Finally the final chapter. For all of you waiting for updates of my other stories, don't worry. Since I have one less story to worry about now I'm going right back to my main ones (and hopefully I won't be stupid enough to start any new projects in the near future...)
One Piece with characters (c) Eiichiro Oda
Three man-witches against one centaur colt. It didn't take a genius to calculate the outcome. Other than being outnumbered Usopp was an archer; at his best on a distance and the man-witches specialised on hand to hand combat.
Usopp would soon be a very dead centaur.
The long-necked man-witch spoke up. "I fought two rather troublesome centaurs before, this one however seems unworthy of our attention."
Such a comment is insulting to anybody, Usopp's pride too.
"Yoi, yoi," the second spoke in a loud voice, a lion-witch if the wild, pale gold mane of hair was a hint. "Only a child. Indeeeed uuunwooorthyyyyy."
They were pushing it on purpose. Usopp was sure of it.
"A colt, not a child yet not a fully grown centaur," the third stated with a bored voice, the horns on his head indicating he was either a cow or a bull-witch. "Let's have him for dinner tomorrow."
"You man-eating monsters!" Usopp screamed.
"You are only half a man, centaur," the long-necked man-witch corrected, taking a step forward and got into a stance, ready to attack.
"That's not what I meant, you witch!"
"Oi! I happen to be a man, so I am a man-witch."
"Like I care! It's the same thing in the end!"
All three man-witches stood in attack-stances now. Usopp stiffened, knowing he wouldn't be able to get out of this one alive.
The ground vibrated slightly. It could be because Luffy just crashed heavily against it, but Usopp was a centaur of this forest and had a strong bond with the earth, and Luffy's trashing and Nami's clumsy jumping around was not the only thing he could feel in the vibrations under his hoofs. Something else was coming their way.
The man-witches attacked and everything happened at the same time. Usopp jumped and kicked with his all his four legs, hitting an innocent tree trunk and a hard limb. Something pale brown came running from the left and picked up the lion-witch, continuing its course straight into a rock. The long-necked man-witch was also attacked, but his attacker was black and much smaller.
When the scene stilled the odds could be called evened out. Usopp saw a figure he recognized; it had been about two or three years ago, and the large wolf had lost an eye during those years.
"The lost wolf!" Usopp called out with surprise.
"Don't call me that!"
The man-witches regrouped. The lion-witch, with a bloodied nose, was turned to pretty large elk whose nose was blue. The elk scrapped its hoofs in preparation of battle.
"Zoro. I can smell your family from these people," the elk said, daring a glance at the wolf.
"Me too, Chopper," Zoro the wolf answered bitterly.
"Your family?" Usopp dared ask as he prepared his bow.
The long-necked man-witch glared at the wolf. "I do believe I have seen this lone wolf before."
The wolf growled, his muscular body trembling and fur standing straight in anger.
"Don't let them anger you, Zoro," the elk warned.
"Zoro?" the bull-witch queried. "Wasn't that what Jyabura said the wolf pack we killed the other day kept howling?"
Usopp felt cold shivers ran through his spine from neck to tail. The man-witches had killed a pack of wolves? A whole pack? He glanced at the black wolf with empathy. If Usopp was the sole survivor of the centaur tribe he'd seek revenge too, if only to die like his family.
"A surviving wolf?" the long-necked man-witch asked with a raised eyebrow. "That's not good. We didn't finish the job."
"Then finish it," the wolf, Zoro growled. "Try to finish me like you finished my brothers and sisters."
"It shouldn't take too long,"
For some reason, that infuriated Usopp as much as the wolf. A small, boiling stray cloud of the witch's magic passed Usopp's ear without him flinching. That's how angry he was.
There were three of them and one man-witch for them each.
Zoro the wolf charged for the man-witch with the long neck. The elk with the blue nose ran into the lion-witch and Usopp fired his arrow. The bore-faced bull-witch he'd aimed for lifted a hand and caught the arrow, or so he thought. His eyes widened considerably when the arrow slipped his grip and continued straight through his arm.
