for all the ocean's wide

by IlPogitano

Self-Inserts all suffer one fundamental setback: they see the future once. One snapshot of a future that will swiftly go off the rails, and even then, their information is limited and flawed. Treva, future-seeing ten-year-old and distinctly not a Self-Insert, does not have this problem. She does have a lot of other problems, though. Not least of which is being a ten-year-old.

4. Braggin' in Corinth

"Bye, Gramma! I love you!" Treva declares into the transponder snail, hanging up before her granny can get another word in edgewise and turning away from the Buggy Pirates' boat's bow, to put it down into the salt circle with the others. Apparently, it's bad for transponder snails to stay in a cramped duffle bag for too long, so she's been making do with the space they have.

Nami, wisely, keeps her distance from the slimy little guys, but she can't deny that there's not much to do but sit and watch them. Treva had babbled advice to Luffy and Zoro about the soul-searching needed to train something called "haki," but Nami had received nothing of the sort so far, and has thusly been very bored. A bigger ship, one with a proper study in which to work on nautical charts, sure would be nice right about now.

"Your grandma didn't exactly sound happy about you going off on your own," Zoro observes to Treva, cracking an eye open. More so than soul-searching, Nami suspects he's been napping.

"I," Treva starts, pale and wide-eyed. It had become apparent very quickly that she's afraid of him, which in hindsight doesn't surprise Nami in the slightest. He just has one of those faces. Zoro, still, deflates just a bit at the clear and consistent rejection, even as Treva soldiers on. "I mean, it's—it's fine, isn't it? She's just… overprotective. She never lets me go anywhere or do anything anyway, since I'm…" Treva wilts some. She reaches up to tug at something under her scarf. "I'm not all that strong, and I'm small, even for my age, and there's lots of people out there who would use my information to do very, very bad things." She perks up. "But I'm with the Strawhat Pirates, so it's fine! And I'm really sturdy, even Gramma thinks so! And if I just went back now, she'd never understand. But it's fine if I show her!"

"That's the spirit!" Luffy agrees easily, speaking around the apple in his mouth, from where he's perched on the bowsprit of his and Zoro's dinghy. They'd gotten a whole big basket of the things for cheap at the last port town they stopped at, though Nami had almost passed up on the deal, since Treva had been staring so oddly at them. Frustratingly creepy when she wants to be, that kid.

The creepy kid in question preens at Luffy's encouragement, and Nami rolls her eyes.

To be completely honest, Nami really is of half a mind to call up Treva's grandmother, arrange a drop-off, and return Treva to her family. But—it would have to wait, just a little longer. Just until after they've dealt with Arlong, and she has the time. It would be the responsible thing to do, and if that doesn't occur to Luffy and Zoro, they shouldn't be allowed to take care of any kind of child at all.

"Regardless of spirit," is what Nami says instead, "There's absolutely no way we'll make it to the Grand Line in this condition."

Luffy and Zoro both turn to her quizzically. Luffy takes the apple core out of his mouth and regards it in thought.

"You're right," he concludes. "We're gonna need a whole lot more meat." He stuffs the core, whole, back into his mouth. "Eating fruit every day is for the birds."

"We'll also need some booze," Zoro muses, smiling, and Nami has enough. She throws an apple at him to shut him up, achieving little more than confusing him. Luffy, of course, snags the apple from the air after it's served its purpose. Treva only watches the three of them intently, head propped up on her hands and elbows propped up on the side of the boat, happy as a clam.

"Shut up, you boneheads! Ugh!" Nami scolds. She wonders why she even bothers. "That's not what I mean. The Grand Line's a dangerous place, we'll need more than beer and meat to survive there. And before we can even start to think about the Grand Line, we need to survive taking down Arlong." Not that Nami even thinks that she wants to stick around after they're done with Arlong, of course, provided that they're not all killed horribly, but it's more convenient to play to others' expectations. She picks up an apple for herself from the basket. "Treva, do you know where we can get a real ship?"

"Oh, I—" Treva startles, and blinks up at her. "Yeah. Since we're going to pick Usopp up now, we'll also…" She trails off, her expression scrunching up and eyes going glossy. "We'll get a ship at Syrup Village."

"You don't sound all that happy about it, Treva," Luffy notes around a bite of apple. Nami wishes he would try to be more sensitive to the little girl's feelings, but she doesn't really have a leg to stand on there.

"It'll break." Treva sniffs, but she doesn't cry. "We'll get a ship and it'll be the best ship ever and then it'll break and I might not be able to get a hold of the people-fruit in time so then we'll have to set it on fire and… and…" Treva shakes her head rapidly from side to side. "And I won't let that happen! I definitely won't!"

Nami and Zoro exchange a Look, exactly as lost as the other. Luffy watches Treva and works his way through his own apple, aggravatingly unreadable in the shadow of his hat.

Zoro crosses his arms and, in a tone that Nami is starting to realize is what passes as gentle for him, prompts, "Everything breaks eventually, right? It's just a ship."

Treva inhales sharply, hotly, through her nose. "Is Kuina's sword just a sword?"

Zoro's mouth clicks shut and he goes alarmingly white. Treva blanches, immediately, horrified with herself as soon as who it is she's speaking to catches up to her.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to say that!" she squeaks, high and shrill like a dying balloon. Zoro nods a terse dismissal, but Treva doesn't relax, and Nami doesn't expect her to for the next several minutes.

Nami, herself, looks warily between the two with a sense of disquietment. She'd avoided thinking about it, but—just that one little sentence implied a whole hell of a lot about Zoro, didn't it? A lot that he didn't want known, but that a random ten-year-old from off the side of the road knew. Nami… isn't sure how she feels, exactly, about the idea that somewhere out there there's always existed such a massive, walking privacy violation.

