Usopp had enjoyed the most refreshing brunch of his life in years. The proof was in the quality and light streaming through the windows and the amount of food the restaurant owner had to bring to the party of four. The sniper wasn't counting, but he was sure the socially-inept pirate captain with the straw hat had eaten at least sixteen pancakes, and the village elder who owned the restaurant didn't make tiny ones; his delicious flaky discs were the size of a dinner plate, and at least twice as thick.

That aside, his new friends had gotten him to blather on about himself and his adventures for at least two hours, which was impressive when he considered that the exercise was making him late for his secret biweekly rendezvous with Kaya. Very few things could hold that kind of claim on his time, but Luffy and her merry band had just turned out to be one of them.

An interested audience was a priceless thing. It often diminished with time as people became acquainted with a routine, and the people of Ingwa Gecko were not likely to find his antics as charming as they once had. Outside of maybe six people, no one took the time to just let him talk and feel… well, normal. And of those six persons, three were children, one was bound to her room, and the remaining two were, well, dead or absent. Most people needed a thriving social life that went beyond that.

Usopp wasn't the exception, despite not being the aforemention 'most people'. He doubted he was a genius, but he was bright enough to be so very, very bored. Perhaps it was due to this that he pined for an audience in the hundreds!… Though that was an ambition for some other time, far off in the distant future. However, for just that little while within the diner's four walls, he had a new audience; new stimulus. As a result, he was in a good mood when he left his village's favorite (and only) eatery.

Unfortunately, the universe didn't respect a good mood in the slightest. It gave the illusion of caring about good moods about as much as it cared about only punishing the wicked and rewarding the good; all of which pointed to it having a terrible track record. His simple desire to have a quiet afternoon with the girl he loved was just to be the most recent of its casualties.

Usopp was startled by a loud call from behind.

"Hey, Usopp! Where are ya goin'?" He had shared enough time with the group to know this voice belonged to Luffy. As of yet, she was still alone.

"Oh, just, you know, places..." Usopp said, turning back briefly and inwardly sighing. He had been happy enough to share part of his day with the oddball crew, but he hadn't expected to be tailed to his clandestine visit with the island's resident heiress. He'd excused himself from the pirates' company to avoid just that. Still, he was a polite fellow. He jammed his hands into his pockets to avoid communicating his disapproval overtly while trailing off and looking at anything but the person speaking to him.

"Places, huh? Sounds neat," Luffy said, her tone excited as she managed to catch up to her quarry. Usopp fought the urge to stop and stare until the girl's exuberance made sense."so what's first?"

Usopp sputtered. He hadn't meant to, but he had hoped she'd have taken the hint from his lack of interest. In retrospect, he should have known better. The girl in the straw hat hadn't really responded well to body language or indirect messages thus far. That ridiculous smile was plastered all over her face no matter what he did. He'd have to explain his desire to be something other than a tour guide like he would to a child.

"L-look, Luffy, the thing is-," he started, trying to find the appropriate words to reject her company in the friendliest way possible.

"Yeah?"

He made the mistake of looking into her eyes, and his words died. What was he so worried about? This girl was a harmless nusaince. Sure, somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered she was a pirate, a liar, and/or a madwoman, but that had buried itself under other bits of information he never used. Now, she was basically just another one of his underage lackeys, begging to tag along on something that could only generously be called an adventure. He found, in his heart-of-hearts, that he had a boring enough life that he considered taking her up on her offer.

In retrospect, Usopp would be impressed that she'd somehow made this transition so quickly. Just like he'd be impressed that she'd managed to kick his better judgement in the nether regions where Kaya was concerned.

"Well, er, following me is okay with your crew?" he said awkwardly, more afraid of Luffy's friends than the young woman herself. They were armed, though the ginger woman hid her weapon in a place she imagined no one would notice.

Luffy gave him a smile that would have sent him packing on account of its unnatural width but two hours ago. "Of course it is, Usopp. Nami said that she's way better off shopping without us," She hummed, then continued,"S'probably a good thing, too. Zoro really needs to take it easy right now."

