Aoi's POV

Aka had been avoiding me ever since we started traveling together. I'd catch her looking at me from time to time, but as soon as I'd look at her, she'd look away. And on the one time I bumped in to her, she jumped back like I had punched her.

But now she was alone out in the deck of the Yellow Submarine.

Trust me, as much as I wanted to sing the song, now was not the time.

I thought of different ways to trick Aka in to talking to me. But then I remember the one way to get a rise out of anyone from the One Piece fandom.

"So, what do you think would be more likely to happen, Zoro finding his way up a hill or Luffy actually falling in love with a girl?" I asked.

"Ugh, Zoro finding his way up a hill, obviously. Luffy's too dense and way too innocent to know what that kind of love is. He'd probably think it's a food or a disease." She responded with out thinking.

"But I could have sworn that he looked at Nami with love in his eyes when they fought the Black Cat Pirates. Then she said "do it for the treasure" and he stopped smiling, remember?" I asked.

"Mmmh, fair point, but when Boa Hancock talked to him about it, he freaked out, saying he didn't want that." She replied.

(A/N: this was an actual conversation between me and my brother.)

"Aha! You are from Reality! I knew it!" I said. She whipped around and looked at me, panic in her eyes.

"Damn her hair is long. She could whip the shit out of someone just by turning fast." I thought.

"N-no! W-what sea is R-reality from? I-I-I don't think we've b-been there!" She stuttered out her denial. I chuckled and leaned on the rail beside her.

"Chill out. Ace, Law, Bepo and Shachi are all in the dining hall still. Unless Penguin is gonna roam around the corner in a moment." I said.

"Penguin hasn't joined us yet." She said.

"Ya don't say." I said. She realized her mistake and facepalmed.

"Let me guess, you don't want Law to know your from an alternate dimension because you believe he'll send you back." I said. She sighed.

"Well, actually, he kinda figured it out when we first met two years ago." She said.

"Two years? Wow. You really have been here longer than me." I said. "Anyways, how'd he figure it out?" I asked.

"When I told him I was from California Island..." She said. I stared at her.

"What? What did you tell Ace when he asked where you were from?" She asked.

"I didn't. He never asked, I never answered." I said.

"So... He doesn't know?" She asked.

"Oh, he knows." I said. She stared at me. I sighed and told her the story about Chiyori/Camille.

"... So Camille brought us here?" She asked.

"No. Camille brought me here. Chiyori brought you here." I said. She sighed.

"What's the difference? Same body." She said. I punched her for that.

"The difference is they are completely different people. Camille was sweet and innocent and just wanted her suffering to stop. Chiyori was a psychopath looking for any given reason to kill and she decided that since Ace was cute, she would kill to make sure he was hers." I said.

"So, do we need to watch for her now?" Aka asked. I shook my head.

"I killed her." I said.

"So there's no way back to Reality?" She asked. I felt a little bad. What if Aka wanted to go back? I just took her only way back home away from her.

"Yeah..." I said.

"Thank god." She said, flopping on to her back in the deck. I stared down at her.

"I don't want to go back there. Not to that twisted society where I'm forced to play the good little genius daughter of a celebrity." She said. I sat down.

"Okay, now you've caught my interest. Who were you before you became your true self?" I asked her.

"My true self?" She asked.

"Clearly this is who you truely are inside. So who were you back there?" I asked. She looked down.

"Akaria Burgandy..." She said. I stared at her.

"Not ringing any bells. Sorry." I said. She looked up at me.

"You really don't know who I am?" She asked.

"To be quite honest, the only thing I followed back there was anime and YouTube. I didn't really give much of a fuck about anything else." I said. Aka sighed.

"Ever hear of Diane Burgandy?" She asked. I thought hard.

"She's that one singer. The one that lost to Beyoncé in some awards show. I remember a vlogger talking about it." (A/N: before you go running off to look up Diane Burgandy. I made her up. Not a real person.)

"She's my mom." She said.

"Oh, you're that genius daughter." I said. She sighed and sat up.

"Okay, so you know who I was. Who were you?" She asked. I looked down.

"Kirayan Ocean the Second." I said. I waited to hear her scramble away from me. To accuse me of being like my parents.

But nothing happened.

I looked back over to her. She was doing the thing where she counted off names on her fingers.

"Nope, don't think I've ever heard of you." She said. I took a breath.

"Ever hear of John Ocean?" I asked. I heard her hair bounce of the railing behind us.

"There it is." I thought.

"Ow..." She said, rubbing her nose from where her long ass hair had whacked her.

