Absence, chapter 11

[rainsometimes]

Forward-dated to avoid f-list clogging. Betaed by the magnificent tonko_ni: remaining errors are wholly my fault. Nitpicks and other feedback extremely welcome.

Title: Absence, chapter 11
Previous chapters: Chapter One here, fic tag here; the whole fic on AO3 here
Rating: PG for language and dark themes
Warning For major angst and sadness
Summary: Usopp has been killed in battle. The crew tries their best to cope with it.
Characters: Strawhats
Spoilers/setting: Despite being a divergent AU, spoilers up to and including chapter 598 (for everything that's not divergent)


DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of One Piece were created by Eiichiro Oda and are owned by him and Shueisha Inc. They are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This fanfic will not be used for profit and may not be reproduced anywhere without the author's approval.



In the sunlit clearing, Zoro didn't turn his head as Brook, Franky and a tip-toeing Chopper left the three of them behind, walking on towards the beach. The sound of their movements receded into the forest. But there was no longer any tense silence to replace it. Luffy had sunk down to the ground and was rocking to and fro, making wordless, desperate sounds like a small animal in pain. Zoro had never heard anything remotely like it from him. Its terrible strangeness made his chest and stomach hurt.

"Luffy," said Nami. She put down her pack; then, almost crying herself, she took a step forward towards the crumpled figure on the ground in the clearing.

Zoro followed her lead, taking off his own pack. "Luffy." He, too, took a step forward, then stopped. "Welcome back, captain." His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. He knelt down, choosing a formal pose rather than his usual cross-legged one.

Luffy shook his head wildly. "No, no, no, no..." His protest dissolved into inarticulate sound, half whine half keening, before going on, "...I'm not, I'm not..." Gasping for breath, he went on in a ragged, broken voice, "I can't, I'm not... I'm not a good captain, they don't, they don't... they don't lose people!" Hugging his knees again, he resumed his rocking back and forth. A great, racking sob worked its way through him and out, as tears finally started to come out.

He mumbled, "They don't, they don't, they don't, I can't be, I'm not..."

Nami sat down as well. She and Zoro both waited for a while in silence, then Zoro said gruffly, "Well, tough luck for you, Luffy, 'cause none of us want the job."

Luffy's head just sank even further between his shoulders. The whisper that followed was almost inaudible.

"He's gone..."

Zoro took a deep breath and then rocked back as if something very hard and heavy had slammed into him. It took a great deal of strength and self-control for him to sit up straight again.

Maybe it was the numbness, the cocoon he'd carried around himself for weeks finally torn off. Maybe it was only now, with Luffy's quiet whisper, that he truly, finally believed it as confirmed truth. It hadn't just been a dream – a near-month-long, surreal, harrowing nightmare – after all.

"Are you," he began to say, only for his voice to break. Ignoring Nami's glance at him, he looked down, squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists. Seconds passed.

Zoro took a deep breath and went on roughly, "Are you just planning to give up, or what? Do you want to disband the crew, stop helping us reach our own dreams? Stop seeking the One Piece to become the Pirate King?"

Nami stared at Zoro with wide eyes, opened her mouth only to close it again, saying nothing. She looked down at her hands in her lap.

Not raising his head, Luffy mumbled in a muffled voice, "...If I hadn't wanted to be the Pirate King, he'd be alive by now."

"No, he wouldn't be," said Nami sharply. "He'd have been killed by Captain Kuro along with Kaya and most of his village, maybe all of them. And you know what else, Luffy?" There was no reply, but Nami plowed on, "Nojiko told me this, later. Before you and Sanji turned up at my island. Arlong was going to kill Gen for hiding weapons, as a warning to the rest. If Usopp hadn't distracted him, that's what would have happened. And later in Little Garden, Vivi and Zoro and me would also have died if he hadn’t been there. And then I'd be killed a second time by Enel – except no, I'd already been blown up by that bomb in Albana, since it took all of us working together and Pell to stop it while you fought Crocodile. And Robin would have been taken away from us forever. And you would have been killed by the cannons at Enies Lobby, because it took the rest of us too long to understand what was happening when Merry came."

She drew for breath; Zoro saw she was shaking, just a little. "I've been going through the day when we came to this place over and over again in my head, all the should-have-dones and if-onlys that could have made it end better. I know, I know it's useless to do that, it doesn't lead anywhere, and yet I can't stop thinking that way, it's like when Bellemere died. But don't – don't extend that to his joining the crew, Luffy." There were tears on her cheeks, now, though her voice didn't falter. "He made that choice himself. He even made it twice – in Water 7, he knew a lot about the dangers we might face already, and he could easily have stayed there. But he didn't want to."

"She's right, Luffy," said Zoro. "Don't insult him by saying it was wrong for him to follow his dream and go to sea. Especially since we wouldn't have gotten this far if he hadn't come with us."

Luffy only whimpered.

Nami buried her own face in her arms for a couple of moments, then looked up again.

Zoro's own tears wouldn't come. They hardly ever did. But the stiffness on his face, like a mask, was the same as it had been on that day, when he had found out.

He went on, quietly, "You could say, he even got us back here. These last few weeks, when we've been trying to decide what to do and we couldn't ask you, because you weren't... you... it was thinking of what he would have done that helped us see our way."

Luffy didn't answer that, either. It was several minutes later before he started to talk again, in a voice that sounded both ragged and from somewhere far away.

"Dunno if you guys knew this, but... I knew his dad when I was little. He's a sniper in Shanks' crew. Name's Yasopp."

"I didn't know that," said Zoro, though he wasn't surprised. A memory arose of a scrawny young man on a sleepy village in East Blue, who up until then had seemed all talk and no guts, yelling with fury at a contemptuous butler, "The one thing I'm never going to lie about... is that I'm proud of my pirate blood!". It seemed a terribly long time ago.

"I did," mumbled Nami. That didn't surprise Zoro, either.

Luffy went on, haltingly, "That's why U... U... Usopp wanted to be a pirate in the first place." He grabbed the brim of his hat and tugged at it fiercely. "When I give this back to Shanks ...if I ever get that far..." His voice dropped into a mumble for a moment, but then started rising, higher and higher while his breathing grew more and more irregular. "...I'll have to, I mean, Yasopp will be there too I bet, Shanks is a good captain; and I'll have to tell him, I'll have to tell him I met his son and he was in my crew and was part of us this whole time and I couldn't, I couldn't take care of him..."

