Chapter Text
She comes to with a god awful shriek at the top of her lungs.
And then there’s the wind shrieking even louder in her ears until she slams through wood and beams and falls straight onto a table with a wheeze.
She can’t breathe, and whether it’s because of her lungs collapsing or because she just fell through what she’s pretty sure is a building, she’s still not sure.
She tumbles off the shattered remains of a table, still wheezing when she stumbles into the legs of a man with neat black slacks and perfectly cleaned shoes and she-
Well, she doesn’t care because she’s too busy rolling onto her hands and trying to breathe but even from the way his legs look, she can tell that’s the kind of guy she’d be willing to let her take home.
“What the fuck-” she starts saying before she pauses.
No way. No way no way no way.
She grasps her throat and tries again.
“This isn’t-”
And now she’s wheezing and shaking and crying.
That’s not her voice.
Her voice is soft and high, with a seductive curl that makes her easy to prey on foolish men who think they can get a hold of her. She’s got high fucking standard and she wants to goddamn cry-
Where the fuck is she? Why the fuck is she? What the fuck is she????
And then she chokes and stills, because information drops into her brain from seemingly nowhere and she crawls to the nearest plant and hurls.
After she’s done shaking and puking her guts out- and she’s so glad no one interrupted her mental breakdown cause she would 100% cry on them- she looks up to see an unamused old man, along with a few men in cook uniforms standing around her.
Behind them are customers making a disgusted face, and the nearest tables- aside from literally the one she fell on- are empty.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, ruining my roof for the second time today?” The old man asks, frowning heavily.
“Sorry,” she croaks, and then winces immediately at the gruff sound that leaves her voice. “I can pay- no, wait, I can’t-”
And the thought that she’s disgustingly broke, that she has nothing but what she’s wearing and even her body-
She puts a hand over her mouth as she gags.
She’s offered a glass of water by the man she fell into the table in front of, and she has to look away before she does more than see the blue eyes. She’d be horrified if she’s attracted to men like this, and she’d be even more horrified whether he likes or dislikes her.
Or neither, her brain adds, which would be surprisingly reassuring for the first time in her life.
She takes it and nods without looking at the man, and drinks it down with gratitude. The sigh that leaves her then is a lot calmer than she expected.
“I’m sorry but I have nothing to pay you with,” she says, and she takes care to keep her tone light and low, instead of the accidental deep one she’s got now. “Can you tell me where exactly I am? And ah, maybe also how far I am from New York?”
She firmly refuses to believe the words that answer her question a second time and tries her best to stare at the people around her. Her hands shake in her lap, but she’s gotta believe she can still return!
She was literally on a holiday! She was visiting a friend! How could she end up-
“Another broke fucker! How many dickheads are gonna crash through our roof today? These sons of bitches need a lesson taught to them!” A man cracks his knuckles and she flinches, scooting back fearfully.
She’s rarely ever been hit and she doesn’t want to know what a man who looks so strong can hit her with.
At her expression, the old man steps forward, raising a hand in front of the man threatening her.
“You’re in East Blue. I’m afraid that there’s no island by the name of ‘New York’ here,” he says.
She whimpers. Her hands curling up tighter.
“Then…” she asks, “…have you- have you heard of ‘Grand Line’?”
She’s fully expecting them to laugh her off. To point at her face go ‘what have you been drinking, give us some!’ or even ‘Sure, you mean that comic about a kid who wants to become the King of Pirates, right?’.
She’s not expecting the old man to raise a brow at her and go, “Oh? Did you come from there?”
She blinks at him once, twice, understands the implication and bursts into tears.
At first, they’re fully willing to throw her out the restaurant, before the man who gave her water steps in front of her. She’s wiping her tears when he gets rid of the others and turns to her with a sharp look in his eyes that has her stilling and looking at him.
“You- are you a man or a woman?” He asks, and her breath hitches at the words.
“I’m a woman!” She cries, but her voice is so deep that it makes her wince and hold her throat again. “I don’t know how this happened! I don’t know why I’m…a man,” she spits it out with all the vehemence she’s starting to put in this change.
How is she going to pee? She’s never going to have sex now. She had huge, annoying muscles. Her body is more than twice her regular size and she can’t move without getting vertigo and the goddamn place is swaying in a way that doesn’t feel very pleasant.
There’s a complicated expression that goes through the smoking man’s expression that she doesn’t notice, and it takes about five more seconds for her despair to turn into anger.
“If I ever get my hands on them-” and the threatening growl that leaves her mouth is almost fitting.
She only presses her knuckles onto the wooden floor in frustration, she’s only trying to deal with this mess in her mind, but the sharp crack of wood under her hand has her scooting back immediately, paling.
“Um…” she gives a shaky, fearful look at the man standing in front of her. “Is this place going to collapse or something? Why is the flooring…” she gestures.
The man, with a raised brow, crouches and pokes at the cracked wood before looking up.
“It’s your body, not the wood,” he says plainly. “The wood has held for a decade now before everyone started crashing through it.”
She gives him a bewildered look.
“Why would someone switch my gender and then make me strong? That’s ridiculous,” she scoffs, but she can’t help poking a finger at her own flesh and feel the easy give of it.
She then pokes attempts to poke at the floor before her hand is captured by the other man. He frowns and is about to say something, before taking in her guilty expression and letting go.
“So, you’re strong huh?” A man says, and he and three others have been staring at her curiously for a while now.
The man has a naturally mean look on his face which normally means he’s a big softly. If she were a woman, she’d flip her hair and sit on his lap and ask very cutely for help. But she only looks away and gets to touching her hair before she’s gasping, and this time it’s from happiness.
“My hair!” She sighs, and brings the hair on her back to her side with a smile.
Her hair was still in a complicated updo that she knew looked fabulous on her, but she’s got no doubt that on the size of a man she is, it probably only doesn’t look ridiculous because she’s intimidating.
Or maybe she’s a pretty boy, which would be vastly more preferable.
She spots a shiny metal surface and slowly brings herself up. It’s a little disorienting to be farther from the ground, and she moves her hands and feet until she feels a little better about it before she peaks at her own face.
Her face is basically the male version of her own. She’s a shade darker than she normally is, and her face structure is all male. She sighs in relief over the lack of stubble and hopes it never appears.
She looks like how she could imagine a brother would look like, and the thought makes her wince. She morosely gropes her lack of boons and then flinches when she accidentally touches her dick.
It’s with solemn tears in her eyes that she drags herself back to the lone man who took responsibility (at least while she’s here) for her and the curious onlookers who snicker as they watch her. She glares at them and is even sadder when one boy shrieks a bit.
She’s never been able to threaten a single person in her life with her face.
When she reaches the man, she’s surprised to find herself taller than him, and she blurts out “How tall are you?” before she remembers that guys can be sensitive about height comparisons.
