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Shanks is thirty-two years old and about ten and a half drinks in when Yasopp trips into their chosen cave for the night and promptly smacks into the ground face-first. The sharpshooter gives it just enough time for Shanks to think, blearily, attack? before hoisting himself back up with one hand, bloody-nosed and teary-eyed. Yasopp waves something crumpled and wet in the other hand and slurs out, “Muh kih! Ya see ‘im? An ‘s ‘nchor! ‘E foun’ ‘im! Yeah!”
Shanks doesn’t even bother parsing the whole sentence — probably doesn’t have the sobriety for it anyhow — but there’s one word Yasopp just said that he’d know anywhere in any form, so he says, trying to get onto his feet, “Yeah? Yeah! Show me, c’mon, c’mon.”
But Beckman, the worst first mate ever, doesn’t even give Shanks a chance to see. He instead swoops in to pluck the paper right out of Yasopp’s hand. He looks at the paper alongside a big swig from his tankard and then lets out a single short laugh. But Shanks does still have an eye for first mates, because Beckman walks over, not even stumbling once, and shoves the wanted poster right into Shanks’ face.
And then there he is. Anchor. Grinning like a roughed-up rascal straight into the focus of whatever took this picture. Shanks could kiss the damn camera, he’s so drunk and happy and burgeoning with feelings too damn big for a body that’s got this much booze in its stomach.
“Guys! Look!” Shanks says (and burps) but he doesn’t even need to. Just about everyone’s already looking back at him, and they all look like they just scored a village’s supply of alcohol. “It’s Luffy! He’s on the seas! He’s got a bounty! He’s got a crew!” Yasopp lets out another wail, for whatever reason. Shanks ignores him, and raises the bounty poster higher. “He’s headed our way!”
A raucous cheer rises. Half these people — well, more than — don’t even know the kid, have never met him, but if there’s one thing Shanks’ been free about, it’s the stories about the cheeky little shit he left back in East Blue. And more than that, Lucky Roux and Hongo and the rest of those who do know are yelling their hearts right out.
And then someone snatches the paper out away from Shanks with a brisk hand, and Shanks wonders if he should at least pretend to take offense. But it’s Mihawk and if this is the most offensive thing that guy does tonight then Shanks’ll quit booze cold turkey. “Hm,” says the warlord after a long period of intense scrutiny. “So this is the boy you gave up your sword arm for.”
“Oh, yeah!” Shanks agrees, delighted that Mihawk’s made the connection. “Wow, you actually listen to me when I talk!”
“I try not to,” says Mihawk, and he shifts the paper to the side to catch the fire light and look at it some more. Now that Shank’s vision is unblocked, he can see how Mihawk’s eyes squint, but it doesn’t really help with the wine-induced glassy look he’s got. “Hm,” says Mihawk again, and then he stands up and grabs at his giant sword with his free hand.
Shanks watches, confused, as he starts to walk away. “Hey, where are you going? Party’s not over yet.” Shanks would even argue that it’s just starting — can’t get news this good and not celebrate it, right?
“I am going to go see,” says Mihawk’s departing back, “whether this young man is worth the loss of one of my rare few challenges.”
“What?” yells Shanks, because near the end Mihawk’s completely drowned out by all the racket that is the Red-Haired Pirates given a second wind. But Mihawk doesn’t turn back around or repeat himself, so Shanks just writes off his company for the night. “Alright, have fun!”
About a week later, Shanks reads about Mihawk and the Strawhats' swordsman clashing so hard they slice the tops off two of the giant cacti at Whiskey Peak, and says, “Oh shit! What’s Mihawk doing over there?”
Beckman, who happens to be the closest, peers over and says, “Finding a new challenge, it looks like.”
⚓️
Let it be said: Shanks never had any illusion that Monkey D. Luffy would go about his adventures quietly.
This is the kid who would harass Shanks and his crew for stories for hours on end, who somehow grew to the ripe age of twelve without knowing you’re not supposed to go around slicing up your own face on purpose, and who reached eagerly for every glass of juice even after Shanks got him good that first time. That’s the kind of kid who only knows how to run forward, never away, and that’s the kind of kid who makes things like ‘biding your time’ and ‘holding your cards close to your chest’ seem just plain meaningless.
Crocodile would probably know all about it, poor guy. The Marines still aren’t sure what to make of the sudden cross-nation brawl he got into with a rookie pirate crew, but the Kingdom of Alabasta seems to think his stockpiled Dance Powder paints a damning picture all on its own, national hero or not.
But speaking of pictures, that massive grin painted onto Luffy’s — the bounty in question now proudly framed up in the Red Force’s cafeteria — makes all of Shanks’ caution these past few years seem meaningless. What are you waiting for?! it seems to yell. Its teeth are bared in challenge. Shanks’ heart starts pounding when he looks at it too long, like a beast cowering before its only natural predator.
This is all to say, Enies Lobby doesn’t come as a shock. A little bit of a surprise, sure, because no one’s yet been able to make heads or tails of who or what even brought the Strawhats onto a government site in the first place, but the rest of it — rampaging through the island, setting the World Government flag on fire, beating up a secret government agency — that part all makes perfect sense. This is Luffy, sailing through the seas the only way he knew how, the way Shanks never had to teach him: fearless, unstoppable, indomitable.
The skies seem brighter just knowing that this kid is sailing under them. Shanks can’t wait until Luffy hits the New World, and churns up the seas here too.
⚓️
About two weeks later, the ever-resourceful Morgans finally pieces together the whole story of Enies Lobby from start to finish and publishes it for the world to see.