Voice ringing with despair, he sounded close to hyperventilation. They had to do something to stop this now. Zoro opened his mouth and searched for words, any words, but they all seemed to have fled him.

But Nami was already moving over to Luffy and hugged him from behind, holding him tightly. She started talking in a low but steady voice.

"When we meet Shanks, if Yasopp is still there, I will talk to him. I will tell him about how we came to meet his son and fight alongside him and him joining us. I will tell him all about how he was with us, on every adventure we had, what it was like to be with him as a crewmate." She leaned her head against Luffy's shoulder and went on, "And I won't hide anything or try to make him look stronger and braver than he was. There's no need." Her tone was firm and certain. Luffy was trembling a little less by now, his breathing slightly less laboured.

"I will tell him how he got mad at you and left the crew and fought you, and how he still couldn't let us down and how he came back. I will tell him about the giants and Alabasta, of Arlong Park and Sabãody and Thriller Bark and the World Government's flag, and everything else. I'll tell him how he fought with us and bled with us, how he laughed and cried and had fun and was afraid and was a dumbass, all of it, and how he became my – my brother..." Her voice broke for a moment, but she recovered and breathed in deeply before going on in a thicker voice, wiping tears off her face.

"...I'll tell him about all of it, and, and I will also say that – that his dream wasn't left unfulfilled. That he was a brave warrior of the sea as he strove to be." She gave a fleeting smile, bitterly rueful. "Maybe that won't be of any comfort to his father. Likely not. But I'll still tell him, because I know–" she took another deep breath, and then her voice dropped down – "I know that Usopp would have wanted him to know that."

Zoro thought of something and got up on his feet. Nami gave him a curious look, while Luffy, head still held low, didn't seem to even notice.

Walking over to his pack, Zoro got out his canteen of water, then took Nami's as well. He walked back to the other two and sat on his haunches. "Figured you need to drink," he told Luffy, putting the canteen in his hand so he'd find it harder to decline. Luffy wouldn't meet his eyes, but he didn't try to return the water. Zoro tossed the other one to Nami and stayed where he was right next to Luffy, sitting down crosslegged this time.

They drank, and then for a while everything was quiet. A cuckoo called from far away.

Eventually, Luffy started talking again. Still not looking up, he kept tearing up straws of grass and staring at the air as he spoke.

"When we got out of the tunnel," he said slowly, "that seaking hit me right from the start, it must have known we were coming. And then, then I couldn't see for a while because of the blood. I still fought, but it was so fast, and I didn't know it had those fin-slicer- things... If I'd been alone, I think... I think I'd have been run through. Like he was. Maybe..." He stopped abruptly, body shaking again.

Zoro wondered about that. He'd seen the tail-end of the fight, reaching the seashore too late, not yet knowing what had happened. It had seen one-sided by then, as Luffy had pounded the King of Seakings so ferociously the beast was torn apart by the force of the blows. Yet, he didn't doubt that Luffy could be right. On the wrong day, a strong fighter might meet his death at the hands of someone they would normally defeat, just as you could find yourself cutting down someone who had completely dominated you minutes earlier.

And a pessimistic warrior who found it hard to believe he could win needed more death-defying courage than those blessed from the start with confidence.

"He saved his captain." Nami's voice was low, warm, a little hoarse. "He wanted to."

Luffy burst out wildly, "I don't care! I don't care, I don't care. So what if he was a hero or whatever, so what if he reached his dream– ! I'd rather–" he hitched on a sob – "I'd rather have the old Usopp back from the beginning who was only brave sometimes, even if he was weaker and didn't want to be like that and had to be saved a lot. I'd rather keep saving him over and over than him being strong and brave and saving me and then not – n-n-not –"

Nami leaned on him, holding him over the shoulders again. "Luffy, you're not making much sense."

"I don't want to make sense!" Luffy cried out. "I want him back!" Head buried in his knees, he grabbed Nami's hand, then with his other hand he reached out fumbling for Zoro's hand as well. A tight grip, almost like someone drowning who clung onto driftwood as hard as he could.

"Me, too," murmured Nami. "I'd stop making sense forever if it would bring him back."

After a while, Luffy said in a small voice, "I thought... I thought he was me, I was both me and him. I guess 'cause... if he wasn't a real person, then he couldn't be g-gone... So weird." His eyes were staring into the air, tears slowly trailing down his cheeks and neck. "I was pretty nuts," he stated matter-of-factly, neither flippantly nor guiltily.

"Yeah," Zoro agreed simply. That Luffy was able to see this now was a relief in his mind, though a rather small one considering all the rest that filled it up. "Luffy," he went on, putting more firmness in his voice. "We went behind your back to turn the boat around and come back here. And then when you found out and told us to turn around we refused to."

Nami shot him a weary, are-you-sure-you-want-to-do-this look. Zoro ignored it. Luffy just looked puzzled.

"Yeah, I know, I remember," he said. "I haven't started to forget everything. So?"

"That's mutiny, Luffy," Zoro clarified.

"Oh. Right," Luffy blinked. Then he suddenly grinned – a sight they hadn't seen for far too long now, even if it soon passed. "Thank you!"

Nami smiled widely at that. "You're welcome."

Zoro sighed. "That's not what I meant," he tried again.

Another confused look. "Huh? Then what?"

"I meant – captains can do whatever they want to a crew that mutinies. It's that serious. They have the right."

The confused look went away. Instead, Luffy gave Zoro a long, silent look that Zoro wasn't sure how to interpret, but seemed uncomfortably close to saying, Don't be like this. You don't have to.

But then he just sighed and said, "I guess Zoro is always Zoro, huh."

Nami nodded. "Don't I know it. I tried to tell him..."

Zoro frowned, annoyed. "Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" But then he calmed down as a sudden thought hit him. Speaking of annoying things... "Hey. Shouldn't the cook and Robin have caught up with us by now? We've been here for a while." And even before that, they'd been taking it pretty slowly as they walked down from the island's centre, matching Luffy's faltering pace.

