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a day without a night and a night without a day

One Piece || Ladyhawke-inspired fantasy AU starring Usopp (+ the rest of East Blue Five & Chopper) as Phillipe Gaston, Smoker as Captain Navarre, and Tashigi as Isabeau of Anjou || Smoker/Tashigi, very background Usopp/Kaya ao3 link eng || ao3 link rus

“And so, the Great Warrior Usopp was finally free. He’d got his fingers bloody digging in the ground and moving stones, he had swum through the disgusting sewers, walked a long way in wet clothes, teeth chattering with cold – and survived. What’s more, his valiant heart never sank or faltered, not even once, except out of worry for his friends! He had to find them as soon as possible, but first he needed to build up his strength… not that he had run out of strength… in short, he needed a meal.”

“A sound decision.”

“Indeed! However, fate played a cruel joke on him…”

To be fair, what played a cruel joke on him was his own big mouth. It was not the first time it happened; he ought to be more cautious. But the temptation to brag was too strong after all the trials he went through. Besides, if Luffy was in his shoes, he would’ve hardly passed up an opportunity to make merry in a big way.

“Wine, for everyone!” Usopp announced, and slapped the leather pouch on his belt so that coins would clink. Out of gratitude, it would be well to raise the second cup to the dunderhead he stole that pouch from. But the first cup had to be to himself. “Drink to the first man to escape from Lord Sommers’s dungeons to freedom, and not to the next world!”

It looked like the goddess Fortune was tired of Usopp after all the favours she had bestowed on him. How could it be explained otherwise that about a dozen guests at that inn turned out to be Watchmen from Sommers’s guard? Of course, all sorts of ruckus began at once: other customers were running away screaming, the innkeeper was wailing wretchedly under the table, dishes were breaking, furniture was falling. Usopp missed his slingshot desperately, but he was no slouch without it either. It was amusing to see the Watchmen fall down as they slipped on the spilled wine or caught a roasting spit in the eye. Only the outcome in any case turned out to be not amusing at all: two big guys seized hold of him so that he couldn’t move an inch, and their captain bared his teeth at him in a pleased grin.

“You’re wrong, pal,” he told Usopp. “You went where everyone goes from that dungeon. You just made a detour.”

Then someone threw a knife and struck the shoulder of one of the Watchmen that had grabbed Usopp.

“Let him go,” a stranger bade them. Hair as white as snow, cloak as black as night, and a sword at the ready.

One of the Watchmen took a careful step towards him. “Captain Smoker?” he asked timidly.

The stranger opened his mouth to answer when suddenly the captain – the current captain – forcefully pushed that Watchman in the back and he fell over, right on the unsheathed sword.

Hell followed. The stranger set upon them like a storm, wrecking everything in his way, chopping the enemy up like sausage. As luck would have it, the two Watchmen that held Usopp were in no hurry to release them and go help their comrades – until suddenly a large bird swooped down on one of them and clawed at his face. A moment of confusion was enough for Usopp to take off running. And he ran, ran with his last ounce of strength, ran even though he’d already walked and swum and crawled a long distance that day, ran even though the only thing he’d eaten that day was a loaf of bread he stole in the last village. Ran, because to stop meant to die, and Usopp wanted to live so damn much.

Ran until a strong hand grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like a puppy and yanked him up onto the horse.

“They won’t stop. Morgan’s not one to stop. But they won’t catch up to us too soon,” said the stranger in black. He looked even more threatening up close, a veritable mountain of a man. “We have to find shelter for the night.”

The large bird – a hawk – landed on his shoulder with a screech.

“He didn’t even introduce himself?”

“He did, but not right away. This worthy stranger had his reasons to be distrustful of those he had just met. However, we hit it off in no time…”

The stranger smoked a pipe – a long white pipe carved from the bone of some animal.

“What is your name, sir?” Usopp dared to ask during a short halt. Politeness wouldn’t hurt: after all, that ex-captain, or whoever he was, saved his life, and travelling with him would be safer than alone. The hiding place where he should find his companions was roughly in the exact direction they were now headed.

The stranger cast an unfriendly glance at him.

“Smoker,” he rumbled.

“Ah, so the pipe is because of…”

“No.”

So much for conversation.

They stopped at the edge of the woods by a wretched farmhouse, whose owners – grubby old man and wife – begrudgingly let them spend the night in their barn.

“For the sum you paid them they should’ve let us have their bed,” Usopp complained as he spread out his cloak on the hay.

Smoker shook his head.

“No matter,” he said, caressing his bird. It was strange to see the hands that wielded the sword so violently do something so gentle. The hawk was very calm and apparently very tame and observed everything so shrewdly that Usopp couldn’t help feeling a little ill at ease. “What matters is that we found a place to stay until sunrise.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark, sir.”

“I’m not. But you should be.”

Usopp forced out a smile.

“Me? Afraid? I’ll have you know, sir, that the Great Warrior Usopp is not afraid of anything! Especially the dark. You must have heard, certainly, that a couple of years ago the Western Barrens were cleared of vampires? Well, let me tell you, I was there, and…”

Yes, he was definitely ill at ease.

“Still, on reflection, the brave warrior concluded that he would reach the Straw Hat camp faster on his own…”

He woke up at night to take a leak and found Smoker gone. The horse – Billower, a huge black thing befitting his master – was there, but the rider had disappeared without a trace. Maybe he should cut and run while he still can? That morose fellow still hadn’t explained where they were going, and seemed not to listen every time Usopp hinted that he actually had to get to a certain place to meet his friends. What if he escaped the clutches of Lord Sommers’s guards only to find himself in an even greater peril? On the spur of the moment, Usopp quickly grabbed his belongings, slipped out of the barn, and crossed the yard. And then remembered what Smoker said about the dark. Where would he go at night? What if he got lost? What if he really had more reasons to be afraid of the dark than he was aware of?

