Chapter Text
The Red Force is approaching a new island, which could be good or bad for a number of reasons. On the one hand, they’ll get to resupply, but on the other hand, islands tend to be where things happen. Namely, things that Via really should not be getting caught up in.
Then again, she’s caused at least a few things herself, so perhaps this will be a welcome change – this time, it’ll be someone else’s fault when shit goes off the rails.
(Hopefully.)
According to Shanks, she was supposed to be visiting weaponry shops at this island to try and find something she could use to defend herself. Unfortunately, not much other information on that topic was given, so Via had been left to figure it out for herself. She can assume that Benn, Roux, or Shanks himself will be accompanying her, since those seemed to be the three that Shanks had implied would be involved in her training, but she’s not making any hard predictions yet.
For now, however, the ship is still coming up on the island, meaning they’ve still got a couple of hours or so before they reach the shore. Via had considered using this time to continue writing out everything she remembered of canon, but quite frankly she’s been doing that for too long already and her hand is starting to cramp.
Luckily, however, she knows of a few more ways she can make herself useful. There are always chores that need to be done, after all.
In fact, she could probably go and find something to do right now, before they reach the island properly and dock the ship. Via had been planning on trying to add more to her reference notebooks, but her hands are starting to ache a bit from writing for so long.
Maybe Roux will need help with the dishes? That was one of her chores at home, so it’s not like she’s clueless about it. She could also see if Hongo or Yasopp needs anything, though she doesn’t think that a doctor or sniper would have the amount of menial tasks that a cook would, and even if they did, it would probably require either skill or familiarity with the area, and Via is absolutely clueless about anything medical, not to mention anything regarding ranged weaponry. She’s never held a gun in her life, much less tried to clean one.
For now, it seems that helping out in the kitchen will be her best bet. She could probably make a joke about that, being the only woman on the ship and ending up as a kitchen assistant, but… well, the kitchen is where the snacks are and she’s also kind of hungry. Maybe she can get an orange and offer to help with dishes or cleanup or something once she’s done eating it.
Mind made up, Via heads out of her temporary room and down the hall, stopping in front of the kitchen. The door is slightly ajar, but she still knocks lightly on the doorframe to announce her presence before she pushes it open and sticks her head in.
“Oh, Vivian!” Roux smiles as he looks over from where he stands at the cutting board. She can see piles of vegetables laid out, some chopped and some still intact – likely for dinner, though she’s not sure of what he’s making yet. “Come in, are you looking for a snack?”
“...Maybe an orange, if you’ve got one to spare?” She requests politely. “I actually came in to ask if you needed help with anything. It’s not as if I’ve got anything to do, and I mean, I know how long it can take to do dishes when you’ve got other things going on. It was my main chore back home, so I thought I might offer and see if I could lend a hand.”
Roux blinks in surprise, but quickly shakes it off. “I wouldn’t mind a helping hand, that’s mighty kind of you! Have one of the oranges from the bowl on the table before you start trying to do chores, though.”
Via nods and complies, taking one of the fruits and sitting on one of the stools at the counter to eat it. Here, she’s close enough that she and Roux are basically facing each other, though they’re both absorbed in their own tasks – Roux with the chopping of the vegetables, and Via with the peeling of her orange.
“What were you up to with all those papers, anyways?” Roux asks casually, not looking up from his cutting board. “Yasopp mentioned something about it, so I was curious.”
She hesitates for a moment, but… the whole crew already knows where she came from. They know that she has knowledge of the narrative, so really, why does it matter if they know that she’s writing it down? It’s in code anyways, so it’s not like they could read it – and nor could anyone else, for that matter, not even the Marines (if they somehow got their grubby little hands on it, that is).
“I’ve been trying to write down everything I know about where the future is going so that I have a reference and so I don’t miss anything,” she explains slowly. “It’s all in code – I made one up a while ago and I’ve had it memorised for years. There’s no key, and some of it references stuff from my world, so the only way they would be able to read it would be if they were from my world – in which case, they’d probably already know the events of the future because of the comics.”
Roux looks up with a surprised expression, though he quickly recovers. “That’s pretty clever of you. And you said you wrote everything in a code that you made yourself?”
“Mhm. I don't know if it’s perfect , but it’s good enough, and I could always rewrite it later in a new code if I came up with improvements. I’d probably burn the old ones if I did that, just in case. I… really don’t want certain people getting their hands on these.”
“Makes sense. Information can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.”
