Summary: Back to the Blue Sea!

  Warning! Chapters 57-61 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you didn't miss any!

  Chapter 58: Moving On

  Vivi turned the thick bangle on her wrist in bemusement once again. It was a breathtakingly beautiful piece, with an oddly practical bent. Somehow, Robin had found a miniature log pose, embedded in an ornate crystal bracelet. It was apparently, shockingly enough, fully functional, as well as rendered insanely durable by the type of crystal it was worked into. Nami had actually given it looks of jealousy! That it had been acquired and given to her by Robin, of all people, had thrown her for a loop. As had the rather thoughtful inscription that had been written on the inside, where it would rest forever against her wrist.

  So that you can always find the way home.

  The gift, along with the quiet words of thanks from the older woman, had blown Vivi away. She'd still been nurturing a little bit of wariness for Robin, even knowing her history more fully, but now she found it very hard to summon up that reservation. She hadn't, until seeing the look that came with the thanks, really quite understood just how important Robin's dream was to her. It was something that was…beyond her life experience, she supposed. The closest thing she'd had to a dream so powerful was the desire to see Abasta free and safe again. Yet, somehow, she was sure that even that potent desire fell far short of how much of herself Robin had invested in her dream. It was only just beginning to set in for Vivi how little else Robin had left to believe in or hope for before the crew took her in.

  The gift and understanding had made for a sobering moment, overall. But also a cathartic one.

  A shout from Nami brought her back into focus. Now wasn't the time for wool-gathering, it was the time for…well, actually it was really just the time to watch as Wind's Home and The Crystal City vanished. The Discovery was a marvel of engineering, rigged in such a way that it could be crewed by just two or three people without trouble, even when it was under sail instead of engine power. As they weren't trying to hide that engine power at the moment, it was even less necessary for anyone but Nami and the Captain to really be doing much of anything.

  It was very strange for a ship this rge, particurly on the Grand Line. But the simple truth was that the Discovery only needed a crew the size it already had so that they could run three shifts a day without strain. Vivi wasn't assigned to this shift, so she was just a spectator. Though all of the crew were up and about, given that they were not just pnning to leave the isnd of Wind's Home, but to leave the White Sea entirely today. There was an Octo-balloon exit point, called Cloud Fall, from the isnd down to the Blue Sea that they would be taking soon. Wind's Home was one of the only pces on the White White Sea to see enough traffic from Blue Sea ships to justify having such a service. Apparently, Skypiea had a simir operation called Cloud's End, but it was smaller and rarely used. Only really there because there had once been significantly more people 'crazy' enough to travel via the Knock Up Stream.

  Idly realizing her thoughts were drifting without focus again, this time Vivi blushed when she realized where they'd instinctively settled. Captain Luffy's loose jacket, worn over a bare chest even here in the awful cold, was a very unfair outfit as far as she was concerned. He rarely closed it, only a sash that held his weapons and a pouch he used to conceal pulling things out of his 'inventory' holding it closed at the bottom. Which meant that quite often, such as now, one could see quite a lot of very nicely sculpted chest. The sort of tightly corded muscle that could feel like banded iron when you were held close, yet somehow his hugs were still very war-

  Vivi actively shook that thought away. Again. Tearing her eyes away from Luffy, she missed the smirk on Nami's face as she tried to focus on where they were going. The ride down to the Blue Sea should be her focus right now!

  ... ...

  "So, Miss Navigator, any idea where we're going to end up nding? I know the idea of charts and the Grand Line rarely get along with one another. Not without ughter being involved, at least. But just generally, any guess at all?"

  Surprisingly, after giggling a little at his description of the quality of existing charts of the Grand Line, Nami actually nodded an affirmative.

  "I have an excellent idea. Though that's mostly due to the locals of Wind's Home. While the White Sea might move and change, the White White Sea doesn't, and they know where they reside retive to the Blue Sea. Mostly as they've had crews that fell down to the Blue Sea eventually make their way back up via either the Knock Up Stream or some pce called the High West. According to them, the presence of Wind's Home causes an odd area of sea down below called the Florian Triangle. It's notorious for odd phenomena, many of which I suspect are caused by the White Sea being dense and near-permanently present here."