As if in confirmation of that last thought, he heard quiet steps behind his back and turned around to find – no, not Smoker, but the owner of the barn, that grubby peasant, with a raised pitchfork in hand. The sum paid for their lodging must have been not enough. Gods, did he really escape from prison just to die like that?

Something white burst into his range of vision, and the peasant collapsed with a terrible scream. Horror-struck, Usopp realized that something white, which had knocked down his failed murderer and was now ripping his throat out with its teeth, was a wolf – a huge white wolf.

His legs brought him back to the barn as if by themselves.

“Wolf! Wo-o-olf!”

He felt for Smoker’s sword in the dusk, and almost dropped it when someone laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait!” a woman’s voice ordered. Usopp turned around and saw a girl’s face framed by dark hair and a dark hood. “Put it back.”

“But there’s a wolf!”

“And if it wasn’t for him, you would’ve been stabbed to death for that pouch. Leave him be.”

After some wavering, Usopp put down the sword.

“Lady,” he began hesitantly. “Where did you come from? Am I dreaming?”

The girl smiled softly.

“I am no lady,” she said. “But yes, you are dreaming.”

She stepped out into the yard, the hem of her cloak dragging on the ground. Smoker’s cloak, Usopp suddenly realized.

The white wolf came up to her and nuzzled at her outstretched hand with its bloody nose.

“So that Smoker was a werewolf? But who was that woman?”

“All in good time, my lady, all in good time. Now, the morning after, the Great Warrior Usopp and the mysterious Smoker set out on their journey again. When the time came for them to rest, Usopp firmly insisted that his fellow traveller give him the answers…”

“Last night I saw a woman,” Usopp began tentatively. Smoker, who had been staring indifferently into the distance while puffing at his pipe, fixed his gaze on him over the fire.

“Did you now?” By his standards, he must have sounded interested. “Was she pretty?”

Well, that depends, Usopp thought. In his opinion, Nami, for example, was prettier. Kaya was about a hundred times prettier. But something told him it was the wrong answer.

“Yes, very much so. And she told me…”

“She talked to you?” interrupted him Smoker, either jealous or just excited.

“Yes, sir. She didn’t let me harm the wolf that killed that man. A white wolf, sir. Have you ever seen one?” Usopp still wasn’t sure about his travelling companion, so he refrained from asking directly. He was not one to be tricked easily; he had come across magic before. But Smoker was a former captain of the Watch, and the Watch was bad news for magicians. What if Usopp had misunderstood?

Smoker exhaled a cloud of white smoke, and it mixed with the smoke from the fire.

“No. But I know they exist. Freaks, too conspicuous to live for long. So what did she say?”

“She said she was no lady – I called her ‘lady’ – and she told me I was dreaming.”

Smoker cracked a half-smile. By his standards, it must’ve been a full one.

“Yes, she is no lady.”

“But what is she, sir?” Usopp asked. He could try to steer the conversation there, just carefully. As if he was just listing evil and good beings known to him, not keeping company with witches and monsters of the woods. Confessing to the latter might’ve been dangerous. “A fairy? Or perhaps, a ghost?”

Smoker glanced at the hawk, which was beside him pecking what remained of the rabbit they used for stew.

“They tell legends in the North about valkyries, shieldmaidens with glittering swords. They take the souls of fallen warriors to the heavenly halls,” he replied after a brief pause. Flames reflected in his eyes – wolf’s eyes, Usopp thought, but obviously he wasn’t going to say that out loud. “If anything, she’s like them.”

“That’s beautiful,” Usopp said sincerely. The tales of the northern lands and their fearless warriors in horned helmets have always fascinated him. “Do you think she’d take my soul?”

Smoker chuckled. “If the Great Warrior Usopp is as great as he boasts to be, she might.”

“What about yours, sir?”

His companion stared at the flames with his wolfish eyes full of wolfish, beastly heartache.

“I hope so,” he said. “I hope so.”

Wolf or not, Usopp felt like he’d never seen Smoker act so human before, so he resolved to speak openly.

“Sir, I’ll be grateful to you for saving me as long as I shall live, but I’m in a hurry. My comrades must’ve already learned I was thrown into jail; chances are they’ll go and try to save me and perish themselves. I know them, they’re goners without me. We used to head just in the direction I needed, but now we’ve turned off. I even have a feeling we’re riding back. But I must get to them quickly. Sir.”

Smoker rose heavily and moved towards him, and Usopp couldn’t help shrinking away.

“Listen, lad,” said Smoker grimly, looming over him. There was no trace of that fleeting softness; he was once again the man who’d slashed his former brothers-in-arms left and right. “Don’t think I saved you just out of the goodness of my heart. I know you escaped Sommers’s castle. I need you to lead me there.”

“What?! Why?”

“Because I have to kill him.”

Usopp stared at him at a loss for words.

“No,” he finally forced out.

“No?!”

“No, sir. I barely got out, and you want me to get back? They were gonna hang me already, and now they’ll surely skin me alive first. I’m not…” He was not actually some great warrior, just a robber, and not even the best fighter in their gang. His job was not to jump into the thick of it but to shoot from a relatively safe distance. He was no Zoro, who appeared not to fear death at all, and no Sanji, who appeared to seek it at times. He feared death, and he wanted to live; gods, how he wanted to live. “I didn’t escape it just to die there in the end! Not on your life, don’t even ask!”

