Chapter Text
“IF I knew,” says the large, intimidating man, “that our dear Ms. All-Sunday had a companion, then I would have welcomed you properly.”
Mr. 0, is the first thing that appears in Usopp’s mind. The second is that he’s wholly, irrevocably screwed. He’s trained himself, over the years, not to look guilty or reveal his true emotions on his face when faced with a less-than-stellar confrontation, but it doesn’t do anything from making his stomach turn at the sentence.
The self-acclaimed Mr. 0 sits on the table in Usopp’s sparsely furnished home, legs wide apart and enjoying a cup of water from one of the barrels in his little kitchen. Mr. 0’s hand curls around a cup, and his hook sits in his lap, almost innocent if it isn’t for the fact that it’s gold and probably going to be used as a threat in fifty seconds, max.
Usopp doesn’t remove his hat or scarf, still garnered in the long tunic and shoes he was just traversing the sands in, making his way back to Rainbase after a rough day of trading. Gah—his nose is much too noticeable, but even with that, it’s too much of a hassle to reveal himself now. He didn’t know how he’d survive here without Robin’s (Ms. All-Sunday, but that disguise has been discovered already . . . probably ) intervention. Whom of which is not here now.
Not that he’s supposed to be hiding anything in the first place, no sir-ee!
“Well,” Usopp says, “I don’t know who that is, but she sounds very important to you, so if you give me a description I may be able to consult my faithful pirate crew and—”
He takes a step back only for that very same hook to be dangerously close to his nose. Mr. 0 looms over him, the drifting smoke from his cigar tickling the back of Usopp’s throat. And Usopp’s been pretty much anywhere, so he knows how a lot of things smell—the salty spray of sea on fishermen, the scent of old books in a library, the sodium nitrate he works with when salting the cured deli meats when he had to work in a butcher’s shop that one time, the smell of garbage and piss in an alleyway to get away from bothersome marines—yes, his life is filled with adventure and fright, to say the least. So this man, this Mr. 0, should be nothing but another bump in the road. He’ll get through this, just as he gets through everything else, and he’ll look at the stars one day and laugh about this, just as how he tries to laugh off all the dangers and hazards of his life.
In the glint of that man’s hook, Usopp sees rolling waves. He sees orange hair and cell bars and a little lamb, carved into wood. He dismisses the incoming vision as quickly as it arrives. Not the time.
So, anyway, yes, Usopp will make it through this too. He would puff up his chest if a) his legs weren’t currently trembling and b) that hook wasn’t so close to skewering him completely. He knows he’ll make it through this. He knows— that little glimpse of the future in the hook just proved it to him—but it doesn’t make the present any less petrifying.
“As you see,” Mr. 0 says, smoke fanning over Usopp’s face, “I have ways of doing away with troublesome maggots .”
He’s been called worse. He’s been called way worse.
. . . no, it doesn’t mean that he’s particularly comfortable with being called anything at all other than his (revealed, though not necessarily real) name, but it does mean that he has a higher chance of not physically showing just how little he appreciates being threatened in such a way. If he did, then he’d shoot his opponent down with—you know—a living plant! If only he had one.
Clearly, he’s losing his mind.
But, oh well, bluff all he wants, surely Robin can understand that, under the threat of a hook that’s far too close to piercing his skin, he’ll crack just a bit. Only the tiniest bit. A small fissure in his impenetrable armor. He’s scared shitless and she always said that he had to do anything to survive, even if it’s less than palatable. Hopefully, she’ll understand.
Hopefully.
All at once, Usopp allows gravity to work on him, dropping into a near split to get away from the hook. That shiny, sharp hook. Nothing good can come from a hook that shiny and sharp, that’s for sure. That same hook comes down on him, but Usopp does a very special thing called evasion where in which he throws a basket full of fish—it was supposed to be his dinner tonight, but he’ll trip himself over that later—at his opponent’s face and turns full the fuck around to make a quick dash for the door.
I need distance, is the loudest thought in his mind. He’s never been good with close-range fights—it’s one of his weakest areas, actually. Sure, it’s embarrassing that he’s now just barely able to carry as much weight in his two thin arms as Robin could a few months ago, and very embarrassing the number of times one of his tricks went sideways and she needed to rescue him before he got beat up or worse— but those weaknesses are almost negligible when one also takes into consideration that fact that he survived this long in various situations in which it sometimes becomes obvious that he should not have.
