Chapter Text
Luffy had just delivered Red Roc into Kaido's face when, suddenly, everything went dark. The next thing he knew, he blinked wearily and groggily sat up, only to be in a room that he didn't recognize and hadn't been in before. His head hurt. With a quick glance, he saw that the entirety of his crew was there with him, seemingly in the same stages as him.
“You guys alright?” Luffy asked his friends.
“I think so?” Usopp replied. “I feel like I have been drinking.”
“You can say that again,” Sanji said, sounding very annoyed
"What the f*ck is happening?"
"We don't have time for this..."
“But where are we? What is this place? Are we dead?” Chopper asked worriedly, with tears in his eyes.
“I really don't know Chopper, but I don't sense anything bad here, so I think we're okay for now,” Zoro replied calmly. “What about you, Luffy?”
“Yeah, me neither, but I still think we should try to find a way out.”
"Haki still works, so nothing can be too wrong," the cook added, just to ease everyone's anxiety. "We are not dead... probably..."
“None of you are in danger, I can promise that,” a disembodied voice suddenly called out, causing everyone to go on the defensive.
The Haki users suddenly felt a new presence.
“Who's there? What do you want with us? Show yourself!” Luffy demanded from the entity, looking around the room hurriedly. The entity didn't seem hostile, but he could never be too careful.
“As I said, I'm not a danger to you, I promise. I'm just here to let you experience something,” the voice tried explaining calmly. Seconds after, a person appeared near them, and a second after that second, Zoro was already holding Wado Ichimonji to their neck. The person was around Usopp's height, with short light brown hair and piercing yellow eyes. He looked to be around his late teens to early twenties. He stayed completely calm, even with Zoro's sword near his throat and the rest of Straw Hats threatening him in a variety of ways, starting with a fist and ending with a skeleton also ready to swing a sword at his neck.
“How are we supposed to verify that? Are we supposed to trust you just because?” Franky questioned their new threat, aiming his hand at the guy.
“I guess so? If I wanted to hurt you, I would've done so already,” the man stated nonchalantly as if bored. To prove his point, he seemingly teleported away from Zoro's grasp, leaving behind a baffled swordsman. To emphasize his point, he raised his arm in the way Law would and forced everyone onto their knees.
“What? How?” multiple pirates gasped out. Several of them tried fighting back but to no avail.
“A devil fruit? No, that couldn't be it...” Robin wondered out loud. “If you're not a threat to us, could you at least stop doing that?”
“Yeah, and if you even hurt any of us, I'm kicking your ass!” Luffy shouted at the man. 'How though?'
“I, once again, promise that all of you will be safe during the duration of your stay here,” the brunette assured them, promptly letting his hand down and releasing everyone.
“Yohohoho, this situation is confusing my brain, but wait I don't have one, SKULL JOKE!” Brook exclaimed and got a fist to the head from Nami for inappropriate timing.
“Thank you, Brook, for that. But yeah, I will tell you everything when you stop trying to threaten me,” the dude offered to the Straw Hats while teleporting away from a reasonably pissed Zoro again.
“Okay, Zoro, stand down. I think we can trust him. I'm going to take a risk and trust him,” Luffy announced, getting a few sharp words from the members who weren't as trusting as their captain was. "I hate to say it, but I don't think we could take him on anyway..."
"If you can't do anything about it..." Chopper shuddered.
"There must be something you can do," Nami hit Luffy on the head, more or less as a reflex.
“If I may, I would still like to introduce what we have got going here,” their 'captor' continued. “If you ultimately don't want to do this, I will let you go back but I think all of you would be interested.”
“Well, I- I think we…we should at l- least listen to hi- him, dontcha thi- think?” Usopp stuttered. “As a b- brave warrior of the sea, I c- can take him down if…if he were to do something.” This speech would have been much more intimidating if Usopp hadn't been hiding behind Franky.
The only people that fell for it were, of course, Luffy and Chopper, before Zoro's glare calmed them down.
