The hypnotic pendulum swung in a lazy, mesmerizing arc under the moonlight. Jango's voice was a low, rhythmic drone.
"You are feeling… very sleepy…"
Luffy tilted his head, his eyes glazing over. "Huh? That shiny thing is kinda—"
"Don't look at it, Luffy!" Usopp screamed, wrenching his own gaze away just in time. He squeezed his eyes shut, heart hammering against his ribs.
But Luffy was already entranced. A dopey smile spread across his face. "Zzz…"
He swayed once, twice, then crumpled to the grass in a heap, snoring instantly.
Usopp's blood ran cold. *No. No, no, no.*
Across the clearing, Jango's own eyes rolled back. He teetered for a moment before collapsing face-first, his pendulum rolling from his limp fingers. The hypnotist had hypnotized himself.
Captain Kuro adjusted his spectacles, the lenses flashing white in the dark. "A predictable outcome. Useful, but flawed."
"Luffy!" Usopp scrambled forward, shaking his friend's shoulder. "Wake up! Get up!"
Luffy only snored louder, a bubble of snot inflating and deflating with his breath.
"You'll wake the entire coast," Kuro sighed, his voice dripping with disdain. He took a single, deliberate step forward.
Panic seized Usopp. He pulled back, dragging Luffy toward the cliff's edge. "Stay back! I'm warning you!"
"Warning me?" Kuro's lips twitched into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "With what? Your slingshot? Your lies?"
Usopp's heel met empty air. Pebbles skittered over the cliffside, plummeting into the silent, black void below. The ocean was a distant, whispering threat.
He looked down at Luffy's peaceful, sleeping face, then up at the advancing specter of Captain Kuro.
He made a choice.
With a desperate heave, Usopp shoved Luffy's sleeping form *away* from the edge—and in doing so, threw his own balance into chaos.
"Whoa—!"
The world tilted. His feet slipped on the loose dirt. For one horrifying second, Usopp saw the starry sky above him. Then he was falling, not forward onto the grass, but backward into nothing.
"LUFFY!"
His scream was cut short as his back slammed into the sloping cliffside. He tumbled, a ragdoll of pain and terror, bouncing off jagged rocks, tearing through thorny brush. The world became a violent, spinning blur.
*Thud.*
He landed in a thick patch of ferns at the bottom, the air blasted from his lungs. He gasped, stars dancing in his vision. Above, the cliff face loomed, impossibly high.
And then, a shadow detached itself from the top.
Luffy's limp body, still deep in hypnotic sleep, pitched over the edge.
"NO!" Usopp's cry was a raw, torn thing.
He watched, helpless, as his friend plummeted. Luffy hit the same rocky outcropping Usopp had, bounced with a sickening *crack*, and disappeared into the dense, dark treeline below with a final, crushing thump.
Silence.
A sob ripped from Usopp's throat. He'd pushed him to safety, and it had killed him.
From the cliff top, Kuro's calm voice drifted down, conversational. "A tragic accident. The village fool and his strange friend, playing too close to the edge."
Jango groaned, stirring nearby. "Boss… my head…"
"Clean up your mess, Jango. The boy below may still be breathing."
Usopp froze, tears streaking through the dirt on his face. *He means me.*
Jango's groggy voice followed. "Should I finish him?"
Usopp held his breath, pressing himself into the ferns.
He heard Kuro's soft, chilling laugh. "Why bother? Let him run. Let him scream his warning to the village. Who would believe Usopp, the liar? They'll pat dear Klahadore on the back and lock their doors a little tighter. His words are our best cover."
The truth of it was a physical blow. Usopp's greatest flaw—his legacy of false alarms—was now the weapon that would doom everyone.
Boots crunched on gravel above, fading away. They were leaving.
Usopp lay there, trembling, for a full minute. Then survival instinct kicked in. He scrambled to his feet, pain lancing through his side. He had to get to Luffy.
He stumbled through the undergrowth, following the path of destruction. He found Luffy sprawled on his back in a small clearing, one arm bent at a wrong angle, his hat pinned beneath him.
Usopp fell to his knees, a hand hovering over Luffy's chest.
It rose. It fell.
A steady, strong snore rumbled from Luffy's throat.
Usopp nearly wept with relief. *Alive. He's… just asleep. Through all of that.*
"You're unbelievable," Usopp whispered, a hysterical laugh bubbling up. But there was no time. Kuro's words echoed in his skull. *Who would believe Usopp, the liar?*
He had to make them believe.
***
Usopp ran like the devil was at his heels. The path to Syrup Village was a smear of terror. He blew past the shadowy figures of Nami and Zoro near the outskirts without a second glance.
"Hey, was that—?" Zoro started.
"Usopp?" Nami finished, frowning at his retreating, panic-stricken form.
Usopp burst into the village square, where the last few villagers were closing up shops. His clothes were torn, his face scratched and bloody, his breath coming in ragged, heaving sobs.
"PIRATES!" he screamed, his voice breaking. "CAPTAIN KURO! HE'S COMING AT DAWN! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL EVERYONE!"
The villagers stopped. They turned. And Usopp saw it in their eyes—not fear, but a weary, simmering anger.
Old man Zenny shook his head. "Not again, boy. Not twice in one day."
