A/N: *A single arm breaks the surface of an ocean of toxicity, hatred, fear and frozen chunks of sick, curled fingers clawing for purchase on flotsam*
Please. *Deep, gasping breath* Enjoy. *Bows*
In spite of it all, Oda still owns One Piece.
Involuntary naps were, as it turned out, referred to as such for a reason. They happened involuntarily. Expunging himself of them proved a bit more difficult than Usopp thought. More an annoyance than anything, honestly- he still averaged between three and four-and-a-half hours of sleep a day, leaving him around twenty hours to work with most days.
By the time Merry approached Little Garden, Usopp actually felt prepared. Marginally, anyway. If nothing else, his idea involved his nakama interacting with dangerous elements as infrequently as possible.
"Hey," Luffy called. "Usopp!"
The sniper took one last, assessing look at his new accessory for the storeroom, stowed it, and ran out onto the deck before his hyperactive captain came looking for him.
As ever, the Grand Line did not disappoint. Merry drifted in through a channel, the climate balmy and tropical. All around, massive vegetation and trees loomed, a jungle whereas Whiskey Peak had been a ghost town in a wasteland.
"Who the hell saw this place and dubbed it 'Little Garden'?" Nami wondered aloud. "There's nothing little here!"
"We need to be careful," Vivi advised, glancing around at the towering plant life. "I'm still worried about what Miss All Sunday said."
Caw!
Nami yelped, ducking her head at a shadow that passed over the ship.
"Aw," Sanji cooed, grinning like a dope. "It's just a bird. Fear not, Nami-san, Vivi-chan. Your shining knight is ever ready to protect you!"
Luffy stared at the circling creature.
"Huh," he said. "Lizards are birds?"
Sanji frowned. Usopp tapped the cook's shoulder and pointed at a rapidly approaching, decidedly prehistoric and reptilian avian.
"SHITTY-!"
Sanji leapt into a backward handspring. He twisted his hips mid-motion on his hands and kicked the airborne creature into the dense foliage.
"Definitely not the average jungle." Usopp commented.
"What are you talking about?" Zoro asked. "That's clearly a tiger."
Everyone looked where swordsman indicated. Indeed, a tiger did step out of the brush. And promptly collapsed with vacant, dead eyes.
"That thing is over twenty feet tall!" Nami shouted. "In what kind of jungle does a fucking tiger come up short on the food chain?!" The Straw Hat navigator rifled her hands through her hair. "Listen, we do not set foot on this island! We just have to wait for the log pose to reset and then we can leave. If we don't get sidetracked and depart as soon as possible, we'll reach Alabasta faster!"
Usopp nodded, humming affirmative sounds the whole while.
"Mhm. I agree, very sound reasoning," he said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder with a flat look. "Now just sell our captain on the idea and we might be able to put it into practice."
Nami's face fell, eyes threatening tears. Luffy practically vibrated where he stood, gripping Merry's handrail.
"Sanji! I need a pirate box lunch!" He declared with one of his megawatt grins. "There's adventure to be had! I can smell it!"
"Did you hear a word I said?!"
"Yeah! There's time before the log pose sets, so there's time to go exploring!"
"That's the exact opposite of what I said we should do!"
Nami's efforts were in vain. Luffy had already abandoned the conversation, chanting 'box lunch' at Sanji until the cook disappeared into the galley.
"May I join you?" Vivi asked.
"Yeah, yeah, sure!"
"You too?!" Nami shouted, rounding on the princess, gawking in disbelief.
"Brooding here is bad for my health," Vivi said, smiling. "Besides, I wanna explore too! Carue will protect me."
Said saddled waterfowl somehow went pale through his feathers, bill falling open in a silent, terrified scream.
"Who'll protect the duck?" Usopp murmured.
The sniper hummed as though in thought, then called out toward the galley.
"Hey, Sanji! How's the pantry back there?"
"We need to restock." Sanji called back after a moment's pause. Usopp figured it had more to do with surprise at the question rather than any actual need to check their supply.