“I actually agree with Usopp, it's not going to take a piece out of us to just listen to him. I personally am very interested in this experience we have been promised,” Robin stated completely calmly with a smile on her face.
“Well, I have decided!” Luffy exclaimed. “We will listen to you and I will make my final decision at the end of your talk”
“But Luffy-san what about Kaido and his army? The battle has just started and if we're not there right now… the possibilities make my heart pound out of my chest — not that I have one Yohohoho!”
“That's a great question, Brook! The short answer is… time has stopped for all of you!”
“Stopped? How?” Nami inquired suspiciously. The rest of the Straw Hats were also incredibly taken aback by this revelation.
“Well, so, the place you are right now is a…pocket dimension of sorts. So basically you're everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Neat right? Time in your universe is currently stopped and when you return you can finish what you started with no problem. Also, I haven't introduced myself yet – my name is Ryo and I, actually, am from a different universe than you” Ryo started explaining, but got interrupted by the now even more baffled pirates.
“Honestly…this somehow doesn't surprise me even a little bit,” Zoro said, still holding his swords. “We have encountered weirder.”
"But this might be the weirdest," Usopp gulped.
“But I'm glad that we didn't leave the battlefield unattended, that would've been bad,” Chopper sighed in relief. The confusion about pocket dimensions could be left for another day.
“Putting the universes aside, what is the so-called “experience” you wanna give us bro,” Franky redirected the conversation.
Zoro was getting worried about everyone's sudden compliance with the situation.
“If everyone would stop interrupting me, we would've gotten there at this point,” Ryo grumbled, vaguely annoyed, but then continued with a smile. “I am here to show everything that has happened to you and the people around you. And please let me finish before asking questions. In one or even possibly many, your lives are being used as entertainment…”
The last statement got some people raising their eyebrows in confusion and interest, but they stayed quiet, so they could finally get to the point.
“This space between worlds is entirely under my control, and I intend to let you watch what those people watch as entertainment. But be warned, what you might be watching could reveal things you would normally want to keep to yourselves, but it could also bring you guys together more. I think everything would be a lot more understandable if you would try it, and if you decide you don't want to continue, I'll be happy to send you back to Onigashima,” Ryo stopped explaining and looked expectantly at the Straw Hats.
“If you would give us a moment to discuss it through, we would be grateful,” Nami said quickly and gathered the rest of the pirates to have a discussion huddle.
“I think it would be fun, but if no one else wants to, I will not force this,” Luffy said uncharacteristically. Usually, he would just drag everyone along to whatever his heart desired, but felt extremely generous that evening.
"I will go along with whatever the ladies pick, of course," the cook announced very helpfully, getting a few groans in response.
“I will go along with Luffy, even though the entire situation seems a bit on the suspicious side. And as he said, we can get out when we want to,” Zoro decided, even though no one was surprised at that. "But let's keep a keen eye on him."
One by one, every other Straw Hat concluded that the offer was worth a try, even though they didn't fully grasp what the offer meant or what Ryo even was. What else could they do?
“I have decided! We will go along with you!” Luffy practically shouted at their new guide through everything.
“Very well! Then let me set everything up,” Ryo clapped his hands and suddenly the previously empty room was decorated with a wide couch that could accommodate all of them, a coffee table in front of the couch, and a huge rectangle that no Straw Hats could identify. But they briefly put that aside, because the room wasn't the only one. Off to the side were multiple doors that were quickly identified as two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen that got both Luffy and Sanji hyped, a library, and a gym.
Franky and Usopp were desperately trying to figure out what the rectangle was.
After a couple of minutes of the pirates looking around in excitement, they accumulated back into the original room and sat on the couch so that: Luffy sat in the leftmost seat, Zoro, Chopper, Robin, Usopp, Nami, Brook, Sanji, and Franky sitting down, in that order, after him
“Well…are we ready to start the journey?” Ryo asked his company. He got answered with hesitant nods and words of agreement. And with that, the giant rectangle turned on.
'Please let it be okay...'
