One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Two Hundred and Seventeen-
"Take it easy, you shouldn't be out of bed yet!" Chopper worriedly frowned at Usopp's quick movements.
"Come on, calm down! Stop your whining and listen to the doctor!" Nami scolded, being a lot firmer with the sharpshooter compared to the doctor.
"They're right, Usopp, you need to take it easy and rest" I nodded in agreement as I gently tried to coax the sharpshooter into laying back down.
"So…is there a chance we might get our money back after all?" Usopp hopefully asked once he settled back down into his makeshift bed on the floor.
"Well, maybe—we won't know for sure 'til that Franky guy shows up" Luffy answered.
"I see...I'm sorry..." Usopp dejectedly apologized.
"There's no need to apologize, none of us could have foreseen something like that happening" I assured him, gaze nervously drifting toward the booklets currently sprawled out on the table.
"Hey, even if we can't get the rest back, we still have 100,000,000 belis leftover—don't worry!" Luffy laughed as he attempted to quell our sharpshooter's worries.
"Yeah, but he lost twice that much!" Nami snapped.
"Nami!" Chopper scolded.
"Nami, we're trying to make him feel better, not worse" I frowned.
"Sorry, Usopp" Nami quickly apologized, not really wanting to upset the sharpshooter any further despite her own frustration.
"No, it's fine" Usopp assured her, not seeing any reason for her to apologize just for stating the truth. "More importantly, is Merry going to be okay?" he suddenly asked. "I mean, we can get her repaired with the money that we have left, we're lucky we have all these awesome shipwrights to work on her!" he brightly smiled, causing my heart to painfully ache. "But...I know things are going to get rough out there, so I want her to be stronger than ever before! We got to do a lot more than just a little touch-up!" none of us could bring ourselves to really look at him...
To tell him the truth.
"So, do you think those guys will do a great job if we only have 100,000,000 to pay with?" he hopefully asked. "You talked to them about it, right?"
"Uh…yeah, but we aren't having them repair it" Luffy admitted, causing Usopp's eyes to widen as his jaw went slack. "We decided to get a new ship instead—I know that we probably should have asked you first, but we didn't have much choice" the captain continued, not bothering to acknowledge the sharpshooter's reaction. "Either way, I made up my mind. The Going Merry has taken good care of us, but it looks like our journey with her has to end here" he said. "Anyways, Icepop gave us this amazing ship catalog to flip through" he smiled as he picked up one of the booklets from the table.
"There are all kinds of different ships we could pick from in here and if we decided to shop for a used model, we could go bigger than Merry and still keep our budget under 100,000,000!" he cheerfully exclaimed, trying his best to make the idea of a new ship sound as pleasing as possible to the stunned pirate.
"Wait! Just stop!" Usopp shouted, cutting Luffy off before he could say anything else. "I get it, Luffy, but the jokes gone on long enough—okay? See, Chopper doesn't know you're kidding" he nervously laughed as he motioned to the sniffling reindeer. "Look how upset you're making him, geez, captain.
"You should know better than to treat your crew like that—come on, Nami, back me up here" he said, looking to the ginger who only turned her head the other way in avoidance. "Huh? Hold up…does that mean…we don't have enough for repairs...? It's because I lost the 200,000,000, isn't it?" he shakily asked, voice now rising in volume the longer he spoke as he quickly stood up on his knees. "And now we can't afford the work on the Merry—is that what this is about?! After all, a first-class shipyard is going to cost a lot, right?!"
"Would you stop and listen to me" Luffy frowned, quick to try and stop the pirate's panic from growing any more.
"What is it?! Tell me!" Usopp angrily demanded. "Don't try and sugarcoat it!" he snapped, already getting himself worked up the longer he thought about the idea that he was at fault for us not being able to repair Merry.
"I'm not, okay! I don't even care that you lost all the money, that's over now!" Luffy snapped right back.
"If that's how you feel, then what's with all this crap about buying a new ship?!" Usopp angrily cried as I painfully bit my lower lip.
"Both of you stop it!" Zoro scowled as the air between the two started growing slightly hostile. "Fighting isn't going to help, just calm down for a second."
"I don't see what I'm doing wrong! He's the one saying all this dumb stuff!" Usopp seethed, his breathing ragged as he threw his arms up.
"I know how you feel, but you shouldn't get so worked up right now" Nami said.
"If you just take a minute to calm down and listen, I'm sure everything can be worked out" I thickly swallowed, everything felt like it was starting to escalate far too quickly for my liking.
"Listen to Nami and Skylar, Usopp—if you don't get any rest, you're not going to get any better" Chopper worriedly piped up...only to be ignored as the long-nosed pirate quickly jumped to his feet.
