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There are no islands in All Blue. Nothing for a Log Pose to lock onto, but there are clumps of seaweed and flotsam thrown together by the wind and currents, and some of these are large enough to have vegetation growing on top of them. That’s more than enough to have Luffy throwing his arms around as many of the crew as he can catch and launching them all off of the ship, leaving Sanji standing on his own two feet for once.
“Luffy! We don’t know if it’s solid -“ Nami screams.
Sanji would be more outraged on her behalf if he wasn’t still so overwhelmed. He knew All Blue existed, he did, even when no one but his old man agreed, but he’s spent so long putting the others first, it’s unreal to realize that they’ve put him first this time, and spent the last months pouring all their energies into helping him achieve his dream. Much like the existence of All Blue, he’s never doubted that they would - especially not after the extremes Luffy went to in order to bring him back to the crew oh so long ago - but the shock is still numbing his senses. Sanji knows they love him, but it still startled him how much.
Jinbe strolls to the railing and looks out over the clumps of floating vegetation, sighing with familiar fondness as Luffy bounces between the tiny islands. “I will go see to it that no one drowns,” he announces, with a sidelong glance at Sanji, and hauls himself over the side. The splash is quiet, and by now Sanji is no longer surprised by how smoothly Jinbe’s bulk slices through the water, but he still drifts closer to the railing to appreciate the sight.
His eyes catch on the countless fish Jinbe swims past, dozens of species from all over the world. Leaning closer, Sanji thinks he could stand here forever, just staring into the water.
“Don’t start crying now, shit-cook,” Zoro grumbles, sauntering past with a bottle of booze in one hand. “I’m watching the ship. Don’t you have something better to do?”
Sanji turns and opens his mouth to retort, and gets hit in the face with the net bag he often uses to collect shellfish. Zoro gives him another frowning look and tilts his head at the water, clearly wondering what Sanji is still doing on deck. A frisson of energy shoots through his body, from his fingertips caught in the familiar texture of the netting down to his toes in his reinforced shoes, and Sanji bolts to the mens’ quarters to change into his swim trunks.
With All Blue out of his sight, he almost can’t believe it will still be there when he returns, and in his haste, Sanji bangs his elbows on the doorframe and his knees on the bunks, but he hardly feels it. Racing back up, he’s struck again by the impossible joy of seeing All Blue with his own eyes, and all but falls off the ship getting over the railing.
His dive is not nearly so graceful as Jinbe’s, but Sanji for once isn’t measuring his ability against the crew’s resident fishman as he centers himself in the water. A school of common mackerel split around him in their flawless dance, and beside them a South Blue spotted grouper and a few long, striped needlefish Sanji has only seen in a book about West Blue swim side by side.
The powerful currents of the four Blues slice through deep ravines in the sea floor here, converging on a single point. Between them, coral reefs and rocky points rise, nearly all the way to the surface in places, almost meeting the trailing roots of some of the floating clumps. Holding his breath, Sanji lets this current - the one Nami managed to follow all the way from its source in the East Blue - push him inexorably closer to the center of this miraculous sea.
Huge, unfamiliar fish swim deep below him, and Sanji wonders if anyone else has ever seen their like. Maybe Robin will help him write a book about the species unique to All Blue. Usopp could paint the illustrations. Sanji will have to include recipes, of course, after he figures out which of these new species are the best to eat, and whether they taste similar to fish other chefs would be able to find.
One side of this ravine is a riot of color, sea fans and coral and fish, so many fish, in a rainbow that dazzles the eye. Something new swims past him, with the elegant shape of an angelfish but transparent as the water around it, visible only because it sparkles like its clear body is full of stars. There are squid, too, and octopus; Sanji sees something scuttle into a crevasse, a lobster or similar, and his hands tighten on his net bag. He’ll need gloves if he wants to hunt lobster.
When he can’t hold his breath any more, Sanji bobs to the surface near one of the clumps of seaweed. A few mangrove trees much like the ones in Sabaody are growing out of it, with birds perched in their branches. Hanging on to some of their long roots, Sanji peers into the water beneath the mass, seeing crabs and a myriad of small fish sheltering there.
As he swims closer to the center, the sheer, unbelievable variety of fish only increases, and Sanji almost yelps in surprise when he sees a handful of freshwater trout in the company of a school of Drum Island salmon. Some fish can adapt to either fresh or salt water, but not like this. What other impossibilities does All Blue hold? Sanji is already sure this place will never stop delighting him.