Usopp looked at the little woman curiously, as if to ask her to elaborate on this. She didn't seem to realize until he made a confused hum.

"Oh!" she said, shrugging at his curiosity. "He got stabbed," her voice was nonchalant, but Usopp could see her jaw muscles clench every time she shut her mouth,"-by Bugles the Clown. Don't worry, though, I launched that jerk out of a cannon into space."

Something about the second part of her admission put Usopp to shame. For a moment, he really thought Luffy was vying for the rank of master liar between them. "You… launched a man… out of a cannon… into space?!" he cried, despite his attempt to keep his composure.

"Probably." Luffy said, no hint of amusement in her face. Her tone was flat. "He definitely got shot into the sky by a cannon."

That response both deflated and terrified him. A decent storyteller would have capitalized on a moment like that. No, there could be little doubt that here, standing before him, was someone who had honestly launched someone into the upper atmosphere and didn't find the feat all that impressive.

Usopp was fairly certain that the pressure building up in his skull was making his eyes bulge out, because now Luffy was looking at him with mild concern, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Usopp?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Ahahahaha…." his laughter was quiet and defeated. Honestly, he didn't have any godly thing to say now. She'd effectively broken him. "Do you… heheheh… launch people from cannons… often?"

"No." Luffy conceded, her eyes shifting to a passing cloud,"but there's a first time for everything."

It suddenly got very quiet. While shooting someone into space wasn't necessarily an efficient way to kill a pirate captain, it was certainly a quick way to kill a conversation. Unfortunately for Usopp's poor adrenal glands, it rose again as a zombie.

"How… do you normally solve problems, Luffy?" he asked. He could hear his voice. It was reaching a falsetto.

"I punch them until they go away." came the reply. It oozed with a promise of honesty. It was also supposed to be a joke. The thing about jokes, though, is that they don't tend to land when your audience assumes you are going to kill them the instant they anger the teller.

Usopp didn't dare respond with words for a few seconds. His vocal apparatus wouldn't allow it.

"Places?" Luffy gently prodded, alluding to the conversation that she'd so summarily killed half a minute ago.

"O-Oh, right." Usopp coughed into his hand, forcing his pulse to slow down before his stupid, cowardly little heart exploded. "We have places to go."

He had changed his mind again, though. That moment of being caught off-guard when he'd thought of Luffy as little more than a little kid was gone. The waif straddled the line with her mannerisms, sure, but she apparently walked a fine line between woman-child and TERRIFYING MONSTER. Maybe he shouldn't take him with her on his original errand, after all. Who knew what just a few seconds with Luffy would do to Kaya's fragile organs. Yet, even now, some part of him didn't dare tell her to up and leave.

It was the part of him that wanted to live.

Still, there were precautions he'd still be able to make. The murderer wasn't angry yet, and presumably would not be staying long.

"I'm going to take you to meet an old friend of mine, but I'm going to need you to promise not to do anything too weird." he said, trying to sound commanding.

Luffy crossed her arms and scrunched up her face in thought before answering. "I'm going to need you to explain what you mean. Is 'weird' different than 'insufferable' or 'stupid'? People keep changing their terms on me, and it's getting a little hard to follow."

Usopp couldn't stop his eyebrows from shooting up again. "Um… assume it means both?"

"Gotcha." She said, clapping a fist to an open palm resolutely. She drew herself up to stand with an impressive amount of gravitas, all things considered. "I, Monkey D. Luffy, promise not to bother Usopp's old friend by being weird."

Usopp knew he was staring. Nothing good ever came from a person who made an oath like that. It was the oldest trick in the book. Still, knees shaking, he couldn't force her hand.

"O-okay then. We'll be on our way."

Zoro hadn't taken very long to find a suitable place to sleep. He seldom did, as long as the sky wasn't dumping something liquid on his exposed head. He hated to admit that he was still in need of the sleep for anything other than his preference for having an ungodly amount of energy in reserve for when he needed it, but his stitches itched and the green meadow was calling him.

He could feel Nami's penetrating gaze as he found a nice, flat spot to flop backwards unceremoniously. He had no idea what she was looking for, but in absence of his captain, the threat she posed diminished even as the uneasy aura around her bloomed. He doubted that she even caught the slight muscle tremors that betrayed her fear.

