Genuine Treasure
Author Notes: WOO! Spring break! Almost. This chapter contains some Japanese language jokes, so you might want to have a translator handy. I will post an explanation at the end in case you don't catch them.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but Gilly!
Chapter 5: Usopp's Specialty
"… Finally, we have an updated report on the Straw Hat Pirate crew, known destroyers of Enies Lobby and one of the most notorious new crews on the Grand Line!" The pirates had gathered around the radio every week for the past five weeks to listen to the weekly bounty updates ever since they left Briefer's Wake. It took four days for the Log Pose to reset and start pointing the way to the next island, Tiny Oar Peak, and Gilly had not been allowed off the ship at all. She instead had stayed with Zoro and guarded the ship. He had been training her intensely, helping her develop solid stances with her single sword, and showing her some basic sword slashes. He also got her some one, three, and five pound weights to start building her arm and leg strength.
"She'll never lift a real sword if she can't lift five pounds," Zoro had explained to a frustrated Nami.
"She's only three, dumbass!" Nami snapped back. "Your expectations are way too high!" Zoro glanced over his shoulder as he heard a crash, and saw that Gilly had dropped the weight onto her foot again. As Gilly screamed, Zoro rushed to comfort her.
"I didn't say she'd be doing it tomorrow!" He growled, as Nami ground her teeth in anger.
Even in five scant weeks, the toddler had gotten a little stronger. With both feet together and a little help balancing her handstand from Zoro, she could push the five-pound weight up with her legs, and lift three pounds with both arms. She wasn't especially muscular, but when Zoro squeezed her bicep muscle, he could feel how firm it was getting. He couldn't say in words how proud he was of her- especially now, because it was for something she was doing rather than just existing. Now, Zoro wanted to learn if his protégé was still on the Marine's hit list. Gilly sat in Zoro's lap because she no longer fit in Luffy's, and Luffy was seated on the counter beside the radio with one hand on his rounded belly, grinning eagerly for the news.
"Come on, come on, tell me they've changed it…" Sanji urged, scratching his head anxiously. Franky turned the volume up.
"… Recent reports have shown that Black Leg Sanji is near the Shabondy Archipelago, and the 51st division reports that he should be accompanied by Black Cat Burglar Nami…"
"You had to slip that in, didn't you?" Franky cackled, ribbing Sanji. Nami rolled her eyes, and Robin turned the volume up again.
"In addition, it is believed that Bastard Enigma Roronoa D. Gilea…"
"Daddy, what's a Bastard Enigma?"
"Shh," Zoro hushed her, and Usopp turned the volume up again.
"… has been disguised in all of her photographs! In addition, one report shows that Roronoa D. Gilea was observed purchasing a sword, leading Marines to determine that she is, in fact, the apprentice of Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro! With this relationship confirmed, her status has been changed to 'Wanted Dead or Alive,' and the Marines are offering a 10,000,000 bell reward for a confirmed photograph of the girl out of disguise!"
The silence made the radio sound like a foghorn, and Luffy slammed his palm down on the radio's power button. Brook was the first to speak.
"Do we need ten million bells?" Sanji and Franky both brought their feet down on Brooks' afro, and he laughed. "Someone had to say it!"
"Daddy, they want me dead," Gilly whispered, eyes wide as she stared up at Zoro. Zoro frowned, unsure of what to say to change her frightened face. "Daddy, they want me dead cause I've got a sword!" She jumped from his lap and ran to the deck, and Zoro and Luffy quickly followed. She picked up her wooden practice sword from where it had been left leaned against the cabin house and threw it overboard. "They won't want me if I'm not a swordsman!"
"Gilly, don't talk like that!" Luffy yelled, and stretched to catch the sword in his hand and bring it back. "Your Daddy and I want you to chase your dreams, and if you want to be a swordsman, you shouldn't give up!"
"But the Marines will kill me!" Gilly wailed, as Luffy, holding the sword and obviously angry, stomped towards Gilly. Zoro gaped; Luffy indeed looked funny with his stretched belly and slightly adjusted gait, but he was still very intimidating.
