Chapter Thirty-Nine: Ussop

Saturdays were supposed to be the epitome of teenage youth. At least, that's what Ussop had always thought. And for awhile they were. He hit the age of thirteen and suddenly Saturdays were for sleeping until afternoon came, hanging out with Kaya until her parents had politely pointed out that he really should be heading home, and staying up gaming so late that if she known, his mother would probably not have approved.

And the he met Luffy.

Apparently, Luffy was a morning person. For Ussop to have known this before allowing Luffy to come over to his house would have been a good thing. Because just after the crack of dawn, Luffy was guaranteed to be on his doorstep banging to be let in so they could do 'something fun.'

At least Ussop was not alone in his misery; Zoro was usually with Luffy. But Zoro was allowed to sleep wherever and however long he pleased once let into Ussop's house. Ussop was even starting to get used to it. The last two Saturdays, he had awoken to take a piss almost two minutes before Luffy graced his doorstep.

Ussop frowned, not pleased with the new habit forming. Why was it always his house, too? His mom shouldn't have to feed four teenage boys. One was plenty. Though, Sanji always did offer to cook, and even on occasion had brought some fare from the Baratie to use in his recipes.

Damn, could Sanji cook.

Still, even as Ussop ate his fourth plate of breakfast (he was starting to become as much of a pig as Luffy, it seemed), he was in a grumpy mood. They were likely to lounge around his house today and play video games unless someone came up with something interesting to do. And Luffy was not allowed to pick what they did.

No more almost-floods in Ussop's house.

That one had even tried his mother's never-ending patience. But somehow, Luffy was still allowed over.

"So what are we doing today?" Sanji asked as he did the dishes against his mother's wishes. Sanji was, if nothing else, very kind and polite to any and all women. But he had a pervy side that was borderline commitable.

Luffy's mouth opened, and a giant chunk of food fell out.

"Do not try to talk with your mouth stuffed like a roast pig!" Sanji admonished immediately.

Luffy swallowed hard, beat his chest a few times, and opened his mouth to speak again.

"We're going outside," Zoro announced, beating Luffy to it. "The back yard."

The three of them looked at Zoro in surprise. Usually Zoro didn't care what they did, as long as he got to sleep through it.

"Lovely," his mother smiled, drying the dishes Sanji was washing before he got a chance to. "I do have a few things I have to do today and you boys shouldn't spend all day indoors on a beautiful day like this."

Luffy was the first to recover. He shrugged and stuffed his mouth full of food again. Ussop was mostly done; he only had a few scraps left on his plate to pick at. But if he was going to be outside, he guessed they were going to be doing some sort of physical activity and Ussop had already eaten too much to be of much use for at least a half an hour or so.

Sanji eyed Zoro for a long moment before finishing up the pans and moving onto the table dishes. He snatched up Luffy's plate even though the turd had piled it high with food and was less than half way through it.

"Hey!" Luffy protested.

"Watching you barf because you ate too much is not on my list of things to do today," Sanji informed him. "You'll get the rest at lunch."

Luffy pouted for a moment before looking down at his distended stomach. He rubbed it absently, grimacing as he did. Ussop guessed he was poking the gunshot wound.

"Let's head out," Zoro decided, standing from the table. Sanji was done with the dishes and wiping down the counters, but did not protest. Ussop sighed quietly and got up too. Luffy was the slowest to move along, but Zoro waited until Luffy was ahead of him as they made their way to the back yard. Sanji waited until they were all outside and the door was closed before he addressed Zoro.

"You're surprisingly awake this morning," he commented. Zoro's eyebrow twitched but he did not rise to the bait. "What's wrong?"

"Us," Zoro stated, looking at each of them in turn. "We are what's wrong."

Ussop had no idea what Zoro was talking about. He was smart enough to not say anything though. Luffy, not so much.

"I don't get it," he stated baldly.

"You, Luffy, are on your way to becoming the pig you resemble when you eat," Zoro accused, jabbing a finger at Luffy's middle. Luffy flinched.

"You, Ussop, when is the last time you threw a knife?" Zoro asked. "Back at the yakuza shakedown, right?"

It was a rhetorical question, so Ussop remained silent since he had no denial.