"Huh. Yeah, they really are slow," said Luffy, worry creeping into his face. It didn't feel natural, seeing Luffy get worried so easily, thought Zoro. It just wasn't right.

"Maybe Robin found something else she'd like to examine," suggested Nami. "Some old ruins or something. Or maybe they just took a different path and are at the beach by now."

Headtilt from Luffy. "Why are we going to the beach?" he asked.

Nami looked surprised. Zoro, too, had forgotten Luffy wouldn't know about this part.
Then again, they hadn't really thought much of what to do beyond this moment, had they? Just like Nami had traded away their log pose so they could get here faster.

"So we can find him. If he's there," he said roughly.

"And then hold a funeral," added Nami quietly.

Luffy seemed to take this in. He nodded slowly. Said nothing.

Then, abruptly, he stood up, just like that.

"Let's go." He took a few steps – only for his legs to give way and drop him on the ground again. "Hey?!"

"You need to eat some meat," Nami observed. She went over to her pack, dug out a sandwich and tossed it to Luffy. "Chicken. Here." He caught it in his mouth automatically, but without even a hint of a smile.

Nami and Zoro ate a little as well, though Zoro could hardly even taste the ham sandwich that he suspected actually tasted great. Then they set off again, back on the path through the trees. Nami quickly took the lead, pointing out the alleged right direction in what Zoro felt to be a needlessly emphatic manner.


*

Chopper hadn't been sitting very long under the shade of the trees at the forest's edge before he started to feel drowsy. It wasn't the kind of drowsiness that comes from contentment, but rather one from being worn down by too much grief and anxiety, and with nothing pressing to do right then. And it was a warm day.

Brook was keeping very still, leaning back against curving trunk of a palm tree. Perhaps he had fallen asleep already. It was hard to tell with Brook, when he wasn't snoring. Maybe he was just meditating.

Chopper wondered if he ought to have pressed the mermaid girl with more questions, like what kind of place it was that had the underwater entrance, why they had taken Usopp's body there, what kind of state it was in right now and other things. But he felt uneasy at the thought of asking her all that, afraid of the answers she might give him; of the responsibility he would have of letting the others know. It was better to wait until everyone was present, he told himself. If they even needed to ask her now, rather than find out once they got there.

Besides, he might sound too abrupt or use the wrong words and then she might be scared and go hiding again. Chopper didn't think he was very good with human children. They usually made him nervous. And mermaids were fast – if she got upset enough to go off and not want to come back, even the swimmers among them might not be able to find her.

A faint breeze came by, swaying the leaves of the tree. On its wing, Chopper sensed three familiar smells. He lifted his head, sniffing and listening, then leaned over and nudged the skeleton. "Hey, Brook…"

"Hmm?" Brook moved his head, followed Chopper's gaze. Then he shot straight up in one grandly sweeping movement, just as Chopper got his first clear sight of Luffy, Zoro and Nami coming down the forest path.

Brook saluted. "Captain," he said respectfully.

The three came into better view. Nami and Zoro looked mostly normal. Sad, but that was normal too these days. Nami's eyes were red, and Zoro had a lot less colour in his face than Chopper liked to see: he wondered if he ought to tell Zoro to eat something. Luffy... well, he looked a lot like the other two, in fact. Pale and very serious and still walking pretty slowly. His eyes were redder than Nami's, yet the look in them seemed clearer to Chopper than he'd seen in a long, long time. And he wasn't trembling anymore.

"Luffy! Are you – Did you–?" Chopper stopped, unsure of how to continue, afraid of making things worse. Maybe he was only seeing what he wanted to see...

"Where's Franky?" asked Luffy, looking around, at the same time that Nami asked, "Did Sanji and Robin get here?"

Brook said, to Luffy, "Mr Franky swam back to 'Little Lion' to retrieve our submarine," using his own nickname for Thousand Sunny.

Chopper said, to Nami, "Huh? No, we haven't seen them... " He frowned. That was true, Sanji and Robin ought to have caught up a while ago. Could something have happened, up there by the mountain?

"Slowpokes," muttered Nami as she put down her pack, the other two following suit.

Chopper peered anxiously into the thick forest. "Maybe we should go back and get them," he suggested. Really, was it okay just to leave it be?

"They'll be fine," said Zoro steadily, but his voice was much more tired than normal. He had crossed his arms. "Did you find anything yet?"

Brook and Chopper shook their heads in unison. "It appears that, aah, well..." Brook coughed. "We don't need to look, it seems..." He turned towards the bay, stretching his neck; then turned back, twiddling his bony fingers.

"What do you mean?" said Nami tensely.

"There's a mermaid kid here –" Chopper waved his hooves around, trying to explain properly – "she kept shooting acorns at us – said she already knows where he is, but the entrance is underwater, so..."

"A mermaid?" Nami looked startled, eyes wide. Chopper frowned, puzzled by this reaction. Surely Nami would be used to meeting mermaids by now... ? But it didn't see the right time to go into that. He just nodded and ran down to the shoreline.

"Hey, Nisi! Nisi!" he called out. At first there was no answer, but after half a minute he heard several splashes, coming close until the girl's dark-haired head popped up about fifteen metres away – in the opposite direction to where he'd thought she'd be.

"What is it?" she asked curiously.

Chopper pointed over his shoulder. "My captain is here! And more of my crew." Glancing back, he saw the others walking over to him, Nami in front of the rest.

Nisi swam a little closer, looking cautious.

As the trio caught up to Chopper (Brook lagged a bit behind), Nami stiffened, anger flashing in her eyes. "That bandanna– !" she burst out. Zoro's face also grew harder as he saw the piece of yellow cloth around Nisi's neck.

But Luffy just leaned forward to look closer. "Oh, you've still got that?" he said.

Nami and Zoro stared at Luffy. "Huh?" they went in unison.

"Yeah," Nisi replied, bobbing her head up and down and giving Luffy a shy smile. "I washed it myself! My arm is fine now."

Luffy actually smiled back at her; it didn't look forced, though there was something there in his eyes that made Chopper's heart ache. "Good. It's okay," he told Nami and Zoro. "Her arm was hurt before when some flying shrapnel grazed it in the battle, so we... Usopp gave it to her as a bandage."