The guy doesn’t seem to care as he breathes out smoke, and she restrains herself from doing something about it.
“177cm,” he says bluntly.
“Wow,” she says, and then she adds, “I used to be around 165? It’s crazy I’m suddenly so tall now.”
Then she thinks bitterly, that she’d rather just be back to her own regular body than be this much taller.
“That’s pretty short,” adds a woman, her head cocked to the side. “Where did you say you were from?”
She heaves a sigh and rubs her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” she grumbles. “I just want my body back. I don’t care how- oh!”
They watch as a mix of expression flashes over the male face, settling on a wide eyed surprise and then relief.
“I see,” she sighs to nothing. “Then how do I-?”
She scowls.
“Come on, tell me more about this guy!” She demands, hands on her hips, and they all stare unblinkingly as she puts on a one man comedy.
“What is he- she doing?” Usopp says, stumbling over his words once, and yelps when searing acid green eyes settle on him.
He hides behind Zoro, shivering, and when he peaks out the colour of her eyes are dulled back to a simple brown.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, rubbing her head. “Looks like I have a Devil Fruit for god knows what reason.”
They stare at her in surprise and then to her surprise, a veritable boy shoots out of nowhere and slams into her chest. She shrieks, about to push him away from her breasts but then she realises that she doesn’t have any.
She sighs again, and lets the boy cling to her body before he hops down and away.
“I ate the Gomu-Gomu no Mi! I’m a rubber human! My name’s Luffy! I’m going to be the King of Pirates! What’s yours?” Luffy grins brightly.
Her eyes turn acid green, and she frowns.
“You ate a Gomu-Gomu- but this says-” then she cuts herself off, finally remembering that right that’s the main character.
She swallows.
“Well, my name is Sylvia Gostlin. I’d say you can call me Sylvia but that’s not gonna work,” she winces before offering, “Lin should be fine. My Devil Fruit is the Sachi-Sachi no Mi (Search-Search fruit). It lets me see the devil fruits someone has eaten.”
She paused a little to see if the boy would say something to it, but he just looked at her curiously, “-and I seem to have found the name of the person who ate a Devil Fruit that can help me.”
“Wow, that’s cool! And you can fight too!” He grinns. “Hey, join my crew!”
Lin flushes red, mouth opening for a second before closing.
“I’ve never fought a day in my life,” she admits. “And um, crew? For what exactly? Is it a Pirate Monarchy system or something?”
Her eyes flash green again, and her expression clears up. Then she tips her head to the side.
She doesn’t really know much about this One Piece, only things she’s occasionally heard. Something about a one eyed swordsman being extremely hot, and a spicy looking ginger woman. She could see the woman already at least.
The main character though…
“How does reaching an island make you a King?” She asks, confused.
Luffy looked at her, surprised, because saying, “It’s cause it’s the last island. It means you’ve sailed the entire world! You’ve seen everything the seas have to offer! Being the King of the Pirates means you’re the freest person in the world.”
Her eyes steadily grow bigger before she gives a lopsided smile to the boy.
“That sounds like a fun dream. What are you gonna do after though? Sail a few more times through?” She asks, curiously.
“Shishishi,” the boy laughs, and for some reason, her smile widens too. “That sounds fun too! I’ll decide then!”
Then he looks at her, “Wanna join our crew?”
“Will you help me turn back into a woman?” she asks seriously. He put his hand on his hat and tips it back to look at her.
“I’ll help you help yourself!” He says, and she gives him a puzzled look before she took the offer.
“I’ll be in your care then!” She smiles at him, offering him a hand.
Luffy launches himself at her and this time, she awkwardly hugs him back.
When she looks up, it’s to find three pairs of eyes looking at her with flabbergasted looks.
“How could you accept so easily?!” The woman shrieks. “You don’t even know what it means to be the King of Pirates! You can barely even walk. That’s too reckless!”
Lin blinks at the women, her eyes glowing acid green again.
“Nami, was it?” She asks, and the woman gapes for a second.
“I…didn’t give you my name,” she says warily, quietening down.
“My Devil Fruit gave it,” she says simply. “It’s telling me that I need to go where he’s going. At least part of the way. So I can find the man named Ivankov. He has a Devil Fruit which can turn me back into a woman. And I don’t really think there are many people who will be willing to help me if I say something like that.”
“You’d be surprised,” mutters the smoking man.
“You’re Sanji, right?” She says, then she reaches out and grabs his frozen hand. “Thank you. For not kicking me out.”
She lets go quickly, feeling strange about holding a man’s hand as a man, and the guy rubs his palm a little in a strange way too, with a similar look on his face.
“Uh, no problem,” he mutters back.
Lin smiles at him.
Then there is some fuss as the customers rush out, and Luffy jumps off her again. The man named Sanji is in the middle of the mess, and her jaw drops when a hostage situation happens and even more when the somehow crazy cool cook kicks butt.
Still, the following events are crazier still and that’s how she knows she’s probably in the middle of a story arc. She cringes when the mean looking (probably softie) is the swordsman and gets himself bisected, and she scowls as his friends try to haul him from the water after.
The stitching should probably be done by some of the cooks and she hisses it until one of the cooks takes over and lines his chest with some cleaner stitches and throws bandages at the men before going back to the old man.
She’s looking between her new Captain and the almost bisected swordsman when Luffy tells her to take Zoro and go. Then she’s sitting in a boat with four men and it’s actually not as weird as she thought it would be.
They follow Luffy’s stolen ship and Lin fusses over Zoro’s temperature and the pain he’s inevitably in without any pain killers, and it sucks knowing that’s all she can do.
Still, she’s kind of…weirdly strong. So she holds him down when the swordsman tries to get up and he scowls something fierce at her that makes her shift uneasily until she apologises but doesn’t let him go.
One of the bounty hunters eye her when Zoro calls her an annoying woman, but she’s pleased enough that she doesn’t mind it. Even though she can’t hear any actual affection or anything in his voice, she smiles because she knows she’s right about him being a softie.
Then the bounty hunters goes back to Luffy and she’s kind of horrified to imagine him trying to swim the whole way back and Usopp tells her that it’ll be fine while shaking nervously and she smiles at him too.
Then they get captured and she cries even though she’s pretty sure Usopp is still alive and Zoro passes out. She gets hit a few times too, and well…it doesn’t really hurt as much as the shock of being hit makes her cry out.
Still, the fishmen are happy and she kind of pities them until she’s tossed into a dirty cell. She tries her best to keep Zoro’s wound clean and when he wakes up, he snarls at her for not doing anything.
She looks at him with acid green eyes and tells him, “He’s not dead, and Nami hates that fishman. I don’t want to try something new only to ruin something that’s already fine.”