Before she realizes it, Nami finds her gaze sliding over to Luffy, whose mind is still largely a mystery to her. Maybe because he doesn't think at all, but she can't be sure yet. He's done with his apple by now, but all he does is pick up another. Self-consciously, Nami turns away and starts on her own.

Eventually, Treva regains enough of her wits to shuffle quietly aside, retrieve her book, and retreat into her visions. Some of the tension leaves Zoro's shoulders at that, so Nami takes the opportunity to rerail her discussion with him and Luffy.

"If nothing else, we'll be able to resupply at the island chain we're coming up on," she says.

Luffy cheers, throwing his arms up and out in joy. "Fresh meat at last!"

Zoro perks up. "Lots of booze too."

Nami gives up.

️ ️ ️XXX

In Usopp's mind, there were really only two ways that pirates turning up on his proverbial doorstep—pirates who aren't his dad, that is—could've gone. In scenario one, they buy into his lies, are intimidated, and go back the same direction they came. In scenario two, they gut him like a fish.

In no scenario do their captain's eyes go wide with recognition at the sight of Usopp perched atop the cliff, and in no scenario does their captain point up directly at him. And yet, that's exactly the reality Usopp is faced with, as the guy in the straw hat declares, "There you are, Usopp!"

Usopp, who had barely gotten out two words of his speech, startles and tumbles promptly off the side of the cliff. There's a single, weightless moment where his brain whites out and all he knows is the rush of air and his underlings' distant screaming from the bushes, and then there's hands: hands stretching unnaturally far, wrapping around his midsection, and de-extending to drop him in an unharmed heap on the sand below. Unceremoniously, he's let go, now free to gape at the… Buggy Pirates, Tamanegi had said? Usopp is, very reasonably, having some trouble concentrating.

"Is this really our guy?" asks the orange-haired woman who'd disembarked from the larger boat, eyeing Usopp skeptically. Usopp can barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. "Isn't he kind of…" She gestures vaguely. "You know. Lame?"

"Mwaha…" he starts, weakly, before rocketing to hit feet, crossing his arms, and sticking his nose up high and proud. He can only hope that the Usopp Pirates have taken their chance to run away. "HAHAHA! I see even the Buggy Pirates have heard of the great Captain Usopp! Truly, my legend has spread far and—"

"We're not the Buggy Pirates," interrupts the guy with the straw hat. The guy with the fucked up arms. "We just stole their boat."

"I." Usopp stares at him, only for a second, but rallies his bravado regardless. "I see! So you too are enemies of those no good Buggy Pirates!" The orange-haired woman and the man with the oh-god-are-those-real swords exchange a look of patent, unimpressed disbelief, but Strawhat only grins, so Usopp soldiers on. "Well, you know what they say! An enemy of an enemy is a friend!"

And a friend doesn't ransack a friend's defenseless, inconsequential little village. It's at this point that Usopp devolves into frightened... nervous... bold laughter. Strawhat laughs along with him, decidedly more freely.

"So…" Usopp cuts in, after some time of this. "How did you catch my name? If not, of course, in hushed rumors of my daring deeds…"

"I know your dad," says Strawhat, easily. "His name is Yasopp, right?"

Usopp's jaw drops. "You're right! My old man's name is Yasopp! But how… How in the world do you know him?"

"His crew used to stop at my home town before they started on the Grand Line."

"My dad's sailing the Grand Line?!"

Strawhat nods, obviously amused. "With the Red Hair Pirates."

Usopp's jaw drops further. He feels dizzy, almost, being flung from emotional extremes like this. Or maybe he's just dissociating. "I can't believe it… My old man, sailing the high seas with famous pirates. I guess that's how you recognized me, if you know him."

Strawhat's grin stretches wider. "Nope."

Usopp stops. Stares at Strawhat. "Nope?"

"Nope!"

Usopp opens his mouth. Usopp closes his mouth. Usopp opens his mouth again, determined to at least try to ask for an explanation, when laughter rings smugly out across the expanse of Syrup Village's white shore.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Very suddenly, Usopp is made aware of the small child who must have been previously hiding behind the railing of the Buggy Pirates' stolen boat, because she certainly stands taller than it does, even if that's still not very tall at all. Her hands are planted imperiously on her hips, and she laughs with her whole body, practically rocking with the force of her own concentrated smug. "I'm the one who told him about you, Usopp!"

Which is a very disconcerting thing for her to say, considering that Usopp has never seen this child in his life. Confidently, the little girl hoists herself over the side of the boat and falls flat on her face. The orange-haired woman makes an aborted motion in her direction, as if to pick her up, but the girl hurries back onto her feet and pretends it didn't happen. Usopp… feels that. Spiritually.

Pigtails, her front half now liberally coated in sand, marches right up to Usopp to once again plant her fists on her hips.

"I'm Treva, and I can see the future!" she announces, nonsensically. She puffs up with probably-unwarranted pride. "I'm the Strawhat Pirates' strate—"

"CAPTAIN USOPP, WE'LL SAVE YOU!"

And, before any of the older teenagers present can get a word in edgewise, the Usopp Pirates come barreling down the shore's slope and right over Treva.

"Why!" Treva wails, from the bottom of the child-pile.

"Stay away from our captain!" yells Piiman, from somewhere in the middle.

Some part of Usopp, the burgeoning part of him that's good at planning and careful observation, notes that his underlings probably homed in on Treva not only for her proximity to him, but also—crucially—for being the easiest target. The rest of Usopp is, naturally, freaking out.