It surprisingly begins nowhere near the latter half of Paradise, but instead in Alabasta, where the Strawhats defeat a Warlord-turn-national-hero-turn-criminal Crocodile and kidnap prospective interviewee Nico Robin on their way out. The Marines, who have been trailing the woman in question since the West Blue, manage to track the Strawhats all the way to Jaya before the trail abruptly goes cold.
The Strawhats make their next big splash nearly a month later, now all the way in Water 7, where some secret government agents have just gotten hired on as shipwrights. Apparently, they're going undercover in search of a ‘weapon that can destroy the world!’ Until the sudden arrival of Nico Robin comes not even a month into that operation. As a result, all of the agents abandon their mission in order to arrest her to Enies Lobby instead, at which point the Strawhats follow, barge in, and trash the whole base.
Oh, and then the Marines accidentally finish off their own island by way of a misfired Buster Call.
It’s a sequence of events so ridiculously coincidental that it leaves the majority of the Red Force in tears. Shanks isn’t one of them, trying to hold it together just so he can show Beckman that he can still be a competent captain. He has to give up the fight when, the very next day, a second World Economy Newspaper is sent out to gleefully retract the entirety of the previous day’s news as ‘sensationalist misinformation.’
Shanks chokes out, in between laughs and actual choking from booze gone down the wrong pipe, “Did you ever think — kak! — you’d ever see the day Morgans apologizes for his news being sensationalist?”
Lucky Roux, laughing and chewing with an open mouth, responds, “Look here, Captain, he’s promising to turn over a new leaf and report only the facts from now on!”
“Dahaha,” Shanks lifts up his tankard. “To journalistic integrity!”
His crew roars it right back: “TO JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY!”
⚓️
Any pirate crazy enough to storm Enies Lobby with little more than a crew of seven going on six without a doubt belongs on the New World seas, but it’s not that easy. Out here is the pirates’ playground, where the World Government is still struggling to establish a foothold and danger is as far as the eye can see it. But the Sanko aside, the true danger here isn't the pirates; it's the damn sea. The way the Strawhats are now, this sea is going to eat them alive and spit out their bones.
But if they survive, they’re going to own this sea in the way that no one and nothing else ever will.
Shanks absolutely burns with anticipation at the thought, and so he thinks he can be forgiven for commanding the Red Force to sail closer to the Red Line than she usually does. Closer. Still closer. Closer, until Hongo snaps that if he wants to kiss the rocks so bad, he can do it without scraping the ship too.
Shanks only laughs, because he’s got this vision that he’ll somehow be the first one to see the Strawhats surface in the New World, and it’s so vivid it feels less like imagination and more like memory.
But the thing is, Shanks had been thinking too simply. The Strawhats never needed to make it to the New World to make their next big splash.
Monkey D. Luffy punches the living daylights out of a Celestial Dragon while on Sabaody.
It’s news, alright. Breaking news, not so much front page as historical, the kind of information that brings the world to a halt and stutters its spin for years upon years upon years. It’s so significant it’ll even shock the Red Force into full sobriety for the next two months; even the senior members are left a little wide-eyed when the topic comes up. Not a single one of the men on board the Red Force has a single lick of respect for those wastes of space up top, but hitting one just… isn’t done. It’s not. For whatever reason — societal rules, military deterrent, something unspoken inherited from those grandiose lineages they're so praised for — the Celestial Dragons are untouchable.
But it’s been done, indisputably — one of the core axes of the world knocked askew by one rubbery fist, whose owner had once looked upon Shanks for the first time and angrily demanded to know if Shanks was a ‘bad guy.’
After that, the Strawhats go into hiding. They have to, if they don’t want to die there. There’ll be more than one drunken argument, by ignorant men in bars on islands that Shanks drops in on, about which of the two — death or the life of a coward — is more likely. They’ll be heated arguments, too, because no one will know anything for sure and everyone will have their own opinion on whether the lunatic who punched a Celestial Dragon was crazier than he is stupid or vice versa. The only thing agreed upon is that if even one Strawhat makes it off Sabaody, it’ll already be a miracle in and of itself.
What starts as a direct confrontation with a Marine Admiral soon collapses into a game of cat-and-mouse as Kizaru and later Marine reinforcements systematically hunt the Strawhats through the archipelagos, leaving devastation and destruction in their wake. About half a week in, a massive storm whips up, blotting out the skies and raining down thunder for days on end. When it finally settles, all that remains is scorched, crumbling trees and barren craters.
The senior crew members keep sneaking glances at Shanks the whole week it all goes down, tense and jittery, as if at any moment he’ll order them into Paradise.
Shanks doesn’t.
But he doesn’t let his ship steer away, either, and his eyes bore holes into the side of the mountain as if he can see through it, and thousands of nautical miles beyond it, into a collection of groves whose inhabitants no doubt feel like their worlds are ending.
Shanks stares straight ahead and doesn’t move below deck unless he has to.
Rayleigh rings his Den Den Mushi twice.
He calls the first day it all begins, only a few hours after the Strawhats get into a direct confrontation with an Admiral, and he says nothing about the mess they’ve caused and how he helped stall Kizaru long enough for them to break away. Instead, he gives one off-hand mention to the underaged mermaid they came to rescue and says, like one would observe the weather, “The hat suits him.”
The second time Rayleigh calls, it’s as the dust is settling. As with before, he says little about the green-cloaked man who shepherds in the freak storm, and he says even less about the hulking figure that teleports the Strawhats away, one by one. Instead, he says, “So I’ve been thinking about taking on one last apprentice.”
