Chapter Text
“Hey! Man overboard!”
Shanks looks up at the sound of his first mate’s voice, brows furrowed as he watches the man shrug off his shirt and jump over the side with a splash. Across the deck, the rest of his crew starts to perk up, gathering around the railing to see what all the fuss is about. Benn swims out across the relatively calm waters with ease, grey hair disappearing under the waves as he dives down.
There’s a flash of red in the water – not like blood, but darker, mixed with a sodden white, and Benn resurfaces with his arm wrapped around a limp body. Shanks squints, but it’s too far away to make out many details other than the dark brown curls fading to a deep crimson at the ends.
“Lime, grab a rope,” Shanks orders, and the closest man to the door gives him a salute before darting off belowdecks, reappearing a moment later with a rope ladder in hand. Snake helps him hook it to the rail and roll it down just in time for Benn to grab on, hauling himself up with one arm and flinging the limp body over his shoulder. He keeps a grip around the waist, just in case, and Shanks wonders if the person is unconscious.
It’s not one of his nakama, that much is clear. None of them are that scrawny or short, and for that matter, none of them are female . This person very clearly is, or at least presents awfully female, judging by the dark red skirt she’s wearing. Her clothing seems rather tailored, a short-sleeved white blouse tucked into a skirt that reaches her knees, with a pair of black oxfords and white frilled socks to complete the ensemble. A pair of circular-framed gold glasses sit atop her nose, just above a light dusting of freckles. She doesn’t look at all familiar, but she’s still breathing, meaning there’s a good chance she’ll wake up and give them some answers any moment now.
“Any of you know her?” He looks around, but all of his nakama are shaking their heads. “Yeah, me neither. Benn?”
“She’s breathing, but she probably swallowed some seawater, being under for that long. Someone ought to go and get Hongo.”
“Already here,” says the doctor, popping out from belowdecks. “Lime said Benn found some flotsam, thought I’d grab my kit before I came to see what was going on up here.”
“Some drowned girl popped up over that way.” Shanks waves a vague hand off to the side, where Benn had seen the girl in the water. “She’s not from our ship, but there’s no one else out here, so I got no idea where the fuck she came from. Looks pretty young, though.”
“Well, don’t just leave her to drown there, turn her on her side!” Hongo barks, and Gab, the closest one, kneels down to comply. “Don’t see any head injuries, so the lack of consciousness is probably due to oxygen deprivation and not being knocked out by a thump to the head. How long d’you reckon she was under, Benn?”
“About a minute or two from when I saw her, but it could have been longer,” he replies. “I never saw her fall, nor where she fell from. For all I know, she popped up there all on her own.”
Shanks shrugs. “It’s the Grand Line, weirder things have happened. Think she’ll wake up any time soon?”
“Hard to tell,” Hongo starts, but a second later, the girl starts to cough, moving to push herself upright. “Hey, hey, easy there, kid. Don’t strain yourself too much, now.”
She manages to get herself into a sitting position, wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb as the coughing subsides. “Where… am I?”
“You’re on the Red Force, ship of the Akagami Pirates,” explains Hongo, keeping his voice slow and steady. “Do you remember your name, kid?”
“What?” The girl stills. She looks up, eyes darting from person to person before settling on Benn for a long moment and finally moving to Shanks. “What the fuck .”
Shanks feels his eyebrows shoot up, partially in bemusement and partially out of surprise for the sheer audacity of making eye contact with a Yonkou and immediately cursing. “I’m guessing it’s safe to say you recognise us?”
“Somewhat,” she responds, looking rather shell-shocked herself. “How, uh, how exactly did I get here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Benn fished ya out of the ocean.” Shanks tips his head towards his first mate, who nods. “What ship were you on?”
She shakes her head. “None. Last I know, I was on the docks, and then I woke up here. I think they broke underneath me. That was my own fault, though, I shouldn’t have gone out on them until those old boards could get replaced.”
“Fell from the docks, huh? Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re a long way from any islands, kid. Where did you say you were from again?”