"What the…!?"
"Sanji's special arrows from a weeping willow," Usopp explained with a grin. "You witches have made too many enemies."
The man-witch growled, losing his bored expression and Usopp turned his tail and ran, knowing his opponent would follow him. The witch had already implied that she hated the forest, and that hatred was most likely inherited by her sons, which in turn gave Usopp the upper hand. He hoped.
He lithely jumped over a rock, one that shattered when the bull-witch ran straight into it. The brute strength of the man-witch was obviously nothing to be taken lightly, and Usopp knew his body was far from as strong as his father's or any of the grown centaurs. Why had they retreated?!
Usopp kept running, pushing his legs to their limit, all the while hearing the man-witch tear through the forest behind him with sounds of shattering wood and stone that echoed in the young centaur's heart. The forest was his home! He knew every tree and every rock. They belonged right where they were, and here Usopp lead a berserk man-witch through the Greenwood forest, knowing his pursuer loved to break it.
The sounds of the river reached Usopp's ears over the heart-breaking sounds behind him, to his slight surprise. But the centaur colt wasn't stupid enough to believe he'd led the way here by himself. The forest most probably guided him, which meant that the man-witch's end was near. Instinct told him that much.
Blue Line. Once upon a time a dragon saw the river from above between the lush green of the surrounding trees. The trolls in the Silver Mountains had agreed that the river was a blue line and somehow, from there the name had spread from species outside the mountains and followed through time to present day. Tonight, true to its name, Blue Line glowed blue, reflecting the cold, silvery moonlight like a ribbon of precious gems. Any other night Usopp would have stopped to admire the beauty light and nature offered, but with a murderous man-witch short on his heels he didn't even have the time to notice more than the reflections of the moonlight as he ran across the water to the opposite beach and turned, arrow at the ready.
The man-witch stood perfectly still in the light of the moon and river. He hadn't followed across the water; something Usopp wasn't late to take note on. He didn't know much about witches in general, other than what Sanji had mentioned in his stories. It had never been anything specific, but Usopp tried to recall if there was even one story that had never involved water in some way of a witch's or other evil being's demise. On the other hand, water was Sanji's greatest love beside young maidens. Strange considering he was a creature of Earth.
"Your arrows can't hurt me unless you hit, centaur," the man-witch growled. He was definitely trying to provoke Usopp thought.
"You admit I'm a centaur, so why believe I'll miss?" he calmly taunted back.
The man-witch smirked, but didn't move. "You centaurs are so prideful, so haughty about your archery. You count the arrows hitting the targets and never the ones actually doing harm. Tell me this; how many of your arrows killed your target tonight?"
Usopp choose not to respond. Somehow he could hear Sanji's voice, his constant warning to the centaur tribe in the river's soft kisses against his hoofs.
"What's this?" the man-witch chuckled. "Cat got your tongue? I see you realize just how weak…"
"So what?"
"Huh?"
Usopp glared at his enemy down the length of his arrow aiming for the man-witch's chest. "So what if my arrows don't always kill. What if I'm not aiming for a kill? Unlike you I am a being of this forest, one of very few, and we can't afford taking lives. Humans and witches, on the other hand, are growing in numbers. When you've killed everything else, you'll turn on each other just so you can keep killing."
"Big words, centaur foal."
"But I'm right," Usopp pressed, not missing the tremble of the man-witch's hands and knees. "Isn't the dragons' near extinction proof enough? You asked how many I've killed with my arrows tonight. Well, answer this; if you win this battle and kill both us and Luffy, who are you going to fight next?"
The man-witch tensed and gritted his teeth. Just a little more.
"Here's the answer," Usopp started, barred his own teeth and screamed. "You'll kill your own mother!"
That was it. The look of absolute fury on the man-witch's face was enough evidence that Usopp had stomped right over the softest place in his heart. The bull-witch jumped, a mighty leap that would take him over the water and down on Usopp with killing force.
