Chapter Text
“So we all know the risks and consequences of us doing this.”
“No shit, Peasant! You’ve only lectured us on this for the past 5 fucking years!”
“Language!”
“Mother, I am functionally 30 and nearly 800. I haven’t lived with you and Father for 40 years. Stop patronizing me like I’m still a child.”
“You are STILL your Father’s HEIR! you should hold yourself to a higher standard!”
“Heir to WHAT, exactly? WE SOLD EVERYTHING WE COULDN’T PACK OFF!”
“Aaaaanyways! Like Tang was trying to say, we only have one shot at this, we won't ever be able to return, and we have to do it tonight. If we don’t, it’ll be another 500 years before we can try again. Does everyone have all the gear we agreed to take?”
“Wukong, YOU don’t have any luggage like the rest of us.”
“Uh, yeah, ‘cuz it’s at my place, where, y’know, THE PORTAL IS SET UP! I’m not an idiot, Pigsy!”
“Riiiiiiight. So, to make sure I get this right, we’ll all probably be split up across the world and possibly the timeline once we go through, since we’ll get lashed to existing people who can act as guides for us in the world Yuran is in.”
“Correct! This actually gives us an advantage, as with our qi-phones we can keep in touch regardless of access to power or traditional cell service and therefore can easily get by with us being apart. Given how large the blues seem to be, as spreading out will give us a better chance of running into Yuran eventually. The only issue would be the time thing, but we’ve agreed on a monthly check in and update system as is.”
“So… I’ve got a question.”
“What is it, Mei?”
“It’s for Ne Zha, Tang. I was wondering if Yuran even knows we’re coming.”
“… I wanted it to be a surprise, so I haven’t told him.”
“Wot? Are you barmy or something?”
“Why are we even bringing the idiot twins?”
“Shut up Macaque, they’re my friends now!”
“You mean they’re your coworkers and Pigsy won’t leave them to run his shop into the ground.”
“OI! We aren’t that daft, monkey man!”
“Oh really? Then what’s the name of the most infamous person in the history of the world we’re about to go to?”
“… Horace Codger?”
“No, you daft cunt! It’s George Goddard!”
“It’s Gol D. Rodger, but close enough.”
“Look, we don’t have time to spare. It takes 2 hours to get to Flower Fruit Mountain from here, and the time slot we have to travel is only 2 minutes long and at a vague time. We need to get to the portal NOW so we can wait for it to open and bolt.”
“The Lotus Prince has a point, if we keep wasting time bickering we won’t be able to join the last of our own. Son, Love, come. I will not stand to be held back by idiots.”
Ne Zha followed behind DBK and his family, not needing to look back to know the others had begun to follow.
His face looked stoic, but internally he was brimming with excitement and anxiety.
I’m just 5 hours at most, he’d finally be in the same WORLD as his only child…
And he’d be one step closer to actually being able to see him properly, and not just in their dreams.
————————————————————————————————————————
7 years later
————————————————————————————————————————
Izou eyed the man who was blazing his way into the hearts of the Whitebeard pirates, at least in terms of the lower ranks and to an extent Oyaji.
See, it had been almost a week and a half, and while it wasn’t exactly uncommon for someone to not have a lot of variety in clothing or to skip baths when they were busy…
Well, Portgas hadn’t changed even once since he got on the ship, and he’d already been smelling… musty when Izou passed him on that first day.
STRONGLY “musty”, like he hadn’t bathed or washed his clothes in months. On top of that, his skin had proven, with exposure to rain and the like, to be completely filthy to the point that the typhoon they had sailed through revealed he had red marks he suspected may be tattoos of some sort under all the grime.
Now?
Now there were people actively complaining about the smell and the hair that got loose from how he styled it just hung like it was soaking at all times… if it fell much with how matted it was. His clothes were, upon closer inspection by Haruta, apparently pretty worn out from day one, and Izou had a sinking suspicion that the “Shangdi” didn’t have anything else to wear.