He and Robin tend to have contingency plans whenever they stay somewhere longer than a few months at a time. Even if they don’t have any established safehouses, they tend to pour over maps and spend a great deal of time trying to find a common point in which to meet. It was hard here on Alabasta when Robin’s working for a literal secret assassin’s club or whatever she tends to call it, but it’s manageable with the considerable size of said continent, and the fact that the population is also nothing to really scoff at. Hiding in plain sight.
The only issue is that it’s so hot! Usopp still feels the heat on his shoulders, and the warmth on the scarf trying to cover his face. Their meet-up places are outside, which is scalding during the day and freezing during the night. Even after so long being here, how the people here live with this weather is beyond him—and he’s been all over the Grand Line!
He shoves the door open, knowing that staying inside and trying to get one of his hidden ammo is a surefire way to lose. He’d have to distract Mr. 0 in order to do that—and he just used his best one. So, in conclusion, the only possible solution is to leave.
He’ll have to evade him. It’ll take a few days at least to get to a meet-up spot to lose him—and even then, there’s the matter of Robin’s coworkers that may spot him. He’s not sure if they know he exists, but he’s not sure if they don’t know he exists, and that’s not a chance he’s willing to take.
He runs outside, boots meeting hot sand, working through the sun’s glare—
And then the sand underneath his feet swirls, and the next thing he knows the world goes black.
He’s an idiot.
The Suna Suna no mi, Robin had said. If you must, do not confront him outside, she had said. He controls sand and can turn his limbs into the stuff. By all means, this country is his playing ground and he ran right into it!
Would it have been better if I just faced the hook? Usopp wonders to himself. He winces. Would he rather be in a cell, or skewered in a vaguely Usopp-shaped kebab?
“It’s almost hilarious how these decisions are just different ways I can possibly die,” Usopp comments, rubbing the top of his head as he begins to sit up.
“Hello? Are you awake yet?”
Pause. Freeze. Rewind. Usopp is a fucking idiot, because he also forgot the very first thing he’s supposed to do when waking up in an unfamiliar place, and that’s taking stock of his surroundings. One of the first things Robin taught him, actually. Gah—he’s screwing up all sorts of things today, isn’t he?
But—anyway—this may still be salvageable. He’ll have to do a confrontation, and he’ll have to confront Mr. 0’s enemies (which, given how easily that man overpowered him, doesn’t spell anything good for him), but he may be able to get out of this with his head still screwed on his neck (most likely, given how he had a vision right before getting his ass handed to him, but it doesn’t quell the overall anxiety).
“Of course!” He sits straight up and looks around the place. He’s still in a cell, and he’d been dumped in one end of it. There’s quite a number of other people there, and the morale is generally low.
. . . okay, it’s pretty bad. It’s pretty bad because the more Usopp looks at everyone else, the more it becomes evident that he’s not the strongest one here. Far from it. And—sure, he’s used to being close to the weakest one in the room. It’s not a point of pride. One would think that with Usopp’s lifestyle, he’d at least have something, but the truth is that he is a man of many talents, and fighting just isn’t one of them. He’s not good at close-range fighting. And he’s often put in situations in which he needs close-range fighting.
He’s well aware of how lucky he is to be alive right now.
But! The All-Seeing Usopp is still a man of many, many talents. Oh yes, using his keen eyes and his powers of observation, he can also clearly see—
That something within him shifts at the sight of other people there. Whatever his vision indicated, he’s at least on the right track.
B-but never fear! That’s no match for two of his greatest talents: evasion and distraction! (Read: evade from thinking about the girl with the hair exactly as he saw in his latest vision in that golden hook, and distract them from the fact that anything they do to him is pretty much fair game.)
“See, that was a test,” he blurts out before his mind can catch up. “A . . . test of vigilance! And you passed, so great job!” He gives the boy in front of him a thumbs up, silently praying that no one takes it as condescending. It’s happened before, believe it or not. It’s not something he wants an encore performance of.
The boy standing in front of him wears a tunic, much like him. It’s not surprising, for pretty much everyone here in Alabasta wears them. They must have been traveling in the desert, much like he was. Maybe they’re genuinely working against Mr. 0, unlike him (he’s just trying to survive, man. Just because he knows Robin doesn’t mean he’s automatically working against the assassin’s organization she’s working for. Honestly—one would think that Mr. 0’s information network would be better than that), or maybe they’re just as unlucky as Usopp.
