Chapter Text
Franky smashes through the towering seastone doors to find… the wrong vault.
The Revolutionary Army has never been exactly reliable when it comes to reading Marine blueprints. Franky’s sure he can name a few occasions on which Idiotbarg has sent an awkward, cloaked twenty-something looking to analyze the structure of a Marine fortress to him.
Some super stupid dude probably saw a room labeled treasure, assuming it referred to money.
Instead, he finds various cuisines, silks, and spices, all packed into crates labeled TO MARY GEOISE. Silks and spices, while valuable, don’t have the weight or compactness needed to store enough Berries worth of them for that sweet, sweet chunk of Adam wood.
While he’s looking for something that might be expensive enough (though he’s not great at gauging prices), he locks his eyes onto something he knows he has to take. He can get the money later- he’d probably just blow it anyways. It’s imperative that this thing get where it needs to go right now.
**
Franky leaves Marine HQ with nothing but an old straw hat.
(Though it won’t sell for more than a few hundred Berri, something tells him it’s the most valuable thing he could take.)
**
Of course Sniper King is a brave warrior of the sea, with a shot quicker than the eye can process, but did this responsibility really have to be put on him?
He, like all those from Sniper Island, has impeccable aim, an eye strong enough to shoot an ant amidst a thunderstorm. But with their captain- their best friend- Straw Hat Luffy on the line, would they still be able to strike true?
Sniper King just doesn’t do well under pressure, that’s all.
There’s a difference between firing a bullet and hoping it will hit its target when the receiver of his stories watches, sun and sea in his eyes, and becoming the hero foretold in his tales, the only hope to save that same boy.
The difference becomes more and more apparent as he watches Whitebeard Pirates slash and claw with intense strength and honor at their opponents, Revolutionaries appearing from blood and dust to make calculated blows, Admirals rain magma, ice, beams of light down upon the battlefield. Robin wasn’t bluffing. The Straw Hat Pirates are a dinghy on stormy seas, a weakling amidst warriors. They’re completely out of their league.
So why, just why, did this responsibility have to go to Sniper King?
(He’s so yelling at Nami later. If she’s alive. If he’s alive. If Luffy’s alive. If every single thing at stake is saved. The chances that he will come to tell her off grow slimmer and slimmer by the second.)
(He can be a coward, a liar, a weakling all he wants. He can even die.
But he cannot miss this shot.)
He becomes less and less aware of every footstep, every Marine he outmanuvers. The battlefield morphs into a red and blue blur, and so does his position amidst it. All that matters now is the silver that hides in his paling knuckles, the slingshot, the wind that must carry it over a kilometer to his destination if he wants a good angle.
The wind is going maybe 10 kph northwards, but that number could be affected at any time by Nami’s storms, by the Admirals’ powers, by the TSUNAMIS THE EMPEROR OF THE FUCKING SEA WHITEBEARD CAN CREATE AT ANY SECOND-
He can’t do anything about the wind. It, like the sea, is an unpredictable thing, loved and even controlled by brave warriors of the sea. It could turn on him at a moment’s notice, making all he can do as an ant amidst a thunderstorm irrelevant as he and everyone he loves are swept up by the wind.
Luffy has scaled mountains on the Merry, survived typhoons, fallen only to rise time and time again. But this, Sniper King knows, is different in all the worst ways. After all, Luffy is trapped in seastone, and he can do nothing but try to save him amidst the typhoon. Trying isn’t enough, in the end. After all, he can’t miss this shot. He has to be certain, as the heroes in the stories he tells- as Sniper King is, that his ammo can strike true.
How can he be certain? He’s not a hero, nor is he a brave warrior of the sea! He’s just a bug, a man, a weakling amidst a storm larger than he could possibly comprehend! Why was this responsibility put on him?
“Oi, kid, what’s up with you? Got a stick up yer ass or something?”
“The great Sniper King is absolutely confident! It’s an insult to his greatness that you would imply otherwise!” The great Sniper King hesitates as his hands gain definition once more, the face of the man who inquired on his condition becoming clearer as he takes a deep breath like his mom told him to when he was little.
“On second thought…” he squeaks, “It’s close.”
