As it turns out, Treva really is the only one of them small enough to fit through the front gate's bars. She turns to look dubiously back at Ninjin, Piiman, and Tamanegi just in front of the door; the three all give her double thumbs ups in encouragement from the other side of the gate. She frowns at them, but she still knocks, so Ninjin counts it as a win.

While they all wait for Merry to answer the door, he fidgets with Treva's bag, slung diagonally across his shoulders. It was too big for her to bring along, and he'd lost the rock-paper-scissors. What a weirdo, Ninjin thinks, absently and without malice. Usually, people don't knock by slapping the entryway, palm flat, with all their might. Did no one teach her any better? Even Ninjin's own parents had, with him, and they're far from upper class.

The wait for Merry is an admittedly short one, and soon enough the shaggy-haired butler is blinking out at the Usopp Pirates in mild confusion, distracting Ninjin from his musings.

"Ah. You're the boys who hang around with Usopp," Merry recognizes. "But what are you doing here? And how did you reach the door?"

Treva, annoyed, tugs on his pant leg. He looks down, eyes widening slightly as he connects the dots.

"I see Usopp's picked up another one," Merry drily observes. Still, he offers Treva a smile. "And what's your name? You can't be older than seven or eight…"

Treva swells with rage, physically rocking up onto her toes and back down again, and goes tomato red. "I'm ten!" She flails an arm behind her, pointing at Ninjin and his friends. "I'm older than them, see? I'm Treva, and I'm ten, and I'm the Strawhat Pirates' strate—"

"That's nice," Merry tells her, placatingly. He looks back up at the Usopp Pirates as Treva fumes. "Where is Usopp, though?"

"Something came up, and he can't come today," Ninjin says.

Piiman nods. "So he sent us. It's fine, right? Since Ku… Klahadore isn't here."

"I suppose it would be…" Merry considers them. It occurs to Ninjin that he must think their group had spotted Kuro-dore in town, and knew he was out that way. After all, how else could they know? "Well, I'm sure he wouldn't object, since it's just the four of you. Come along, then—Miss Kaya will be happy to see you, so please be on your best behavior."

Merry makes his way over to the gate and lets them in, and then leads all the kids to Kaya's room. On the way, Ninjin trades Treva her bag back, and she thanks him with a nod.

"Come in," Ninjin hears Kaya call from the other side of her door, after Merry's knocked. Like a normal person would, with his knuckles, and not so loudly.

"It seems that Usopp wasn't able to make it today, but he still didn't want you to be lonely," Merry says, letting the lot of them through.

Kaya blinks, surprised, and then smiles. "Well, thank you all for keeping me company today. Is Usopp alright?"

"He is," Treva informs her. Somehow, Ninjin envies her confidence, as much as it's been kind of grating on him. It must come with the territory, when you can see the future.

Kaya's focus shifts to Treva, her now having spoken. "Oh. I don't recognize you. Are you Usopp's newest crewmate?"

Treva beams. "I am!"

Ninjin elbows her. "No one said he's joining your crew."

"He's our captain," insists Piiman, Tamanegi nodding furiously next to him in support.

Treva starts to snap back, but stops, a sudden bout of thoughtfulness shutting her up. She turns away from them and wanders farther into the room.

"I'll leave you to it," Merry laughs, amused, and goes off to do whatever it is that butlers do when they're not evil and secretly plotting murder. Kaya, similarly entertained, primly covers her mouth with her hand.

The Usopp Pirates exchange nods all around. Together, they spill into the room, overtaking Treva as they head straight to Kaya's bedside.

"Kaya, did the captain ever tell you about the time he—" Piiman begins, and Ninjin gets ready to launch into a whole production, but they and Kaya both startle when Tamanegi shrieks and dives behind them to tackle Treva.

"Why!" Treva wails, from where Tamanegi's weight has her smushed face-first into the floor. Ninjin is struck by a strong sense of deja vu.

"Yeah! What gives, Tamanegi?" Piiman demands, as Ninjin walks over to Tamanegi and Treva, on a hunch. "She didn't even do anything that time!"

"No," Ninjin agrees, crouching over the (much reduced, this time) child pile. Before Tamanegi can protest, Ninjin snatches Treva's book out of her flailing hand and holds it up for Piiman to see. Annoyed, he finishes, "But she was about to."

Piiman immediately crosses his arms and looks at Treva disapprovingly down his nose. "Treva, you can't do that here."

