One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.

-Chapter Eighty-Three-

"Could it be...?" Henzo mumbled.

"Hey...uh...you do realize that if you use that, you'll blow us all up" Usopp nervously pointed out.

"I'm pretty sure that's what he's hoping for" I said.

"We're all together in the same boat here, we live and die with one another no matter what" Rapanui firmly stated as he jumped onto the Going Merry. "Come on" he motioned for the other two kids to get behind him.

"Thanks, Rapanui" the girl smiled in relief. "Hey!" she called out as Rongo ran toward them.

"Rapanui, it's really you..." Henzo breathlessly breathed as he took a step closer to the group of children. "You too, Isoka and Rongo...all of you are really here—can't you see? It's me" he said once he saw the wary looks on their faces as they took a step back. "We all used to play together on Ruluka...it's me, Henzo" he continued.

"Henzo?" Rapanui questioned, eyes narrowed in suspicion as he didn't look the least bit convinced by the older man's words.

"Henzo? But there's no way..." Isoka frowned, shaking her head in disbelief.

"It's not true—not possible!" Rapanui denied. "Stay back! I'll blow us all up—I'm warning you, stop it! Get back now!" he shouted as Henzo got closer to him. Instead of listening, the old man reached out and pressed the button on top of the bomb himself. Wincing, I shielded my eyes along with the rest from the bright light that suddenly blinded us the second the bomb went off.

"It…was a fake?" I questioned, blinking as the light died down and smoke now filled the air around us.

"Damn! It's a smokescreen too!" Usopp coughed as he tried to wave the smoke away.

"Hey, guys, what's with all the noise?" Zoro yawned, finally waking up just as the smoke started to clear and we found that the children were now gone.

"Wait, you slept through all of it?" Usopp frowned.

"You mean to tell me that you can sleep through having an arrow almost pierce your skull, but you can't sleep through a little bit of noise?" I questioned, crossing my arms as my brows furrowed.

"Huh? Who's that weird guy?" Zoro asked upon noticing Henzo.

"That's going to take a long time to explain, so just hang on a minute, Sleeping Beauty..." Usopp grumbled.

"Nice nickname, fits him perfectly" I snorted.

"Hey, the other ones are gone too—what just happened? Who were those kids?" Luffy questioned. "Hello? Pop's?" he asked, peering over at Henzo when he didn't receive an answer right away only to find the old man still staring at the spot Rapanui had been standing in.

-Later-

"We were all so happy back in those days—such good friends, always playing" Henzo began after being questioned by the rest of us on how he knew those children. "Talking about something that was the best time of my life, every day was so perfect, so bright. It was more valuable than all the treasure in the world" he reminisced as he talked about the past and when he was younger. "Then one day, something happened that changed everything..." he sighed, before diving straight into his story about not only the pirates that had attacked his home island but also about the first time he encounter the Rainbow Mist. "...And after that day…after that day, Rapanui and the others never returned—I can't believe that in a place like this, after all this time...they're still pirates..."

"Back up there, Mr. Mustache, I thought you said that all of this happened fifty years ago" Usopp frowned. "But when we saw them just now, they were still little kids" he pointed out.

"Yeah" I nodded. "If they really are the friends you had lost fifty years ago, shouldn't they be as old as you right about now?" I asked.

"The passage of time in the Rainbow Mist appears to be different than ours is in the normal world—one day in here might be the same as a week or even a year out there, so Rapanui and the others don't seem to have aged" Henzo theorized.

"So you're saying that to them it feels like they've probably been here for a few months rather than fifty years?" I questioned, tilting my head.

"Precisely" Henzo nodded.

"Huh, I guess time really is nothing more than an illusion" I hummed.

"What? Really?" Usopp asked, baffled by the old man's theory of how his friends were still merely children despite fifty years passing since their disappearance inside the mist.

"If that's true, we need to find a way out of here, quickly" Robin pointed out. "If we don't, there'll be no one doing the damage" she stated.

"Why not?" Luffy asked.

