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Caught in a daze of tunnel vision, Usopp slammed his hammer against the wooden plank he was pinning to the mast of the ship for the umpteenth time. He’d since lost any semblance of his surroundings amongst the dull repetitive symphony of the metallic thud which sounded when the hammer met the nail.
The sun’s rays, undisturbed thanks to the clear blue sky, shone against his dark skin that was glossed in sweat, the same sweat which nearly made him slip and hammer his finger instead. Months at sea had since made him accustomed to the eternal rocking of the Going Merry across the rough waves of the Grand Line; he’d only feel that swaying if he focused on it long enough, and he tried not to less he lose his lunch.
He sighed merrily as he finished nailing the plank in, the mast itself now looking like a patchwork art piece with several planks affixed to it. Twas a temporary fix to the problem that was the Merry’s growing list of injuries that would need restoration from a proper shipwright.
Nope! Not gonna get sad over that, the Merry will be fixed in no time at all! Usopp chanted in his mind to relieve his growing worries. Luffy had promised that they’d do everything they could to find a shipwright that would patch up the Merry, so for now they had to focus on ensuring the Merry would survive long enough to make it to one.
Picking up another plank, he set off to continue repairs.
“Oi Usopp!” Zoro’s voice called over from behind. The sound of footfalls grew louder as the swordman approached him. “Isn’t this your old man?”
Zoro waved a paper in front of his face and Usopp snatched it from his hands.
It was a wanted poster. Wanted Dead or Alive was his father, Yasopp. Nose aside, a trait Usopp had inherited from his mother, the resemblance between the two was ncanny, though Usopp was sure he’d never find himself brandishing a shotgun in front of a camera like his dad was in the picture.
“Yup, that’s him alright.” Usopp said proudly. He couldn’t help the grin the split his face when he saw his father’s bounty had risen, and his locs had grown a tad too since his last wanted poster. “Someday I’ll have a bounty as high as his!” But hopefully not for a while, the thought of people coming to collect a bounty that high from him made a lump grow in his throat.
“You should probably show Luffy this too, I’m sure he’d be just as excited.” He handed him back the poster and turned to continue his work.
“Your dad’s a sharpshooter on Shanks’ crew, right?” Zoro asked. He hadn’t moved despite Usopp turning his back to him.
“Yup! The coolest on the Grand Line!”
“Why don’t you use a gun like he does?”
It was a simple question really, but it still shocked Usopp enough that he almost got whiplash from how fast he had turned to Zoro and blinked. He noted the serious expression on his crewmate’s face, he must’ve been wanting to ask this for a while.
It took Usopp a few seconds to form an answer, “Well for starters… it isn’t easy getting a gun in Syrup Village, so I kind of relied on my trusty slingshot during combat.”
Zoro chuckled and quirked an eyebrow. “You mean playing pretend pirate?”
“Hey!” Usopp jabbed the plank into Zoro’s gut, slightly offended. A blush crossed his cheeks, but he coughed and returned to fixing the Merry before continuing, “That’s not to say I was never interested in wielding a gun like my old man, I always imagined that if I actually became a pirate one day that I’d use a gun too, but eventually I realized something.”
“And what was that?”
“Guns are really just made to kill people.”
“Oh yeah?” Zoro asked. It was simple, but Usopp could tell he was asking him to clarify. Zoro plopped down next to him with a thud and awaited his answer, though from Usopp’s position in front of the mast he couldn’t see him.
“I mean guns can protect people, but the amount of harm even a single bullet can do…” he shivered, thinking of some of the incidents he had heard in Syrup Village where someone was wounded, paralyzed, or killed from bullets. “It’s not the type of harm I dreamed of inflicting in my brave warrior conquests.” A warrior wasn’t someone who killed people, at least that’s never how Usopp imagined brave warriors to be.
“That’s fair,” Zoro said. He yawned as though ready to wind the conversation down to a close. “I do think you have a good thing going with your slingshot, though you could do a few things to make it look cooler.”
“Noted,” Usopp chuckled. “But now I’m curious, what made you ask?”
“Well out of everyone on the crew, our two roles are the most similar,” he said. Usopp raised an eyebrow. “You’re the sharpshooter, I’m the swordmen. We take down anybody who’s in our way.”