"Do what?" asks Kaya, her eyes darting between the lot of them in incomprehension.

"I'm Treva," Treva croaks. "And I can see the future!"

Tamanegi gasps. "Treva!"

"You can't say that!" admonishes Piiman, at the same time.

Ninjin is ready to get worked up right along with them, but Kaya laughs, suddenly, audibly relieved.

"I see. That's very impressive, Treva," she praises, and hides her smile behind her hand again. "Please don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

She thinks it's just another lie, Ninjin concludes, and relaxes. A shared glance with the other Usopp Pirates tells him they've themselves caught on, and Tamanegi sheepishly lets Treva go.

She huffs, shoves him the rest of the way off, and scrambles to her feet to march right up to Ninjin. Her fists ball at her sides. "Give it back."

Ninjin doesn't back down, meeting her gaze levelly from under his beanie. "Only if you promise not to look at the future in front of Kaya."

"Fine." She rocks up and down on her heels, growing progressively impatient. Must be a nervous tic. "I promise, and I won't, so please give me my book back."

Satisfied, Ninjin returns it to her. She hugs it to her chest and turns away, making a complicated sort of expression that Ninjin can't quite puzzle out. Put out, maybe, or uncomfortable.

"A pirate's got to think about these things, Treva," Piiman tells her, not unkindly. He pats her shoulder, which seems to restore some of her mood. "You can't just go blurting out all your secrets to everyone you meet. A pirate's got to be sneaky!"

"And you need to learn to play along more," Ninjin adds, hoping Treva will understand that he means regarding Kaya's extremely reasonable obliviousness. He's not getting his hopes all that high, though. "You know. Read the room."

Tamanegi pats her other shoulder. Knowing him, he feels bad for body-checking her; and because Ninjin knows him, he knows that Tamanegi is speaking from personal experience when he chimes in with, "Especially with other kids. Most other kids aren't going to be as nice about it as we are, Treva! Other kids are mean, so you can't make obvious mistakes like that!"

Apparently, it's the wrong thing to say.

Treva locks up, just for a second, before coming alive again to dash away from Tamanegi and Piiman's touch like they're hot. She faces all three Usopp Pirates with some mixture of defiance, indignation, and flared nostrils, almost fully hunching over around her book.

"I won't be wrong again," she insists. "I've never talked to other kids before, so I don't have any practice, but I'm going to get it right from now on. I can prove it." Her cheeks puff out like a pissed off, poorly trained hamster. "I can prove it, but I won't right now, because you told me not to! Which is proof in and of itself!"

This, now, gives Ninjin pause. A pause he's not alone in, a quick back-and-forth of looks with the rest of the room's occupants tells him.

Kaya, frowning, repeats, "You've never spoken to anyone your age before?"

Treva jumps, just a bit, and huddles further over her book. Embarrassed. She scuffs the toe of her boot against the floor, and can't quite meet Kaya's eyes. "It's always just been me 'n' Gramma, and Gramma's house is in the middle of nowhere. I was the only one my age for 240 miles all around, give or take."

That's oddly specific, supplies Ninjin's brain, helpfully.

"That's oddly specific," supplies Ninjin, out loud. Helpfully.

Treva sputters. "You're the one who told me to be normal! I'm normal!"

Ninjin's eyebrows begin to ascend almost of their own volition. "You're a pirate. A future-seeing pirate."

"A normal future-seeing pirate!"

"That's an oxymoron."

"You're an oxymoron!"

A beat. Treva turns red.

"I mean you're a moron! Just a regular moron! No oxy!" she amends.

As Tamanegi and Piiman look between Ninjin and Treva with a growing air of mounting dread, Kaya tries to interject. "Now, Treva, Ninjin," she attempts, sternly but with a measure of her characteristic affability. "You shouldn't talk to each other like that."

Ninjin looks away and shrugs. Treva, likewise cowed, fixes her gaze to her feet.

Peace.

Peace, until—

"It's not my fault she's a useless pirate," Ninjin mutters, defensive, and both the regret and the reactions are instantaneous.

Kaya squeaks, the well-born lady's equivalent to a horrified jaw drop. Tamanegi and Piiman, neither of whom is particularly well born, have their jaws hanging open outright. Treva recoils, far too dramatically than even Ninjin would have considered to be appropriate, and sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth.

"At least I am a pirate," she volleys back, strangled and furious. "At least I'm going to do something with my life! I'm going to be useful!"