“Ah,” the mysterious man replies, looking down at Sniper King’s wrists, “The keys.”
“Keys? What keys?” Sniper King reels back as he scrambles for a lie. “This is a locket from… from my long-lost lover! She’s waiting for me back home!”
“Brat,” the warrior says, as he cocks his pistol and shoots ten-odd Marines who were chasing him as they cried for justice, “I can see straight through ya. Need my help?”
“I, the great Sniper King, am not so feeble as to ever need help…” He looks down at the fallen grunts behind him and gapes, “...these are all straight in the eye! How did you-”
“I’ll teach ya how, lad, but yer gonna need to calm down first, right? I want lil’ Loof alive just as much as you do.”
“I don’t know if we have the time for that, or if it’ll work. I’ve only got one opportunity for this, and I’m going to waste it, I’m going to-”
“Breathe,” the warrior puts his hand on Sniper King’s chest, making sure to push down hard enough that he can feel it. “You won’t miss this shot. I’ll make sure of it. Now then, let’s find a better place to take it from.”
**
Garp… is a hero.
He must be.
It’s always been justice that drove him, after all. Even when he was a brat, he hid posters promoting the enforcement of justice amidst the roots of a great tree. He knew he would be the one on those posters someday, grinning and pointing down upon a starry-eyed babe with a dream of looking out for the weakling; for protecting what’s right. When he inevitably became the face plastered on a recruitment flier, he was overjoyed to see that he was finally a hero. An example. A great man who’s devoted his life to the pursuit of what’s right.
Now, when he looks up at the aging banner in his quarters, hung to remind himself every day what he’s fighting for, it’s not himself he sees.
Because Garp… is a hero.
He’s also a coward and a fool.
Because in every tale he’s heard, one thing stands true; that a hero never wavers. Even through doubt and regret, they never falter in their final decision; to fight for what’s right. To fight for the world. For sixty odd years, Garp upheld that standard even through the times in which his ideals wavered (even through the ascension to a world of false gods, even as they set fire to the boy whose specter appears everywhere he looks. Even through the reign of a timeless yet temporary king whose crown fell into the hands of his grandson. Even through the revalation that sacrifices must be made for justice.)
Because Garp is a hero to the world.
Because Garp is a hero to himself.
Because the moment he makes a decision, he abandons even the phantom of a grinning man pointing downwards at a starry-eyed babe, calling them towards what’s right. Because the moment he makes a decision, childish fantasies amidst the roots of a great tree decompose into the earth until there’s nothing left. Because the moment he makes a decision, Garp sacrifices one. He admits there’s a disorientating clash between the justice that’s never wavered in his soul for sixty odd years and what is truly right, and he knows that’s not a burden his old soul can bear.
Because Garp is a-
Who is he kidding?
When he looks in the mirror, he sees only a shadow of himself. When he ponders what it means to be a hero, what his justice entails, for the first time in sixty odd years, he doesn’t find even a hesitant answer.
Because in every tale he’s heard, two things stand true: A hero always fights for the people, the weaklings, the sense of justice that never wavers in his heart, and if a hero hears a plea for help, he answers.
When he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t know which one to choose. It gets him nowhere, so he looks away before he can see the first tears fall, and sees a blue-haired pervert running through the pristine halls with his grandson’s straw hat.
“Who are you and what are you doing with that? Do I need to apprehend you?” The voice that escapes him isn’t like anything he’s heard from himself before, but nobody who hadn’t met him would be able to discern that.
“Garp the Fist, huh? Hero of the Marines?”
“How do you recognize me?”
“Pictures in the news. Marine recruitment flyers.” He shrugs. “Always thought they were a super load of bullshit, but now I know for sure.”
“What do you mean by that?” He’d usually have honor to defend, but that’s been scattered to the wind. It’s a genuine question, and the blue-haired man seems to understand this.
“You should be out there, shouldn’t you? Or are you a traitor?”
“A traitor?”
“Since you’re in here moping instead of out there doin’ something, I can only assume you’re one, Garp the Fist. An’ if there’s anything I despise more than everything else in the world, it’s a traitor.”
