A/N: Please accept this, the next installment of the story. *Bows*
I do not own One Piece. My love for it, however, is entirely my own.
SWAK!
Nami knew the pains of life intimately. She knew burdens, loneliness and sorrow.
Whok!
Contrary to her apparent vanity, she knew pretty things weren't everlasting. Clothes, beauty, even cash vanished eventually.
Thwack!
She could also tell the difference between someone who took on suicidal odds out of ambition and deep-seated desire, and someone who just wanted an easy, permanent cessation of the pain life invariably brought on.
She'd never succumbed to such an impulse herself, never permitted herself to even consider it, despite her history. She didn't expect to change her circumstances by whining.
"Don't hate the era you were born into!"
She'd been raised to know better than that.
Pow!
Hence why a brat from Gosa charging into Arlong Park for some kind of assisted suicide by fishman royally pissed her off.
Still, her cold-hearted attack on him also served the purpose of saving his life, whether he wanted it or not. Infinitely better that he was unconscious rather than able to dig his grave deeper with his own idiocy. Plus, Arlong always appreciated ruthlessness. Striking the way she had would go just as far toward resolving the situation bloodlessly as any actual discussion.
She clicked her tongue at the boy who lay crumpled on the concrete.
"My my, such a fiery entrance," Arlong mused aloud, toothy shark smile ever-present. Nami had learned to repress and internalize the shudder his face inspired years ago. Though an echo of the reflex remained. "Did you have a bad time while you were away, my precious cartographer?"
"Hmph." She scoffed, turning back toward Arlong's throne. She shifted her old staff to rest against her shoulder. Usopp's Climatact remained secure on her person and, more importantly, hidden out of sight. She loved the weapon, thoroughly and without reservation, for it suited her perfectly. And simply because she loved it, they could never know of it. Arlong never let her keep nice things. Nothing sentimental, certainly, let alone anything that could actually empower her. Usopp's- her- Climatact was both.
'They're not part of my life anymore,' she thought, already at work severing whatever connection she had with them, feelings and all. 'I can keep this, at least.'
"I just came back to find the mansion unguarded, as ever," she said briskly, the persona she'd built for herself firmly in place. Breaking character at all could spoil her efforts, particularly now. "And then there was a mouthy twerp standing in my way. What was he doing here anyway?"
"He had some grievances to air about how we run things," Arlong said, tone darkly amused. "I was about to suggest we have him stick around for an education regarding the natural order of the world. Of course," he waved a webbed hand. "If I'd known he'd offend you so deeply, I would have just removed him."
Nami huffed.
"I'm not that delicate," she said, her tone affronted. "His presence didn't set me off, his inability to accept reality did. I have no patience for fools."
"Shahahaha! And yet your specialty is betraying those very same fools!"
Nami smirked, a practiced mirror of Arlong's type of grim amusement.
"I suppose I can't argue that," she said. She frowned. "There's a point when even foolishness stops being funny though."
"Too true, too true," Arlong agreed, grinning. He leaned his face into his fist, eyes glinting. "So, what should we do with the brat?"
Nami cast a disdainful glance backward, and made a bit of a show tightening her grip on her staff.
"Put him away for now. I'll deal with him."
Arlong laughed, loud and pleased.
"As you say, my precious map maker! The kid did interrupt your homecoming. This is the least I can do. Hachi, tie him up and toss him in the back!" Arlong raised his voice. "Brothers! One of our own has returned! Prepare a feast!"
Raucous cheers went up as Nami's crew mates erupted from the courtyard pool. She played the part of the returning comrade, smile neither too wan nor too eager.
'No more complications,' she thought, a silent plea. 'Not when I'm this close.'
Usopp waltzed into Cocoyashi village, hands in his pockets and on a mission for all that he carried himself casually. No other fishmen had showed up at the docks after they dealt with and detained the first three, and he didn't see any hanging around town either.
He'd left Zoro on guard duty, much to the swordsman's chagrin.
("Why the hell should I wait here? Going to the doctor is faster."
"Sure, but do you really wanna leave Johnny alone with responsibility for three fishmen?"
"…"
"…"
"Be quick about it.")
The sniper cast an appraising look around the village. The general air of the place didn't sit well with him. Maybe knowing the relevant context made certain details more obvious, or perhaps growing up in a small village himself let him compare things directly.