  Luffy blinked, processing that. On the one hand, that was good. He'd traveled to another Sky Isnd in part because he didn't want to go anywhere near Water 7 or, even more importantly at the moment, Enies Lobby. With the World Government trying to pin them down as part of attempting to fix the clusterfuck still brewing around the Abasta situation, passing so close to the Marine's Judicial Isnd and the fleets stationed in the area would have been the height of abject stupidity.

  On the less pleasant hand, there was the fact that Gecko Moria was most likely still set up in the Florian Triangle. That was…honestly more annoying than bad. While Luffy didn't have any particur attachment to the idea of recruiting Brook, the skeletal swordsman certainly wouldn't be a bad addition to the crew. Also, Moria was a creepy fucker that Luffy would just as soon eliminate as leave floating around to do creepy shit to retively innocent people.

  Shrugging, Luffy decided they'd just see what fate had in store for them. It wasn't like Thriller Bark was everywhere in the Triangle, and Luffy wasn't going to bother looking for it. He distinctly remembered that there were apparently other things in the fog there that might just be actively much more dangerous, and he wasn't going to stick around to find out what had been sinking ships for ages before Moria even set up in the area.

  "Well. That should be interesting then. Though I think I should probably speak to the crew on our way down. One of the more annoying Warlords makes the Triangle his stomping grounds. He's not too much of a threat, since it's really his Devil Fruit that is the issue. Since all of us with Armament should be able to no-sell his shadow stealing, he'd be one of the easier Warlords for us to deal with. Still, that's only if everyone is forewarned, and we do still have some retive newbies that can't use Haki yet."

  Nami blinked, then her brow furrowed. Luffy had made it a point to brief the entire crew on the major powers, and Hina had been able to update his own information quite a bit since she joined. Robin too, but to a lesser extent. Hina's previous access to the official Marine intelligence reports, as the commander of the fleet presence in an entire region of the Grand Line, was hard to beat.

  "Moria. Bounty 320 million before being frozen, in possession of the Kage Kage no Mi. Which lets him both use his shadow as a weapon, and steal other's shadows. That he can then use to control corpses? Fuck, he's the super creepy one I had nightmares about after you described him. Are you sure we can't just go to another Sky Isnd?"

  Luffy snorted.

  "The only real option for that would be Merveille, unless we wanted to backtrack, and Shiki's a heck of a lot more dangerous than Moria. Worse, we would run into Shiki's operations, where we only might run into Moria's."

  Nami sighed, then shrugged.

  "Well, we're only about twenty-five minutes out from Cloud Fall. Better gather everyone for a quick information rehash and warning then."

  Luffy nodded and moved away from the pilot house, intent on gathering everyone together…

  ... ...

  Plunging off the edge of the White White Sea, falling straight through an artificial hole in the White Sea, only to be caught in a slow fall as not one, but two Octo-ballons grabbed their ship, was quite a wild ride. There had been more than one scream from their more excitable crew members. The highest pitch coming from Usopp, rather than any of the girls. It had, in fact, been a bit of a competition between him and Chopper for who sounded the more panicked. Kaya had merely eeped a bit, while Nami swore quietly. Kuina, Robin, and Nojiko had taken it stoically, smirked, and ughed respectively. It would, undoubtably, end up being teasing fodder for poor Usopp for quite some time.

  Still, the wild part of the ride had ended fairly quickly, leaving them to simply drift. Most vessels would have been stuck simply dropping, letting the fates completely control where they nded. The Discovery, due to the many Dials that had been empced, had instead possessed the option to at least steer in the direction their log pose was pointing. Though not even Nami had much of an idea of what isnd it might have locked onto. The Sabaody Archipego was likely, but hardly certain at this point, given they were coming from a Sky Isnd instead of along one of the traditional seven routes through Paradise.