“A traitor to what?” His voice is barely above a whisper now. It’s tired, fading, and oh-so-weak. “To the world? To the Marines? To myself?”
“To your family,” the man replies, “Whatever that means to you.”
Monkey D. Garp takes a deep breath as, after sixty odd years, he finally makes a decision. Though his mind still doubts it, he’s an old man and he doesn’t have the time to ponder.
“Give me that damn hat.”
“Why should I?” The man clutches it to his chest.
Because Monkey D. Garp doesn’t know what’s right, what justice is. Hell, nobody does. Because the ferryman of the dead knows nothing but his duty; because in a problem about a railcart taught when he was young there’s no way to stop blood from splattering all over the tracks.
Most importantly, because Luffy needs his help.
“Because I’m gonna go save my grandson.”
**
When he was a lad, he lived in a land of stories.
It was an island of snipers, a cozy village in the East Blue, a status quo. A world for his tale to begin its spinning. And oh, did he spin tales. At first, they were wild, childish things, stories of magic and splendor, of talking toys and islands made of sweets. At their center was the great Captain Usopp, a brave warrior of the sea that could never be defeated. The stories he told kept him company in an environment so small, simple, unforgiving as a quaint village in the East Blue.
As he grew, he realized that those stories took place in nothing but lands of fantasy. Thus, his tales became simpler, more grounded. Instead of filling them with fantasy or bravado, they conveyed a miniscule yet pivotal wish; that the great hero he’d heard of in his mother’s stories would come back to save them.
(For a long time, he didn’t tell stories. He simply created a world in his head where pirates were coming, where he didn’t have to be so alone.)
Then, he found an audience.
First came three little kids who forced their way into these fantasies. They were a crew without a captain, three lost boys without a hero to lead them home. He had no choice but to slake their thirst for a world made of dreams and never-ending hope.
Then came a sickly young woman, trapped in the great castle atop the towering hill. A damsel in distress, who peered outside the second-story window for even a little bird to talk to, a hero to come swooping in. A songbird in a cage, listening intently to stories of a world where she could spread her wings and fly.
A few years later, he met Luffy.
Luffy, the rubber dumbass with a knack for getting himself into trouble, listened to his stories with an intent gaze Usopp wouldn’t think possible from him if he couldn’t see it. Luffy, who always got back up when he fell, who took a weakling like him who’s only a hero in stories and told him to simply do what does best.
In return, Luffy flipped his world down and turned it into a land of stories.
A land where the clashes of giants can be heard over the rustling of a forest canopy. Where countries of sand are freed by a chill rain. Where he could be the hero, the warrior he always wished to be. At the center of it all was Usopp- not a captain, but the great sniper of the Straw Hat Pirates.
He thinks of the stories he’s told, the lands he has access to in the recesses of his mind. Of the mask he wears, of the hero he tries so desperately to be. Of the failure and success of a man called Sniper King, and of the world he dismissed so long ago as but the deluded fantasy of a lonely little boy. Of his captain, who lives in the stars, coming down to earth with a single, unrepentant strike of a seastone blade-
-and it’s unimaginable even to the teller of tales.
(Yet he imagines it. It’s a curtain of darkness over constellations, the myths that define them. It’s a cautionary tale of the clouds which cover his eyes parting to reveal a cruel, cruel, reality that cannot be erased nor rewritten. It’s the world Robin escaped from, the world all the naysayers along the way warned of.
It’s not a world he wants to live in, yet it’s the world he’s certain will come.)
Usopp has written many a tragedy in his head, but none as near, as clear in his visage. It’s a beautiful one, yet so very dark. Of the world, plunged into another age of darkness. Of the pirate crew, shattering at the mercy of the tides. Of the great hero Sniper King, destined to be alone.
Death would be mercy to the man who holds the catalyst.
He could pass it to another person, to the great warrior with exemplary aim. To anyone, absolutely anyone, but a weakling like him.
But he cannot miss this shot.
The whirlpool of Marines is so overwhelming that the mysterious warrior finds himself almost entirely occupied with holding them back. Not only are they strong, but they must also have quite a bit of intelligence to recognize that the shot Sniper King is about to take determines the outcome of his captain’s life- of the world.
