One Piece (Love Story) [Part Two]

Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen [Rewritten]

-Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen-

"The Merry's our ship, so it's our job to take care of her without someone else butting in—I'm not giving up!" Usopp snapped. "I won't let them take the Merry away from me! This is stupid! You get fooled by a bunch of salesmen trying to pawn off a used boat...the Luffy I know wouldn't cave in for some sales pitch from a total stranger, he would believe in the strength of the Merry and the strength of his crew!" he angrily cried as he shakily stood and harshly grabbed the front of Luffy's shirt. "But here you are, acting like you know everything and ignoring your friends!

"I can't believe that's the kind of captain you turned out to be! I thought you were better than that!" he sneered.

"You're not being fair, Usopp!" Nami frowned. "Luffy felt the—"

"You stay out of this!" Luffy snapped, cutting the ginger off from involving herself in this fight of theirs. "It was my call, I'll stand by it—there's nothing you can do, we're getting a new ship whether you like it or not. This is the end of the road for the Merry" he firmly stated, making it clear that this wasn't up for debate.

"I'm not leaving her here, I don't care what you say!" Usopp cried. "I know you're always trying to think about the future, but not everyone on this crew is like that! I see the Merry as one of our friends, got that?! And I won't abandon her when she's hurt!" he screamed.

"Don't be stupid! Even if she is a friend, that doesn't mean she's a person!" Luffy scolded as he harshly threw the other pirate off him.

"She is to me! And she still has the strength to live, but you wouldn't appreciate that because all you care about is getting a new ship anyway!" Usopp snarled.

"Alright, that's enough!" Sanji butted in the minute he saw that Luffy was beginning to tremble with barely contained rage. He now looked as if he was ready for a fight. "Both of you just calm down and we can settle this" he tried to reason even as the long-nosed pirate continued to talk—continued to anger our captain further.

"Would you listen to yourself?!" Luffy finally snapped as he suddenly tackled Usopp to the ground.

"Luffy!" Nami gasped.

"What are you doing?! He's still hurt!" I snapped.

"Don't act like you're the only one that's torn up about this—we all feel the same way!" Luffy grounded out through clenched teeth.

"If that was true, then you wouldn't be looking for a new ship!" Usopp argued.

"Alright, fine! If you don't like the way your captain does things, then why don't you go ahead and get off—" Sanji kicked Luffy off of Usopp before he had a chance to finish that sentence—before he had a chance to say something he might just regret.

"Sanji!" Chopper cried out in shock.

"This is going way too far—what the hell is wrong with you?!" Sanji sneered. "If you don't watch it, you're going to say something you can't take back, so calm down!" he snapped, already starting to chew the captain out for what he was about to say.

"Yeah, I'm sorry—I don't know what I was thinking" Luffy heavily sighed, slowly sitting back up as he finally started to calm down.

"You don't have to apologize because that's how you really feel, isn't it...?" Usopp quietly asked.

"That's not true!" Luffy defended.

"Usopp, he was just speaking out of a place of anger, he didn't mean it" I reasoned, not wanting to the sharpshooter to get the wrong idea and really think he wasn't wanted anymore.