Syrup Village arrived the way small places arrive when you're coming from the sea.
First the smell of it — trees, grass, something cooking somewhere on shore. Then the shape of the land rising out of the water, green and unhurried. Then the details filling in as they got closer. A small harbor. A modest dock. Houses set back from the shore in the comfortable arrangement of a place that had been where it was for a long time and hadn't needed to rearrange itself.
Nami brought them in with the same clean efficiency she'd shown since coming aboard. One adjustment to the sail, a slight correction to their angle, and they slid into the harbor without drama.
Luffy was at the bow looking at the village with the open curiosity he brought to every new place. Like each one was equally likely to contain something interesting and he intended to find out what it was.
Zoro tied the boat up. He'd started doing this without being asked somewhere around the second day. Ronald had noticed and said nothing about it.
They stepped onto the dock.
The village was quiet. Not the heavy frightened quiet of Orange Town — something different. More like the natural quiet of a place where not much happened and the people in it had arranged their lives around that fact. An older man fishing off the end of the dock. Two children running between houses in the middle distance. The sound of something being hammered somewhere out of sight.
Normal. Just — normal.
"Nice place," Luffy said.
"It was," Nami said. She was looking at something Ronald followed her gaze to — a group of men near the far end of the dock. Not doing anything specific. Just standing there in the way people stand when standing there is itself the thing they're doing.
Ronald looked at them.
His status window wasn't open but his eyes were doing what they always did. The group of men were armed — not obviously, but the weight distribution of people carrying things under their clothes was different from people who weren't. Five of them. The easy posture of people who were used to being the most comfortable presence in any space they occupied.
"Those aren't villagers," Zoro said quietly from beside Ronald.
"No," Ronald said.
Nami was already adjusting her navigation bag on her shoulder. "I need to find my contact. The chart buyer." She looked at Ronald briefly. "His name is Klahadore. He works for a family here. The Kaya family."
"We'll come," Luffy said.
"You don't need to," Nami said.
"We're going the same direction anyway," Luffy said. Which was exactly what she'd said to them two days ago when she came alongside.
She looked at him. Something flickered.
"Fine," she said.
---
The village opened up beyond the dock into proper streets. Small shops, a square with a well, a notice board with papers on it that nobody seemed to be reading. The kind of infrastructure that said the village had been here long enough to develop habits.
A boy came around a corner at speed and nearly walked into Luffy.
He stopped. Looked at Luffy. Looked at the group of them. Looked specifically at Zoro's swords with eyes that went wide.
He was maybe fifteen or sixteen. Long nose, a captain's hat that was too big for him, a slingshot at his hip. He had the energy of someone who had been going somewhere important before the interruption.
"Whoa," he said. Looking at Zoro. "Are those real swords."
"Yes," Zoro said.
"All three of them?"
"Yes."
"Can you actually use all three at the same time?"
"Yes," Zoro said. His voice was getting progressively flatter with each answer.
"That's insane," the boy said with complete admiration. Then he seemed to remember himself. He straightened up and pointed at his own chest. "I'm Captain Usopp. I have eight thousand followers and I'm not afraid of anything."
Ronald looked at him.
Luffy looked at him.
Zoro looked at him.
Nami, from slightly behind the group, said "Usopp."
The boy's eyes found her. Something shifted in his expression immediately — the performance dropping for just a second into something more genuine. "Nami. You're back."
"I said I would be," she said.
"You said three months," he said.
"Things took longer than expected," she said. She stepped forward slightly. "Is Klahadore here?"
Something happened to Usopp's face at the name. Brief. He covered it fast — the performer's instinct — but Ronald had been watching.
"He's up at the mansion," Usopp said. His voice was slightly more controlled than before. "With Miss Kaya."
"I need to speak with him about my payment," Nami said.
Usopp nodded. Then he seemed to remember the rest of them were there. He looked at Luffy. "Who are you people."
"I'm Luffy. That's Ronald and that's Zoro."
"Are you pirates?"
"Going to be," Luffy said.
Usopp looked at this answer from several angles. "Going to be."
"We don't have a proper ship yet," Luffy said.
"So you're not pirates yet."
"Not officially," Luffy agreed pleasantly.
Usopp seemed to find this arrangement more comfortable than confirmed pirates. He looked at Ronald. "You're quiet."
"Generally," Ronald said.
"I talk a lot," Usopp said.
"I noticed," Ronald said.
Usopp pointed at him. "Is that a problem?"
"No," Ronald said.
Usopp seemed satisfied with this. He looked back at Nami. "I'll take you up to the mansion. Klahadore doesn't like visitors without—" he paused. "He doesn't like surprise visitors."
"Since when," Nami said.
"Since a while ago," Usopp said. Something was careful in his voice now. "Things have been different lately."