"Who cares about me?!" Usopp snapped. "How can you just sit here when he's making jokes about getting a new ship?!" he angrily shouted at us, clearly upset that no one was taking his side.
"I'm not joking about anything! This was a hard decision for me too!" Luffy frowned, not liking what the sharpshooter was insinuating one bit.
"Oh yeah? I feel really sorry for you!" Usopp sneered as he ripped the booklet from Luffy's hand. "Already window shopping for a new toy!" he growled as he threw the book down and stomped on it.
"You trying to pick a fight with me?" Luffy glared.
"I don't want your damn pity, got it?! If you tell me it doesn't matter that I lost the money then why are you talking about buying a new ship?!" Usopp asked as the rest of us watched in silence—no one really knowing what to do or say. "Just spit it out already! If we can't afford the repairs because I screwed up, then tell me! Don't show me some stupid catalog and change the subject—I want to know the truth!" he demanded, causing the captain's frustrations to only grow.
"The Merry can't be fixed!" Luffy finally revealed, causing the sharpshooter's eyes to widen and his lower lip to quiver.
"What…what did you just say...?" he shakily asked as if not believing what he just heard...which he probably didn't and I couldn't blame him for that. This ship meant everything to him and I could only imagine just how painful it was to hear that she was broken beyond repair.
"Don't make me repeat myself!" Luffy scowled, clenching his fist as Usopp dropped to his knees in shock. "I told you, the Merry can't be repaired anymore—no matter what we do…we…we can't fix her. Otherwise, I wouldn't say something like that!" he huffed, finding it rather difficult to get the words out.
"You mean this ship—the ship that we're riding on right now—is broken?" Usopp grounded out, angrily smashing his hands against the floorboards as if trying to make his point clear.
"That's right, it's only a matter of time before she sinks" Luffy nodded.
"What are you talking about, Luffy?" Usopp sniffed. "That's nuts!" he finally snapped, refusing to believe what he was hearing.
"No, I'm serious—the shipwrights took a look at the Merry themselves" Luffy shook his head. "They said she wouldn't even hold out until the next island!" he frowned as he repeated what he had been told.
"Then it's settled? So that's it?" Usopp angrily asked, his temper starting to flare up once more. "A bunch of strangers told you to scrap your ship and you don't ask questions?!" he sneered.
"That's enough!" Luffy growled, not liking the tone that the sharpshooter was starting to take with him.
"I understand that these guys know what they're talking about, but this is just wrong!" Usopp shouted. "Don't give up on the Merry! What about all the adventures we've gone on together—what about all the battles we've fought?!" he asked. "She's our friend—she's one of us—are you going to abandon her for another ship without a second thought?! After all we've been through, is this how little the Merry means to you, Luffy?!"
"I know you're upset, Usopp, but you need to calm down!" Chopper worriedly cried.
"Sorry, but no!" Usopp glared before suddenly going into a coughing fit. "I'm not backing down until we settle this!" he wheezed as he tried to catch his breath after such a violent fit.
"Usopp, please!" Nami pleaded.
"Just listen! There's no reason to fight—we can talk this out!" I begged as I desperately looked between our captain and sharpshooter.
"What? So you know better than the shipwrights?" Luffy glared. "If we had someone on the crew who knew about this stuff, we wouldn't have asked them in the first place!" he grounded out through clenched teeth.
"Then forget them! We don't need those guys telling us what to do!" Usopp snapped. "I'll repair the Merry myself, just like before—we've made it this far, so there's no reason we can't go on that way! Here, I can get started right now" he told us, already making an attempt to move. "Come on, guys, help me out" he motioned as if seriously thinking he could get straight to repairing the Merry while in this state.
"That's not going to work" Sanji frowned.
"Usopp, please, just listen for a second" I pleaded. "We can work this out—there's no need to do anything rash."
"That's right...we don't have enough lumber, do we...?" Usopp muttered in realization. "I better go buy some at the shipyard, we got a lot of work to do" he huffed, looking rather deadset on fixing this ship himself without anyone's help.
"You're not a shipwright, Usopp, you hear me?!" Luffy snapped, growing more and more frustrated with the sharpshooter's behavior.
"Stop it, Luffy!" Nami scolded.
"Yeah, you're right, I know" Usopp nodded, body now shaking with barely contained rage. "But so what? I don't see why you're so hung up on everything those stupid shipwrights say!" he snarled. "If they knew what she's gone through, they wouldn't give up on the Merry so easily—they just want your money!"
"Usopp!" Nami and I worriedly frowned when he suddenly stumbled.
A/N: Enjoy
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