I hit the current with enough force to knock the breath clear out of me. My body ached from the impact and I was tossed head-over-heels. I now knew what my socks felt like in the washing machine. Water pressed down all around me, and I was sure that if I hadn't been a demigod and a daughter of Aes, I'd have died. As it was, the rapids turned me over and over so many times that I couldn't tell which way was up. I smashed my head against the rocky bottom and saw stars.
The current's gonna carry me straight down into that whale's belly! I realized in horror. I'll be smashed against its side and get killed, and if that doesn't happen then the Merry will run me over and I'll die anyway! I tried desperately to control the ocean and force myself to the left. After a horrible few seconds of rebellion, my fear gave way to absolute panic and I yelled at the current to change direction. I thought I heard it huff in anger, but it obeyed.
A dark shape passed by my arm just as I was ripped sharply to the side, somehow not even losing my eye patch from Loguetown. I let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank the gods I don't have to hold my breath underwater," I mumbled as I was carried away from the whale. "Otherwise I'd have drowned by now."
I stopped being tugged by the water when I was about a hundred meters away from the monstrous whale—Laboon, if I remembered his name correctly—when there was another pull. This time, though, the water wouldn't respond to me. I screamed underwater and was tugged... was tugged... past a huge white boulder-like tooth and into Laboon's mouth.
My first thought? I've been eaten!
My second thought? My skin's gonna fry in stomach acid!
How ironic. I'd been punched hard enough to knock me out, chased by rabid Rottweilers the size of tour buses, got the crap beaten out of me by a walking shark, nearly become frog food, and faced an army of my deepest fears, only to pull a Jonah and get eaten by a whale.
The water changed from blue to pale green, then to bright green. There was a dark shape above me, but I was moving fast enough that I passed on its other side. My skin was starting to burn, and I knew if I stayed in this muck for any longer, I'd be nothing more than a skeleton. That dark shape had to mean something. Could it be the Merry? Had it caught up to me? Or was it the ship/island thing that the old doctor had built?
I blinked.
The doctor! Crocus! He was a member of... a member of that crew ... I had to see him! Now that I had come out of my immeasurable high from climbing Reverse Mountain, I was remembering the anime again; I had watched Season 2 of One Piece two days ago, so my memory was fresh. I narrowed my eyes, aimed at a spot that would, at this angle, throw me onto the dark shape, and built up pressure beneath my feet. "AQUA ROCKET!" I roared, exploding out of the green stuff.
My first thought? Why the hell is the sky above me?
My second thought? I shot myself too far!
My third thought? How can I see?
I was out of the stomach acid now, but I was confused as hell. Wind whipped by my face, and I squinted to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. There was a blue sky and white clouds above me, as well as black birds far off in the distance, so far they looked like little V's. When I twisted around, I saw a small island with a mini palm tree, a house, and a lawn chair. That would be Crocus' place. And to the right of that was...
"The Merry!" I gasped. But it wasn't in good shape. The figurehead was broken, and Lucy wouldn't be too happy about that at all.
"Yuril!" yelled Nami, staring up at me in shock, her jaw dropped.
I stopped flying upwards and started falling to the Going Merry. "Yeah, I'm alive!" I called back. "But I won't be in about two seconds if nobody catches me! "
WHAM. I slammed into someone's body and rolled off, feeling like hell. There was a strangled hiss next to me, and when I looked, I saw Usopp lying broken on the upper deck of the ship. I'd accidentally fallen into the weakest person on the ship.
"Y-Y-Y-Yuril..." rasped Usopp, body twitching. "I'm gonna k-k-k-kill you one of these days..."
I waved cheerfully. "Thank you! Thanks for catching me!"
"Die p-p-p-painfully..."
"Okay, this just proves it," muttered Zoro. "We're definitely dead or dreaming. There's a sky, an island, and Yuril, who we clearly saw fall into the current and gets swept away. We must all be in some kind of pirate heaven or something."
"No matter which way ya look at it, we all must have been swallowed by the whale," Sanji said calmly.
I leaned against the railing of the Merry, racking my brain for the reason why Laboon had a sky in his belly. Ah! Yes, that was it! Crocus had painted it on the walls of the whale's stomach!
"Sanji's right," I spoke up. "I had almost escaped it, but then he started swallowing water and the pull was too strong even for me to control, because it was added with the current running down the mountainside."
Usopp had finally gotten to his feet, and when he saw the island in front of us, he had such a comically shocked face that I burst out in laughter. His hand twitched. "I-Is this a dream?"
"Yeah," the swordsman agreed. "It's most likely a dream."
Nami nodded, still looking shocked stiff. "Ah. So then that house...?"
"Probably an illusion."
I hit him over the head. "Dumbass! You can't be dreaming and have an illusion at the same time!" Then my neck tingled, making me jump a little. Something surfaced in front of the ship, coming so close that, if the figurehead hadn't already been broken, it would've been knocked off.
And what was the creature, you may ask? I'll tell ya: A giant freakin' squid bigger than our ship! But it was a baby in comparison to those sea kings we encountered a couple days ago... and I'm fairly certain Usopp still crapped himself in terror.
"I-I see," our navigator said shakily. "A-And this?"
"That would be a giant squid," I offered, drawing water from the acid. After all, any liquid has water in it. That's what makes it a liquid. I figured that stomach acid had water, too, and sure enough, I was able to pull some blue from the green. I wrapped it around my fist, getting ready to punch that stupid squid to oblivion (sorry, Aes, but after sea kings and giant whales, I'd had enough of sea life), but before I could, three harpoons stabbed it through the back and dragged it to the island/ship.
Nami and Usopp were cowering together behind the main mast, making me sweatdrop.
"Looks like someone's home," Zoro commented.
Sanji tensed his legs. "Let's just hope it's a person."
I grinned and leaned forward against the railing eagerly. To see a part of that man's crew in real life... it would be an honor beyond compare! Well, except for actually being a Straw Hat... but still! As us three waited, Nami and Usopp cried anime tears.
"No more! No more!" moaned Nami miserably. "I wanna go home!"
Usopp sniffed. "If Lucy were here, she'd know what to do."
I face-faulted. "Where is Lucy, anyway?"
"She was thrown off the ship," Sanji informed me, gritting his teeth. "I... I couldn't save her." He sank to the deck of the Merry in depression. "I'm too weak to live..."
I sweatdropped again.
"I hope she's alright," Nami added.