⚓️
The world doesn’t just stop turning now that Luffy’s been disappeared off the seas, and the World Government certainly doesn’t. The Red Force doesn’t stay still either, jumping between the seas like enough inertia will stop her captain from feeling so listless. And so, a year after The Sabaody Incident (as they call it), Shanks finds out about his sudden promotion while lounging in a lackluster saloon in a desert town in the West Blue.
“Hey, Captain!” yells Bonk Punch, dropping his head back so as to throw his voice backwards — Shanks apparently not being worth the effort to swivel the stool around. Monster starts hooting and hollering from his spot on the man’s shoulder. “They just made you Emperor! They’re calling you all the Yonko now! Did you turn sixty without us looking?”
Over the laughter and the jeers, Lucky Roux chimes in with a shouted, “You need a walker, Captain?”
Shanks swallows his next mouthful, and laughs. “Shut it, assholes! And really? Why? Hasn’t that guy Shiki been out for like a decade already now? You’d think they’d complete the set first!”
“They’ve never been going for former Rocks Pirates,” says Beckman, dryly, around the unlit cigarette in his mouth. He has his own copy of the papers with him. “That Emperor system has always been meant to classify the players in the New World, and that man hasn’t made a peep since he escaped Impel Down. Seems like you just made the cut, Captain.”
“Must have just barely squeezed in,” Yasopp adds, laughing.
Near the exit of the saloon, Limejuice calls out, “Did anyone put down bets on us becoming an Emperor crew?” A chorus of ‘yes’s and ‘no’s and ‘ya rigged the damn board!’ answers him. “If you lose, you have to pay up, you sorry bastards!”
Lucky Roux finally stops jeering at them all to ask, thoughtfully, “So what’s it mean now that you’re one of the Sanko—”
“Yonko,” corrects Beckman.
“— Captain?” Lucky Roux continues. “Do we gotta start building an empire now?”
Shanks laughs at that very thought. “Man,” he says. “Who’s got time for all that?”
“You do, apparently,” says Beckman. He grins, clearly amused by something. “Looks like when the Bourgeois Pirates came under our banner a few weeks ago, that tipped some scale back in Marine Headquarters and made you a proper Emperor.”
With the party raging on in the background, the people within earshot of Beckman fall silent at the thought of “princess” Pururu being a deciding factor in just about anything.
Shanks slaps the table, hard. “Well, shit!” he exclaims. “I guess that deserves a toast, doesn’t it? Hey, guys! To the Bourgeois!”
If the toast was questionable, no one questions it, and instead Shanks is answered by cheers and fifty or so tankards raised in staggered succession. “The Bourgeois!” shouts his crew, miraculously not a single one of them in time with their compatriots.
When the cheers simmer back down to the usual racket and actual conversations can be heard again, Beckman shoos off the crew member originally sitting next to Shanks and sits on the vacant seat. “So, what now?” Beckman asks, lazily lighting up his cigarette. “Is Anchor going to have to become an Emperor too before we can see him again?”
Shanks’ hand with the tankard stills as he thinks about it. On one hand, Shanks isn’t supposed to get back his hat until Luffy surpasses him. And that’s one thing when the difference between them was on paper just the difference between a Paradise crew and a New World crew, but now … it’s gonna take a whole damn lot to surpass an Emperor crew.
But on the other hand, Shanks has been expecting for them to meet since Sabaody, a whole year ago. And he’s waited that year already, and he can wait however many more it takes the Strawhats to finally resurface, but does he really have to wait even more after? Hardly seems fair, does it? You’re supposed to be rewarded for patience.
Besides, would Anchor even know he’s apparently just become an Emperor? It isn’t fair on the kid either, for Shanks to be moving the goalposts now that Luffy’s so close just as the kid goes off-grid. Not that he thinks Luffy knows how to read the news, anyway.
“... We’ll let Anchor choose,” Shanks decides, finally.
Beckman snorts, like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all night.
⚓️
Shanks is not ashamed to say that when the Strawhats’ colorful ship surfaces after a dip to Fishman island, two years after The Sabaody Incident and one year after Shanks gets named Emperor, he can barely stay still. His skin starts buzzing, and more than one person complains about his Haki leaking out here and there in spurts. It can’t be called hope because he has no clue how Anchor will react to seeing the Red Force on the horizon, and he also has no clue how he wants Anchor to react.
But he finds out how he doesn’t want Anchor to react, and it’s like this: when the Strawhats fully surface and Luffy ostensibly catches sight of who’s been waiting for him, there is suddenly a flurry of activity on the Thousand Sunny’s deck. And then.
The Thousand Sunny flies away.
The Thousand Sunny turns a full forty-five degrees at speeds Shanks didn’t think a ship at sea was capable of, and then a massive boom! comes from the back and that ship is airborne, flying away from the Red Force with a side-view of a mocking grin. To add insult to injury, another boom! happens as the ship is in the air, and the ship soars away even faster.
“What the fuck,” says Shanks.
Beckman says, “I guess he doesn’t want to meet after all.”
⚓️
Shanks has enough pride not to actually command the Red Force into a chase with the Strawhats' flying circus of a ship — even if he does heavily consider it — but the Thousand Sunny runs through the waters like she thinks something’s on her tail anyway. Shanks doesn’t know whether to be flabbergasted or pissed or amused. Not even the freaking Marines got avoided to this degree. Does Shanks have an incredibly contagious disease or something?!
Actually, knowing Luffy, that wouldn’t even be a thing the idiot cares to be afraid of.
One of the non-senior members of the crew suggests that maybe the Strawhats were spooked at the thought of an Emperor coming at them, and that Shanks does laugh at. Luffy? Afraid of an Emperor title? Please. The World Government would fix Gold Roger’s old bounty posters first.