"Somebody needs to go hunting," Usopp mused aloud. "Lessee, eeny-meeny-miny…Zoro."
The swordsman raised an eyebrow- not exactly a direct show of opposition to the idea. Rather, a look that said 'I think you skipped a few steps.' Or maybe 'You're volunteering me for chores now?' Usopp made a show of glancing at Luffy, Vivi and Nami in turn. He looked at Zoro again and raised an eyebrow right back at him.
'Who else?' He asked wordlessly.
While Nami could probably take down one of the oversized creatures on the island with her Climatact, she remained visibly uneasy. Sending her out would not be worth the effort required to persuade her. As for Vivi, no one honestly expected her to hunt- not for lack of capability per se, but for lack of equipment.
Like a bazooka.
He did not think her peacock strings would impress the island's denizens.
And, well… one did not ask Luffy to hunt in the same breath they gave him permission to explore. Too much excitement all but guaranteed the boy captain would wind up separated from the desert princess. And possibly consume whatever he killed, raw or otherwise.
For several reasons, that simply wouldn't do.
Usopp didn't quite expect that he could convey all his reasoning to Zoro with just a look. Nonetheless, the swordsman shrugged.
"Sure," he said. "Need to stretch my legs anyway."
"Whoever's going," Sanji said from the kitchen. "Bring back plenty."
"Don't worry, cook," Zoro said. "I'll bring back more than you can handle."
The sound of a knife striking a cutting board a little harder than necessary preceded
"What was that, marimo?"
from the galley.
The fact that the swordsman spoke as plainly as he did probably just burned Sanji even more. Obviously, the cook refused to ignore what he took as a challenge- terms for a hunting contest were quickly established.
Usopp turned his head, hiding an irrepressible smirk.
He loved watching a plan come together.
Just as Sanji passed Vivi her lunch and Luffy snatched his, the sniper stuck his fingers between his teeth and belted out a piercing whistle.
"Before anybody goes anywhere!" Usopp said, sharp and quick. "Gimme a minute to scope things out."
"Why?" Luffy asked, jittery with energy and obviously still impatient.
"Because," Usopp said. "We are being actively hunted by an organization that hires high profile bounty hunters."
Vivi cast him an appreciative glance, obviously still wary even if she had relaxed a little. Nami eyed him, nervous, yet skeptical.
"You really think they'd send people here?" She asked. The cartographer looked at Vivi. The princess shrugged, not committing to a definitive answer. The lack of a denial clearly unsettled Nami. "I mean, that lady said"
"She said," Usopp interrupted. "That Baroque Works wouldn't need to kill us if we came here. She never said they weren't going to kill us."
Nami conceded the point.
"So, what?" Sanji asked. "You're going to check out the island with your psychic powers?"
"My Observation Haki," Usopp corrected a bit shortly. "Won't cover that much distance, but it'll help."
The sniper tuned in to 'listen', glancing around. While his Haki would help him pre-empt any nasty surprises, he hadn't been underselling himself to Sanji. His range, perhaps considerable, could not cover an entire island, save under extremely ideal circumstances. Most of one, from a central location, probably. Certainly not from one coast to the other.
Case in point, he could only pick up a few foreign voices- from memory, his count ought to have been six, barring the wildlife. He registered four non-animals.
Still, that suited him just fine. He didn't have any intentions of kicking off a manhunt.
For one, Luffy, and by extension the crew, didn't work that way.
The Straw Hats didn't start fights- they finished them.
For another, Usopp didn't like his odds of winning if he went after them on his own. Besides, short of a play-by-play repeat of his first round, Usopp had no idea what Mr. 3 and his colleagues would do.
Hence his interest in preserving some predictability, for lack of a better term. Save one or two mi~nor tweaks.
"Okay," he said quickly. His 'sweep' of the area only took two seconds- which left him roughly half of his captain's attention span to work with. "I recognize the pair who came after Vivi at Whiskey Peak, at least. There are others, but I can't tell if they're with Baroque Works."