  What she did know was something they could all tell as they started coming into view of the Blue Sea. Wherever they nded exactly, it would be within the foggy, misty mess that was the Florian Triangle. That particur expanse of Sea was simply too rge to avoid, when they had started right in the middle of it. The fact that Wind's Home was right in the middle of it lent a lot of credence to the idea that much of the Florian Triangle's mystery was expined by its presence directly under one of the most stable chunks of the White Sea. That fact certainly expined the constant shadowy, gloom, and probably expined the fog as an effect of interaction between the White Sea and the Blue Sea environments.

  Which didn't exactly expin all the weird shit about the Florian Triangle, which Robin was exercising her particur brand of dark humor to expand upon for a worried looking Usopp and half-shaking Chopper. Kaya was caught between amusement and disapproval as she id a comforting hand on Chopper, lips twitching as she watched her boyfriend try to remain calm.

  "Over 100 ships vanish there every year. Of course, while some vanish forever, others turn up from time to time. Missing their crews or, in at least a few cases, with ghost or skeleton crews being reported as steering the ships. It's said the Florian Triangle is where the undead gather to prey upon the living, and the Gecko Moria's presence is only tolerated as he feeds the dead his victims~! Some even say that his power isn't a Devil Fruit at all, but the foulest Necromancy, taught to him by the dead who linger in the Triangle. That Moria traded his still-beating heart to the shadows for the knowledge of how to bring back a lost love…only to be cursed into service to them lest they take her back."

  Luffy smirked, watching his two least-courageous crewmembers quail and sweat. He might not be entirely sanguine about some of the things that might well be hiding in the mist, particurly as he could feel a spiritual component to the heavy fog as they descended ever closer. Yet he knew that at least some, perhaps most, of the more recent ghost stories were the result of people running afoul of either Brook or Perona.

  "Fire! Right below us! BRACE!"

  The voice was Kuina's, his First Mate not having gotten distracted by either Robin or the feeling of spiritual energy in the fog. Startled, the entire crew reacted. Most were veteran enough members of the Grand Line at this point to take the First Mate's orders as the next best thing to the Word of God when she shouted like that, and they each grabbed at walls, lines, rails, or masts. Only Chopper failed to react in time, but he was still in physical contact with Kaya, who did react in time, gluing herself in pce with a clever use of Spiritual Energy and hugging Chopper's small form to her.

  It was a good thing, too. A better thing yet that Nami's own instinctive reaction to the warning had been to sm the controls for the Jet Dials wide open, slowing the ship as a massive set of rigging, rigging that was on fire, almost immediately dominated the space in front of the Discovery. Kuina, Zoro, and Luffy were all three fast enough to sh out with wind bdes, cutting through that rigging and weakening the massive mast it was anchored to. It wasn't quite enough to avoid a jarring impact as the Discovery smashed into the weakened mast, toppling it with a shuddering crunch. Thankfully, the Discovery had slowed greatly and was tough, the impact ripping away wooden veneer panel, but the Lunar/Ducal steel composite armor underneath barely being scratched as their momentum sheered through the Main Mast of what Luffy betedly realized must be the Thriller Bark.

  As the ship listed from that mast dragging against it, the jarring forced the much-depleted Octo-balloons to release, and the Discovery turned nose down and plunged toward the artificial isnd of the Thriller Bark. Even as he braced again for what was likely going to be a rough nding, pouring his Armament Haki into the ship to strengthen it farther against the coming hit, Luffy had to wonder why the fuck everything was on fire.

  ... ... ... ... ... ...

  A/N 1: So, the little moment between Robin and Vivi, even if was partially off-screen, was something that needed to happen. Particurly as patrons voted for Vivi to eventually be part of the pairing :-p. A road to getting rid of any possible tensions between her and Robin has been properly forged, even as her crush is more firmly hinted at/shown.

  A/N 2: MWHAHAHA, bet no one saw that crash nding coming! I thought to myself that it sort of makes things stitch together pretty well if the presence of a Sky Isnd is part of why the Florian Triangle is weird. And, in One Piece, when something like this happens, the odds always lean on it happening in the most absurd fashion possible ;-).