To prove his point, not even a week after the Strawhats flee, Whitebeard calls up Shanks’ Den Den Mushi. They hadn’t spoken once since the day Shanks tried to give him a warning and got told to fuck off. “Gurarara, Red-Hair!” says the Den Den Mushi without so much as a ‘hello.’ “That Strawhat captain, he’s the brat you bet on, isn’t he?”
Luffy treating him like he’s got cooties aside, Shanks still can’t help the pride bubbling up in his chest. “Sure is. What about him, Whitebeard?”
The Den Den Mushi laughs again. “He stole my son!” declares Whitebeard, and Shanks knows his immediate grin is visible on Newgate’s end by the way the Den Den Mushi’s eyes narrow. “Jinbe came to me earlier this morning to formally resign from the Sun Pirates and my crew.” Shanks doesn’t react, but more than one person chokes behind him. “Says that he’s encountered an opportunity that he can only pass up on if he’s dead! What do you think I’m feeling right now, when the last time I heard from him, he was going to beat up an upstart rookie crew causing a mess on Fishman Island?”
If it’s anything close to what Shanks is feeling right now, then Whitebeard should be absolutely gobsmacked. Jinbe?! But at least one part of his brain still functions, because his mouth says, warningly, “You’ve never interfered in the paths your sons choose.” Are you about to start? goes unsaid, because Shanks doesn’t think he needs to. Not yet. But if Whitebeard wants to pursue this… behind him, he hears the sound of wooden containers hit the ground and liquid sloshing everywhere.
The Emperor on the other side of the Den Den Mushi stays silent for a good, long while. Long enough that more booze-filled tankards slip out of suddenly slack hands, and Beckman’s hand comes to rest on Shanks’ shoulder.
And then:
“Gurarara!” laughs the Den Den Mushi. “Hey, Red Hair, tell me a little bit more about your bet. Is this kid even half as interesting as Jinbe talks him up to be?”
This time, the smile drops off Shanks’ face completely. “He’s not going to become your son, Newgate.”
The Den Den Mushi keeps laughing, the sound grating on Shanks’ ears and making his teeth itch. “We’ll see!” says Whitebeard. “Aren’t I currently down one because of him?”
⚓️
Shanks’ confrontation with Whitebeard makes no waves, and so the Strawhats sail on happily, oblivious to an Emperor itching to get his grubby hands on them. Shanks has half a mind to warn them, but he’s very clearly still being avoided, and so he gives up and just watches the Strawhats sail themselves into the Kingdom of Dressrosa, home to Warlord of the Sea Doflamingo.
He doesn’t think anything of it when they don’t sail off after a few days. Shanks has never felt the urge to go there himself, but from what he hears, the Land of Passion has kingdoms of toys and fairies, fiery and passionate women, and a whole colosseum of gladiators. Shanks knows for a fact that the last of them is right up Luffy’s alley, what with how much Anchor loves beetles fighting, and he figures that Dressrosa’s got enough to entertain the rest of Luffy’s crew.
And yeah, it sure does.
This entertainment comes in the form of Monkey D. Luffy beating the reigning King of Dressrosa to the ground. The Warlord's defeat is so catastrophic, Doflamingo’s near decade of perpetrated wrongs come to light — the hostile takeover, the enslaved toy citizens, the brand new SMILE fruit trade. The World Economy Newspaper publishes article after article on the failure of Doflamingo’s aspiring criminal enterprise, until something abruptly shuts Morgans up from taunting his fellow Underworld resident.
In the next issue, the World’s Strongest Creature, Kaido of the Beasts, declares complete and total war on the Strawhats, promising to hunt them down for as long as they sail the sea.
At first, the Strawhats seem too afraid to respond. They stay on Dressrosa for the week or two it takes the World Government to mobilize a New World force strong enough to take Doflamingo in, and maybe the Strawhats too. Bets are placed on whether the Strawhats will go back into hiding, or if they will simply try to outrun the Beast Pirates the way they’ve been evading the Red-Haired Pirates (Shanks’ crew stares at him uncomfortably when this bet shows up) until they eventually get caught up and die.
Someone starts a rumor that the Strawhats might seek protection from Whitebeard. Shanks breaks a table.
It’s all moot, anyway. When the Strawhats sail off from Dressrosa, the bow of their ship is pointed straight at Wano.
⚓️
Shanks doesn’t know what is happening at Wano. He can’t know what happens at Wano, because that’s the boundary he set for himself. He can sail as close as he wants to this country that once belonged to old crewmates of his, and he can stay as long as he wants by those rocky cliffs, but he can’t go up and he can’t interfere. He made this rule while staring at that wall of red rock two years ago, because no matter how he feels about it, this too is a line he cannot cross. For all that this was a silly-sounding promise made to a kid seven years ago, this is a core principle Shanks must abide by:
Luffy is going to become a great pirate, and Shanks cannot interfere in his journey.
Luffy has said as much, too. Not in words, but in the act of a lion-headed ship soaring out of sight.
And though he’s still irked by it, Shanks does understand. There is no place for Shanks right now. There is nothing he can give now that’ll be more than he’s already given: the hat, the dream, the arm. This particular butterfly had flapped its wings already, all those years ago, and here comes the storm it created — grown up wild and lawless on the kind of joy that makes you unbreakable and the kind of faith that keeps you unflinching. There is no sea this storm cannot brave and there are no shores it cannot reach.
Shanks cannot interfere. It’s not because of who he is, or who he is to Luffy. It’s nothing about who Anchor is to him. This is something bigger and grander than either one of them individually, far beyond the structure of bones and the confines of flesh. This is the future Shanks wanted to bet on, long before he could have ever known its true shape and all he had was just the thinnest ‘what-if’.