"Never speak ill of Mother!"
Usopp lifted his bow. "You're an open target in the air!"
"So what?! What can one of your pathetic arrows do?!"
The centaur fired. At the same time a hundred centaurs hidden in the shadows of the forest released their arrows with singing whistles. Usopp's arrow hit the bull-witch in the chest, piercing his heart. Still the man-witch had enough life left to turn and see the rain of wooden projectiles with their green feathers.
Not all the arrows hit, but it didn't matter. The man-witch was dead before he fell into the river.
That's when something amazing happened; the water hissed and boiled around the dead man-witch, and Usopp watched as the body was purified and melted, evaporating in the water.
"I must pay closer attention to Sanji's stories," Usopp told himself before he lifted his gaze to find the rest of the centaur tribe… "Shakky?! Mother, is that you?! What are you doing here?"
It was indeed the tribe, the female half of it, all of them dressed for war. Shakky was especially beautiful with a crown of twined oak and silver on her head and dressed in an armour of leather and polished steel. Usopp's mother was not far from that respectful beauty, though she didn't wear any crown but rather a simple, silvery diadem keeping her unruly hair back from her face. She looked grim.
"The males returned, all of them wounded, some missing, and Yasopp said you hadn't retreated with him," Shakky explained with a low voice, her stern face showing disapproval, but also relief. "What were you thinking?"
"Luffy, the young dragon dropped from the sky to take up arms against a witch. A real witch!" Usopp explained heatedly. "He's the last young dragon and the world can't afford to lose him. I had to stay and make sure he was okay and then the man-witches turned up."
The mares started whispering and a few scrapped nervously with their hoofs, but Shakky and Usopp's mother stood perfectly still staring at him. Usopp wasn't regretting his choice, so he calmly held his ground. At last it was Shakky who closed her eyes with a troubled expression.
"The battle isn't over yet," she said lowly. "The dragon is still fighting, and I am afraid he is also losing."
"What?!"
"I'll explain on the run, now we must get back to the battlefield."
The battlefield was a zone of destruction. The first being Usopp saw was the large elk with the blue nose lying over a bush, tongue hanging out and the centaur didn't want to confirm if the poor thing was dead or not.
Past the elk the ground was red and black from embers, ashes and the witch's magic. The lion man-witch was nowhere on the ground or in the trees, at least not where Usopp could see him. But on the ground in the outer edges of the battlefield lay the long-necked man-witch with his neck in an odd angle. The black wolf stood there too, head hanging low and body trembling. It looked like he was alive, but he could also have died standing. Not that rare an occasion among centaurs. Luffy…?
Shakky had said the battle was locked, but Usopp hadn't understood what she'd meant. Now he did, and he wished he hadn't looked. Cold claws dug into his heart, squeezing it so hard it felt like it was about to give up and stop beating. Because there, in the middle of embers and ashes, lay Luffy, dull and still. The witch and last remaining man-witch stood close to his head, turned to Nami and the black unicorn a few yards away. Usopp didn't pay the females too much mind. The iron chain lying heavy across Luffy's neck and body took up most of his sight. Iron; the only metal that could hurt and weaken dragons. It burnt through their thick armour of scales, sometimes leaving scars. Luffy's dull body proved it. The scales were red and blood dripped from between the scales where the chain touched his body.
There were also bubbles on Luffy's pale gold scales, leftovers from the witch's magic, so Usopp could guess where the chain had come from.
"Your weakness is too obvious, dirt-blood," the witch purred at the females across the battlefield. "But I understand you. It hurts me deep to know this youngster is the last dragon."
"Don't touch him!" Nami yelled, her breath hitched and wretched body trembling. "I'll kill you if you touch him!"
The witch giggled in a cute manner, sending chills through Usopp's entire body.
"And what will you do to stop me, hm? Little griffon girl. If you come any closer, my son will rip out the youngster's tongue. It is more valuable alive. So… do us all a favour and leave."