When these facts were brought to Oyaji a mere 5 days in, he had immediately told the crossdressing Wano native to take over making sure Portgas actually took care of his hygiene and to make sure it wasn’t tied to him having an issue with depression that could be more severe.
The only reason he hadn’t intervened yet was because Portgas was… not exactly the same size as any other person on the crew.
He walked over once the men talking to Portgas wandered off, stopping him before he could run off with a pinched look.
He was, to be frank, RANK.
“Uh… Apologies, Izou-Siling. Is there something you needed me for?”
“Technically, Portgas, it’s Oyaji who has an order for you.”
“Oh? What would that be? I would be happy to help out on de-”
“You need a bath and new clothes. To be blunt, you smell like a dead man rotting in a bog, your hair looks like a washed up pile of seaweed, your skin is 3 different shades of filthy and your clothes… Well, frankly they look like very fancy rags.”
Portgas, to his credit, seemed to be very embarrassed about this being pointed out.
“I… don’t have any soap or changes of clothing, and I didn’t want to waste precious water.”
“I can understand that, a lot of new folks are in that same situation, but you already smelled pretty… ripe when you showed up a little over a week ago and those clothes can barely be called that anymore.”
“They aren’t that ba-”
“Portgas, I can see from here that those shorts you are wearing are probably from when you were far younger and smaller and the lacing is all that’s keeping them on. The only thing that seems to fit you are the shoes and the bodysuit, and I can see holes in both and don’t even get me started on the stains. What was the original color of that thing, anyways?”
“... It was white and gold…?”
“So the actual color is from you failing to get blood out, I presume?”
“... And wine… And food… and rust from when I did odd jobs for the food… and-””
“It’s okay, I get what you’re trying to say. Makes sense, honestly. Anyways, me and some of the nurses managed to scrounge up something that should fit you similar to what is found in Wano, and we are willing to share the good bath products until you can get your own if you want it seeing as I doubt you want to use that… ugh that hunk of chemicals and lard that the majority of the crew calls an “everywhere bar”.”
“... PLEASE tell me they don’t share those things?”
“I won’t.”
Portgas shuddered and gagged, making Izou snort in amusement.
And agreement. Those bars could get… foul, to say the least.
“How bad is it?”
“The entire crew shares the same 10 bars at any given time. And to make it even worse, they’re usually the ones that only cost 300 berri a bar, if that. They’re more often than not Fels-Naptha Laundry Bars.”
“Oh my god, that’s literally the same stuff Makino used to- WAIT! They use that ON THEIR BODIES? Are they TRYING to fuck up their skin and eyes? THATS EXTREMELY CONCENTRATED LAUNDRY DETERGENT!”
“They’re idiots, all of them. If you want to try and get them to stop, feel free to talk to Marco about changing what gets bought but no promises anything will change.”
“Isn’t he the one in charge of logistics or something?”
“Exactly, and his division doubles as the coopers. Not to mention HE’S the one who started the Fels-Nafta trend.”
Portgas just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, the gesture shifting his bodysuit enough to force a slash over his chest open to the point of revealing a nipple.
One that had a hint of another tattoo around it, something very finely lined and red.
‘Just how many tattoos does he have? What even ARE they?’
“Ugh… Look, you have a point about me needing to take a real bath. It’s been… Tian na, zhe tai gangale… 5 months? Maybe 6? I’ve been on the run for so long everything just runs together in a huge blur… I’ve been using rivers, sea water and public sinks for years now. Normal baths… they’re an exception, and a rare one. Shit, it’s been at least 3 years since I last had a brush, too…”
Izou felt his heart sink, not having considered that being a factor. They hadn’t really had anyone come on that was as… infamous as Portgas, not by a long shot. He didn’t usually act like one of the most wanted men in the world, either, more like a very painfully polite merchant’s son.
“Well, I could use a challenge to keep me busy for a day or so. I run the gunmen, after all, and unless we get into a battle between now and docking at our destination I don’t really have much to do day to day.”
“... As long as you don’t cut my hair unless there’s no other choice, then sure.”
Izou smirked and grabbed the smalled man’s hand, leading him into the lower decks to where the bathroom was located.