“In other words, there was a slight disagreement. Turned out the two travellers had conflicting goals. But they settled the dispute as reasonable people…”

He met the night tied to a tree.

“Damn werewolf,” Usopp grumbled, rubbing his back against the trunk. Alas, he could feel no sharp knots he could use to cut the rope. “Hope he gets fleas…”

“Who tied you up, boy?”

This time he managed to get a better look at the girl. Short hair, chin-length; a friendly yet sad face. She had a sword at the hip – the second sword that Smoker carried on his horse but never unsheathed in front of Usopp.

“Valkyrie,” Usopp whispered. “He’s right.”

“He called me that?”

“Yeah, he told me you’re like a shieldmaiden that sends warriors to the next world, uh, I mean, guides them to the next world. And that he hopes you’d guide his soul when his time comes. Also,” might as well embellish it a little, he needed that valkyrie on his side, “that the honour to spend his afterlife in the seat of the gods would be nothing compared to the honour of getting to go there with you, and to touch your hand if he’s lucky.”

“I doubt that he said it like that,” the valkyrie said, but even in the dark Usopp was ready to swear she blushed. “Was it him that tied you up?”

“Ah, yes, he… thought I was gonna rob him. An unfortunate misunderstanding. You see, I was looking at that sword, and he thought I was gonna steal it. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

“It is. Shigure. It’s lovely, isn’t it?” The stranger cast an affectionate glance at the blade. Normal people didn’t look at swords like that. Maybe just Zoro.

“Oh yes,” Usopp agreed with enthusiasm. “Looks magnificent. A friend of mine is a skilled swordsman, and I’m sure he would’ve praised it highly.”

“Oh, I wonder what kind of sword…”

“O gracious valkyrie, could you untie me?”

“Right, of course.”

The girl drew her sword and cut the ropes.

“Thank you,” Usopp breathed out, rubbing his aching wrists. “Thank you, um… what is your name? All I know is that you are no lady.”

“Tashigi. They called me Sir Tashigi once,” and she explained, noticing his puzzled look, “I used to serve in the Watch.”

“Whoa,” Usopp said respectfully. He knew there were some women in the Watch – a small number, but still – but he’d never met one before. “So you and Captain Smoker served together?”

“That’s right. What is your name?”

“The Great Warrior Usopp, at your service, my la… I mean, sir! Gods, what is that over there?”

“Where?”

The girl, undoubtedly, was very nice, and under different circumstances Usopp would’ve definitely stayed to chat with her, but he was not in the slightest degree eager to take part in Smoker’s suicidal plan.

Usopp took to his heels.

“After saying goodbye to the noble warrior, Usopp continued on his way. The next day he began to recognize familiar places, and was sure he’d reach the camp soon with no trouble. However, he ran into his foes, and did them great damage in a fight…”

“You sure had us running after you, bastard,” Captain Morgan said through his teeth as he dug his fingers painfully into Usopp’s chin. “Where’s the knight you were with? Smoker?”

“I-I’ve no idea, sir. We rode some miles together and then parted ways. Two days ago,” Usopp assured him. They bruised his lip and he bit his tongue, so he was getting nauseous from the taste of blood, but he tried to ignore that and sound as persuasively as he could. He had no desire to go back to Sommers’s castle for Smoker’s sake, but that didn’t mean he was going to let these rats get on the trail of the man who saved him, even if for his own reasons.

“And which way did he go?”

“I don’t remember, sir!”

“Oh, you don’t?!”

“Aaaaargh… north! He went north!”

“Where did you separate?”

“At the fork, uh, there was a fork in the road, by a fallen tree! Oak! By a fallen oak!”

Morgan straightened up.

“I know the place he means. We’re going back. Get rid of him, we don’t need him anymore.”

It looked like the goddess Fortune still wasn’t tired of Usopp after all the favours she had bestowed on him. Or that could’ve been the response to his desperate prayer: if Smoker came to his aid again, he would not refuse him aid in return, even if it drove him to his grave. And he came – came at the very last moment, when a sword was already raised over Usopp, and the bloodbath that followed made the fight at the inn look like child’s play.

Once again it occurred to Usopp that the adventure-filled life of a robber – a noble robber who steals from the rich and cruel and helps the poor and helpless – was not for him.

But he was alive. When the last Watchman was lying forever motionless on the ground, he was still standing. The blood on his clothes was not just his own anymore, but he was alive. Morgan was lifeless in the grass, but Usopp was alive.

Smoker pressed his hand to his face, and blood was flowing through his fingers, but Usopp was alive, and could help him.

“No sudden moves, sir,” he said hastily, dropping to the ground next to his saviour. He wasn’t much of a healer, but he’d managed to learn some things from Chopper. “Let me…”

“To hell with me! She’s wounded. Find her!”

“Who? Oh, your hawk?”

“Find her at once! It’s her.” His violent tone and the feverish look in his left eye, the one that was not bleeding, gave Usopp the answer. The last missing piece of the mosaic. “It’s her.”

Usopp found the hawk in the grass within some twenty steps from them. The arrow under the bird’s right wing didn’t let her fold it, making her look like a broken toy. When Usopp gently picked her up, the bird let out a weak pitiful cry.

When Smoker saw Usopp approach him with the hawk in hands, he tried to get up but stumbled and sat down again.

“Don’t hurt her,” he spat out. His own torn face didn’t seem to worry him much. “Don’t make me regret saving your ass again.”

“I won’t,” Usopp said firmly. He wanted to live; gods, he wanted to live so damn much, but he could not and should not run anymore. “But you’ll have to trust me.”

