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They’re twenty-three when Shanks returns to East Blue. They decide to meet up on Dawn Island – Mikan suggests the island with a sly grin on her face that Buggy immediately reads as her old habits of finding adventure resurfacing.
(And no, he doesn’t think that’s reassuring at all, because it means their crew might actually start to get into proper trouble, now.)
(He’s glad his sister is back.)
The reason for Mikan’s D-shaped grin (ha!) is immediately obvious when they encounter a small, seven year old boy at the bar, who immediately thinks pirates are amazing because they’re free, and, well.
And his name is Monkey D. Luffy. (Of course it is.)
Buggy’s Observation Haki might not be able to reach the future like Mikan’s can, but even he can feel the storm this child will bring, feel the thunder shake his bones like standing in the middle of a lightning strike.
This child, the world announces clearly, so clear nobody who will meet Monkey D. Luffy won’t feel it, this child is a hurricane.
(Buggy won’t admit it, but he’s looking forward to it.)
Mountain bandits are assholes.
Mikan realized it the moment she saw them, saw a flash of Higuma (and ugh, his name tastes like dirt in her mouth, gross) shattering a sake bottle on Shanks’ head and resigns herself to having to hold back her temperamental brother from skewering the bastard and traumatizing the Little Storm. (Anchor to Shanks, Dumbass to Buggy and Seas, who let Buggy give nicknames, he was terrible at it.)
And Shanks… doesn’t.
Doesn’t even draw his sword, just calmly starts mopping up the spilt alcohol with his (stupid) cape and what the heck. Since when?
(When did her brother grow up?)
Oh.
There’s his temper. He’s learned to pick deserving targets. Color her impressed.
Mikan catches a glimpse of something (whose Yurai is this it’s so short and pathetic)
… and just where did that bandit bastard think he was taking the Little Storm?
For the record, nearly losing an arm to a Sea King had not been the plan when she’d snuck on the ship.
But, well, one drop kick later, the dinghy was (barely) intact and neither her nor Luffy had drowned, so, hurrah!
(Oh, her brothers will give her the mother of all lectures later, she already knows, but, meh.)
(Compared to the past, this was nothing.)
It’s when Shanks gave Little Storm his (Roger’s, Captain’s, Father’s) straw hat that Mikan finally saw his Yurai. Oh, she’d gotten glimpses of it, which were impressive on their own, but this?
This is the Yurai of Monkey D. “Straw Hat” Luffy, the second Pirate King. The Storm.
(Her brothers barely catch her as she slumps in a dead faint.
“Whoa! Is she okay?!”
“Yeah, Anchor, this just… it happens, sometimes.”)
And even though this was Yurai, past and future and everything in between – Mikan, as always, isn’t in it.
… why is that?
Oh, Mikan finally realizes. Yurai is the Story-Without-Me.
Shortly after that, the Sea calls Shanks and the Akagami back into it’s waves.
(And maybe, they all feel it.)
(They’re not quite ready, not just yet.)
(Soon.)
On an island that will one day be known as Beginning, as Romance Dawn, three children find each other in the kingdom’s trash heaps.
The winds of change are blowing.
(There’s thunder, in the distance.)
It’s nearly the New Year when Shanks calls them, absolutely infuriated.
Tells them of meeting Rayleigh, a man who never once realized that they’re in fact grown adults now, who still calls him “Shanks-kun”, who still calls them “the brats”.
Tells his siblings that the Akagami Pirates are about to prove him wrong.
Buggy sighs and ignores the anxiety gnawing in his gut (drawing attention is a bad, terrible idea what if they find us) and gives his brother his blessing. (“Don’t die, moron.” “You know I won’t.”)
Mikan feels the call of Sea like a physical weight, pulling her out, away from these rocks, you have a ship, use it
You are free as the wind
Go, child of the Sea
She can see it in her brother, too, in their crew as they get more reckless in sparring and training.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
He does. Doesn’t want to.