"Guys, come on, leave her alone!" he squawks. So that her scary babysitters don't decide to squash us like flies, goes unsaid.

"But they're pirates!" Ninjin argues, indignant. Indignant, and still crushing Treva's windpipe with his weight. She makes a strangled, wordless noise of seven-or-maybe-eight-year-old rage. "You're the one who said we have to protect the village!"

"They're an allied crew!" It's a lie, but only because the Usopp Pirates aren't a real pirate crew, Usopp hopes. "And you're being very rude to our allies! Just look at you guys, we're making a terrible first impression!"

The kids, sans Treva, of course, who's slightly too preoccupied eating dirt, squint dubiously at Usopp. For lack of options, he looks to the exceedingly real, exceedingly armed pirates to corroborate his story.

"What're you talking about, Usopp?" Strawhat asks, seemingly genuinely, tilting his head. "You're a Strawhat Pirate."

"You just… don't know it yet…" Treva wheezes. Ninjin, in protest, presses down harder on her windpipe; she screams a sand-muffled scream, which scares Tamanegi, who also screams.

"Uh." Usopp blinks at Strawhat, ignoring all of this. "What?"

As Usopp would later find out, this state of confusion would soon become his new normal.

️ ️ ️XXX

It takes some coercing, but Usopp's underlings do eventually agree, with great reluctance, to release Treva. Aside from a healthy dose of side-eye aimed at the boys, she largely pretends that the kiddy pile never happened at all, instead leading the Usopp and Strawhat Pirate crews off to parts unknown with great smugness. Names are awkwardly exchanged between the older teens along the way, while the children remain warily petulant.

Treva, at least, does seem to have a very clear idea of where she's going, and heads unerringly to the outskirts of town. There's only really the one path, so it's not entirely odd, but Usopp can't help but keep her earlier claim in mind. I can see the future. He would have dismissed it out of hand, but, well. Her captain was very clearly a rubber man. Could it really be possible?

He's still mulling it over when their group comes to a stop, with Treva encouraging everyone—grand, theatrical, bouncing gestures and all—to settle down around the fence that stands to one side of the dirt road leading to Syrup Village. The group, collectively but with varying degrees of reluctance, humors her. Then, with no more preamble, the little weirdo produces a strange book from her bag, opens it to a seemingly random page, and plops down onto her knees to lay it out on the ground in front of her.

"It's simple, see? The butler did it. Will do it. Will have done it? Well, whatever," Treva says, nonsensically, and points to a string of gibberish scrawled out onto the paper. "The point is, Klahadore isn't just a big jerk, he's secretly evil and he's going to try to kill Kaya for her money. That's what he's been after this whole time."

"I knew it!" exclaims Piiman. Ninjin elbows him for encouraging the enemy.

"I'm sorry, what?" Usopp, more reasonably, demands. "I mean, I know Klahadore isn't the friendliest guy around, but he's not… And, wait a minute—how do you even know these names?"

Treva pats her book insistently. "Because I can see the future, Usopp! And I can prove Klahadore is evil, because his first mate is on the way here right now! And even if he wasn't, his crew is anchored nearby already!"

Usopp's jaw hits the floor. "Klahadore is a pirate!?"

"Treva," Nami interrupts, pinching the bridge of her nose. Chancing a glance at the Strawhats, Usopp notes that Luffy only appears to be amused by the proceedings, and Zoro appears to have fallen asleep. "From the top, okay?"

"You're a pretty crummy storyteller," Ninjin informs Treva, with some level of genuine disappointment. Maybe Usopp has been spoiling those kids too much, he thinks.

"I'm not telling a story, I'm saving your stupid island," Treva fumes back, glaring at him. "Because—because, from the top, what's gonna happen is that Klahadore used to be a pirate called Kuro, who was the captain of the Black Cat Pirates, and he became Kaya's butler because he wanted to attach himself to a rich family, gain their trust, and then call in his old crew to have them killed. His first mate, Jango, is a hypnotist, and Klahadore wants to use him to get Kaya to write him into her will."

Usopp swallows, feeling cold. Ninjin and Piiman exchange a look, both pale, and Tamanegi is shaking like a leaf. He may cry, but Usopp hopes that he manages to hold off on it for at least a bit longer. As far as the Strawhats go, Nami's stilled in a way that sets Usopp's teeth on edge, and Luffy's hat casts his face in unreadable shadow. Zoro, the bastard, is lightly snoring.

"But the Black Cat Pirates know Klahadore's secret identity, so he can't let them live either. He wants to live a peaceful life, but he also wants to be rich. That's why he's doing all of this," Treva goes on. She flips ahead in her book. "And we can prove it to Kaya, easy! See, Jango is going to meet with Kuro and they're going to talk about Kuro's evil plan, and you can hear everything if you hang out on the cliff over where they're gonna be. We just have to bring Kaya with us and hide, and then she'll know everything, and we can all pile on Kuro and Jango and beat them up!" Triumphantly, she throws her arms in the air. "And then we'll win!"

Usopp's hands ball into fists in his lap. "Kaya can't know."

"Huh?" Treva blinks hugely up at him, frozen. "But… But Kuro is…"

"As far as Kaya knows, Klahadore is as good as family to her. If what you're saying is true, it would shatter her, it's not—" Usopp draws in a shuddering breath, suddenly very aware that all eyes are on him. "It's not right. Even if it is true, even if we do need to drive Klahadore out to protect her, no one can know. I'll… I'll think of something to tell Kaya, but it's better if he just… just disappears, than if she has to find out he never cared about her at all. Than if she has to find out that he—" Usopp's tongue feels clumsy, too big to fit in his mouth. He's very unused to having to speak the truth, much preferring to stick to the gentle lies he's always used to keep morale up, in himself and others. But. But, if Kaya really is in danger, it's not something he can just run away from. Quietly, trembling like the coward Usopp already knows he is, he finishes: "If Klahadore murdered Kaya's parents, she can't know. I'll take care of it myself if I have to, but Kaya can't know."

