Return to Syrup Village

"I want to visit my home island." Usopp said.

"Why now?" Luffy asked while Zoro and Nami where confused. Usopp had told him what happened when they were kids, but he also never made a mention of wanting to go back.

"Its the next nearby island for one, and I want to see if anyone has settled down where my village used to be." Usopp said while looking in the distance.

"I don't have any problem with it." Zoro said. Nami agreed as well and everyone looked at Luffy.

"I don't mind, but are you ready to see the village again. I slept with you when we were kids Usopp, and those nightmares weren't a rare thing to happen for you." Luffy said.

Usopp looked at Luffy and smiled at his brother, "It won't be easy but I need to make my peace with it. I also want to visit my mothers grave before we start our adventure."

"Alright let's head there now." Luffy said and walked into the captains quarters. Nami followed after him to help plot there sea route. Once they were done they joined everyone back on top side and Nami glanced over at Usopp and Zoro working out.

She looked back at Luffy and asked, "So what happened to Usopp for him to have such a bad reaction to going to his home island?" She was genuinely curious to see if it was similar to what happened to her. What she didn't expect was that Usopp could here her thanks to his Zoan fruit enhancing his senses. He stopped mid push-up and stood up.

Usopp sighed and looked at Nami and said, "If you want to know, you should just ask me and not talk behind my back. Zoro come over here as well, I don't want to go through this again with you."

They all followed Usopp into the kitchen and sat at the dinner table. Usopp told them how his childhood was and when the pirates invaded that no one believed him. When he got to the part for marines part Nami and Zoro were appalled at the lack of humanity that the marines would show. Usopp then said, "That's why Luffy was the one who rescued you alone, the bastard was still a captain there even if the Fleet Admiral promised me he'd take care of it. At least I got meet my brothers though so I don't regret trusting Garp and following him to meet Luffy."

Nami was pale when Usopp had finished his tale. She got off lucky compared to him. She looked at him and couldn't help but ask, "Then why did you become a pirate? They killed your village!"

Usopp looked into Nami's eyes and finally saw what Luffy was talking about. She was hurting from something and it was probably pirates. This didn't make Usopp trust her, but he looked at her in a different light. He spoke softly, "What would you have done then? I didn't want to become a marine, they would just put me under a captain that I knew nothing about. I couldn't risk helping someone who could commit such atrocities. At least with being a pirate I chose who I would follow and I couldn't chose neither because I wouldn't be able to become strong. The strong rule and if you are weak you don't get a say in anything."

Zoro grunted in agreement. He knew a little on how the world worked and knew that what happened to Usopp wasn't something that's only happened once.

"Anyways it all boils down to me wanting to be free. Free to choose what I want to do and free to choose who I want to be!" Usopp spoke with a deep passion burning in his eyes. Nami didn't say anything. She couldn't believe such people existed, especially if those people are pirates. She could tell Usopp wasn't lying and it made her sad. Sad that she just accepted her situation as it was and never strived for the strength to change it. She was silent for most of the ride after.

Usop trained with Zoro for the remaining time and couldn't help but praise how strong he was without any outside help. If it wasn't for his devil fruit, Usopp knew that he wouldn't be half as physically strong as Zoro is now. Zoro also thought highly of Usopp. He didn't complain once and followed him the entire time he was training, even if he was drenched in sweat afterwords and close to passing out.

The days passed and Usopp could tell his endurance was increasing and made it his mission to keep this training up everyday. They reached barely reached the island with the condition the ship was in. They all had a talk and decided to officially buy there first pirate ship. One thing Usopp took note of was the state of Syrup Village.

The village was still standing and it was rebuilt and filled with people. Usopp said that there were more people now then there were before the attack. The villagers were frightened and hid in there houses. Usopp guessed that it was an after affect of what happened and brushed it off. He took notice of the mansion sitting on top of a hill and decided to go there first.

Once the crew got to the mansion they knocked on the door. A beautiful blond haired girl answered the door and asked, "Can I help you?"

Usopp spoke up and said, "Yea I used to live here and just returned to visit. What happened for the village to be rebuilt to such an extent."

The girl brightened up at the crew and said, "Oh someone else who survived what happened? Come in and we can talk over some tea."

The crew walked in to the mansion and sat on the couch while the girl yelled, "Mom, Dad, we have guests."

While they were sitting a man that looked like a sheep came up to them serving them tea, even though Zoro asked if they had any sake and was disappointed that they didn't.

"Thank you for your hospitality." Usopp said. He had been given lessons by Makino when he was young and unlike the rest he actually paid attention. "My name is Usopp.

"It's no problem, you can call me Kaya. You said you wanted to know how the village was rebuilt? Well my parents are traveling merchants and we were at sea when the attack happened. When we returned we were horrified by the destruction we saw. Originally we wanted to move to a new island seeing how our house was destroyed, but then a couple of villagers that survived had appeared. We saw there heartbroken appearances and couldn't bear to leave after. So my father suggested that he would pay to rebuild everything if he became the Mayor and the villagers happily agreed. We've been here ever since." Kaya told them.

Usopp smiled when he heard that, he was glad that there were other people who made it out like him, "Thank you for telling me this, it means a lot. I'm just glad my mother didn't have to go through what happened."

"Who was your mother?" The girl asked.

"His mother's name was Banchina." A voice said behind the crew.

Two people walked down the stairs and saw the rough looking characters chatting with their daughter and couldn't help but smile. "We were actually good friends with you mother and father Usopp."

"Wait a minute Usopp and Banchina," Kaya said while thinking, "OH your Usopp the Liar. I heard about the jokes you would play when you were a kid."

"Yes but you never heard why he did that did you." Kaya's father said. He then explained why Usopp had became a liar and who his father was. Kaya seemed a little sad, but was brought out of her musings by Usopp saying, "So how did you know my parents?"

"Well we were good friends with Yasopp. You might not know because you were young but he was famous for protecting this island with his excellent marksmanship. That's why Shanks asked for him personally when they arrived at the island. He was torn about the decision for weeks but eventually he couldn't say no to him and set off with him. We know your mother from our interactions with Yasopp." They explained.

Usopp was silent and didn't say anything more on his parents. He still doesn't know how to feel about his father. Usopp then asked his next question, "Thank you for telling me more about my parents, but we actually were wondering if you had a ship for sale."

The father thought for a minute and said, "We can sell you a ship. It's called the Going Merry, and it's a caravel that's a bit old but our butler Merry redesigned it and keeps it well kept."

The crew smiled about their own ship and Luffy said, "That would be perfect thank you so much."

"It's not a problem we can hash out the details after you see it." Kaya's father said while leading them to the ship.