Nami looked at him properly. "Different how."
Usopp's eyes moved to the group around her. Then back to her. "I'll tell you on the way."
---
They walked through the village toward the hill where the Kaya mansion sat.
Usopp fell into step beside Ronald at the back of the group. Nami was ahead with Luffy who was asking her questions about the village she was answering with the patient efficiency of someone who had been here before. Zoro was somewhere between all of them in the way Zoro occupied space — present without being attached to any particular position.
"You're really not pirates," Usopp said to Ronald. Quieter than his regular volume.
"Not yet," Ronald said.
"But you're heading that way."
"Luffy is," Ronald said. "I'm heading somewhere. The pirate part is what it looks like from the outside."
Usopp thought about this. "What does it look like from the inside?"
"Moving forward," Ronald said.
Usopp was quiet for a moment. Then — "I tell people I'm a pirate sometimes. Captain Usopp. Eight thousand men." He said it differently now. Not the performance version. More like he was examining it from the outside. "I don't have eight thousand men."
"I know," Ronald said.
"I don't have any men," Usopp said.
"I know that too," Ronald said.
Usopp looked at him sideways. "You're not going to make fun of it?"
"Why would I," Ronald said.
Usopp seemed to turn this over. "Most people would."
"Most people don't think about why someone does something before they react to it," Ronald said. He looked at the mansion getting closer on the hill. "You tell stories. Big ones. That's not nothing."
Usopp was quiet for a few steps.
"My father's a pirate," he said. "Real one. He's on the Grand Line. Shanks' crew."
Ronald looked at him.
"Yasopp," Usopp said. "He left when I was small. My mom got sick after." He said it the way people say things they've made peace with. Not bitterly. Just factually. "I used to run through the village every morning shouting that pirates were coming. To warn people." He paused. "But also because then somebody would come out of their house and talk to me."
Ronald said nothing.
"Miss Kaya always came out," Usopp continued. "Every morning. No matter what. She'd listen to whatever story I'd made up that day." Something warm came into his voice. "She's the best person I know. Which is why—" He stopped.
"Which is why what," Ronald said.
Usopp's jaw tightened slightly. "Klahadore. The butler. He showed up about a year ago. Works for Miss Kaya. Takes care of the estate." He watched the mansion getting closer. "I don't like him. I've told Kaya that. She thinks I'm just — she thinks it's one of my stories." He exhaled. "But it's not. There's something wrong with him. I can feel it."
Ronald looked at the mansion.
Thought about what the mayor of Orange Town had said. Having trouble. Different kind of trouble.
"What kind of wrong," Ronald said.
"I don't know exactly," Usopp said. "He looks at Miss Kaya like she's—" he searched for the word. "Like she's an item. Not a person. Like he's waiting for something." He looked at Ronald. "Does that make sense?"
"Yes," Ronald said. "It makes complete sense."
Usopp looked at him. "You believe me."
"I believe what you're describing," Ronald said. "Whether it means what you think it means — we'd need more to know that."
"But you don't think I'm making it up."
"No," Ronald said simply.
Usopp was quiet for a moment. Then he said something that came out smaller than the rest of it. "Nobody else believes me."
Ronald looked at the mansion and then at the gate they were approaching.
"Tell me more about Klahadore," he said. "Everything you've noticed. From the beginning."
Usopp looked at him. Then he started talking.
---
Klahadore met them at the gate.
He was tall, thin, glasses, the kind of precise appearance that took consistent effort to maintain. He looked at the group of them with an expression that was welcoming on the surface and something else underneath it.
His eyes moved across each of them. Ronald watched the eyes while the mouth smiled.
They stopped on Usopp briefly with something that could have been irritation if it had been allowed to fully form. Then they moved on.
"Miss Nami," Klahadore said. "We were expecting you somewhat earlier."
"Things came up," Nami said. "I have your chart. And I need my payment."
"Of course," Klahadore said smoothly. "Come in. Your companions are welcome to wait in the garden."
Ronald opened his status window as Klahadore turned to lead them through the gate.
The panel appeared.
He read it.
He closed it.
His expression didn't change.
He looked at Usopp beside him. Usopp was watching Klahadore's back with the focused unhappy attention of someone who has been told they're wrong about something they know they're right about.
"Usopp," Ronald said quietly.
Usopp looked at him.
"You're not wrong," Ronald said.
Usopp stared at him. "What did you—"
"Later," Ronald said. "Tell Luffy. Quietly."
Usopp looked at Luffy ahead of them. Then back at Ronald. Something in his face had gone from uncertain to something more solid. Like a person who has been standing on ground they weren't sure about and has just been told it will hold.
He nodded once.
Ronald followed the group through the gate.
---
*End of Chapter 18*
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