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All Blue Lullaby (OP Sanji fic, canon divergence)

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Sanji was able to light up a cigarette only at the third attempt, so much his hands were shaking. He needed to calm down, but how he could do that considering the hopeless situation he was in?
Soon, he would meet his brothers again. They were the people who had made his childhood a miserable experience that he only wanted to forget, but he couldn’t do that. No, he needed to keep remembering so that her wish would finally come true...



All Blue Lullaby


Sanji felt cold. He had been crying for hours, and the tears had left wet traces on his cheeks. He was unable to wipe his face with that horrible iron mask fastened around his head, so he could just wait and hope it would be removed soon.
However, more hours passed without anybody showing up.

  Tired of waiting, Sanji started examining the mask with trembling hands, trying to find a key hole, a mechanism—anything to take it off—but it was useless.
He curled into a ball on the stone floor of his cell and started weeping again, his sobs the only sound echoing between the walls of that forgotten wing of the castle.

  He was a failure. Even his father abandoned him, and locked him in that prison.
Will he ever see the sunlight again? Or the sea?

  Sanji felt guilty for not living up to his father’s expectations: his strong father, always so powerful—unlike him.

  Sanji didn’t hate him, but he hated his brothers. Beating him was their pastime.
He didn’t hate his sister, either. She couldn’t stop his brothers, but at least she took care of his injures after they grew bored of tormenting him.

  For a child who never knew his mother’s affection, that was more than what he would ask for.

  After crying a little more, Sanji finally slipped into a troubled sleep.

---

He was woken up by the faint noise of steps hurrying down the stairs.

  Sanji stood up briskly, but he felt heavy.
When he tried to touch his face, he remembered: his head was still trapped in that iron mask.

  The light steps drew nearer, and then a little smiling face peeped out from behind the stone wall.
“Sanji? It’s me, I’ll will free you.”

  Still half-asleep, he focused his eyes on his sister’s thin frame, trying to stop the tears that were already starting to form in the corners of his eyes. She looked frail, but Sanji knew better.
“Reiju... Is father still angry at me?” his tiny voice quivered. “I’ll become strong, I promise! I’ll train even harder an—”

  “You’re weak,” Reiju stated as a matter of fact. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  Sanji felt a tight knot in his chest, but remained quiet.

  “I can get you out of here, but only if you won’t tell anyone that I helped you.”

  “O-ok...” he whispered, stifling a sob.

  “Also, if you’ll run away it will be as if Vinsmoke Sanji was dead.”

  Sanji had never thought about living away from his family before, but at this point he just wanted to get out of there so he just nodded.

  “Good,” Reiju giggled. Then, she opened the door of his cell with a large key. With a smaller key she also unlocked the iron mask and removed it from Sanji’s head. “You’re a crybaby,” she commented upon seeing his puffy eyes.

  Sanji ignored her mocking remark; Reiju often addressed him like that, and he had gotten used to it.

  “There is a door to the docks at the end of this corridor. You can hide in one of the soldiers’ ships and go away from here when they’ll be deployed for a mission, tomorrow morning.
“You’ll have no food for a while, but you’ll survive.”

  “T-thanks,” Sanji nodded again, but his sister just shrugged.

  “I hope you’ll become stronger out there. I don’t really understand you, but you’re my little brother after all.”

  Then, Reiju turned on his heels and walked up the stairs, leaving Sanji alone with the oppressive silence of the prison.

---

Sanji walked quietly towards the door as Reiju had suggested. Once opened it, though, he was surprised to find just another row of cells on both sides of a corridor just like the one he had come from.
Seeing another door at the end of it, Sanji ran towards it hoping to find the docks at last, but he stopped dead on his tracks when he heard a female voice singing faintly.

  Both scared and curious, he approached the woman’s cell silently, trying to understand what she was singing.

  “One baby, two babies, and then three...”

  Sanji was now near enough to be able to understand the song’s lyrics.

  “And finally even a fourth one...”

  His back glued to the wall, Sanji kept listening.

  “And you who’re the eldest, my daughter,
  “You’ll protect your brothers for me…”


  Sanji’s mind began working furiously, too furiously for an eight-year-old child.
Confused, he just let the rest of the song sink in.

  “Against the enemies, against the world,
  “We’ll once again return where we belong.

  “You will be strong, your father promised,
  “You’ll never lost your very lives.
  “So close your eyes, and cry no more,
  “Your mother is here, a proud Vinsmoke—”


  The song abruptly stopped there, and Sanji almost jumped out of his skin when the mysterious woman laughed creepily.
That was the sound of madness—or desperation—but Sanji still couldn’t understand who she was, or why she was there.

  Mustering all his courage, the child leant closer to the bars of the cell to take a glance at the woman, hoping she wouldn’t notice him, only to find himself staring at an iron mask.
Sanji jumped back with a scream.