Another high point in the sea floor - this one gentle and sandy, full of sea grass and swooping rays - is shallow enough for Sanji to stand, looking out over the expanse of mild waves. Shrieking laughter echoes from one of the larger floating islands, and Sanji dismisses it for now, knowing that Jinbe will keep the anchors on the crew safe, even from Luffy’s antics.
A violet-patterned manatee noses curiously against Sanji’s hip, bumping his with its pair of curled horns. Sanji reaches down to pat its blunt nose, and watches a spotted ray skate past them, remoras clinging to its smooth wings.
“Sanji-san!” Brook calls, running over the waves toward him with flying fish in every color of the rainbow leaping away from him. They look almost like fireworks, or some other ridiculous effect from the skeleton’s stage days, and Sanji grins.
“Don’t trip on this guy,” Sanji advises, pointing down at the curious manatee.
Brook throws down a float ring and skids to a stop, catching himself in it before the sea can drag him down. “Jinbe-san says that some of the water is fresh.”
Sanji nods, and hooks an arm through the line tied to Brook’s raft, floating him a few steps closer to the edge of the drop off. “I saw some freshwater fish.”
His mind is already swimming with recipes, all the things he can cook with such ready availability of this infinite variety of seafood. Peering around, Sanji can see that the floating vegetation is arranged in a loose ring, with a wide empty space in the middle, not far from where he is.
“Wonder why,” Sanji murmurs, shoving Brook’s float out into the sweeping current.
Alternating between childish laughter and worries over sharks - not that a shark would be interested in his old bones, ohoho - Brook spins along in the current, dragged out into the center of the deep channel. But the pull slows, and stops, leaving the skeleton sitting in the open water, only a short swim away from Sanji.
It’s not unusual for any sea to have patches of warm and cold water, as the cooler depths circulate back up into the sunlight, but as he gets close enough to throw an arm over Brook’s float ring, Sanji can feel a distinctly chilled current hitting his legs from the center of All Blue. Blunting the force of the main current and preventing Brook, or any of the flotsam, from drifting any nearer, the invisible edge certainly seems like an important meeting place, absolutely teeming with fish. Below their feet, Sanji can see as many familiar species from every Blue he’s visited as from those he’s only seen in books, and many he’s only encountered on one specific island or another, confined to saltless lakes or streams.
“Go on back to the others,” Sanji grumbles, pushing Brook away. He can at least paddle back to one of the vegetation clumps and run back from there.
Sanji dives into the clouds of fish and swims toward the center, cool water rushing over his skin. A massive feathered eel cuts from one side of the narrowing channel to the other, sending smaller fish flashing in every direction, and the channel deepens, until Sanji finds himself at the end.
The water is cold enough to make the bright, tropical sunlight seem a lie. Steep walls drop into nothingness, deeper than Sanji can make out despite the clarity of the water. Opening his mouth under the waves, Sanji can’t taste so much as a hint of salt. As he swims into the very center, he can feel a current lifting him up, crisp as winter frost as it rises from the depths. A freshwater spring, in the middle of the ocean. He’s never heard of such a thing, not on this scale, and never would have imagined it in All Blue, but then again, he’s never been able to settle on exactly what he thought it would look like. Reality is infinitely more exciting than any expectation he would have been able to conjure up.
Sanji lets it push him out, down one of the other main channels. The corals along this side are different, more shaded from the bright sun overhead, though the colors are no less vibrant. Fantastical rounded shapes with intricate textures, thin branches as delicate as lace, and imposing columns decorated all around with sea anemones like the most impressive of gardens fill his vision. Sanji pauses to watch a family of leafy seahorses living inside of a great basket sponge, and startles when a small reef shark slithers past his leg.
Some story that would be, if he let himself get eaten only hours after finding All Blue. Who knows what dangerous predators might have adapted to live here, with so much prey from every sea in the world to choose from. Robin will probably have a few theories, enough to scare Usopp and Chopper back onto the Sunny permanently.
Walking along another shallow ridge, Sanji feels smooth stones under his feet, and spots sneaky, cautious flatfish hiding in the sandy stretches between them. Finely striped fish only as thick as his finger peek out of their holes, and Sanji leaves them for an area of deeper rocks, putting a few familiar shellfish in his bag. Then a few unfamiliar ones. A heavy shell that looks like a whelk, but patterned in ways he’s never seen, a handful of different mussels with unusual shapes, a conch with soft, flowery fins that zip into its shell as soon as Sanji touches it. He and Chopper can start testing them for toxins and suitability for consumption tonight.