That was… oddly grave. Maybe she should be worried about that. “True. I can think of a number of people who really shouldn’t be trusted with this.”
“Well, if you ever want help with the codes, Lime is surprisingly good with ‘em. He’s better at making codes than cracking them, but eh, that’s probably more of what you’d want anyways. He won’t let anything slip, either, if you’re worried about that. Lime can keep a secret even better than the government can.”
Via snickers. “From what I’ve seen, that’s not exactly a very high bar.”
oOoOo
“So,” Benn begins, looking out onto the island. “What’s the plan for here, Captain?”
Shanks sighs, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “Eh, check town and see if there’s a quartermaster’s anywhere, maybe get a new weapon for Vivian if we can, stock up on supplies and all that. The usual.”
“Gotcha. Punch and Gab were after havin’ another party, y’know.”
“Were they?”
“Mhm. Said somethin’ about having a stash of booze belowdecks that they were saving for a ‘special occasion.’”
“If that’s the same stash I’m thinking of, Rockstar got to it ages ago,” Shanks points out with a laugh. “But I’ll see if we can’t swing a party or two. Beach looks like a nice place for it, anyways.”
“True.”
“This time, though, someone’s keeping a better eye on Vivian. No more giving the teenager secret drinks. Nobody needs that.”
“Got it. If one of us can’t do it, Yasopp or Hongo probably would.”
“Roux might be a good option, too. You know he can hold his liquor like nobody’s business, and she seems to like him well enough. I saw her helping him out in the kitchen earlier.”
“Really? Didn’t think she’d be leaving her room that easily. She still seems a bit… wary, y’know. Can’t blame her, not with the circumstances, but still.”
Shanks sighs. “I know. I’d like to help, but I’ve no idea what you’re supposed to do in a situation like that. Doubt anyone does. I’m just doing whatever makes the most sense in the moment and hoping that doesn’t fuck anything up even worse.”
“Well, I’d say it’s going well so far. She’s still being way too polite, but I don't think we’ve scared her off yet, so there’s that.”
“That’s not as helpful as you think it is, Benn.”
His first mate shrugs. “Hey, what do you want me to say? I’m no better with children than you are.”
That’s a lie and Shanks knows it. Benn was always far better with children of all ages than Shanks was – something about his natural calm combined with his ability to always say the right thing had made him nigh irresistible to the little buggers.
“Ey, Captain! We’re makin’ landfall in a couple minutes!” Yasopp calls out to them, interrupting Shanks’s meandering thoughts. “Lime wanted me to let you know.”
“Thanks, I’ll be there in a few.” Shanks gives him a wave and the other man salutes him before heading back into the cabin. Shanks sighs, leaning back against the railing as he glances over at Benn again. “Gonna take Vivian into town to look for a weapon, I think. You wanna come with or d’you have other things to do? I could always bring Hongo or Roux if you’re busy.”
Benn shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll come along. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you, and I ain’t makin’ the kid do it.”
“ Rude. ”
The ship is docked soon enough, and Shanks readies himself to head into town. Vivian appears a few minutes later, already dressed in black pants with corset lacing at the waist, a long-sleeved white blouse, a pair of lace-up leather boots, and the black cloak he had given her right before the last island. She looks like a real pirate, and Shanks smiles proudly before she looks over his way.
“Roux said you wanted to see me?” She asks, tone level and hands clasped behind her back.
Shanks nods. “Was gonna go into town and see about finding you a proper weapon. You up for it?”
“Yes, sir.”
And there’s the ‘sir’ again. Still weird. “All right, then. Let me grab my cloak and we can head out. Benn is coming as well, so if you’d like to wait with him, that’s fine.” He tips his head towards his first mate, and Vivian nods, heading over to stand beside him.
Shanks heads inside and reappears a few moments later with his cloak slung over his shoulder. They make an interesting picture, an Emperor and his first mate followed by a prim young girl who, based on features alone, would look more at home in a noble’s estate – though, she is dressed a little more ‘pirate-y’ today, which helps. At least with his reputation, they shouldn’t have to worry about anyone harassing their apprentice today. Besides, this is an island Shanks has visited before – it isn’t one of his territories, but they know and like him here, so it’s close enough.
“All right, I’ve been to this quartermaster before and I’m pretty sure it’s this way,” Shanks announces, nodding to the east. “You two ready to go?”
“Sure am, Captain,” Benn drawls, as Vivian nods beside him.