“I… Beg your pardon, my lady. This is quite a gruelling part of the tale… ”

“It’s all right, Usopp. Everything’s fine. You know, you’re a real hero since you could get them to the camp.”

“A hero? Me? Kaya, I’ve never been more scared in my life. I kept waiting for the horse to go lame, or for myself to lose my way, or for both of them to bleed out and die in my arms. I didn’t even understand how I got there. When Zoro and Sanji met me, I could barely explain what happened.”

“But you saved them. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“Well… yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

“Are you a fairy?” whispered Sir Tashigi.

Chopper sighed. “You could say so.” He wasn’t a fairy, actually, but it was easier to confirm than to explain what he was yet again. “What’s important is that I’m a physician and I can help you. What are you, though? A shapeshifter?”

“No,” she replied, and Usopp heard her suck the air in through her teeth in pain. “I’m cursed.”

Chopper finished tending to her wound and checked the dressing. Tashigi’s face above the rough woollen blanket was pale and sweaty, but she was breathing. It crossed Usopp’s mind that it would be hard for an injured person to climb down to earth from a tree house.

It wasn’t hard to get her there, though. Big deal, carrying a hawk. Not a cow, you know.

As was so often the case, the real adventures of the Great Warrior Usopp were much more incredible than his stories.

Tashigi looked around anxiously. “Sir Smoker… Is he all right?”

“Yes, I managed to stitch his wound before he turned.” Chopper put his tools and pots of ointments back into his knapsack. Seeing him with that bag, it was hard to suppress a smile: they were almost the same size. “He’s in the woods. I believe he’s going to heal more rapidly as a wolf.”

Tashigi squinted. “Could you bring me my glasses, please? Unless they’re lost.”

“Glasses?” Usopp echoed. For some reason, a knight wearing glasses appeared more surprising than a woman turning into a hawk. Probably because he had had several hours to wrap his head around the latter. The glasses, on the other hand, came out of nowhere.

“Yes, they should be in Billower’s saddlebag.”

“I’ll bring them.”

A rope ladder was tied to the doorstep. Usopp unrolled it, threw the end down, and began to descend. The trees in these woods were true giants, tall and sturdy. In their huge branches, the Straw Hat Gang built an entire camp that wasn’t noticeable in the leaves from afar.

Next to the horses, Usopp found Zoro; he was studying the hilt of Tashigi’s sword while petting Billower’s black side.

“How is it?” he asked, nodding in the direction of Chopper’s house.

“She’ll live.” Usopp rummaged in the bag, couldn’t locate the glasses, and detached it from the saddle: Tashigi would likely find them quicker herself. “That wound was serious for a bird but tolerable for a person. Chopper’s got a theory that they could heal quicker in the shape other than the one in which they got injured.”

“Yeah,” Zoro looked at him closely, arms folded on his chest. “You do realize who you brought to our camp, right? They must’ve sent a lot of the likes of us to the gallows.”

“Zoro, she helped me, and he saved me. More than once. And now they’re being hunted by the Watch themselves.” Usopp rubbed his eyes, tired. “You can talk to her right now if you want to, and see for yourself if they can be trusted.”

“Later, I’m to replace the cook on the watch soon. You know he won’t miss a chance to pay court to a lady… Hey, Usopp?”

“Yeah?”

Zoro slapped his back and gave him a side hug. “Don’t disappear anymore. We were looking everywhere for you.”

Tears constricted Usopp’s throat, and he hastened to blink.

“I won’t,” he promised. “A warrior’s word.”

Everyone gathered in Chopper’s house save for Zoro. Luffy unceremoniously climbed on the bed at Tashigi’s feet; Chopper perched on the table, yielding the tree stump he used as a chair to Nami. Sanji leaned on the wall, undoubtedly waiting for one or another request of their guest, ready to fulfil it. Usopp himself sat on the floor by the bed. The house was cramped but cozy, and Tashigi, surrounded by them, covered with a blanket and wearing Nami’s chemise, didn’t look like a stranger or a member of the Watch or an enemy – just another new acquaintance they brought into their fold, like many others before. It was only now that Usopp noticed how young she was, hardly more than five years older than him.

“You can start from the very beginning,” Nami suggested. The way she carried herself told Usopp that she, like Zoro, didn’t trust the newcomer too much yet.

Tashigi sighed.

“Sir Smoker and I used to serve in Lord Sommers’s guard. One day, when we were… patrolling the castle,” her cheeks turned pink for some reason, “we discovered a secret passage. I remember it clearly: a door on the second floor, behind a tapestry that depicted a fox hunt. There was a lock, but the door was left unlocked. The passage led to a room, something like a study or a small library, where we found various strange objects and sigils on the floor… In short, we found that someone tried to summon a demon there.”

Usopp felt his jaw drop. Chopper gasped. Sanji whistled. Throughout the kingdom, only those who had received a special permit from the rulers of their province could practice magic; those who did it unauthorized were outlaws. And summoning demons was among the kinds of magic that weren’t even possible to obtain a permit for, considered the most dangerous and the most terrible among them.

“Whoa!” Luffy exclaimed. “So you saw a demon?”

“Um, no,” replied Tashigi, a little confused. It looked like she didn’t expect such a response. “But we’re required to know the signs of someone attempting to summon one, so that we could arrest them.”

“So someone at court is toying with dark forces,” Sanji remarked.

“Not just someone. It’s… It’s Lord Sommers himself. There were notes in his handwriting.”