"Roronoa D. Gilea, we wouldn't be where we were now if we were scared of death! You should be proud that the Marines are so scared of you!" Luffy folded his arms and scowled.
"Luffy, stop," Zoro interrupted. Gilly's eyes were full of tears. Luffy frowned.
"I won't let you give up on your dreams, Gilly. I don't want those Marines chasing you, but I won't have you give up what you want most because of it!" Luffy declared, and he turned to Zoro. "What if you had given up your dreams just because you lost against Mihawk?"
"You're right, but don't yell at her," Zoro replied sharply.
"I just don't want her to talk like that." Luffy looked back to Gilly. "I'm not mad at you. I don't want you to give up on your dream!"
"B-but Daddy…" Gilly rubbed her eyes. "I don't want to go to Impel Down." Luffy shook his head, got on his knees, and embraced her. Zoro looked away.
"Gilly, we will get the Marines off your trail," he said quietly. "We will do it somehow."
"I think I know how." Zoro and Luffy turned when they heard this from the least likely source there was: Usopp. Usopp was considering Gilly with his hand on the back of his head. "Pretty simple matter, actually. I thought of the story you told us of when you met Zoro, Luffy." Usopp smiled. "Coby. He wanted to join the Marines, but needed a clean slate, right?"
"Right." Zoro, Luffy, and Gilly all nodded.
"And then Daddy got him to punch him in the face," Gilly added.
"And then the Marines decided he was our enemy and therefore not a pirate at all," Zoro finished. Zoro and Usopp met eyes, Usopp smirking calmly, and Zoro's eye twitched in shock. "No!"
"No what?" Luffy looked confused, but Gilly could have been catching seagulls in her mouth.
"You want me to hit Daddy?!"
"No way! That'd look set-up if you just hit him. We'd make it genuine, and I can totally construct it so nobody gets hurt!" Usopp grinned. "I used to do it all the time with my pirate crew. We'd put on little fight shows, and if you trained Gilly up really good, you could have her fight you!"
"I can't lose to her," Zoro replied, raising an eyebrow. "She may be my daughter, but I'm not going to throw it."
"I'll work on a script, and you can beat her, and she won't get hurt! Zoro, what you need to do is start training her in real duel situations." Usopp looked very excited. "Just make her a great swordfighter!"
"Fine. We'll try it," Zoro grunted, and looked at Gilly. "Tomorrow, we're going to start serious training."
Two weeks later, Zoro found himself more pleased than he could imagine. "I remember when I was proud of her just because she went to the potty all by herself, with no help from us," he remarked to Luffy as he watched Gilly play-dueling with one of Robin's fleur. Luffy, who sat on the railing next to where Zoro leaned, grinned.
"I remember when I was proud of her for saying Papa," he replied.
"I remember being proud of her for sitting up on her own."
"Crawling."
"Rolling over."
"Smiling."
"Now, I'm proud of her because I want to take her to a dojo and have her take down their sign," Zoro chuckled, as Gilly smacked Robin's wrist with the bamboo.
"Gilea, if you insist on winning, I will have to fight harder!" Robin called from behind her book. Gilly laughed, and pounced onto Robin's hand.
"Don't be so serious, Auntie Robin!" She turned around when Franky came out with a big bottle of cola under one arm. She pointed her sword at him. "Uncle Franky! I challenge you!"
"Oh, a challenge from the little swordsman? Super!" Franky laughed. "You asked for it, and a man will always accept a challenge!" He planted his hands on his hips, leaving his chest open and smirking. "I won't hold back!"
"Remember, Gilly, it's not honorable for a swordsman to show his back to his enemy, nor honorable to strike at the enemy's back!" Zoro called. Luffy laughed, as he saw the look of contemplation on his daughter's face. She was bright, he knew, so there were definitely wheels turning.
