"What are we even supposed to be doing out here…?" Nami grumbled.
"Hide and seek, right?" Chopper answered hesitantly.
"Cherry is the one who told us that that's what we're doing. We can't trust that," Nami denied. "And she already found us once. That should have been game over, and had us all back in warm beds by now."
"M-maybe she didn't and it really was a ghost- Ouch!" Chopper rubbed his nose after Nami pinched it.
"Shush!" Nami hissed. "There are no ghosts in this forest. It's all a set up for whatever Cherry is actually doing."
"She just wanted to scare us for fun, then?" Chopper offered.
"Hm, no, I don't think that's it…" Nami made eye contact with Chopper. "Well, that's not her main purpose anyways. She's not so mean spirited to scare the pants off of us for no reason."
"She did say that she wanted to do some training with us while we were still in Wano," Chopper recalled.
"She did, didn't she," Nami agreed. "What in the world is she trying to teach us, then?"
They both paused to mull it over. Each passing second that didn't have Cherry jumping out of a bush and shouting "Boo!" only fueled the building anticipation in their hearts.
"She brought us to a dark forest at night, and only let us have matches as a source of light. Then, she snuck up on us. She got as close to us as she could before revealing herself, but as herself; as something we would perceive as dangerous," Nami voiced her observations.
Her… observations…
"Oh, for the love of…!" Nami held her head in her hands. "She wants us to use Observation Haki."
*crunch*
They both whirled around, trying to see the source of the noise.
"Er, sorry…" Usopp scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Though it was hard to see him in only the slightest bit of moonlight, Nami and Chopper let out sighs of relief.
"We thought she already took you out, Usopp," Nami said, glad that that wasn't the case.
"Er, sorry," Usopp scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"It's okay, Usopp, you don't have to keep apologizing," Nami assured. "Come over here so we can make a plan."
"Er, sorry," Usopp scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"U-Usopp…?" Chopper stepped closer to Nami and gripped her shirt.
"Er, sorry," Usopp scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Nami fumbled for her match box, refusing to take her eyes off the silhouette. Retrieving a single match, she struck it and held it towards the figure of their friend.
"Er, sorry," the pale skinned Usopp with cloudy white eyes reached up and tugged on the rope around his neck.
*swoosh* *crack*
Usopp was yanked up into the thick branches, the unmistakable sound of vertebrae being broken as the rope went taut.
Nami dropped her match, Chopper scooped her up in his Heavy Point form, and ran away as fast as his feet would carry them.
"Are you sure this is Cherry messing with us?!" Chopper asked between big gulps of breath.
"I don't know anymore!" Nami admitted in a bit of a squeal. "She can change what she looks like and a broken neck is nothing to her, but…!"
"Surely she would be so mean!" Chopper argued.
"She absolutely would if she thought she was helping us!" Nami countered. "But… but Usopp would have come looking for us… shouted our names or something…!"
Chopper skidded to a stop and back peddled a few steps. "Do you see that?"
"See what…?" Nami saw it too.
A flicker of light, no bigger than a candle… or a match. It was pure luck that Chopper caught sight of it between so many trees and bushes.
"Nami! Chopper!" they could just barely hear the voice from this distance, thanks to the uneasy quiet that had settled over the forest, like a stage whisper that was meant to be heard but still sounded like a genuine whisper.
"That's gotta be Usopp! For real this time!" Chopper whispered hopefully.
Nami grimaced. She wanted so badly to agree, but they've already been tricked more than once. "We can't risk it. We can't trust our eyes or our ears."
She realized after she said it, that that was the whole point.
…
Usopp skulked amongst the tree trunks and other foliage, careful to stay as quiet as he could outside of the occasional call for his friends.
His calls and the lit match he held for light would likely spoil any attempts at stealth that he made, but the ghosts would already know where he was anyways. The sneaking was mostly to make himself feel better, and to ease the feeling that he was being watched.
The matches, he realized, were an important tool. At first, they had just seemed like a joke when Cherry had given them to them, but now Usopp thinks they were never meant to be used to help them see. They were meant to help them find each other again.
After all, how would ghosts get a hold of matches out in the woods?
He hoped that Nami and Chopper would come to the same conclusion as him if they saw his flame in the darkness. Then they could regroup.
"Nami! Chopper!" Usopp hissed into the trees once again. He listened carefully, but there was no answer.
The dead eyes set into Nami's pale face stared back at him in his memory, but he shook the image free from his head. He was certain it hadn't been real, just another trick.
Usopp closed his eyes and focused. The fear had gotten the better of him before, but with his friends out there all alone, he recalled that his physical senses were not the only ones available to him.
Slowly the world opened up to him. He could feel the branches above his swaying in the wind. Tiny critters scurried through the underbrush in fuzzy silhouettes.
And somebody was standing right behind him.
Usopp lashed out, swinging a blind backhanded punch… and met nothing but air. For a moment he wondered if he'd just imagined it instead of actually sensed it.
Then someone blew on the back of his neck.
Usopp proceeded to swing his arms and legs about with wild abandon, relying on luck to strike his foe instead of any amount of skill.
A familiar giggle a few meters away, and getting farther, is what signaled him to stop.
He huffed in irritation. If Cherry's first appearance before the Nami ghost hadn't already clued him into what was happening here, that obnoxious laugh would have convinced him completely.
It wasn't the creepy kind of giggle from ghost stories, it was the kind of giggle that Cherry had when she was mocking someone. Goodness knows he's heard it often enough to know it by heart.
"That's how you want to play it, huh?" Usopp grumbled. "We'll see who's laughing in the end!"
Usopp took a single step forward, then screamed as he plummeted into a pitfall full of mud.
…
Cherry chuckled and shook her head. "You were doing so well, too. Oh well, time to step things up a notch. You ready, Uta?"
"Yes!" Uta nodded excitedly. "We're done with your 'practical effects' now?"
"Indeed," Cherry agreed. "Have to keep my skills sharp; I won't always have you around to cheat."
Uta giggled up a storm. "This is going to be so much fun!"