Sniper King tries to attune himself to a mysterious sixth sense, to a watercolor visage, a certainty that runs through his every vein, but he comes up empty-handed. No, not that. He comes up with a raging meteor, an apocalypse, a jangling silver key in a cloth pouch, and no way to get it to its destination.
Ace, with sureness in his footsteps, his flames, his single aim to fire towards, sprints closer and closer. He gracefully dodges every Marine who hollers to apprehend the son of Gold Roger. After all, at this moment, he is not the Pirate King’s offspring. He is Fire Fist Ace, and he is going to save his brother.
Robin, with the phantasm of devilish wings, slaps away death’s chill for a single moment longer, every second a part of her sacrifice. She does not wear a mask. After all, she doesn’t need one. She is the Devil Child Nico Robin, and she will not shed a single tear tonight. She will ensure her captain escapes alive.
Sniper King, with the deciding factor lodged in the elastic of Kabuto as it reaches its limits, holds no such power.
“Kid!”
The cacophony of noises fades as a single voice rings loud and clear in his mind.
“You’ve gotta trust yourself!”
“I can’t! This is the most important shot I’ve ever made! How could I possibly be certain that I’m not gonna destroy everything they’ve built and ruin everything I’m trying to save?”
“You ain’t.”
“I ain’t?”
“You ain’t,” the man continues, “You can’t be certain none o’ that’ll happen. Just that you can’t miss.”
“You aren’t making any sense! Of course I can’t miss this shot! I’ve got a captain to save, a crew to protect, and if I do-“
“You can’t miss this shot.”
Usopp, as he begins to deconstruct, to construe himself into something strange and new, takes a deep breath and repeats it like a mantra.
He can’t miss this shot.
He can’t miss this shot.
He can’t miss this shot.
Then he understands as the target grows clearer in his mind’s eye.
He can’t miss this shot!
As he cocks his slingshot towards his captain’s figure, ever more opaque to him as Fire Fist shoots up the scaffold in a pillar of flame, he feels certain- for the first time in his life- of this:
He is Usopp, and he is going to save his captain.
(When he was a lad, he lived in a land of stories–
– and in none of them can he miss this shot.)
He flings the bullet to the mercy of the winds, and he watches as it rockets towards its destination, faster than the human eye-
-and straight into Fire Fist’s outstretched hand.
**
“Oi, you can open your eyes now. You did it, kid!”
“I know I did it. I… did it. I DID IT!”
As the realization sinks into his veins and he exits the headspace of projected certainty, blue and orange fills his eyes. It’s a flaming bird of prey, gliding over the battlefield as it spits embers at blurs of justice, more panicked than ever. It’s the white receding from his vision as the loudspeakers spray a message Sniper King’s too in awe to hear. It’s a beautiful cacophony of joyful, fearful hollering.
It’s a hand on his shoulder, reminding him that this is not a story, a watercolor painting. It’s reality, and Sniper King couldn’t be more elated.
It’s his captain, free.
“WE DID IT!”
The warrior slaps Sniper King’s back with a wild grin. “You did it, brat. Seas, I wish I had some booze to celebrate with!”
Sniper King blushes under his mask. “You helped me! I couldn’t have done it without you!”
(It’s a lie, he absently thinks. For a single moment, he discovered what it was like to feel certainty. In not a single story did he miss that shot. Not even in the one erased. Still, he can’t thank the warrior enough.)
“Ah, it was nothing. I’m glad Anchor’s saved as you are.”
“It’s not over yet, though.” He has fallen off of the peaks of achievement, to become something more like himself.
“It’s not,” the man replies, “but who cares?”
“WHO CARES? I-“
“Listen, brat. I’ve met Ace, and I’d trust him with his little bro’s life. Same with Ol’ Eddie over there.”
“DID YOU JUST CALL ‘STRONGEST MAN ALIVE’ WHITEBEARD OL’ EDDIE? ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?”
“Ey! Relax! Have a drin- dammit, I’m out of booze. Forgot.”
“IS BEER THE ONLY THING YOU CAN THINK OF?”