Shanks leads the way down the gangplank and into town, noting with some pride that, while the locals certainly aren’t scared of him, they’re impressed by his presence. It doesn’t look like they’ll be running into any trouble today.
The quartermaster’s is exactly where he thought it was, thankfully, the small shop identified by the painted sign hanging above the door. Shanks heads in first, and behind him, he glimpses Benn holding the door for their apprentice as he approaches the counter. Shanks raps on it a few times with his knuckles, and in the back of the shop, something clatters loudly as he hears a voice yelp in surprise.
“Coming, coming, one moment, please!” Someone calls from the back, and Shanks settles in to wait, looking around the shop as he does. It’s filled with weaponry, most of which is in flawless condition. A rack of swords behind the counter houses a few tarnished items, but a closer look reveals a small plaque saying that none of those swords are for sale. It seems that those are just for display, which is interesting – some of those swords were obviously unusable, but others looked perfectly fine.
Something in the back of the shop crashes, startling all three of them as a lanky figure pops out from behind the velvet curtain that separates the front room from the workshop. The man’s name is Carnelian, if he remembers correctly, and he looks just as high-strung as he did last time.
“Ah, I remember you!” Carnelian proclaims, shoving the welding mask off of his face and on top of his head, revealing two-toned skin and a wide, toothy smile. “Akagami no Shanks, yes? What brings you here today? Oh, and I see you’ve brought more customers!”
Shanks nods. “Good to see you again, Carnelian. I’m sure you remember Benn Beckman, and we just picked up Vivian a few islands ago. I was hoping to find a weapon for her here.”
“Well, you’re in the right place for that!” Pulling off the welding mask altogether (and making his curls go in every direction except down in the process), Carnelian comes out from behind the counter and leans down a bit, making a thoughtful face as he looks Vivian over. “Something small and light, definitely sharp. A knife? How would you feel about knives? Or maybe something with a longer range, would a polearm work? Or a shoge hook might do well if you favour surprise attacks– oh, wait, I should probably let you respond.”
Vivian blinks, but recovers fairly quickly from Carnelian’s onslaught of questions. “A knife might be good – I haven’t gotten the chance to practise fighting much, so I'm afraid I don’t really know my style…”
“Mm, yes, it’s hard to practise without a proper weapon to practise with… have you considered swords? Katanas aren’t for you, I can see that much, and I doubt a broadsword would work either… a saber, perhaps? Something small, unassuming, deadly in the right hands?”
“That could work.” Vivian seems interested, and Shanks catches her glancing around the shop, appraising some of the items closest to them.
“Vivian, why don’t you take a look around and see if you spot anything you’re interested in?” Benn suggests. “Carnelian, I wanted to talk to you about ammo refills as well. We’re running low on bullets, thought you might be able to help us restock.”
“Oh, seastone bullets, yes? I can certainly help with that! Vivian-san, take a look at anything you like, just be careful if it’s got a red or green tag on it. Red tags are weapons that might be cursed, green tags are weapons that are claimed but haven’t been picked up yet.”
Vivian nods, shooting one last glance at Shanks and Benn before disappearing somewhere into the shop. Shanks watches her go before turning back to Carnelian. “So, what was that about the ammo?”
oOoOo
Eventually, they end up heading back to the ship with a set of knives and an order for some new seastone bullets. Via had enjoyed taking a look around at all of the weapons, but none of them really seemed like something she could see herself using. The knives would be the best option at this point – she technically did know how to throw knives, to a point, just… not very well.
Back home, she’d had a friend, Juni (a best friend, one she hadn’t seen for… for over a year now, after the other girl had moved away), who had always had some rather unusual interests. Everything Via knew about lockpicking and weaponry, she’d learned from Juni. The other girl had had an old archery target in her backyard (from her older siblings, as far as Via can remember), and though neither of them had a bow, Juni did have a number of aged, dull throwing knives from her father (and a hatchet, as it happens, but they were both a bit terrible at throwing that). Via is sure that she and Juni hadn’t been throwing the knives correctly , but the fact is that whatever they were doing had been working (to a point, at least), and so she could at least say she was familiar with throwing knives, if not good at them.
(She misses Juni. Had missed her since they were thirteen and they’d had to say goodbye for the last time. Neither Juni nor Via had owned a cellphone at the time, and though they’d planned to visit often, the pandemic didn’t really allow for that.
She’d lost Juni long before she’d even come to this world, just like she’d lost her parents and Eliza. No one left but her grandmother, and that… was a separate can of worms she would not be dealing with right now.)