The robbers exchanged amazed looks. Sommers was one of the loudest and most zealous persecutors of unauthorized magic in the entire kingdom. During his rule, more than a hundred people had been executed on a charge of laying curses or casting evil spells.

Well, it was characteristic of the nobility to think they were above the law.

“Ah!” Luffy said. “So he cursed you because you found his room?”

“No, that’s why he stripped us of knighthood and put us on the wanted list. We barely had time to escape the town. We believe the curse is just an additional way to scare and vex us.”

“So that you couldn’t discuss what to do next,” mused Nami out loud, “and so that people would take you for shapeshifters and not trust you.”

“Probably.”

“Pray don’t think I question your judgment, my lady…” Sanji began.

“As I’ve said, I was stripped of my rank, but, if so, it’s ‘sir’ not ‘lady’, if you would be so kind.”

“Yes, of course, sir. Forgive me. Anyway, pray don’t think I question your judgment, but why is your companion so eager to get back to Loguetown if certain death must await you there?”

“Sir Smoker believes that if Sommers cursed us himself, the curse would be lifted with his death. And if it would not,” Tashigi swallowed, “at least we’d make him pay for what he did to us.”

“It was clear now what to do next: try to find out if the evil spell could be broken. Fortunately, the good Straw Hat Bandits had a lot of friends. When the disgraced knights recovered, it was time to visit one of them…”

“So you prefer raw meat now?” Luffy asked, pushing apart the spruce boughs. A thicket like that could not be entered on horseback, so they had to leave the horses behind. This part of the woods reminded Usopp of the heavy green canopy over Kaya’s bed, which made the already eternally dusky bedroom ever darker. Kaya herself, with her fair hair and pale face, looked like a ghost in that dark. Usopp told her many stories, ghost stories included, and they often scared her, but sometimes they just made her sad. As if she could relate to all those sorrowful suffering spirits, forever tied to the same place, be it a cemetery or a castle, or an old manor like the one she was tied to…

Smoker frowned. “What?..”

“Well, you’re kind of a wolf.”

“I’m not ‘kind of a wolf’. I’m a man who turns into a fucking wolf because of a fucking curse. What’s your point?”

“I mean, maybe you don’t actually like Sanji’s food, but won’t tell us.”

Smoker stared at Luffy, apparently trying to understand if he was making fun of him.

“No, it’s fine,” he finally said.

Zoro, who was walking behind him, chuckled quietly, and the four of them proceeded in silence, until Smoker suddenly stopped.

“Listen. If you’re up to something, don’t be shy, let’s settle it openly,” he said tensely. His fingers gripped the hilt of his sword. “I only have one eye patched up, you know. You think I didn’t notice we’re walking in circles? We’ve passed this damn stone four times!”

“Four times?!” gasped Usopp. He was so busy thinking about Kaya – how the stupid canopy was now gone and the windows of the manor were never curtained over anymore and how she surely had a better life there than she could have in the woods with him – that he totally lost count. “Luffy, it should be three!”

“Oh! Right! Never mind,” Luffy slapped Smoker on the shoulder, ignoring his glowering face. “Better more than less! I hope,” and he turned around and dived between two almost identical spruces, one of which had dry branches on the left side and the other on the right.

If they stepped between those two trees without walking past that stone thrice first, the clearing behind them would’ve been empty. Now, a pit-house was in front of them – as well as a figure at its doorstep, draped in a dark violet cloak.

“So you found your way here after all,” spoke a melodious female voice, seemingly quiet but somehow perfectly audible over a distance, and Usopp felt chills run down his spine.

What can you say, she was great at this.

“Robi-i-in!” Luffy yelled merrily and ran towards her. Robin took off her hood; Usopp looked at Smoker, who stared in bewilderment at her laughing face.

“And good day to you too, chief. I see you’ve captured a Watchman?”

“No, he saved Usopp! And he’s cursed. And he needs our help.”

The dusk in the pit-house was different from the one that used to reign in Kaya’s manor: it was cozy like a warm blanket, and candles here never smoked. As soon as Smoker entered, he bumped his head on the low ceiling. He bent down a little and studied the surroundings, his attention immediately attracted by the spines of some books on the shelves.

“The sign of Ohara,” he pointed out, frowning. Robin tossed her head.

“Yes,” she confirmed calmly. “As you can see, your brothers-in-arms couldn’t burn down everything.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“Of course. You must’ve been a child back then. So was I. Not that it mattered for the Watch.”

The silence that filled the house felt like it was about to catch fire, too. Even Luffy kept his mouth shut.

“They are no longer brothers of mine,” Smoker finally said, and Robin acknowledged it with a reserved nod.

While Smoker told his story, Robin kept leafing through one book after another, some of them thick tomes and some pocket-sized.

“When you’re in animal form, do you retain human minds?” she asked.

“No.” Smoker’s gaze was fixed on the flame of the candle. His wound healed unnaturally fast, even if a scar now crossed his face. Tashigi recovered slower despite all Chopper’s efforts, so they had to leave her at the camp, and it was easy to see that Smoker didn’t like that. “When we’re beasts, we’re just beasts. Not dumber than ordinary ones, but not people trapped in the bodies of beasts either.”

“But do these beasts at least recognize the other as their master?”

“I’m not her master. But yes, she recognizes me even when she’s a bird, and I still haven’t maimed her.”

“And you haven’t talked to your… friend for half a year?”

“We leave each other notes when we have time and opportunity. Other than that, no.”

Usopp remembered how desperately Smoker asked him back then if Tashigi had talked to him.

“If I spent half a year next to my friend but couldn’t even talk to them, I would’ve lost my mind,” Luffy said sincerely. “Robin, is it possible to break that curse?”