This is Luffy, telling him to look ahead. This is Luffy, answering:
Here is your future!
And besides: just because Shanks no longer has a role to play, it doesn’t mean that Luffy is without allies. When it finally dawns on the world that the Strawhats are serious — that they are gunning for Kaido with the same relentless fury that took down Warlords and government bases alike, impossible odds be damned — the minks sail in the very next night. A gossip rag claims to have seen one of Whitebeards’ Division Commanders literally jumping ship, and Shanks doesn’t need to entertain it. Whitebeards’ First and Sixteenth Commanders fly past the Red Force and up the cliffs not even a week later.
But before either the minks or Izou and Marco, it had been Luffy, the bright call of his will forcefully muffled and thrown into nothing but an echoing cavern of empty decay. It had been the wills that were slowly and carefully brought back into existence; first just the one, then two, then ten, and then hundreds. They relight in a massive swell, like the sea rippling outwards, like a flower blooming, like the sun — rising.
And just like the sunrise, just like the gravitational pull of a massive celestial body, it’s inevitable. The minks, the samurai, the citizens of Wano: how could they resist it? A storm has blown in, the tides for once starting to turn their way, and it’s saying: with you or without you, we’re going through! A lifeline is thrown backwards, the one who threw it forging fearlessly ahead, and suddenly you can make out the hazy silhouette of a future you never thought you could have. What are you waiting for? What else can you do?
If you remember how to hope, then dream. If you know how to walk, then run. If you’ve ever held a sword, then fight.
If you’re alive, then live.
By themselves, none of the forces who rise under the banner of Luffy’s bright will are a match for Kaido. But they prove themselves more than a match for Kaido’s forces, more than holding their own against Kaido’s untrained foot soldiers and the meager few first- and second-grade officers who escape direct confrontation with either a Strawhat or a Whitebeard or a Mink Duke.
Kaido manages to stay unaccosted for a bit longer than his subordinates, because right as Shanks’ Observation Haki starts to pick up signatures of a fierce battle, Kaido rings his Den Den Mushi. He’s raging when Shanks picks up, absolutely frothing under the force of his fury: “YOU BASTARDS CONSPIRED AGAINST ME! YOU, WHITEBEARD, ODEN! HE TRICKED ME! THAT BASTARD! HE TOLD ME ‘TWENTY YEARS’ JUST SO I'D LET MY GUARD DOWN!”
The Den Den Mushi pants at the exertion, body heaving up and down, and it swallows once. Its eyes are white with anger, when it continues, no longer yelling, “I should have known when that brat suddenly took out Joker. My SMILE supply chain, destroyed right as I established it? How could there be such a coincidence!”
There really is such a coincidence. Shanks doesn’t say it, though, instead answering Kaido’s hysterical rambling with a stony silence.
“Consider this a declaration of war,” the Den Den Mushi promises, seething through gritted teeth. “When I crush this pitiful rebellion, I’m going to mount the head of that brat on a pike, and then I’m coming to ALL YOUR ISLANDS, AND I’M ENSLAVING EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! I’M GOING TO WRING OUT EVERY LAST DROP OF BLOOD FROM ANYONE WHO THINKS SAFETY COULD EXIST ON THIS SEA!”
⚓️
Kaido falls.
Shanks feels, rather than sees, the massive clash of wills that takes place on the floating island that serves as Kaido’s base, and if he ever could possibly have any misconceptions on how strong Luffy’s gotten, this would serve an end to them. But he doesn’t need Observation Haki after that, because Kaido’s plummeting form is visible to the eye, and so is the way the floating base goes into free fall.
Don do.
Don do tto tto.
But it doesn’t even fall halfway before two massive arms, wreathed in clouds like a divine herald, cup it in two giant palms. There’s no question of who those hands belong to. They feel like Luffy, or like what Luffy’s Haki mutated into near the tail end of his fight with Kaido, right after it had sputtered out completely and Kaido’s Haki had hung on by just the barest thread.
Don do tto tto.
Don do tto tto.
The giant hands lower the island down nearly all of the way before suddenly poofing away. The wrecked fortress plops down somewhere, probably in water, and the whole island of Wano jiggles, just a little.
⚓️
It takes half a month before the Strawhats are recovered enough to leave Wano, and Shanks doesn’t move to pursue them out of the goodness of his heart. Instead, he brings his crew to sit in at Mogura Harbor, where every now and then a sentry will begrudgingly slide them a drink.
Shanks stays there, in what’s probably the most hostile port he’ll ever have the pleasure to dock in, and as he lounges, ships start to trickle as the news of Kaido’s defeat spreads outwards. The first of them are, of course, vultures who happened to be closer, poking their heads in to see if Wano has any weaknesses to pry. The next of them are a few light Marine envoys, hoping to establish contact with the interim Shogun Kouzuki Hiyori. On their heels come prospective trade ships.
All of them flee the harbor before the days’ end.
The Shogunate of Wano is absolutely fed up with foreigners, you see. Between Kaido, who devastated their nation for over a decade, and Luffy, who rampaged recklessly through what remains of it in the last week, the citizens have had their fill of foreigners requesting access to their lands and their resources.
But, then again, the citizens of Wano aren’t unreasonable. They really only have gripes with those two crews, and Kaido is dead. That only leaves the Strawhats as Public Enemy #1, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend as they say. Want to gain entry into Wano? Then declare your enmity for the Strawhats.