Regardless—he needs to keep his guard up. Alertness can spell the difference between life and death, and he’s not one for giving up so easily.
“Whoa,” the boy says in awe, stepping closer to him. Usopp tries not to let it show how much his spine stiffens. Someone getting close to him never means anything good. The boy wears a straw hat, that hat being wrapped in a scarf. Other than that, nothing is covering his face, unlike Usopp. The scarf miraculously still covers his features, the only thing showing is his nose and probably his eyes.
Up close, Usopp can see that the boy has a scar under his eye, a pale, jagged line stretched from the smile he’s wearing. His eyes are large, but wide and mischievous in a way that children often are when they’re being entertained. No matter—Usopp babysat a child or two here or there, no stranger to the odd jobs he’s worked for the occasional beri.
It’s then that the boy smiles even wider as if the lie Usopp actually told was something he liked. Which is . . . actually a bit concerning, because while they’re distracting, the only people who actually like his tall tales are little children and Robin, every now and then. The boy stretches out a hand, making grabby fingers. “Do I get a prize?”
A blink. “A what?”
The girl with bright hair rolls her eyes. She’s wearing a similar tunic, cementing the fact that this group walked through the desert together. Her face is frustrated and skeptical, carrying all the common sense the boy seems to lack. “He’s lying, Luffy. Don’t listen to him!”
Hmm. Usopp pauses for a moment, taking stock of the situation. A guy with three swords isn’t staring at him, but he knows a strong silent type anywhere—that is, the type that can easily slice him into ribbons at a moment’s notice, scary!—and it won’t do to say anything that’ll set him off. Next to him is a marine, donned in a white coat and a weapon of some sort.
Hmm. Could this group be composed of marines? Perhaps they’re in disguise to take down Mr. 0? If so, then he has to lay low, because it probably won’t be long until they figure out that he’s not someone who exists on the right side of the law in any capacity.
Then would this boy be entertaining him to figure out who he is? And is the girl with orange hair (red? He can’t exactly tell with this scarf threatening to get in his eyes) simply playing along? Or is this something she genuinely doesn’t want the boy to be distracted by? So many variables.
But regardless, there’s one truth: that they’re trapped in a cell in an unknown place, and they have to figure out some way to get out. The fact that he’s not seeing Red Hair with some lamb (ram? He doesn’t know) carved into wood and sees the rolling sea means that the vision hasn’t been completed yet, which also means that he’ll at least stay alive for that long.
However, his vision of cell bars does prove true, though.
“So? He’s funny,” Straw Hat says in response to Red Hair. At least one of us is having fun. “Hey, mystery nose, I want a prize.”
“Um—” Maybe he should’ve shut up, but now Straw Hat and Red Hair and Three Swords are looking his way. Gulp. “—of course! W-what’s a game without a prize?” Does he have his bag? Please tell him he still has his bag—
He still has his bag! Usopp thinks he hears a choir and he undoes the clasps and digs around. It would be logical to keep looking around to find weak points, but if a marine hasn’t found anything, then he won’t find anything either, won’t he? Maybe the best thing to do is convince everyone else here that he is not a threat. “Have a party trick! Fun for all ages! Play with yourself or perform a show for your friends!”
Usually, he’d boast more about his inventions and sell them, but he wants the boy entertained so he can leave Usopp alone. Let him rot in the corner of this cell in peace, please. He eyes it and—yeah, it’s one of his best inventions, a staff that can manipulate the weather on a very small scale (he originally wanted to make it rain a bit for the little plants he keeps around his temporary home, but he’s not returning to it anytime soon for obvious reasons). It’s more a party trick than a genuinely useful invention, and he has his blueprints to rebuild it, even if a part of him mourns to part with it. “I’ll even make it free of charge! And the directions!”
He all but dumps everything in Straw Hat’s waiting arms, ignoring the muffled gasps to take a few giant steps back. Hopefully, with all of that, Usopp will be able to have a few moments to himself to figure out what’s going on.
“Whoa!” Straw Hat picks up the nameless weather-party staff he was given. “What does it do?”
He gestures to the directions, all while keeping on a trademark grin he plasters on whenever he has a stand up on the edge of a village on some island, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Never mind that no one can see it. “I can’t possibly list all the amazing qualities I created, so why don’t you see for yourself?” And leave me alone to figure out how to squeeze out of this place.
