The sand tasted like betrayal.
Vivi stood alone in the canyon's throat, her blue hair whipping in the desert wind, a single figure between two armies hurtling toward mutual destruction. Her lungs burned, not from the heat, but from the screams she'd already torn from her throat.
"Stop! Please, listen!"
Her words were feathers against a hurricane. The thunder of hooves and war cries from Kohza's rebel army drowned her out. She could see him now, at the vanguard, his face she remembered from childhood—kind, earnest—twisted into a mask of grim resolve. His sword glinted, a sliver of cold light in the ochre haze.
"Through the South Gate!" Kohza's voice, once used to explain the stars to a princess, now cut through the din with military precision. "We take the gates from within! For our families! For our dying country!"
"Kohza!" Vivi shrieked, her voice breaking. She stepped forward, arms wide, as if her slender frame could halt the tide of men and camels. "This fight is a setup! It's what they want!"
For a fleeting second, Kohza's head turned. His eyes, scanning the empty-seeming space before him, narrowed. Did he hear? Did a ghost of her voice, a memory of friendship, pierce his fury?
"Captain?" a rebel beside him shouted. "The royal dogs are in sight!"
"I thought I…" Kohza murmured, his gaze sweeping over the spot where Vivi stood, invisible in the chaos. He shook his head, the moment shattered. "Nothing. A trick of the wind. Charge!"
The denial was a physical blow. Vivi staggered as he spurred his camel forward, passing so close the hot breath of his mount fogged the air beside her cheek. He looked right through her.
Then, the world exploded.
BOOM!
A cannonball tore into the sand ten feet to her left, erupting in a geyser of dirt and noise. The shockwave knocked Vivi to her knees, sand stinging her eyes. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Kohza's furious shout.
"Did you see that? A silhouette!"
"Who cares?" a rebel yelled back, voice raw with hate. "They've fired the first shot! They've shown their true colors!"
"No!" Vivi coughed, scrambling to her feet in the billowing dust cloud. "It was an accident! A trick!"
---
High on the walls of Alubarna, Chaka, the royal guardian, roared with fury. "Who fired? I gave no order!"
A soldier near the cannon trembled, his face a picture of false contrition. "A-a terrible accident, General! The mechanism slipped!"
"You fool!" Chaka snarled, but the damage was irrevocable. Below, the royal infantry, believing themselves under attack, poured from the gates with a answering roar. The trap, meticulously laid by unseen hands, had sprung.
Chaka never saw the faint, cold smile that touched the "clumsy" soldier's lips before it vanished into obedient fear. Agent. Baroque Works.
---
In the canyon, the rebel charge, now baptized by enemy fire, became an unstoppable avalanche. Vivi turned, her heart a frozen stone in her chest, and saw the wall of flesh and fury bearing down on her. Thousands of them. The ground trembled.
"Kohza! Wait!"
She was a pebble in a landslide.
"VIVI!" A streak of white and feathers shot forward. Carue, her loyal duck, threw himself into the path of the stampede.
"Carue, no!"
The world dissolved into a nightmare of churning legs, panicked animal screams, and blinding dust. Vivi was shoved, buffeted, a leaf in a storm. A hoof grazed her side, a searing line of fire. She fell, curling into a ball, waiting for the final, crushing darkness.
It didn't come.
When the thunder passed, leaving only the distant clash of steel and the taste of blood in the air, she uncurled. Carue lay beside her, feathers matted, breathing in ragged, pained gasps. He had shielded her, taking the brutal impacts meant for his princess.
"Carue…" Vivi whispered, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on her face. She pressed a hand to his side, feeling the strong, labored heartbeat. Alive. He was alive. Her failure was a bitter poison. She had stood in the path of destiny and been brushed aside like dust.
'I'm not strong enough. My voice isn't loud enough.'
The despair was a suffocating blanket. Then, a memory surfaced, bright and defiant against the gloom: a rubbery grin, a promise shouted to the sky. Luffy, Zoro, Nami… the Straw Hats. They never knew when to quit. They fought fate itself with bloody knuckles and louder laughter.
"Never give up," Vivi whispered to herself, pushing herself up on shaking arms. Her body ached, her side burned, but a new fire, fragile but stubborn, ignited in her chest. The battle was joined, but not yet lost. If she could reach the center, if she could make them see…
A shadow fell over her. The sound of hooves, slower this time, approached.
"Vivi! Get on!"
Her head snapped up. Usopp, her friend, sat astride a horse, his hand outstretched, his long nose silhouetted against the sun. Relief, sweet and overwhelming, flooded her.
"Usopp! Thank the stars!" She reached for his hand, her fingers inches from salvation.
---
At that exact moment, in a sun-drenched square inside the walls of Alubarna, the real Usopp patted the neck of a very grumpy camel named Eyelashes.
"So, uh, the ducks just kinda… found me," Usopp said with a sheepish shrug, addressing Sanji. "Weird, right?"
Sanji, lighting a cigarette, didn't reply. His eyes were fixed on the distant gate, where the sounds of war were growing louder.
Back in the canyon, Vivi's fingers closed around "Usopp's" waiting hand.
He smiled down at her, but it didn't reach his eyes—eyes that were suddenly, chillingly, the wrong shade of brown.
"Let's go stop this war," he said, his voice a perfect mimicry. But as he pulled her up onto the horse behind him, his free hand dipped subtly into his cloak. The glint of polished metal winked in the harsh desert light—not a slingshot, but the hilt of a long, thin stiletto dagger.
And as he spurred the horse not toward the chaotic battle, but down a secluded, shadowed side-canyon, he whispered words that froze the blood in Vivi's veins:
"The Boss is very eager to finally meet you, Princess."
(⭐ If you love the journey, please support us by collecting this story, adding it to your library, and leaving a rating! Your support keeps the adventure alive!)