"You too, Ero-cook," Zoro addressed Sanji. Sanji's eyebrow twitched this time. "You been kicking the shit out of anything lately?"

"Fuckin' moss-haired cretin," was Sanji's reply. He did not contradict Zoro though.

"I haven't been allowed in the dojo or to participate in Kendo club," Zoro admitted. "I've gotten slow. I've gained weight. I'm not on top of my game."

"So what?" Ussop asked, unable to help himself. "Life doesn't always have to be about fighting and life or death shootouts does it?"

"You live in the East Blue," Zoro pointed out. "How many people do you know of that have died of unnatural causes?"

Ussop, cowed, didn't want to admit that number.

"How many of them were our age or younger?" Zoro goaded further.

"I get it!" Ussop snapped. "I get it, alright? It's just, life shouldn't be just death fights and violence."

"Right now it is," Zoro shrugged. "Do you want to be strong enough to protect and fight for the people you care about?"

This was also a rhetorical question, but Luffy didn't get that memo.

"Yeah!" he shouted enthusiastically. Sanji smacked the back of his head lightly.

"Idiot!" he admonished. "Ussop's mother hasn't left yet. Calm your craziness."

Luffy tried to subdue himself, but he looked to be trembling with pent up energy now.

"Good," Zoro said, appearing pleased. "Start running. You've got a gut developing and you're gonna run it off. Plus, it will help rebuild your endurance after being shot."

"For how long?" Luffy asked, looking suddenly apprehensive.

"Until you don't feel like you're gonna puke anymore," Zoro stated smugly. "Get running."

Luffy groaned in dismay but started running laps around the back yard. Zoro turned to Ussop. "You got any of those rocks you were throwing left?"

"Yeah," Ussop answered, also apprehensive. "They're over there in that corner. There's probably about two dozen decent sized pebbles and a dozen or so fist sized rocks."

Zoro gave Sanji a sly look. "Throw them at the pervert."

"What?" Ussop cried as Sanji yelled, "Hey!"

"You need to work on moving targets, Ussop," Zoro diagnosed. "Dart-brow should be able to kick away anything you send flying his way and if he can't, well that's his problem."

"Fucker," Sanji cursed.

"You scared?" Zoro antagonized.

"Fuck you," Sanji spat. "Not one of those damned stones is gonna hit me."

Zoro looked at Ussop.

"You don't stop until you prove him wrong," Zoro instructed. Ussop blanched. That was kind of cruel. "You stand in the middle of the yard. The three of us are going to run laps. You are only supposed to aim for this cocksucker here. Not me and Luffy. You need to be precise with your hits, got it?"

"Ye-yeah," Ussop stuttered. He went to the corner of the yard to gather his pebbles and rocks to bring to the center of the yard. In the meantime, Sanji and Zoro, ever bickering, began running with Luffy, who looked absolutely miserable.

It was a grueling morning to say the least.

Ussop took about ten or twelve throws to get back into the grove of things, but his aim was constantly off at first. Moving targets were harder to hit in some ways. Well, maybe more to not hit. Ussop started off using only the pebbles because he was unsure of his aim and didn't want to break any bones on an intended (or unintended) target.

After about twenty minutes, Ussop got the lead time down and started to be able to almost hit Sanji with every single throw. Sanji, sweating pretty profusely and looking tired, warded off each pebble with his kicks but eventually Ussop grew bored of not 'hitting' his target. He decide to experiment and picked up two pebbles and double-knuckled them in Sanji's direction.

One was warded off, the other hit.

"Fuck!" Sanji cursed loudly. Ussop immediately felt ill at succeeding. He had purposely harmed one of his friends, essentially.

"Again," Zoro commanded. Sanji, who had been hit near the elbow, examined the impact area and shook his arm out for a moment before starting up jogging again. Luffy, who had been panting pretty bad, shuffled back to a slower paced jog but was still moving. Zoro watched Ussop for a moment before he approached.

"You gotta get rid of the guilt," Zoro told him. "You think anyone who comes after you and yours won't play on your guilt?"

"You guys are not my enemies!" Ussop countered. "Your my friends! I feel like a jerk to just be standing around while you guys are busting ass."