Skirting the line between truth and deceit again, Usopp was nonetheless safe, if only on a technicality. He didn't actually know Mr. 3, his partner, or the crew's imminent friends by 'voice'.
"It's probably safest to assume the rest are also hostile," Vivi said, eyes hard and expression thoughtful. "At least until we can somehow confirm otherwise."
"Do we have to?" Nami all but whined, turning a glare onto the log pose as though to force the needle into motion through sheer will.
Vivi winced sympathetically.
The atmosphere on the ship shifted.
"Hey," Luffy said, hopping in place a little. "That means Crocodile's guys, right?"
… Sort of.
Zoro traded a suppressed grin with the boy captain.
"Sounds like it."
"I wonder what sorta people he sent after us! Shishishi!"
Before Nami could start yelling, Usopp clapped his hands.
"Good news," he said. "Is that we've stolen the element of surprise from them. We are escorting Vivi home, though, so," he stared at Luffy. "Cap'n. Don't get separated from her."
"Okay!" Luffy agreed easily.
Having decided, entirely on his own, that the conversation was through and he'd been set free to seek out trouble, the rubber man vaulted over Merry's railing onto the shore.
"Oi," Sanji barked. "Shitty rubber! Anything happens to Vivi-chan, I'll kick your ass!"
Luffy laughed loudly, making tracks for the tree line.
"C'mon, let's go!" He called back, without any indication one way or the other that he'd heard the cook, nor showing any signs of slowing down.
Usopp sighed.
Still, Vivi barely missed a step hopping into Carue's saddle and following after him. For all that she'd only been with them for a little over a week, she'd adapted to their unique Straw Hat rhythm impressively.
Sanji watched after her for a full seven seconds before he snapped his gaze to Zoro.
"We determine the winner by kilos, marimo." Sanji said, stalking toward the trees.
"If we're not measuring in tons, there's no point." Zoro shot back, headed in an adjacent direction.
"Fine!"
While clearly conflicted, the cook's pride had, evidently, just barely won out against his chivalry. Though it seemed more likely his thought process read 'Impress Vivi by protecting her' versus 'Impress Vivi by hunting'. His responsibilities as the cook and the fact that he'd be competing against Zoro simply tipped the scales in favor of the latter.
Such had been Usopp's reason for nudging- if it could even be called that- the two of them toward a hunting contest before he gave everyone a heads up on the agents.
So far, so scripted.
The sniper let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Any chance," Nami asked, leaning against the guardrail, arms dangling loosely. "You, uh, 'misheard'?"
Usopp blinked, slowly. Twice.
"What?"
"I mean," Nami said, gesturing vaguely at… well, all of him. "You look like a walking cautionary tale against sleep deprivation." She turned a somewhat hopeful gaze at him. "Maybe you were mistaken?"
Usopp took longer to process the cartographer's question and intent than he'd like to admit. Nami hadn't asked to express doubt in his Haki- rather, (and this, he understood quite well) she was just proposing alternative possibilities. Even in the more realistic minds of Luffy's crew, hope sprung eternal.
"Do you want me to lie to you?" Usopp asked flatly.
Nami's face fell with a groan. She stared out at the jungle for a moment, frowned, and made for her quarters.
"What now?"
"I remember reading about this place," Nami said, somewhat nervously. "I might as well know about everything on this island that could kill me."
Usopp snorted. He leaned back against the main mast, resting his eyes.
Despite Nami's concern, and even his own, things had panned out more or less the way he'd have wanted even if it didn't match up with his 'first round'.
While Luffy had a remarkable capacity for finding trouble, he was, by the same token, among the best equipped in the crew to get out of trouble. Provided 'trouble' could be punched. In the world of piracy, such proved to be the case quite often.
On a jungle island, Luffy rated as the best option for Vivi's escort.
Usopp couldn't really do anything about Zoro's restlessness, either. Honestly, on an island mostly inhabited by oversized predators, the swordsman probably felt right at home. And likely for the best, anyway, for anyone whose face Baroque Works knew to be away from the ship. Usopp didn't need Mr. 3 sniffing around the Merry- his powers could cause horrible damage.