Something about Treva's voice resonates with Ninjin, then. Something about it, about the low, dead-burning certainty of it, jolts up his vertebrae and forces his spine straight. Deep within the pit of his stomach, something he can't recognize starts to squirm.

"All you're ever going to do," Treva promises, "Is open a boring pub in a boring town barely a hundred miles from here, and live out the rest of your boring life being no good to anyone, ever, for a boring eighty-one to eighty-six years." She marches right up to Ninjin, one more time, and gets on her tippy toes to put her nose level with and uncomfortably close to his. "You're not a real pirate, you're never going to be a real pirate, and you could've never been a real pirate! Not in any future I've seen!"

Oh, thinks Ninjin. Oh, I know what this squirmy-feeling is.

I'm angry.

Sucking in a scathing breath of his own, Ninjin opens his mouth to fire back with equal, nine-year-old ferocity.

He has every intention of doing so.

He almost does.

But Treva pulls back without warning, pivots fully, and sprints out of the room at top speed. The rest of them are left gaping at the door—the door, which only doesn't slam because Treva didn't bother with closing it—with varying levels of righteous affront.

"That little butthead!" Ninjin cries out.

"Language," Kaya scolds, on pure, evident instinct. After a moment, she looks unsurely between the remaining kids and the door a few times. "Treva… She's never been here before. Ninjin, there's no excuse for what she said to you, but someone should find her before she gets lost."

"She's probably fine," reasons Piiman. "Treva's weirdly good at directions. Probably because she gets them from the future."

"She's probably just going to hang out in the bathroom for a while," Tamanegi adds, when Kaya frowns skeptically at Piiman. "If we go after her now, we'll just end up fighting…"

Kaya exhales. She reaches up to massage her temples with one hand, and all at once, Ninjin feels terrible for behaving so badly in front of her.

"You're right," she says, sounding defeated.

The Usopp Pirates, as one, know what they must do from here. Whatever Treva's problem is, it's up to them to cheer up Kaya, like their captain would! They have to make up for bringing down Kaya's mood!

They're going to put on a goddamn production, one befitting the Usopp Pirates' name!

️XXX

It's some time later, after the Usopp Pirates have succeeded in their mission and Kaya is in the middle of laughing prettily at their antics, that Kuro walks in with purpose about him like a mantle and overtakes them to stand before her. Ninjin, very reasonably and understandably, almost shits his pants in terror.

He's not alone in this, Piiman and Tamanegi having also frozen solid. The only one to remain largely undisturbed is Kaya, who still frowns at Kuro's demeanor.

"Klahadore?" she prompts, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I would like to speak with you privately for a moment, Miss Kaya," he says. Ninjin snaps immediately to attention.

He's going to kill her, Ninjin thinks, distantly. His heart hammers frantically in his chest. On autopilot, he braces for a lunge, pulls back his fist, prepares to do—anything. I won't let him!

Except Tamanegi, tears in his eyes, latches onto Ninjin's arm. Ninjin swivels around to stare at him incredulously, only for Tamanegi to shake his head violently from side to side and then nod insistently to the door behind them. When Ninjin looks, he sees Treva with one hand fisted in the back of Piiman's shirt to hold him back, the other held up in front of her mouth in a shushing gesture. Her expression, set in foreboding lines that are amazingly out of place on her, gives Ninjin pause enough that he follows her out wordlessly when she begins dragging a semi-limp Piiman into the hallway.

Tamanegi closes the door on their fourfold exit, and just as it shuts, Ninjin catches a glimpse of Kuro's face. He seems—relieved, maybe. Resigned. Something alarming like that.

Treva moves to retrieve her book, which she had evidently left behind on the hallway floor so as to have both hands free. As she does, she quietly explains, "The hypnosis worked, so he's going to tell her everything."

"He's not going to kill her?" Tamanegi just about pleads, also quietly, tears streaming in earnest down his cheeks now. Piiman pats his shoulder.