"Okay!" Gilly grinned, and faced Franky and pointed her sword straight forward. "Daddy taught me this, Uncle Franky! I know you can't get hurt from the front, so…" She took stance carefully, bringing the lithe wooden sword behind her head. "Thirty-six-pound-hou!" She spun it around her head with as much force as possible. Franky's hair blew in the little bit of wind she'd created, and he laughed.
"Hey, Gilly-sis, that's pretty cool, but I think you were a little inaccurate! I barely felt that-" There was a splashing sound, and Franky realized that the cap had been blown off of his cola bottle. Franky's jaw dropped in shock, and he gaped as the little swordsman leapt over the cola puddle towards him and pounded on his chest-fridge with the hilt of her sword. The door sprung open.
"Weak spot!" She slashed from right to left and broke all the bottles in his chest, and jumped back into a defensive pose before he could strike at her. Zoro burst into malicious laughter, as Franky realized he'd been utterly blitzed.
"Gilly-sis, that's not fair!" Franky whined as his hair went flat, and he stomped his feet and puffed smoke from his ears.
"I think it was smart! She knows your weaknesses!" Luffy laughed. "Besides, you know it's not a fair match. Right, Zoro? She can't hurt him with her swords from the front, and it's against a swordsman's honor to attack the back."
"That's right." Zoro smirked. "She did the right thing. She disabled him as much as she could. However… you still have to clean up the mess." Zoro retrieved a bucket and sponge, and Gilly pouted. "You know the rules. You make the mess, you clean it up." She scowled and began to clean the cola off the deck. Zoro turned to Franky, still smirking. "Don't accept her challenges unless you're sure you can beat her," he chided teasingly. "She might be fifty pounds of cute in a twenty pound bag, but she's got a real instinct for swordplay. It's a game to her."
"I was only coming out here to get you and you sic the shrimp on me!" Franky snarled. Zoro finally stopped smirking and tilted his head in confusion.
"You were coming for me?"
"Yeah, you asked me to remind you of the meeting you called! I programmed it into my internal clock and everything!" Franky flipped open a panel one of his arms and showed a blinking digital time display.
"Oh, that's right." Zoro turned to Luffy. "Oi, I'm having a secret meeting with the men except for you. We're planning something special for you, so don't come in," Zoro instructed him firmly. Luffy grinned and clapped his hands.
"Sounds good! I'll be sure she cleans up nice and good, and we'll wait for you to tuck in to sleep." Luffy grinned and gave Zoro a thumb's up, and Zoro chuckled and left with Franky. Robin glanced at Luffy over her book, and then at the sign Franky hung on the cabin house door.
"No Women Or Luffy Allowed- Private Manly Man Meeting," she read aloud. "I can't help but wonder what they're talking about."
"The men are keeping a secret?!" Nami gasped as she popped up from the lower deck. "Hey, that's not fair!"
"Nami, you and I have our share of girls-only secrets," Robin remarked, smiling slyly. "You wouldn't want the men to nose in on our conversations."
"Yeah, but we tell our secrets in our cabin!"
"But they have Gilly in their room, and as bright as Gilly is, she'd unintentionally divulge any and all secrets they tell. Not to mention, Luffy's not in on this one."
"It's a surprise for me!" Luffy laughed. "I'm not going to spoil it for them or spoil it for myself. I don't want you to spoil it for me, either!" Nami simply smirked, and climbed to the cabin house. She pressed her ear to the door and listened in as the men started.
Franky, Chopper, Usopp, Sanji, Brook, and Zoro seated themselves around the table, and Sanji served ale all around (except to Chopper, who refused.) "I asked you all to meet with me because I require some help," Zoro started. Sanji scoffed.
"I can't believe you're admitting that. What's the deal?"
"This is the unofficial Boy-Child Name-Selection Committee," Zoro announced, and he set a notepad on the table. "Luffy said I get to name the new kid, and I'm supposed to pick a boy's name." Zoro shrugged. "I got nothing."
"Well, good thing Luffy's got a couple months left," Usopp remarked with a chuckle. "It'll take us a long time to agree on anything!"