“… we’re not setting a paddle into the Grand Line.”
“Are you kidding me, of course not. I’m not insane.”
He could argue that point, actually, but he doesn’t because Buggy likes not getting brained.
(Why are female pirates so violent, seriously.)
In the end, they set sail in February.
(They don’t return to East Blue land for longer than a week for almost six years.)
(The crew is better for it.)
(They are, too.)
One of the first things they come across is a newly-opened floating restaurant. The name “Baratie” is proudly displayed on the fish-shaped ship. It’s utterly charming, and the food is ridiculously good.
(The waiters seem a bit skittish, though.)
(Mikan barely catches a glimpse of blonde hair, a curly eyebrow an iron mask and a renounced family and Buggy has to hold her back from hugging the life out of the young chef.)
(Zeff is… beyond confused. What do they want from his son?)
(Sanji is wondering about the pretty lady with hair the same color as his own she almost looks like his Mom, and why she looks so sad when she sees him. Doesn’t really want to find out.)
Two years later (nothing like setting sail and not realizing how much you’ve missed it until you notice you haven’t stopped on land for any significant amount of time for four years) the Midorinami Kaizoku have somehow wound up in West Blue.
Also, Nico Robin, a woman six years younger than her, is currently about five seconds from snapping Mikan’s neck.
She should have probably thought a bit before hugging her.
… whoops.
(After that Yurai, how could she not?)
(They fucking knew the Government’s story about Ohara was bullshit, Seas damn it.)
Robin joins the Green Wave pirates.
Late at night, two weeks after Robin has started sailing with them, Mikan sits her down and talks of Yurai.
The young woman (only 22, barely an adult really, but she’s had to fight for herself since she was 8, and isn’t that just horribly familiar?) is fascinated.
(Relieved, too, that this crew will lead her to her Nakama.)
(A triangular flag up in flames.)
(“I want to live!”)
(
Mikan
wants to burn Mariejois to the
ground
.)
Buggy sighs and accepts the risk of someone else knowing of Mikan’s devil fruit.
(If the government found out about the Devil Fruit that can accurately read something’s past without fail, well.)
(Nevermind that Mikan is limited to a hundred years in either direction, and only ever that far with objects, nevermind there’s absolutely zero risk of her discovering anything of the Void Century…)
(They’d hear “Yurai Yurai no Mi” and Mikan would be dead.)
(Buggy is so, so glad they don’t have bounties worth anything of note.)
(Although his moniker being “Clown” while Mikan gets “Melancholy” grates a bit.)
It’s another two years before they return to East Blue properly.
What they find are the Organ Islands – specifically, Orange Town and it’s mayor, a man named Boodle who looks about ready to take on their entire crew as soon as he spots their Jolly Roger.
(Mikan is not at all surprised to find the man isn’t a fan of the Marine either, considering those hadn’t done a damn thing to help their town either.)
Somehow, they manage to establish a partnership instead.
The townspeople rebuild their town with the treasure the Midorinami have collected during their travels, and in return, they get to use the ruins of the residents’ old village (destroyed 40 years ago, with the Marines doing, again, jack all to help) as a testing ground for Rookie pirate crews.
(And if they go harder on crews that are developing to be Morganeers, well, that’s between the Midorinami and them.)
It’s a comfortable arrangement.
(Boodle is a damn good actor, too.)
Shanks becomes a Yonko.
Shanks is a Fucking Yonko and they might scream.
(Are they proud? Are they terrified?)
(Both. It’s both.)
(They also train their Haki for three weeks straight, until they almost pass out and their doctor Hayden yells at them to rest for Davy Jones’ Sake!)
(Doctor’s are still terrifying, yep. Kureha and Crocus had not, in fact, been exceptions to this rule.)
(Fun.)
Portgas D. Ace is seventeen years old when he sets sail.
(He shipwrecks almost immediately, but hey, he got Deuce out of it.)