"Two things," Zoro said, holding up a finger. "One, you're best utilized away from the main battle. You need room to aim and throw. You don't have the upper body strength to come at most people with a knife and win a power struggle. You gotta work with your best skills."

Zoro popped up a second finger. "Two, if that whiny bitch over there-"

"Fuck off," Sanji hissed as he jogged.

"-can't defend off multiple attacks at once, he's as useless as he is perverted," Zoro explained. "You're helping him and yourself at the same time. He misses, he gets the equivalent of paintball bruise."

Ussop took a deep breath to reassess himself.

"Also, we're gonna change things up later and you're going to be under attack too, so don't be too jealous," Zoro let him know, with a somewhat cruel smile. "Don't worry, you'll get yours."

Zoro did not disappoint on his promise.

Ussop went back to throwing pebbles at them, sometimes up to five at a time. Five was as high as he got because he couldn't aim more than five properly. Actually, the fifth pebble was kind of iffy…

After making Luffy run for about an hour, Zoro told him to go collect pebbles for Ussop so they made more progress. But it was a ruse. Zoro filled Ussop's pockets with the pebbles and told him to run laps. Ussop thought that was bad enough, making him run with the added weight of the pebbles, but after about five or six laps, the fist-sized rocks came raining down on him.

"Oi, oi!" Ussop yelled, dodging the rocks. "Those can crack my skull."

"No shit," Zoro replied. "Dodge them or defend against them."

Ussop could dodge them fairly easily because their aim was terrible, but in order to defend? He would have to have some of the fist rocks in his pockets. He nabbed about four of them and set back to running, because the rocks were coming again. The chase became haphazard then; the guys were throwing rocks at him and constantly chasing after them. The attack could come from any direction.

Zoro had been right; this was way harder than what they had been doing.

Still, Ussop thought he did pretty well. No rocks hit him…until he tried to 'defend.'

Ussop watched Luffy throw one in the air as high as he could in Ussop's direction. He had about a good four or five seconds to pull a rock, aim and throw. The rocks collided mid-air and shattered. Ussop was hit with the shards. They were going to leave bruises.

"Damn it," he muttered, having collapsed in exhaustion. The others came to stand over him.

"Are you dead, Ussop?" Luffy asked, tapping Ussop's leg with his sandal.

"Yep," Ussop replied. "Totally dead."

"Good," Zoro proclaimed. "It's lunch time. Get up."

Reluctantly, Ussop dragged himself to his feet. Luffy was already in the house and Sanji was a few feet behind him to make sure he didn't devour everything in sight. Zoro kept pace with Ussop's slow gait.

"I like that you challenged yourself at the end," Zoro told Ussop. "It proves that you're taking this seriously."

"I should be," Ussop agreed, though he didn't really want to agree. The things that Zoro said weren't wrong, but Ussop didn't have to like them. "We should be taking this seriously."

Zoro clapped him on the back. "Dart-brow gets it too, I think. Luffy though…"

Ussop thought that Luffy didn't quite get the seriousness of this training that Zoro was putting them through, but he had the right enthusiasm so it was probably fine.

"Can I ask why now?" Ussop posed. "Why not have me and Sanji start training ourselves before now?"

Zoro was quiet for a moment. "Honestly, I can't give you a real reason. I just know that my gut is telling me that nuisance Nami is going to get herself into trouble again and we're gonna have to clean up after her."

Ussop snorted. "Don't tell her I agreed with you, but you're probably right."

Zoro raised an eyebrow in amusement. "I'm glad someone else sees it."

"She doesn't do it on purpose," Ussop defended because he felt that it was true. "I think she has a problem with not being able to stop herself from getting sucked into other people's problems."

"Who?" Sanji asked, Luffy in a headlock at his side. Actually, is was less of a headlock and more of trying to ward off Luffy's hands while the other two took their seats and got food.

"The yankee girl," Zoro clarified. Sanji let go of Luffy and threw a kick in Zoro's direction. "She gets herself into more trouble than she's worth."

"Nami-swan is a perfect angel," Sanji snapped.

"She has bad luck," Ussop offered up as Sanji took his seat. "That's all."