The nurses had set things up for them, and were fully prepared to stand guard just in case Portgas had been hiding anything he didn’t want the crew to know about his body.
____________________________________________________________________________
Yuran sat on the stool in the bathroom, Izou behind him clearly gaping at his hair now that it was down from the updo he kept it in. The mirror didn’t do much to hide his own nerves, either.
Not even Luffy, who he’d personally raised from infancy despite calling him his brother, had seen him with his hair down fully in over 15 years.
“I know, it’s really really bad, isn’t it?”
“Portgas… Portgas this is the longest hair I have ever seen on ANYONE outside of royalty in Wano! It’s past your knees!”
“It’s nothing crazy, only… 3 feet?”
“Yes, but you are what, 4 foot 11?”
“... No. My rings give me a boost… I’m 4 foot 5.”
Izou ran the math in his head, the numbers not adding up in any way.
“But, you’re in your 20s-”
“I’m 49, almost 50. My kind don’t age like normal.”
“That doesn’t make your height make any more sense, even if it puts you in the same age bracket as most of us commanders.”
“Hey! The average height of any person where my family is from is 4 foot 6! I’m AVERAGE for a guy like me!”
“Oh? And how tall are your family members then?”
“Uh… Mom is around 4 foot 5, 2 of my uncles and 2 of my cousins, all monkeys, are around 4 foot 2, 2 more cousins and another uncle are 4 foot 3, my uncle who’s a pig is about 5 foot, my bull uncle is 6 foot 5, my tallest uncle is 6 foot 6, the spiders are all between 4 foot 5 and 4 foot 11, the twins are 4 foot 8-”
“You have a VERY big family, don’t you?” The commander behind him commented, running his fingers through Yuran’s hair as much as he could before he hit…
Well, the massive mat from hell.
“Oh man, you have NO idea… Well, technically we’re kinda like how you guys view the whole “whitebeard is our dad” thing, but in a “this age range are siblings and this other age range are siblings and cousins and call this first range aunt and uncle or a parent”, if that makes sense? I mean there’s some exceptions but generally speaking the initial round of adults are “the grown ups” and the rest of us are “the kids”.”
Izou hummed as he grabbed a particularly sturdy brush, Yuran feeling it slot into place right at the base of his scalp before tugging painfully at his scalp with the first pass…
And got stuck 2 inches off his scalp.
“Ack! Can’t we like, I dunno, loosen up my hair in the bath or something?”
“No, that would make this even harder. I will say I’m fairly impressed with how you’ve adapted language wise. When you first came on board you were having trouble with being too formal for comfort most of the time and having to use odd phrasing on occasion.”
“Uh… Yeah, some of the guys on deck have been helping me with that…”
“Well, I’m not surprised. The only person any of us have ever had issues with regarding being… not the best would be Teach, and he’s not exactly someone you would have run into.”
“Who’s Teach?”
“A fat, smelly bastard who works in his own room deep in the bowels of the ship making things like gunpowder, tar, explosive rounds, and other things we use for fights and making emergency repairs. The room itself is a deathtrap, and he only comes out for food for the most part… Thank the blues, too. He’s… again, not the best. I’m fairly certain the only reason Oyaji keeps him around is to make sure he doesn’t do anything particularly egregious.”
“Oh… I think I’ll just avoid him as much as I can then.”
“Smart, most of us do.” Izou replied, lifting up the bottom section of Yuran’s hair with a sigh. “I believe I’m going to have to start down here instead of my original plan, this is far too matted for a normal brushing to work.”
“... Sorry…”
“Nothing to be sorry for, so don’t apologize. After all, I’ve encountered people with mold, dandrum, half inch layers of grease, open wounds and maggots on their scalp from not washing or brushing for so long. I’ve had people so bad off I’ve had to shave them bald and turn them over to the nurses and throw out the tools I used due to them being biohazards. You simply have a bad case of matting that should be able to be fixed with a little work and very dirty and greasy hair. You are nowhere near the worst I’ve seen, so just relax and let me work my magic. Oyaji has me do this for every single person who comes on board for the first time in at least 3 months.”