(Well, after a bit of a rocky start, but who was he to judge? He’d tried to kill Luffy for several weeks.)
The Spade Pirates are about ten men (and women) strong (and Banshee is a god send, why can nobody else in this crew cook) when they find Orange Town.
Given that he has, you know, a functioning moral compass, it doesn’t take long to convince his crew to help the village.
Their brawl with the Midorinami Kaizoku is abruptly interrupted when the … first mate? Co-captain? The curly yellow-haired woman first looks at Ace.
Because suddenly, the woman’s eyes are glowing like floodlights and she’s screaming.
The man with the large red nose and blue ponytail immediately launches himself across the battlefield (by splitting his body into multiple pieces and reassembling them, what the fuck) to steady his… nakama? Girlfriend?
What is happening.
Mikan resurfaces from the oceans of What-Has-Been-Could-Be with a gasp of “He’s Captain’s son,” and Buggy freezes.
The kid (Ace, Captain’s son his little brother had anything gone right) and his first mate (Deuce?) do, too.
“What did she just-” the Rookie captain (and now that Mikan’s said it, Buggy can see the resemblance, too) stammers.
“… you’re our Captain’s son,” Mikan mutters into the dead silence of Old Range Town.
Mikan, as it turns out her name is, almost begs Ace to join her crew.
Ace, who decidedly does not want anything to do with his father, thank-you-very-much, refuses.
(Mikan is not surprised in the slightest, really, but it had been worth a try.)
He’s about five seconds from immediately high-tailing it out of there when she retrieves a small wooden chest from a drawer in the captain’s cabin they’d moved their discussion into and pushes it across the table, towards Ace.
(The co-captain, Buggy, makes a surprised noise.)
“At least take this, then.”
Confused, Ace opens the chest.
It’s a Devil Fruit.
“It’s called the Mera Mera no Mi,” Mikan explains quietly. “We found it on an island called Sixis a few years ago.”
Ace jolts, because that’s where he met Deuce, and that’s…
That feels like it means something.
“I think you might have guessed, but I have one already,” the blonde co-captain smiles. “It’s called the Yurai Yurai no Mi. I’m better at reading people than objects, but this fruit… it’s yours.”
“Is that why you didn’t give it to Shanks?” Buggy asks, sounding entirely rhetorical.
And, wait.
“You two know Shanks?” Ace asks, surprised.
“We… yeah, the three of us were the Oro Jackson’s Cabin Brats. How do you know him?” Buggy asks. Mikan has a wide grin on her face.
“He saved Luffy,” she choruses together with Ace, who closes his mouth, surprised. “And he’s Luffy’s big brother,” she finishes.
“How do you know-”
“How do you think? I told you I specialize in reading people’s Yurai.”
Oh, Ace realizes. That’s how she figured out who my father is, too, isn’t it.
Buggy slaps his co-captain over the head. “Stop it with the smug grin already, sis.”
… I guess they’re siblings like Luffy and me are siblings, then?
Ace eats the Devil Fruit.
He also promptly spends about two weeks learning to control the fact that he is now Literally Fire, which mostly means learning to not set shit (namely wood) on fire accidentally, since setting the Piece of Spadille on fire would be.
Not good.
(Deuce also collaborates with the Midorinami’s shipwright to build a small, fire-powered ship called Striker. Ace loves it.)
He leaves the Green Wave pirates with fire in his gut, a Vivre Card full of den den numbers in his pocket (handy things, those, he should try to make one for Luffy) and a handful of stories about his father swimming around his head.
He leaves Mikan and Buggy with a not insubstantial desire to punch Monkey D. Garp in the face.
(This urge only grows when, a few months later, Shanks calls them with a few… details… of Luffy’s and Ace’s childhood the young man had let slip during his visit.)
(One day, when the thought of attacking a Marine vice-Admiral doesn’t have Mikan half-way to a panic attack, she will make good on that urge.)
(“Fist of Love”?!)