Robin glanced over the bookshelves, as if trying to find something she didn’t know was there.

“I don’t know yet,” she said thoughtfully. “But I’ll look into it.”

“And did she succeed?”

“The Devil Child? Of course. Don’t ask me how she does it. Sometimes I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I managed to find a similar case mentioned,” Robin told them three days later, opening a decrepit old book with a reddish brown cover. Luffy sat at her feet, his cheek propped up by his hand, as if instead of important information she was going to tell them a fairy tale. “Many years ago, a married couple in Alabasta fell victim to a curse like this one. The husband turned into a snake at sunrise and became human at sunset. The wife turned into a scorpion at sunset and remained one until sunrise.”

“And could they break the curse?” Nami asked.

“Believe it or not, they could. Following the advice of a wise priest, they faced the man who cursed them on a day without a night and a night without a day, the only stretch of time when both of them could be human. When he saw both of them in their human form at the same time, the curse was lifted.”

“A day without a night and a night without a day?” Smoker repeated dubiously, arms crossed on his chest. “What kind of bullshit is this?”

“Must be a figure of speech,” Sanji suggested.

“It’s not a figure of speech. It’s a solar eclipse. Have you heard of such a thing?”

“Some folks in my village saw it. Some twenty years ago,” Zoro recalled. “They said it was the punishment of the gods. The water in the well went bad, and all goats died.”

Robin shook her head. “I don’t think these events were connected. An eclipse is not dark magic; it’s just movement of celestial bodies, like sunrise and sunset.”

“So you suggest we sit still and wait for the next eclipse, witch? Wait a year, two years, ten years, twenty?”

Smoker and Tashigi were obviously languishing in their hideout. Both of them tried to be useful: Smoker gathered branches for kindling, brought water from the stream, skinned game by day; Tashigi tried to help the way she could by night, although her attempts were usually frustrated by Sanji. Both of them occasionally stood guard, and the two of them being allowed to guard the camp along with the others proved that even Zoro and Nami got used to them and stopped seeing them as a possible threat. Both of them occasionally took their swords and, unwilling to get rusty, engaged in friendly fights with Zoro. But it was clear that after Tashigi got better, it was a burden to them to sit and wait for Robin’s research to bear some kind of fruit. Especially to Smoker.

(“He thinks he failed me,” said Tashigi one night, when she and Usopp sat by the fire together. When he got to know her better, he found her exceptionally good-natured and much more approachable than Smoker, even if by that time Usopp had learned to tell apart the shades of his stern demeanour. “He was the captain of our squad and still thinks he’s responsible for me as my superior. He thinks he should have protected me.”

“But how could he protect you from a spell? You weren’t even next to Sommers when he cursed you.”

“He couldn’t. But this truth doesn’t comfort him. People often can’t think straight when it’s about the ones they… care about. They blame themselves for things they were unable to prevent. Don’t they?”

“Yeah.” Usopp threw more twigs into the fire and thought about Kaya. About Kuro. About all the times he caught himself thinking: if only he were cleverer or stronger, or richer, or older, Kaya mightn’t have had to suffer for so many years. “That’s how it works.”)

It was unsurprising that the proposal to wait a little more clearly brought no joy to Smoker.

“Actually, the next eclipse is expected this Thursday. So you’re remarkably lucky.”

“How do you know that?”

“Astronomical tables,” Robin explained. Met with blank stares, she added, “You said it yourself: I’m a witch.”

“On Wednesday evening, our heroes drove into Loguetown disguised as a travelling circus, with a white wolf in a cage. The next morning, three daredevils descended into the sewers to enter the castle and let the others in…”

“At least wipe yourselves down,” Chopper ordered. Making use of his small size, he climbed into a bucket of water and splashed in it good and proper. “Wastewater is a breeding ground for diseases.”

Usopp couldn’t help shuddering. That was precisely why he wasn’t thrilled with Chopper going to the sewers with him and Luffy from the very beginning. But he was the smallest, and even if they took a wrong turn, at least he could make it out.

“Chopper, I beg you, we already have enough reasons to worry…”

“Don’t waste your time on talking and wipe yourself.” Chopper clambered out of the bucket and shook himself like a dog. Then he grabbed a burnt cloth, apparently a potholder, and began tying it on to make something like a toga. Usopp sighed with annoyance, grabbed an apron someone left on the table, soaked it in water, and wiped himself very quickly. Then he proceeded to put on the clothes of one of the castle cooks.

Two of those cooks sat by the oven, bound hand and foot, and stared in horror at the two rogues and a weird furry creature that had barged into the kitchen looking like they had climbed out of the latrine. In fact, that was where they had climbed from indeed.

“Hey, don’t be scared,” Luffy addressed them. He didn’t fret over the diseases that were supposedly all over the sewers and put on the pants, shirt, and apron of one of the cooks at once. While Usopp and Chopper were getting ready, he managed to find a gammon of bacon and eat about a half of it. “We won’t hurt you or anything. Here, for the clothes,” he rummaged in his belt bag, which he tied to his hat for the duration of their underground journey so that it wouldn’t get wet, and carelessly dropped a couple of silver coins on the floor. The cooks immediately changed their countenance and began to mumble something through the gags, presumably their gratitude.

Luffy put one of the kitchen knives on the floor next to them.

“Don’t cut the ropes until we leave, all right? Thanks! See you!”