"Nami is our nakama," Luffy spoke up, surprising Ussop. Not what he said, but that he didn't have a mouth stuffed full of food when he said it. He looked truly engaged in the conversation, instead of the food, which was weird. Ussop took another look at Luffy and started to wonder if maybe he had been wrong earlier, maybe Luffy did get it…

Ussop looked at his lunch and decided it didn't matter; what Luffy had said was true. They were nakama and that was all anyone really needed to know. A look at Zoro showed him to look pleased; he probably believed Luffy got it too.

"Eat," Sanji told them. "I doubt our afternoon will get any easier after this."

"You're damn right it won't," Zoro agreed. "We're doing hand-to-hand after lunch."

"I thought you said I shouldn't do hand-to-hand," Ussop protested, feeling leery already.

"You need to practice the basics," Zoro answered. "Rocks and knives aren't limitless."

It was true. Didn't make Ussop like it any better. Still, he dug into his lunch, taking care to make sure he didn't overeat this time. Luffy, though he did eat more than his fair share, didn't eat as much as usual either. Ussop imagined that he probably still felt like he could throw up after Zoro had let him off running.

Contrary to what Ussop had imagined for hand-to-hand combat, they did not pair off and fight. Rather, it was always three against one. Zoro went first, probably to prove it could be done without any whining. He told them to come at him any which way they wanted and to not pull any punches. Sanji was brutal with his kicks and Luffy was pretty good with throwing punches, but Ussop was at a loss.

Not only was he feeling guilty for fighting his friend again, he didn't know what to do.

Well, that wasn't true. He had been watching for awhile and all he could see was ways to sucker-punch Zoro. It felt wrong. Ussop lingered in the background until Zoro ducked a kick from Sanji and spun away from Luffy's fist. Ussop didn't have any time to react before Zoro caught him in a tackle.

"Participate!" Zoro spat at him. "Or we're switching to you."

"Fine," Ussop snapped. He got up and rejoined the others, pissed off at his guilt and his inability to be as good as the others. Zoro gave a nod to start again and the other two went back to throwing punches and kicks. Ussop stayed back for a few moments until Zoro ducked a punch and cross-kicked at Sanji's attack. Up on only one foot, he was an easy target for Ussop.

Ussop swept his leg from under him and Zoro went down like a bag of bricks.

"Happy?" Ussop snapped. "You leave your right side open when you duck and you're easy to drop."

Zoro got up, huffing. "Good. Again."

They went a few more rounds and Ussop found another hole in which to attack. Sometimes Zoro would be able to defend, most times not. But never did Zoro show any resentment for Ussop's attacks breaking through.

"Alright," Zoro finally decided. "We're switching to Luffy. No cheap shots to the bullet wound, otherwise he's fair game."

Luffy proved to be more of a challenge than Ussop initially thought. Luffy was exceedingly good at parkour. He swung off branches, bounced off the fence, flipped off the house and was more limber than expected. Ussop did find his weakness; whenever he launched himself into the air, he was a sitting duck. Still, when Ussop took pot-shots at him, Luffy wasn't ruffled. He simply got up, dusted himself off, and went back to fighting.

Sanji's weaknesses were his hands. Ussop spotted it almost immediately. He relied on them too much when using some of his more elaborate kicks and generally tried to not to engage using his hands at all. When Ussop pointed it out to Sanji by latching onto one and pulling him off balance, Sanji surprised them all by not catching himself on his hands, but rather hitting the dirt face first.

"They're not my weakness," Sanji insisted when Ussop told him where he was leaving himself open. "They're my future. If I want to be any kind of chef, I can't damage my hands. I'd rather take a face full of dirt than break a wrist."

"Fine," Zoro shrugged. "Put them in your pockets."

"That limits me by half, shit head," Sanji spat.

"You limit yourself by flailing them around all over the place," Zoro shot back. "Deal with them or keep eating dirt."

Sanji tsked and shoved his hands in his pockets. They went back after him and he stumbled quite a bit at first, especially on the uneven ground, but finally he hit his stride and balance. After about twenty minutes of them attacking, Zoro called it.

"Ussop, you're up," Zoro instructed. Ussop sighed deeply and waited for the assault to begin, but ultimately was saved by the front door. A fierce banging resonated through the house to the back yard. Ussop wondered briefly who it could be; his mother had a key.

"Hold that thought," Ussop said, heading back into the house. "I'll be right back."