"He can't." Treva, hugging her book to her chest once again, leans back against the the corridor wall beside them. There's something about her disposition, her whole way of holding herself ever since she'd made her reappearance, that Ninjin doesn't like. She doesn't really know any of them, so who is she to be so annoyed on their behaves? "I watched the ambush today and the one tomorrow, and farther ahead. We live in the future where he actually does care about Kaya, but his personality is so terrible and he's so full of himself that he would've never ever realized it or acted on it if Jango didn't make him. He can't close the floodgates now, though." Treva looks at the three of them slantways. "Usopp, Luffy, Nami, and Zoro are waiting in the garden right now, under Kaya's window, in case anything goes wrong. That's statistically improbable, though. In practice, Usopp is just going to climb the tree and comfort Kaya after Kuro's done. Kuro's going to be all depressed and try to help out tomorrow, and then they'll leave the island, and then…"

Treva's already odd mood sours, though in a way Ninjin can't quite place. Her mouth flattens into a thin line, gears visibly clanking together behind her eyes.

Eventually, she inclines her head to the Usopp Pirates and concludes, "You guys don't have to worry about anything anymore. I just have to make sure Nami knows to move our boats, and I have to give her a map of where the treasure is on the Black Cat Pirates' ship."

Another beat. Ninjin swallows. Treva stares blankly at the opposite wall.

Conversationally, she adds: "I think we gave Kuro depression."

"Good," Ninjin declares. Tamanegi—in the process of wiping at his own eyes—and Piiman, next to him, share a silent high five. Treva nods, grimly satisfied.

For a few seconds, there's a tense peace amongst them. Ninjin is of half a mind to break it, growing progressively closer to the brink every time Piiman messes with his sash or Treva tugs at whatever she's tugging at under her scarf, but Tamanegi haltingly beats him to it.

Hand raised as if in class, Tamanegi asks, "So… Kaya isn't going to forgive him, is she?"

"Oh. No." Treva blinks at him. "She was gonna, but he's going to tell her he killed her mom."

"Oh." Tamanegi rubs at his eyes some more. "I wouldn't forgive him either."

"Me neither," agrees Piiman, sounding choked. He pats Tamanegi's shoulder again, but faces away so that they won't see him cry.

Ninjin, in this, with his hat, has the advantage. Even as he feels the tears start to prick, he regards Treva levelly.

She meets his gaze with wide, unreadable, horribly yellow eyes. Like a bug's, it occurs to Ninjin. A bug that thinks.

With one final tug at whatever it is that's under her scarf, Treva exhales sharply through her nose, squares her shoulders, spins to face Ninjin head on, and bows a perfect ninety degrees.

"I'm sorry!" she whispers, in tones that very much suggest she would have shouted if it weren't for the situation they've found themselves in. "Your dream is as good as anyone's, and I know for a fact that you're going to make it a reality. I shouldn't have been mean about it, just because my dream is different."

There's a rigidity to her that Ninjin really, really dislikes for reasons that are almost on the tip of his tongue, but guilt swells immediately and potently in his stomach at Treva's earnestness in this, and he hastily rearranges his limbs so that he's copying her to the best of his ability.

"Yeah," he mumbles. "Sorry I started it. You're not useless, I was just being a jerk. Honestly…" His fists clench at his sides. "You really saved us today. Even if you know what we would've done if you didn't warn us, I… I don't ."

Treva beams and straightens, clutching her book tightly. Ninjin also returns to his full (though admittedly unimpressive, being nine and all) height to a hearty pat on the back from Piiman and a proud thumbs up from Tamanegi.

"I made up for last time!" she enthuses. "I messed up in Orange Town, but here, my information was useful! I know it was, I checked! I—"

"Hey." Something occurs to Ninjin. Treva freezes, alarmed, staring at him like a cornered, rabid rabbit. "So you agree that I could be a real pirate if I wanted to, right?"

"What?" Treva blinks at him, confused. Tamanegi looks nervously between the two of them. Piiman facepalms. "No. There's no way."

And just like that, something in the back of Ninjin's mind just clicks.

Oh, thinks Ninjin. Oh. I'm going to prove her wrong even if it kills me.

Ninjin opens his mouth to fire back with exactly this war cry.

He has every intention of doing so.

He almost does.

But a desperate scream tears out from the other side of the door, and all four kids jump.

"You're lying!" Kaya begs, loud enough to be heard even through the thick wood. "You have to be lying!"

Whatever Kuro's response is, it's too quiet to make it past the threshold. The Usopp Pirates exchange panicked looks with one another, all instantly filled with a bone-deep sort of discomfort, but Treva only frowns that pinched, angry frown from before, aimed now at the door.

"This wing's pretty much deserted right now, so none of her servants're gonna hear," Treva tells them, distantly, like she's just thinking aloud. More broken screaming and a series of painful, hiccuping sobs tumble, muffled, out into the hallway. "It's not gonna get any better. We should leave."