"Captain…" Tamanegi burbles, now crying in earnest. Ninjin and Piiman look on the verge of tears themselves, when Usopp dares to glance their way.

"Oh. Oh, right, that's…" Treva retrieves her arms, moving to do some more flipping through the pages of her book. "Right, this makes sense. It makes sense that you don't want to tell her. He only killed her mom, though…"

Treva continues to leaf through the contents of her book, oblivious to the sheer horror her casual—absent minded, even—admittance had instantly driven Usopp to. He tries to get his jaw to work, tries to interject somehow, but he feels hot and cold and numb all over with dread. It can't… It can't really be true, can it? It's got to be a lie, right?

Luckily, he ends up having to say nothing at all, because Luffy cuts in brightly. "So it's settled, then! We're gonna kick this butler guy's ass!"

"Right!" Treva agrees, having regained her bravado. "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Nami eyes Luffy dubiously. "Did that explanation really make sense to you?"

"Nope!" Luffy admits, without a modicum of shame. "But I like Usopp, and I don't like the sound of that butler guy. He sounds like a jerk." He grins. "That's pretty much all I need!"

Nami facepalms, but doesn't try to argue the point, Usopp can't help but notice.

The Usopp Pirates, beside him, share a silent but meaningful exchange through teary, or rather tearful, in Tamanegi's case, eyes. Then, they nod in unison, and Ninjin jumps to his feet.

"This is our island!" he declares, clenching his fist confidently in front of himself. Piiman and Tamanegi cheer determined assent. "It's up to us to protect it! That's what you always told us, Captain!"

"Wait," Usopp babbles, waving his hands in a panicked signal for them all to just stop for a second, because this is all going much, much too fast for his liking. "Wait, just wait a minute, alright? Guys, we don't even have any proof that Treva here can really see the future! This could all still just be some big misunderstanding!"

"It's not a misunderstanding! I definitely understand! I'm full of understanding!" Treva defends, indignant with a touch of desperate. She turns to a blank page in her book and braces herself against the paper. "Look!"

Then, Treva vomits onto the book.

"Oh," Usopp says, strained, when she's done. Treva beams at him.

"Gross," says Piiman approvingly, fascinated. Ninjin and Tamanegi, who at least has the decency to also look horrified, both nod concurrence.

Treva ignores all three of them, to instead pat enthusiastically at her book again. "Jango's gonna come through here to get to where he and Klahadore are meeting, so if we wait, we can ambush him! And then we can ambush Klahadore where he's gonna wait for Jango, and beat him up too. And after that, we can get the rest of their crew tomorrow."

Usopp's joints lock up. "Here? Here as in, right here?!"

Treva blinks at him. "Yeah. In twenty-two minutes and six seconds or so." She points at a particular line of scribbles in her book, looking to Luffy. "Just don't look at Jango's chakram when he starts swinging it. That's how he gets you."

"Chakram?" Luffy asks, blinking at Treva in turn.

"Circular, bladed throwing weapon that's about the size of an adult's palm," Treva clarifies. Luffy nods, like that's all he needs.

"Oh," he says. "Okay."

"Nothing about this is okay!" argues Usopp, on the verge of hysterics and increasingly aware that he's been surrounded by crazy people.

Luffy frowns. "How come?"

"How come?!" Usopp repeats, indignant, before the circumstances catch up with him. Luffy is watching him, quizzical, but so are the others. Nami, unimpressed; Treva, wide-eyed and unblinking; and his own Usopp Pirates, pumped up and terrified in equal measures. Not Zoro, though, blessedly, because he's asleep. Usopp freezes, before forcing himself back into motion and onto his feet, standing tall and with his arms crossed, laughing like a madman... desperately... boldly. "Why, because only a fool rushes into battle before considering all his options, of course! Didn't I tell you, Luffy? The enemy of an enemy is a friend! Treva!"

Usopp points dramatically at Treva. She stares at him, uncomprehending, but he goes on.

"You said that Klahadore would turn on the Black Cat Pirates. Obviously, Jango doesn't know that."

Treva perks up. "No, he doesn't!"

"Exactly!" Usopp repurposes his pointing-hand, balling it into a trembling fist in front of himself. "If we can prove to Jango that his head is on the chopping block too, he has no reason not to side with us."

The Usopp Pirates all look at their captain with huge, gooey eyes, like they do when he cheers them up with a made-up story, and Usopp is if nothing else glad that they haven't noticed his knees shaking. He still can't read Luffy, but Nami looks to Treva instead, a few shades less skeptical than before.

"Will that really work?" she prompts.

Treva flips through her book, visibly galvanized. Usopp, Usopp knows, is remarkably good at galvanizing children to acts of nonsense. "The odds shouldn't be bad. Jango knows Klahadore pretty well, so he should understand that this is very like him, and Klahadore's never really given him much of a reason to be loyal besides fear…" Without preamble, Treva leaks more future-gunk onto the book. Usopp cringes. When she stops, she nods conclusively, and preens at Nami. "Tentatively, the margin of error is—"

She stops, suddenly, and her head snaps to look at Luffy like a rabbit going into shock. Luffy blinks at her some more, then laughs at her. "It's worth trying it, right?" he says, more to Usopp. Treva relaxes, appeased again, and Nami rolls her eyes.