“...’Kay.”
“Is there anything you want to talk about? Do you want to gossip about the idiots on this crew?”
“... I kinda want to practice a song I heard a week ago from my Mom… Is that okay?”
“Oh? What kind of song?”
“It’s something one of my Uncles wanted me to know, I don’t know why since he hasn’t really shared much recently… It’s called Little Talks.
“Oh? What’s it about?”
“It’s… Honestly, from what I know about my Uncle it might be from the time he was… in a very bad situation that kept him away from my other uncle and his home for a… very, VERY long time.”
“Interesting… Well, I wouldn’t mind hearing one of your oh-so-popular songs, seeing how you’ve managed to make the entire crew start bursting into song at random.”
“... I had no idea that that would happen, sorry.”
“It’s a nice change, most of the crew would be bored as all hell during down time AND work before you came along.”
“... Thanks.”
“It’s the truth, no need to thank me. Now, feel free to practice that song as much as you want. I personally think you have a beautiful singing voice.”
Yuran blushed at the compliment before taking a deep breath and starting to sing the melancholy song he’d been learning.
He did have a lingering worry in the back of his mind, though.
How would the very kind man currently helping him out with a very difficult to tackle issue respond when he spotted his “tattoos”?
After all, the makeup and pale mud he used to cover them when his clothes didn’t would come off in the bath, and it wasn’t like he just had a couple small ones either.
His mother called him his “Huoyan Juhua”, his flaming chrysanthemum, for a reason, after all.
____________________________________________________________________________
“'Cause though the tru~th
may~ vary This
ship~ will carry our
bo-dies safe to shore”
“OI! What the FUCK are you doing now, Monkey?”
“Uh- NOTHING!”
“That’s what I thought. Get back to work, the Whitebeards sent a message ahead saying they should dock sometime in the next 4-5 days tops, closer to the 3 day mark by Phoenix's estimate, and that means needing to be ready for 1,600 potential customers at once!”
“R-right, Mr. Whiskey!”
Sun Wukong had, after arriving in this new world, been separated from the rest of his group and spat out on Pubcrawl Island. It was known for its alcohol and nightlife, and while he wasn’t exactly forced to he stuck around so he could keep an eye on the New World pirates passing through the mutually agreed upon neutral ground in the exact middle of the territories of the emperors. They knew that Yuran had been in East Blue for a long time, but he’d told Ne Zha that he’d left to go off on his own 8 years ago, so they were staying scattered along the Grand Line and East Blue just to be safe.
The fact that they’d all agreed to chew out the youngest of them the moment they found him for NOT telling them he left a VERY safe area until a YEAR later, and THEN they had to arrive in the same world to find out he had a multi-BILLION berri bounty with a KILL ONLY tagline AND that he’d been killing or at least TRYING to kill untouchables…?
Oh yeah, Yuran was in MASSIVE trouble.
Even a certain “twin” of Xiaotian was pissed off about his little “adventures”, which was saying something.
Anyways, Wukong had managed to find a job making and selling fruit wines and kombucha, which had gotten oddly popular despite being half as strong as the usual spirits and liquors people drank here for the wines and not even strong enough to get a buzz from for the fermented fruit teas. He had his own label, and simply worked for Whiskey Shawtt and Barrel Gunn as a way to have access to his brewing warehouse and keep his apartment above the pub.
Shawtt-Gunn brewery was not only hilariously named but also probably the most famous brewing company in New World, which was part of why the island they worked off of was neutral territory. NO ONE wanted to start a war over a fucking booze mill, not when it would cripple their business and possibly make them shut down.
He lined up his staff with the handles of several of the kegs they would need up front, extending it down the line so he could lift 4 at once. He shifted them a bit so he could balance his staff on his shoulder and made his way out of the workroom and into the storage area of the pub, leaving the kegs in their spots with practiced precision.
