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

-Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen-

"The Merry's our ship, so it's our job to take care of her without someone else butting in—I'm not giving up!" Usopp snapped. "I won't let them take the Merry away from me! This is stupid! You get fooled by a bunch of salesmen trying to pawn off a used boat...the Luffy I know wouldn't cave in for some sales pitch from a total stranger, he would believe in the strength of the Merry and the strength of his crew!" he angrily cried as he shakily stood and harshly grabbed the front of Luffy's shirt. "But here you are, acting like you know everything and ignoring your friends!

"I can't believe that's the kind of captain you turned out to be! I thought you were better than that!" he sneered.

"You're not being fair, Usopp!" Nami frowned. "Luffy felt the—"

"You stay out of this!" Luffy snapped, cutting the ginger off from involving herself in this fight of theirs. "It was my call, I'll stand by it—there's nothing you can do, we're getting a new ship whether you like it or not. This is the end of the road for the Merry" he firmly stated, making it clear that this wasn't up for debate.

"I'm not leaving her here, I don't care what you say!" Usopp cried. "I know you're always trying to think about the future, but not everyone on this crew is like that! I see the Merry as one of our friends, got that?! And I won't abandon her when she's hurt!" he screamed.

"Don't be stupid! Even if she is a friend, that doesn't mean she's a person!" Luffy scolded as he harshly threw the other pirate off him.

"She is to me! And she still has the strength to live, but you wouldn't appreciate that because all you care about is getting a new ship anyway!" Usopp snarled.

"Alright, that's enough!" Sanji butted in the minute he saw that Luffy was beginning to tremble with barely contained rage. He now looked as if he was ready for a fight. "Both of you just calm down and we can settle this" he tried to reason even as the long-nosed pirate continued to talk—continued to anger our captain further.

"Would you listen to yourself?!" Luffy finally snapped as he suddenly tackled Usopp to the ground.

"Luffy!" Nami gasped.

"What are you doing?! He's still hurt!" I snapped.

"Don't act like you're the only one that's torn up about this—we all feel the same way!" Luffy grounded out through clenched teeth.

"If that was true, then you wouldn't be looking for a new ship!" Usopp argued.

"Alright, fine! If you don't like the way your captain does things, then why don't you go ahead and get off—" Sanji kicked Luffy off of Usopp before he had a chance to finish that sentence—before he had a chance to say something he might just regret.

"Sanji!" Chopper cried out in shock.

"This is going way too far—what the hell is wrong with you?!" Sanji sneered. "If you don't watch it, you're going to say something you can't take back, so calm down!" he snapped, already starting to chew the captain out for what he was about to say.

"Yeah, I'm sorry—I don't know what I was thinking" Luffy heavily sighed, slowly sitting back up as he finally started to calm down.

"You don't have to apologize because that's how you really feel, isn't it...?" Usopp quietly asked.

"That's not true!" Luffy defended.

"Usopp, he was just speaking out of a place of anger, he didn't mean it" I reasoned, not wanting to the sharpshooter to get the wrong idea and really think he wasn't wanted anymore.

"Just get rid of your dead weight and move on before they can slow you down" Usopp bitterly spat. "If you're going to throw away the Merry, might as well throw me away too..." he grumbled.

"I know you're pissed off, but don't say stupid crap like that" Sanji frowned.

"No, I'm being serious" Usopp shook his head. "I've been thinking about this for a while now" he suddenly admitted. "It isn't like it was before, you guys are just too strong for me—I can't keep up anymore. I mean, look at what happened today...you can't even trust me with your money..." he bitterly muttered. "No point in keeping me around if all I do is cause you trouble—you don't want weak people on your crew, do you?" he asked.

"Usopp..." I sadly mumbled, a lump already starting to form in my throat...

Surely he didn't really believe that?

Surely he knew our captain better than that...right?

Just as I opened my mouth to continue, I quickly closed it the moment I felt Zoro place an arm around me as he motioned for me to be quiet so that the pirate could finish what he wanted to say.

"Luffy, I still believe that you'll be King of the Pirates one day" Usopp confessed. "But as for me, I'm just lucky I was able to make it this far—even back when we first met and I was going to set off alone, you probably just invited me on your ship out of pity" he heavily sighed. "That's the only reason I'm here, there's no sense traveling together if we don't have the same goal."

"Hey, Usopp, where are you going?" Sanji frowned the second the long-nosed pirate started walking toward the door.

"Wherever I go, it's my business, it has nothing to do with you anymore—sorry, guys, I'm leaving the crew" Usopp apologized, refusing to look back at any of us as he stopped just short of the doorway. I felt my eyes widen and my jaw tense as my chest painfully tightened at his words—painfully tightened at the prospect that he was actually leaving the crew despite everything we'd been through together. "This is goodbye" and with that, he left.

"Usopp! Why?!" Chopper cried.