But anyways. The point is that Via is now armed and semi-dangerous, which is more than she was before – unarmed and only mildly dangerous. She wouldn’t really count herself as completely non-dangerous, not as long as she had teeth and could still use them. If it worked on those men in the marketplace, it would work on many more.
Now, however, the knives were sequestered away in Via’s room while she hung around in the kitchen, helping out Roux with whatever odd jobs and small tasks needed doing. So far, it mostly seemed to consist of fetching things from the pantry, tasting the various dishes to see if they needed anything, and occasionally washing off a few utensils and bits of crockery so Roux could use them for more than one thing. Overall, a rather enjoyable chore she’d undertaken, if she does say so herself.
“Can you grab me the parmesan from the fridge and the powdered garlic from the pantry? Bottom shelf, right in the middle, green lid. Very green.”
“Sure.” Via slipped down from her chair and grabbed the parmesan first, passing it to Roux before heading to the pantry and seeking out the small jar that she knew held the garlic. Roux seemed to be making some kind of potato… thing, so she’s not sure what he needs these for, but she trusts him to make something that tastes good.
Roux grins as he takes the requested ingredients. “Thanks, chibi-aka!”
Via furrows her brow at the unfamiliar name – she’s pretty sure she knows what those words mean separately, but what is he talking about? “Chibi-aka?”
“The captain’s Akagami already, and you’re a smaller akagami. So, chibi-akagami – chibi-aka.”
He’s calling her little red … because she has red hair . Dyed red, yes, but given the state of this world, they have no way of knowing that – though, she’s kind of surprised no one has asked about the dual-tone state of it right now, brown at the top and red at the tips.
(The other weird thing about her hair right now is that this dye doesn’t seem to be washing out at all. It had always bled at least a hint of pink into the water before when she’d washed her hair, but now the water ran perfectly clear, and the colour hadn’t faded one bit.)
Via is sure she’s making a face right now, so she shakes it off, schooling her expression into something a bit more polite. “You know what, that’s probably not the strangest nickname I’ve ever had. I’ll take it.”
“That so?” Roux snorts. “In that case, I shudder to think what the weirdest one was. Can you grab me a glass from the cabinet? As flat on the bottom as possible, if you could.”
“Sure. And I think the weirdest one… damn, it would probably be Goose, wouldn’t it? My sister called me a goose all the time before she moved out. She said they were small and horrible, so obviously it was a fitting title.”
“Your sister called you small and horrible?”
“Well, she wasn’t wrong. ‘Sides, geese have teeth. Have you ever seen a bird with teeth? It’s terrifying.”
Roux’s face takes on a quality of surprise and mild concern. “I’m sorry, the birds in your world have teeth? I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to know anything else.”
“Not all of them, just some. Like geese!” Via grins. “And apparently I bit when I was a baby, and my sister was old enough to remember that, so… goose.”
“You were right, that is a weirder nickname than chibi-aka. I’m telling Shanks about that, I bet he would start calling you a goose too if he knew about them having teeth.” Roux shudders. “God, that’s a horrifying thought.”
Via hands over the glass, having carefully picked the one with the flattest base while they were talking. “Hey, will this work?”
“Oh, yeah, that should be good.”
Setting the glass down, Roux tips the bowl of tiny potatoes out onto the sheet pan, right over the layer of parmesan and powdered garlic he’d already set out. The olive oil the potatoes had been coated in would stop them from sticking to the pan, though it did make the parmesan stick to them as Roux shifted them around to cover the pan evenly. Once he was satisfied, he took the glass and pressed it on top of a potato in the very corner, adding more pressure until the potato’s skin broke and the spud was mashed into a flat little circle. Then, he did the same to the next one, and the next, and the next.
“What are those, anyways?” Via asks, pointing to the tray of potatoes and seasoning. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like them before. They look like they’ll be good, though.
“Smashed potatoes or crunch potatoes, depending on who you ask. Gonna put ‘em in the oven for a bit, then I’m flipping ‘em all over, adding some crumbled bacon on top, and putting ‘em back in to finish crisping up. Think I should add any parmesan on the other side?”
“Might as well. I can’t think of anyone who would complain.”
“True indeed.”
The party would be starting soon, but in the meantime, there were still preparations to complete. Luckily, everything in the kitchen would be handled with perfect ease, thanks to the chef and his helper. The food was always the most important part of any celebration, after all.