"Uh," returns Usopp. "Right! Yes. Of course." He coughs to clear his throat. "And if it works, Jango could even help us ambush Klahadore. Yes!"

"And then we'll beat him up!" surmises Luffy, amused in a way that Usopp doesn't fully understand, glancing just slightly to Treva in the periphery. They're her words, so maybe it's to cheer her up. Regardless, that's what happens.

"Yeah!" Treva hollers, jumping to her feet and waving her book around over her head for emphasis. Ninjin, Tamanegi, and Piiman soon join her with similar shouts of premature triumph, followed by an ever-untroubled Luffy, and then by Usopp, who can vaguely feel his nerves fraying at the seams.

Nami sighs, facepalms, and appears to regret at least the majority of her choices up to this point. Zoro snores maybe, if anything, louder.

️ ️XXX ️

Jango doesn't consider himself particularly weird, for a hypnotist, but a hypnotist he nonetheless is. He's more or less used to the stares. That said, still: as he's coming up on a group of teenagers and children clustered around the roadside fence outside of town, something about the quality of their particular stares sets him off. They look at him oddly, sure, but almost… with a measure of expectation. He stops when he reaches them, and turns around.

"Can I help you?" he asks.

The little girl with the pigtails perks up at that, and stands, hugging a suspiciously nondescript book to her chest. "Yes, actually! Klahadore is going to kill your whole crew to silence you, so you should help us stop him."

Other than the boy with the straw hat and the boy that's dead asleep, the rest of the girl's group blanches at her. Jango, though, only blinks behind his sunglasses. "Klahadore?"

"Captain Kuro."

Jango's jaw drops. "Captain Kuro is going to kill us?! That paranoid bastard, I should've known!"

"You actually believe her?" demands the older girl, with the orange hair. "Just like that?"

Jango ruefully shakes his head. "It's very like him. He hates loose ends."

"But—" the older girl starts, but the long-nosed boy rushes to put a hand over her mouth, loudly shushing her. She will murder him for it later, Jango presumes, by her demeanor.

Pigtails ignores them both, nodding sagely to Jango. "Right. He hates loose ends, and he's crazy, and we all want to get rid of him."

Jango nods back. "That's right."

"So you'll help us beat him up."

"What?!" Jango squawks. "No! Are you crazy?"

The little girl glares up at him, unimpressed. She puts her book down and plants her fists on her hips, to properly communicate her great disappointment in him. "No, I'm Treva. And we're gonna win, so you can stop freaking out now."

"Yeah!" pipes up one of the younger boys, the one in the green t-shirt. He jabs a thumb at the strawhat guy. "Luffy ate a Devil Fruit, he has superpowers!"

Jango's attention snaps to Strawhat, feeling his eyes bulge. He is becoming, he feels, increasingly lost in this conversation. "You—I'm sorry, what?"

"He's not going to lose to some lame, normal guy," chips in the tallest of the small children, very helpfully, but in a drawling voice that suggests to Jango that his intelligence is weighed and found wanting. He hates kids, he thinks.

More informatively, Luffy himself grins at Jango. "I ate the Gum-Gum Fruit. I'm a rubber man."

"Oh." Jango blinks at him, though no one should be able to tell. "That… Yes, that would be useful, if we challenged the captain. You have to understand, our crew has never faced a Devil Fruit user before."

The older girl, having wrestled the long-nosed boy off, puts her head in her hands. "And now you're just going to buy that Devil Fruits are real, aren't you? Just like that."

"Well." Jango openly stares at her. "Yes."

"Stop questioning it! He might change his mind!" Long-Nose hisses to Carrot Top behind his hand, but she simply sighs despondently into her own pair.

Jango leaves them to it, instead considering Luffy and the green-haired boy. He notices the three swords, and raises an eyebrow clear above his sunglasses so Luffy and the kids can appreciate it. Pirate hunters, he concludes, and prompts, "You seem confident enough, but I can't say I see where I fit into all of this. If you can take on Captain Kuro, you're certainly more than enough to deal with me and my men. Why give me the heads up?"

"You're going to meet with him," Treva says. "We want your help to set up an ambush."

Jango hums. Looks from Luffy, to Pirate Hunter Zoro, and back to Luffy a couple more times. Addressing Luffy, he asks, "Could you hold the captain still, just for a few seconds? With his eyes open."

"Ye—" Treva starts for him, before freezing and slapping both hands over her own mouth. She swivels to face Luffy with wide, panicked eyes, but he just laughs at her a bit, and she relaxes. Strange. Stranger still, Jango realizes, is that the rest of the group is regarding the two as curiously as he himself is.

Besides Carrot Top, at any rate, who's evidently given up entirely at this point. And Zoro, who hasn't stirred.

"Probaby!" Luffy informs Jango, reminding him to get back on track.

"Good." Jango adjusts his hat, pleased. "In that case, I'll be able to put him to sleep. I'm a hypnotist, you see. It should last for at least a few days, if we're lucky, and you can turn him in at the nearest..." Jango stops. Thinks it over. Grimaces. "Actually, I'm… not sure that any of the marine bases in the area could hold him. And then there's the issue of my men. I'm more than happy to put this all behind me, but if they're not paid, they'll raid the village anyway."

Long-Nose and the young boys gulp audibly; the boys look immediately to Long-Nose for answers, while the rest turn instinctively to Luffy. Luffy, for his part, takes on an expression that's somewhat unreadable in its blankness.

"They're your crew," he points out, finally.

Jango shakes his head. "No, they're not. The Black Cat Pirates are Captain Kuro's crew, and even then, it's always been out of fear. However things turn out on this island, I imagine we'll go our separate ways after it's all said and done."