Suddenly, the brave warrior becomes eerily quiet and subdued.
“No.”
One of Sniper King’s many abilities is his proficiency at reading the room. Thus, he knows when to shut up, stand tall, and listen to his mentor’s lament.
“My son,” he murmurs, “Usopp, his name was.”
It’s a really good thing Sniper King doesn’t have beer. If he were, he’d be blowing it out of his nose right about now. He’d also be screaming, sobbing, rolling around on the pearly white guard post they’re on. He’d be crying, laughing, burying his face into the man before slapping him to the floor and engaging him in a wrestling match.
He’d be gritting his teeth, sucking his thumb, jumping off the outpost to see where it lands him. He’d tell a lie about being Usopp’s friend, then another in which he’d never heard of the man. He’d use the script he’s been developing his entire life, then he’d forget his lines. His voice would come out in whispers, in screams, in an off-tune note that screeches in his head.
Or maybe, he’d just stand there, silent, paling, shaking in boots he’s too small to fill.
Yeah, it seems like that’s what’s happening.
Luckily, the man is too preoccupied to notice that his counterpart is experiencing an onslaught of emotions he previously thought impossible.
“He’d be bout’ your age now, wouldn’t he? Yeah, fifteen. I left him behind when he was a wee lad, yanno? The seas were callin’, an’ they ain’t a safe place for a little boy.” Yasopp sighs.
“I hoped the seas would come for him like his father, that he’d be a brave warrior of the sea too. That he’d find a good crew like yours and’ sail the Blues with ‘em.” Usopp’s thoughts race through his mind so quickly that they become a static which drowns out all other noise.
“Later on, I stopped thinking that way. Really, I left him- and oh, how it pained me!” he says as an afterthought, “-so that he’d be safe an’ sound with his mum. I’d be happy if he turns out to be like her.”
“Now,” he says in a tone that’s sobering to the both of them, “I just want him to be happy, whatever he chooses.”
Yasopp leans over the railing, eyes glazed over as he watches the flaming phoenix make landfall as the crowd of Marines around it grows denser. He’d really take any opportunity to talk about his son, wouldn’t he?
“Maybe you’d know, since you’re around his age. Ya probably don’t, but I might as well try.” He looks straight into Usopp’s eye, as he is dissected, repainted, morphed into something a little more like himself.
“Do you think he’s happy?”
Usopp considers lying, but he knows the words could never leave his lips. Not in the face of his dream. He may be a coward, but he’s not afraid to face his feelings. So, he tenses his shoulders, purses his lips, and says something that might just be the truth.
“I think… he’s getting there.”
“Getting there, huh? What makes you say that?”
“Life’s hard, you know? It’s filled with sadness, anger, adversity- seas, I don’t know where I’m going with this. G-give me a second, alright?”
He grew up in a land of stories, of infinite possibilities. Some were made of childish fantasy, others filled with tragedy. Most were just the wishes of a lonely child. He grew up with infinite possibilities, yet he could have never imagined the life he’s leading now.
It’s not perfect. It’s not like the stories he spent hours creating, gazing upon, rapt in illustrations of a leader, a hero, a brave warrior of the sea. It’s rough, and it’s terrifying, and it’s chased by the shadows of an unhappy ending.
But Usopp’s starting to think he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“He’s got- I’m sure he’s got a good crew- good people by his side. And those people- they’ll do what he can’t do, help him out even if he’s a weakling. They’ll be there for him until the day he can finally say he’s happy, and they’ll make sure he never has to be alone.”
This may not be a certainty, but it’s something Usopp’s really starting to believe.
A strange, salty liquid begins to pour out of Sniper King’s mask, and he knows his time is up.
“A-a-ANYWAYS, IT SEEMS SNIPER KING MUST DEPART! THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE IN NEED OF SNIPING ASSISTANCE!”
“Gahahaha! Good luck, Sniper King!” Yasopp says, as the teenager scuttles away, manuvering a strange grappling hook on his belt to attach to a nearby flagpole.
“Weird kid,” he mumbles when Sniper King is finally off of the outpost, having left his mask behind.
“He’s gonna do great things someday.”