[EotB] 060. Departure (Patreon)

14 years, 6 months, 6 days before Romance Dawn (1524.10.30)

The day of everyone’s planned departure, Hancock woke up long before the sun rose, despite having stayed out late enjoying Sabaody’s night life with her sisters.

The lack of sleep wasn’t much of a problem, but Hancock couldn’t help but be a bit mortified. There was really no reason to be so... anxious. Sure, she and Salome would be heading off alone again, but this time, they wouldn’t operate under the same sort of tension and rush as before. Nico Robin would survive – had survived – just fine without Boa Hancock’s help, so even if it took Hancock a bit of time to find her, no harm should come of it.

Still, sleep refused to return, no matter how long she stayed in bed, so Hancock let out a sigh and slipped out from under the cover, then made her way out of the room, grabbing her notebook as she passed by her desk.

Outside, the back garden was lit not only by moonlight, but also by the background glow of Sabaody, brilliant enough even from this deep in the lawless zone that Hancock had enough light to see.

Oh, as long as she was working on her eyes anyway, she could probably try to improve her night vision too, now that she thought about it...

Heh. There was just so much to do, so many avenues to explore. Hancock almost wondered if she’d even be human anymore, by the time she was finally satisfied with the vessel she inhabited. Or would she eventually grow so addicted to the drive for self-improvement that she would turn herself into some kind of immortal, indestructible, godlike slug straight out of Bloodborne, and insist it was the perfectly optimized form?

Well, even if she never reached those kinds of extremes, Hancock wasn’t particularly attached to the designation of ‘human’. Hell, she’d take it as a compliment if people started questioning her nature.

All of that was far away, though.

Taking a deep breath of the night air – still warm even in autumn, with Sabaody being a summer island – Hancock took a seat and opened her notebook.

As she flipped through it, her eyes caught for a moment on the pages she’d copied from Disco’s records, back during her first visit to Sabaody. She’d considered, several times, whether to rip them out and set them on fire or not, now that they were no longer useful. She was still undecided, but she was leaning toward not.

Despite the spike of grief and rage the sight of them always elicited, it seemed... disrespectful, somehow, to just toss them away, as if the tragedy that had led to them existing had never happened.

Today, again, Hancock hesitated, but eventually moved past them, then past the drawings of Sabaody and Marie-Joie, of Shakuyaku and Gloriosa and Rayleigh, which she’d sketched over the past few months, and to a new blank page.

Clearing her mind, she put pencil to paper.

She had enough practice drawing stuff, by now, that it didn’t take long for the first rough shapes to materialize: her sisters sitting on the padded seats of the Ferris wheel’s bubble-cabin, gazing out through the transparent walls. Hancock had no trouble remembering every detail: the way the sunset shone in from the side, casting everything under a veil of orange-gold; the expression on the girls’ faces – no wide grins or anything like that, but still a scene of quiet peace and contentment, if only for an evening.

By the time the sun rose on the bar’s garden, Hancock was nearly done, fixing some of the shading in Sandersonia’s hair, so she didn’t mind the voice that interrupted her.

“Hancock, good morning.”

She looked up and nodded in greeting. “Shakuyaku.” Her gaze fell on the box the woman was carrying. “What’s that?”

“A little gift before you leave,” she said as she took a seat on Hancock’s side of the table, rather than opposite her.

She opened the box, revealing a pair of earrings resting on a bed of dark velvet. The golden hoops were shaped like snakes, the workmanship looking absolutely exquisite.

Hancock recognized them. “Doesn’t Tritoma wear a pair just like those?”

Shakuyaku smiled. “I imagine she does, yes. Kuja empresses may not wear a crown, but they do still deserve a mark befitting their station. Those were mine, when I reigned.”

“And you’re giving such precious mementos to a deserter?”

The woman shrugged, her smile only widening. “Why not? It’s not like I have any further need of them. You, on the other hand, could use something to remind you of home.”

Hancock nodded slowly. Wearing those in public would be a risk, visible proof linking her back to the Kuja. It might bring trouble in the future, but... She had to admit, she was touched.

“...Thank you, Shakky.”

She laughed. “Finally shortening my name, the day you’re leaving?”

Hancock also found herself quietly laughing. “I’m afraid I’m not too fond of nicknames. Ask my sisters; it’s always annoyed them. But I wanted to make it clear that I appreciate it.” She looked back down at the earrings, gleaming in the dawn light. “My ears aren’t pierced.”

“That’s easily remedied. We can do that right now, if you want.”

“Please.”

♦♦♦

Even as a young teenager, Nico Robin was hard to track. Shakuyaku, herself an excellent information broker, couldn’t give Hancock a more precise destination than ‘bouncing around the West Blue, somewhere’.

This was unsurprising, of course.

Robin’s bounty of 79,000,000 Berry was huge for the West Blue. It was pretty big even for Paradise, actually. For it to be assigned to a nine-year-old girl – even reviled as one of the demons of Ohara, she would look like an easy target, compared to an adult pirate – every bounty hunter in that quarter of the world would undoubtedly be baying for her blood.

Along with the World Government, of course.

There was some very dangerous knowledge rattling inside that head of hers.

For a lone child to keep ahead of so many enemies for so many years demonstrated the kind of resourcefulness, maturity, and intelligence that was honestly difficult to believe.

Hancock was pretty sure she could have done the same at that age, but she had her Haki, and she wouldn’t have really been nine years old, mentally speaking. Robin didn’t have any of those advantages, yet still, she survived.

