It 's becoming a habit now.

Usopp jerks awake, sweaty, breathing hard, crying-- completely disoriented and confused, why is everything so dark? Where's the lamp?-- not being sure of what 's real and what isn 't. The darkness definitely isn 't helping. His heart hurts, his vision 's a blur, and nothing is right.

But he's starting to get used to it all. Being stuck, unable to lift himself form the floor for a few hours at first, less than an hour soon, and eventually, he can get up and wash his face before the sun rises.

He sobs for an hour. Jogs for another. Then he works out until the sun rises, and he takes a shower before Kaya drops by.

Kaya 's been dropping by really often now. Every day if Merry allows.

It 's strange.

Usopp hasn 't particularly done anything to make a real change in the situation, but it changed, simply because he 's blind. 'And Kaya, the rich girl without friends, had a penchant for the strange blind kid without friends.

Usopp 's honestly a little conflicted. 'But it 's fine.

'Hey, Usopp-san! Tell me a story, ' Kaya says, sitting down beside him as he works on a slingshot, fiddling around blindly and trying to make it perfect.

Usopp smiles.

'Have I told you about the time we fought a dragon and then made a centaur friend? '

-

It's been a year since he came back now.

Usopp is slowly getting used to darkness. He still hates it, but when he feels the leaves under his bare feet and the gentle dew of leaves against his cheeks, he calms down just a little.

It 's like self-imposed therapy.

He feels the world with his skin, breathes the world 's air, hears the sounds of the night, and tries to tell them apart.

Standing between two trees, Usopp feels something crawl past his arms-- but he 's fine with it.

He 's always been the best with arachnids and myriapods. He doesn 't particularly care for what 's on his fingers and what 's skittering past his feet. They're part of the world, just like him-- they're alive, just like everything else in the forest. 'He can feel them, with his Haki-- and they're much more assuring than the things he

can't

feel, like the damp branches marred with the slime of moss, or the trees that crunch just a little too loud when he steps.

Those

are scarier to him now.

He stretches.

And stretches.

He 's never managed it before-- but in this life, he has more time to train. So maybe-- just maybe, his Observation can become something that surpasses even Sanji, who can see miles and minutes into the future at his peak.

Maybe not in the aspect of how far he can see-- maybe just in sensibility, in what Usopp does best.

He stops walking.

He stops at a tree, looking up though he can 't see. There 's a life force there-- just one, very small, very tender presence, and it distracts him from his train of thought. Up on the trees-- it's the nest of a bird that has been here for a while.

(...but the flock flew this morning, didn 't it?)

Usopp starts climbing.

-

'It 's a little ball of fluff! '

Kaya squeals out her greeting, making Usopp jump in fright. His Haki was active, but he wasn't focused and didn't notice her coming. The house is a mess and Kaya just

charges

and runs over a few things, and hopefully she didn 't shuffle them too far because Usopp only vaguely remembers what 's where, until she found herself before the little makeshift cushion on the cupboard.

It 's a very small, freshly hatched seabird.

It 's barely got any feathers, sleeping weakly in a nest made of twigs and vines and newspaper cuttings and a worn felt blanket. Usopp had found it in a nest, and presumably the mother thought it 'had been too weak to raise, so it was abandoned.

Usopp is in no way a bird expert, but there was no harm in raising a fellow weakling.

It's a recent development, but Merry has stopped coming over as a chaperone.

Dropping Kaya 's name in restaurants is good enough to pay for the meal (man, being rich is nice...) so with how independent and responsible( ') Kaya likes to be, they 've deigned to leave the kids to their daily playdates. She holds his hand and pretends she's the most responsible big sister on the planet. It's very cute, and the villagers have begun smiling warmly at the sight of them.

(Usopp still doesn't know that the village sees them as a little couple, though.)

(The villagers like to keep it that way.)

'Try not to yell too much at it, too. It 's a baby, so loud noises might startle it, ' Usopp says, smiling as he sat down, a towel around his shoulders.

Kaya makes an affirmative sound.

'Do you know what kind of bird is it? Is it gonna get really big and cool? ' she asks, 'oh! Can I come help raise it? Please please please please? '

Usopp has to mildly watch her excited outburst, knowing she's very close to him sparkling with glee. It's a little awkward, when he can feel she's looking him in the eye yet he can't quite return the gesture and it makes him feel a little less sincere.

He turns away, reaching for the shades on his desk and bringing it up to his eyes so he doesn't have to worry about his gaze.

'Ah ' I was planning to ask you anyways, cause I can 't really raise anything when I can 't see ' ' he mutters, which he briefly regrets for a second as she

sparkles

even against the blindness and he's momentarily 'unable to cope with the sheer radiation of sunshine from her. 'As for what kind of bird it is ' I 'm not sure. '

'You don 't know? ' Kaya asks.

