A/N:: Roz-san!! Waiiiiiii! *huggles* ^^* Where've you been?? You still busy as usual? I put up a final word and now my site is a technically 'dead' site, but everything's still there... just no longer updated. ^^; But thank you for your lavishes; I'm blushing. *^^* I hope nothing's bearing down on you now! *^.^* God bless!



"Great. I think this is enough to impress Nami and Sanji,"

Said Usopp in a satisfied tone,

"Let's go back to GLU and see if Nami's there yet."

"Why don't we just meet again tomorrow?"

Zoro asked irritably. He had been sitting far too long in the restaurant with the long-nosed engineer; he needed a good stretch... and a good nap.

"No way. I'll forget everything I just remembered!"

Usopp said enthusiastically, and began to gather up everything strewn on the table; a notebook, several loose-leaf papers, a bunch of pencils and pens. Dumping the items unceremoniously into his bag, he jumped up and started off.

"Let's go, Zoro, come on! What happened to the energetic, active you?"

"Energetic? Active?"

Zoro echoed disbelievingly, the disbelief multiplied by the fact he had to actually jog to keep up with Usopp's fanatic steps.

"Yes! Don't you remember? You'd skip around the deck of the Going Merry, smiling and cheering merrily while sharing a drink or two with the cap'n!"

"...That's a humongous lie, and you know it. I'm not even active or energetic now, in case you haven't noticed."

"Damn it! Why does everyone always know when I'm lying?"

Usopp whined. Zoro rolled his eyes, deciding to let the so-called 'engineer' (weren't engineers supposed to be smart?) figure it out for himself.

They walked in silence for a moment, Zoro finally managing to match his steps to Usopp, before Zoro chose to prompt curiously,

"Captain?"

"Yeah, you know. We had a captain on our ship,"

Usopp said perfectly casually, unaware of the weird look Zoro was giving him.

"There's-- another one? Not Kaya, or me or Sanji or Nami?"

Usopp gaped at him.

"Come on, you remember, don't you? Not that I can envision much from my dreams - the images are too fuzzy -, but you've got to remember - that-- that stretchy sort of guy, black hair and dash of red shirt?"

An image of that very description flashed in Zoro's memory when he had had that vision back with Nami when first eating brunch with Usopp.

"Ohhh. So he is someone we know,"

Zoro mused.

"Yes! I forgot all about it! I-- I think I saw him, Zoro!"

"Did you?"

Zoro asked in surprise. Usopp looked absolutely annoyed at himself, and he was thwacking himself on the head and sending his glasses askew in process.

"Yeah! He was there and everything. I thought I'd-- I'd seen him before, and after he was gone--"

"Wait a minute, you mentioned this before. This was the person you saw before I met you."

Usopp's eyes widened as he realised this.

"I-- I met the captain!"

He exclaimed excitedly, then faltered as he said confusedly,

"But he didn't recognise me,"

"Sanji recognised you. So did I."

Zoro commented. Usopp furrowed his brow as he asked,

"You did mention Nami's roommate, Vivi, being part of this, right? Nami didn't recognise her."

"But maybe that's why they get along so well."

"Sub-conciously, I suppose. But they've never talked about it. Maybe... if they're not directly connected to us... they're... they're harder to recognise. For example, Nami had no idea that Kaya was part of this 'conspiracy thing', and she was screened all over the place..., but I saw her and recognised her straight away."

Usopp had a great look of concentration, but seemed to have overlooked a major flaw in that theory in Zoro's opinion.

"So you mean this captain had nothing much to do with us?"

"Huh?"

"I mean... I can't seem to be remember too much... but something seems a little out of place about that."

"Oh. You're right... but..."

Usopp said, scratching his head with a sweatdrop.

"Maybe the person you saw wasn't the captain,"

Zoro said off-handedly, when Usopp shook his head.

"No, it can't be. I mean, he had the same atmosphere and everything... he also looked so bloody familiar...!"

Groaning in frustration, the engineer pent it out by running in small, random circles and yelping. Zoro noted that this looked weirdly normal in his vision, whereas everyone else was looking at Usopp with astonished and amused looks. A little girl by Zoro's knee pointed at Usopp and said 'loony loony' in small giggles who was hastily shushed up by her mother.