"We're not going to vote on it. I just need a good list. We can make a big list, and I can pick a name I like off of that. I figured maybe some of you would have some ideas, because I can't come up with any." Zoro cast his eyes from man to man. "My only request is, don't give me names that came from people you know, alive or dead."
"Can we name him after me? I'm not alive or dead!" Brook laughed.
"I'll kick you out!" Zoro threatened sharply.
"I think I know what he's saying. He doesn't want the kid to have to live up to anyone else's accomplishments," Usopp stated. Chopper and Franky both grinned.
"How sweet."
"How cute."
"Yeah, that's pretty much it. No Zoro the Second or anything. The only one I can think of is Ichirou, and that's such a plain name," Zoro remarked. He wrote it down anyway.
"Hey, I like Ichirou," Sanji shot back. "That's the boy name I picked."
"What do you mean?" Franky looked to the cook.
"Well, I… I already picked out the names I want for my kids!" Sanji grinned and pulled out a sheet of paper from within his vest. Brook snatched it from his hands and opened it.
"Yohohoho! Ai, Aiko, Aimi, Aina, Airi, Akemi, Akiko, Aoi- Why, Sanji, these are all girl's names!" Brook laughed.
"The boy's names are on the back," Sanji replied, scowling. Brook flipped it over, showing the front side of the paper covered in tiny handwriting listing a book's worth of girl's names. The back side was most sparse, with just one name on it: "Ichirou."
"Why so few?" Chopper asked, and Sanji grinned again.
"Because my bride is so beautiful she could never produce a male child!" Sanji declared proudly. Zoro kicked him in the shin.
"You are made of thirty-six different kinds of stupid!" As Sanji swore at Zoro, Zoro turned to Chopper. "Chopper. Boy's names. Now." Chopper squeaked, taken aback.
"Uh-uh-uh- Kaede, Okashi, Ichigo, Kiwi-"
"Those are all edible!" Zoro snapped, and Sanji laughed.
"Hey, I have another one- Kichirou!" Zoro kicked Sanji again, but he kept laughing. Franky noticed that Zoro was still writing all the "names" down.
"Hey, Zoro, what about Carver, Benjamin, Edison, Nicolai, or Alexander?" Franky suggested. Zoro nodded, and scrawled them down. He sensed, somehow, that there was a pattern, but he couldn't figure out what it was.
"What about Oni?" Usopp laughed. "That way, when you do your attacks, it'll be like you're saying your kids' names!" Usopp imitated Zoro with a double slash. "Oni… Gilly!"
"Out," Zoro snapped, pointing at the door. Usopp quickly began to stammer.
"Oh! No! I've got more! Shishi, Kurokuma, Wanizame, Hikyuu-"
"Tora," Zoro interrupted, and grinned. "Heh. Shishi, Tora, and Kurokuma!"
"Oh my!" Brook laughed.
"Oh, that'd be good! You could have three sons!" Franky laughed.
"I think one will be fine," Sanji chuckled. "We don't need any more Zoros on board. Let's pick a good name, since I hope this is the only one we need to work on! I've thought of a few more. Cormoran, Cygne, Canard, Colombe, and Poulet."
"Ugh. Those are the worst," Zoro muttered, but he still wrote them down. "Didn't know you hated Gilly so much."
"Love the kid, but she's too much like you," Sanji teased.
"Zoro," Brook tapped the table to get his attention. "This gentleman's suggestions are Maestro, Solo, Oratorio, Capriccio, Basso, Canzone, and Allegro."
"Hmph. Well, at least they sound pretty, but I have no idea what they mean," Zoro muttered. He glanced around. "You guys are just as inept at this as me!"
"Oi!" The others shouted, and reached forward to smack the swordsman. Zoro laughed and tucked the list into his sash.
"Okay, okay, why don't we just break, and we'll try this again when we've all had more time to think?"
"Do you have a favorite so far?" Chopper asked, shaking with excitement.
"Yeah. I do." Zoro smirked. "But I'm not going to tell." Franky, Chopper, and Sanji all scowled and pouted.