Honestly, other than experiments with making new drinks, his job was boring as hell. He wasn’t usually allowed to run the bar, in part because he had fur and in part because he was so small compared to the locals he couldn’t exactly see over it or reach the shelves easily. Instead, he acted as a bouncer, busser and on some occasions an entertainer when things were busy.
The tales of his adventures and antics when he was younger were a hit, it seemed. Even if none of the “characters” were familiar in any capacity, not the religions and “islands” since he’d modified the setting to make more sense, the fact that he could tell a wild tale of fights and monsters and magic without relying on using the marines to save everyone drew in crowds once word started to spread.
He sighed as he put the last keg on the rack, mentally going over what he’d need to do to get his next shipment of Kombucha out on time.
‘This batch is on second ferment, and 5 days in, so it should be good to go by tomorrow… then I’ll be bottling and labeling all night again… Wait, did I ever MAKE the labels? This IS a new set of flavors, peach pie, spiced pear and ginger beet… Ugh, I’m gonna have a no sleep week again, won’t I?’
Many who knew him would wonder why he didn’t just spam clones to make his work go faster, but there was a problem with that.
See, he didn’t want people to think he ate a devil fruit, and his staff was already suspected to be some kind of folding weapon with really good seam blending. He specifically limited how long and wide he made it get for that reason. He didn’t use any powers of his in public, and that included the buildings he worked in and to a certain extent his own apartment. People were already dickheads about him being “some freaky mink” without knowing he had “abilities”, but that was a small price to pay for being in probably the single best place in New World to keep an eye and ear out for Yuran.
‘If only Liu’er or Xiaotian were here… or Zhu Baije… Or DBK… or even Yin and Jin… I can’t believe I actually miss seeing those fucking obnoxious twins in person…’
He sighed and popped his back, done with moving the kegs and now only having his stuff in the warehouse to handle.
He’d worry about trying to gather information when the Whitebeards showed up.
He didn’t have very high hopes, given the rumors about the only person even close to how Ne Zha described their missing family member.
After all, the name “Yuran” wasn’t exactly anything a native to this world would use, now was it?
Even if it was sandwiched by a common East Blue name and the infamous “D” moniker.
Not that it was that odd in their group, they all had taken the initial when they arrived.
His legal name in this world?
Sun D. Wukong
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Izou grinned like a maniac as he finally got the last knots out of Portgas’s hair, having just run the brush through it one more time after they washed it in the sink.
The bathroom was more like a bathhouse in Wano, aside from the lack of a soaking pool and the addition of a barbers station complete with a wash bowl-sink. The old water was used to flush toilets and, as long as it wasn’t terribly disgusting, would be boiled and then used to clean the decks or for laundry when they were in a pinch…
Because, as they’d both bitched about for a while on and off, the majority of the crew bathed using what was essentially extremely concentrated laundry detergent in the form of a bar.
A couple nurses had come in at one point and joined in the bitch fest, seeing as they had to deal with the skin and eye irritation on a regular basis. The sheer fact that the people in charge of buying the things always conveniently “forgot” to buy normal soap was the subject of a passive aggressive war between the different soap factions.
Fels-Naptha, The Actually Good Shit and Irish Spring.
Irish Spring was 100 berri for 2 bars and could be found in basically any 100 Berri store on the Grand Line. Fels-Naptha was 275 for one after the latest price increase and was harder to find.
Of course, the actually good shit was what Izou and the nurses bought and used, but it was admittedly a bit cost prohibitive for everyone to use it.
At this point it was just stubbornness and idiocy that the crew wasn’t using the cheaper soap that wouldn’t cause at least one person a week to go to the nurses with a rash or screaming about soap in their eyes. They had to spread a lie that ANY soap in the eyes could make you go blind to get them to not ignore that problem.
“All done for now with your hair, Portgas.”
“Ah man, my head hasn’t felt this good in ages!” Portgas sighed, reaching back and gathering all of his now hip-long hair in one hand and shifting it over his shoulder. “I had no idea it would take what, 3 hours?”
“Taking that time to prevent us from having to cut all this off in one go was totally worth it, Portgas. I am frankly jealous of your hair, it feels like silk even after all that harsh treatment and neglect!”
