"After 6 years, I am here again. It is just as illogical as it was the first time I came here," murmured Lucien as he looked right up at the huge red mountain with the water flowing in the opposite direction. He looked to the side and saw Law with the same expression he had all those years ago, the expression of amazement.
Tapping his chin to close the open mouth, he turned towards Idris and shouted through the loud water sounds that surrounded them, "Will the ship maintain the trip up and then down again? We can't have it break, both me and the little guy are gone if that happens."
"We'll find out, won't we, you never know. If both of you fall into the water, rest assured, I'll try to live on and cherish the short memories we have made together."
"Alright, Law, you'd better hang on for your dear life. If you don't, you'll just be swept away," ordered Lucien as he walked straight up to the front of the deck, looking straight at the rising waterfall, feeling as excited as he ever was. Just beyond this waterfall was the place that contained every wonder the world had to offer.
He had no time to really think as their boat was caught in the current. One second they were looking right at the giant waterfall, slowly moving towards it, and the next they were sucked in with force as Lucien grabbed the railing and held on.
The climb was loud and felt like it lasted forever. Lucien had a large smile on his face as he looked up at the blue sky, which had not a single cloud in it. The sound was enormous, the water rushing past the hull on both sides, the groaning of the ship's frame as the current pushed them upward, and underneath all of it a deep vibration that rattled in his teeth more than reached his ears. He looked back once.
Law had both hands locked around the mast and his feet planted wide, eyes open, watching everything with the same expression he'd had staring up at the mountain from below. Idris had one hand on the helm and one on the railing beside it, keeping the ship pointed straight into the current with the focused stillness of someone doing a calculation that needed his full attention.
The hull creaked. Once, long and deep, and then again, sharper than the first. Lucien looked down at the deck and saw a thin line of water running along the base of the port side railing where the planking had shifted slightly under the stress.
"She's holding," Idris called out.
"For now," Lucien called back.
The climb took longer than he expected. Lucien kept his eyes forward and his grip on the railing and watched the top of the mountain get closer inch by inch.
Then they crested.
For one second at the top of Reverse Mountain, the ship was level, and the world was visible in every direction. North Blue sat behind them, and as he turned towards East Blue he thought briefly of that day, but that was not why they were here. It was the Grand Line ahead that mattered, and Lucien had exactly one second to take it in before the current tipped them over the other side and the drop began.
The drop was faster than the climb.
The ship pitched forward and the bow went down and the sound changed from a roar to something higher and more immediate, and Lucien's feet left the deck for a moment before his grip on the railing pulled him back down.
Something cracked from somewhere in the hull below deck, sharp and definitive. The thin line of water along the port railing had stopped, the planking having shifted back under the pressure without splitting clean through.
"Something gave below," Idris said, his voice flat and focused.
"How bad," Lucien said.
"We're still moving. Ask me when we stop."
The descent was steep and fast and the spray was everywhere and the ship shuddered twice more before the angle began to level out, the current releasing them gradually as the base of the mountain approached. The groaning from the hull was continuous now, a low sustained complaint from somewhere in the lower planking.
Then the current released them completely and they were in calm water and the roaring was behind them and Lucien straightened up and looked around.
The Grand Line.
It looked like the sea. That was his first thought, and he knew it sounded stupid, but all the stories about it made it seem like a magical place, yet its first impression looked entirely normal.
Two lighthouses stood on either side of the cape ahead, tall and white and old-looking. Between them, the water opened out into something that had no visible end.
Law let go of the mast. He stood up straight and looked at the lighthouses and the water beyond them and said nothing for a moment.
"It's bigger than I thought," he said.
"Everything here is bigger than you think," Lucien said, which was something he was mostly guessing at but felt confident enough about to say out loud.
Idris had already left the helm and was crouching at the port side, checking the railing base where the water had been coming in. He pressed his hand flat against the planking and held it there.
"Hull took stress, but it held. Lower planking shifted. Nothing came through clean but I wouldn't push her hard before Water 7," said Idris.
"Hendricks did warn us," Lucien said.
"He did."
Lucien was about to say something else when the water in front of the ship moved.
Not the surface. Something under the surface. A shadow first, enormous and dark, spreading out beneath the hull in a way that took a moment to make sense of because the shape was too large for the eye to accept all at once. Then it broke the surface.
The whale came up slowly, the way something comes up when it has no reason to hurry because nothing in the water around it is a concern. The head alone was larger than their ship.
The body that followed displaced enough water that the ship rocked back and forth in the swell, the damaged planking in the lower hull groaning in protest. It surfaced completely and sat there, water running off its back in sheets, looking at nothing in particular with one eye the size of a decent room.
Lucien stood at the front of the deck and looked up at it.
Law was beside him.
"That's a whale."
"Yes," Lucien said.
"It's very large."
"Yes."
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1 Chapter For Every 50 Power Stones. Please Do Support.