How? Well, there are many ways to do so, but one surefire way is to burn their flag. And if you’d look right above the harbor, there is a convenient, absolutely sprawling Strawhat flag stretched across the rock face. It’s the one bordered with hundreds of hand-woven rings of flowers, covered by a sheet of glass thicker than Shanks’ torso, and heavily guarded from below by samurais who keep their hands a resting inch from their swords.
Out of all the groups that have come and gone, exactly one doesn’t get the message. The captain of this idiot crew asks, cautiously, “So if we burn this, we can gain entry into Wano?”
“What’s that?” says the short blue-haired grandpa who is on guard duty today. Hyogoro of the Flower starts dialing a number into his Den Den Mushi as he continues, “You said you’re planning on burning up the Strawhat Pirates’ flag?” Several clinks! come from the samurai surrounding him.
“Uh?” says the idiot. “Didn’t you say — “
The Den Den Mushi picks up. “Yo, this is Monkey D. Luffy. I’m going to become King of the Pirates!”
The idiot captain immediately pales, but Hyogoro just as quickly starts beaming. “Straw Hat!”
“Flower Grandpa!” The Den Den Mushi grins right back. “What’s up! Everything okay?”
“Everything is well!” says Hyogoro. “I just wanted to let you know, I ran into someone who says he wants to burn your flag!”
The Den Den Mushi perks up more, somehow. “What?!” And then it bursts out laughing. “Wow! That’s gutsy! Who is this guy?”
“Oh, you know, I never caught his name!” Hyogoro turns back towards the quivering idiot, and his face abruptly goes stony. “Care to enlighten me, young man?”
Finally, something seems to sink in. “No, no!” the idiot captain says, nearly stuttering in his steps as he and his crew back away. “No! Sorry — I didn’t know! I, I — No!” He turns tail and flees.
“Oh. Guess it was just a misunderstanding then,” says Hyogoro blithely.
The Den Den Mushi looks disappointed. “Aw…”
Hyogoro laughs again. “Oh, by the way, the Red-Haired Pirates are still here —”
The Den Den Mushi immediately hangs up.
Hyogoro puts down the receiver, grinning, and turns to Shanks at where he’s sitting under a spot of shade. “Seems like today isn’t a good day either!”
Shanks bursts out laughing. “Seems not!”
This isn’t the first time he’s seen a harbor sentry pull this trick. The actual first time, Luffy had said, “Shanks is cool, you can let him in if you want! If you don’t, I can come kick his ass. Or you can still give him booze. He likes that stuff. Oh but don’t tell him I was here! Bye!”
As if Shanks could somehow be unaware of what Luffy’s been up to since he entered the New World. As if Shanks could look away.
⚓️
“You didn’t keep the youngest Emperor title for long at all, did you?” Beckman asks one day when they’re back out at sea. When Shanks looks at his first mate questioningly, Beckman hands over the papers he’s been reading.
Shanks takes it and stares. This is his first time seeing Luffy in this form, instead of just feeling it. Luffy, joyful, bright, hair like fire and smile like a blade. Luffy, the new Emperor of the Seas.
Luffy, who, when Shanks last checked, has double-backed to Dressrosa to do who knows what.
Yeah, okay. Shanks is done waiting. He stands up and commands his crew: “Set sail for Elbaf!” His men hurry to obey. “And Limejuice, get me on a line with Dorry and Brogy! There’s a favor I need to ask them!”
⚓️
Shanks thinks up a plan so simple, not even Anchor can screw it up. That’s probably his first mistake, in hindsight.
The Strawhats have been sailing lazy circles in the New World Sea for nearly a month, to the point where an unthinking observer might even, and in fact does, call them ‘aimless,’ as if Luffy’s suddenly lost his purpose in life now that he’s become an Emperor. As if Anchor doesn’t definitely still shout, “I’m going to become King of the Pirates!” into the Den Den Mushi every time he picks it up.
No. From Shanks’ vantage point, Luffy’s waiting for something. What that something is, no one can ever hope to imagine — the Strawhats’ motivations still as inscrutable today as they were the day the Enies Lobby came down. But that part doesn’t matter to Shanks in the slightest. The part he cares about is that the Strawhats have finally slowed down their crazy sprint, and so it stands to reason they can now fit in a visit with an old friend.
It’s literally the perfect plan. Dorry and Brogy are more than happy to entice the Strawhats into following them to Elbaf — in part because they like Shanks and in part because they’re fascinated by Luffy — and if the Strawhats resist, well. The captains assure Shanks they have no qualms about simply plucking the Thousand Sunny out of the water and stealing her over anyway.
The Strawhats never make it. Or, rather, they do make it, days earlier than Giant Warrior Pirates by way of a giant bird swooping into the Great Eirik and plucking the Thousand Sunny straight out of the pantry. If Dorry and Brogy are to be believed, this is because the New Giant Warrior Pirates heard wind of Shanks’ request and thought they could prove their mettle by “taking out one of the Red-Haired Pirates’ enemies for them.”
Shanks thinks this is a load of bull. If that’s the case, then why are those very same giants protectively shielding the Thousand Sunny in their arms and looking pleadingly at Shanks like he just said he wants to kick a puppy?
The female giant, Gerd, is undoubtedly leading the effort, saying, “ — must be a misunderstanding! The Strawhats are very fun and interesting! And cute! Ah! But I’m not saying that in the disgusting way Road does!” Another giant chokes a little and flushes. “Surely they couldn’t have offended you so terribly?”
“Like I said,” Shanks says, exasperated. He standing all alone in this confrontation, the rest of his crew too overcome by laughter to offer him any real help. “I really, really only want to talk.”
Gerd looks at him, and whatever she sees has her taking a step back. The guffaws coming from behind Shanks grow louder. “As much as I respect you, Mister Shanks, I will not let you fight Luffy-kun! Won’t you please consider being friends instead?”
