Name Me Something That Appeals to You
Roronoa Zoro has no idea how the name ‘Pirate Hunter’ came up when he doesn’t call himself that. Usopp may have a small, intsy wintsy, inkling.
-Zoro starts pirate hunting really early on in this AU
It started with whispers. Rumors, amongst townsfolk in Syrup Village.
It was a usual, casual occurrence. Some words usually left out to air dry, maybe hydrate with new conversation if it ever were needed, but nothing too new. Nothing appealing to latch onto.
Until, he heard the shopkeeper mutter along to one of the bookstore owners about a terrifying bounty hunter. Apparently the guy had three swords and a devil-like appearance — pretty young too. He saw how weary it made both the grown men just thinking about it.
‘Boom,’ Usopp thought, a jovial smile creeping along the squishy creases of his young face. ‘That’s it! Something to get the people’s attention!’
This is exactly what he was meaning to search for. Maybe not fear, because even speaking about this bounty hunter had made even himself scared to death. He had to pretend that every time he brought up the guy’s name, it didn’t bring a chill down his spine.
Now, Usopp feared him, not because he was a killer, not technically because of just that, but because he hunted pirates with big bounty. His father was a pirate.
And that spiraled down and plopped all the way onto the thought of that the bounty hunter was onto his father. Because his father must be a pretty big pirate known to the world.
Would if the hunter, who was known for hunting pirates, got to him? His father, Yasopp. Usopp paused then, at that thought.
He then butted in on the shopkeeper’s conversation with the bookstore owner. He grinned, almost maliciously if it weren’t for the childish innocence in his light voice.
“You know, I’ve came into contact with him once,” he mutters boldly, his smile stretching when both the middle-aged men whipped their heads to look where the voice came from.
They both looked at him expectantly.
“Yeah. And I wasn’t scared, at all,” he had placed his two-toned hands on either side of his hips triumphantly, as if he was proving a point that was never told.
“Really?” The shopkeeper glanced at him, totally unbelieving of the lying youngster in front of him. “So what did he look like then?”
All three of them didn’t know what the bounty hunter looked like, not really. The shopkeeper just really wanted to see how much Usopp would run with the anonymous-ness of this hunter. How he could catch Usopp on a lie.
“Well,” Usopp breathes in, both older gentleman leaning in to listen intently. Whether Usopp meant it or not, he had this way of capturing his listener’s ear. Nobody was ever sure what exactly it was that he possessed to keep people listening, no matter how crazy, especially no matter how insane, his stories were.
“Let’s see,” he hums, sitting on a nearby dusty barrel on the street they were standing in. He brushed off his tan overalls, sighing with the weight of finally being able to sit down and have people pay interest to him. “People don’t just call him a demon because he’s well with his swords. He had… fangs, this long that hung over his bottom lip.”
He demonstrated with his fingers, measuring the hunter’s fangs to be up to a knuckle and a half long. He closed down a small tremble of his own.
“And, Roronoa Zoro, had gigantic horns protruding from his forehead. Some say, and I, for testament, can say, it looked like they reached the clouds! The odd thing was, when he spoke, which were barely ever in whispers, if he spoke at all, his voice was very strong and commanding yet young,” Usopp nodded, which made both old men synchronize and move their heads along with him.
Both men couldn’t resist listening in. They were so intrigued, literally on the edge of their seats.
“Unfortunately, he bore no tail. But his eyes… oh, his thin eyes,” Usopp spoke lowly, barely speaking, if he were honest. He paused for suspense and, just like he wanted, the men were wide-eyed and anxious for the story to reach the climax.
Usopp took a deep breath.
“His eyes… they were a fiery red! A red made from the ashes of betrayal and blood-soaked from enemies. Beware of his sharp tongue, as it is forked like a Jörmungandr… but don’t be fool to his charm, as his swords are sharper,” Usopp continues, conspiracy edging his words. “He calls himself…. ‘The Demon Pirate Hunter’…. or… ‘Pirate Hunter’ for short.”
He can’t push down the tremor that rattles his skeletal system. Neither can the old men that shake with terror, it seems. He holds back the satisfaction he gets at the reactions. Not because they’re scared, but they had a reaction to one of his many untruthful stories, which means they paid enough consideration to listen into.
The men, confidently frightened, suddenly excuse themselves to go hide away in their respective buildings. That is when Usopp bursts into chuckles, holding his abdomen and shaking his head in laughter. After a few enjoyable moments, he calms down, sighing happily.
He grabbed the bag he set down earlier to tell the men the fib, slinging it over his shoulder. He made his way back to his home, if he could even call it that. It was just a hallway that led to a room where his mother rested bedridden.
He usually either took the spot near her side or laid on the dirty wooden floors, but tonight, he wasn’t getting sleep. Especially not after getting what he wanted after so long: attention.
Well, despite his initial thought of not getting sleep, he eventually did, passing out near the foot of Banchina’s bed frame. He woke up to nothing in particular, rubbing his raven-black hair groggily.
He perked up at his mother and deduced that she was not going to wake for a handful of hours, and he learned early on it’s not worth waking her up for his antics. He learned she needs all the rest she can. Early on he would try and wake her, but it was no use, as she’d only be up for a couple of moments before promptly falling right back to sleep out of exhaustion.
Usopp sighed and pushed himself up off the dust muddled ground. He had to come back and sweep the floors later, ‘less Mr. Mornin have his poor little neck by the end of the day for making his sick mother adhere her unfortunate eyes to the sickening dismay of the floors.
In the late morning, Usopp ripped his bag from the ground, quick to make it out the house. He would visit Kaya, but he doesn’t want to miss out on watching the docks for his father. He knows he’s going to come around soon. He’s just waiting for the correct time to come home. So, Usopp waited as well.