The deep flush that formed on Portgas’s face was notably partially obscured by the remains of the makeup and filth on it, his tattoos actually subtly glowing pink in the dimmer light of the bathroom as he blushed.
“It’s nothing special, I just haven’t ever cut it or anything…”
“It can’t just be that, I’ve seen people who never cut their hair with the worst damage ever. What were you using to keep it so healthy despite all that build up and matting?”
“... Coconut oil in paste form, Tea Tree Oil, Olive Oil. 5-2-1 ratio, I keep it thicker and just massage it in roughly once a week or so then wash out the excess with just water after about 10 minutes… when I can get that stuff. I only fully wash my hair twice a week when I have access to water and a good shampoo to do so.” Portgas muttered, wringing out his hair over the drain grate in the floor with expert care.
He clearly knew how to handle it as long as it wasn’t a matted mess just by how he was being careful of causing breaks and damage just getting the excess water out.
“Hmmmm… I can see how that would work with your hair type, maybe I can convince some of the others with similar hair textures to give that a go. What do you usually use for shampoo? Do you use conditioner? That might be making a difference, too…”
“It’s nothing special, really. I get these sample bottles of the stuff from spas local to the island I’m on at the moment unless I’m gonna stick around for a while, then I get a small bottle. I try to not run around with a bottle of liquid soap in my things, since for all I know I’ll either lose my bag entirely or end up with a huge leak all over everything else. I just make sure whatever I get has Argan Oil in it.”
“Oh, perfect! That’s what me and the girls use, it really does work magic! Now, why don’t we get you all washed up and into some better clothes, hm?”
Portgas just sighed and got up, his tiny, lithe form hidden by a robe he was borrowing he changed into in a toilet stall. It was one from the shortest of the nurses, and even though it was designed to stop at bit below the knees it dragged on the floor and barely stayed on his shoulders from how tiny Portgas was.
He was a foot and a half shorter than the nurse in question, and she was the next shortest person on the ship.
Izou did his best to steel his expression into a mild encouraging smile as Portgas nervously walked over to the showers and took off the robe, revealing something absolutely stunning.
Portgas had MASSIVE tattoos over presumably his entire body, and not the usual ones seen on a pirate. The entirety of his torso normally hidden under the bodysuit he’d been wearing was covered in burning chrysanthemums and complex interlocking lines, the style nothing Izou had ever seen before that gave off a strangely hypnotic and mystical feeling. The ink was all a vibrant red, and as the shower water began to wash away the filth it became clear that Portgas likely deliberately covered his arm and leg tattoos with pale clay and makeup.
He smiled, glad that the girls had agreed with him about the last minute sewing job they’d done since no one had clothes that would otherwise fit the single shortest person to ever set foot on the Moby Dick. They’d found a design book that had been released by someone who went by the pen name “Iron Princess” that seemed to have elements that lined up with what Portgas had been wearing, and from that they managed to cobble together something for him a good day before Izou confronted him about his… situation.
Now all that was left was to get him dry, dressed and styled up, given he seemed to prefer his hair in an updo and not loose.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yuran stared at the clothes he was given, not sure how to react to them.
See, he was expecting some oversized clothing borrowed from one of the men on deck, so classic pirate gear.
MAYBE something more neutral from a nurse, since he was the only person under 5 foot 9 on the ship from what he could tell.
Instead of that, he got…
Well, he got what seemed to be the exact same clothing his uncle wore when he was training under the Taoist who taught him his transformations. A simple cream cross-front tunic and some matching pants, the tunic only having one sleeve and breast so part of his chest and his entire left arm would be bare.
“How did you guys get a hold of…?”
“Hm? Oh, I noticed you seemed to have some similar tastes to a mysterious designer who releases pattern books that the girls and I like to read and compare to other styles, so we took some extra fabric we had lying around for when someone needed a new shirt and threw that together for you. Don’t worry, it’s nothing you need to pay us for and the girls honestly needed something interesting to do other than deal with mild bumps and headaches. We would have done one of those “hanfu” sets in the book, but we only had this one kind of fabric and it didn’t seem to be able to do something like that justice.”
