Crossing Reverse Mountain

In the lounge of the Going Merry, which was sailing the tailwind of the storm, I was sitting at the dining table along with Usopp, Nami and Luffy.

Zoro was eyeing me from the door, while Sanji was chopping up vegetables at the kitchen sink.

They had all taken an interest in me right now.

The first person to introduce himself was, naturally, the captain of the ship. He extended his arm to me with a bright smile on his face.

"Shishishisi... I'm Luffy, and I'm going to be the king of the pirates!"

"Don't say that to anyone, Luffy! Anyway… who are you again, Sei?" Usopp pulled Luffy back and focused his gaze on me.

Before I could reply, Nami leaned inwards towards me and examined my face carefully.

"I know you… You saved me back at Loguetown from the Marines!"

"You saved Nami-Swan? I wish I could have saved her and become her prince!" Sanji added from the kitchen with hearts jutting out his eyes.

He was imagining Nami falling in love with him right after he heroically saved her.

"Quiet, dumbass cook!"

A harsh voice came from the door and interrupted Sanji's fantasies.

Sanji glared at the source of the voice and yelled, "Moss head! What did you call me?!"

The two almost seemed ready to pounce at each other and fight when…

Luffy found my bag and took out a grenade from inside. "What's this?"

"Oh, this?" I thrusted my jaw forward in pride and continued. "That grenade contains my own formula for a knock-out gas. You saw its effects in Loguetown!"

"Yeah, that was amazing!"

"Luffy! Don't play with the grenade like it's a toy!"

Click-

Right at that instant, Luffy took out the pin of the grenade by mistake.

There was a long moment of silence in the room, and then everyone's jaw dropped in shock.

Clash-Crank-

People knocked out objects on their way, as they ran away from the grenade.

Fortunately, I was calm and threw the grenade away before it exploded.

…

Pant-Pant-Pant-

A minute after the incident, everyone was recovering their breath hastily. This was a jump scare moment that we definitely weren't expecting.

The next moment, a scary expression formed on Nami's face.

Wham…!

She punched Luffy's head and yelled, "What the hell were you doing?!"

"Owww! I'm sorry!"

Luffy began to rub his head, wincing in pain.

I couldn't help but scratch my head as I wondered, 'Does Nami have Haki? How can Luffy's rubber body possibly be hurt otherwise?'

Even though what Luffy did was extremely dangerous, I couldn't help but start chuckling by myself.

I thought I would initially be very averse to interacting with a not so smart captain, but this was extremely entertaining, if I'm being honest.

"Hahaha! You guys are the funniest!"

Nami took a bitter sigh and said, "This is how it always is with them."

In the next few moments, I explained to the group that I was heading towards Grand Line and would like to hitchhike until an opportune time.

They happily accepted my request and welcomed me on the ship.

Soon after, Nami took out a map of the Grand Line and began to explain the logistics behind entering the place. "The entrance to the Grand Line is a mountain which has a waterway that allows us to climb it."

"T-That's too crazy! No way!"

Usopp's nose wrinkled at Nami's words. He stared at Buggy's map cautiously to point out any flaw he could.

"Well, even if it's true, why can't we just enter directly through the South anyways?"

Zoro said, only taking a superficial glance at the map. He pointed to the region of the map labelled, 'Calm Belt.'

"We can't do that because it's cooler to go through the real entrance!"

Luffy yelled at Zoro with complete confidence in his reasoning.

Nami face-palmed and was to explain why; but just then, the ship exited the storm and completely stopped moving. The seas had become completely calm with no presence of any wind.

"Wait… Guys! The storm suddenly stopped! Wasn't it supposed to lead us into Grand Line directly?"

Usopp rushed to the deck out of worry.

Nami's eyes widened, as she said, "Oh no! We've entered the calm belt…! Go grab the oars and start rowing as fast as you can!"