There 's a pause.

Then Kaya balks, flustered, 'I 'm sorry! I forgot you can 't see! '

-

Khlahadore is here.

It was honestly about time, so he wasn't too surprised. 'Right now, the notorious pirate is recuperating from quite severe wounds and a certain degree of malnutrition in Kaya 's mansion. Usopp even knows very well the layout of the first floor guest room he's staying in, and which window from Kaya's it was positioned.

(He may not be able to see, but he has been in that house a few times, and has had plenty of sleepovers while Merry taught him how to do chores. He knows the ins and outs of the mansion, even more so than last time around.)

As unsettling as it is, Usopp finds strictly nothing wrong with treating an injured pirate seeking refuge after a near-miss with execution. The problem is his ideal once he realizes just how much money Kaya 's parents have.

(If Usopp wasn 't blind, he could look for that wanted poster ')

'So there was potential water damage in the lungs from nearly drowning or something..."

If there was anything Usopp didn't know enough about last time around though, it was just how much of a medical enthusiast Kaya could be if left alone to pursue her passion with all her heart. Her anxiety never quite left her last time around, so her excitement was always a little subdued-- but for this Kaya, unsuppressed and over-enabled, she let her dreams run wild.

Usopp loves it, though. This energy was very endearing, and he hopes it never burns out.

He listens to Kaya as she drones on about Khlahadore's very unnervingly-detailed injury report that she 's managed to snatch from her parents. She was definitely not supposed to read it, the details were gruesomely depicted, in a way a little teenager shouldn't be exposed to.

"But papa doesn 't know for sure yet, ' she 's listing them off her fingers. She must have memorized it, because she can 't take the physical copy out of the house in case of an emergency, 'I also found X-rays! There were multiple compound fractures in the left tibula and-- '

(For a girl that will eventually start worrying herself to the point of sickness, she sure is fine with very descriptive gruesome talk.)

Even Usopp felt a little queasy when she described the worst of the wounds, but that could be the fault of his overactive imagination filling in the blanks. Regardless--

who is this very scary girl and what have they done to soft-spoken sweetheart Kaya?

'And we don 't have a hospital on this island so we moved into the basement to do the surgery and-- '

Kaya 's parents must 've really been focusing, if they didn 't notice Kaya following them. 'Why has Usopp never known that Kaya 's basement was the village 's only hospital? He only recently learned about the basement, wine cellar, and panic room, too-- this house wasn't just frustratingly rich, they were frustratingly

huge

.

'--then just them two! And town doctor of course. They just all gathered in there with super cool equipment and clothes and routines and all and then they-- '

Usopp sighs.

She didn't seem to run out of things to say, but he was going to enjoy every second of her talk.

(If she could handle all of his stories in the first time around, he can handle hers, too.)

-

-

'It seems like Hachi 's taken a liking to you recently, Nami. '

No matter how many years pass, Nami will never get over her bone-breaking fear of Arlong.

When she faces Arlong, singled out and standing before him-- She feels her heart seize in her chest, her shoulders tighten, her toes shrill up, her knees weaken.

Even though she 's long past the point of being afraid of Fishmen, even though she 's long past the point of forgiveness and overcoming trauma, even though she lived her last years amongst Fishmen-- Arlong is different.

'That 's fine, ' Arlong says, begrudgingly. 'You may be human, but you are one of us. I 'm pleased to see how you 're assimilating. '

She 's not assimilating into anything. She 's just-- just

adapting,

she swears. 'She 's not tolerating Arlong. She 's just ignoring him, gritting her teeth and biding and enduring and trying, trying,

trying

not to explode this instant.

(If it 's just Arlong, she can take him out.)

She can think of various ways-- sneaking up on him, or, if she tries hard enough, maybe fighting face-to-face ' Arlong 's biggest weakness is how much he looks down on humans. Nami can win, easy. Especially with her Haki. She's getting used to her arm now-- she can give straight punches and not wince at the strain anymore. Soon enough she'll fight with it perfectly, she knows.

But if she wins, then what?

Which marine base will come to her aid and arrest Arlong? Which base will lock him up and let her claim the bounty?

None. None of them will, if Nami can even get that far.

The entire community in Arlong Park will take her out in an instant, stronger or not. Because skills aside, Fishmen really are ten times stronger than humans, and Nami is most of all a weak human girl with half a barely-functional metal limb.

'I look forward to hearing of your endeavors, my

dear

little mapmaker, ' Arlong sings, and Nami wants to bite his hand at her chin. Wants to throw up.