"How dense are you anyways? The same thing that happened to those little kids and the professor could happen to us too" Usopp explained. "While we're stuck here doing nothing, Nami, Sanji, and Chopper will all get old and stuff in the real world" he continued.

"Which means any adventures we plan on having in the near future won't involve them if we don't get out of here quickly" I added.

"Really?" Luffy blinked. "Alright, Pop's, let's get out of here fast" he said.

"Where have you been? We don't know how to get out of this place" Usopp frowned.

"We don't? Seriously?!" the captain gaped.

"So there's no way back?" Zoro questioned as I hummed.

"That's what everyone's been saying for the past couple of minutes" I nodded, leaning my head against his shoulder. "You'd known that if you had been awake earlier, sleepyhead."

"Maybe...there must be an escape..." Robin mumbled in thought as she looked down at her book, idly flipping through its pages as Luffy and Usopp talked quietly with one another in the background. "There has to be some way out of Ape's Concert..."

-Later-

"Onward! Full speed ahead!" Luffy ordered.

"About that" Zoro spoke up as he looked up from cleaning his sword. "Are you certain that we're moving forward, Luffy?" he asked.

"Yeah, I said full speed ahead" Luffy smiled.

"Luffy, just because you said it doesn't mean we're moving forward" I sighed. "In fact, I don't know how you can be so confident in everyone's navigation skills when Nami's the only good one...well, Robin might be good at it as well..." I muttered.

"Where exactly is it you're trying to take us?" Henzo asked.

"Well, we're heading out of the mist, duh" Luffy said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Don't be ridiculous, once you enter Ape's Concert, there's no leaving it." Henzo scoffed. "This region of the sea is not like any other you've seen before" he pointed out.

"Um...I'm pretty sure we passed that ship just a little while ago" Usopp said, pointing toward one of the broken-down ships.

"Ah, don't worry, there are a bunch of ships that look alike no matter where you go" Luffy dismissively waved as he continued to happily stare forward with a wide smile.

"I don't think so" Robin disagreed as she studied the ship Usopp had pointed out. "That's the exact same ship that was wrecked in the first place we dropped anchor—I remember seeing that statue of the goddess on the bow."

"But what does that mean? Have we really come full circle to the exact same place we've started from?" Usopp asked.

"Wouldn't doubt it" I said, crossing my arms. "With this mist and everyone's lack of navigational skills, is it really that far-fetched to think we've just been going in circles this entire time?" I asked.

"That's why I asked if you were sure we were going forward earlier" Zoro said.

"I was watching—we were going straight!" Luffy argued.

"How can you possibly see which way is straight with all this mist?" Zoro frowned.

"He can't" Robin said, suddenly raising and firing one of the cannons straight ahead with the use of her Devil Fruit powers. I flinched when the cannonball she had just fired landed right behind us, causing water to splash onto the ship and drench Zoro, Usopp, and me.

"What was the point in that?" Zoro irritably as I shook my head back and forth, causing him and Usopp to draw back from the wet strands of hair and water that flew around. "What are you? A dog?" he softly huffed with a small smile as I sent him a pointed look before sticking out my tongue.

"She shot the cannon forward, but it landed right behind us" Usopp remarked.

"How is that even possible?" I asked, pushing aside the wet strands of hair that clung to my face.

"As I thought" Robin mused to herself.

"The fabric of space is distorted here" Henzo concluded.

"What does that mean?" Zoro asked.

"It's something that I remember reading from that book earlier, see the inside of the Rainbow Mist is twisted around itself like a—" she was interrupted by Luffy suddenly handing her his hat before stretching himself as far back as he could.

"Hold on! No, Luffy!" Usopp started as he tried to stop the raven-haired teen from doing what he was about to do.

"Too late" I hummed, watching as the captain slingshotted himself forward. "Look at him go" I whistled as he went flying.

"He won't necessarily end back up back in the exact location he started from" Henzo stated.

"Luffy, you moron..." Zoro grumbled just as the captain smashed head-first into the sail.

"Idiot!" I laughed as he slid down it and back onto the deck of the ship.

A/N: Enjoy

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