"Line?"
"Check!"
"Tackle?"
"Check!"
"Bait?"
Yamato held up the loudly protesting Chopper. "Check!"
Usopp clapped his hands together in eager anticipation of the no doubt monstrous thing that the three of them were about to get their hands on. "Yosh! Time to fish!" He swayed on the spot slightly, and turned to the equally enthusiastic Yamato, a struggling Chopper swearing loudly in her massive arms.
"AHHHH LUFFY HELP, THEY'RE GONNA KILL ME!" The reindeer yelped, pleading with the captain. Unfortunately for him, Luffy was too distracted by the prospect of sea monster food to save his doctor, and so was entirely on board with Usopp's plan. Plus, he was currently in a coma from where Sanji had pummeled him for trying to steal from the kitchens again, so he was useless anyway.
Usopp rolled his eyes at Choppers 'dramatics' as if launching a Devil Fruit using, 10-pound child into the sea of the New world wasn't completely insane. "Relax Chopper, this'll stop you from sinking, and Yamato's here to kill anything before it gets ya!" He held up a bright orange ball in one hand and gave a nod to the cutely smiling Oni, who gave Chopper a confident thumbs up, bright eyes wide in excitement and cheeks ruddy from drink.
Yamato wouldn't ever claim to be an expert at fishing, but Usopp's plan made so much sense that it had to work. And besides, he was just doing her a favour by fulfilling one of her bucket list wishes.
The crew's sniper had approached her late that afternoon, bored out of his mind and toting; an armful of fishing rods, several bottles of booze, and a request for company that Yamato was more than happy to accept. Before long, the two were posted up on the Sunnys taffrail, long lines cast far beyond eyesight while empty glass bottles of God's knew what surrounded them in little piles. It was somewhere around the 3rd hour, the sun having just made contact with the ocean, when Yamato had dived on the subject of Sea Kings.
The razor's edge of the horizon was bathed in oranges and reds, turning the usually murky waters of the sea a shimmering gold, swirling with mesmerizing patterns that had Yamato entranced. It had taken Usopp three tries to snap her out of her daze and she had eventually confessed after some prodding that the vast emptiness of the ocean was something she desperately wished to explore, even though she knew it to be impossible for her.
She suspected that this wish of hers had garnered some sympathy (though she hadn't been looking for it) from her long nose friend because he began to wax poetic about his adventures at the bottom of the sea and, while she had no way to know what was truth and what was fiction, the thought that he cared enough to spin tales for her made her grin ear to ear.
Usopp had been such a constant presence of pure childish fun ever since she'd joined the crew that it was easy to forget that she was supposed to be a mature responsible adult. For that, the sheer fact that he allowed her to act with such carefreeness without compromise, she would be eternally grateful. And it didn't hurt that he was, in her opinion, an absolute riot. It was clear that Nami and Robin didn't agree but to her (as well as Luffy and Chopper apparently), Usopp was an infinite well of fun.
"...and then, believe it or not, my cannon's actually fired through the bubble! After that the kraken didn't stand a chance," he finished with a flourish, he had both his fishing rod and his drink in both hands but had such a loose grip on both that he may as well have been holding neither.
Yamato sat next to the wildly gesturing Usopp, expression half amused and half enraptured by his stories. She'd drunk about the same as he had but her large size meant she was only mildly wasted. In all honesty, she was impressed that he was still standing considering that she'd almost fallen off of the railing three times at that point.
Still Usopp continued to ragale her with the adventures of a brave warrior fueled by a captive audience and cheap liquor. "After that, we thought we were in the clear but under the waters you should ever let your guard down! I learnt that the hard way when I had to save Luffy from the Sea King that showed up. It was easily-,"
"You've seen Sea Kings?!" Yamato cut across his tall tale, eyes the size of dinner plates in sudden amazement as she launched herself closer to Usopp, clearly intent on hanging on his every word. Her forgotten rod barely made a splash as it breached the waters below.
"Whu-Yeah of course I have! Hundreds even, the Grand Line's lousy with 'em!" he flapped dismissivly out toward the vast emptiness, instinctually leaning away from the 8 foot tall mass of over excited Oni.
"I have heard a lot about them but never got the chance to see one. What are they like?" she asked, voice tinged by manic curiosity. Everything she'd ever learned about the world outside of Onigashima she'd picked up from scavenged newspapers, or her fathers drunken ramblings whenever he talked of past endeavours. Until she'd discovered Odens journal that is. Contained within the hallowed pages of what had become her gospel, stories of monsters the size of islands kept her up late into the night, and stories of the warriors that cut them down kept her company in her dreams.
"Other than being horrifying eldritch nightmares? They're pretty cool," he chuckled at his own joke, hiccuping every other breath.
Yamato wasn't put off by his scathingly honest review. "I hope we come across one soon, they are supposed to be very tasty," she said, grinning broadly at the idea of fighting such powerful beasts alongside her captain. She turned toward the sea once more, thoughts wandering. Because of this she missed Usopps face as he worked through what was undoubtedly a bad idea in his head. The moment when his plan coalesced was almost tangible.