Only then Usopp noticed what the man-witch was doing. He had forced Luffy's mouth open and had an arm inside the young dragon's mouth.
He couldn't watch.
Luffy was the last young dragon, a friend to everyone, a small star of hope and a future. Luffy cared for everyone in the forest, making it impossible to hate him.
Usopp couldn't just watch!
The last man-witch hissed when a green-feathered arrow struck his shoulder. Everybody turned to where it had come from.
"Usopp?" Nami whispered with surprise.
"The centaur?" the witch hissed, her voice suddenly very cold. "Blueno hunted you into the forest. I will never believe a colt was able to defeat him. Where is my son?"
"Dead," Usopp answered steely.
"Liar!"
"I'm not lying. He fell into the river and melted away."
Witch and son both stiffened with wide eyes, as if the centaur waved around with their weak spot.
Usopp placed another arrow to the string of his bow and aimed. "Get away from Luffy, man-witch!"
He avoided the flying arrow. Usopp might have gotten surprised and even awed by the man-witch's reflexes if he hadn't been so infuriated, so he just kept firing until his target let go of Luffy, never caring about the angered look on the man's face.
"Don't let go of the dragon!" the witch yelled. Her magic flowed from her shoulders and across her arms, the bubbles turning Usopp's arrows to foam, effectively stopping the centaur's attack.
Just as well, because Usopp's fingers had just closed around his last but one arrow.
"The centaur is no threat, my sweet," the witch hissed. "The dragon is our prize and hostage. Don't let your claws off it."
"It can't move, mother," the witch's son growled, his eyes locked on Usopp.
Nami tried to leap forward, but was stopped by the witch's magic aiming at her. She didn't want Luffy to be hurt, but she certainly didn't want to become a full human either. Death was better than suffering such a fate.
Robin stood as still as a rock, her horn glowing softly.
"It is not the dragon moving that troubles me, my sweet," the witch warned, and her son realized the error and started to slowly step backwards to Luffy's head.
But Usopp would have none of that. "What are you waiting for, witch boy? Come right at me! I can take you one with one arm tied to my back!"
The man-witch flinched and stopped.
"Don't mind the scrawny thing, son," the witch ordered.
"What? Too scared to fight a centaur colt? Or don't you want to take up fights you know you can't win?" Usopp continued his taunting, dancing around on the spot in challenge. He had to get that man away from his dragon friend. Good thing the man-witch's pride was huge, for he was definitely torn between his mother's orders and that pride.
"It's just trying to provoke you, son. Don't listen."
Luffy's tail had twitched and now he was turning his head. Usopp would probably not have noticed if the dragon hadn't started speaking.
"Usopp? What… are you doing?"
The usually chirpy voice was hoarse and full of pain. It made Usopp even angrier to hear it. What had these witches done to his dear friend?!
"What doesn't look like I'm doing!? I'm taking over the fight since you can't even stand up anymore! Hey, man-witch! I've killed two of your brothers now and I've hardly gotten a scratch!"
A pair of frightening yellow eyes darted over Usopp's body, but the centaur didn't care how many wounds he had at the moment.
"Stop it, Usopp," Luffy hissed out, and the centaur didn't miss the edge of panic in his voice. "He'll kill you."
"Then stand up and fight back, Luffy! You're a dragon, for rocks' sake! You are the last dragon!"
"I know!"
"Hold him down," the witch's voice cut through the air like a whip when Luffy started fighting against his weakness, and this time her son moved to obey.
Usopp fired his arrow, but even though it hit the man-witch's back the witch was already ordering her son to ignore anything the centaur said and did.
When Usopp had run into the forest before it had taken him to the river, that bull-witch and Usopp standing on either side of the Blue Line. Usopp centaur had stomped over a soft spot, and if that was what it took to get the witches off Luffy, then so be it!
"Your mother is an ugly, senile old ewe!"