Zoro scowls even worse at her words and looks like he’s going to say something degradory before he winces and she starts fussing. When he says that they need to get out, she barely hesitates to fold the exit in half.
Zoro gapes at her and hauls ass. Somehow they end up with a weird fishman and then she’s just following Zoro giving directions to Nami while they go in circles. It’s genuinely one of the strangest things she’s done and she’s offended when Zoro says her directions are bullshit.
She snaps back that he can’t even walk in a straight line and as if to prove her right, he walks right into the forest, scowling about the world moving around. It’s so absurd she honestly forgets that he’s hot.
Then Luffy and the seriously cool cook crash into Zoro while she shrieks in surprise, and she pins him down as she fusses over his chest wound while her Captain laughs.
Then Nami comes in and says something about killing Usopp and when she tells her that she knows he’s alive, she’s insulted to high heavens until she starts crying again and Luffy interrupts while Sanji just stares at her.
Sniffling with red puffy eyes, she knows she looks ugly. She’s never been a pretty crier and she can’t imagine being in a male body has made it any different.
However Sanji offers her a handkerchief and Lin is so taken aback that she forgets to take it for a full minute. She doesn’t expect kindness from men as she is, she knows from past behaviour that when she stops looking all pretty, their shallow chivalry leaves too.
She can’t imagine she’s anywhere near pretty looking like a tall man with weird, long hair beaten up and crying half the day. And she looks away as she takes it with a soft ‘thanks’.
She’s almost surprised that there’s no cologne in the handkerchief and it makes her smile a little as she presses it to her puffy eyes and rests with Luffy, hoping for it to go down.
Usopp comes and then a woman claiming to be Nami’s sister tells them what’s going on, and whatever she’s gained from the past hour of resting is gone when she cries again.
Zoro scoffs at her tears and Sanji gently pats her shoulders. Usopp gets scared off by himself.
Then they gather together and when Zoro scolds her for crying all the time, she can’t help the wetness in her voice when she says, “But it’s just so sad. There’s a difference between knowing bad things happen and experiencing it yourself. They’ve been trying so hard for eight years with only this smidge of hope. I’m just grateful they’re still trying so hard to fight.”
This makes Zoro look at her and for some reason she thinks that his low opinion of her has changed a little.
Then Luffy calls them to battle.
Sanji hesitates, “You can stay back if you want. You’ve mentioned that you’ve never fought before and regardless of your strength, it’s not the only thing you need in something like this.”
Lin blinks.
She never thought for a single second she wasn’t going to fight.
At the look on her face, everyone who had stopped grins and turns back around.
Sanji is the only one who waits for her to say the words, “I want to learn.”
And he drops his head with acceptance, before lighting up a cigarette and walking along.
She’s surprised to see that the villagers aren’t already fighting, and she gives a smile at the bounty hunters who offer Zoro their swords. It’s honestly very sweet.
Luffy bursts through like a rampaging dinosaur and she plucks a large chunk of stone from the wall beside the gate. The villagers gape and while she’s thinking of where to throw it, a large target appears.
She used to play baseball in college. It’s not a very interesting fact since she wasn’t very good at the batting part, but she was half decent at the pitching and avoiding the balls thrown at her.
She raises her leg and stomps it down, the ground cracks under her feet, and she heaves the large chunk into the weird beast. The impact sends genuine wind blowing out, and she gapes in awe as the weird sea animal is lifted off the water, the waves turning choppy as the animal shrieks as it’s blown off completely.
They watch it fly into the distance and they don’t hear the distant impact of the creature hitting the sea.
In the silence, she says almost disappointed, “It didn’t go ‘splat’.”
Luffy laughs loudly, and Usopp looks like he’s going to start sobbing.
A octopus thinggie charges at her and she shrieks falling over even though he’s literally nowhere close to her, and Zoro steps between them throwing her a look of reluctant approval before it turns annoyed at the helpless way she’s just sitting there.
Sanji gives her a smile and a hand and she gets up, then she’s rubbing her hands against her clothes, feeling strange at the size of her own hands compared to Sanji’s.
The fight is…choppy.
If she manages to get a punch in, she destroys the internal organs of the person as well as throwing him through to the edge of Arlong Park. When he lands, she can’t help the wince and an instinctive, “Sorry!” before she remembers it’s a fight.
She gains a few cuts, shrieks until her voice starts to hurt, and punches…well, they don’t hurt a lot?? It’s strange. She thought they’d hurt more but they really don’t.
It feels like a kid punched her. Despite the strength she can feel and the surprised scream that leaves her throat, those people are so ridiculously simple to deal with. And it honestly helps that they don’t look all human for all that they’re sentient beings not really any different from humans.
She’d probably be crying over every person she’s accidentally killed instead of being able to nudge the thought out while freaking out about a sword or something coming at her.
Still, the fight is surprisingly not hard, and she hasn’t broken any bones and when she pokes at the one slightly deep cut she got on her side (which made her kick a man and wow, she’s not going to think about the wet splotch it made and she didn’t look back, nope, no way), it hurts enough to cry, but not as bad as the one time she was forced to walk on a broken foot.
“Lin-chan! You fought so well!” Sanji cooes at her, and she smiles brightly at him.
“Right? I was surprised too!” She gives a slightly breathy, giggly laugh and it almost sounds feminine enough to ease her nerves. Sanji blinks a little surprised before fussing over her cut with a concerned look, apologising for not being able to help.
She waves it away, knowing full well she was fighting so haphazardly that it would have been a disaster if he was anywhere close to her. She has no idea how she even gained a Superman level strength.
Well, it wasn’t that exaggerated. But it was close enough to give her creeped out shivers. She just really really wanted to go back to her own body.
But, she couldn’t help but think how useful it could be if she just got a bit better at fighting. She’d been decently athletic, considering her consistent visits to the gym and the occasional boxing classes that she took (the trainer was super hot and a extremely good fuck).
The only thing that stopped her from strutting around was literally the fact that her body felt strained if she even cocked her hips. It didn’t even feel like her body and she resented it almost as much as the fact that it was a different gender.
But at least it meant that she didn’t embarrass herself too much. She was half stuck in her weird Google-esque Devil Fruit and half struck by the fact that she was in a freaking anime. Like what the fuck.
Learning to fight and probably-most likely- most definitely killing people was waylaid by her entire body shrieking at her that it was wrong. It might be strange considering, but she’d been exposed to way more disgusting things.
The only problem was probably the sensation of fleshing giving way under her hands. She flexed her hands and tried not to think about it too much.
A three day party occurred and Sanji and her were introduced to Going Merry. She put her foot down on sleeping with the boys and insisted on the kitchen or Nami’s room. To her surprise, Nami agreed, and her village set up a second bed for her and Lin cried at how nice they were.