She didn't initially say anything as she stood over him, written directions firmly clutched in her left hand.

He closed his eyes, still quirking his eyebrows. "Need something?" he asked, wanting to get any tedious conversation out of the way so that the witch would get on with her errands and leave him in peace.

She startled when he addressed her. He could hear it. Nevertheless, her voice carried an attempt to reach the authority that Luffy's carried without effort. "Roronoa, you will not leave this spot until I get back. The last thing we need is both of you idiots wandering off. I'm sure I'm going to have a hard enough time finding one of you, let alone both."

Zoro opened one eyelid lazily and asked the million-beri question that applied to Nami's efforts where their tiny crew was concerned at all times. "Then why bother?"

Nami's shoulders rose up like they belonged to a ticked-off cat. "I'm not going to be able to carry all the supplies back to the ship myself, now, am I?"

He yawned widely and crossed his arms behind his head."Fine, sure, whatever."

Nami brought two fingers to her face. "Well, that inspires confidence."

The swordsman said nothing. He merely closed his eyes and ignored the sarcasm. "You're still here," he pointed out, his voice still carrying an apathy that caused Nami's teeth to clench, "so it can't be that bad."

He was insinuating something, and he took some pleasure in knowing that she was clever enough to be aware of that. The former bounty hunter believed annoying Nami was a pastime he shared with his captain, but whatever reasons Luffy had for annoying her were probably quite different from his own.

If she angry enough, she might say something incriminating. Thus, Zoro would have the proverbial high ground against any future threat she might pose.

Things didn't work out that way he wanted them to, though. She didn't ever really take the bait on the ship, and she wasn't doing it now. All she did was give an exasperated sigh and storm off.

Luffy was doing her best. She really, really was. She had bitten down any more attempts at conversation because even she could see how intimidated her fated nakama was. She hadn't meant to scare him. She'd thought he'd be impressed. She swore that from what she remembered, this really was how you got Usopp to like you.

Given that, she was surprised when they'd walked a way into the woods and he booked off running in a random direction. Was he supposed to do that? She didn't think he was supposed to do that. She felt disappointment tug at her face despite her best efforts while desperation worked with them to get her feet working.

The pleasant afternoon walk turned into a high-speed chase that put Luffy at a disadvantage. However familiar Ingwah Gecko felt to her subconscious, she couldn't anticipate his route through the brush and trees, and when he disappeared, she was unable to track him. She felt she should be able to, and screwed up her face and clenched her hands in some sort of effort to sense the sniper's presence without using her more dangerous powers or risking frightening him further. This, predictably, did not work.

She was well and truly ditched. If she had been anyone but herself in that moment, it probably wouldn't matter… but Luffy was still Luffy. Usopp was Usopp. He was supposed to… well, he couldn't actually leave her there, could he?

Despite being older than the seven-year-old left in the woods all alone without the means to defend herself, she felt a burning lump in her throat. She forced it down, but her eyes grew a little blurry.

It wasn't like she couldn't salvage the situation. She could cheat, but first she had to get over the feeling she had been cheated. It was irrational to feel entitled to his friendship, but she'd already earned it so many times over as someone else, and now she was being treated like a drunken peddler who pulled a knife by a nakama. Between that and the sounds of the forest, she slumped.

Self-pity wasn't useful. It was never useful. She wouldn't let it have her for more than a few seconds and she certainly wouldn't let it reduce her to tears for what anyone else would identify as a mere acquaintance, but she needed a moment. Abandonment was not her strong suit.

In the distance, Usopp couldn't agree with the sentiment more, though he needed a lot of them and needed to maintain his aerobic trance during the entire ordeal. If any of her crewmates asked, they got seperated. If any of his friends asked, he narrowly escaped from an ancient abomination maintaining her human guise by means of a magical straw hat.

(A/N) I am a ghost. Boo. I didn't trouble my beta with this because I disappeared for a year and that would be unfair. Also, please forgive the short chapter. It's been in my computer, unuploaded and nearly finished for way too long.