“... Thank you, seriously thank you. I… I only had that body suit thanks to Makino translating a rough sketch of what my Mom wore on occasion in our dream talks into reality, and… Well, it was a miracle it lasted a solid 5 years in the first place.”
“It’s nothing, you needed some help and if Oyaji didn’t ask for us to do this we would have on our own eventually. Hell, we were already making those clothes a good 3 days after you came on board. It wasn’t exactly hard to miss that you only had a few small trinkets in your bag, after all.”
Yuran hid his flush of embarrassment behind the act of him getting dressed, not really bothering to hide anything from the man who’d helped him so much. He thought about asking if he could borrow some make up to cover his markings, but the guilt of wasting so much likely expensive product on something that probably wasn’t that big of a deal anymore.
Besides, the “tattoos” would help him blend in so to speak, as his posters didn’t have any sign of them.
He didn’t want to potentially put these people at risk by associating with him.
“I don’t mean to be blunt of change the subject, but I was wondering if you could tell me about your brother.”
Yuran blinked, pausing the tying of his waistband to glance over at Izou.
“What about him?”
“Oh, I don’t really have anything in mind. I was just curious what a boy raised by you would be like is all.”
Yuran sighed and finished with his pants before slipping his arm in the sleeve of his shirt. As he tied it into place, he shot Izou a look that seemed to make him do a double take.
“He’s a little shit, but somehow no one who meets him is bothered by it much… unless they want him dead.” Yuran deadpanned “If they try anything, though… Well, it’s their lives they're gambling with. The only reason he wasn’t allowed to sail until he was 22 is because I didn’t want him to drop out of school and told him if he did I’d personally track him down and show him why his grandfather and father were scared of me.”
“Oh? And who would those be?”
“Vice admiral Monkey D. Garp and Monkey D. Dragon of the Revolution.”
Yuran walked out of the room with the intent of getting his good hair pins for once, barely able to hide his smirk when Izou finally processed what he’d just said.
“W-WHAT THE HELL? PORTGAS, GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AND EXPLAIN WHAT THE HELL YOU JUST SAID!”
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Luffy blinked, not sure how he managed to get out of the barrel and onto a ship without him noticing.
He also didn’t get why all he could see was a pair of orange and blue people with horns and really, REALLY sick red and white eyes.
He blinked.
They blinked.
They all started screaming.
A door slammed, snapping them out of the loop of screaming and then setting off the others.
“WOULD YOU IDIOTS SHUT THE HELL UP! I’m TRYING to get a show going!”
“Oi, Mingshen! Th’ barrel brat woke up!” The blue one called, stepping away to make it obvious they were in some kind of crew quarters.
“I figured, it’s not like there’s anything ELSE that would make you both act like idiots in this room.” The person in the door, who had the same accent as his older brother, scoffed. “Yin, back the fuck up and let the poor guy sit up. I wanna see who you fished out of that whirlpool.”
When Luffy was able to sit up, the orange guy he assumed was Yin moving out of the way, he noticed a couple things.
One, he was taller than all of them, and not by a small amount.
Two, the other guy was some kind of monkey dude wearing a pair of pink shuttered glasses and clothes similar to what his brother would draw people in, just with the addition of a large leopard fur coat. His fur didn’t line up with the monkey's back on Dawn, a dull blonde color that faded to a deep chocolate brown where a human’s hair would be and towards the tip of his tail.
Three, the horned guys were also in the same kind of clothes as the monkey guy.
Four, they resembled people his brother described to him based on what his mystery mom told him in his dreams.
And five?
They had the same weird feeling of… energy that Ace said was a sign of really, REALLY high Qi.
“Huh. Who’re you, man?” The monkey-man asked, crossing his arms and cocking his hip as he seemed to give Luffy a once over.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy! Who’re you?”
Mingshen, or Porty as he used to be called when he was just a clone, took a moment to take in the young guy before him.