That hit home. In both witches. Luffy was ignored and Usopp only had one arrow left. Nami and the black unicorn wouldn't be fast enough to save him.
"How dare you insult me, vermin!" the witch screeched and attacked. Her son shot forward too.
"Usopp, NO!"
A loud splash sounded and Luffy's restrained tail whipped out, forcefully hitting the witch and her son just an inch away from the centaur.
"What? What happened?"
Luffy the dragon was free from the chain, and wet. Not that he seemed to care, or notice.
"Don't touch my friends," he growled.
"Impossible! My iron chain! My magic! You can't have freed yourself!"
"How should I know?"
The witch glanced at Nami and the unicorn, but though they were nearer the dragon than before they weren't the cause of this.
A second splash echoed, and this time Usopp took the time to see what it was.
It was water. A ball of water must have fallen from the sky, much bigger than any raindrop, and it had hit Nami. Nami the griffin.
"Nami, you're back to normal!" Usopp called out.
The griffin had noticed, and she had probably never been happier in her life. The curse was broken.
"How?" the witch whispered, trembling like a leaf.
"Very simple actually," Sanji's voice sounded and Usopp turned to the golden deer-man emerging from the shadows. "Usopp have said very useful things throughout the battle. First he said you have made too many enemies. You, fair lady, have made enemies with the entire forest."
"What are you saying?" The witch's voice sounded seriously shaken and her son stepped closer to her, crouched and prepared to protect his mother.
"I never really left the battle, lady witch," Sanji explained with a gentle voice, which didn't match the smirk and cold look on his face. "That dragon is precious to all of us, so I couldn't leave him behind. I couldn't do anything though, until Usopp came back and reminded me…" he lazily pointed to the sky "that only water can purify your tainted soul."
A ball of water, its wavering surface reflecting the moonlight like a gem, was falling through the sky, coming for the witches.
Usopp could only gape as his eyes followed the falling water ball, awed and making a mental note to ask Sanji about it later. The battle was probably over now.
A gasp alerted the centaur, and when the water hit the ground, the witch sat on the ground a good way away from where the water ball had landed. But she was alone and staring with wide, disbelieving eyes at the wet soil where she had been standing a second ago.
"My son…" she whispered. "My sweet. What have you done? How dare you! Lucci! My first! My sweetest!"
She screamed. An ear-piercing sound that almost tore Usopp's head to bits, and the witch's power exploded into a swirling, boiling tornado of red and black bubbles. The colour of anger and hatred.
"I will destroy you!" she hollered, gathering all of her power in her hands raised above her head. "I will destroy you all along with this detested forest."
Usopp's heart skipped a beat and he took out his last arrow, but it had barely left his bow before it turned to ashes. More arrows came from invisible bows in the shadows of the forest, with the same result. There was no more water coming from the sky and Usopp didn't have any more arrows. There was nothing he could do and the witch's power was still growing rapidly. She really would destroy the entire forest! But Usopp's father was in there, and him mother and his little friends and Kaya and Hercules and Blue Line, the trees and rocks and fallen trunks and the paths and grass and flowers and everything else!
"Sanji! Nami! Unicorn! DO SOMETHING!" Usopp yelled desperately, but all three of them was just like him backing away from the mad witch.
"For my sons!" the witch screamed.
Usopp closed his eyes.
Luffy's roar resounded through Usopp's body, and almost at the same time he was embraced by soft, pleasant warmth. Every scream that resounded in his heart since he discovered the trap a few days prior silenced, every burn and unnoticed wound ceased to hurt. Everything bad and every hurtful feeling ebbed to leave only serenity.
A pure white flame flooded from the young dragon's mouth and covered the entire battlefield. It washed over the witch whose power seemed to just fade away, the woman not even able to scream. The long-necked man-witch, the black wolf and the elk with the blue nose were embraced by the soft white fire, and after only a moment the elk's large head peaked up from the flames with a surprised expression.