Zoro took it to his liberty to drag Usopp away from the attention during mid-yelp and towards GrandLine University.





Nami began to enter the university's front entrance and Sanji started to follow, only to be shot with a cold glance.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd let me go in first before following a very long distance away,"

She said frostily. Nami had regained her composure, and with it a very icy edge. Sanji had refrained from saying anything on the walk back to the university, but was now surprised enough to start saying,

"But--"

"I've just cried in front of a person who has managed to cause me a lot of pain. Spare me the dignity of at least walking in unwatched and unguarded by the same entity."

Sanji watched her flounce off with a small sigh. She was so smart and so cute at the same time, even when she was being so cold. Watching her cry had given him an awful feeling, but yet it made him feel somewhat... refreshed. She had finally shown him another emotion that wasn't hidden in her usual icy exterior.

He had been seconds away from a swooning fit, but his eyes latched onto someone passing by him unconciously, his ears pricking at the snatch of conversation flitting by:

"--too late, we'll have to come back some other time--"

The model slid his eyes to the direction of the retreating sound of rolling wheels to see the same young man who had been skate-boarding with tricks the previous evening, along with his friend.

A pang hit Sanji in the chest as he realised with a jolt what had been bugging him the first time he'd seen this man. It was a similar feeling to what he'd gotten around Usopp and Zoro - it had the same sort of familiarity. Jaw dropping in surprise, Sanji's eyes followed the two skaters conversing all the while, and wondered what was making him feel so strangely urgent with this guy.

He looked incredibly familiar. He didn't know what made him do it, but his feet started to follow the young man, his eyes trained on his messy mop of black hair and lean shoulders and stance. That itself was so recognisable, yet Sanji had no idea who this person was...

He had only taken several steps, however, Usopp and Zoro came into sight. It looked as though Zoro had tuned out Usopp's voice while dragging him to the university, with Usopp whining. Sanji winced - it had taken to a new, highly irritating octave.

"Ow, ooowwww, owowow!! Let go-- leggoleggo--LET!!"

Zoro dropped Usopp, his expression turning from determined ignorance to shock, Usopp following likewise while straightening his collar. They stood before the path of the two skaters, and they stopped their skateboards and looked rather puzzled that Usopp and Zoro were staring at them and blocking the pavement.

"Er, is something a problem?"

The young man with the black hair asked politely, all the while raising an eyebrow and exchanging glances with his friend. Sanji wondered why he had even asked without simply brushing past the engineer and student; perhaps it was the fact they were both staring at the man as though he had three eyes.

"Uhm... don't I-- you know me?"

Usopp managed to say, his eyes scanning the young man uncertainly.

"Sorry?"

The polite tone changed to politely puzzled, and it was all Sanji could do to not run up there and give Usopp a good kick for asking something so stupid irrational.

"I--I mean,"

Usopp said flusteredly,

"Like-- haven't you felt like--?"

"Have we met before?"

Zoro interrupted, showering Sanji with relief. Usopp was probably going to make the guy think he was a looney. Or already had, it was hard to tell from the bemused expression on the young man's face.

"I don't think we have,"

Said the skater, still with a sense of amusement,

"You've got the wrong person."

"Really?"

Zoro asked carefully,

"You sure seem... familiar."

He accentuated the word, looking at the skater with a piercing stare while saying it. Sanji inhaled sharply - that was a big enough hint as any that anyone could make. He waited for the mystery of the young skater to finally unravel --

"Look,"

Said the young man, shaking his head with a light-hearted laugh,

"You've seriously got the wrong person. I could swear I've never seen you two people before."

Sanji's jaw dropped.

No way. But he's-- got to be someone-- he's got to definitely be part of--

"Are you really sure about that?!"

Usopp blurted out before he could stop himself, and both skaters looked at him in surprise as he continued,

"You look just like someone we're sure to have met before, I--"

"Hey, back off man,"

The black-haired skater's companion interrupted, and his eyes had narrowed in slight suspicion. This was hardly surprising; Usopp and Zoro were practically harrassing the young man.

"Right. Sorry about that."

