Spirits Unseen (One Piece Fanfic)

The Vision they don't Share.

All the fruits generally have a family-like relationship, but at the same time, they could care less about each other when it counted. They don't care about having to fight each other, and delight in destroying the misbehaving ones.

"Thinner than water, thicker than blood," Gomu tells him, and Usopp has to spend a few nights pondering upon that statement.

-

"So Logias are generally adults, and Paramecias are generally children."

When Usopp lays out that observation, Gomu makes offended noises.

Usopp ignores him in favour of Hana's response.

"That is true for most of us, but there are exceptions. Mera is in the form of a human child, is she not?" Hana giggles, "and although Hito is an adult, his feline cousins are all children as well. It is more a matter of maturity than anything. Aside from the Zoans. The Zoans like child forms."

Usopp pauses.

"So are you tiny because you're immature or-- OW!" Usopp shoots away when Hana smacks him with her fan. "Alright, I'm sorry!"

-

So in hindsight, it's not just a matter of maturity.

Hito is a few centuries older than the others, and fruits like Bara are teenagers because their first users were teenagers, so they assumed those forms like hatchlings imitating their mothers.

Mera has been friends with Gomu for ages, so she took on the form of a child to have a comfortable brotherhood with him. The same thing for their older siblings, apparently.

And then there's Goro, who's only a child to spite Gomu.

Huh? Maybe it does have to do with maturity.

-

Okay, it definitely doesn't represent maturity. Let's redact the previous two paragraphs and pretend this chapter started from here.

Usopp is seriously going to start randomly crying one day and then Chopper is going to hopelessly ask, "who bullied you," to which Usopp will have to respond, "the freaky ghost child on the ship that no one else can see."

Or rather, the freaky child thing that their enemies sometimes have. It's very oftenly freakier than the enemy itself.

"So you are the rumoured human."

Hie is shorter than Usopp, but his presence is an enraged beast and so much more. Usopp can't remember the last time a teenager stared up at him like trash under his feet.

White hair. A scarf. And long-sleeved Japanese clothes. And a scowl, of course. Hana is draped all over his arm. She obviously looks up to him.

The child himself is scowling. Like a permanent scowling face-- ah, he's like an angrier and tinier Zoro.

"It's been so long, Hie-sama!"

"Hie-sama," Usopp repeats, "he gets a 'sama'?"

Everyone's busy getting freaked out by Aokiji. Usopp is busy trying to figure out who, why, and how there are rumours of him within the devil fruit community. Does he want to know them? Probably not.

"There aren't many humans that can sense us, much less see us, especially in Paradise," Hie muses, looking over the boy and trying to figure him out-- "in fact, I am quite surprised. You have the power, but you've never quite put it to use or training just yet."