"Jerk."
"Neanderthal."
"Moss ball."
When Zoro opened the door, he found Nami and Gilly crouched right next to it. The pair looked at one another, at Zoro, and then back at one another. Nami finally focused on Gilly.
"Okay, Gilly, now you explain to your Daddy why you were eavesdropping!" Nami ran away, and Zoro looked back at the suddenly-alone girl. Her eyes widened, and Zoro narrowed his eyes, before crouching by her and smiling softly.
"Hey, Gil, what do you want your baby brother to be named?" The child stared at Zoro, before shrugging.
"I don't know. Ken?"
"Heh. Ken. Okay. Bath time." He took her by the hand and led her away.
Luffy peered in around the curtain to watch Zoro and Gilly. Gilly was sitting on his lap, peering into a book he held on his lap. She was watching intently and mouthing along as Zoro read aloud.
"Night is to day as moon is to sun, school is to work as beach is to…" Zoro paused, and pointed at the word. Gilly tilted her head, and slowly sounded out each letter.
"F… oo… n. Foon, foo, fuh, fun. Fun." Gilly smiled. "Beach is to fun?"
"That's right. Beach is to fun." The smile on Zoro's face was nearly audible. Luffy shuffled in past the curtain and sat beside Zoro, listening as he kept reading. Sanji and Usopp listened from their cots, as they assembled some small props by their beds.
"Sanji, do you think you'll ever have kids?" Usopp asked, twirling a wooden spoon in a mixture of melted wax and oil sitting over a hot plate. Sanji glanced briefly up at Usopp as he mixed ketchup with Worcestershire sauce and corn syrup. He hadn't wanted to work in Usopp's shop because of the smell.
"I'd like to, someday." Sanji stared at his mixture for a moment. Usopp glanced at him, wondering what he was thinking, until Sanji spoke again. "Why, do you want children, Usopp?"
"Ah, I would, but I don't think I'll ever meet a girl who'd put up with me and my pirating ways. I mean, for a while, I was in love with Nami… but that ended a while ago, because I realized I never had a chance with her." Usopp rubbed his forehead, and Sanji scoffed.
"I didn't know you were smitten with Nami-swan. You should have shown her!"
"Not all of us are as obtuse as you," Usopp muttered, and he spread some of the wax mixture on an old kitchen knife. He carefully thinned it out, so it was barely noticeable against the blade, and tested it on a piece of paper. The paper didn't even show a mark. "You know, I have to wonder if Franky and Brook can even have kids. Franky got run over by a train, and he replaced most of his frontal body parts-"
"Franky's still got his oranges, man, no doubt he kept the seeds. I'm pretty sure he's fertile," Sanji laughed. "But I'm pretty sure Brook is missing that particular bone required to make babies." Usopp cackled.
"You're sick! Give me some of that." Usopp took a spoonful of Sanji's mixture. "Yeah, this looks about right in terms of viscosity and color, and it looks like it'll drip right, but I hope nobody goes and smells it."
"Let's hope not. It smells pretty awful as it is." Sanji chuckled softly, dragging in on his cigarette.
"What about Robin? You think she'll want kids? She's motherly as it is," Usopp suggested, as he pulled out a few canisters of eye shadow and began to measure amounts into a bowl with a spoon.
"Robin… with child?" Sanji giggled immaturely. "Oh, she'd look so cute with a baby!" He clasped his hands together in affection and squealed with glee.
"If you think she'd be so cute, why don't you just get her pregnant?' Usopp teased, and Sanji snorted angrily.
"Well, a baby is something you need to think about, and plan, and be committed to. Robin has such a mature beauty and an even more mature mind, so she'd never be the type to just lay with a man for the sole purpose of conception. She'd want to be married. And besides, if you think it's so easy, why don't you do it?"
"You act like I have a chance with her either!" Usopp snapped.
"Hey. Shut up." Both looked, and saw that Luffy was tucking Gilly into her quilt and Zoro had emerged with the book closed in his hands. "If you're going to be perverts, do it where the kid can't hear you."