“Oh.” Well duh... Usopp couldn’t help but blush at the implication that he and Zoro were somewhat equals, though he wouldn’t dare imagine the outcome if he ever got into a fight with him.
“Your whole spiel about guns makes me realize that us swordsmen and sharpshooters are a lot more similar than I thought.”
“No offense Zoro, but I wouldn’t trust you anywhere near a gun.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Zorosaid pointedly. He bunted the sheath of Wado Ichimonji into the back of Usopp’s head. “A long time ago, my master in my hometown told me that swords are created to kill people, and I never really got what he meant until a decade or so later.”
That was interesting. Zoro rarely talked about his hometown, much less anyone he knew growing up. “Have you killed anyone?”
There was a silence, and Usopp had taken that as an answer in and of itself, but his heart dropped to his stomach when Zoro clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. He slowly turned his head towards his crewmate, shuddering all the while, and a bloodcurdling scream left his lips as he watched Zoro steadily used his thumb to reveal the blade of the Wado Ichimonji. The metal of the blade gleamed in the light, and the killing intent angled towards him was almost palpable.
“I won’t tell anyone, I swear!” Usopp shrieked.
Zoro held a glare on Usopp for a few seconds longer before exploding into a chorus laugher and he clutched onto his stomach for dear life. “Man if only you could’ve seen your face!” he said in between chuckles and deep breaths of air.
“You’re gonna be the death of me…” Usopp sighed, his shoulders dropped. The hammer has slipped out of his hand in his weakened, terrified grasp.
“But to answer your question,” Zoro said gravely. He uprighted himself and leaned back against the ship. “I have killed people before. A few times in self-defense, and a few times when I needed some cash and decided to target the bounties of a few fucked-up pirates.” They did refer to him as the Pirate Hunter for a reason. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but I’m not ashamed of it either.”
Usopp remained silent for a second.
“If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t killed anyone since joining this crew.”
“No don’t worry, I’m not judging you or anything. You had your reasons,” Usopp said, looking to Zoro and giving a genuine smile. “And I can tell that you’d never kill someone in cold blood.”
Zoro nodded, his lips drawn till it was a thin straight line and his hands lazily hung over his swords. “I’m not saying that our roles are designed to kill people, though I’m sure that’s how it works on some crews but making sure no one messes with us is kinda our job, might as well stick together.”
“And with your swords and my aim, no one’ll dare mess with us!” Usopp exclaimed proudly. He felt a weird fervor of pride from Zoro’s words. He was right, his goal was protecting the crew, and he’d do anything to ensure his trusty slingshot was the first thing between him and anything that’d get in Luffy’s way to being towards becoming the King of the Pirates.
“That said, if someone were to really fuck one of us over, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. Not for a second, and Luffy’d be the only one who’d have the power to stop me. You know what I mean?” Zoro’s words came off dead serious. He held a stern gaze at Usopp and his hand seemed to cling to Wado as though he were ready to slice something down at a moment’s notice.
Usopp gulped and nodded slowly. There was an unspoken no killing rule on the ship. It just wasn’t the type of pirates the Straw Hats were – and surely not the type Luffy wanted them to become. Goosebumps covered Usopp’s skin as he imagined what Zoro meant by ‘if someone were to fuck them over’. He didn’t want to think of that anymore.
And ‘only Luffy would have the power to stop him’. Usopp knew that Zoro didn’t mean combat power, but authority.
“Usopp, if you had to kill someone to save the crew, would you?”
The question sent Usopp into a panic. He opened his mouth, closed it, repeatedly, stuttering over words as his brain scrambled to form a proper response.
“Don’t worry.” Zoro clapped a hand on Usopp’s shoulder, breaking him from the cycle of trying to form an answer. The swordsman stood up, grabbing a plank and a hammer, and began aiding him with repairs on the ship. “If it comes down to it, I’ll bear that sin.” Zoro spoke calmly.
Usopp slowly nodded, the sincerity in Zoro’s words not unfounded. He felt a little better at the implication that Zoro wasn’t looking down on him for not being able to give an answer, and he appreciated that.
Still though… it’d be a question that’d keep him up for nights on end. As a swordmen, Zoro was ready to kill for the crew, if need be, but as the sharpshooter, why wasn’t Usopp ready to bear that same cross?