Chopper sat on a large plate. Usopp covered it with a lid, took the plate, and followed Luffy out of the kitchen. The unfamiliar passages, gloomy and unsightly, felt oppressive to him. Usopp found the exit through the latrine on the first floor back when he escaped the dungeons under the castle, but didn’t use it, because then he would have also needed to quickly look for a safe exit from a castle full of guards, servants, and other unwelcome witnesses. Because of that, everything above the dungeons was new to him. At night, Tashigi sketched the plan of the castle from memory, and the three of them tried their best to learn it by heart – at least Usopp certainly tried his best – but he still couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were going to get lost any minute now, and then everything would go to shit. Fortunately, they were not so far away from the servants’ entrance, and the servants they had met on the way didn’t seem to doubt that the two of them were just new kitchen hands, and soon they got sight of the desired door.

It was all about that door. All doors and shutters in the castle were made of enchanted wood, and it was impossible to force them open from the outside in any way. The castle was guarded, of course, but Tashigi and Smoker knew where the posts were, and could imagine what to expect from their former comrades. The main problem was the door.

Fortunately, the kitchen help had their own key.

Unfortunately, they were just a short distance from the door when they heard steps behind their backs.

“Out of the way!” barked one of the guards. There were four of them in total. “There are robbers in the yard!”

The copper lid fell on the floor with a clank.

“We know,” Chopper said.

Their valiant healer was not only able to squeeze where a regular person wouldn’t fit; there was another reason he was indispensable in a fight, and that was the power of surprise. People became confused upon seeing a small talking animal of unknown breed, and even more so when they saw that animal turn into a huge man covered with fur from head to toe. Two guards took a step back. The other two, however, weren’t deterred, and they drew their swords and rushed to the attack.

Usopp left Luffy and Chopper to handle the guards and rushed to the door. His hands were shaking, but in the end the lock clicked. Usopp threw the door open and saw at once what the guard meant: a stiff fight was happening in the back yard between several other guards and Smoker, Sanji, Nami, and Zoro. Over his head, Tashigi flew into the castle with a screech.

No one took notice of a dirty kitchen boy until one of the robbers – the only woman in the company – threw him a slingshot and a bag of projectiles.

The battle spilled into the castle gradually, through the passageway into the spacious hall on the first floor. Servants fled in terror, not bothering to find out what was happening. More and more Watchmen poured into the hall to replace those who fell from the swords of Smoker, Zoro, and Sanji and from Luffy’s bludgeon. A slingshot was not the best weapon when the enemy wore armour, but Usopp’s goal was not to wound any of them in earnest. A shot – and one of the projectiles sent two guards into a sneezing fit and made them run into each other and collapse to the floor. Another shot – and a burning torch fell down from the wall right on another guard. A slingshot was not the best weapon when the enemy wore armour, but Usopp was used to making the most of it.

“What is going on here?”

Usopp had never met Lord Shepherd Sommers before. He looked undoubtedly impressive, well-built and strong despite the wrinkles and grey hair. An embroidered wine-red doublet, a medallion on a thick golden chain on his neck. He stepped out to them in such a confident and lazy manner as if he was welcoming long-awaited guests – only the unsheathed sword didn’t look too welcoming.

“Don’t make Sir Smoker wait, gentlemen,” he spoke venomously. As if petrified by a spell, robbers and Watchmen alike watched him approach. Zoro and one of the Watchmen froze with their swords crossed. Nami held the torch she armed herself with after losing her staff in outstretched hands, not moving. “He seeks an audience with me; well, I shall grant it,” and added, offhand, “kill the rest.”

The next instant the spell was broken, and Usopp yelped in a manner rather unbecoming of a great warrior and jumped away from the blade aimed at him. The Watchman raised the weapon – and suddenly collapsed.

“Thanks,” Usopp wheezed out.

“You’re welcome!” Sanji shouted as he parried the blow of another Watchman.

Usopp turned around – and saw Smoker send another Watchman flying and step towards Sommers.

“What about Sir Tashigi? Where did she fly?”

“Patience, my lady, patience! Let’s not get ahead of the story.”

“I beg your pardon, sir. You tell your stories so well that I want to get to know everything at once.”

“I… hmm! That’s nice to hear, a thousand thanks to you. So, where was I?”

“Sir Smoker engaged in single combat with Lord Sommers.”

“Right, combat…”

“You cursed us!” Either the naked stone walls provided a particularly resonant echo, or that cry of Smoker’s came at the moment of comparative silence, but his words seemed to resonate through the entire castle.

Lord Sommers laughed. He and Smoker were fighting tooth and nail, yet he looked like he exerted no more effort than it took to lift a scroll of parchment. Smoker, on the contrary, was breathing hard, sweat dripping down his face. He had managed to defeat several guards before crossing swords with their lord, but it was still strange to see Sommers, an old man, being so fresh and full of strength in contrast to him. There was something unnatural about it.

Something magical, possibly.

“Fool! Your curse is your habit of poking and prying!”

“You cursed us!” Smoker roared again, raising his sword. The two blades met with a clang. “You summoned demons, sorcerer!”

One of the Watchmen dropped their sword noisily. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Perhaps that loud accusation hadn’t astonished anyone. Still, Usopp instantly decided to take a gamble. A slingshot was good, but his best weapons were words.

“Secret passage!” he yelled. One of the Watchmen dashed towards him, but Chopper rammed into them and pushed them over. “Second floor, behind a tapestry with foxes! It’s true! The fox hunt tapestry! Second floor!”

“Rubbish!” Sommers cried out. His blade drew a semi-circle in the air and met Smoker’s blade again. “Slander!”

However, the detailed description must have worked. One of the Watchmen, who was fighting Zoro, suddenly turned around and rushed to one of the exits.