  “Who are you?” asked a female voice.

  It took a bit for him to understand that the voice had come from inside the iron mask.
“I…” He hesitated, not knowing if he could trust that woman yet. “I am Sanji.” He didn’t mention his surname though, remembering Reiju’s words.

  For a moment, Sanji wondered if the eyes beyond that horrible mask—so similar to the one he had been wearing too—had grown larger, since he saw the dim light of the torches shimmering in them.

  “Come closer,” demanded the woman, her voice quivering.

  “N-no. I’m scared…”

  “That man’s children wouldn’t get scared like this. Come closer now,” the woman repeated.

  Sanji recoiled. Did that prisoner know who he was...?

  “...Please” she added after a while, with a different tone in her voice.

  At that, Sanji moved a few, uncertain steps towards the bars, and immediately the woman darted out a bony hand to grab his wrist and pull him closer.
“Let me go!” yelled Sanji, but she was stronger than him.

  “Shh... Just let me look at your face.”

  Sanji closed his eyes as she examined him, and then he felt the grip on his wrist relent. Soon after that, though, that same hand caressed his face. Her touch felt gentle.

  “You’ve grown a lot, my child...” murmured the woman.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m your mother,” she replied, and he finally connected the dots.

  For the first time in his life, Sanji felt hatred towards his father. He had lied about his mother: she hadn’t died after a long illness… Actually, he had locked her away too, just as he had done with him.
Sanji had to find a way to get her out of there too.

---

Luck had been on his side for once, and Sanji had found the key he had been searching for without anybody seeing him. With it, he would be able to open the door of her mother’s cell.
He gave up on finding the key of her iron mask, though; it probably was in his father’s room, and going there would be too risky. Anyway, he was sure he would find another way to free her from that mask later.

  Sanji felt a bit guilty for not searching Reiju and telling her that their mother was still alive, but he didn’t have time for that.
Soon it would be dawn, and he needed to leave that place together with his mother.

  What Sanji hadn’t considered, though, was her debilitated conditions.
His mother had been locked down there for so long that she could barely walk, and something was wrong with her head too: she kept repeating that she couldn’t leave her cell, that it was her duty to follow his father’s orders.

  Sanji felt like crying again—but this time in anger.

  Anyway, after a while he finally managed to make her follow him.
The door at the end of that second corridor really took to the docks like Reiju had told him, and Sanji felt a glimpse of hope. Soon, he would be able to leave that hellish place behind.

  He helped his mother to climb on one of the soldiers’ ships, but when he was about to do the same a stronger wave caught him by surprise, pulling him into the water.
“Sanji!” cried his mother, and without hesitation she plunged after him.

  “I’m sorry…” said Sanji, as he finally climbed on the ship. When he turned around to help his mother, though, a worried expression appeared on his face.
She was smiling at him, but instead than following him she was swimming backwards.

  “Mother!” Sanji called after her. “Don’t leave me!!!”

  At that, his mother stopped. “My place is here,” she cried to be heard by him over the stormy sea, “but please listen to me…”
Then, she started singing the same lullaby that Sanji had heard before, but this time up to the end.

  “One baby, two babies, and then three,
  “And finally even a fourth one,
  “And you who’re the eldest, my daughter,
  “You’ll protect your brothers for me.

  “Against the enemies, against the world,
  “We’ll once again return where we belong.

  “You will be strong, your father promised,
  “You’ll never lost your very lives,  
  “So close your eyes, and cry no more,
  “Your mother is here, a proud Vinsmoke.

  “And thanks to the youngest of the four boys,
  “The one who is weak, but still a Vinsmoke,
  “We’ll one day return where we belong:

  “A sea full of life, named the ‘All Blue’,
  “He’ll find once a Prince he’ll have become.

  “As strong as the ocean, as passionate as fire,
  “He will find the place where we belong:

  “A sea full of life, named the ‘All Blue’,
  “That is the place where we all belong.”


  Sanji had been barely able to hear the last part of the song in the growing wind.
“What is the ‘All Blue’, mother?” he yelled as strong as he could, hoping that she would change her mind and come back to him. “Please tell me!”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out by yourself,” she replied, and then she turned around and started swimming again.
Before she could reach the docks though a large wave engulfed her, and the heavy mask around her head did the rest.

  Sanji never saw his mother resurface.

---

Inhaling the smoke deeply, Sanji tried to stop thinking about that fateful day.