Ruffy's went out of breath, and slowly the fire subsided, leaving the ground burnt, but Usopp's sharp eyes could see the faint hint of green among the ashes. The soil was still alive.
Usopp looked around, feeling quite overwhelmed. The long-necked man-witch was gone and the black wolf slowly trotted over to the blue-nosed elk who tentatively made sure he could stand on all four legs. Sanji's wounds looked old now, like they had almost healed, leaving no scar that Usopp could see. Nami and the black unicorn seemed perfectly fine too. Luffy was out of breath, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. The marks from the chains were still visible, but would probably not leave scars.
In the middle of everything lay a naked old woman with hair as white as snow. She futilely clawed at the ashes covering the earth and lifted her head slightly, glaring draggers at Luffy. Usopp recognized her eyes. This was the witch's true form.
Sanji took a few steps closer. "It's over now," he said softly.
"It's not over," the witch retorted hotly with a raspy voice. "Watch me, deer-man, I will recover my power, I will give birth to the strongest man-witch in history, and I will come back to burn this forest to the ground."
Normally Usopp would have reacted to her words, but somehow Luffy's fire had washed away all of his stress and nervousness. Maybe he was in a state that would soon wear off, but Usopp dwelled in it for a moment, and when Kaya slowly walked into the burnt area with an urn on her shoulder Usopp couldn't find it in him to be surprised.
Kaya, dressed for war with her pale hair pulled back by a diadem made of roots, carefully walked over to where the witch lay. The first light of morning filtered through the trees, reflecting in the silvery steel of her armour and making her pale skin glow gently.
She glared at the witch and lowered the urn from her shoulder, a drop of water falling over the brim due to being too full.
"This is for my parents," Kaya said and poured the water over the witch.
The morning was grey for two reasons. The main reason was the rainclouds moving over the earth from the east. The second was the heavy smoke rising from where there had once been a farm, and a village beyond it. Everything was burnt to the ground, houses, plants, animals and humans alike. The world around would take it as a warning, because both the farm and the village had messed with Greenwood forest. The truth was a little different.
The day before Luffy had lifted from the Silver Mountains to overlook the forest. He too had been nervous about the looming threat from humans to the centaurs, but Old Ray had quickly brought him back to the caves of the mountains and Dragon had told Luffy not to leave until the threat was gone. Luffy though had not liked that decision. In fact he had disliked it so much he'd tried to fight his father to get out, only to find himself alone against all four elder dragons. Very unfair in Luffy's opinion.
After that Luffy had stayed in the cave, but not quietly. He'd started digging at the walls. It was something he'd done out of restlessness since he was born so Dragon hadn't thought more about it, that is until the digging noises suddenly stopped. Luffy had managed to dig through the wall between the cave and a tunnel the trolls had once inhabited. The hole had been too narrow for Dragon and any of the others, and by the time they finally managed to widen the hole Luffy had found the exit and was long gone.
Desperate beyond understanding Dragon and the other dragons had taken off towards the village and burnt it, hoping to find Luffy there.
They had found him however, when Luffy's white fire rose from the forest. Usopp was grateful he wasn't in Luffy's skin now.
"Hey, Sanji," the centaur said quietly.
"Yes?"
"Luffy's fire…"
The golden deer-man didn't say anything at first, and when he opened his mouth he seemed to choose his words carefully. "Among all the mysteries about dragons, their fire is certainly the… most noticed one. In my youth I believed the colour of the fire was the same as their scales, but it turned out that first time I saw a dragon breathe same-coloured fire was a rare occasion. However, every colour has different… affects, so to say."
His voice faded into silence as his hand unconsciously touched the wounds in his left side. Usopp could tell even the normally all-knowing Sanji was stunned by what had happened.
"So," the centaur started hesitantly "white fire can heal?" He couldn't help sounding it as a question. Sanji looked at him and blinked, as if he had forgotten the centaur was even there.
"Perhaps," he said.