As for Sanji… well, Usopp could only hope the cook would repeat the results he managed the 'first' time, however that happened.
Of course, the sniper's truly ideal scenario involved shooting Luffy preemptively into Mr. 3's unsuspecting face like a meat-fueled missile. The other agents could be curb stomped at the crew's leisure, and they'd say 'Hi' to Dorry and Brogy before they left. Also, Nami wouldn't get sick- the marksman would provide another reason to make a detour. Not one he was eager to provide, just a necessary reason for a necessary detour.
And, if Usopp allowed further indulgence in fantasy, he wanted everyone in the Navy, Vice-Admiral on upwards, to personally apologize to him by dancing with their underwear on their heads. As part of a live performance. That he recorded. For several days. With a forward payment made in teeth, two per person at minimum. He wanted at least half of Akainu's, though, because eating through a straw for the rest of his life suited the bastard.
Also, because fuck him.
"Excuse me."
A deep, powerful voice cut into his thoughts, the vibrations practically tangible. Usopp snapped his eyes open just as Nami dropped her retrieved book to the deck, frozen. The sniper craned his neck back, looking up at a familiar, giant, bearded face.
"D'you kids have any ale?" Brogy, warrior of Elbaf, asked with a friendly grin.
Kami, if Usopp hadn't heard his approach, he had problems. No more prolonged blinking for the day.
"Hi," he said, waving. He ignored Nami staring holes into the side of his head. "I'm Usopp, nice to meet you!"
"Gabababababa!"
Nami wept silently, morose and all but collapsed where she sat beside Usopp on a log.
She wanted to go back to sleep and start her day over. Or, better yet, she wanted to start someone else's day over. Specifically, someone who wasn't being hunted by a secret criminal organization on a prehistoric island populated by dinosaurs and- she glanced up at their host- a fucking giant.
All that would have been bad enough. The worst part, though-
("Um, Brogy-san, how long does it take a log pose to set here?"
"One year! Make yourselves comfortable! Gababababa!")
They were, effectively, stranded.
"Your captain sounds like an amusing fellow!" Brogy said, still laughing.
"You should meet him, Master Brogy," Usopp said, grinning. "You'd get along great!"
And of course Usopp, who Nami usually relied on for solace in the form of sanity in her insane life, just rolled with all of it.
"Hey," Usopp said in a lowered voice, nudging her foot with his boot. He seemed entirely unaffected by her glower. "You gonna eat some of that?" He indicated the dinosaur meat in front of them, of which he'd taken several strips. "I'll eat it if you don't want any- seems a little rude though, not even taking a bite."
"How do you know he's not fattening us up?" Nami hissed, agitated.
Usopp stared at her and frowned.
"I guess I don't?" He admitted, trailing off. He turned toward Brogy.
"Master Brogy," he said conversationally, raising his voice to be heard as the giant downed a barrel of grog like a shot. "You ever met a giant who ate humans?"
Nami's mouth fell open in a silent scream, torn between booking it for the trees or strangling Usopp before they were both killed.
Brogy's whole face scrunched up, a little put off, though more surprised.
"Can't say I have! Doesn't sound too good to me, too many bones for too little meat!"
Usopp chuckled.
"I guess that's true!"
He shrugged at Nami. She let out a breath. At least Brogy hadn't been offended by the question.
"You know," she huffed. "Being right all the time can be just as infuriating as it is useful."
The sniper tilted his head.
"I can imagine it would be," he said, tearing off another strip of meat. "Do you know someone like that?"
Nami grit her teeth, hurling a fist toward Usopp's head. She whiffed.
"So," he said. "What are you doing here on this island, anyway? Not stuck here, are you? Seems a little lonely."
"Gababababa! It's definitely nice to have some guests!" Brogy said. His expression sobered somewhat. "But loneliness isn't much of a burden. I'm locked in a battle of honor with another giant on this island." He grinned. "It's been a hundred years now and we're still at a stalemate!"
