Soo, with Happiness Punch finished I finally have to time to start on this idea that I've been wanting to write for a while now. I don't really know if I'm any good at writing angst, but I'm eager to try it out, because I simply love the genre. And since I only started writing a little while ago, I want to experiment and figure out my skills. So please tell me what you think!

There is going to be a considerable focus on Luffy and Nami here due to the story line that I have in mind, you may or may not call it LuNa, but it will probably be a little off from 'romantic'.

You'll have to know the Water7 arch to understand the concept of the story. Although after the first chapter everything will pretty much be my own invention. One Piece of course is not my invention, but this you already know ;)

Chapter 1: Departure

He felt his legs wobble, then they finally gave out, leaving him on his knees in front of the broken stone stairs. He wanted to refuse to believe his eyes, even when that scene was so openly displayed before him.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!"

He shouted from the top of his lungs - yet the only ears that his voice could reach were the ones of the people surrounding him, staring at him with confusion or worse... compassion. To the ones he was trying to reach so desperately though, his question would remain unheard.

This had been supposed to be a great day; The day of the great Captain Usopp's return! Finally he had worked up the courage to talk to them, have everyone forget what happened between them and sail the seas as their Nakama once again. And yet there they were, far off in the distance, with a new ship and a new crew member

... and without him.

Usopp felt anger arise within him. They couldn't be serious! He knew that he had screwed up, he knew that better than anyone! Duelling Luffy had been the worst stupidity in his life! But hadn't they fought together after all of that? Hadn't they faced their enemy side by side, having each other's back without a doubt? When Luffy commanded him to shoot down the World Government's flag, he had not hesitated for a single moment, declaring war on the world itself alongside with them. No way they could have already forgotten about all of that!

It wasn't long until the anger inside him shifted, leaving his defenses wide open to an emotion that tore away the ground from underneath his feet: Despair. He couldn't have known that they would already leave... but they knew. They knew and yet not one of them had come for him - because they had long made their decision.

The voices of the people around him, whispering and gossiping about his misery, his being left behind by the people that he loved most in this world, blended into one vague noise in Usopp's ears. That ship in the distance began to blur as he felt water running down his cheeks freely to drip onto his hands that were fruitlessly trying to seize the stone ground, trying to provide him with any kind of hold as his reality began to spin at the realisation that his days as a Straw Hat Pirate were incontestably over.

o-o-o

"Protect the ship!" Luffy yelled out, bouncing off cannonballs from his inflated body.

He hated this, he hated everything about this! Usopp for leaving their crew in the first place, Zoro for forcing him to wait, his Jii-chan for driving them away from this island before their time. He cursed every single cannonball that exploded in the water, causing surges that pushed them out to the open sea even faster and further away from his missing Nakama. Everything seemed to be in such hurry to make them leave! He cursed Usopp for not showing up. He cursed himself for putting on a show...

"He's here!"

Luffy tried to ignore the little reindeer's cries as best as he could. When he had first heard those words, he couldn't have described the immense hope that it had stirred inside him. Yet, the younger one's claims had proven to have no ground; Usopp was nowhere to be seen. And soon that high-pitched voice, insisting to know otherwise, tugged considerably at the young pirate captain's already strained nerves.

"He's here!"

He felt vexed, exhausted, deceived, adrenaline rushing through his system from both, standing against his granpa and the potential loss of his best friend... it was a dangerous mix.

"Luffy, stop ignoring me! He's here!" the little one's voice rang through the noise of cannonballs exploding or clashing with steel and the water's surface.

It was the fact that this time he was being addressed directly that made Luffy snap. Angrily he spun around to his little doctor, a cannonball that he had just caught spinning with him and being flung at the ship's mast instead of back out to the sea. The collision caused a violent explosion, sending the weaker crew members to the wooden floor and making their ears ring painfully. Luffy couldn't even tell anymore if that had been an accident, or him unleashing his frustration.

"Stop saying that, we're not going back!" he finally bawled at Chopper, ignoring Franky's shouts about demolishing his ship. The younger one looked up at his angry captain, wide-eyed and trembling.

"Temee... what the hell do you think you're doing shitty rubber man!"

Luffy turned around, ready to defend himself against the fuming cook stomping up to him. His arm struck out when Sanji's leg flew up to connect with his head... but both of them paused mid-air as more than one surprised scream pierced their ears.

"LUFFY! DON'T THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE THAT EASILY!"

It was his granpa's voice that carried over the water, giving point to his words by lifting one enormous cannonball over his head. Luffy felt his heart drop. He was right, there was no fucking way they would survive that thing! If it hit them, they were done for! The young pirate spun around desperate. Where the hell was Franky?! He was the only one who would possibly know how to move the ship away from the attack! It was his ship after all, so why was he nowhere to be found?!

Like a solar eclipse a shadow devoured the ship as the gigantic iron ball rushed down from above. It was too late! Luffy could only stare up in shock, not even noting the ominous tremble underneath his feet.

Then suddenly he felt himself losing his balance, as the deck beneath him abruptly shot forward while his own inert body didn't. He tumbled across wooden planks for a second, the world around him spinning until his back connected with the gallery door, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Luffy heard the pained groans of the people not made of rubber crashing into the wall next to him, apart from Sanji, who crashed into him and Robin and Nami who had been caught mid-air by a net made of hands.

Quickly Luffy shoved Sanji off him, rushing to the side of the ship to see what the hell had happened, when the impact of the flying ship hitting the water almost knocked the young pirate over the rail. He scrambled back to his feet.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Luffy shouted out angrily. It was then that Franky finally reappeared, his head popping up from the engine room.

"My Coup de Burst!" the shipwright explained proudly. "I included the technique in the ship's mechanics, so we can catapult ourselves out of any trouble!"

Luffy spun back around to look over the rail wide-eyed. He was right, they had been shot away a good bit from where the huge cannonball was crashing into the empty waters. The impact followed by an impressive wave that rocked the ship fiercely as it carried them off even further.

They had made it. They had escaped from his Jii-chan...

...they had left Water7...

Luffy looked at the island in the distance, his hands clutching into the rail before him as the Marine ship gave up the chase and the earlier battle field around him seemed to quiet down painfully. There were no cheerful cries celebrating their successful escape, or shouts of farewell to all the new friends that they had made. Only the crushing silence of seven people avoiding to voice out the final goodbye that they had just taken from one of their own.

o-o-o

Luffy was sitting on the wooden floor, staring out at the vast sea behind them. He didn't know how long it had been, but finally he was witnessing the last outlines of Water7 vanishing at the horizon. His heart clenched; They had breached the point of no return at last. At the Grand Line, with it's unpredictable weather and currents, there was no hope of finding back an island that wasn't at least at sight. Luffy may not be a navigator, yet he did understand that much. He thought of the Log Pose, guiding them to an island where Usopp wasn't waiting and the uncharacteristically strong wind pushing into their sails mercilessly. It seemed to him as if the whole damn world was eager to express its approval of them parting ways... The only thing to prove him wrong were the gentle sobs of a young woman and a little reindeer reaching his ears as they were carried by the wind.