They got her a change of clothes too and she managed to clean her hair and get it braided in a simple pony hair style that she’d probably not change until she returned to her body.
She’d have felt bad about asking for clothes and an entire bed from the village if they weren’t so happy to help.
And most of them even consistently referred to her as female despite doubting her claim of being affected by a weird gender-changing phenomenon. She was really happy about that.
Nami slapped her arms a lot every time she started crying a little, and Lin found herself smiling a little more naturally throughout the three days she spent with the villagers. She wasn’t very interested in the partying part, more curious to explore her new body and get used to it.
It wasn’t once or twice that some of her crewmates stumbled across her practising calisthenics and yoga, getting used to the movement of each muscle of her body.
The only one to stay and watch was Zoro, drinking the entire time, as he watches her get smoother when going from one move to the next. He doesn’t ask, simply observing her as she went on for hours, serene despite the sweat dripping from her forehead.
Somehow, her stamina is pretty decent too. Yoga is one thing and calisthenics is completely different.
She only gets up when she’s panting lightly, feeling more settled in her body despite it’s male form. The sun blazes down on her and she smiles into it.
Her eyes turn acid green and even though it doesn’t tell her everything that she wants to know- she knows enough.
“That was calisthenics,” she says quietly, as cool wind blows through her. She smiles as she turns to Zoro. “You could have joined if you wanted to.”
“Nah,” he says. “It won’t help me where I am now.”
“Control won’t help you?” She raises a brow.
“I’ve got plenty of control over my body and sword,” he corrects, taking a gulp from the bottle. “Precision of the sword needs more than that to improve.”
She thinks about it, and then shrugs.
The only thing she knows that help swordsmen is probably training and experience.
“Ah,” she says, remembering a trick. “Have you tried cutting a boulder with a blunt or wooden sword? There’s a weak point to everything and anything. It could be useful if you don’t know how to do that.”
She’s seen it in movies and shows. It’s something that any halfway fantasy swordsman should be able to do.
When she looks, Zoro looks surprised.
“Do you know anything else?” He asks, a scrutinising expression on his face, and she remembers the lie they believe about her being from the Grand Line.
“Temper your mind?” She shrugs. “People are always saying things like that when it comes to swordsmen. I can't really tell you much else. They're so cryptic about teaching swordsmanship that it honestly feels like it depends on your interpretation of it. If you try hard enough, you can probably make petals or fire bloom from your sword. Or maybe that was one of their metaphors.”
Zoro listens to her words seriously, before nodding once. His hand touches the hilt of his single sword, and she feels bad about the missing two. She’s pretty sure he gets them soon though, so she doesn’t think about it too much.
Then she pauses and thinks about it.
Where can they get two decently good swords? Preferably with infinite potential for growth like a semi-main character deserves.
She tosses a few options out before she smiles.
“There’s a place called Loguetown which can give you two pretty good swords,” she says, and Zoro is surprisingly still standing there looking at her. “We should ask Nami about going there.”
Zoro raises an eyebrow before looking at her with a considering expression.
“How much can you tell with your Devil Fruit?” He asks, curious.
She thinks about the Devil Fruit that resides in Luffy and sighs. “Probably more than a lot of people would be comfortable with, and less than would be useful to me.”
Then she runs a hand over her face and grimaces. She needs a bath. Pronto.
With an easy dismissal, she heads to Nami and Nojiko’s offered abode and sighs deeply as she takes her bath.
She’s still not very comfortable with her new body, specially her dick, but it is what it is. There’s nothing she can do about the yearning to chop it off and hope she grows a vagina after, but she knows hope and there’s very little she won’t do to make that Ivankov turn her into a female.
The journey onward is surprisingly not as uncomfortable as she thought. Nami is not uncomfortable under the male gaze and she changes even if Lin is looking at her. In fact, the one freaking out most often is Lin.
She freaks out about peeing, about seeing Nami naked (even though she’s never been fussed about naked women) and being seen naked. She almost cried when Nami just walked in while she didn’t have a shirt on, and it took Nami a while to realise that she was crying because she just entered while Lin was changing.
It’s a thing, and she’s so so glad that none of the boys actually laugh at her. She would throw herself overboard and just die if they did and she’s not sure how hypothetical she’s being.
It’s stressful. It’s ridiculously stressful being a man and sometimes Nami or someone just glares at her and Lin has to remind herself that it’s okay, they’re not trying to be…whatever it is that they are.
It’s just, she’s not used to being treated roughly. Not just because she’s a woman, but because she’s lived in peace her entire life. She might not be getting seasick but she’s had Usopp teach her how to tie knots and set the sail and even the uses of different parts of a ship and rudder.
She’s a complete amateur and she’s stressed between trying to adapt to this world and herself at the same time.
The only thing that actually brings her peace is the fact that she can wake up early and just exercise and stretch by herself for hours, breathe in the sea spray and breathe out her stress, and when it’s over, Sanji offers her a polite smile and tea.
The man doesn’t flounder over her the way he does over Nami, and she’s hyper aware that it’s because she does not possess a feminine body. He’s very very straight.
But she’s very grateful that he still treats her politely in a way that soothes the part of her that feels jarred by the roughness of the men and seas. Even Nami is rough in a way that Lin doesn’t completely get, and Sanji treating her consistently like a woman eases her, and reminds her that she’s still the same person.
She can’t help but be grateful.
Loguetown is apparently their next destination, and she glances at Zoro before she can help it.
There’s an interested look in his eyes as he looks at the distant island and she smiles a little. For her own sake, she’s been asking so much about everything that she’s also spilled information of her own- like the fact that Paradise needs a log pose and New World needs a set of three.
Nami had instantly freaked out and Lin had reassured her that it could be bought in Loguetown, which was when she had given Lin a pained, determined look and placed money in her hands and told her to go buy things that she thinks would be useful.
It was also accompanied by threats of mutilation that don’t work simply because she wasn’t actually a man and threats of stringing her balls like pearls on a necklace don’t phase her.
But she took the money and agreed anyway.
Her Devil Fruit continues to prove it’s usefulness as she traverses the shops. There is a moment where she’s tempted to buy a transponder snail because she thinks it would be very interesting, but she ditches it when her Devil Fruit tells her of a much more interesting device.
She finds it in an antique store with a sleepy old man who looks at her like he wishes she wouldn’t buy anything from him. There’s nothing very useful in the place aside from broken items and she finds herself selecting the damaged watch-like thing before she can second guess herself.
There’s a dead baby transponder snail stuck inside which she discards while vomiting, and then she gets it cleaned. Fixing it will take some more time, but she just buys some components for it and decides to ask Usopp.
When she comes across shouts of Luffy dying or something, she immediately runs to the square and finds Luffy grinning as he says, “I’m dead.”
And then lightning strikes.
