One Piece (Love Story) [Part One]

Chapter Eighty One [Rewritten]

-Chapter Eighty-One-

"This is really getting old—if the Marines keep attacking us like this and we keep running away, I'm going to drop dead from exhaustion!" Usopp groaned as he helped Zoro in rowing the boat due to the lack of wind.

"Not if that cannonball gets us before that, now shut up and row!" Nami snippily ordered as the sharpshooter screamed in surprise at the sound of another cannonball landing just a bit too close to the ship.

"I never suspected the Marines' aim to be so terrible" I hummed, raising a curious eyebrow as I watched Chopper roll around the deck of the ship. His body poofed up into a big ball of fluff. "Be careful not to fall off the ship" I called out to him as he rolled past.

"Nonetheless, just because they're not hitting us at the moment doesn't mean they won't succeed in hitting us sometime soon" Nami huffed, hands on her hips as she watched over the rowing men. "This truly is bothersome, the amount of bad luck we've had in running into the Marines..." she grumbled.

"Tell me about it..." I muttered with the roll of my eyes. "Who would have thought it would be this easy to run into the Marines this many times" I sighed. I wasn't dense, I knew the Marines tended to sail the open seas just as much as pirates did, but to run into so many repeatedly since setting sail from Alabasta just felt a bit silly.

"Hey, Luffy, a little help would be nice!" Sanji snapped at the raven-haired man sprawled out across the deck.

"Sorry, I've got no strength—haven't eaten in hours..." Luffy groaned, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he seemed to just sink further into the deck of the ship.

"How about the taste of the back of my hand?!" Sanji threatened.

"Careful there, Sanji, he might just take you up on that offer" I chuckled.

"What the heck?" Chopper owlishly blinked the second he caught sight of one of the Marine ships suddenly sinking.

"They're shooting at each other?" Zoro questioned.

"I know I said their aiming was bad before, but I didn't think it was that bad" I raised an eyebrow as Usopp placed a foot on the railing and began to laugh.

"Take that! I predicted that those Marine bill rats would eventually turn on each other, right from the start!" he boasted.

"And when did you predict that?" Zoro asked.

"Yeah, when did you do that, oh great Captain Usopp?" I hummed as I leaned up against the railing, crossing my arms as I peered up at the sharpshooter.

"Who cares?!" Nami snapped at the three of us. "Their formation is collapsing, we got to use this opportunity to escape!"

-Later-

"We lose them?" Usopp asked as Robin peered through a pair of binoculars and looked out toward the vast sea behind us.

"It'd appear so" she answered.

"Well, when you have three people on board with big bounties on their heads, you can't blame them for going all out" Zoro said as he plopped down onto the ground before grunting a little when I followed soon after and flopped right down onto his lap.

"He's right, that does help in explaining why they've been so persistent in chasing after us" I agreed, spreading my legs out across the deck and leaning back as I felt his arms wrap around my waist and his chin rest atop my head.

"Luffy, you should move, there's a chance we could hit one of those shallow reefs and you could get thrown overboard" Nami suggested once she spotted the captain currently draped over the ship's figurehead.