Nami gaped.
"What are you even fighting about?" She asked before she could stop herself, tone incredulous.
"Good question!"
She damn near face planted. She couldn't follow the apparent absence of logic. Setting aside that they'd been fighting for a century, a frankly unthinkable time frame for her, they were fighting for 'honor', a completely intangible thing with no discernible value.
She couldn't comprehend it.
"Think he wants some booze?" Usopp asked, entirely out of the blue.
"Hm?"
"Your friend," Usopp said, clarifying. "He probably hasn't had a drink in a long time, right?"
"I wouldn't exactly call them friends." Nami said.
"Maybe not in the traditional sense," Usopp said. "But, I mean, you can't do anything with anyone for a hundred years without getting to know them pretty well, right?"
Brogy boomed out a laugh.
"You've about got the right of it! I don't hold any hatred for old Dorry."
'I give up.'
They didn't even hate each other, yet they fought anyway.
Truly pointless.
A volcano near the island's center erupted, and Brogy's face turned serious.
"Time to head out."
The bearded giant rose, battle-ax in hand. He raced out of the clearing with shocking speed for his size, lifting his weapon just as another giant came into view, a sword to Brogy's ax.
The resulting clash sounded more like an explosion than metal impacting metal.
"I don't get it." Nami affirmed aloud after watching for a moment.
A lack of any response had her whipping her head around in time to catch Usopp strolling toward the tree line.
"Where do you think you're going?!" She snapped.
Usopp jumped a little, turning back toward her.
"The ship…?" He said, voice trailing off at the end like a question rather than a statement.
Nami glared at him.
"Because?" She prompted.
"The idea would be to get some more alcohol," he said. "Brogy can't really get into our storeroom- he'd break everything."
Nami neither needed nor asked for sass.
"You were just gonna ditch me?!"
Usopp blinked, aggravatingly unassuming.
"I figured you didn't wanna walk through the prehistoric jungle if you didn't have to," he said. "And this clearing belongs to one of the island's two apex predators. Plus, no one can sneak up on you. Barring right next to Luffy, this is probably the safest spot on the island."
Nami didn't have a response for that. Nothing satisfying, at any rate.
'Useful. And infuriating.'
"Don't leave me here." She said.
Usopp raised his hands in a placating gesture, spun on his heel, and walked away.
"I still don't understand why don't just wreck the ship and be done with it," Mr. 5 said. "They're as good as dead if we strand them here."
His desire to deal with the pirates indirectly had nothing to do with their previous encounter with the captain.
None whatsoever.
"Orders are orders," Miss Valentine said. "And Mr. 3 fancies himself an artist."
She rolled her eyes.
"You know what they say about artists being eccentric."
Mr. 5 sniffed at that. Neither of them would ever speak so frankly within earshot of the superior agent, obviously. Still, if it weren't for Mr. 3's freaky Devil Fruit, he'd be inclined to say 'Balls to it', strand the whole band of pirates, and claim them dead.
Well, that and the fact that those who failed Mr. 0 typically lost the privilege of breathing shortly afterward.
Forgoing the gangplank, Miss Valentine hopped weightlessly onto the ship, Mr. 5 close behind her. She took up a position as a lookout while he made for the ship's storeroom, all without a word of communication. While Mr. 5 couldn't truly say he'd save his partner were she ordered to be exterminated, he did appreciate that they worked well together.
He blinked upon entering.
"The hell's this?"
Across the room, what could only have been barrels of grog sat situated against the wall. Rather than that, the sign posted above them had caught the agent's attention.
Zoro,
This is your intervention. You just won't listen. If you're really willing to take an explosive round to the face for a drink, we'll have to resort to more drastic measures.
Mr. 5 blinked again, frowning in consternation. The sheer randomness of the whole scene left him at a loss for a couple seconds. And, given that it made his task more complicated, a little miffed.
'Whatever- Don't know, don't care.'