And then, finally, Shanks hears him. Anchor. “Nah, we’re not gonna fight here,” says Luffy from somewhere out of sight; the Strawhats had stayed stubbornly on their ship all the while Shanks stood below, weathering all these unfounded accusations alone. Luffy continues, “When we face off, it’s gonna be at Laugh Tale.”
Shanks waits, barely breathing, as the bright spot that denotes Luffy’s will moves closer. And closer. And closer, until a small face peers over the Thousand Sunny’s railing. It’s Luffy, face looking absolutely stinky, like Shanks has just finished off the last piece of meat in Makino’s bar.
Luffy’s voice is still all grumpy when he says, “Right, Shanks?”
Shanks laughs, breathless, and it’s like every negative emotion ever evaporates right off him. There he is. There he is. “You can bet on it, Luffy.”
From the moment he was conscious, Shanks has been taught how to live a life without regrets. Some of these lessons came from someone so precious to him, their death left Shanks adrift and grieving for years on end. And so, at the very least, Shanks can say that he lives this lesson to its fullest.
And yet despite never truly lacking anything — never having missed a party, never having to drink alone, very rarely having to fear being unable to protect those he needed to — there’s never been a moment that Shanks has felt more fulfilled.
There you are.
Luffy.
⚓️
As funny as Luffy’s very clear irritation is, it doesn’t hold for long. It only takes another few seconds of staring at Shanks and also the quieting crew behind him before a massive grin stretches across Luffy’s face. “Hi guys!” Luffy shouts down. “I missed you!”
Shanks’ entire crew, which again, is partially composed of people who have never even met Luffy, cheer loudly at that. While they start up a racket, Luffy slips out of sight again. But not for long, because immediately after there’s a voice saying, “Waitwaitwait, stop, stop, I just contracted can’t-leave-the-boat-disea— agh Luffy!!!” and Luffy is leaping off his ship, one arm outstretched.
Luffy slams into the ground, kicking up dust as he springs back up, and the unfortunate crewmate he dragged down with him slams into Yasopp. Yasopp and his son both burst into tears, and it’s not at all from the pain of impact.
Luffy laughs at them, turns to Shanks and then Shanks’ crew and laughs again. “Guys, we have to party!” Without even listening to the crew roar their approval, Luffy realizes, “Oh! Then I have to get Sanji!” He turns to Lucky Roux and says, “Sanji is so cool and the food he makes is so good you have to try it!” And then, because Hongo is standing right next to Lucky Roux, Luffy switches tracks. “Oh, oh, oh! I found the most amazing doctor, too! My shipwright’s a pervert! And — Beck! Beck! I have a first mate too! He’s gonna be the World’s Greatest Swordsman! Oh and Nami is going to draw a map of the world! And I’ve got a musician — !! Robin! Jinbe! Agh! Hold on!”
Clearly unable to make up his mind on which of his unwitting crewmates to drag down next — Shanks is amused to note each of their wills backing away to the other end of the ship one by one — except the one who feels like steel and the underworld who stays still — Luffy’s hair goes white and his eyes go red and he springs back up onto his ship with massive outstretched arms.
Some of the Strawhats put up a very vocal protest all the way down, but then it slides off all of them like water. They all regard Shanks’ crew with understandable wariness, but Black Leg Sanji is already marching forward, requesting someone to take him to the kitchens. From there, the remaining Strawhats disperse too, introducing themselves to Shanks’ crew with all the poise of the crewmate of a future Pirate King.
And then they — the Red-Haireds, the Strawhats, the giants — all throw a party.
Now that Luffy’s also put away whatever protest he’s got about Shanks organizing this meeting for them, he can’t seem to get enough of Shanks’ crew. He’s excited to meet the (relatively) new members on Shanks’ ship, but he’s absolutely delighted to see the senior members again, bouncing from one to another and dragging over the closest analog he’s got so they can meet.
It goes swimmingly well. This is probably because each time, Luffy says something to the effect of “Look! Look! I found someone just as cool as you. No, cooler!” The Strawhat that got accosted starts blushing at their captain finding them to be just the neatest thing, and Shanks’ crew gets all flustered too, knowing that this absolute force of nature who once barely came up to their chest still thinks that they’re something to be measured up to.
It’s a pretty lame sight all around, considering how much flack these very same people have been giving Shanks.
One of these chaotic introductions leaves Shanks in the immediate vicinity of the Strawhats' musician. Shanks is actually deeply intrigued by Soul King Brook. Shanks thought that Bonk Punch and Monster were a pretty unbeatable musical duo given that one is a monkey and the other acts like he was raised by one, but of course Luffy goes and finds a skeleton. What the hell?
Soul King Brook stares at Shanks for a disconcertingly long while, so perfectly still his earlier animation almost seems like a hallucination. And then, apropos of nothing, he says, “Yohohoho, I’m terribly sorry to have heard about young Roger. He was a very promising rookie back in my day.”
And then he tips his gold-studded hat, and ambles off. Shanks watches him go, and then bursts out laughing because seriously, what the hell?
⚓️
Shanks would like to say that despite the pretty drastic measures he’s taken recently, he’s actually pretty patient through the absolutely roaring festivities. He honestly just feels at ease. Now that the Strawhats are here and don’t look like they’re gonna go anywhere else any time soon, him and Luffy are imminent. Knowing that, the anticipation that has dogged his heels for half a decade and counting feels trivial.
At one point, Shanks stands up to go stretch his legs a bit. Not even a second after Shanks walks out of earshot of the party, Luffy lands beside him, beaming, all earlier grievances completely forgotten.