"As you say, Nami-Swan ♥️"

"Why? The weather's so nice…"

Apart from Sanji and me, no one rushed to the oars in the hurry that was evident in Nami's voice.

'Shit, the god-damn sea kings!' My face paled upon imaging the large sized Sea-Kings. I had completely forgotten about the possibility that this ship may end up at the calm belt.

Very soon, as if to give reasoning to my worries, giant Sea Kings appeared and drooled looking at the ship. They were giant enough for the winds of their sneezes to blow our ship a decent distance.

"The Calm belt is a breeding ground for Sea Kings! We need to run!"

Nami's body shivered; she ducked her head and hid in the corner of the ship.

Whoosh…! All of a sudden, a Sea King took interest at our boat and attacked. It wanted to chomp our boat in one bite.

Wahh… Various levels of screams and shock appeared in our crew members; however, I took a deep breath and began to work my way towards the edge of the ship.

Barrier…!

A semi-sphere barrier, which resembled a glass, appeared. It kept expanding in size, until… Boom!

The Giant Sea King crashed into the barrier… In the very next moment, the Giant Sea King fainted by having its attack deflect back to it. It sunk into the ocean without harming the boat at all.

Almost everyone in the crew once again had extreme levels of shocked expressions. Luffy' s eyes were sparkling as he looked at me like I'm some kind of magician.

"Whew… I agree with Luffy! Perhaps going through the real Grand Line entrance would be cooler."

I began to walk towards the oars once again, swaggering a little bit here and there. Even I was surprised that my barrier managed to easily defend against that.

I guess it won't be a barrier if it breaks, right?

**

Back at the deck, I was explaining everyone how my powers work.

"So basically, I'm a barrier human. I can make and morph a barrier into any shape I want."

I started to make barriers in the shape of: a monster, a rabbit, and then even a sea king.

"Woah…!"

Luffy and Usopp began to clap and enjoy my presentation. The other three had also focused their gaze on me, evaluating the usefulness of my abilities.

"Oh, I can also do this!"

In the next moment, I summoned an invisible barrier and lifted Luffy to the air.

Luffy looked down from the sky with a broad grin and yelled, "I'm flying guys!"

We kept joking around with my powers till a silhouette of a large mountain entrance was seen. It was the Reverse Mountain at the East Blue side. The place was unique because the rivers from the Blues flow up the mountain, meet at the top, and then flow down to the Grand Line.

"The Ocean is…"

"It's the entrance to the waterway!"

Due to Nami's excellent navigation skills and the alertness of the crew, we were able to safely rudder into the entrance without veering off course. The violent weather here was responsible for at least 50% of crews dying upon entering Grand Line.

Yayy! We all enjoyed the excellent gust of wind accompanying us on the way to the Grand Line.

Whoosh… Suddenly, Luffy's Straw Hat was blown away from the wind. He jumped away from the ship to retrieve it.

"Ahh… Grab on to the ship, Luffy!!"

Usopp and Nami bit their nail in worry upon watching Luffy jump into the oblivion.

'How is this guy still alive?' I bit the inside of my cheek and summoned a large barrier hand to catch him and the hat in the air.

"Whew… I thought I'd be a goner. Thanks for saving me!"

Luffy had a relaxed smile on his face, completely ignorant of the fact that he was on the verge of death a moment ago.

"No need to thank me. But maybe you should be a little bit more cautious."

With a puckered forehead, I handed back Luffy's hat to him.

"Shishishi… I've a promise to keep with this heart… But thank you, Sei."

Luffy's eyes lingered at his straw-hat for a moment longer, before he proudly placed it on his head. I could guess it was very important for him.

"Why don't you be more careful Luffy?!"

The rest of the crew ran towards Luffy and started to berate him in their own ways.

Soon we could see the exit of the Reverse Mountain. Grand Line was just ahead of us…

"At last, I'm here!"

I took in the scenery with a wide grin on my face.

Woohhoo…! We all celebrated. We had officially arrived at the Grand Line.