Chopper blinked, his heart suddenly pounding. Did he... Yes, he'd heard that right. "L-Luffy!" he gasped, moving over to stand in front of his captain with unsteady legs. "You remember!!"

"Thank heavens," murmured Brook, who had finally caught up to them.

Something burst inside of Chopper, then, after way too many days and nights of fear and worry and helplessness and deeply hidden anger. "Waaah! Luffy, you dummy!" he cried out, not even bothering to change forms as he launched himself at Luffy and hugged him really hard, the stupid tears starting to fall again.

"Chopper!" Luffy hugged him back tightly, knocking the breath out of Chopper.

Chopper burst out, tongue tripping on the words, "I'm s-sorry we had to sneak behind your back and, and couldn't talk to you and– "

"I'm sorry I went nuts!" answered Luffy, hugging him even harder, burying his head in Chopper's fur: Chopper could feel spots of it getting damp. "I'm sorry you couldn't talk to me," Luffy murmured, I'm sorry I said those things..." But there was a relief in his voice now, as there had been for Chopper. Is it wrong of us, being relieved over this? Chopper wondered, then swallowed tightly and shook his head firmly. No! It can't be! Usopp would want that, I'm sure!

And then Luffy suddenly froze. He raised his head a little and loosened his grip, putting Chopper down on the sand. "...I'm sorry," he repeated tonelessly, looking down. "I couldn't, I, I..."

Chopper looked up at Luffy, who was now blank-faced and motionless again, trying to understand. That I couldn't save him? Is that what you're trying to say? he wondered. Something like that would be far too big for normal sorrys, so big it would choke your words off. As it choked anything Chopper could say in return.

Instead he just hugged Luffy's legs, leaning his forehead against them. He wasn't sure if he was trying to give strength, or take it.

Brook coughed softly after some moments had passed. "Mr Luffy. I just wished to say that while we don't regret it, we are still prepared to face the consequences of mutiny."

Chopper swallowed again, then let go and stepped back, nodding seriously in support of what Brook had said. But Luffy only nodded vaguely, while Zoro caught Brook's eye and made a waving gesture that Chopper took to say it's all right, it's covered. Meanwhile, Luffy
turned back to Nisi, who was twirling some kelp around as she looked at them with wide eyes. Was she upset about the crying pirates? Chopper felt a little sheepish.

"How come you know where we're supposed to go?" Luffy asked her.

She didn't seem to quite understand the question. "Because I know," she said, as if it was self-evident. "It's at Mum's hideout. 'S a neat place, you can live there and everything. Mostly we live in a house under the sea that belongs to Our Tribe" – she said the last two words in a tone of evident pride – "but sometimes we go to the hideout instead. 'Cause it's safer." There was a slight waver in the girl's voice, as if she still wasn't sure she was allowed to tell them all this.

Nami took a step forward, a tense look on her face. "When – when you're saying "Our Tribe"... are there many of you here?"

Nisi shrank a bit, looking downcast. "N-no. Everyone left. Even Aunt Dina and Cousin Oyo left in the rainy season to go look for my uncle. There's just me and Mum... and Dad, now," she added, a little brighter at the last. "But Dad was gone for a really long time. I even forgot what he looks like!"

"I see," said Nami. "By the way, I'm Nami, and this here's Lolonoa Zoro." She pointed at him, then at Luffy. "And that's Monkey D. Luffy, in case he didn't tell you that before."

Nisi looked over at Luffy again and took a deep breath. "And my name is Latiannisikka Pirikoveene Ananshitaane."

"Oh my," said Brook, spinning his cane in the air. "That name is longer than you are, Miss Nisi."

Much too long for Chopper. Was he supposed to remember all that? "But that's not what you said before," he protested.

"My short name is Nisi," she explained.

"Hey," Zoro spoke up, his back turned to them as he looked out at the water. " Franky's back."

Chopper followed Zoro's gaze. On the rocky edge of the left-side promontory, the top of the Mini-Submarine emerged. A moment later, Franky popped his head out. "I'm baaack!" he proclaimed. "Oh, you guys made it here, that's super! We'll have to split up in two, though. The old sub's not large enough for six."

"I was just thinking that," Nami called out. "Especially with our bags and all."

"Then the ones who stay can tell Sanji and Robin we're gone," Chopper pointed out, wondering if he ought to volunteer to do either that or go in the sub. He looked up at Luffy anxiously. "Um... do you want to..."

"Strawhat!" Franky shouted out, and if there was an unease in him it didn't show at this distance. "You're coming, Captain?"

Luffy took off his pack and straightened up. Then he tugged down his hat and started to walk across the sand. "Yeah. We're coming."

*

He wasn't shivering any more. But even though he'd been sitting in a chair close to the stove for a while now, covered by a blanket and drinking a cup of herbal tea that kind-hearted Piriko had handed him, Sanji was still cold.

Robin seemed less affected; she had already put aside the thick shawl she'd been handed, though she was also sipping tea. She had been very quiet for some time now. Sanji felt like he ought to reach out for her in some way, maybe tell her how infinitely grateful he was that she was here with him right now, but all the words he could use seemed very far away, and the Sanji who would have said them didn't seem to be in right now. He wondered distantly if Chopper would have said he was in some kind of shock. But he didn't feel numb as much as... drained.

"Something large is coming," he heard Piriko say, surprise and alarm in her voice. He turned his head to see the mermaid look down into the water basin with concern. Ananshio jerked his head up and hurried over to her side, squatting down to dip his hand into the water.

"You're right," he said. "But there's no time to hide..." He grabbed Piriko by the arm and backed away.

Sanji got up half a second before Robin, both of them walking over to the water's edge. There were big ripples, true... But then, he blinked in pure astonishment. What emerged from the water was nothing but a small mermaid.

"I'm back! I –" she stopped abruptly, looking in confusion and perhaps some fear at the two strangers before her. "Um... Muuum!"

"I'm here, dear." Piriko hurried forward with Ananshio in tow. "Dad, too. It's all right, they're the good pirates."