She bites her lip and clenches her fist and agonizes because Arlong

knows

. Arlong knows that Nami

can

do something-- call the Marines. Run. Fight back-- but he knows she

won 't

. Not as long as Cocoyashi is his hostage.

He 's smart like that.

When Arlong finally releases her to entertain one of Kuroobi 's comments she doesn 't hear, she turns around and leaves.

If only she was stronger.

Stronger than Robin, who could bear to run for twenty years under the radar.

Stronger than Zoro, who would no doubt, have destroyed this place in seconds.

Stronger than Luffy, who faces all his problems and always comes out victorious.

I do what you can 't, and you do what I can 't.

Nami waits and waits but no. No, she won 't, can 't, mustn 't wait for a Prince Charming this time. She can 't just--

expect

to be saved. What was she doing, waiting here like a damsel in distress? She's always like this-- she's always here, crying-- waiting, helpless.

People have wanted her cartographic abilities for years.

Every time, Luffy has to save her.

(What is she still doing here, weak and useless?)

She needs to pursue the fastest way around. The fastest, most peaceful, most efficient, and the only route without corruption in its wake. Who, in this era, can subdue Arlong with ease?

That 's it.

-

Nami sets sail.

(First, she 'll cross the Calm Belt into the Grand Line.)

Going through Reverse Mountain takes too long, expends too much effort, and it's too shaky a chance of actually getting through. It's one thing to go there with a crew or on a cruise-- another thing to go alone. One man cannot sail a ship that can withstand the rough waves-- she'd shatter to pieces at the peak.

Even if she

does

make it through, it 'll take too long to actually get anywhere after that if they get caught up by Laboon or Whiskey Peak on the way.

She just needs to look for the Knight of the Sea, Jinbei.

Hopefully, he 's in Paradise. Nami needs a way to get information-- a channel, something fast. Like the extensive Den Den Mushi chains spilled through the forces of a government base, tracking records of the Four Emperors across the seas.

So, infiltration it is.

She can 't go through the seduction route this time. It 's significantly harder to charm a pedophile when one of your arms are made of not-flesh, so Nami disguises as a guy. It might be easier to try and convince someone she's a capable worker. 'The scars from her prosthetic arm surgery and the toned muscles she's been trying to accumulate can certainly help.

(It 's a relief that her chest hasn 't developed much yet, since she 's barely a teenager for now.)

Chest bound tight with bandages that cross over her left shoulder, expertly covering the Arlong mark as if it was an injury-- Nami puts on a tank top to show off her metal arm proudly.

With a few expert lines and pleas, the young and eager

Namizo

hikes a ride on a marine ship as their newest chore boy.

She may not be as great as Robin at this, but Nami 's got her fair track record in the infiltrate-and-betray business as well.

-

One miscalculation, though.

'Do your job, probably, Smoker-kun. Can 't believe you 're still acting like this. Hina 's in disbelief. '

"Be quiet, Hina, you're not the one that just got back from a long term suicide mission."

"Do

not

call it that. Hina's very disgusted by your attitude. Hina expected better from you."

"

Smoker

is also very disgusted by your face. Leave

Smoker

alone."

"Don't

imitate

!"

Namizo is supposed to deliver this stack of letters and the newspapers to the highest ranking officers of this ship. 'Which, in hindsight, she

should have checked

, is Lieutenant Commander Hina and Lieutenant Smoker.

The latter has his legs on the desk, lounging exhaustedly on the sofa with a nondescript book splayed over his face. The former is staring disapprovingly at him, sitting on her desk and reading through other paperwork.

Namizo freezes shock still at the door, despite having knocked and being given permission to enter.

She quickly snaps out of it when the two turn to her. 'Saluting, she greets them as she enters and hands the papers to Lt.Commander Hina. 'Her smile is awkward, her posture is stiff-- but she breathes, and she does her errand as told.

Who can blame her? Of all the ships she could 've snuck on

'

It 's okay. She 's not Burglar Cat Nami, she 's not even a pirate.

Wait, she is. She 's an Arlong Pirate right now. Man, that 's trippy.

But it 's okay. Strictly speaking, she 's

Namizo

, the new and nervous chore boy that 's working

his

best mopping floors every day.

Namizo confidently bids

his

superiors goodbye, and closes the door a little too loudly on the way out.

Then

he

runs, because that was scary.

Looks like their first Smoker confrontation in the future is going to be awkward. Nami sighs in relief once she 's past the immediate vicinity of the office.

Man, Smoker 's not even a captain yet. Time travel really is trippy '

he 's always been strangely perceptive about pirates, though. Nami decides that she should try to stay far from there from now, just in case.

She won 't want her cover to be blown too quickly.