Regardless of the reason, Usopp noticed things. The fairly conspicuous absence of idle conversation, like there was some deterrent in place against too much talking. The people didn't go around actively frowning, yet there weren't many smiles to be seen either, and those that he caught didn't reach anybody's eyes. Nobody ran around breaking their backs to get work done, yet none of them could be described as really relaxed, either.
Usopp couldn't quite call the atmosphere oppressive, since he'd seen that before. It was more a general feeling of color being washed out, an overall mood of simmering frustration, weariness and
'Chronic stress.'
That gave him pause. Circumstances were clearly quite different, yet once the idea materialized in his head, Usopp couldn't dismiss it out of hand.
Nami's village, to say nothing of the navigator herself, were under the same duress he'd been through in his second round with Kuro. And she'd taken on responsibility for saving all these people unto herself, yet while he only put up with eight months, she'd persisted for eight years.
Meanwhile, he'd been-
Usopp fisted his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath.
'We're here now,' he thought, pre-empting any guilt-induced downward spirals. 'We'll stop this. Just needs to be done right.'
Usopp focused back on his surroundings, and noticed an older man sitting on a shaded, circular bench off to one side of the dirt road. He wore a brown short-sleeved police uniform, with a pinwheel of all things attached to a matching hat. Scars ran at various angles across his face and exposed arms. Coupled with his hook nose, he had a somewhat severe looking face. At first glance, he seemed to be resting. His eyes moved up and down the street, though, too assessing to be idle observation.
His gaze lingered a little longer on Usopp than anyone else.
"Good morning!" The sniper called, waving a greeting as he walked over.
"Hello." The pinwheel man greeted fairly formally, though he did not rise, wave back or smile. He kept his questioning gaze on Usopp.
'He's wondering why I'm here.'
In a small village, everybody knew everybody. And the sniper clearly hadn't brought anything to trade that would interest a village that, presumably, largely functioned off fish and produce.
"Ah," the sniper said, scratching the back of his head. "Sorry, bad form- I'm Usopp. I was wondering if you could help me out?"
"Genzo," he said, and the name struck a chord in Usopp's memory. They hadn't interacted much during his first round, yet the sniper remembered 'saving' him from Arlong, and that Nami and her sister considered him the nearest they had to a father. "Sheriff. What business do you have in Cocoyashi, Usopp?"
'Direct and no-nonsense,' Usopp noted to himself. 'Child Nami must've driven him mad.'
"Well, see," Usopp said. "We didn't originally plan to stop on this island, but some of our crew"
"Leave."
The marksman paused. Genzo's tone didn't come off as hostile, more sharply cautionary. Certainly without any perceived room for argument.
"Sorry?"
"Whatever brought you here," Genzo said, never breaking eye contact. "It's not worth the risk. The best advice I can give you is to take your friends and leave the island, as soon as you can."
Usopp's pocketed hand clenched again.
'Nami is completely worth it.'
"Look," Usopp said, more insistent and with much less meandering. "One of my nakama is severely hurt, and I need a doctor to take a look at him."
"If your friend's condition was truly critical," Genzo returned, as urgent as before. "You'd have brought him here. Take him somewhere else. As sick or injured as he may be, I guarantee you're more likely to survive going to another island."
'Ossan,' Usopp thought, frowning. 'As considerate as the warning may be, it's just annoying right now.'
The sniper recalled the tribute Arlong exacted on the villagers under his rule. He sighed and folded his arms.
"I'll pay 20,000 beri for a doctor to come to our ship."
Genzo's eyes went wide, and after a moment, Usopp realized the street had gone quiet. The sheriff snapped his gaze from Usopp and barked out an order to retrieve one Dr. Nako. No fewer than a dozen people broke into a dead sprint in response.
Given the context, it made Usopp kind of sad.
"There's some commotion going on around Cocoyashi village, Arlong-sama."
"Is that right? I just happen to have business there."
Nami watched Arlong rise leisurely from his throne out of the corner of her eye. She'd been lounging in the courtyard, under the pretense of catching up. She held absolutely no interest in actually doing so, obviously.
"Worried about your village?"
Nami turned her head slowly to face Kuroobi. Short of Arlong himself, he posed the biggest potential threat to her plans, more out of his sheer persistence in suspecting her than any real cleverness.
She shrugged one shoulder.
"Hardly. It doesn't have anything to do with me."
Kuroobi frowned, scrutinizing her even after she looked away.
"Kuroobi! Let's go. Chu!"