The little girl stared. "Even more?" She turned around to point behind her, "I already brought some!" Then she swam out of the way and hopped up to grab her crutches, handling them with practiced ease. A periscope emerged near the end of the basin. Sanji sighed with relief as the crew's Mini-Submarine followed, rows of seaweed parting before it. He hadn't been looking forward to having to trek all the way back up through the mountain and then down to the beach in order to find the others.

Chopper's fuzzy round head was the first to pop up through the opening. "Wow, it's a big cave!" he exclaimed with wide eyes, then lit up. "Hey, Sanji and Robin are here! Hey, guys!" Sanji waved back indulgently; Robin smiled fondly. Chopper jumped out and then stood there wobbling on the slippery topside for a couple of seconds before he changed to Walk Point and leapt ashore.

The next one out – was Luffy, pale-faced and solemn. But not, Sanji thought, quite as grim and terrified as he'd looked earlier today. Observing further, as Chopper trotted over, Luffy slung himself ashore, Nami-baby and then Franky emerged from the submarine, Sanji felt sure of it: He knows. He's remembered.

Not only because of how he looked, and how he moved – slowly and heavily, and maybe not so very different from the others' movements – but also because of how the other three behaved towards him. Nami, Chopper and Franky no longer avoided looking at Luffy, nor did they give him worried, covert sideway glances. They treated him like normal again. Except, well, nothing felt truly normal anymore. The same way of abnormal as the rest of us, Sanji amended his thoughts. If anything, those three looked even more lost in their own thoughts now.

As he could have predicted, none of the new arrivals were pleased at seeing Ananshio – or as they knew him, "Tomasso" – but the presence of his wife and child seemed enough to make them restrain any initial violent impulse. Sanji and Robin being there without having beaten the guy to a pulp likely helped calming them down, too.

Piriko then defused things further by stepping up and welcoming them, repeating her deep bow of thanks. As Franky, Luffy and Chopper introduced themselves and started to ask questions (in a rather subdued way), Nami went over to where Sanji and Robin stood.

"Hey," she said, lowering her voice considerably. "Is he..." She glanced around the cave.

"In a small room behind that moss over there," said Robin, pointing.

"They've kept him cooled down," said Sanji, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.

Nami studied them both. "The way you look... he's not..."

"No," said Sanji quickly. Robin shook her head.

Nami sagged. "I see. It was a stupid hope from the beginning."

"Not stupid," Sanji objected. "They said they tried really hard, and I believe them, but... It wasn't enough."

"Yeah," breathed Nami. She looked even paler now.

"There's more to it..." Sanji began, but Nami interrupted him.

"That will have to wait a bit." She turned around, facing the basin of water. "I'm going back to pick up Zoro and Brook. I promised I would. I... I want us all to be here." He watched her walking towards the Mini-Submarine, swaying for a moment before steadying herself and calling out to the other three to explain. From the back she looked terribly vulnerable to Sanji, right then. The little mermaid leaped into the water, too, eager to come along and show the lady pirate the way back. Sanji drifted over to the others.

At first, he got the impression the new arrivals wanted to look at Usopp's body right away, visibly steeling themselves for it. But as he and Robin reported what they'd seen, Luffy, Franky and Chopper stopped talking of that, but stayed in the middle of the cave to listen to the merfolk first, just as Sanji and Robin had done before.

Maybe that was counter-intuitive, Sanji thought distantly. One would have thought they'd be less reluctant to see a well-preserved body than one which was not. But maybe they just didn't feel as compelled to, once they knew he and Robin had already served as witnesses. Knowing that, they might feel they could afford to postpone that moment for a little longer. And the well-preserved body looked more Usopp than a decomposing one would – much less horrible, but more him.

He felt ashamed and faintly horrified at being able to think such things, all calm and analytical; but even that horror and shame were detached, and not any stronger than the sheer inconceivable ludicruousness of it all. After nearly one whole month, he realised he still hadn't truly understood it. He glanced at Luffy; his captain's former delusion felt all too understandable. And listening to what Ananshio had claimed didn't help things – Sanji might very well just imagine it, but now he couldn't stop feeling he could actually half-sense that achingly familiar presence.

Ananshio and Piriko started to tell their side of the story once more, not all in the same order as he'd heard it earlier. Occasionally he felt the need to chime in to make their crewmates understand better; Robin spoke up as well a couple of times. With all the sidetracks and explanations, including brief words about the bone whistle and its curse, it all took quite some time to get through. Towards the end of it, Nami, Zoro and Brook arrived in the mini-sub and received an even more pared-down recapitulation.

Then Piriko insisted they all had cabbage soup, served with bread made from seaweed on the side. There weren't enough bowls to go around, so half of them used cleaned-out seashells instead. Sanji wasn't in the best state to enjoy the dish properly, but still noted it seemed to taste fine enough, just a tad overcooked and undersalted.

Finally, Robin gave a little cough in order to get everyone's attention.

"Now, we reach more complicated matters," she said. "It seems that Mr Ananshio here fancies himself a shaman."

"I didn't use the word," mumbled Ananshio in protest. Robin ignored this and continued,

"He claims to be able to sense the presence of souls both of the living and the dead. Well, some of the dead, at least."

"Those who linger behind," said Piriko, stirring her soup. In a calm voice and without looking directly at any of the Strawhats, she added, "My husband has had this gift since before he turned twenty. If he's been lying this whole time, he's done it awfully well... and for no actual gain." She smiled at Ananshio; he gave her a sheepish, grateful grin in reply.

"In any case," said Robin, "what he said to us before you showed up was that – what was the wording you used, again? That he isn't..."

"Gone," said Ananshio gravely. "He isn't gone."

"Ah... a ghost?" asked Brook, voice nervous in the sudden silence. "Is that what you mean to say? He's a ghost now?"

Luffy said nothing, just looked at the merman with a look of great intense attention, much stronger than the pure anger he'd shown when he first recognised him. Ananshio flinched again and only looked back briefly, then down on the cave floor.

"...Yes," he muttered. "Or. Well. That is, he should be a ghost. Better yet, he should be at peace, of course, but... I mean, that's what would make sense. The life has fled from his body despite all we did, there's no anchor for his spirit here... so if he hasn't passed on he's a ghost, clearly. And yet..." He looked up, meeting all of their gazes.