Luffy appears to mull this over. Jango is fairly certain that he hadn't liked that explanation very much, but can't work out what direction the issue is from. Finally, Luffy comes to whatever decision he'd settled on making, and shrugs expectantly at Long-Nose. Long-Nose gulps, again.

"Uh," Long-Nose reluctantly begins, glancing hesitantly to Jango. "You're… You said you're a hypnotist?"

"He did," supplies the tallest goblin, at the same time as the shortest chimes in with, "He is." The pair proceed to glower at one another. Luffy laughs, Carrot Top rolls her eyes, and the remaining pair of boys glower at Treva in solidarity with the first kid. Zoro snores, faintly.

Long-Nose soldiers on. "So, do you… Can you do more than just put people to sleep?"

"What kind of hack do you think I am? Of course I can do more than just that!" Jango huffs. He composes himself. "As I recall, his wanted poster said dead or alive, so it's really a matter of what you want me to make him believe. Just about anything is fair game, but if there isn't a basis for it in how he already thinks, it won't last long." A light bulb goes off in Jango's mind. "Hey, you know what… If your rubber boy held him still and I made him believe he'd genuinely gotten attached to the rich girl, I bet you he would fight on our side against the men."

Long-Nose's jaw drops, and eyes go wide all around the group. For some arcane reason known only to the strange gathering of children and teens, it's Treva that Long-Nose hurriedly asks, "Would that work? Could Kaya really get to…" He swallows. "Is that really possible?"

"Of course it's possible," Jango tells him, annoyed. "The real question is, would I have to reapply the hypnosis, and how often?"

With an air about her that strongly gives Jango, somehow, the impression that Treva is obliging him, she reaches for her book. Long-Nose and Carrot Top both instantly make a dive for her, Long-Nose for the book and Carrot Top for the girl, and she squeaks as she's picked up bodily into Carrot Top's hold.

"Thank you, Treva!" Long-Nose forces out, choked. He grips the book clear above his head, like he's playing keep-away with it. "Thank you, but that can wait!"

Treva stares up at Long-Nose, perfectly lost, but goes cooperatively limp in Carrot Top's arms. Both teens relax, but neither puts their burden down.

Long-Nose shoots Luffy a look, and when he receives no particular cue either way, looks to Jango with a healthy heaping of trepidation. Speculative trepidation. It's a good sign, Jango thinks. Resolved, Long-Nose lets his arms drop from over his head and says to Jango, "What's the minimum amount of time the hypnosis would last for?"

Jango ponders this seriously, recalling the last time he'd had to pull out the big guns, back when the captain had asked for a body double to die in his place. "A day or so for this kind of hypnosis, I'd say."

"And you're sure?"

"Look here, kid." Jango exhales, nostrils flaring some. Really. The youth of today have no respect. "I'm a professional. If I tell you I can make it last a day, I'm lowballing it."

"It's true, Usopp," Treva pipes up, and Long-Nose-whose-name-is-Usopp, Carrot Top, and the other children have the gall to appear relieved. On account of the seven-or-eight-year-old's word, and not his. The little brat swings her legs idly. "Even at the Grand Line, you won't run into a person like this every day, even though hypnotism is useful for a lot of things. It's complicated to get right, and Jango's really good at it."

"Of course I am," adds Jango, irritably. Treva beams at him. He seethes.

"Okay." Usopp shoots Luffy another glance. Luffy shrugs. Usopp goes on. "In that case, let's go ahead with the ambush, and see if we can use Kuro tomorrow. Jango, the Black Cat Pirates will believe you if you tell them the raid is still on, right?"

"They will. Honestly, it's more unbelievable that it isn't."

"Alright. Okay. So—what beach are you docked at?"

"Neither, our ship is anchored a little farther out. The plan, though, was to make landfall in the north." Jango adjusts his hat. "You want to set up another ambush at the slope."

"Right." Usopp brightens some, apparently encouraged. "You'll lead the Black Cat Pirates there, where we'll have the whole place boobytrapped, and Luffy can do his…" He gestures, vaguely, to Luffy with his free hand. "Stretchy rubber thing to pull you across to our side, and the rest of us can pick off anyone who makes it too far through the traps."

"Hm." Jango inclines his head to the teen. "I should be able to figure something out, as far as my way out of here goes, if I take the ferry to the next island's town. So, it doesn't matter if they run off with the ship, in the end. No objections here. "

Usopp stares at him. "No?"

"No."

"None? No objections?"

"Now who's asking too many questions?" Carrot Top interjects. "This is absolutely not the weirdest thing that's happened in this conversation. You don't get to start pretending you're a normal person now."

Usopp bristles. "I am a normal person."

"I have some objections," Treva, who is still restrained, cuts in, before Usopp and Carrot Top can get into an argument. She's raising her hand straight up, as if in class.

"Treva?!" Usopp balks. Carrot Top doesn't look all that much happier, herself.

"Yeah, actually," adds Luffy, also with his hand up, though much more casually so. "Me too."

"Luffy?!" demands Usopp, again.

Luffy crosses his arms. "That butler guy sounds like a huge jerk. Even if we do brainwash him, I don't wanna fight together with someone who'd turn on his own crew. If it's up to me, I want to punch him."

"I'm turning on them too, you know," Jango points out. On further thought, he subtly braces himself to get punched.

"But you're not the captain," Luffy says, frowning and increasingly displeased. "You don't even like them. It was up to him to make you guys into a real crew, and he didn't."

Usopp and the children watch Luffy with wide, captivated eyes. Carrot Top watches him with complicated, suspicious calculation. Jango, who doesn't care about these kids' interpersonal drama, shrugs.