“Anchor!” he exclaims, his cheeks hurting from the immediate smile.
“Shanks!” Luffy returns, with equal enthusiasm.
And it’s strange, that for however long Shanks has been thinking about this meeting, when he actually stands before it he finds that there’s not a lot to say.
There is so much Shanks could say, to this young man who ran into Shanks’ life at aged twelve and changed Shanks’ orbit forevermore. He could tell Luffy that seeing him sailing so freely and happily across these deadly seas makes Shanks so proud his lungs feel fit to burst. He could talk about how energetic the world feels these days, how the roar of the tides have started to sound like roars for change, how the sun hits the shores so fiercely it’s at times blinding. He could say, “Luffy, when I see you, I know beyond a doubt I can be someone good.”
Seriously! What inane sentiments!
Instead, Shanks asks, “So, what now? Are you going to go for the One Piece soon?”
“Nope,” Luffy’s eyes narrow. “Are you?”
Shanks shakes his head, smiling, and Luffy’s face relaxes again.
“If I’m gonna go get the One Piece, it’s gonna be a big deal, right?” Luffy says, answering Shanks’ unspoken question. “I gotta put it all on the line, so I have to make sure everything else is good, too. I can’t go if I’ve got regrets.”
Shanks pauses. “Regrets? What kind?”
“Haven’t got any yet,” says Luffy blithely. “But I have a younger brother!” Shanks reels back, because what? How come he’s only hearing about this now? “Ace! He’s a really great kid, and he’s gonna set sail this year! I gotta see it first, and only then can I go get the One Piece!”
Luffy’s ability to maintain a coherent narrative is still absolute shit, but Shanks says, “Dahaha! I know exactly what you mean! You’ll regret it if you aren’t there to see him make a splash, right?”
“Shishishi,” is Luffy’s answering laugh. “Yeah! Shanks gets it. You were waiting too, right?”
And Shanks thinks… he could actually cry. Instead he just laughs again, and changes the subject. “So what are you up to, then, if you’re not going for the One Piece? Do you feel like taking over Dressrosa?”
“No way,” says Luffy. “I don’t wanna. Soldier can do it. We’re only going back because Robin and Sanji and Franky want to do something underground there and Nami said we needed to go pick up her money right away or else she’s gonna double all our debts.”
Shanks says, amused, “What are you talking about, underground? Do you mean the Underworld?”
“I guess,” says Luffy, doubtfully. “Mingo had all these concepts or whatever and Robin said one of them was a guy who gave Croc the rain dust — she saw it on Croc's papers when she was tryna get a job — and Nami saw there was a lot of money going to Wano and she wanted to see why, and after we beat up Kaido the samurai told us we can take all the concepts and metal if we wanted — but why do we want it?”
“Contacts,” corrects Shanks, having finally caught on enough as to where this story is going.
“Yeah. And Nami said something like, ‘you guys are so stupid! What do you think you can do when you’re so poor!’ So we’re helping the samurai get the trade lines going and Nami’s taking a cut for her stash. Oh, but then we have to go back to Dressrosa every now and then to keep the contacts behaving. I think.”
“Luffy,” Shanks says, so unbelievably entertained. “Are you running an Underworld empire?”
“Yeah,” says Luffy, flippant.
Shanks puts a hand over his face. “This is my fault for not expecting this. And here I thought you were just going to keep on pissing off other Emperors.”
Luffy’s face does a whole host of emotions at that, before settling on anger. “Ah!” he shouts, and he jumps once for good measure. “I almost forgot! I gotta go kick Big Mom’s ass!”
Shanks chokes. “What? Why?”
Luffy scowls, now well and truly incensed. “She sent this stupid letter saying that Sanji’s dad wants Sanji to marry her daughter and then join her crew! It’s so stupid because Sanji’s a part of my crew and also he doesn’t even have a dad! Old Man Zeff's the one that found him!”
Shanks is pretty sure Black Leg Sanji does, in fact, have a dad, but he knows telling Luffy this would only make Luffy madder. So instead, Shanks taunts him: “Dahaha! Why are you so mad? Didn't you steal Jinbe away from Whitebeards’ crew?” Shanks had wanted to give Whitebeard another warning, just in case, but last he heard the Whitebeards were going through a pretty emotional reunion. As such, he's giving that a very wide berth.
Luffy stomps his sandaled foot. “That’s different! Jinbe wasn't sailing with Whitebeard and he wanted to come with me, and there’s no way Sanji’s gonna wanna go anywhere else! And it’s not like I took one of her guys!”
Shanks says, jeering, “Then what if Whitebeard convinces one of your crew to join him?”
Luffy’s face looks absolutely thunderous. “No. They’re mine!”
⚓️
“You’re not getting the hat back,” says Luffy, petulant. “I wasn’t supposed to see you yet. You cheated.”
Shanks says, “Dahaha, so you don’t like the Giants? Man, they’re gonna be pretty sad when I tell them!”
Luffy gasps. “No! You take that back! The giants are so cool! All I said was that I’m not giving the hat back! I still have stuff to do!”
Shanks looks at him, and he’s never seen anything else that’s looked so right as this hat on this kid. He smiles. “I know, Luffy. You said it yourself, didn’t you? Our journey is going to end at Laugh Tale!”
⚓️
Not even a year later, Shanks rushes to pick up the wailing Den Den Mushi one fine morning, only to be greeted with a furious Luffy yelling, “Shanks, you stupid jerk! This is all your fault! Mustache Man stole my little brother!”
After the bewildering five minutes it takes for him to understand exactly what it is Luffy’s throwing a fit about, Shanks proceeds to laugh so hard he nearly throws up.