“Nowhere ‘round here, probably. I don’t even think I’m from this world .”
Shanks’s first reaction to that is to wonder if someone spiked his booze, because there’s no way she just said what he thinks she said. His second reaction is the urge to facepalm, because if there’s anywhere that shit would happen, it’s in the New World, and guess where they are right now? Yep, it’s the New World. Grand Line bullshit strikes again, it seems, because as far as his Haki can tell, she wholeheartedly believes she’s telling the truth.
“...Explain,” he says slowly, and the girl stands up, brushing off her skirt and straightening her blouse before offering him a polite bow, her hands folded in front of her.
“My name’s Vivian– Cyrus Vivian, and in the world I live in, you don’t exist,” she begins bluntly. Shanks’s eyebrows once again make a valiant attempt to join his hairline. “Not as a living being, at least. My only knowledge of you is as a fictional character in a series of comics, hence my, um… reaction .” A light blush of embarrassment forms over her freckles, but it soon disappears as Shanks replies.
“You’re from another world?” He confirms, and his face contorts into a grimace when she nods. “Fantastic. We’ll chalk that up to Grand Line bullshit, then. Any idea how to get back?”
It’s Vivian’s turn to grimace when he asks that. “Um… no. My world doesn’t really have all the mystical-magical whatever that this one does. We’ve got technology, but that’s about it, and none of that would help me here.”
“So, for the time being, you’re effectively stuck here?” Benn asks.
Vivian nods. “It would seem that way, yes.”
“No, hang on, I’d like to go back to the comics thing,” Shanks interrupts. “Did you say we’re characters in a comic series ?”
“Um… more or less? You aren’t the main characters, but you appear every once in a while.”
“Huh.”
“Comics aside, I would like to point out that the kid was, in fact, just drowning , and I think further interrogations can be left until after I’m done giving her a proper checkup. Any qualms?” Hongo eyes the rest of the crew, as if daring them to oppose him. “Good, that’s what I thought. Vivian?”
“Via’s fine,” she responds. “Am I meant to go to the infirmary?”
“You’ll follow me and we’ll sort the rest out later.”
She nods, trailing after Hongo as he leads the way belowdecks. As soon as the door closes behind the pair, Shanks turns to Benn with an incredulous look on his face.
“Benn, we’ve got a dimension-hopper on our ship,” he says, taking great pride in the fact that Benn immediately knows what he’s about to ask.
“No, we’re not keeping her.”
“We could ,” Shanks points out. “I don’t know if she’s a child, though, which is my only issue there. I’m not keeping a kid on a pirate ship.”
“She probably wants to go home, Shanks, I doubt she’d like to join a crew of pirates – allegedly pirates from a storybook, might I add.”
“So? That sounds like a fantastic adventure!”
“For you , maybe.”
oOoOo
“Let me know if you feel any shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, or other symptoms, but other than that, you’re good to go.” Hongo closes his bag and gives her a nod.
Via stands, nodding back. “Thank you very much. Um… where should I be going, exactly?”
He tips his head to the left. “Through that door, down the hall in that direction. There should be an open door near the end of the hall that will lead you to the galley, and you can head in there and wait for the rest of the crew. Roux will get you something to eat, just tell him what you like.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Heading out of the infirmary and in the indicated direction, Via allows her thoughts to wander, trying to sort out what the fuck she’d managed to get herself into. She’s on a pirate ship that she thought was fictional less than an hour ago, in a world that doesn't exist , all because she went out on a rickety dock and fell into the ocean, which apparently managed to transport her to fucking One Piece .
This entire situation is insane. What is she even meant to do about this? She can’t exactly go back the way she came, not when she doesn’t know what brought her here in the first place.
…Does she even want to go back?
Stepping through the door to the galley, the smell of soup immediately hits her, both new and familiar all at once. Lucky Roux is standing behind the counter, busying himself with someone on the stove, but he turns around when she enters. She’s not sure if he heard her coming or if it was Observation Haki, but regardless.