If she didn’t know she was in an anime, she sure as heck does now because that’s not something that happens everyday. She can hear Sanji asking Zoro if he believes in god with a bewildered tinge to his voice and she laughs a bit.
Fate herself has chosen Luffy to be King. She might not know the journey, but she’s sure that whatever happens, he will reach his goal.
(Or well, die very dramatically, but that happens too, eh.)
Anyway, Lin doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, but she’s sure as heck going to do it in a female body. So she doesn’t hesitate in running for it when Luffy tells them to.
It’s only then that Sanji and Zoro realise she’s with them, and Sanji grins around a cigarette at her, and Zoro grabs at his two new swords subtly.
She grins.
Honestly, these two swords aren’t the only decent ones in East Blue, but they are so convenient that she instantly knows that it is for him. It’s right in front of the Grand Line and she can see that he got it without even paying for it.
She’s almost jealous that he’s not going to get a lecture from Nami.
As expected, after a hasty retreat from the island, Nami screeches at her and she helplessly listens to a lecture about saving money obediently.
In her defence, the fact that she didn’t go on a shopping spree (she’d be depressed if she had) should say enough about her restraint.
But she doesn’t say it to Nami’s face and gracefully accepts her debt to her.
And then they are busy trying to cross the Red Line, while in a storm. Lin declares her wish to return to her true gender with a laugh, and listens to the wishes of her crew(?) with the heart of someone watching an iconic scene in an anime.
She knows its a good one, from the way they look at each other with smirks and grins around the barrel before breaking it. And then they are rushing to follow Nami’s instructions and she tries her best not to get underfoot while lending her strength to pull up the sails and change her direction of the ship.
It’s exciting. It’s more excitement than she's ever experienced before, and when their ship breaks the cloud cover and throws them up, she laughs, and the joy fills her heart so much that for once she doesn’t worry about how she sounds.
And then they’re rushing down with a swooping sensation in her gut and she doesn’t react in time to the huge whale that blocks their path. She gapes helplessly even as she knows the answer to the shouted question of what it is.
She’s stunned by the unbelievable sight.
They break the head of their ship and it infuriates Luffy enough to punch the whale in the eye. Zoro and Sanji hit him while she falls over in sheer pants wetting terror that only doesn’t happen because her Devil Fruit tells her that the whale has no direct kills to it’s name.
She’s still shrieking in terror when the whale swallows their ship.
It ends simpler than she expected and before she knows it, they’re at the lighthouse listening to Crocus tell them the tale of the pirates who left Laboon behind. Lin bites her lip and tries not to cry, and Sanji offers her his handkerchief again when he sees her making that face.
When Crocus is done telling them though, Lin pushes on, “If it’s not an imposition, then can I ask what the name of the crew was?”
Crocus gets a surprised expression before he tells her, “It was called the Rumbar Pirates, young man.”
“It’s woman,” she corrects absentmindedly as her eyes glow acid green when she searches for information.
“Can you tell me who the Captain was?” She says, a little confused by three haphazard information her Fruit gives her.
“It was a man known as Yorki,” Crocus says, looking at her with a intense look. “Are you using a Devil Fruit ability?”
She blinks at him in surprise.
“How did you know?” She asks and he answers.
“Your eyes glow an acid green that reminds me of the eyes of a poisonous snake,” he tells her. “It is quite distinctive from your normal brown. You should be careful about it.”
She nods in acceptance. In return, she tells him what he’s been seeking to know.
“Yorki of the Rumbar Pirates encountered a poison on an island and escaped through the Calm Belt. He either died or changed his name so I can’t tell you any further,” she says and Crocus stills and looks at her solemnly. “The Rumbar Pirates are then and currently is headed by a man called Brook. I can’t tell where he is, only that he is the only one still alive.”
Everyone around her looks at her for a long moment, before Crocus slowly sinks into a chair.
“All this time…” he breathes, “Can you- Are you sure Brook is in the Grand Line?”
She nods.
“I am looking for a man named Emporio Ivankov who possesses the Horm-Horm Fruit. The most I have found about him is that he is located in the Grand Line, and is the Queen of a place called Kamabakka Kingdom. I don’t have his current status or where he is right now. I need to at least see them once before I can tell something like that.”
Crocus considers her carefully.
“I see,” he says. “Do you intend to turn your body into that of a woman?”
“Turn back,” she corrects, and then before she can do anything, the man grabs her wrist and places his fingers on her pulse.
She has to bite her cheek to keep from pulling away and Crocus gives her a look.
“Come,” he says, and she shoots a wary look at her crew mates who frown heavily, and offering a wane smile, she turns and follows.
“Your body has not been transformed,” he says when she is inside. “As far as I can tell without doing a blood test, you have been born male.”
She shakes her head.
“This body is stiff in ways I would not be. It resists the way I wish to move. This isn’t the body I was born with, and yet it looks like how I would if I were a man. Only taller, much taller,” she adds the last bit a bit resentfully.
She didn’t used to think much of her height, but now she finds it frustrating to be tall. She knows that there are many people taller than her, but she’s the tallest person in the crew and she doesn’t like it.
“It sounds as if you have been moved into this body that is strangely similar to your own. Do you happen to have any matching scars or such?” He asks her carefully.
She looks away, and then shakes her head.
“What exactly is the name of your Devil Fruit?” He asks, and she crumbles a bit inside herself.
“Sachi-Sachi no Mi,” she whispers.
“And have you looked at yourself with it? What does it tell you?” He asks, but his voice is gentle as she ducks her head to her chest and doesn’t want to answer.
He sighs, and places a hand on her head.
“Well, perhaps you have been transmigrated or dropped into your alternate self’s body,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about me saying anything. Just don’t hide from yourself.”
The old man leaves first, and Lin collapses, her chest heaving. Her body trembles at the thought of looking at the words and yet she forces herself to anyway.
From the moment she had arrived, the name that the Sachi-Sachi no Mi had given her hadn’t changed.
Keito D. Nozomi
She presses a hand to her lips and tries not to hurl. She shouldn’t waste food. She shouldn’t waste food, and it’s only that mantra that keeps her from vomiting and ruining the inside of Crocus' lighthouse.
She’s a little pale when she leaves, and concerned eyes rove her form. She gives them a shaky smile and they set off to the sound of a new promise to find Brook for the two.
They stop by Whiskey Peak where she doesn’t really drink and eats enough to fill herself. (She doesn’t notice that she’s eating more than she normally would.)
Then pretends to pass out when Nami glares at her.
She fights a little, and manages to control her strength a lot better than she had in Cocoyashi. She could almost pass for an okay fighter if it weren’t for the number of injuries Zoro prevented her from getting.
But she makes up for it by throwing someone hard enough to almost clear a street, and Zoro runs through the space to cut up everyone on either side of him.