Zoro said quickly, and made way for the two skaters, stepping on Usopp's toes in process to shut him up. The skaters glanced at each other and shrugged before setting off, the black-haired skater throwing a 'no problem' over his shoulder.

Usopp looked as though he could punch Zoro for letting them off so easily, and Sanji privately agreed with the look Usopp was giving Zoro. He couldn't believe it himself; that guy looked damn familiar, and he had been so close to quenching the question. Zoro, however, gave a glare back to the engineer.

"I'll admit he looked familiar, but... he didn't really..."

"What do you mean he didn't really?! He seemed like it, didn't he??"

"Yeah, but--"

"Oi, cabbage-head and long-nose,"

The model let the two notice him and walk towards his direction.

"Did you see--?"

"Yeah, I did. He did look awfully familiar."

"But not the same kind of recognising we had,"

Zoro said with a slight frown. Sanji was about to argue, when he remembered. Zoro was right. The familiarity had been similar but not exactly... Usopp shared the same frown as Zoro did, mumbling,

"But we can recognise him all the same... why can't he...?"

"Aah, I can't be bothered to think about it,"

Zoro said, his expression clearing as he stretched out his arms above his head,

"I'm going in. You can go in to see Nami if you want."

Usopp nodded as Zoro walked into the university grounds, though he still looked a little troubled, and was about to follow when Sanji warned him,

"I wouldn't see her yet."

The engineer blinked in surprise at the blonde, who was turning a little red as he remembered Nami's weird attitude and outburst and all her tears.

"Did something happen with you guys outside?"

Usopp asked curiously, and the model only nodded. Sighing with a shrug, Usopp walked past the entrance to the other side of Sanji.

"Okay then. I guess I'll give her a call. Think we could meet again around eight or nine? I'd really like to talk about that guy... Maybe we can work out something."

Sanji gave an absent-minded noise of agreement, when a question occurred to him.

"Usopp... what exactly is the point of this?"

Usopp gave a small sigh. Apparently, he had wondered about this himself.

"Sanji, I can't answer that. I don't know either. But... there's just something that attracts us all together, right? Something really hard to pin-point. There are so many questions... like, what exactly is it that is linking us all together? Why now and not before? And I'd really like to know why I get occasional pains in my chest when I'm around certain people in certain situations."

A jolt ran through Sanji at Usopp's last words.

"..., I get sudden pangs of migraines, and my chest starts contracting or spasming -- whatever you want to brand it."

Usopp went on, having not noticed Sanji's glazed look of shock.

"It was like that once when I confronted Nami about a really painful memory. I was really choked up, and I feel so hurt deep down. I don't understand the pains at all, so..."

"And although I don't understand it, there's a pain. I feel like someone's stabbing the freaking hell out of me."

"It's really weird... the pain goes away when I'm not near that person, or that situation, or both... it's not a medically explainable problem, I don't think..."

"Whenever you try to get all close or nice to me, it bloody hurts!!"

Sanji lit up a cigarette, his eyes shutting as he tried to ignore the headache begging to be unleashed to the rest of his brain from too much impact. However, he continued to listen to Usopp.

"I guess I just want answers. Maybe if we keep talking to each other, we can unearth something. At least, that's what I'm hoping."

He gave a crooked smile to Sanji before waving and walking away, leaving Sanji to have a much more better idea of just what exactly was bothering Nami.





Hanging his head outside the window boredly, the boy pouted.

Sure, he knew now he was going the correct way and was no longer lost at all.

But how on earth had he managed to wander two hours away from GrandLine University?! He didn't understand it.

Folding his glasses and tucking them into his jumper pocket, he sighed, settling into his seat and removing his head from the window-sill and narrowly avoiding getting hit by a passing truck side-mirror.

His stomach gave a deep growl, causing the small boy to scowl.

"I'll feed you later,"

He muttered, and broodingly stared at the dimming skies outside the leisurely moving bus.




A/N:: I will update again in four days. ^.^ Everything will be revealed soon. Heheh. Thank you for your wonderfully kind words to me... but I don't deserve them... *weeps* I love you guys! Thanks for caring to leave a word or two... it makes me feel special. *^^*