Nami waited a full minute after Arlong left with several of his men before she made her way into the mansion. The sound of a trumpet meant Hachi was probably feeding Moomoo, leaving the courtyard practically vacant. A perfect opportunity to spring the kid free.
Nami 'accidentally' spilled Hachi's blades across the floor of the storage room where he'd put the boy. On the slim chance any of Arlong's men chose to investigate how he got out, there'd be at least a thread of deniability more credible than her word against theirs.
'The brat probably won't even be grateful.' She thought a bit sourly as she cut his bonds loose. She tossed the ropes over toward the exposed blades. The kid stirred, yet still didn't come around.
Nami kicked him awake.
"He'd be significantly more cooperative if you gave him some sake."
Nako spared nothing more than a halfway heated glare toward the young man- Usopp, he called himself- before returning his full attention to his squirming patient. He grumbled at the stitch work, which while not entirely shoddy, didn't come close to adequate for such a wound.
"How long have you been walking around with this patchwork?" He asked. He might have injected more heat into his tone to scold his patient's recklessness, if not for the fact that he was in the galley of a pirate ship.
He was suturing a wound for Roronoa Zoro, debatably the East Blue bounty hunter, on a pirate ship!
Needless to say, he didn't know what to make of the situation, let alone the crew. Usopp hadn't been much help.
("You never said you were a pirate!"
"You never asked. And would you have come along with me if I had?")
Nako hadn't had any argument for that point.
Genzo had been on alert the past few days. Several of their neighbors had volunteered to accompany Nako, since none of them knew Usopp and were justifiably wary around strangers, particularly those from off the island. Genzo had shot them all down, as he didn't want to give the fishmen any hints of anything out of the ordinary. He'd given Nako an apologetic glance, though the doctor waved it off. He agreed with the sheriff's reasoning- the sooner these strangers got off the island, and the quieter they could be about it, the better for everyone. He didn't want to think about how Arlong might react if he caught wind that he or any of his neighbors were associating with another pirate crew.
The doctor couldn't say why he'd wasted time questioning Usopp. If pressed, he'd cite temporary insanity brought on by sheer incredulity.
("Who's your captain? What does he want?"
"Monkey D. Luffy. And right this second? Meat. No question. In the near future? To explore the Grand Line.")
Nako couldn't tell if Usopp had been screwing with him. The plain, direct response had disarmed him such that his impromptu interrogation petered out, which was probably best. He'd come as far as the ship, and he doubted a refusal at that point would be well-received.
That, and he really couldn't afford to turn down 20,000 beri. He'd already planned out ways to slip some to Genzo, since the stubborn old fool had a habit of only just scraping by each month after helping everyone else make the cut.
"Hmm." Usopp hummed. "Hard for me to say, though I'd guess a day and a half, two days tops?"
It took Nako a second to register that Usopp was responding to his mostly rhetorical question.
"Two days?!" He blurted in the middle of pulling a thread line taut, eliciting a hiss and a swear from the swordsman. "What were you even doing when this happened?"
"A duel," Zoro ground out through his teeth. His hands, already fisted, clenched until his knuckles were white. "I lost."
A beat passed in relative silence before Usopp slapped his hands on his knees and rose.
"Well, I got things to do," he said, waving toward Zoro. "Let the doctor do what he needs to do, all right? I'll be back."
Zoro huffed through his nose, teeth still clenched.
Nako frowned, pulse running a little quicker with anxiety.
"Where are you going?" He asked, his nerves lending his tone sharpness.
"We need supplies." Usopp said simply without looking back.
"Why not just send your other mate to get them?" Nako asked. The doctor felt uneasy with Usopp roaming the island unchecked.
The tan young man glanced back. He blinked. Twice. Comprehension dawned in his eyes and he chuckled.
"Johnny's a bounty hunter, not a crew member," he said. "He's just traveling with us for a bit since he's friends with Zoro. You know how it is."
Nako stared as Usopp left the galley.
'No,' Nako thought flatly. 'I really don't.'
"Whoa."
Nojiko paused in the middle of the dirt road. One of her neighbors, another produce farmer, had mentioned Arlong headed toward Cocoyashi. Since they lived further out from the village proper and a bit closer to Arlong Park, they typically acted as a sort of lookout for the rest of their neighbors. It wasn't much, just a few minutes warning whenever he chose to make an appearance or sent one of his officers. A visit outside the monthly tribute collection never failed to set people on edge.