"It's not a joke!" Usopp pleaded, grabbing the sleeve of a fishmonger. "I saw them! Klahadore is their captain! He's going to murder Kaya and burn the village!"
The fishmonger, Borodo, wrenched his arm away. "You drag Kaya's good name into your lies now? That's low, even for you."
A crowd was gathering, their faces hard. "We let the first one slide," a woman said, her arms crossed. "But this… this is cruel."
"We have to punish him this time," another man grumbled. "The joke's gone too far."
Usopp felt the walls closing in. "Please! You have to listen! They have hypnotists and a hundred men! They're at the coast!"
"And why should we believe you?" Borodo spat. "You, who cries 'pirate' every other week for a laugh? If a trustworthy man like Klahadore told us this, we'd take up arms in a heartbeat. But you? You're just the liar who cried wolf."
The finality in his voice was a death sentence. The villagers advanced, not with weapons, but with grim, disappointed determination. They'd had enough.
Usopp's courage, stretched so thin, finally snapped. With a cry of pure despair, he turned and fled back into the darkness, their angry shouts chasing him.
He had told the truth. And it had failed utterly.
***
At the mansion, Kaya stood by the grand window, a shawl around her thin shoulders. "Merry, has Klahadore returned?"
The butler, Merry, bowed slightly. "He had business in the next town, Miss Kaya. He should return by morning."
"I see." She touched the wrapped parcel on the table—a new pair of spectacles, finely crafted. An anniversary gift for three years of faithful service. "He works so hard for me."
***
At the bottom of the cliff, Luffy's eyes snapped open.
"—so then I said, the meat's on the other foot!" he announced to the empty forest, sitting up abruptly. He blinked, looking at his bent arm. "Huh. That's new."
"You're alive!"
Luffy turned to see Nami, Zoro, and the three small Usopp Pirates staring at him in shock.
"Of course I'm alive," Luffy said, as if it were obvious. He grabbed his hat and plopped it back on his head. "I was taking a nap. Why are you all here?"
"Usopp ran through here like a man possessed," Zoro said, his hand resting on his swords. "He was screaming about pirates. Then we found you looking like you lost a fight with a mountain."
Luffy scratched his head, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. "Usopp… Oh! Right! We were on the cliff! There was a shiny thing and a guy with a weird haircut… and Kuro!"
The name landed like a stone.
"Kuro?" Nami's face paled. "*Captain* Kuro? 'Of a Hundred Plans' Kuro? He's supposed to be dead!"
"He's not dead. He's Klahadore," Luffy said, standing up and popping his dislocated arm back into its socket with a sickening *pop*. He didn't even flinch. "He's gonna attack the village tomorrow to get Kaya's money."
The Usopp Pirates—Ninjin, Piiman, and Tamanegi—immediately began vibrating with terror. "We have to get out of here!" Ninjin squeaked. "We can steal a boat! We can leave tonight!"
They turned and bolted into the woods without a backward glance, their screams fading into the night.
Nami pinched the bridge of her nose. "Great. So a notorious, ruthless pirate captain is planning a massacre at dawn. And the only people who know are us, and a boy the entire village thinks is a liar." She shot a glare at Luffy. "And what is our *captain's* priority in this crisis?"
Luffy's stomach let out a roar that echoed through the trees. He grinned, utterly unperturbed. "We need to find the butcher! I'm starving. Can't fight pirates on an empty stomach."
Zoro sighed. Nami looked like she wanted to strangle them both.
***
Usopp huddled behind a rain barrel in a village alley, shivering. He could hear the villagers murmuring in the square, their anger now mingled with uneasy laughter. They were already turning his warning into another tale of "Usopp's Big Lie."
He had failed. The people he wanted to protect wouldn't listen. His friends were gone. Luffy was probably dead at the bottom of the cliff. He was alone.
A shadow fell over him.
Usopp looked up, a whimper dying in his throat.
Captain Kuro stood there, having shed his butler's coat. He wore a dark, fitted shirt, and his spectacles were in his hand. Without them, his eyes were pits of cold, calculated malice. The kind, stooping Klahadore was gone. In his place was the predator.
"Running to the village was Plan B, I assume?" Kuro said softly, polishing a lens with a cloth. "Plan A was to push your rubber friend to safety and hope he woke up in time? Admirable. Foolish, but admirable."
Usopp couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Kuro slid his spectacles back on, the glass flashing. "You see, Usopp, I have a hundred plans. And in every single one of them… the liar dies first."
He raised his hand. Not with a sword, or a gun. But with his fingers curled into a strange, claw-like shape. The moonlight caught the ten razor-sharp blades that silently slid from his fingertips.
"Cat's Claws," Kuro whispered, and the world became ten streaks of silver, slicing down toward the cowering boy who told the truth.
***
At that exact moment, in the butcher's shop at the edge of the village, Luffy froze, a giant leg of ham halfway to his mouth.
His head cocked, as if hearing a distant sound.
A wide, terrifying grin split his face. It wasn't a smile of joy, but of savage intent.
"Found you," Luffy said, and dropped the meat.
He exploded through the shop's front wall in a shower of splinters, his eyes locked on the alley across the square, his rubber legs already coiling for a leap that would change everything.
But he was a heartbeat too late.