"Until now I have always sensed a great difference between the souls of living people and those of the dead. Always. But now..." he shook his head. "It just doesn't feel that way." He scratched his head, looking weary. "How should I put it... Yesterday, before you came back here, there were three living people on this island, so I should have been able to sense two souls, my wife and daughter. That's what my reason told me, and all my normal senses. But there were three souls present besides my own. And now, there should be eleven of us... yet it feels like twelve, to me."

He sighed, looking down again, his hands clasped firmly. "Maybe this happens, sometimes," he said thoughtfully, "with extremely stubborn people who just aren't ready to leave, and who won't even get diluted like normal ghosts. And I could just never have encountered it before. Or maybe it's some sort of unforeseen consequence of the new stasis technique we used. When we're alive, body and soul are connected; what affects one often changes the other as well."

"Or maybe," Piriko broke in in her low steady voice, " it has something to do with the power of the bone whistle spell that he broke without knowing it. Perhaps his spirit has latched onto a remnant of that magic that helps it to hang around and to stay strong."

Ananshio nodded. "That's possible, too." Although his voice held calm, there was something haunted in his eyes as his gaze flickered from pirate to pirate. "I think that you are supposed to do something for him. Maybe just the funeral, maybe something more. He's hung on for almost a month waiting for you to get here–"

"Hold it. Hold it." Franky held up a hand, looking grim yet troubled. "This is... kinda a lot to take in all at once, ya know...? So..." He sighed, shifting a little where he sat crosslegged on the ground: he seemed ill at ease. "...Okay, let's go with this, that you're telling the truth as you see it. But what are you sayin', here? Can you see him? Can you talk to him?

"I never see them," Ananshio replied. "I've tried to speak to him, but... I'm not good enough at this yet. The best I've been able to catch is just some low murmur, too low to make out any words."

"Yeah, well, that's not much to go on," said Franky, mouth twisting bitterly. But he was looking down, keeping one of his big hands in his lap, the other trailing pebbles on the cave floor.

"But I have picked up a general mood at times," said Ananshio, a little anxiously. "Mostly impatient, until today. Mostly relieved, now."

Hm. It sounded pretty vague to Sanji, and susceptible to wishful thinking, too. Not that he would dare to dismiss it, either. He lit a cigarette and kept quiet. Even though he'd had longer than most of them to think about this, he didn't feel he'd come up with anything new to add. He shivered again, forcing himself to slow his breathing. This all still hurt to think about.

Luffy was quiet as well. He sat there with his eyes dark but held open wide, taking everything in.

Chopper suddenly spoke up, raising his head and regarding the merman fixedly. "What if he doesn't want us to do anything like what you say, to make him go away? What if you have it all wrong? Maybe he's just been waiting for us to get back so he could be with us again, and stay with us. Even, even if he's a ghost." His voice wavered a little on the last bit.

"No, no, no, no!" Ananshio burst out, looking upset. "That wouldn't lead anywhere good! Didn't you hear what I said about the bone whistle's curse? If you try to make souls stay on when they shouldn't, even if you think you have good reasons for it, it will just lead to misery in the end!"

Robin said, sitting very straight with her hands on her knees and not the shadow of a smile on her face, "But according to your story, those souls were tied to the whistle and the island against their will. If he truly wants what Chopper said, that's not the same thing."

"It's still wrong, all the same!" Ananshio protested. "You would end up suffering for it, and surely that would be the last thing he'd want..."

Zoro broke in. Mosshead didn't look too good; he sat slumped, with his elbows on his knees and nails digging into his arms, not much colour in his face. "If his spirit is still so strong," he said heavily, "could be it's because it wasn't meant to happen, it's not the way things should have gone. Not his true destiny." He paused; Sanji thought he saw his knees faintly trembling. There was sweat on Zoro's forehead. "We can't get him back," he went on. "Even Chopper can't make dead bodies function again. But like hell I'm going to listen to how the rules for normal ghosts are and whine that Usopp's soul won't follow them." His voice was sharp now, but his gaze hadn't left the ground. "He's a pirate. He was pretty much born a pirate in his heart. Rules like that, they won't mean much to him. So." He breathed out slowly, then went on, "Yeah, maybe he does want to move on and expects us to do something, like you think. But if Chopper's right instead you won't hear me complaining about it." Then he shut his mouth abruptly.

Nami buried her head in her hands. "I don't know what to think... I can't... I never thought something like this would happen." She lowered her hands and sat still for a moment, her head still held low. Then she hugged herself and shook her head several times. "I don't know, I don't know..."

Her voice sounded pained and horrifyingly helpless. Sanji felt a burn of protective anger at it, uselessly. There was nowhere to direct that fire.

Brook coughed forlornly where he sat on a barrel. "I don't find ghosts very pleasant," he said quietly. "But company, now, that's different. That's... not something I would decline." He spun the top of his swordcane, a small, sad motion. "Still, I don't know if he needs our company, now," he murmured, head hanging low.

At that point, the little mermaid came over and tugged at her mother's blouse. "Mum..." she mumbled.

"What is it, Nisi?" asked Piriko. So that was the child's name, noted Sanji.

"Mum, you should tell them..." Little Nisi whispered something into her mother's ear. Piriko nodded thoughtfully.

"Right." She looked very sober. "We were getting to that." She exchanged a look with Ananshio, then got up and walked over to a wooden chest in a corner of the room, close to the mountain path opening. She opened the chest and returned with a small blue book in her arms.

"Strawhats," she said solemnly. "I wrote down the things he managed to say during his last days, in the few times when he regained consciousness. Some of them were first witnessed by my husband, who reported them to me."

"...All right," said Sanji tightly after a few long seconds when nobody else said anything, just looked at the mermaid with blank, numb, fearful expressions. "Say them. Or let us read them. Please." He exhaled slowly, looking at the others to see if they'd object, but nobody did. Luffy tugged on his hat and held his head low. Sanji's hands and feet felt cold again, all too cold. He didn't know where the blanket had gone to.