Would he be attempting to sneak around an assassin’s base? Unless this cell is fortified with electricity or some poison that kills on contact. But, to be honest, why would Mr. 0 go through all that work kidnapping Usopp only to have him die from touching a cage? Sounds rather counterproductive.
But is he scared? He’s terrified. Petrified, even. Chances are high that he’s being used as some bargaining chip, and he’s ashamed to say that he’s been in that position more than once, and it’s not a good one. Like, at all. Better to test his chances of sneaking around over remaining here.
“I feel so weak . . . ” Usopp turns back to see Straw Hat leaning against the cage, literally wilting. The staff rolls at his feet. Score one for it not being poisoned, it’s just—
Almost quicker than what he can interpret, Marine has Straw Hat on the ground below him, his club pressed into his abdomen. Usopp wheels back, the only thing keeping his face from betraying how he feels (as if his trembling legs aren’t already doing that) being Robin’s advice. That and the scarf around his face (it’s definitely the scarf around his face). But it also gives him a chance to listen in and have it confirmed what Usopp already assumed.
Sea prism stones.
Robin once pointed to passages in one book or another, explaining one of the few things that can render her devil fruit useless. She’s a bit morbid, that way. But she also told him as much to pretend that his tendency to glimpse into the future is a devil fruit and not much more. Very few people, in reality, know of every devil fruit in existence, and even fewer understand enough to assume that he’d be lying. It’s a great lie, and that’s coming from the great liar Usopp himself. He hasn’t had a chance to use it yet, but it’s good to know that when it comes down to it, he can at least pretend. Not that pretending has helped him before in this area, but it’s good to have at least something.
But it also means that the bars are made of sea prism stone. It also means that Straw Hat lying there on the floor is a devil fruit user. Good information to keep in the back of his pocket. But that performance from Marine also means that there’s only one marine in this cage, and everyone else is decisively not. Either thief, murderer, or some other outlaw. Regardless, that only puts Usopp even more on edge.
Mr. 0 is a warlord, and that alone is one the reasons why Robin works for him in the first place. It means that marines coming here to intervene can still happen—but chances are already slim. Warlord means part of the world government. In truth, Usopp hasn’t been working for a warlord—they don’t usually willingly get close to the government, and any intervention spells trouble for anyone involved. But Robin didn’t quell his worries as much as she logically explained that it was the best way to ensure protection.
“You don’t have to participate,” she had said, “but you must live your life not unlike the other natives to blend in.”
It was a simple system: Robin worked and gave enough information for Usopp to protect himself if the need arose, and Usopp lived a relatively normal life in Alabasta, with stability he hadn’t had in years. It was lonely, but getting food and water was steady enough, even with all the rain problems. Years of running and hiding squashed any guilt from knowing the group who’s purposely throwing the country into peril. It wasn’t paradise, it wasn’t the memories of a warm house from before, but it was something close to it, and he loved it all the same.
But like most good things in Usopp’s proximity, it had to come to an end.
“Don’t worry,” the marine says, drawing Usopp from his inner monologue, “if these bars weren’t made of sea prism, then I’d be out of here, and you’d all be dead.”
It’s the sort of blunt, flat statement that Usopp can only frown at. The threat of death hangs over him, but he’s still alive now, and his vision is yet to come to fruition, so he’s not all that worried about it.
But Usopp chooses not to say anything, knowing that shouting anything out of defensiveness would be futile. He’s already not an innocent party in here because he’s trapped in the first place, and he’s not going to reveal himself unless he has to.
Meanwhile, Three Swords scowls and puts a hand on one of his weapons. Usopp hopes Three Swords doesn’t start fighting here. He sincerely hopes they don’t start fighting here. He’s been in worse situations (truth) with only a rubber band and a piece of chalk to get him by (lie), but it doesn’t mean he wants to be in these situations in the first place.
“Give it up.”
Usopp physically takes a step from the voice, eyes immediately going to a bulky form sitting on the couch. Honestly—who wears a fur coat while stationed in a desert?
Mr. 0 doesn’t look at them as he continues, “You guys may as well be friends when you die together.”
“Crocodile!” hisses the marine. It’s an alternate name for Mr. 0, one that’ll get one killed for even knowing such a thing, outside his assassin’s network. It’s already a pretty bad omen that Usopp knew it for months already. But— still, vision. It still hasn’t been fulfilled already. He won’t die yet. The All-Seeing Usopp won’t croak here!
His future-seeing abilities are a hassle, but they’re consistent when they need to be.