"Oh no!" Nami gasped before turning to Luffy. "Hey, don't just sit there, Luffy! Who knows what he's going to do out there—go say something to him! Stop him before it's too late!" she desperately pleaded. "We've come too far together, we can't part ways like this!"

"L-Luffy..." my voice quivered as I clenched my fists, angrily pushing away from Zoro as I marched toward the rubber man who turned to me with a blank stare. "If you don't want this to be the end, then I suggest you get your ass up off that damn floor right now and go stop him," I shook, "talk to him, explain the reasoning for your decision because he's our friend and we can't lose him!" tears started leaking from my eyes as my trembling only worsen the longer I spoke.

"Skylar's right" Nami agreed. "Usopp's not just a crew member, he's our friend too—isn't he?" she asked. "Get up and stop him! Luffy, what's wrong?!" she sniffed as tears of her own started welling up in her eyes. "Please, you're the captain, aren't you?!" she pleaded when the rubber man didn't respond.

"Fine, have it your way then—Usopp!" she shouted as she, Sanji, and Chopper quickly ran after the sharpshooter once they realized the captain wasn't going to say or do anything. "Get back here! It shouldn't be like this—come on, we can talk!" she pleaded as she tried to coax him into coming back.

"Yeah, come back!" Sanji agreed.

"I want you to stay! Don't leave us!" Chopper sobbed as I angrily glared down at our captain, tears continuing to fall as my trembling only worsened the longer I listened to the three's broken pleas.

"L-look, I understand that y-you're the captain and that you...you need to do what's best for the entire crew" I shakily began, voice wavering as I angrily snatched up the front of his shirt. "But I'm asking you as my friend—not as my captain—to do the right thing and step down for a second and go after him! You're the only one who can fix this—you're his friend, aren't you?! You care about him, don't you?!" I cried as I roughly began to shake him back and forth.

"Skylar" Zoro calmly spoke, resting a gentle hand on my shoulder just as Luffy finally knocked my hands away before standing and walking after the others. Sniffing, I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes before quickly following after with Zoro not that far behind me.

"Usopp, please!" Chopper's painful cries practically broke my heart as I quickly crossed the deck and scooped him right up into a hug—desperately wanting to calm him down despite knowing that it wasn't going to happen in this current situation. He clung to me as he sobbed, still calling out to the retreating sharpshooter.

"Say something!" Nami sobbed as she harshly pushed Luffy to speak the moment she saw that he had finally come out.

"Luffy, I'm sorry" Usopp apologized. "I can't follow you anymore and I'm sorry I was a pain 'til to the bitter end" he sounded as if he was already on the verge of tears himself. "I know that you're the captain of this ship, so the Merry belongs to you," his voice shakily cracked, "that's why I want you to fight me, Monkey D. Luffy! I challenge you to a duel!"

"Huh?!" Nami gasped. "Whoa! Wait—what are you saying?!" she cried out in surprise.

"You can't be serious?!" I worriedly frowned. "You'll get hurt!"

"At ten o'clock tonight, I'll be back! So you better be ready for a fight, captain!" Usopp proclaimed. "I can't stop you from destroying your own ship, but if I win, I'm taking the Merry and leaving!" he huffed, making it clear what exactly he wanted. "Either way, when we're done, the last bond between us will be broken!"

-Later-

"What's with you?" Nami frowned as she glared at the captain who was currently laid out in one of the hammocks of the men's room. "Would you stop this nonsense already? Usopp just got worked up because things were moving too fast, right?" she huffed.

"Look, I know you're both stubborn, but you need to work this out—fighting isn't going to solve the problem this time!" I scolded.

"See! There's no reason to fight with your own friend, especially if he's hurt!" Nami quickly agreed. "If you give it some time, I'm sure the both of you will see how silly this is" she tried to reason.

"We've gone too far to turn back now..." Luffy grumbled as he pulled his hat down over his eyes as if trying to block us out.

"That's not true! There's nothing stopping you from apologizing and talking it over one more time!" Nami argued.

"If you would just stop being so damn stubborn for a second and just sit down and talk—just apologize for the words that were exchanged tonight, then maybe this friendship can be saved" I huffed. "Do you really want it to end like this? On terrible terms?" I questioned, unable to accept that he'd want him and Usopp to end things in bad blood. "Do you want the last moments of this friendship to be a bitter memory in the back of your mind of a pointless fight caused by words that were spoken from pain?" I asked, sucking in a shaky breath of air as I desperately tried to calm my rising temper. "I understand that what you both said were words that inflicted wounds—words that clouded your minds and were spoken with venom.

"But did you ever think about how much this is hurting him?" I asked. "He loves this ship and to hear that the one thing he loves is on its last standing leg hurts him—I don't know if he meant every word he said or not, I just know this fight is pointless."

"Like I said..." Luffy mumbled, not even bothering to look either Nami or me in the eye. "There's no turning back" he huffed.

"And why not?!" Nami and I snapped

A/N: Enjoy

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