Though Ussop wasn't slow to the front door, the banging was relentless. He was ready to read the riot act to the person on the other side, until he pulled the door open and got a sight of Nami. She was bruised and red, bleeding in some places too, from head to toe.

"Nami! What happ—" he started.

"No time for explanations," Nami interrupted. "I need you to do something for me, but you can't ask why. I hate to be the kind of person who calls in favors, but I did your ass a favor when we fought the Black Cat Gang and took a knife in the hand for you. I need you to pay me back."

Ussop was quiet for a moment, looking between Nami and the curious little animal fidgeting behind her. Was that a deer?

Still, as Ussop processed what she'd said, the seriousness of the situation hit him. "How?"

"I need you to keep Chopper safe," Nami stated, stepping to the side and revealing the trembling animal. Yep, it was a deer. "He's a good little deer that belongs to the school nurse and he doesn't belong with the likes of me."

"Why?" Ussop asked, knowing that there was no way he was letting her leave without an explanation.

"Because I'm going to go do something very bad," Nami answered cryptically. "And he shouldn't be around me when I do it."

"What are you going to do, Nami?" Ussop asked insistently. That was a bullshit explanation and she knew it. But she was being evasive.

"Never mind that," Nami dismissed. She gestured to the deer at her feet. "His name is Chopper and he's a sweet little guy. Just please, take care of him."

As she said it, Nami pushed the little deer Chopper's rear end into the house around him. Ussop knew something bad was going to happen, just as Zoro had predicted. Nami was in that 'must-protect-others-before-myself' mode again.

"Nami, tell me," Ussop demanded as she walked away towards a bullet ridden car that did not have a windshield. Had she been in a shoot out again? "What are you going to do?"

Nami turned when she made it to the car door. By that time, the other guys had joined him. Good. They needed to see this or they wouldn't have believed him. Nami smiled ruefully and waived at them.

"I'm going to go kill our principal," she answered, and climbed into the car. Zoro brushed past him in a flurry as he jogged down the sidewalk and to the car. He jumped and slid across the hood of the car, startling its driver enough that Zoro popped the passenger door open and climbed in too.

Not willing to be left behind, Ussop was descending the stairs rather clumsily as he jogged to the car too. He could hear Sanji and Luffy right behind him, as well as the clops of little hooves farther back.

"I'm going too," Zoro was telling Nami as he reached the car door and climbed in himself. "I know what that fucker has done, and he has it coming. But if you think that you're going to make it to him without having to go through a ton of other fuckers first, you're dumb."

Nami jerked the car into park and proceeded to have a tantrum.

"No, absolutely not! Get out of the car! All of you!" she shouted. For good measure, she was pushing Zoro in the shoulder to get him closer to the door, even though he'd long since closed it.

Of all people, Ussop did not expect it to be Sanji to say it, but he lit a cigarette and looked at Nami very level headed and said, "You have no right to tell us what we can and cannot do."

Ussop could see panic in Nami's eyes as she looked at each of them in turn.

"This is a suicide mission," she stated, probably in a last ditch effort. "I'm going to face the mastermind of a bunch of professionally trained assassins. This isn't a joke."

Ussop doubted any of them were at all shocked by what she said, nor were they willing to change their mind.

As if to punctuate the point, the little deer, which had followed them down the sidewalk, began scraping his antlers and hooves against the car door. Nami closed her eyes for a moment before popping open the door and the little deer clumsily climbed across Nami to sit in between her and Zoro.

"Fine. We all can die if you want," she muttered, pulling the door shut and shifting the car into gear again. "I don't care anymore."

With a lurch, Nami stomped on the gas and they headed in the direction of the school.

"So is anyone going to explain the deer?" Zoro asked. Nami glared at him and he wilted under the stare. "Fine. Whatever. A deer."

"Nami," Luffy spoke up, sounding puzzled. "Why do you want to kill our principal?"

"Because he's done very bad things," Nami replied, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that the skin across her knuckles was taunt and white. "To me, to this little deer Chopper, and pretty much to anyone who isn't able to fight for themselves."

"You can fight real good," Luffy replied, still not understanding. But truthfully, Ussop didn't understand either. Yeah, Crocodile was a bastard for a principal, but that didn't warrant his death, did it? "You couldn't win against him?"