As a walking explosive himself, Mr. 5 would just trigger whatever trap had been set up and deal with it. Working within Mr. 3's timeframe- and with a vested interest in not becoming a piece in the other agent's collection- Mr. 5 had neither the time nor the patience for further consideration.
He crossed the room. Sunlight filtering through the open door behind him caught on a wire, suspended and taut just above the grog. He tracked it, found where it ended, and tugged.
Twang!
A small projectile flew toward him from his right. He snapped his mouth open and shut to intercept and swallow the explosive pellet.
Half a beat passed.
He beaded sweat.
He reflexively reached halfway for his mouth, nose running.
He bolted out of the storeroom, desperate for fresh air.
"Mr. 5?"
Except they were on an island with a tropical, balmy climate, and after practically expelling a column of fire, he received absolutely zero relief from the burning in his mouth.
"Arrrh!" He cried. "Those little shits! I'll"
"Someone's coming!" Miss Valentine cut him short, leaping away from her perch onto shore.
'Good.'
Mr. 5 stalked down the gangplank, fingers curled into claws, more than ready to blast anyone who-
"Oi, Captain!"
Mr. 5 dove into the dense foliage, his partner right behind him. The long nose brat came walking out into the open, yelling back over his shoulder.
"Quit lagging behind!"
Mr. 5 watched him ascend the gangplank.
"We- we'll strike once his back is turned." Miss Valentine whispered.
Mr. 5 nodded emphatically, eyes peeled and listening out for Straw Hat's approach. The long nose made it difficult, though, by maintaining a running commentary the whole time- boarding the ship, disappearing into the storeroom, and coming back out with a barrel over each shoulder.
"Luffy, I am not carrying these back by myself!"
He dropped both barrels to the deck, and finally stopped talking.
A beat passed.
With absolutely nothing indicating any approach from the jungle.
Mr. 5 looked back toward the Pinocchio brat, only to find him staring back, making dead center eye contact.
'Don't tell me…'
The brat gave him a wide, shit-eating grin.
Mr. 5 shot up from his hiding spo- strategic position- just as the little troll bolted back into the jungle.
"PUNK!" Mr. 5 shouted, storming after him. "I AM GONNA RIP YOU A NEW ASSHOLE!"
Usopp hooked one hand around a tree to make a sharp right, skidding on his feet down an embankment. Just behind him, an explosion went off, followed immediately by the thunderous crack of a tree falling to the forest floor. He'd been pulling off similar such maneuvers for around twenty minutes.
No one could fault Mr. 5 for lacking persistence.
Nor Usopp for lacking knowledge on how to piss off a Paramecia.
Usopp marveled, once again, at his idea's success as he reached the edge of a small stream.
'Holy shit, it worked!'
Truly, the timing of the whole thing had been the most critical point. He did run most of the way from Brogy's camp to the ship, and he'd had better eyes on Miss Valentine, though he did see Mr. 5 entering the storeroom.
In a perfect world, he'd have two pursuers-
"Hold still so I can-!"
but he couldn't complain with his results.
Usopp crossed the stream and hiked quickly up the opposite embankment, telltale sounds of someone crashing through the brush approaching as he neared the top. He kicked up his pace a notch, scoping out the area with Haki as he'd been doing intermittently. He checked that he wasn't inadvertently headed toward either of the giants, or Sanji, or-
"Zoro?"
Surprised and distracted upon seeing the swordsman after turning another corner, the sniper's foot snagged on a root, and he only just avoided falling into his crew mate.
His crew mate, whose 'voice' had registered much farther away, certainly not right in front of him. Indeed, before Usopp had fully recovered his feet, he found his legs encased in hardening wax up to his knees. His hands only remained free owing to his reflexes, evading a significant glob of wax that instead dispersed against the tree he'd just rounded.
"Well… shit."
He figured he'd stumbled on a part of Mr. 3's plan that he hadn't encountered in his 'first round.' With only moments to improvise, Usopp made a snap decision, long shot or not.