"Was that your problem too, Treva?" asks Carrot Top, wary but resigned.

"That's one thing. I'm with Luffy, of course," Treva reasons, with a confidence that sets Jango's teeth on edge. It's very irritating, how youth and suicidal overconfidence are wasted on the young. At some stage, she'd lowered her hand. "But the other thing is, that we shouldn't let the other Black Cat Pirates just go. Not Kuro either, if Jango's not taking him."

Usopp's eyebrows knit together. "We shouldn't?"

"We shouldn't," Treva repeats, nodding. "Jango's really gonna turn his life around after this, but as far as the others go…" Treva stares at her book. Carrot Top's grip tightens in warning. Treva looks back up. "It's fine to kill everyone except Jango."

Shock.

Silence.

Silence, and then:

"Treva—" Usopp starts, strained and wheezing, but Luffy is louder, and steadier of voice.

"You think?" he prompts, not sounding happy, but not sounding unhappy either. Curious, maybe. Inquiring.

Carrot Top, too, seems ready to hear the girl out. Counting the other three brats, Usopp isn't precisely outnumbered, but Jango isn't inclined to count them. He doubts they could mount much of an offensive.

"The rest of them are just gonna keep killing and raiding and stuff if they get to keep being a pirate crew, or if they break up and join other crews. Their only marketable skill is horrible violence," Treva explains, having failed completely to read the room. Something in Carrot Top's expression shutters to blankness, and Jango doesn't trust the resolved set of her jaw. Yikes. "And it's not like we can just leave them with the authorities. I thought about it, because that's an option sometimes, but the only East Blue marines that could deal with the Black Cat Pirates are all the way in Loguetown."

Jango nods, though he's loath to agree with her. "A fair assessment."

Treva grins, excruciatingly self-satisfied, to her babysitters more so than to Jango. "So it's settled, then!"

"What? No!" Usopp squawks, waving his hands all around in flailing protest. "Treva, you can't just kill people!"

"Everyone knows that," adds the tallest child. The other two children nod vigorously, one determined and the other pale with fright. "Even babies know that."

"Clearly, Kuro doesn't know that," Treva snaps, annoyed.

"I hate to say it," Carrot Top says anyway, dubiously eyeing the bloodthirsty little girl she's still got in her hold. Her gaze slides then, still wary, to Luffy. "But Treva's got a point. Even if we're here to keep Syrup Village from getting sacked this time, it doesn't really mean anything if some other village is just going to be overrun instead."

"But we can't just…" Usopp trails off, looking frantically between Carrot Top, Treva, and Luffy and back again. The three boys follow the same trajectory, but only because it's Usopp that they're watching, waiting for some kind of cue. Eventually, Luffy is the one to break the cycle, shrugging.

"It's your call, Usopp," he says, unhurried but strangely intense. There's something about him that Jango… doesn't want to admit he's intimidated by. Maybe that's just what Devil Fruits do to you. "It's your village."

Usopp goes white as a sheet, but only briefly. He's overtaken by a coughing fit that quickly becomes a bout of frankly hysterical laughter. "Right! Right, yes! Of course!"

Carrot Top raises an eyebrow at him. "So?"

"So! You all seem to be forgetting…" Usopp pauses for dramatic effect, nose up in the air. Or maybe he just needs a second to figure out his next move. Jango can't judge, really, but he will anyway. Finally, Usopp points at Jango, grandly. "... That we have a hypnotist at our disposal!"

Jango regards all this pointing business balefully, but he does perk up, catching Usopp's drift. "You want me to send them all to Loguetown."

"Exactly." Usopp crosses his arms and laughs some more. The children are mesmerized. "So can you do it? Would you need us to tie them up first?"

"Hm. No, I shouldn't need the help, so long as they're all looking in the same direction." Ruefully, Jango shakes his head. "It was Captain Kuro's policy never to sail with anyone smart. I can do it."

It doesn't occur to Jango what Kuro's recruitment preferences say about him. No one calls attention to it.

"So we're set," Usopp says instead, turning to look at Luffy, Carrot Top, and Treva, trying not to seem obviously nervous. "That way, we're not just letting the Black Cat Pirates run off, and we don't have to fight with Kuro on our side. No objections?"

This Luffy guy really is amazingly difficult to read, his eyes somehow large, overly round, and beady all at once. And, might Jango add, it's creepy that blinking seems to be something he does at his own leisure rather than as a necessity. Carrot Top and Treva wait for Luffy to speak first, and Usopp sweats under his scrutiny.

Finally, Luffy inclines his head to Usopp, the set of his jaw… petulant, maybe. Again, Jango has no idea what is going on with this kid. "No objections."

Treva follows suit, brightening up right away. "If Luffy doesn't have any, I don't have any either!"

"Whatever," says Carrot Top, letting the matter go.

Usopp and the younger boys all relax. Usopp rallies, riding high off the back of his success and, likely, an adrenaline rush.

"Of course!" he proclaims, for no one's benefit in particular. The little goblins seem to like it well enough, though. "Never underestimate the mind of the great Captain Usopp!"

He devolves into another fit of bravado-induced laughter. Jango, who's slowly been making sense of this frankly very strange situation he's found himself in, frowns.

"Hey," he says, and the laughter abruptly dies. Jango looks around the assembly of mysterious teens before him suspiciously, a thought occurring to him. "How did you brats know so much about Captain Kuro's plan, anyway? I never even gave any of you my name."

Usopp, Carrot Top, and the trio of boys blanch. Luffy only nods to Treva, who points at Usopp and says, very clearly, "Kuro told Usopp."