“Stop!” Sommers yelled and started moving in the same direction, not ceasing to wield the sword, but Smoker wouldn’t let him get farther. The Watchman raised their visor, uncovering the face of a beautiful woman. Usopp could swear he heard Sanji’s rapturous gasp.

“My lord, if it is slander, wouldn’t it be better to prove they’re lying at once?”

“I said stop!”

“He’s the one lying, Hina!” shouted Smoker hoarsely. “He slandered us and turned us into beasts so that we keep quiet!”

The edge of his sword hit Sommers’s side – and bounced off like from an armour, without a sound.

Now several Watchmen lowered their weapons. Incredulous whispers ran through the hall, transforming into amazed exclamations when a shrill cry of a bird rang out. The hawk swooped down on Sommers, aiming not for his face or his hair but for the chain on his neck. Sommers swung his sword, and – Usopp grew cold – the bird fell down on the floor behind him.

Chopper screamed. Smoker howled terribly, desperately, and sliced Sommers’s head off. Or rather, delivered a blow that would have sliced anyone else’s head off. Only Sommers’s neck, not even covered with a kerchief, didn’t suffer a single scratch.

Sommers laughed again, sinister and insane. As if taking this for a cue, the hall grew darker. The murmur of the Watchmen turned more fearful; someone dropped the word ‘sorcery’. Usopp turned his head and met Nami’s eyes – she looked horrified. It was in vain. It was all in vain.

“Oh no, no. If all I wanted was for you to keep quiet, you would’ve been dead a long time ago,” Sommers said. Judging by his ruthless smile, he was enjoying everyone’s undivided attention. The medallion on his neck gave off dim light that had something sickly about it. “I wanted you to suffer. It would’ve been a sin not to use such love to increase suffering. What else is it good for?”

“Shut up!” Smoker yelled, and swung his sword again. This time Sommers parried the blow.

“That thing on his neck!” cried Luffy suddenly, making his gang snap out of it. “It protects him!”

In spite of fear and common sense, Usopp took a step forward. All of them, even some Watchmen, ran towards Sommers – and all of them fell like mown grass as soon as he struck the floor with his sword.

“And would you look at it: a whole crowd of idiots ready to die for your love,” Sommers continued with satisfaction. Smoker was the first to get up, breathing hard. But he was in no hurry to attack again: something behind his enemy’s back drew his attention. “There’s really nothing more…”

Suddenly he began to choke. The golden chain on his neck tightened, cutting into his throat. Behind his shoulder, Usopp saw Tashigi’s face, distorted from effort.

“Hold him!” she shouted. “We need to get the chain off, quickly!”

She didn’t need to ask twice: Smoker immediately came to her aid. He managed to wrestle the sword out of Sommers’s hands, but the latter tried to tear loose as soon as Tashigi loosened the chain. Zoro, Luffy, and Sanji darted to them, but by the time they were close, Tashigi had already pulled the chain with the medallion off Sommers’s neck and thrown it aside. Smoker instantly punched Sommers in the face, then in the gut, then in the gut again, and he folded as if he hadn’t been invincible just a few moments ago.

Tashigi reached out and picked up Sommers’s sword.

“That’s a beautiful blade,” she said. Now that Sommers wasn’t in the way, Usopp saw that she was naked: she had had nothing to put on after she turned. It was unclear if she realized that herself. “You don’t deserve it.”

With these words, she plunged the sword into his stomach.

Sommers wheezed. Smoker grabbed him by the hair and turned his head.

“Look at her,” he said ferociously. Sommers shifted his dying stare from him to Tashigi. Blood ran down his dark clothes, darkening them further. “Look at her and at me!”

The light was getting stronger. Rays of sunshine were streaming into the hall again. When they touched the medallion lying on the floor, it didn’t glitter: at some point it had turned black. When they touched the face of Lord Sommers, he was already dead.

The eclipse was over.

Tashigi, as if waking up from a dream, gasped and squatted down, her arms covering her chest. Smoker tore off his cloak, draped it over her, helped her get up, and…

“Idiot!” he barked. “You were supposed to wait until we disarm him!”

Tashigi stared at him. “You couldn’t disarm him with that medallion on!”

“So you had to jump in without armour, without anything!..”

“No one of you could’ve reached him!”

“Yeah,” Nami drawled. Usopp didn’t even notice her approach, but she was already beside him and leaned on his shoulder. “You can tell they met at the barracks.”

“How dare he speak to a lady like that,” Sanji hissed out loud.

Usopp felt himself smile.

“She’s not a lady,” he said. “She’s a valkyrie.”

Meanwhile the valkyrie gave her comrade-in-arms an angry shove in the chest, then suddenly threw her arms around his neck, and he swept her up and she kissed him in front of the robbers, Watchmen, and the sun that was no longer obscured by anything.

“And that is how Loguetown came to have a new ruler, my lady.”

“That I know already. Better tell me about Smoker and Tashigi: what became of them?”

“Oh, they’re in the rebel army. Luffy gave them a letter to his brother, vouched for them. Now they really protect the people.”

“Now that’s interesting. Love stories usually end in marriage, children…”

“To tell to truth, it’s hard for me to imagine Sir Tashigi by the hearth or a cradle. Must be hard to imagine for Sir Smoker, too. Maybe one day; who knows? But right now their happiness lies elsewhere. Besides, it’s fictional love stories that usually end like that, but in real life things are way more diverse.”

“What about your love story, Great Warrior Usopp? How did it end?”

“Mine? Mine… hasn’t ended yet, Lady Kaya.”

“That’s good. Neither has mine.”

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