glee. "Gin, you can be our Quartermaster too then!"
This catches some attention. Zoro had been on his way down the rigging, and Luffy at some point, turned his head around from the figurehead.
"Huh?"
Usopp's awake now, rubbing his eyes before momentarily remembering that his vision wouldn't clear up either way.
Everyone's staring straight at Gin, including Sanji.
But Gin's the most confused one here.
"Hey Nami, whuzzat?" Luffy speaks up, and Nami smiles, like she'd just come up with the best idea on the planet.
Being a quartermaster would mean that you had the most power on the ship, second to the Captain himself. It made you acting captain when the captain was out of commission, and it was definitely the most important job on the ship.
Yes, that means Zoro, the chief mate, would usually take that job.
As far as Gin knows, this ship didn't have a clear one-- the burden of the actual work is shared out among Nami and Sanji for navigation and cooper duties, while Zoro and Usopp handle the guarding and organization of the ship.
Putting it on an actual person with experience, like Gin, would certainly make a lot of sense, but at the same time…
"No," he puts it out there firmly. "I'm the newest member of the ship. I'm the last person you should be putting that huge responsibility on."
And much more, Gin was a traitor that turned his blade on several members of this crew more than once. There was no way he should get any trust yet.
Luffy pouts, "but then who else is gonna do it? We're all idiots except Nami."
"Hey," came three offended voices.
"What? He's right."
"Nami!"
"And Nami's doing a perfectly good job at it," Gin hisses at him. "Anything Nami can't do, Sanji and Zoro can do. You literally don't need an actual quartermaster on this ship."
Luffy grins, hands on his hips, "then we can just call you that, you don't have to do anything!"
"That defeats the entire purpose!"
Sucks to be Gin, because in the next few hours, Sanji has him in the storage to help him keep numbers on their stock.
"No! You can't keep the water for so long, it's going to go to shit in seconds! We should've stocked up on more rum on Cocoyashi!" Gin realizes very quickly, throwing his arms in the air. "Shit, how much sake have we already drunk?"
Sanji stares from the doorway. This was a lot more interesting than he initially thought it would be.
If Gin was any younger or any less jaded, he might've thrown a tantrum by now.
"And look what I told you, we have five days of fresh meat right out of our stock in one day! Of course, I trust you can keep us on a good long voyage with everything else in the pantry, but why did you touch the jerky! Those can last us!"
Sanji deadpans, "woah, you sound just like Carne. You're definitely a Quartermaster."
"Shut up!" Gin snaps, "that barrel is not leaking but the bolts are worn out and damp! Do you want the fruit to go bad?? Get them out! And-- who did the math in this part? How could you fucking mess up addition and subtraction?"
Sanji raises a thumbs up, "add a few more curse words and you'll fit right in."
"I said shut up about that! God we are all going to fucking die on this ship!"
"You want advice from me?"
Usopp is in disbelief. He's sitting by the tangerines on the rear deck, and Zoro is there, along with all his dumbbells, his sword, and Kogatana.
Zoro huffs.
Usopp blinks just once, in a different confusion.
(Was it just him, or does he not hear the jingle of Zoro's earrings anymore?)
"I can't call myself a swordmaster if my sword's durability is all I'm worth," he says. "Teach me that Haki thing."
As expected from the training maniac, he's humble enough to immediately seek help for what he's lacking.
Except… what Zoro needs is Armament, and Usopp absolutely sucks at that.
Well, Usopp knows the basics, so the first thing they have to do is focus on it, perhaps. Zoro can get there on his own pretty easy.
(Come to think of it, when did Zoro unlock his Haki? Usopp learned of it much later, but even Luffy only had it around Sabaody, or a little before that.)
(...Huh? You need Haki to cut steel, right?)
Zoro's been doing it forever, so Usopp never quite registered it as Haki. But it was Haki, wasn't it? At least, the untamed, unhardened version...
(Holy shit , 60 million starting bounty had a very good reason, didn't it? The Marines knew about Zoro's potential since Alabasta!)
Zoro's determination is awkward, but Usopp loves that about him. It's exactly what Luffy saw in Zoro his whole life-- that unfaltering, unwavering part of him that holds onto things once he's decided to take them.
Usopp respects that.
"Nami, lend me your Clima Tact!" Usopp says.
The girl had been sitting in the center of the deck on her lawn chair. At the call, she reaches under the table, retrieves the three pieces between her fingers, and hurls them upward.