Sanji scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Okay, Mr. Manly Man. We'll stop talking about sex with girls." Zoro's eye twitched, and Usopp picked up the knife and some of the powder in the bowl.
"Sanji, you need to have respect for the first mate!" Usopp barked, and he hit Sanji across the face with the knife. Sanji hissed, as a brown and purple bruise appeared on his cheek.
"You… son of a bastard!" Sanji snatched the knife and some of the ketchup mixture and sliced Usopp's nose. Usopp moaned and clutched his nose as blood poured from the wound. Zoro gaped, taken aback.
"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Usopp began to throw punches at Sanji, bruises becoming apparent with each smack and Sanji kept slashing at Usopp with the knife, until Zoro jumped in the middle and grabbed the knife from Sanji. Usopp had blood congealing all over his arms, and Sanji was bruised terribly. "Hey, if you're going to fight, take it outside!" Zoro snapped. "You're going to wake up-" He cast his eyes over his shoulder, and saw Luffy had fallen asleep next to Gilly's cot, and Gilly was still asleep. "Ugh. Never mind." Zoro let them go and started to storm away. "If you kill each other, I'm not coming to your funerals!" Usopp and Sanji remained in place as he closed the door behind him, and began to snicker.
"Hah! We got him! Gotta give you credit for a newbie, the tiny piping bags for the blood was a good idea, especially with the groove in the sculpted wax for it to flow down." Usopp cackled, and began to wipe the fake blood away.
"The combined colors of eye shadow for bruises is good. You must have experimented with that a while with your kids," Sanji complimented in return. "You go wash that off, I'll put this stuff away." He began to scoop up the bowls and hot plate, and Usopp half-skipped to the washroom. Sanji stopped on his way out to the kitchen and took a detour to the second floor. He slid one shoe off by the girls' cabin door and went on his way, humming softly to himself with a devious grin on his face.
He jumped down the stairs to the kitchen and began to stow everything away, only slightly attracting the attention of Franky and Nami, who sat with cola and coffee. Franky was sketching on some blueprints for an upgrade for the Mini-Merry, and Nami was working on her maps. Robin could be seen outside near the bow on her evening watch shift. Sanji gently tapped Nami's shoulder after tucking the hot plate away, and she gasped as she turned around.
"Oh, your face!"
"It doesn't hurt too much." Sanji grinned widely. "Not at all!" Nami paused, then rolled her eyes. Sanji laughed. "Look real? Turns out Usopp's got a secret talent."
"I was fooled. For a second." Nami smirked. "Up close, you can see the powder."
"Hrm. Usopp will have to work on application of bruises," Sanji remarked. "Not that you'd know, since you never use it, but how do you remove eye makeup?"
"Oh, I'll show you," Nami chirped, rising from her chair and leading Sanji down back towards the cabin. She glanced down, noticed his missing shoe, and smiled softly to herself. Franky didn't seem to pay any mind to the two of them, continuing to pore over his blueprints.
"The Mini-Merry's definitely going to need this super upgrade," he muttered to himself. "Especially with this notorious archipelago ahead."
End Notes: To be continued!
Oh, and explanations for the boy-name selection committee jokes:
Ichirou means "first son," and it's a fairly common Japanese boy's name.
Kichirou means "lucky son."
Chopper's suggestions- Kaede: maple. (As in maple syrup!) Okashi: candy. Ichigo: strawberry (but some of you probably knew that!) And of course, Kiwi.
Franky's suggestions- There IS a pattern. Just guess!
Oni Gilly- An example of what I call "long way for a dumb joke." Gilea would be "Giria" in Romanji, and Gilly would be "Giri."
"Shishi, Tora, and Kurokuma:" Lion, Tiger, Black Bear, oh my!
Wanizame: shark. Hikyuu: leopard-like beast.
Sanji's second set- French poultry, yum! (cormorant, swan, duck, squab, chicken)
Brook's suggestions- Music/opera
Ken- Japanese for Sword.
That's all for now. Please leave a review!