Regardless, those few minutes provided at least some opportunity for mental preparation on their part and, if need be, retreat into their homes. Even if they had made a collective promise, after eight years tensions hadn't receded and tempers had grown shorter.
Nojiko had been on her way into the village herself- solidarity was about all that the people of Cocoyashi could still claim as their own.
"What happened to you?"
She drew up short when she met a young boy barely ambling up the road, though. He had swelling bruises on both sides of his face, favored one leg with a slight limp, and seemed to be nursing his ribs somewhat.
Nothing life-threatening that she could see, though certainly more than the result of a fight between children. She had plenty of personal experience with those.
The boy didn't answer, instead just frowning and shuffling onward down the road. Nojiko sighed. She tugged at one of his ears, eliciting a short yelp.
"Now's not the time to wander around," she said, pushing at the back of his head to steer him toward her house. "Let's get you patched up a bit. Got a name?"
"… Chabo."
"You gonna answer my question, Chabo?" She asked as they walked past the mikan groves.
"Fishmen." He spat with familiar bitterness and spite.
His initial cagey attitude aside, the kid proved fairly forthcoming with his story. By the time Nojiko slapped a little ice on his face and poured tea, Chabo was just finishing his description of the awful witch woman who attacked him and threw him out of Arlong Park.
"I hate her too." He said, tone still heated.
'The fact that nothing's broken means you got off easy, kid,' Nojiko thought, sighing inwardly. 'Never mind that you're alive at all.'
"You shouldn't have been there in the first place," she scolded, seated across from him. "No human can stand up to the fishmen."
Chabo grimaced and bit into his bottom lip.
"I know," he said. "I know, it just- they destroyed our whole village, and it makes me so mad it hurts- I just wanna make them pay!"
Nojiko regarded him coolly for a moment.
"Did you actually set out to kill fishmen," she asked neutrally. "Or were you hoping for someone to stop you and save your neck? Did you expect someone to come along and tell you how to make things better?"
The boy went still. Nojiko narrowed her eyes at him, mouth twisting into a frown.
"Fine," she said in an icily dismissive tone. "You wanna die that badly? Arlong's in Cocoyashi right now. You can catch him if you run."
Chabo flinched, though as Nojiko expected, he stayed put. He trembled, eyes downcast. Nojiko found she didn't have any sympathy to spare for him. Not with the image of her baby sister swearing off tears at ten years old burned into her memory.
"If you're that determined to die, if your life means that little to you, why should I care?" She asked, raising her voice to a shout as she stood up. "Anyone so determined to die because they can't handle the pain of being alive, who am I to stop them? I say good damn luck to you!"
"I'll"
Chabo sobbed, sniffling and sucking air.
"I'll endure it," he said wetly. "I'll keep living."
"Got anybody looking for you?" Nojiko asked after a beat passed. She cooled down after hearing a little conviction in the kid's promise. Shaky, yet present, a pushback against her harsh words.
"My mom."
Nojiko smiled a little.
"Then go home." She said softly.
"Weapons only give rise to violent, rebellious thoughts," Arlong said, laying out his own version of the law even as he loomed over the still-seated Genzo. "And that endangers the delicate peace we've provided to the villages under our protection."
Usopp groaned in his head, camped out on a rooftop in Cocoyashi. He kept himself crouched to avoid drawing attention, exercising inordinate willpower to restrain himself from striking out at Arlong. Yet.
'Only thing you're protecting are your own delusions.' Usopp thought hotly, fingers clenching and unclenching around his slingshot.
Much as he wanted to strike, he figured the people of Cocoyashi might be less inclined to come after him and Zoro with fear-fueled anger if he attacked in defensive retaliation rather than instigating the fight. Stressful as overthinking was, it proved helpful sometimes.
"One of the villagers in Gosa failed to pay tribute," Arlong said. "And I destroyed their village. Because failing to pay equates to rebellion." The sawtooth shark leaned over Genzo, teeth bared in a cruel grin. "Are you following me?"
To his credit, the village sheriff didn't so much as flinch in the face of Arlong and his henchmen surrounding him. Setting aside his own anger toward the scene, Usopp could only be impressed.
"The tribute you all pay will give rise to the foundation," Arlong said, grin widening predatorily. He raised one hand, arm pulled back with clear intention of attacking. "Of an Arlong Empire which will rule East Blue!"
'Sweet merciful Kami, strike me down if I have to hear another word about the superiority of fishmen!'
Usopp leapt to his feet, and, in a practiced, fluid motion, loaded and fired.
Exploding Star!