"I should ask Luffy instead," Usopp said, intending to be helpful, but was met by Sanji's humouring laugher.
"Believe me, Usopp; if there is one thing I am certain about in the matter of dragons it is that they know even less about the affects they have on the world around than any other creature. Anything the dragons know about themselves is what humans and other creatures have once taken the time to examine."
"Oh." That did seem right, at least in Luffy's case.
Sanji continued to chuckle as he picked a twig from a tree and put it between his teeth, contently chewing on the end of it.
Usopp decided upon another question about the night's events. "Where did those flying water balls come from?"
"The river," the golden deer-man said with a shrug and a playful smirk.
"That's not what I meant," Usopp sighed. He was too tired to get upset at anything this morning. Most of all he just wanted to go to sleep.
"You don't have to understand everything, Usopp," Sanji smiled. "This was a one-time thing
anyway."
"So you asked the river to send some water to defeat that witch with."
"You could say that," the golden deer-man nodded.
Sighing again Usopp turned his head to where Kaya lay clutching the now empty urn in her arms some distance away. It had taken a few minutes before the surprise that Kaya thought/knew the witch had killed her parents got to Usopp. The young mare didn't seem to take much joy in having taken revenge though.
"Why don't you talk to her?"
"Huh?"
Sanji's eyes gleamed as he chewed on the end of the twig and threw a sideways glance at the flustered centaur colt. "She want you to talk to her."
Usopp fidgeted a little, but a spank on the butt from Sanji automatically had him going, and when Kaya glanced up at him Usopp couldn't just leave. Sanji was already gone though, the cheeky immortal.
"Are you all right?" Usopp asked Kaya when she looked away from him.
Kaya shook her head slowly, but didn't say anything. The male scratched his neck. He hadn't comforted a mare before. The children, yes, he could make them feel better by telling a story or something, but that was probably not what Kaya needed.
"Why did you come with water?"
This time the young mare flinched visibly. "I… Sanji once said… and the man that fell in the river…"
"Oh. So you saw that."
"My arrow missed," Kaya mumbled and hid her face with her pale hair, but the red of her face shone through. "I almost hit you instead. It landed right beside you."
"I was almost hit by worse things."
Kaya looked up with a startled expression.
"Never mind," Usopp said quickly. "I heard you say something before you poured water over the witch. Was she really the one who killed your parents?"
"She didn't kill them," Kaya said, her sad expression now dark and grim. "Remember when I got lost last year?"
"Remember? We searched for you for three days straight. I fell asleep on the spot the moment we found you."
The young mare lowered her head, trying to hide her blushing cheeks. Usopp hadn't been the only one to fall asleep like that.
"I found them."
"Huh?"
"I somehow ended up at the outer edge of the forest in the evening, and there was this funny smell I felt attracted to, so I followed it. That's when I found them. My parents. The witch had made slaves of them! They didn't even recognize me! I… father…"
Usopp placed a hand on the trembling mare's shoulder.
"I tried to get through to them, my parents," Kaya picked up, drying her nose "but some strange human men showed up, so I ran away. Back to the forest."
The male centaur let out a breath. Such a cruel fate. The humans really were a thoroughly rotten race. Usopp couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't even one good human in the world, considering how many they were.
The couple's bubble suddenly burst when a happy call sounded through the air.
"Good morning Usoppn. Why haven't you come to the hill and watched the sunrise for so long?"
Usopp hit a hand over his face, then cringed when he felt the beetle land on his butt and immediately whipped with his tail. It was with satisfaction he listened to Hercules' yelp of pain.
"What's the matter with you so early in the morning, Usoppn? Did you awake on the wrong…? Holy Tree! What happened here?!"
Beetles. Very loyal friends but certainly ignorant. Hercules had flown across the whole black-burnt area where trees had fallen over and ashes covered almost everything and only now, seated on Usopp's shoulder, he noticed it.
"Well…" Usopp drawled out from under his hand. "That's a very long story."