Determination

"Oh, right. That guy was one of our enemies this time." I drop the bomb on our group.

"What! What do you mean our enemy!?" Nami shrieks as she demands an explanation.

"Well you see, he is a pirate. And his captain is definitely not the nicest guy around."

"And how do you know this?" Zoro queries me with a raised eyebrow.

"Well I know a lot of things you wouldn't expect me to know. And I know that this group of pirates is up to no good."

"You sure? Surprise me." Zoro gives me a smug face but "Kuina." he chokes immediately.

"Last I knew was that you had 2000 losses under your belt. How's it going before you left?" I give a smug smile back to Zoro whose face has gone grim.

"Wait! How did you hear about that and how do you know Kuina!?"

Unfortunately, our conversation gets cut off by Usopp's running figure.

He runs past us completely ignoring us and heading straight to the village.

"Wasn't he with Luffy?" Zoro asks since everyone thought they were together.

"Is he still mad at the butler for looking down on his dad?" Nami wonders.

The brats start going on about how Usopp is unusually serious and something must be wrong or something serious happened at the shore.

"I guess he heard the pirates plan but where is Luffy?" 'I can't remember what happened to him.'

"We probably should check where he ran from." I give my two cents on the situation.

"Hey kids, how do we get to the shore?" Zoro asks the brats and they guide as there.

…

We get to the shore and find Luffy sleeping in a very awkward position.

"My neck would break in that position. Lucky for him that he is made out of rubber." I look at Luffy who can sleep on the rocks without a care in the world.

"This damn idiot." Nami curses and "gently" wakes Luffy up for us.

Luffy starts telling how he and Usopp found about the pirates' plan to kill Kaya and the rest figured out why Usopp ran to the village. We start getting back towards the village as the sky turns orange and we see Usopp's figure in the distance.

We greet each other but Usopp freaks out seeing that Luffy is alive and the brats reveal that he was just sleeping all this time. The brats start going about how they should warn everyone but Usopp laughs and says that it was all a lie to get revenge on that butler while Luffy is bewildered. The kids get disappointed by Usopp and decide to leave while Usopp hides his bleeding arm from their sight.

We return to the shore as the night falls and patch up Usopp's arm. Usopp starts telling how he is now in the "Boy who cried wolf" situation and that he will protect this village by himself because he still loves his home even if everyone else hates him and even shot at him.

"How can I just watch everyone get killed." Usopp cries at the harsh reality of his situation.

"You are a pretty good guy. You lied to your crew so that you can do this alone." Zoro smirks at Usopp's determination.

"Let me help with the sniping. I'll teach you some tricks." I give a thumbs up. 'This guy always snipes where everyone can see him.' I facepalm in my mind.

"Alright! We will lend you a hand." Luffy hypes himself up.

"But first things first, all their treasure is mine!" Nami calls in dibs while showing the money hand sign.

"You guys are willing to fight with me!? Why?" Usopp looks at us completely bewildered.

"Because the enemy outnumber you!" 'Quite a smart statement from Luffy.'

"You have the words "I'm sacred" written all over your face."

"Idiots! Me? Scared? So what if they outnumber me!? They can't compete with me! I'm Captain Usopp! In my veins runs the blood of a courageous warrior!"

Usopp starts shouting from Zoro's comment but notices how he is shaking in fear and tries to stop it.

Usopp starts talking back about how obvious it is to be scared in this situation and he doesn't need sympathy and we should just go home.

"We're not sympathizing for you but rather we're commending you for having courage."

"If it was sympathy, would we put our lives at risk?"

Usopp finally calms down after hearing Zoro and Luffy say those things and we finally get to the planning.

"By the way. The pirates will be coming from another shore." I drop a bomb but everyone just looks at me like what am I saying.

"Again, how do you know that?" Zoro once again questions my source of knowledge.

"AH! Is that your future knowledge!?" Luffy suddenly gets all exited.

'SHIT! He remembers what I said back when we met!' "Yes, Luffy. But enough about that and more about where the damn shore is. I may know things but not everything is 100% accurate!"

"Future knowledge? You'll explain about that later but for now, Usopp. Where is there another shore?"

[Zoro will remember that.] 'This is not a Telltale game!'

"I think it was at north. But are you sure that is the place?"

"100%. From my knowledge your ambush will fail because they came from another place."

We get to the north shore and setup our oil trap and I teach Usopp about how snipers fight. [Fucking campers.] Instead of just standing in the middle of the road and getting shot back me and Usopp go up the cliff and adjust some bushes to give us camo for the ambush. We don't have a shovel to dig a trench and I definitely don't want to bother to do that.

I tell a decent fight plan where Luffy will Pistol people back down and Zoro will slash anyone who gets too close while me and Usopp give them covering fire from both sides of the slope's cliff edge. We also left a rope that can be used to go down a bit far away in a hidden corner that can be tossed down after the pirates have landed. It is mainly for Nami to go rob them but if anyone else wants to ambush them from behind then that is also possible.

"You weren't joking about knowing a lot." Zoro compliments my plan as Usopp takes notes about everything in the background.

"Wanna join me in robbing pirates? Your skills would be really helpful." Nami chimes in excitement.

"I would love to but I'm not in any condition to do that." 'Also, you are a fucking pain in the ass.'

[I'm afraid of using gender equality on you.] 'Sometimes I just feel like beating her up and that isn't really great. I hate violence but my soul screams for it even if I will feel horrible after.'

"Shishishi. You will be appointed as the crew's tactician!"

"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY IT! I AIN'T JOINING!"

"Come on~! You are great! Join us!"

"For the last god damn time, Luffy. I'm not joining. You guys are too weak. I'm gonna die and I definitely don't want to die faster by joining you guys."

I stop talking to Luffy and he also goes silent at my words.

"You keep talking about how you are going to die all the time, mind explaining about that?"

"I'm a broken man, Zoro. My insides are a mess. I doubt I would survive long without getting a surgery." 'This world is too dangerous for the current me. I need to get to Kureha to fix myself if I want to survive in this damn world but will I even survive that far?'

"I can only be fixed by a doctor in the Grand Line but I doubt I will live long enough to even get there. I'm too weak and so are you. Grand Line is just that dangerous. Even if I get fixed, I have no confidence that I will even survive anyway there even if you tried to protect me. Just treat me as a passenger that helps sometimes and don't get too attached to this dying man."

I start to walk away leaving everyone in a sad mood and get up the slope and start making my way towards the cliff edge where my spot is located.

'The pirates will arrive at sunrise. I'll just grab some shut eye while I can.'

I struggle to sleep with my head filled with uncountable amounts of unpleasant thoughts and memories and I fail to notice that rest of the group silently watching my anguish from afar. Who knows what they are thinking.