Tracking down someone so adept at escaping pursuit would undoubtedly be a challenge.

First, though, Hancock had to actually reach the West Blue.

That would also be something a challenge, in and of itself.

Paradise was bordered on both sides by the Calm Belt, and past those un-navigable belts stretched not the West Blue, but the East and South Blues. The West Blue was on the other side of the Red Line from the South Blue.

So. One step at a time.

Hancock first needed to leave the Grand Line and step into the South Blue.

This was difficult, but not impossible. There were two ways to realistically do so.

First: sail backward through Paradise, all the way to Reverse Mountain, where the upstream rivers converging from the four Blues merged at the summit into the singular torrent leading down into the Twin Cape and Paradise. Taking advantage of those rivers, a complex series of locks and elevators had been carved into the flanks of the mountain to allow slow but safe passage to and from the Grand Line and each of the Blues.

Those locks weren’t technically under the control of the World Government, for complex historical reasons, which Gloriosa had been glad to expand on at length and Hancock had mostly tuned out, and they would allow direct access to the West Blue from the Grand Line, without additional steps in between. However, reaching them all the way from Sabaody would take months of dangerous travel across the second-most unpredictable sea in the world, and passage up and down Reverse Mountain would be expensive enough to wipe out all of Hancock’s savings.

The money didn’t much matter, but though Hancock may not be in any particular hurry, neither did she want to outright waste so much of her time.

The second method, fortunately, didn’t demand such a voyage. Or such a price. In fact, the first leg of it would be free, fast and – relatively – safe.

It would also be blatantly illegal, but Hancock was well past caring about that.

This method hinged on the fact that, with its massive customer base ready to throw money at overpriced garbage, Sabaody was Paradise’s preeminent nexus of commerce. Goods flowed like water, here, and many companies were headquartered in one mangrove or another. Those companies, as they grew, would of course seek to expand further still, both throughout the Grand Line and into the Blues. Almost inevitably, demand led to the rise of several transport firms ready to put their ingenuity to the test and provide those conglomerates with cargo-hauling services to even the most difficult destinations.

Blimps, were how that ingenuity took shape.

Resin bubbles from young Yarukiman mangrove shoots housed in the envelope provided enough lift to carry even heavy cargo. Propellers arrayed around the armature produced enough thrust to cross the Calm Belt and make fast time to their destination.

They were a truly wonderful, revolutionary invention that could have changed the face of the entire world forever. One Piece could have been a story of sky pirates, instead of boring old regular pirates!

...If only that wonderful invention wasn’t so incredibly situational.

Those magical mangrove trees, after all, quickly started dying once they left the vicinity of Sabaody. They lived just barely long enough to cross the Calm Belt and limp to the nearest island in either the South or East Blue, but not much more than that.

With every blimp being forever grounded upon arrival, every trip was therefore strictly one-way. For ship, cargo, and crew. Anyone wishing to return to Sabaody afterward had to head right back to Reverse Mountain and go the long way around through the whole length of Paradise again.

Predictably, this made chartering even a single airship ruinously expensive.

Which was why only the largest commercial conglomerates made use of their services – there was a reason Doskoi Panda clothing was so fucking expensive – and why they never took any passengers. The risk of someone trying to make off with the absolute fortune in luxury goods stashed in their holds was simply too great to countenance.

Despite the guards, Hancock should be able to sneak aboard and hitch a ride, though.

She had been practicing her stealth.

♦♦♦

Salome wound herself around Hancock’s feet as they watched Gloriosa’s small ship start pulling away from Sabaody’s coast. Aboard, her sisters stood at the railing, looking back at her.

“We’ll see each other again,” Sandersonia declared before the distance could grow too far to carry her voice. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny, but her voice was strong and steady.

Hancock smiled and nodded. “Yes. We will.”

Marigold also gave a decisive nod. “Hm. See you soon.”

Their farewells had been short and to the point. A few tight hugs, a few whispered words. They’d already said what needed to be said yesterday. Gloriosa too, after a quick pause to stare at Hancock’s new earrings and compliment her on how well she wore them, had simply given her a clap on the shoulder, then hopped into her boat.

When they finally disappeared from view beyond the line of the horizon, Hancock pulled her gaze away and took a deep breath.

She had a ride of her own to catch.

Turning away from the sea, she looked up to Shakuyaku and Rayleigh, both of them waiting patiently near the shore, where they had waved their own goodbyes to the girls and Gloriosa.

Hancock bowed low.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done. I will not forget it. If you ever need me for anything, feel free to call, and I will answer.” She patted one of the pockets of her new cloak, where a portable transponder snail quietly slept.

Shakuyaku smiled, but it was Rayleigh who answered first with his customary chuckle. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Shakuyaku huffed and gave him a gentle slap on the shoulder. “It was our pleasure. Take care of yourself, Hancock.”

Hancock nodded. “Yes. I’ll see you around.”

And with that, she too was off.

=======================

It’s never described in canon how Don Krieg made his way out of the Grand Line and back into East Blue (with Mihawk on his tail).

Nor is it explained how Pappag’s fashion brand or the Doskoi Panda brand can be popular worldwide. That would require global trade and shipping, and ways to travel between the seas.

So, I’ve tried to come up with plausible solutions which hopefully don’t feel too much like deus ex machina, and which don’t fuck up the rest of the lore too much.