After a moment's hesitation, Piriko leafed through her notebook, stopping at one point, and then handed the book over to the nearest Strawhat, which happened to be Robin. From there on the book passed through everyone's hands as they read in silence.

*

"Day One", the narrative started. "The patient was brought in with severe outer and inner injuries. Treatment started using new cold coating-method. Extensive surgery and repeated blood transfusions administered. Patient stayed unconscious the whole day.

Day Two. The patient regained consciousness briefly in the early afternoon...

"Water... Hurts..." he had rasped. Piriko, who had been sitting right next to him adjusting the temperature of the sphere, quickly gave him a scoop of water from the big bucket at the foot of the bed.

He went on to say, "Hurts, Chopper... Dammit..."

One minute later, he mumbled, "S'too dark..." (although it was quite light in the cave at that time). And then he slipped into deep sleep again.

On the third day, he was conscious twice, first late in the morning, then towards sunset. Ananshio was there to see it the first time.

"Where's..."

"Your crew's not here," Ananshio had said, trying to speak as clearly and reassuringly as he could. "They don't know where you are, we didn't have a way to tell them. But they are all safe and sound."

"Ah..." Usopp had mumbled, opened up one hand and raised it a couple of centimetres, then let it fall. He breathed heavily, painfully. "They'll come."

In the evening, he woke once more as Piriko put more ice at the foot of the bed before starting to ready herself for one more attempt at surgery, desperately trying to put right far too much in his body that just didn't work anymore.

"Water..." he said again, then, "Sorry, Kaya, sorry..." soon sinking back into unconsciousness.

On the fourth day, he said it again. "They'll come," he mumbled then, to a gray-faced, sleep-deprived Piriko who'd tried to give him one last transfusion of her husband's blood. Ananshio had asked her to take even more of it, but she'd already gone dangerously past the usual limit for mermen, already higher than for humans. She didn't dare take more and seriously endanger the survival of the husband who had been stolen from her for five years – no matter how guilty he felt.

"Of course they will," she murmured, finishing the set-up and starting to pump, but keeping herself right next to him to catch every word he said.

"Tell' em... don' be morons. Keep laughin'. Singin'." He smiled, very briefly. "Luffy. Go faaar."

He made a tiny little movement with his hand by that: she wondered if he'd have done something much more grand and sweeping, if he'd had the strength. "Dammit," he whispered, his voice sinking to near inaudible. "Wan' see Elbaf... Dad... Raftel..." He coughed up blood. She wiped it away carefully, noting that the bubbly, raspy sound from his lungs had only increased. Despite all the work she'd done on his lungs, they wouldn't keep going.

She was never sure whether he'd tried to say "I wanted to see" or "I want to see". It had been impossible to tell.

"An' listen," he added, voice just a tad louder. He looked as if it took him tremendous effort to speak. "Or it won't work." Just one more laboured deep breath: "Go. On. On." Then he fell back into unconsciousness.

"After that," the notes ended, "the patient stayed unconscious. He stopped breathing two hours later."

*

"Oh," breathed Sanji, the last one to finish reading. He closed the book and clumsily gave it back to Piriko, eyes staring into blankness.

Chopper was loudly trying to choke back sobs. Franky, too, seemed to have a hard time keeping them in, though he struggled.

"That's..." Luffy's voice was low and dark, as he sat bent forward, fists clenched and trembling. "...That's easy for him to say," he said hoarsely.

Then he shot up. "USOPP, YOU DUMMY!" he shouted, the cry echoing in the large cave. Brook fell off his barrel in shock. "Maybe we don't want to keep laughing and singing when you can't be there! Did you even think of that? Maybe I don't want to go far anymore!"

"Luffy..." whispered Sanji, shocked, but not entirely surprised.

"I bet if I'd died, you wouldn't say something like that! And maybe we'd rather be morons 'cause it's no fun without you...!" His voice sank, "...you... you idiot." He sniffled loudly, wiping his eyes and nose. "Dummy."

"He IS a dummy," Sanji agreed, using present tense just because. To hell with maturity.

"Y-yeah," sniffled Chopper. He breathed in, then shouted, "DUMBASS!"

There was a choked half-laugh, half-sob from Nami-baby. "Mm-m. Yes."

Luffy looked up again, straight at Piriko.

"I want to see him," he said.


*


"Me, too," said Chopper, and then there was a general agreement from the others. Those who had been sitting down stood up.

"Of course," said Piriko seriously. She stood up, too. "Let me just dissolve the cooling sphere around him. Now that you're all here, there's no problem..." She coughed, and cleared her throat. "I mean, if you want to touch him." Then she hurried away and opened the door behind the moss curtain that they had pointed at earlier.

Luffy looked over at the others, then took a deep breath. But now that he had been angry, he thought he could do this. Before, he might have started shouting in there instead.

Maybe he didn't deserve to be a captain anymore. But Usopp still deserved to get a proper goodbye. And if that Ananshio guy was right, Luffy needed to do this, didn't he? To see if he could find out what to do.

Piriko came out again, waving at him to come in. Luffy nodded and started to walk over there. The others followed him.

He didn't want to hesitate before stepping inside. He'd done enough of that kind of thing, hadn't he? Trying to run away from Usopp, hiding in forget-mist. But his legs slowed down on their own accord once he reached the door, anyway. And the arm he'd raised to turn the handle sank down.

Then suddenly there was another memory-image in his head, one that was much, much older than the others. A ten-year-old boy with curly blond hair and a hat, with a gap in his teeth and a pipe in one hand, looking fierce but smiling. "Promise me we'll set sail! That we'll escape this kingdom and be free!!"

Sabo often turned up like that, especially when Luffy had to do something that was hard. But what could he say this time? "You can do it, Luffy" or "Live freely" didn't seem enough, not when he had failed so horribly. It's not the same, he thought. I wasn't captain then. And it still hurt so much, with you.

And yet the memory-image still helped him get moving again, even so. Luffy breathed out slowly, ran his hand through the moss, found the wooden handle and pulled the door open. He stepped inside, Zoro and Nami and all the others following.

It was really cold inside. Luffy's feet started shifting, his teeth chattering. There wasn't much light, just a small lamp – no, a light dial, hanging by a rope from a hook on the wall. But he could still see. Usopp's body.