Lin can’t help but think that his sword style is beautiful as he fights. There’s a violence in it, but it’s not ruthless. She doesn’t know much about swords but every move he makes seems to have a purpose and it makes him seem almost beautiful despite his terrifying visage.
She’s not even surprised to see how he knocks out the few women there are instead of outright killing them and she feels fondness for the man who she knows to possess a big, fat soft spot the size of an entire kingdom.
She wants to laugh.
No wonder he was favored in the story. Though she wonders how he was supposed to lose his eye.
More than Luffy, she knows about the bikini wearing Nami and the stripping swordsman from the story. But she doesn’t know much else aside from that they grow really really strong.
There was something about the ‘two wings of the Pirate King’ but she assumes the other wing is supposed to be Sanji and not Nami, who is still growing into her own.
After Whiskey Peak where they pick up a princess (who is at first discomforted by her presence in the same room before she forces herself to shrug it off) they visit Little Garden, which is a terror (And she can out-punch a dinosaur, yes).
Lin tries her best not to cry on her way to Drum, and it’s a bit easier than before now that she’s gotten a bit more time to feel stable about her situation. She sees more than one person side-eye her as she limits herself to the occasional wobbly lip, and she has absolutely no shame in prostrating herself for Nami’s sake when they reach a hostile Drum Island.
It’s only when she sees Nami well and up that Lin lets herself cry and Nami’s face warms up even as she scolds her for being a cry baby. It’s a revelation to her growing affection for her crew mates and she’s absolutely not the only one who clings to Nami as they depart the island with a doctor is tow.
Lin has never kept a big secret in her life and it shows because it takes one blood test and a mild comment about how she turned into a man for her to crack and spill that she’s from a different world and not really from the Grand Line and she has no idea what’s going on but she’ll return to her female form if it’s the last thing she does.
It’s met with a lot of startled looks, before they pretty much shrug and get back to saving Vivi’s kingdom, which is a much more immediate threat and Lin is so relieved she cries most of the way to Alabasta and has to rest in the kitchen with a cold towel on her face because she can barely see through her puffy eyes.
She misses Bon Clay and only hears about him with Sanji later.
Alabasta is a mess that she cannot hope to ever comprehend. The sheer anguish and pain that seep through every grain of sand is almost visible in the empty city of Erumalu. The bones of the dead remain in vigil and Vivi cries and cries for her people.
She cannot imagine how difficult it must be for her to even breathe. Her country is being killed off by a slow poison and she knows it, she sees it, and she can barely do anything about it. She runs herself ragged, aiming for the next city, for the next bit of hope that she can capture.
And when it flees from between her fingertips Vivi is left a desperate, panicked shell of herself.
They do not have their ship. They do not have quick transport. All they have is their own bodies, and Luffy asks Vivi to let them put their lives, with hers, on the line.
Vivi cries and accepts.
Lin struggles against Bon Clay. The other claims to be an okama and infuriatingly doesn’t believe her when she says she was originally a woman, and keeps calling her the degradory term and she gets pissed off and cracks half the city, but she doesn’t get to touch Bon Clay.
In the end, she gets rescued by Sanji who takes over the fight and asks her to go after Vivi. Lin is infuriated and with an acidic glare at the man, she runs away.
(It is only later that she learns that Bon Clay intends to find Ivankov too, and by then it's too late to mend the bridges because the other is already being shipped to Impel Down.)
Lin doesn’t like her experiences in Alabasta because it makes her feel useless. She can’t fight properly and she’s useless as Vivi screams and screams for her people to stop fighting. Her voice does not reach them and when it finally does- she’s not the only one who’s hiding her tears in the rain when it comes.
It feels like every inch of her aches from taking the beating from Bon Clay. She’s nowhere near the state Sanji is but she’s just exhausted from the aches all over her body. She sleeps most of the day away, and she’s glad that she doesn’t need to worry about gender separation…that is until it’s time to bathe.
She declines the invitation and the King lets her use a private bath which is equally luxurious as the larger gender divided one. She takes full advantage of it, soaking long enough to prune and then some.
The heat relaxes her and her hair is clean of sand and while she doesn’t have her own body, her male one doesn’t feel too bad. She finally explores her body and realises that she can still feel pleasure without touching her dick, no matter how much it aches.
It’s the first time Lin comes from rubbing her prostate and nipples and she muffles her sounds in her towel when she comes. She feels more relieved than she thought possible from it, and it takes her less than a day to find a man to sleep with her.
It's more annoying than she expects, but it’s not bad and when she comes back, Nami raises an eyebrow and spots it immediately.
Lin flushes, and even though it’s not exactly private girl talk, she’s relaxed enough to not care about a few male ears and tells her how it was. Nami laughs and shoves at her, but there is a relief in her eyes when Lin looks more settled in her body for it.
Their journey is Alabasta ends with a raised arm and quiet cries, none of them unaffected by Vivi’s loud claims of friendship, and they mope as they keep moving.
Going Merry is damaged though, so they put all hands on deck to fix it. Lin proves her use then too, using her Devil Fruit to improve the way they fix the ship until Usopp stops getting frustrated and actually uses it to fix her better.
It’s not anything much, but it’s better than what Usopp could do by himself with a metal plate shoved over the broken parts.
They get a new crewmate and Lin is instantly happy when she gets called cute and flattered and Robin doesn’t mind her sleeping with them. Robin is lonely, and despite everyone’s verbal acceptance, it takes a little more for them to get over losing Vivi and gaining Robin.
Lin takes all of ten minutes to see that Robin is from Ohara and find out that Ohara was a place destroyed by the World Government, and it was also a place of scholars who could read the Poneglyph and it doesn’t take very long for her to connect the story.
She doesn’t really get much about Poneglyphs itself, just something about it originating from Wano (which she knew was a very famous arc) and it being used to disseminate information.
Robin looks at her when she tells her the name of her fruit and what it can do and she knows that the other knows that Lin has always found out about her history. But Lin doesn’t say a word.
There’s a long list of organisations Robin used to belong to and none of them were good. Most were destroyed in various ways by various hands, most commonly by the World Government.
Lin feels nauseous about it but she only tries to connect with Robin instead. The woman I’d sympathetic to her state and pats her head easily and it’s really not long before Lin is practically putty in her hands, starved for attention as she is.
Sanji flits around Robin as he does Nami, and he’s as gentle with her as always. And Lin feels relieved about her friends around her.
She doesn’t hesitate to share her status as someone from another world and Robin’s eyes go wide with shock as she finally talks about her world- how big and well connected it is, about the age of Internet and how easily information is shared, about the places she’s seen and been to.
It attracts all their attention and soon Luffy is crowing about finding a place with high rises, and Robin is in awe of the Internet and how they have discovered sunken cities and people preserved despite the city being consumed by a volcanic eruption.