“Oh, you must be Vivian!” He gives her a wide grin, and she smiles back with a polite nod. “Benn told me you’d be dropping by! Come over this way, have a seat and let me know what you’d like to eat.”
“Oh, uh… what do you have?” She asks, taking the indicated seat at the head of the table and folding her legs up underneath her in the chair.
“There’s a soup on the stove now, but there’s fish in the freezer, fruits and vegetables in the pantry, some bread in the cabinet… do you have any allergies?”
“Just mangoes. It’s not a very serious one, though, they just give me a stomachache.”
He frowns. “Oh, that’s unfortunate. I’ll keep the mangoes out of your food, then. Care for an orange?”
“Oh, thank you.” Via takes the fruit and digs her fingers into the top, peeling it apart in strips. “What sort of soup is that?”
“Sea King and vegetable! It’s one of the Boss’s favourites. Would you like to try a bite once it’s finished cooking?”
“I’d love to.” She smiles, popping a wedge of the orange in her mouth. “It sort of smells like chicken soup. I thought something was different, though.”
Roux nods. “It’s made mostly the same way as a good chicken noodle, but it’s Sea King meat instead of chicken. I still use chicken broth for mine, but I’ve used beef bone broth before and it turned out just as good. Maybe I’ll do that next time – what d’you think?”
“Oh– I think it will be good either way.”
“Probably.” He shrugs. “But I like to experiment either way – who knows? Maybe I’ll use vegetable stock and see what that gets me.”
“If you’re using vegetable stock, we should have gotten more on the last island,” says a new voice from the doorway. Via turns around in her seat to see Yasopp the Chaser entering the room, scratching his head and pushing his curls out of his face. “What’s in the soup?”
“Sea King,” Roux responds. “Have an orange, there’s a ton in the bowl.”
“Sure.” Yasopp plucks a fruit from the bowl in the centre of the table, giving Via a nod. “Hey, kid. Hope Roux’s not boring you with the soup recipe.”
“I don’t mind hearing about the food,” she says, shrugging as she eats another slice of her orange.
Yasopp snorts. “Well, that’s good, ‘cause it’s all you’ll hear from Roux. He’s very passionate about his role as the cook.”
“Oh, like you’re any better,” Roux snipes back, though there’s not a drop of venom in his voice. “Come and taste this, I don’t know if it needs more salt or not.”
Making his way over to the stove and grabbing a spoon, Yasopp dips it in for a moment and blows on the broth before taking a sip. “Mh, salt’s fine. Maybe some more thyme?”
“No, there’s enough of that. I’ll do another pinch of parsley to even it out, I went a bit light on that earlier.”
“Oh, yeah, that’ll do it.”
It’s surprisingly domestic for a scene on a pirate ship. Via looks down at her orange, picking away at the little white strings that insist on clinging to the wedges and dropping them onto the outer edges of the peel, far away from her fruit.
The rest of the crew slowly starts to pour into the room as Roux puts the last finishing touches on the soup, each man taking a seat at the table. Benn counts up the seats when he comes in and frowns, leaving for a moment before returning with another chair that he places right beside Via’s own. Apparently, there weren’t any spare chairs, which leaves Via to wonder whose seat she’s inadvertently stolen.
Akagami no Shanks himself is one of the last to arrive, claiming the seat at the other end of the table and leaning back comfortably in the chair. A few moments later, Roux makes his way over to the table, carrying an enormous pot of soup in his hands while Yasopp follows behind with a stack of bowls and spoons.
“Dinner!” Roux announces, plopping the pot right in the middle of the table on a small circle of cork. Via would guess that it’s a hot mat – her mother had a similar one at home.
Yasopp passes out the bowls and spoons to each person at the table, and Via nods in thanks as she accepts her own. The ladle is passed around as well, each person filling their own bowl before handing it off to the next. When it reaches Benn, he fills his own bowl, then holds out a hand for hers. “Need a hand with the soup?”
“Yes, please.” She holds out her bowl and he takes it, scooping a spoonful into it.