Even though she says that, none of the Usopp Pirates can quite find their feet. Ninjin feels trapped and sick. Kaya—she's always so nice. This is wrong.

Numbly, he registers Treva's hand fisting in the sleeve of his hoodie, pulling. When he looks at her in askance, she puffs her cheeks out irritably at him, and he almost laughs even though he really wants to cry.

I hate this, Ninjin thinks, with striking clarity.

"I hate this," Ninjin says, clearly. Treva nods. Tamanegi, on his other side, hiccups accord. Piiman puts on his bravest face, throws his arm around Tamanegi's shoulders, and begins stirring the lot of them away from a conversation they have no right or desire to be listening in on.

Ninjin can bawl his little heart out about the unfairness of it all later. For now, though… For now, he just wants out of here.

️XXX

Usopp's barely made it onto the tree branch, barely knocked on her window, when Kaya jolts and snaps to look at him with red, still-wet eyes. She fumbles the frame open immediately.

"Oh, Usopp," she hiccups, and a fresh wave of tears begin to fall. Usopp doesn't hesitate for a moment when she reaches for him, crossing the divide to sit awkwardly half on top of the windowsill, his legs dangling precariously out; he hugs Kaya tight as she sobs, feeling sick to his stomach.

Kaya is a good person. Kaya is his friend, and she's already been through so much. This isn't right.

He doesn't know how long it takes, but eventually, her breathing evens out some. With a few last, hitching inhales, Kaya pulls away, and Usopp starts to climb back out. She shakes her head.

"No, please. Stay." She exhales, slowly. "You might as well. There's nothing keeping you out anymore, because Klahadore is… He's…"

Kaya chokes, a bit. Usopp squeezes her shoulder. "I'll get you tissues, okay?"

Kaya nods. "Top of the dresser."

Usopp nods in kind and scrambles the rest of the way over the bed, to the dresser, and back to Kaya's side. He sits on the side of the bed, for the first time ever, and hands her the tissue box.

Gratefully, she takes it, and gets to work tidying up her face and blowing her nose. Usopp lets her, allowing a companionable—but nonetheless depressing—silence to stretch between them.

Kaya, finally, takes one more deep breath, crumples the tissues she'd been using in her hands, and frowns down fixedly at her lap. "Did the boys tell you about…" She startles. "Oh no, they didn't—they didn't forget Treva here, did they? She can't still be in the bathroom…"

Usopp laughs a little despite himself. It's the right move, he realizes, when Kaya relaxes just a smidge.

"They didn't forget her. And…" Usopp swallows, and meets Kaya's eyes. "Yeah. I know. Treva isn't an Usopp Pirate, but she is a pirate, and her crew are the ones who warned me about Kuro's plan. Their captain knows my dad."

Kaya's mouth falls slightly open. "You're… This is all true, isn't it?"

Usopp rubs the back of his head. "I wish it wasn't, but… yeah. I couldn't just stand by and let him… let him kill you, Kaya." He looks away. "He broke down when we confronted him."

Because Jango hypnotized him, goes unsaid and blessedly unheard.

Kaya's hands tighten around the ball of tissues. "What would you have done? If he didn't change his mind, I mean."

"Treva's crewmates are stronger than him." Usopp is sure of this much, at least. Partially because the future-seeing human had been so sure of it, but still. "I don't know what I would have told you, but I couldn't let him keep hurting you. It wasn't right, Kaya."

Kaya huffs out a sad laugh. "I know, Usopp. I know. It's almost funny, isn't it? That the famous liar is my one true, reliable friend."

"Kaya…" Usopp puts a hand on her arm, reassuring. "Don't say that. You still have Merry."

Kaya inhales a shaky breath, and nods. Usopp probably isn't getting through to her, but if all he can do for now is be present for her, he'll just have to pray that it's enough.

Suddenly, Kaya perks up. "Wait. Wait a minute. Treva isn't—she's not a real pirate, is she?"

Usopp laughs nervously. "She's a pirate like my dad is a pirate, I think. She and the others headed back into town just now, after everything…" After Kuro was clear of the premises and the storm had settled for the time being. "None of them are bad people, as far as I can tell. And a kid like that was never going to have a normal life."

Kaya looks at him oddly, for several beats of skeptical silence.

Several beats of silence, and then—

"She can't really see the future, can she? There's no way."

Sometimes, it occurs to Usopp, fact really is stranger than fiction.