Usopp pales further. He points at himself. Who, me? he appears to inquire. Treva nods. Yes, you. Usopp gulps. "Ha. Right, he—yeah." He squares his shoulders and makes the closest thing to eye contact that he could with Jango, what with the sunglasses and all. "I'm kind of the village troublemaker around here, and everyone likes Klaha…" Usopp grimaces. "Kuro's fooled everyone in the village into liking him, except me. Kaya is my friend, and he thinks I'm bad news, so… we were never going to get along, you know? Even without, uh. Everything else."

Jango's frown deepens. "That still doesn't explain why he'd tell you."

"Because no one would believe me." Usopp motions to Luffy, Zoro, and the girls. "These guys are all from out of town, and Luffy and I know each other through my dad. Kuro couldn't have accounted for them."

"It's true!" insists Treva, loudly and with far more excitement than this all calls for, swishing her legs and flailing her arms. She had up until this point been staring at Usopp with stars in her eyes. Carrot Top, making a face at all the fuss, lets her back onto the ground; Treva plants her fists on her hips the second her feet hit the dirt. "Kuro hates Usopp! He was saying all these terrible things about Usopp's dad to try to get him to leave Kaya alone, because Kuro doesn't want anyone to be close enough to her to question her death and because he's the worst, so Usopp punched him. Kuro hates Usopp a lot!"

Usopp goes momentarily blank, his mouth falling slightly open, but he recovers quickly. "Right! So, after that, he put me in this position to get back at me. He knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, normally."

Treva's eyebrows knit together. "That's—"

Carrot Top, who is proving herself to have excellent reaction times, shuts Treva up with a hand over her mouth. Treva's only recourse is an alarmed, "Mmf! "

Good. It's what the runt deserves, Jango thinks, approvingly.

"That does sound like him," Jango tells Usopp. And it also makes sense, really, that Usopp is only an acquaintance of the pirate hunters rather than one of them, with how on-edge he's been compared to Luffy and Carrot Top. "Speaking of which—we should get going. If I take any longer, I'll be late to my meeting, and it will put the captain in a bad mood. I'd rather not provoke him before you're all ready to pile on him, if it can be avoided."

Usopp jumps, just a bit, and turns to Luffy. "Was that everything we needed?"

Luffy shrugs. "I guess." He elbows Zoro. "Hey, Zoro, we're going to fight the butler guy now."

Finally, Zoro cracks one eye open, and hefts himself onto his elbows with a massive yawn. Carrot Top frees Treva, and Usopp returns her book to her and shakes out his hands, seemingly psyching himself out.

"We'll get him good!"

Suddenly, unpleasantly, and at the fault of Tallest Goblin's exclamation, everyone present is reminded of the children. The children, all four of whom are now stood and giddy with what must be rising adrenaline.

"Yeah!" cry the other two boys, one more confidently than the other.

Treva, who Carrot Top had freed, smiles real big, radiating smug. She's put her book away. "Obviously! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"What?" demands Usopp. Four sets of wide, beady eyes round on him all at once; to his credit, he only balks for a moment before regaining his composure, straightening and crossing his arms. This is only made slightly more awkward by the presence of the book he's still holding. "Men! Treva!"

All four stand at attention. "Yes, sir!"

"I need you to listen carefully!"

They, very visibly, do.

"I'm giving you the most important task there is right now! It's absolutely critical that you succeed!"

Usopp pauses to make direct, unflinching eye contact with each of them. The boy with the onion haircut audibly gulps. Satisfied, Usopp nods once and strikes a pioneer's pose, pointing boldly into the distance.

"Protect Kaya!"

Silence.

Silence, and then—

The tallest kid huffs. The other boys cross their arms right back at Usopp, and Treva's cheeks puff up in indignation.

"We know you just want to get us away from all the real fighting," accuses Tallest Goblin.

"I've seen you say this exact thing before, for the same reasons," Treva affirms. "I can help."

"Kuro won't be at the mansion right now. Merry wouldn't turn you guys away," Usopp argues. His tone is firm, but something about him softens, seeing how adamant the little turds are. Jango doesn't really get it, himself. "Guys, if we fail, you'll be the last line of defense. This really is important." Sheepishly, he scratches the back of his head with his free hand. Quieter: "Kaya will wonder where I am."

At that, the fight drains out of the boys. Treva, though, tugs insistently on Usopp's belt-sash.

"I can be useful too," she pleads. Her voice hitches. If she cries, Jango is leaving, and the rest of them will just have to catch up with him.

Usopp, rather than scolding her as he ought to, crouches down to Treva's level and returns her book to her. She accepts it, hugging it to her chest once more, and sniffs. The other out-of-towners look on with interest of various hues.

"You are useful, Treva," says Usopp, which Jango, very reasonably, doubts. "That's why I need you to go. You're the only one small enough to fit through the front gate, my men won't be able to knock without you."

"She is pretty small," appraises Tallest Goblin, sizing her up. Treva shoots him a dirty look, but rubs at her eyes and stuffs her book into her bag.

She turns back to Usopp with renewed spirit. "Okay! I won't let you down, Usopp! You'll see!"

Usopp stands back up and ruffles her hair. "Glad to hear it!"

Treva places both her hands atop his as soon as it makes contact with her head, not to stop him, but to press his hand more firmly down. She lights up, and when Usopp is done, there's a bounce to her step as she pivots to face the town.

The kids wander off, with Treva belting some song Jango doesn't recognize at the top of her lungs until the boys elbow her into knocking it off, resulting in some kind of angry back-and-forth breaking out along their way. In all honesty, Jango doesn't care.

He regards the pack of teenagers—three pirate hunters and one local with a bone to pick, by Jango's measure—one by one.

It's time to get down to business.