"You're pretty tough right Yamato? What do you say we go after some bigger game?" he grinned. With what must have been timing from the divine (or the demonic depending on if you asked Chopper or not) the crew's young doctor chose that very second to wander over to the intoxicated pair to see whatever his friends were up to. Upon seeing his furry friend, Usopp's smile widened considerably. "Chopper! Just the reindeer I wanted to see. Wanna help us fish?"
"Do not worry Chopper-kun, I'll protect you!" Yamato proclaimed with full confidence and a megawatt grin, though she had to squint somewhat to prevent the doctor from multiplying in her vision.
"But Yamato, you can't swim! How can you protect me?!" Chopper yelled, trying desperately to wriggle his way to freedom.
Yamato considered his valid concerns with a thoughtful hum, scrunching her face up in service of the herculean effort of thinking amidst the haze of alcohol. After a worryingly long amount of time, her face brightened and she picked up a spare buoy and clipped it to the cloth of her hakama pants. It was barely bigger than her closed fist but she gave Chopper a satisfied smile and another thumbs up regardless. Chopper only yelped louder.
So caught up in the idea of Sea King skewers, neither Yamato nor Usopp noticed the hellish presence that had snuck up on them in response to Chopper's cries. And as such, neither were able to escape the wrath of the navigator.
"YOU FUCKING MORONS," Nami screamed, wreathed in the flames of fury, emerging from the shadows. She didn't even bother to use her clima-tact to hit the pair of them, opting instead for the good old fashioned hammer fist to the cranium. They clattered to the ground in twitching piles, welts the size of melons protruding from their crowns. Nami stood over them, fist raised.
The emancipated Chopper leaped from Yamato's loose arms and clinged to Nami's neck with tears of joy in his eyes. "NAMMMMIIIIII!" he cried.
"I expect this idiocy from the long nose but I'm disappointed Yamato," she said through clenched teeth. Yamato had managed to get to her knees, clutching her head in both hands and began apologising with gusto.
"So sorry Nami-san won't happen again!" She bowed several times in quick succession, her throbbing skull not making things easy. From his positions still face first on the deck, Usopp mumbled out his own amends.
Nami simply rolled her eyes almost hard enough to detach her retinas and plucked the sobbing Chopper from where he was still clutched to her, ignoring the prostrating duo. "C'mon Chopper, Luffy needs your help," she turned sharply on her heel and stalked away, leaving Usopp and Yamato to sulk at their loss of a potential Sea King.
Silence reigned as Usopp slowly clawed his way to a sitting position, and the pair stared at the retreating form of Nami and their bait before glancing at one another in their own sorry states. It took all of two seconds for both of them to burst into uncontrollable bouts of raucous laughter. They stayed like that, locked in the throes of laughter, nursing their injuries for a long while: so long the sun had dipped all the way below the horizon by the time they pulled themselves together enough to speak once again.
"Okay, maybe that wasn't such a great idea after all," Usopp allowed, as he lifted himself off the deck using the railing as support.
"What? No way! I'm sure it would have worked!" Yamato replied with a grin, though the more she thought about it, the more she realised that you weren't really supposed to use your friends as live bait. Not without permission anyway.
Usopp gave her an incredulous look. "Sheesh Nami was right, you HAVE been spending too much time with Luffy," he tittered when a blush, that had nothing to do with the liquor, climbed high on her cheeks. He continued to laugh despite the glare she shot at him but that was probably because it looked more like a pout than anything else: either that or the alcohol was making him brave. His guffawing became infectious and, before long they were once again howling like the drunken idiots they were.
Even after weeks of traveling with her new crew, it still shocked Yamato how easy it was to laugh with them all.
So entrenched in her new life was this simple revelry that it was easy for Yamato to forget that it wasn't always this way. Reading the journal of Kozuki Oden had changed everything about her life for a lot of reasons, but mostly it had given her something to dream about. The journal had ignited her yearning for seeing the world and it had instilled in her a deep seated need to see Oden's own wishes of opening the country fulfilled as well. However, the fact remained that these dreams of hers remained exactly that for many years. She never gave up the fight against her father, never stopped believing that the man Oden was waiting for would come, but some traitorous part of her mind had always held onto the thought that it was all false hope. It wasn't until she had met Ace that her dreams felt achievable.
Portgas D. Ace had destroyed any doubt that she'd held on to that her wish would be seen through and it was his easy friendship as much as it was his promises of his brother that kept her dream alive until the day she'd met Luffy. Her heart had broken the day she'd learnt of Ace's death, for the loss of her friend, but he had given his word that Luffy would come and Yamato believed in him enough that her hopes kept burning.
Now, here she was, able to laugh and to drink, play silly games and do all the other things that the journal had promised but she hadn't quite understood. Even her wildest imaginations of what Oden had described hadn't matched up to the real thing.
Through moments of lucidity amidst her cackling fit she caught glimpses of Usopp in as much of a mess as her and her heart swelled with thanks. Thanks to Ace for his friendship and the kindling of her hopes, thanks to Luffy for breaking her free from her old life, and thanks to her new family for accepting her and for giving her the simple joy of laughter without restraint.