It was true, what they'd told him. Usopp still looked... like Usopp, mostly. His skin was the wrong colour – blue and violet and even green in some spots – but it was still all there, at least the parts that weren't under bandages or trousers. And it didn't smell bad. It didn't smell like Usopp either, though, more cold and medicine-y.

Luffy sank down on his haunches at the head of the bed. "So many bandages," he whispered. It was nice of them, the mermaid doctor-lady and the shaman-guy. They'd swapped the bloody ones for clean ones so he would look better.

He reached out his hand to touch Usopp's cheek, letting it rest there. It felt cold and stiff. Not a soft, warm cheek that belonged to a breathing, sleeping person who could wake up any moment. He kept his hand there a while, not caring if he sank into this cold, if he got lost in it.

Nami and Chopper had come in right after him; now the others were following too. He heard Chopper gasping, saw Franky out of the corner of his eye bending down, heard Zoro and Brook's footsteps as they came in behind him. But he wasn't paying attention.

Listen. Or it won't work, Usopp had said.

Luffy didn't know anything about what ghosts should or shouldn't do. So in the end, he simply had to trust that his friend had known what he was doing. He shut his eyes and tried very hard to listen.

He tried to recall how it felt when Going Merry had spoken to him, hearing words that weren't said out loud but his heart still received. Then he thought back to the first time old man Rayleigh had taught him how to do Colour of Observation Haki. That was to predict your opponent's movements in a battle, so it wasn't really the same... But he still tried to use that state of awareness.

He kept his mind open, holding a part of it empty to listen with, letting it resonate with the other kind of emptiness, even though it hurt. And then he reached out among his crowded memories, doing the opposite of what he'd done in the forest when he'd tried to block them out but they kept coming. He summoned guffaws and giggling and singing, boasts and shrieks and I-think-I-have-something-or-other-disease, ringing serious declarations and whispered conspiracies for raids on the galley, easy chatting while fishing that sometimes went quiet, deep snores and contented sighs, furious challenges and tearful apologies and yells of distress and deep worry, happy cries of triumph and cheer, chortling applause and smacks for being silly and lectures and sensible words and so much laughter and everything, everything Usopp.

And then–

Like a vibration in the air, and then a murmur in his head, and then more than that. It felt both closer and further away than Merry's voice had been; harder to catch and still there, in the very centre of the heart. And just a few words, too few, he wanted more of them...

Go look. You'll find it.

When? thought Luffy. Later? Or now?

Here.

That wasn't quite an answer. But it sounded like 'now'.

Luffy opened his eyes and blinked for a few moments. He turned his head this way and that, as if sniffing for something. And there was a trail in the air, a presence he could follow. He got up, ignoring the others' looks at him, walking over to the other side of the bed, bent down towards Usopp's bag.

He remembered how he'd been talking about the bag with Sanji the other week, thinking it was his own. All this time, it had been lying here, not sunk into the bottom of the bay as Sanji had probably thought...

Inside, there might be things like caltrops, dials, plastic cockroaches. And there would definitely be lots of different ammos, from tabasco and glue to those weird 'Pop Greens' that shot weapon-plants. Two things stuck up through the opening: the newer black Kabuto and the original, but shortened, green Kabuto. There should be a white one, too. Maybe it had broken.

Luffy's hand hesitated in the air for a long moment, then slowly made for the green Kabuto.
He grasped it.

Suddenly, something hot, strong and wild coursed through him in an instant from top to toe. It made his hairs stand on end, his toes curl and his teeth ache. He swayed on his feet, then without knowing why he grabbed the bag as well; hurried out of the small cold room not without bumping into both Franky and Nami on the way.

Stopping outside the door, he looked around the cave quickly and fixed on a small, isolated spot on the cave wall in a corner. It was about as far away as the length of Sunny from where he stood. Then he reached into the bag, felt his fingers seize something, put the ammo in the sling, shouted "Tabasco Star!" and let go. The small projectile shot through the cave and landed with a splatter right on the spot of moss.

"Hey, what..." and "What are you doing, Luffy?" sounded behind him, but Luffy was already running real fast to the corner he'd aimed at. It had been smart of him to use Tabasco Star rather than something more explosive while inside this cave... except he didn't think he had made that decision.

"N-not enough," he panted to himself. "Have to try again... Zoro!" he called out to the swordsman who was now standing directly outside the door to the small, cold room. "Hold out two of your swords real close by the wall! But keep 'em in your sheaths! Make it just an inch between them!"

"Huh? Fine." Zoro did so, raising the swords above his head. He looked puzzled and uneasy. "What are you doing?"

"Why tabasco?" asked Robin.

Man, thought Luffy as he started digging through the bag again, I'd better not use anything that might harm Zoro's swords if I miss. Better go with another Tabasco Star...

But just like the first time, his fingers closed on one item all by themselves. His mouth shouted "Lead Star!" and before his mind had the time to go Wait, what? That's not harmless!, his hand had already let go. The bullet flew through the air to bury itself in the cave wall with a loud crack. Luffy ran back half the distance, enough to see that Zoro's swords and sheaths were fine. The hole in the wall was exactly where he'd aimed right between them.

Luffy had trained himself to be good at being accurate when he stretched his limbs long and then attacked to hit an enemy's vital spots. But that was different from being good at throwing or shooting something else, and vital spots were usually not so terribly small. He knew well that he wasn't a marksman.

"Luffy, mind telling me what you're doing?" said Zoro patiently, but Luffy wasn't listening. Panting and sweating, he let go of Kabuto and the bag. He stared at them, leaning on his knees for support.

"What – what the hell's going on?" he gasped.



End of chapter 11
To be continued in Chapter 12



Author's Notes: When the manga and anime diverges on something, I'm going with the manga as canon. That's why Zoro doesn't know about Yasopp being on Shanks' crew here, as he hasn't been told in the manga (as far as we've seen). Going strictly by manga Nami shouldn't know either: however, since the Daddy-the-Father filler set in Loguetown was based on an idea by Oda, I've chosen to see it as close enough to canon. Nami would have learned about Yasopp there if she didn't before, so that's why I let her know in this story.