Mr. 5 came barreling into the clearing, hand grasping at the wax-coated tree.
"Got you, you"
"Just gonna warn you now," Usopp said, interrupting a doubtlessly long string of expletives or a graphic revenge scheme. He brought up his slingshot. "Brace yourself."
Mr. 5 made to storm toward him, hand outstretched, only to find his other hand caught in the wax. Snarling, he dug a finger in his nose as Usopp loaded his shot.
Twang.
Zoro paused, glancing upward and squinting through the canopy of tree branches. More or less directly overhead, an explosive fizzled, sparks quickly fading and lost in the daylight. He only knew one person with that sort of precision. Having been forewarned about enemies on the island, he wasn't willing to write it off as a coincidence.
"Think he's trying to tell us something?" He wondered aloud.
A moment later, he frowned, eyes narrowed.
Not two minutes earlier, he'd been on his way back to the ship, towing a three-horned rhino that would secure his victory in the hunting contest. Every damn tree looked the same, though, and he'd been pleasantly surprised when he stumbled across Nami.
Nami, who still hadn't reacted to the explosion. Who had been pretty vocal with her reservations about the island. Who still hadn't even moved.
And who hadn't yelled at him once in the past ninety seconds.
Suspicious.
On a whim, Zoro hoisted his kill over his head and hurled it at the navigator.
Nami screamed.
"I hate this island!"
She ran through the forest, fairly heedless of her bearing and direction, given she was being chased by a fucking dinosaur! She'd been happy not too long ago at the news Brogy brought back to camp with him.
("Gababababa! Old Dorry's got guests of his own! Friends of yours, y'think?"
"Um, well, that depends."
"A funny straw hat kid and a girl with a duck, sounds like."
"Oh! Vivi and Luffy!")
She'd been markedly less enthused to learn that Usopp had, apparently, gone missing.
("Where'd Usopp run off to?"
"He said he was getting more ale from the ship."
"Huh. Dorry and I didn't run into him."
"… Thank you for the food and conversation. Excuse me.")
She'd stormed away with that somewhat stiff farewell, fully intent on finding the marksman and tearing into him. Cooler heads prevailed, though, and she changed course once she realized that, of all her morons, Usopp would have a legitimate reason for changing plans. One that probably involved Baroque Works in some way. She still planned to yell at him.
She just wanted to get Luffy first.
Then, of course, one of the island's prehistoric beasts had seen her and gotten curious. Through the primal fear that had taken control of her feet, she knew her Climatact could, theoretically, deal with her pursuer, but that would take too much time to be practical.
Such was her relief upon spotting Zoro that she almost cried.
Instead-
"Zoro!" She yelled. "Kill it!"
"Oh," he said, laconic as ever. "There you are."
Nami only stopped to breathe once she ran past him. The sound of metal unsheathed and a thud behind her put her at ease. She only startled a little on noticing the motionless triceratops, one side of its stomach coated in some off-white substance. She ignored Zoro's muttered 'too small' and 'does this thing even eat meat?' in favor of examining the stuff.
"What is that?" She finally asked, not that she really expected any sort of helpful answer.
"Dunno," Zoro said, meeting her expectations perfectly. He nudged the body with his foot and rolled it over. "Whatever it is, I can't cut it."
Nami frowned at that. Cautiously, she rapped one knuckle against the stuff. She agreed with his assessment, finding no 'give' to speak of, although the texture struck her as strange. She brushed one fingertip over it, rubbing it against her hand.
"It's almost like wax," she said. "Why is there wax in the middle of the jungle?"
Zoro shrugged.
"Dunno," he said again. "Used to look just like you, though."
Nami felt her frustration building again.
"So, the wax on your triceratops came from a sculpture of me?"
"Yeah."
"How?" She asked pointedly.
"I threw it."
Nami clenched her jaw.
"Why?" She hissed out, trying to suppress another aggravated scream.
Zoro opened his mouth, paused, then closed it, as though considering his answer. Nami restrained herself from throttling him.
Finally-
"Usopp doesn't miss."