“How’s that?”
“That’s good. Thank you.”
Benn nods, setting the bowl down in front of her again and passing the ladle to Howling Gab on her other side. Picking up her spoon, Via takes a sip of the broth, eyes widening at the taste. It’s reminiscent of crab or salmon, but not quite like either one – which makes sense, she supposes. It is seafood, after all. Still, it’s a bit too close to a shellfish to taste like any type of normal fish she’s eaten before. It’s good, though, and that’s what matters. She digs into the soup with a vigour, caught in the balance between being polite and the ever-present draw of a really fucking good soup .
“How is it?” Roux asks, leaning in to hear her answer.
“This is the pinnacle of human existence,” Via reflexively responds, pausing a moment later as her brain catches up with her mouth. “...Um. It’s very good, I mean.”
Roux grins. “I’m glad you like it! Have as much as you want.”
“...Thank you.”
“So,” Shanks begins, taking advantage of the lull in conversation. “How old are you, Vivian?”
“Fifteen,” she replies. “Just turned fifteen a few weeks ago, if this world follows the same calendar. It was July this morning, so… what month is it here?”
“Still July. You're only fifteen?” Benn asks, shooting Shanks a look.
“As of July tenth, yes.”
Shanks frowns. “Still a bit young, but I suppose a teenager is different than a child. You got anywhere to go, kid?”
“Um… not particularly? I need to figure out when I am in the timeline before anything else, and I also need to know if my knowledge of this world from the comics is accurate.” If it’s not, that could cause some serious problems if she tries to go off of only that. The manga goes all the way up to the Egghead Island arc, as far as she remembers, but what if she entered the timeline before or after that? Via’s world doesn’t operate on the same timeline as this one does. For all she knows, she’s dropped in a decade before canon.
“The year is 1520, if that helps,” Yasopp supplies. “So hang on, you’re really from another world? And we’re in a comic series ? Oh, am I in the comics? Am I cool ?”
“1520?” She hums. That solves that problem, at least. “The beginning of the comics takes place in 1522, so that’s when most of my knowledge becomes helpful. You are in the comics, by the way – this crew doesn’t appear often, but you’re fairly popular amongst the readers.”
“What exactly is the series about?” Benn asks.
“Pirates, mostly. It follows Monkey D Luffy as the protagonist, so your crew is important to the storyline, but not depicted very often.”
Shanks raises an eyebrow. “Oh, so it’s Anchor’s story? That explains a bit.”
Via nods. “There are a lot of side stories and background plots, but yes, Luffy is the main character.”
“Heh. Leave it to Anchor to be the main character, I suppose. I’m guessing it’s about his journey as a pirate?”
“Mhm.”
“But he hasn’t set out yet.”
“He should set out in 1522, if the comics from my world are accurate. They might not be, though, so it’s more of a rough estimate than anything else.”
She really needs to figure out sooner rather than later if her prior knowledge is accurate. At the moment, it's really the only thing she’s got going for her – she never learned to fight or anything, considering that her own world didn’t have anything like pirates or Haki, so her only advantage is her potential knowledge of the narrative. Without that… well. She’ll need to develop a few more skills anyways, but Via doesn’t particularly want to lose the one advantage she might have here.
Shanks nods, taking another bite of his soup before responding. “I’m guessing you don’t have much of a plan for what you’re doing next?”
“...No, unfortunately.” She can feel a bit of heat rising in her cheeks at the admission. “I’m sure I could figure something out, though.”
“Then in the meantime,” Shanks continues, “what would you think of sailing with my crew?”
Via pauses, blinking as she tries to comprehend what he just offered. He can’t be serious, can he? “…I thought you didn’t allow children on board.”
“You’re old enough to have some common sense and not throw yourself into a fight, so I don’t see an issue with you being on board. A teen’s a little different than a child. You’re just about the right age for a cabin girl, anyways, so what do you say? Want to sail with a pirate crew?”
There’s only one thing she can say to that, if she’s being honest. “Yes. I’d love to.”