They're heavy, so the spinning makes a lot of noise.
Usopp catches one of them easily, swerves so the magnets connect in mid air, and sets the assembled staff before himself, setting himself up for a spar.
He's no swordsman, but he's learned enough bojutsu in the Revolutionary Army to get by in close combat.
"It's not really something that can be explained, but I guess you won't understand the theory of it anyways," Usopp chuckles.
Zoro makes an offended urk at that.
"I guess you'll figure it out on the way. You're only using Kogatana?" Usopp asks. He can hear Wadou Ichimonji's slightly upset voice in the corner, and Kogatana's soft and uninterested tone before him in Zoro's hand.
Zoro nods. Then hums, because Usopp can't see him nodding.
"Until I'm worth an actual sword," he says, and doesn't elaborate.
Usopp likes that. He smiles a little, running his hand across the straight pole of the staff-- and stops momentarily on a faint dent in the steel, around the middle section.
His eyes widen in surprise.
(Someone actually left a dent on the Clima Tact? On the soul-inforced, special metal? With Nami's Haki piping through it?)
No no, this isn't the time to question that. He'll ask Nami about it later.
"Well, try defending first," Usopp prompts Zoro, moving into a fighting stance. "And try dodging more than parrying, or you'll break that little dagger."
"Shut up, Usopp."
And so daily sparring sessions begin.
"What're they doing?" Sanji wonders out loud. He sets a cup of an orange, fizzy drink in front of Nami, and sighs as Zoro makes an undignified squawk from the rear deck.
"Training?" Gin suggests, because that seems obvious.
He's lifting a dumbbell on one arm, because Zoro rolls it over and he thought he'd keep his hands busy.
It's been nearly two days since they've left Cocoyashi, and everyone is bored.
Nami savours her drink. "It's Haki training," she says, taking a sip before taking a spoonful of ake and depositing it in Luffy's mouth.
(Gin jumps. When did Luffy get beside Nami's chair?!)
(And why is he just letting himself be fed like that's supposed to be normal?!)
"Haki?" Sanji asks, planting one foot on Luffy's head in case the imbecile tries to eat Nami's food again. "I've heard it a few times, but what exactly is it?"
And Gin is interested too.
If there was something that set Nami and Usopp apart from the rest of them, it was this mildly confident air they exuded despite their disabilities, like they were veterans of decades ago rather than just fighters of a similar experience.
There was just something about them that emitted the air of a strong fighter, in a different but not much higher caliber than the rest of the crew.
"To put it in simple terms, Haki is willpower," Nami says. "It lets you see without your eyes, and lets you pierce without a blade… and lets you conquer without saying a word."
What a riddler.
"I don't get it," Sanji says, and Gin echoes it.
"So it's a mystery power!" thank you, captain.
Nami laughs.
"Everyone needs to use it someday, but you need to awaken your Haki within yourself-- it's not something we can force out," Nami explains, "if there's someone that's closest to it right now, it'll be Zoro. And Zoro knows that, so he's working on it with Usopp."
Sanji sounds disgruntled, "that stupid Marimo is gonna get a powerup?! No fair!"
Gin hums, "so I'm guessing Hawk-Eyes uses it too?"
"Mystery power!" Luffy declares, "alright, I'm going to wake up my mystery power too, then! Hey Zoro! It'll be a race!"
"You idiot, it's obviously not that easy."
Nami sighs at them as they divulge into a screaming competition of 'obviously I'll awaken my mystery power first' to 'no, I will', and so on, so forth.
She casts a glance toward Gin.
Gin wasn't as interested in all this Haki business. He's buddy recollecting himself, reconsidering his goals, reorganizing his priorities, and finding a new path in himself.
(Is he really worthy of this crew?)
So Nami decides to assure him.
"Remember our spar on Cocoyashi?" Nami reminds him of that morning talk they had. Their first conversation, which divulged into a chat, and then, into a spar to test each other's strengths. It started off with just fists, then they brought out their weapons.
Gin looks at her.
Nami swirls her cup of juice in her hands, thinking back on her Clima Tact, and the little dent Gin's tonfa had made that morning.
It was so impressive, Nami actually let her guard down and nearly lost the spar. She probably did-- Gin was just a little stronger in pure fighting prowess, but held back in honour of Sanji's protectiveness for ladies.
Nami sighs.
"Well, you at least. You already have a headstart on the other boys."