Nami asks about fashion and her eyebrow twitches at the capitalist mentality even as she wishes to be one. She drools as Lin describes the quality of clothes she’s worn and jewellery she had once adorned.
Sanji listens in and asks about culture and food and Lin tells him that his food is the best she’s eaten bar maybe once or twice in her life, and he sets out to become the best without question. She tells him that she doesn’t doubt it.
She’s never had such good food with such consistency and she makes sure he knows it. Sanji returns to the kitchen preening and with a pleased look on his face.
Zoro doesn’t look the slightest but interested but she does regale Chopper and Usopp about some of the things her world is capable of but then she tells them that they didn’t have Devil Fruits or weird magical bullshit abilities like a sword cutting steel, and Zoro opens his mouth to tell her that it’s not magic, it’s just a higher form of swordsmanship.
She tells him she believes him but it’s a higher form that no one has achieved in her world.
Then a ship falls from the sky, and there’s random confusing knowledge at her fingertips shot Mantra and Observation Haki and something about electricity when she asks how the ’God’ is keeping an eye on everything.
It’s a terrifying power and even though all she needs to do is fight through the pain after getting hit by something called an Impact Dial, she can barely get herself to do it. She wishes it had knocked her out, because even when she gets back on the little boat, she strains to smile at their antics for a while.
She heals quickly though, so by the time they meet the threatening man, she’s absolutely ready to kick ass. But she’s still glad when they don’t need to and he leaves quickly.
There is a bonfire and she bemoans the lack of marshmallows to roast and they laugh and agree. She sips the alcohol a bit and enjoys a light buzz. Robin doesn’t mind when she falls asleep in her lap.
Lin chooses to stay with the ship, and Sanji, Nami and Usopp are with her. But then Eneru is there and she doesn’t even get her hands on him before he’s frying her.
It’s the worst pain she’s ever felt in her life. She feels like her heart will stop, and she cries when she hasn’t passed out yet. Eneru makes an amused sound when she pushes herself up, and then takes a few more seconds to make sure she stays down.
Lin doesn’t even know if the one crying then was her or Nami.
Lin wakes up not long after Sanji does, and she curls up into a ball and cries. Sanji doesn’t ask anything of her, and he walks out off the ship to go to the far off flying ship. She’d have more awe for it if she didn’t feel like her skin was going to flake off.
Her body is abnormal though, and she finds herself following Sanji regardless of what she’d intended to do and Sanji tells her to stay back and rest but even though she’s crying, she doesn’t want to.
Sanji sighs and tells them his plan to get up to the ship. Usopp freaks out and she refutes it by saying she can throw them up but the landing will depend on them.
Usopp freaks, Sanji doesn’t look happy either but he accepts. She grabs Usopp by his belt and heaves.
Her entire body tingles painfully but the two of them go flying. In fact, they go past the ship and it takes some creative latching for Usopp to grab onto the ship and then they swing a bit before Sanji jumps and lands on the ship. Usopp, still freaking out, takes his time.
In the end, she ends up making her way back to where the others are and Nami also lands. She watches Nami try to get Luffy up to the ship and the way the tale of Noland and Cricket’s wish touches the angry leader of the tribe.
When Zoro doesn’t get the tree to fall, she grabs the angry man before he breaks his body and throws him back. Then Lin takes a deep breath and punches.
She’s been pulling back her hits for a long time, but when the huge thing takes the full force of her body, the tree moreso shatters then breaks.
The rebound pushes her back enough to land safely and they run towards the forest as they see Luffy beat a God.
The angry man looks at her and says, “What is your name, great warrior?”
And…for the first time she hesitates.
“Keito,” she says, not looking at the remnants of her crew around her.
It’s the first time she’s introducing herself as a man, and she’s trying to find out how it feels. But her conflicted thoughts are nothing to the man who’s talking to her. He grabs her wrist, and he doesn’t smile but there’s a look in his eyes that she recognises as he says, “You have my gratitude.”
Wyper takes her during the celebration, shoved up against a tree with his tongue in her ass, and then with his cock filling her, grinding on her prostate which feels more sensitive than before.
It’s better than Alabasta, better than her fingers, and she doesn’t hesitate to throw him down and ride him. The sensitivity surprises her but Wyper listens to her wishes, doesn’t touch her cock and keeps going until she cries.
He’s good, and she’s glad when he takes care of her, even though it gets jarring to be called Keito. He does not ask why his crew calls her by a different name.
Later, Lin is not surprised when she lets herself get drunk and sucks his dick not ten feet from the clearing they’re celebrating in. More than one party goer stumbles across them and Lin finally, desperately, touches her dick and comes from that.
She’s definitely not the only one to sleep with the locals. She sees the heart-eyes some of the women shoot Zoro, the way they run their fingers over newly laid bites and bruises as they try to seduce him, and he ignores them while he drinks. She’s never seen anyone sleep with Sanji, Robin or Nami and she has no idea if they do or not.
Nami enjoys her stories of what she gets up to with Wyper and Lin’s amused when she sees the angry man pressed up against a tree with Zoro’s cock in his ass and hands in his hair. She gives a mocking wave when Zoro opens his eyes and looks at her.
Wyper is too busy screaming to notice.
Lin is not unhappy with being called Keito but she’s not pleased with it either, so she decides to let it be the one-time incident it is and continues to introduce herself as Lin and female.
She’s very very displeased when after Enies Lobby, the World Government marks her as male. But at least they call her Strong ‘Lin’ which she thinks is stupid but whatever.
Then they’re in a version of the Bermuda Triangle and the moment Luffy gets Brook on the ship, she’s launched herself at the skeleton and blabbering about Laboon and Crocus and then Brook is sobbing in her arms.
Luffy promises to fix his shadow, and it takes no effort at all for Lin to force the skeleton man to stay and they go up against Moira and Hogback and even though Luffy rushes ahead and gets his shadow stolen, even though Lin meets more than her match in a dead Oars who is stronger than she is, and the fist fighting just tires her out but it also provides an excellent distraction for her crew to try to throw salt in his mouth or disable him somehow.
Finally Luffy punches Moira and passes out, and then Warlord Kuma is there and Zoro and Sanji are quibbling about who’s going to die while she’s just-
He’s her hope, she thinks with wide eyes and a throat that’s choking her voice.
This man, Bartholomew Kuma, can send her to Ivankov, the one person who can permanently turn her female again, and she can’t choke the request out, she can’t speak until Zoro knocks out Sanji and she looks at him with wide eyes and he looks almost kind as he knocks her out too.
Lin doesn’t manage to ask Kuma to send her to Ivankov and she regrets it bitterly. She regrets it, but-
It’s okay.
She doesn’t blame Zoro for knocking her out.
