Ben's teeth chattered together despite the fact that he was swaddled in several layers of blankets, on top of winter clothing.
This frigid sea was what came before the supposed edge of the world, and they were going to sail right off of it when they got there.
Old Rackham John claimed to have seen the great falls and survived to tell the tale. Nobody really believed him, because nobody came back after sailing for the edge.
It made sense when you thought about it. If there really was a waterfall where the entire ocean spilled over the edge of the world, the currents created by it would be impossible to escape. Incidentally, this was why no one took Rackham John seriously.
Ben supposed that he'd never know if Rackham was telling the truth, since they didn't plan to escape the falls themselves.
"I see the falls!" Usopp cried from the crow's nest. He was swift in making his way back down, not wanting to be so exposed when the ship topples out of the sky.
Ben could hear it now. A low rumble; the sound of more water than he could imagine rushing out into open air. It wasn't quite as loud as he expected, but perhaps that was because it wasn't landing on anything below.
The ship was picking up speed as the current caught them. They were moving so fast that even with ideal winds blowing the opposite direction, it would only delay the inevitable.
Zoro marched over to Ben, not hurried but also with purpose. He started tying a line around Ben like a harness, something that would catch him if he fell overboard no doubt.
Captain Luffy was laughing, sat right on top of the figurehead and completely unsecured as Ben was. Most of the crew wasn't secured, now that he paid attention to it; only Dalma Tia and Nami. Were they that confident in not falling off?
"You're wondering why they are tied down as well?" Jinbe asked him, noticing his worries.
"Yes. Are they not concerned?" Ben asked in turn.
"Hm, some of them are, but Nami is the only one who won't need to be ready to man the ship. She'll be the one telling us how to man it," Jinbe answered. "As for the rest, they'll need to catch whoever falls overboard on top of everything else."
"Wait, you expect to fall overboard?!" Ben clarified, suddenly nervous.
Interrupting whatever Jinbe might have said in response, the Sunny started to tilt forward and soon it was racing down.
Ben felt himself go weightless and begin flying off the back of the ship, but Jinbe grabbed his rope and tugged him back down. Jinbe held himself down with one arm, flexing powerful muscles as he gripped the helm, but otherwise didn't seem strained at all.
The rest of the crew weren't much better off than Ben had been. Nami was pulling herself back down via her own safety line and the others were gripping at anything within their reach.
Dalma Tia's rope was pulled completely taut as she cackled at the end of it, making no attempt to right herself. Cabernet spread her wings and snatched Usopp out of the air when his grip failed him.
"Tsk," Cherry clicked her tongue, and somehow Ben could hear it even with the wind rushing by his ears. She was the only one that walked on the deck like it was just sitting in calm waters rather than plummeting to their doom. "I guess I'm not pushing you hard enough. Expect extra upper body training, Usopp."
"My hands just slipped!" Usopp begged. "They're sweaty! It's normal to be nervous!"
Ben had to agree with him there.
Cherry apparently didn't, though, because she sauntered right over to him and checked his hands for herself. "Bone dry, but nice try."
"The winds dried them!" Usopp argued.
"Hm, doesn't matter," Cherry mercilessly rejected. "You need more upper body strength anyways."
"Noooo…!" Usopp howled like a dying dog.
It was strange to hear him despair more over the idea of extra training than over the fast approaching ocean below.
"Looks like we won't need to catch ourselves! Full sail!" Nami called out.
The crew moved instantly and without question. Ben had never seen such a disciplined crew, not even the royal navy could act so steadfastly in the face of these circumstances.
As for what Nami was referring to, Ben didn't have a clue… until he did.
They had warned him of the ever shifting, violent weather of the so-called Grand Line. Even so, he did not expect a cyclone to appear in mere seconds out of nowhere, and suddenly catch the ship in its hurricane winds.
Their downward momentum was redirected as they were spun around the most dreadful storm Ben ever laid eyes upon. The final seconds of their descent were spent swirling around in circles, right up until the cyclone vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, sending them flying off into the horizon, then skipping along the surface of the sea like a very nice flat stone.
Ben hadn't gotten sea sick since early on in his first voyage. He felt like that might just change here shortly.
By the time Ben managed to shake off his vertigo, he saw Zoro fishing Dalma Tia out of the sea by her safety line and the rest were already moving in a flurry to follow Nami's orders.
"How was the ride?" Jinbe smiled kindly down at him where he laid on the deck, catching his breath.
"I'm not sure I liked it too much," Ben answered mostly honestly. "I suppose it's nice to get the worst of the storms out of the way, so I know what to expect."
Jinbe made a funny face at that.
"What?" Ben asked with mounting dread.
"That was pretty standard fair, for the Grand Line," Jinbe revealed. "It wasn't even particularly large."
Ben gaped at him. "That's… How does that even work?"
"When a high-speed warm front from a summer island smashes into a similarly fast cold front from a winter island, they can create spiraling wind funnels that become cyclones. Among the weather phenomena that the Grand Line is known for, its cyclones are among the best understood. Even so, they're nearly impossible to predict beyond a minute or so beforehand," Nami explained as she stepped up to the helm. "We need to turn around, Jinbe. Our timing with the sails was a bit early, so we flew the wrong direction."
"Aye," Jinbe assented.
"Wait, wait, wait! You're saying you could have predicted which way we flew???" Ben stopped her.
"Of course," Nami confirmed with just a bit of smug pride. "I was just more focused on getting us down safely at the time. Next time, I'll get the timing right."
"Next time?!" Ben felt ill again.
"Your stomach will turn to iron in no time," Jinbe clapped him on the back.
Ben almost asked if it was too late to go back, but… looking around at these people, smiling at him instead of sneering, he couldn't bring himself to want to go back, in spite of the danger.
Well, it couldn't get worse than a giant cyclone, could it?
Nami flinched and shouted, "Rug-pull Tsunami to starboard!"
Ben dared to look starboard and found a mountain range worth of ocean swelling up, all while the water the ship was in was pulled towards and underneath the colossal wave.
"Is it too late to go back?" Ben asked in a tiny voice.