White hair, gold eyes, skin like someone from their old world got a tan, probably around 5 foot 9 given how much taller he was than the twins, and clothes that screamed at him to make sure he kept an eye on him.
He was in an open sleeveless red tang suit top and navy blue kung fu pants, straw-colored shoes right out of the JTTW era on his feet and a matching hat hanging on a string from his neck. Around his hips was a gold sash, and peeking out of his shirt was a pendant that looked like a sun made of wire wrapped around a ball of yellow jade.
In short, he looked like he’d been in contact with someone from their old world.
“... Shi D. Mingshen, stage name Porty. These are Zhu D. Yin and Zhu D. Jin, also known as the Gold and Silver Brothers. You mind explaining why you were floating around in a fucking barrel?”
“I got sucked into a whirlpool and my boat got smashed.”
“So you got into a barrel?”
“Yeah, why?”
Mingshen sighed, a sinking feeling that this guy was going to be like him when he was still a clone to a degree settling in his stomach.
“What kind of boat were you on?”
“Uh… A dingy?”
“Oh my fucking- WHY were you so far out in a dingy you got sucked into a god damn whirlpool?”
“I’m gonna be king of the pirates!”
“... How old are you, again?”
“22, why?”
“So you went to school, right?”
“Yeah, I graduated from college like my big brother made me promise right before I set off.”
“What did you major in, then?”
“Maritime trade with a minor in world history.”
“All I’m hearing now is that you knew better.”
“... yeah…”
“And now I’m sure you need something to do until you can get a new boat and some crew.”
“...yeah…”
“... Got any skills?”
“Uh… I know how to work a ship, cuz that was part of my degree, and I can sing pretty good I guess. Ace taught me a bunch of songs when I was little.” Luffy mused “OH! And I can speak a few languages. Spanish, Common, and… I think Ace called it Yueyu?”
Mingshen sucked in a breath, the twins not doing any better at the shock.
Literally no one in this world even knew what the language they all spoke was called, let alone how to speak it.
“Prove it, you cocky wanker!” Jin growled, ever the more openly defensive twin about their original world.
“Uh… *My name is Monkey Luffy, and I grew up on Dawn Island with my big brother Portgas Yuran, and I want to be the pirate king?*”
“Wait wait wait. You know a guy named YURAN?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Describe him to me.”
“Why?”
“We have a cousin with that name that’s been missing for a VEEEEERY long time, and now we’re all looking for him. As in, the entire damn extended family. What does he look like?”
“Well…”
Every word that came out of Luffy’s mouth made Mingshen’s mind reel even more.
They finally found a lead, or at least someone who had direct contact with Yuran in person and not in dreams.
And from how he was describing the 49 year old…
Well, Ne Zha clearly wasn’t telling the entire story about the guy if he was anything close to what Luffy was saying.
Ne Zha said he was an attractive child who grew into a fine young man.
He did NOT mention the massive tattoo-like markings, the hair, or the fact that, at least according to this guy, that he was the single most sought after bachelor on Dawn due to how “pretty” he was.
To the point many thought he was a woman until he started dressing more provocatively.
“... Yin, Jin?”
“Yeah, cuz’?”
“Get one of the phones and let the group chat know we found someone who knows Yuran… Who is probably gonna end up part of the gang.” Mingshen sighed “As for you… How good can you sing?”
“Hrm… Okay, I guess?”
“Mind showing me what you call “okay”?”
“Uh… sure?”
A moment later, Mingshen was grinning like a madman at what was coming out of Luffy’s mouth.
“I'm tired of waitin',
I was never good at sports
Save the games
for the girls on the
tennis court
Say you need me,
but lately,
you feel unsure
Come on to me,
come on to me,
I need more”
‘This kid… he’s gonna fit RIGHT in, isn’t he?’ Mingshen thought ‘Maybe we could use him as an excuse to bunch back up once we find out where Yuran actually is… I think Ne Zha said he was the guy with the stupid bounty we all agreed to strangle him over, so he’s got to be up the ‘Line, right? Besides, this guy’s gonna need all the backup he can get with a dream like that.”