Instead of mangroves, the nearest clump of floating vegetation boasts a few small pines, and in the distance, Sanji can see one with a single tall palm. He supposes that makes sense; if the currents can bring fish here from every corner of the Blues, it’s only natural they could carry seeds just as far. A few of the clumps even encompass bits of ships, a chunk of hull here, a mast sticking out at a crazy angle there. As he watches, what Sanji assumed was one of the more solidly packed clumps vanishes under the water, and, following it, he sees that it is in fact a massive turtle, with plants growing all atop its shell. When he goes up for breath, Sanji takes another long look at the closer clumps, but none of them move more than the current dictates.
Hearing a chittering noise, Sanji turns to find a group of kung-fu dugongs harrying a juvenile bananawani along the edge of the dropoff. They successfully chase the creature away from a floating clump that must be their home, and bark in obvious glee, even going so far a to do a few flips out of the water. Sanji can’t help wondering if they’ve heard of the Alabasta colony’s friendship with Luffy, if news of his beloved captain has traveled even here, to the most secret sea in the world.
Before much longer, Sanji’s bag is full to bursting, and his head is spinning with the attempt to catalog and memorize all the new species and strange behaviors he’s seen. It could be the work of a lifetime, trying to write about them all.
The Thousand Sunny rolls in the gentle swells at the outside edge of the ring of flotsam islands. Looking at her, Sanji feels a burst of affection so strong he can hardly contain it. She’s done so much for them under Franky’s loving care, brought them all around the world, out of danger more times than he can count, and now here, to a place no one thought could be real. She might be the only ship to have ever sailed these water, a destination more exclusive even than Laughtale.
Sanji can see that Franky has let out the Mini Merry II, and someone is zipping around on the modified waver from Skypeia as well. That must mean the Shark Submerge is out too, and Sanji hopes no one manages to crash into anything out here.
“Chopper told us to stop throwing random fish in the aquarium,” Zoro sullenly announces when Sanji gets back on deck. “Says we might grab something poisonous, as if you’d be stupid enough to cook something like that.”
Sanji blinks, dropping his heavy bag at his feet. Usopp launches into a story about the one that got away - this time, the fish in question is a rainbow-hued pompineau the size of Jinbe, who merely shakes his head wearily in the background. That must mean Luffy is on the ship somewhere, or their helmsman wouldn’t have left him in unfamiliar waters unsupervised. The Shiro Mokuba zooms past and Nami waves, looking as much like a goddess as ever behind the vehicle’s horse-head.
Sure enough, their captain comes dropping out of the rigging, landing all but on top of Sanji. “Sanji! Sanji!! Did you have a good time exploring? Will you cook us something? I want to eat a new fish!”
Sanji braces himself just in time to catch Luffy’s weight, and smiles into his captain’s salty hair. “No one’s getting anything to eat until you’re less sticky. The only seaweed I want in my galley is for cooking.”
“Boo,” Luffy whines. “But Sanji had fun, right?”
“It’s amazing,” Sanji says, feeling tears prick at his eyes. What an understatement, but he can’t put all his feelings into words yet.
“Good.” Luffy nods, then breaks into a beaming grin of his own. “I thought Sanji might want some time alone, but you’ll show me all around All Blue later, right? I want to see it with Sanji.”
It’s been a long time since Sanji thought Luffy was a clueless kid, but it still startles him sometimes, how thoughtful their captain can be. How careful he always is of Sanji. A rough brand of care, often enough, but always exactly what Sanji needs.
“It will take a while,” he warns. “You’ll have to stay close so I can keep an eye on you.”
“Shishishi! Perfect!”
“And you can’t eat any of the fish yet,” Sanji continues, “but if you don’t drown us both, maybe you can pick which one we -“
Luffy shuts him up with a kiss, blunt and carefree and over as soon as it starts. Sanji is used to this now too, and just sighs, holding his captain more tightly.
“Saps,” Zoro grumbles fondly, wandering away to the crow’s nest.
“I want to see what Sanji sees here,” Luffy says, big brown eyes staring into Sanji’s. “All Blue is pretty cool, but I want you to show me why it’s so special. You’ll share it with me, right?”
Sanji loses the fight against his tears, and dashes them away with the back of his hand. “Of course, idiot.”
There’s no one else he’d rather share this with. With all of his crew, of course, and he’ll have to get the shitty geezer out here before he keels over, but Sanji can’t imagine anyone understanding how finally seeing All Blue makes him feel better than the rubber idiot who dragged him into the freedom to do it. He would never have made it here without Luffy.