Warm Memories and Brotherly Bonds

Chapter 31: Enter Cyborg Franky

"Though I know that I shouldn't have enjoyed seeing that," Nami said after a moment, "But you can't say that your boys didn't deserve that."

"Talk about overkill though," Franky muttered darkly to himself, it was bad enough coming back to see the destroyed remains of what had been his home... but this was so much worse. He had to watch his boys get pummeled to the ground and his house blown up and he wasn't able to do anything to help them. Damn, if he wasn't a Straw Hat Pirate, he'd want to pound them all into the dirt right now. Instead, he took deep breaths, trying to remember that they were like family now too.

Feeling a little bit better, he brought himself back to hear them talking.

"Though I don't see why Luffy decided all of a sudden that we needed a new ship right after all that," Chopper said sadly.

"Well, I think that the shock over hearing Merry's condition wore of and it all sank in," Nami told them all sadly.

"Maybe, but I think that was only part of it," Zoro said as he folded his arms, "He was probably thinking a lot about what Iceberg said about his responsibility of being the captain. And I'm guessing that after seeing what happed to Usopp, he realized he had to do hard things to protect the crew. And Merry was no longer strong enough to be able to protect us anymore." His one eye glanced sideways at Usopp, who was looking worse with every second before he sighed and finished. "Being Captain isn't always fun... remember that. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions for the good of the crew."

At his words, Brook was now feeling a strong sense of foreboding... he looked around at everyone else, and he could see their tense expressions and Usopp looked ready to fall to his knees and start crying at any moment. Just what happened? But from how everyone was treating this, he had a bad feeling that they were about to see what the problem was.

The memories appeared again it was much later in the afternoon. Things were strangely peaceful, the ship was rocking gently, at the cape. The air was chilly, a cool and pleasant breeze was giving gentle touches to the crew as light falling like liquid amber on the vast deck and soaking it with its rich color. The memory Straw Hats were all scattered around the deck, they were all looking at the catalog, but no one seemed to have their hearts into it as they flipped silently through the pages. They kept glancing anxiously to the door that led to the galley, and they knew they must be waiting for news on Usopp.

All the current Straw Hats felt their hearts sinking, dread spreading throughout their bodies. They all looked up to the door as well, knowing what was gonna happen.

"I can't," Usopp whimpered, this had been the one moment he had dreaded seeing again more than any other, even memories about the war...

"Then close your eyes and don't watch," Zoro said without looking at him—the others all focusing on the door and waiting for memory Chopper to come out. "But this is as much for you as it is for Luffy." When Usopp looked confused, Zoro added, "You're ashamed over what this next memory has for you right?" When Usopp nodded he finished, "Then that's enough. But the past is the past, we can't change it no matter how badly we want to. You can either be a man and face that, or run away and hide."

To be honest, Usopp wanted to turn tail and run for it, hiding sounded like a good idea. He wanted to close his eyes and plug up his ears so that he'd never have to see how stupid he acted here, but he just couldn't bring himself to turn away. If he was gonna be a brave warrior of the sea, then he had to try to act like it here.

But it was hard to remind himself that when he remembered all the awful things he said here.

However, Brook suddenly spoke up, "Robin-san? I see everyone else here, but where are you?"