The celebration after Thriller Bark is bittersweet. Zoro sleeps and Brook cries and they get another crew mate.
When they are leaving, Luffy asks about the vivre card that starts burning, and Lin’s eyes turn acid green as she says, “He’s in Impel Down.”
More than one head snap to her, and Luffy holds the vivre card so tight he almost crumbles it.
“We should go,” Zoro says, looking Luffy right in the eye even as he has only just learnt to move.
“We should tell Whitebeard,” Nami counters. “He’s known as the Strongest Man in the World and he cares about his crew a lot. He calls them his children. He would definitely be of help.”
“Impel Down is in the Calm Belt,” Lin says quietly. “We need to line our ship with seastones to move on it.”
“What if we steal a Marine ship?” Usopp says nervously. Franky frowns at having no solution and Robin watches with worried eyes.
Luffy puts a hand on his head, covers his eyes and breathes out a deep breath. Then he lifts his head, and looks at them. There’s a vulnerable expression on his face when he looks at them, before it’s gone and he smiles bright as the Sun.
“Okay! Let’s go save my stupid brother!” He says, and everyone grins with him.
Then Lola offers to help and they stay on Thriller Bark for one more day as they plan.
Lin finally gets to show off her Devil Fruit ability by finding a Marine warship heading into the Calm belt close to them and then shows off the watch-thing that she had bought ages back in Loguetown which would let her talk to people one-sidedly as long as she had their coordinates.
It’s a silly thing that needs a transponder snail and because it is one sided, it is discarded. It is no wonder that with a dead snail in it, the thing is considered junk.
Of course, it is junk in the hands of anyone who can’t have a live coordinate lock on another person and can also find out what they are saying without needing them to carry a transponder snail, making the entire point of the one-sided telepathic connection moot.
But right now, in her hands, was an active connection to Ace.
She gets one line of reassurance out that he’s not going mad and she’s just established a one sided telepathic connection and yes he does need to speak aloud, before Luffy grabs her arm and screams into the watch.
She almost smiles when Ace winces, and when he hears their plan to come rescue him, he starts shouting at him not to. Lin conveys as much of the word to word conversation as she can and Luffy interrupts and screams at him until Ace submits and decides to help with the plan.
He insists they first call Whitebeard and when they use the snail on Thriller Bark, Lin makes sure it’s encrypted first.
At the sound of a man picking up, voice only slightly tense but not as worried as they should be, Ace screams his name desperately crying, and Lin has to carefully remind him that no one aside from her can actually hear him.
It takes Ace some time to calm down and Nami takes the time to calmly explain the situation to the man, Marco. The man immediately panics and runs yelling for “Oyaji,” and Ace silently cries as his crew gets into a panicked mess as they take out his vivre card that’s with Whitebeard and see the burning paper.
“Oyaji,” Ace croaks. “I’m so sorry!”
And Lin first says, “I’m going to directly tell you what Ace is saying right now.” And then she breathes and says, “Oyaji, I’m so sorry.”
“Ace,” the old man says, and his voice is severe in a fatherly way, and so warm. Lin gets a lump in her throat and when Ace says, so does she, “I’m so sorry I got caught.”
“It’s okay,” he soothes. “We’ll get you out of there. Tell me where they are holding you.”
Ace barely even hesitates, “Level Six of Impel Down.” Then after a moment, “Will you really come?”
And Lin can’t capture how small Ace sounds when he says it, but it must come through anyway, because suddenly not only is Luffy, but also Marco and various other people snapping, “Of course, idiot!”
Ace cries quieter now.
And Lin says, “He’s crying.”
“Shut up,” Ace says, and it’s clearly to her, and it makes her smile.
“And now he’s telling me to shut up,” she says, because she’s smiling and she doesn’t want to be misunderstood.
There are fond insults given to Ace before Luffy says seriously, “I’m going to get Ace out of Impel Down.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Marco waves it away. “You’ve been in Paradise for a few months now. Leave it to us. We’ll take care of it.”
It’s not only Luffy who bristles at the words.
“Excuse us!” Nami snaps. “We’re the ones who told you Luffy’s brother was kidnapped. We’re the ones asking for help to rescue him. Our involvement isn’t an option.”
“And what does your Captain say?” Whitebeard says.
“I’ll save Ace no matter what. Ace said to call you first to tell you and that’s what we’re doing. But we’re going to go to Impel Down to save Ace,” Luffy says seriously.
“I see,” Whitebeard says. “Ace has told me a lot about you. He said you would reject it no matter what, but do you want to join me?”
“I’m going to be the King of the Pirates!” Luffy declares boldly. “Not you, or anyone else! We’re gonna save Ace ourselves if you don’t want to help.”
The bristling from the Whitebeards gets hidden under the old man’s loud laughter, and Lin can hear Ace smile at the sound and at Luffy’s words.
“We’ll help, brat,” he says. “Call the allied crews. We’re going to Impel Down to save my stupid son.”
Ace chokes on a sob.
“Oyaji!” He says and she doesn’t say it because it’s just a cry of sheer relief and happiness.
Then a little more clearly, he says, “Oyaji, they know.”
And when Lin says it, Luffy frowns and Whitebeard freezes in his orders.
“I see, my son,” he says. “It will be fine. We will save you.”
Then with Luffy’s insistence, they decide that the Strawhats will get the Marine ship while the Whitebeard commanders find a way to sneak off Moby Dick for a sneaky assault. Meanwhile, the messages have been sent to allied crews about Ace’s burning vivre card, and they’ll pretend to gather up for a full war.
Surprisingly, it goes to plan.
Whitebeard tells them to get their ship coated and hide it in Ryugu Kingdom, the Fishman Island, while they prepare. Lin tells them that they can make it just in time but someone will have to stay behind, and surprisingly Franky offers.
Lola refutes and says that if they entrust their ship to her, she will take care of it, and Luffy doesn’t even hesitate to give it to her. So with the extra addition of Lola on their ship, they grimly make their way to Sabaody Archipelago.
Sabaody is a horrible, no-good, absolutely terrible experience with human space markets and Luffy getting triggered by the threat of death and Silvers Rayleigh appearing all of a sudden.
And oh she thinks as the pieces fit together. It’s obvious what needs to happen now.
Silvers Rayleigh will help save Ace.
That’s not what happens, because they meet Bartholomew Kuma and people start getting thrown somewhere else.
She knows what’s happening and before he can touch her, she begs for her dream, “Emporio Ivankov,” she gasps. “Please send me to him!”
And then she’s smack dab in the front gates of Impel Down.
What else can she do?
Lin breaks in and screams for Ivankov.
It takes her 20 minutes to be captured and thrown into the fifth floor of Impel Down, but she must have done something right because half an hour after that, she’s in Level 5.5, in front of Ivankov and begging to be turned back into a woman.