"I couldn't fight what was done to me," Nami answered, sounding like she was struggling for the right words. "Look, I'm not going to sugar coat it: Crocodile is a sick and twisted pedophile and—"

A what? Ussop was about to interrupt but Sanji beat him to it.

"He's a what?" Sanji snapped flinging the half smoked cigarette out the window as he scuttled up close to the front seat. "Miss Nami, please do not tell me that he has—"

"He deserves to die," Zoro interrupted this time. For some reason, Zoro didn't look confused at all. "That is all you need to know. And if any of you aren't okay with that or aren't planning on killing that man at the end of this, get out at the next stop sign."

The stop sign came, stayed for at least ten seconds, and then Nami urged the car forward again.

"Can we at least know who all we're going up against so there are no surprises?" Ussop asked, realizing that he had no weapons save for the rocks in his pockets on him as he rubbed his bare arms.

"Likely, the entire faculty," Nami answered. "Possibly some of the students too."

"Fuck," Sanji spat, lighting another cigarette and sitting back in the seat. That was a struggle to comprehend. No one ventured another word for the last block to school.

"One last thing," Nami spoke up, stopping in front of the locked school gates. She gestured to the deer. "This is Chopper. He's looking for the school nurse, who is not a part of Crocodile's lot. He's not just a pet, he's competent. Treat him like he is. And don't leave him to the wolves or I'll skin you myself."

Ussop looked at the deer, watching it nervously plod around in the front seat. Ussop thought that Nami must have been exaggerating until she gave her next command.

"Now get out," Nami ordered. "I'm going to ram through the gates with the car."

The deer looked panicked. Like he had understood every word she had said and comprehended the implications behind it. Ussop continued to watch the deer as it climbed out of the front seat behind Zoro, ignoring the fuss Sanji was making. The deer walked away a good distance and sat down. Nami was right. This deer was more than just some scared animal or pet.

Once everyone was out of the car, Nami backed up a little bit before plowing through the locked gates at high velocity. She didn't stop in the foregrounds though and the car careened through the grass, barely missing trees and bushes.

"Nami, wait!"

"Nami-san!"

"Damn yankee."

The four of them looked at each other blankly for a moment, unsure of where to start.

"Fastest way to the principal's office is through the school," Zoro shrugged. "But it will likely be the path of most resistance."

"Fuck if I care," Sanji spat, dropping his spent cigarette and grinding it out with his foot. "You sure you'll be able to find it?"

"Eat shit, I'm going to the Kendo room first," Zoro told them. "I need a sword. A real one."

With that, Zoro ran towards the school. Luffy was hot on his heels and Sanji went third. They got as far as the doors before they had to wait for Sanji to kick through them, then they were gone.

Ussop looked at Chopper and Chopper looked at him.

"Well, let's go in, but maybe not as aggressively as them," Ussop suggested. The deer looked back at the school, his entire body trembling. "You look scared. I feel ya, little guy. There's nothing but pain and death in there waiting for us. But you know what?"

The deer looked up at him curiously.

"I'm the coward of the group and I know the best ways to survive," Ussop assured him. At least, Ussop thought the deer was a 'him.' "We're going to the kitchen for knives first. Then we're gonna sniper the shit out of this place from a safe distance. Cool?"

The little deer rubbed his face against Ussop's pant leg affectionately. Ussop took that as a yes.

"Alright. Let's go in," he suggested. The two of them stood there unmoving for at least another minute. "For real though, we're really going in."

Neither moved.

That is, until gun shots went off pretty close to their position and the two of them skittered toward the broken door. Chopper was a quick runner and made it in first but Ussop was not far behind. Once through the door, he ran at top speed toward the kitchens, the little deer keeping pace with him but not passing him.

At one point, they passed a room that was occupied by Sanji and Mr. Bonclay, and Ussop felt a thrill of real fear run through him. Nami hadn't lied; the staff was going to be their opponents. It was one thing to hear, another to see.

Ussop ran faster, Chopper still at his heels.


A/N: It's been a hot minute I know. I'm making my way through the end of this arc in about 6 more chapters. Hopefully it's not too terribly boring. Let me know your thoughts.