"You're the Daugher of John Ocean? The psychopathic drug dealer/murderer? I thought he died when I was ten!" She said.

"I was eight years old..." I told her the story of how my parents died.

"You must have been pretty lonely." She said. I sighed.

"You have no idea." I said.

"Did you have any friends at all?" She asked. I thought.

"Well, I guess I had one. At the orphanage, he taught me how to use throwing daggers. He got adopted and moved to New York and I never saw him again." I said.

"Don't you ever miss him?" She asked. I shrugged.

"I guess I just gave up when I was fifteen." I said.

"Gave up?" She asked. I nodded.

"Yeah. Gave up trying to prove that I wasn't the stereotype the world have me and started to conform to it. Joined a gang, beat the shit out of a lot of my classmates. Threw one out a window." I said.

"Geeze!" She said. I chuckled.

"Yeah, though, when I was seventeen I thought "what am I proving this way?" and called it quits. Had to go in to hiding from my old gang, but they gave up after a year and after I dyed my hair." I said.

"So you're not a thug?" She asked.

"Nope. I'm a pirate." I said. She sighed.

"Well, you never really came of as a thug to me, anyways." She said.

"Then why were you avoiding me?" I asked her. She sighed.

"I was afraid that you were here to take me back." She said. I scoffed.

"Yeah, right. Look, I know being a pirate is hell, but at least here the people that are trying to kill me aren't going after me specifically. Well, I guess a few bounty hunters are after me. But point is, even though I am a criminal, at least when I wake up in the mornings, I wake up to a face that is happy to see me wake up. The very same face that sat by my bedside for a full week with little sleep and little to eat while I was in a coma. Yeah, I'm a criminal, but as Luffy tells Kuro: "if you don't want a reputation, don't be a pirate" and, well, I don't mind a reputation as long as I have someone to come home to." I said. I heard Aka giggle.

"You know, Aoi, for living very different lives, you and I are very alike. I used to come home to an empty house and when someone was actually home, it was always "fix your hair, Akaria" or "stand up straight, Akaria" or "fix your make up, you look like a poor person, Akaria." Mom only cared about my reputation. As long as people said "Akaria Burgandy is something great" she would be happy. But if anyone ever said "Akaria Burgandy is slipping" Mom would be in my back. "Get your grades up, Akaria. No doctor graduated with a B." If I wasn't top of the list, I wasn't her daughter. But here, all Law really expects from me is "pay attention, hand me this, prepare to fight, prepare dinner." It's rather nice. If I mess up slightly he doesn't start yelling at me. He just catches me and really helps me get better. And no one here actually cares when I wear make up or not. No matter what I do, Shachi always tells me I look pretty. Law never seems to care about my looks, but every now and then he'll tell me I look good." She said. I smiled at her.

"To be quite honest, I prefer my pirate reputation over my Akaria Burgandy reputation. It's very freeing. And with my devil fruit powers, I'm not even in the way." She said. I chuckled.

"So what is your devil fruit?" I asked her.

"Time-Time Devil fruit. Watch this." She said. She tossed her locket in to the air, then grabbed my hand and snapped her fingers, a soft, dark purple film enveloped us.

"Time set: slow." Aka said. I watched in amazement as everything slowed down. She reached out and put her hand beneath the necklace.

"Shatter." She said and time resumed. My eyes widened.

"So, you can slow time?" I asked. She nodded.

"I can also rewind and fast forward time on objects and people. It's good for a quick heal on wounds in battle." She said. I stared at her.

"Really?" I asked. She nodded.

"Cut your arm and I'll show you. I should have a knife somewhere." She said.

"No need. Water craft: Water dagger." I said and a water dagger appeard in my hand. I sliced my arm and held it out to a bewildered Aka.

"Before I bleed out, please." I said. She turned her attention to my arm. She snapped her fingers and pressed her hand to the cut, wrapping my arm in purple.

"Time set: rewind." She commanded and I watched as blood retracted in to my arm and the cut returned to skin. It was as if the cut had never happened.

"Amazing." I said.

"So, you also have a devil fruit?" She asked. I nodded.

"The Water-Water devil fruit. Check this out." I stood up and took a few steps back so I wouldn't whack the girl.

"Water Craft: Water Armor!" I called and my water armor formed around me, my sheild and sword meeting my hands as if I were prepared for battle.

"Awesome!" Aka said. I grinned and the water retreated back in to me. I sat back down.

"Well, Aka. You and I have a lot to talk about." I said.