Because if Usopp is anything, he’s patient. Well, that’s a lie, if he’s anything, he’s a liar. But, he’s a patient liar.
Usopp dips his bare feet into the cool brisk waters of the Village’s docks. He sits back, taking in a deep breath. There may be bird poop everywhere on the wooden tiles, but it’s so Syrup Village that he can’t ever complain. It’s so clearly and uniquely Syrup Village that feels inherently like home.
He glances up at the sound of water being moved, his eyes focused. If he knows any sound, then it’s the sound of a ship being docked. A ship of a dozen men hop off board, carrying boxes and crates of food and hopefully good supplies. It’s not long until the men are done unloading.
It’s not even longer before the crew catches hold of the little nickname to the hunter they’ve been trying to avoid for months. They all laugh and brush off the nickname ‘The Demon Pirate Hunter’, but still let it pass around the village like it’s free nutrition for the usual boring conversation.
One of the younger men of the crew finish up by placing down a small bag of luggage onto the dock, ending their unloading of the night.
What Usopp sees, out the corner of his eye, is a dash of green swipe across his vision. He doesn’t know what it is, but he peeks it and is interested. He slips on his soft gray socks and his big puffy shoes and stands upright.
His thick dark eyebrows cease with determination. He’s going to find out what that was, whether it’s an animal or not.
He never found out what it was, but the next day, the swashbuckling pirates that landed ship suddenly disappeared. Abnormally, Usopp took that into no account.
Years later, when Monkey D. Luffy had asked him to join his crew, Usopp immediately agreed. He had literally been dreaming of being part of a crew. Sure, a Captain of a crew, but a crew nonetheless.
Usopp had found out that Roronoa Zoro was Monkey D. Luffy’s second mate. To be completely fair and honest, Usopp’s brown eyes fell wide open.
The guy he made a rumor about around a decade ago.
Somehow, during one of their adventures, Usopp had brought up the fact that he named Zoro ‘Pirate Hunter’ to a group of enchanted strangers. Zoro, being drunk off his rocker and unusually jolly, guffawed at it.
He really can’t believe it.
“You’re the one that came up with that nickname? I had always wondered where it came from,” Zoro did accuse Usopp of naming him right then and he was right, but Zoro didn’t believe him in totality.
He had a small feeling that he was making it up, just like how Usopp had always said he had 20,000 soldiers beneath his belt and readied up for fighting whenever they got in trouble.
But then he sat and thought about it for as much as a drunk green haired swordsman could.
This lie, he had never ever heard before. Not with the confidence this one held.
And usually, if Usopp was telling a lie, it was pretty damn hard to tell if it was a fib, save the dramatic and theatrical performance of his words. But this one, even Zoro couldn’t tell. Albeit, he was a few too many sake bottles deep, but still, the sniper wasn’t a hard read.
“Yep! That was me! The great Captain Usopp! King of Names! Weilder of Words, Spinner of Stories, Ruler of Phrases—“ Zoro intoxicatedly chuckled as Usopp spouted off with more unruly titles he came up for himself.
After the great big high of the storytelling around a campfire died down, Zoro approached Usopp once again. Zoro was even drunker before, definitely no less sober.
He wrapped a strong firm arm around Usopp’s shoulders and leaned his body weight into the slimmer figure of the curly haired boy’s body. Usopp stumbled with the extra pounds cluttered onto him, glancing at the moss ball that clung to him like algae to the side of a fishbowl.
“So… were you telling the truth?” Zoro mutters, swishing the sake in the bottle he held.
“Hm? Of course! I do have 20,000 men ready to go into battle at any given moment, just ask—“ Usopp readily lied, his nose almost seeming to grow in Zoro’s blurry drunk vision.
“No. You know what I’m talking about,” the green haired man was suddenly serious, but still slurring. He dared a glance at the brown haired man while taking a swig of alcohol.
“No,” Usopp chuckled, looking a little distraught at not knowing exactly what he was talking about. Listen, he and Zoro have been buddies for a few months, but that doesn’t mean the swordsman doesn’t still scare the ever living life out of the gullible sniper. “I don’t know… I told many truthful stories tonight.”
“The one about me,” Zoro concludes, with no extra context. He stops at that and Usopp seems to get the hint that Zoro probably doesn’t want to move his lips to speak anymore in his drunken state.
“Oh,” Usopp mutters intelligently, blinking his long eyelashes. He refuses to make eye contact with the moss-head. “Well, that one is true.”
Zoro nudged Usopp for more information, grunting as a signal to keep going.
Usopp swallowed, flushing earnestly.
“Well… when your poster was set up all the way back in Syrup Village and you were becoming this… thing… I kind of, sort of made the nickname for you,” Usopp twirled his coiled hair around his finger, bashfully shy.
“I always hated the nickname,” Zoro mouthed, huffing.
Usopp didn’t assume that he loved the nickname before, but this confession made his heart sink. Not out of rejection or anything like that, but from embarrassment. From making something that was going to stick with the swordsman his entire life, and he couldn’t go back and fix it.
“But now that I heard it’s from you, I don’t think I hate it so much,” Zoro shrugs, as if it’s so simple. As if it’s something he would ever admit straight sober.
“What?” Usopp replies, definitely adding to the conversation in a total. His heart thumps stupidly in his chest.
“I don’t hate it. Don’t let it get to your head, long-nose,” he laughs breathlessly, squeezing Usopp into his side tighter.
“Yeah. Yep. Right! Not letting it get to my head!” Usopp chirps back, eager to please the drunken pirate hunter beside him.