   Since then finding the “All Blue” had been his dream, but for him to be able to continue pursuing it he would have to face his past again.
MY ONE PIECE LITERATURE DEVIATIONS (more here):
'The Man Who Wove Straw Hats' (One Piece ficlet) by MajorasMasks Shades of Memories (One Piece CoraLaw fanfic)
Memories can be linked to an image, or to a particular sound, or even to a taste or a smell that people associate with something they experienced in the past.
Sometimes these memories can be good, sometimes they can be bad; some other times, they can be… unexpected. For instance, who would associate the smell of burnt bread with war and destruction? Certainly not the so-called “normal people”, but I forgot how to be one long ago.
That said, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my memories of you are linked to a particular shade of red: most people would just call it "pink", but I don’t like pink.
No, your colour is a unique, unnamed shade that belongs to you and you alone: the shade of precious blood mixing with pure, just-fallen snow. And when I least expected it, I stumbled upon this caducous colour again…


Shades of Memories
Prologue
DESPITE EVERYTHING, I still remember Flevance as a town that belonged to a
Dreamland (SanjixPurin OP fic, contains spoilers)Dreamland
    Sanji had never expected the thirty-fifth daughter of the Charlotte Family to be the sweetest girl he had never known.
She was as soft as a sponge cake and as fragrant as a melonpan. Her warm, amber eyes sparkled with joy every time he complimented her baking abilities, and her voice… Oh, her voice! When she talked about her dream—making everyone in the world taste he pastries—she sounded like sugar strands sprinkled over ice cream.
    Everything about Purin was sweet but her chocolate; bitter and spicy, its strong flavour was the best he had ever tasted.
Flashes of the days Sanji had spent with her kept rewinding in his mind. It had not even been a moth since he had first met her, yet it felt like forever.
    Sanji had loved many women—scrap that, he loved all women!—but with Purin it was different.
He would have not minded marrying that girl after all, provided she would follow him back to the S
Not a Vinsmoke (OP Sanji fanfic, canon divergence)Not a Vinsmoke
Sanji had finally made up his mind: he would fight.
  From his sister’s words he had understood that, even if the Germa 66’s threat was serious and they would not hesitate to kill his mentor, they would need weeks—if not months—to reach the Baratie from the New World.
  He still had enough time to prevent the worst from happening.
  That morning, he had seen Chopper through the mirror of his room, which meant that his captain was on his way there too.
  After donning the elegant clothes his sister had left in his room the evening before, Sanji stepped out of the door and walked down the corridor to Niji’s room.
Yonji wouldn’t be a problem and Ichiji would be hard to deal with if their other two siblings showed up too, so he had decided to take Niji out first. After all, he still had a score to settle with him after what that failure of a man had done to the head chef of the Vinsmoke family, Cosette.
 
[One Piece] There for Him, a Straw Hat Pirates ficHe was on the ground, panting—almost wheezing, out of breath and battered. Blood covered his body, clothes, everything. And yet, he stood up again. He could only see through one eye, the other closed and swollen. His hair was disheveled and his limbs were trembling, but his gaze was still unwavering.
He would keep fighting. He would do it for him, too. He wouldn’t be able to give him back his treasure, but he would prove to him that he was a worthy pirate now: a pirate deserving to wear the straw hat once belonged to Shanks the Sea Emperor—and to the Pirate King before him.
Monkey D. Luffy turned to face his enemy again: Blackbeard, the man who had killed Shanks and who was after the Pirate King title just like him.
“Luffy, are you ok?”
The worried tone of Nami’s voice pulled Luffy back from his dream... No, not a dream. More like a vision—a terrible one—about his own future. After his fight against Katakuri of the Big Mom Pirates,
[One Piece] Brook's Nakama Song (pre time-skip)Brook’s Nakama Song
Are you ready for the New World?
My SOUL’s never been so FULL
the adventure never so impetuous
and the crew never so cool!
The first is our captain
he has the bravest of hearts
and everyone he captivates
The second, a proud samurai
his swords are made of courage
on him you can always depend
The third, a skilled navigator
cartographer and meteorologist
who loves sweet tangerines
The fourth, the creative sniper
a liar telling only true lies
to become a warrior of the sea
The fifth is our dear cook
cheerful and often romantic
but also with a keen mind
The sixth, a small yet big doctor
he is a monster of kindness
and the mascot of the crew
The seventh, once was an enemy
in the world is the last archaeologist
and her knowledge is a real treasure
The eight, the cyborg shipwright
who’ll sail the brig sloop he built
to the end of the Grand Line
And then the ninth, all-bones,
is singing this silly song—
nice to meet you all!
Are you ready f


I accept literature commissions, both fiction (creative writing) and non-fiction, please read this journal for more info: fav.me/d3okj0m .
I can write in English and Italian, and I can also do translations from and to both languages.

-------------------------



Another familial piece, this time focused on the relationship between Sanji and his mother—or better, an alternate version of it, since I wrote the original draft of this short story before Sanji’s mother appeared in the manga. That said, this fanfic fits both the “memories" and "childhood” prompts of the One Piece Rare Pairs, but also the “dreams” one of the One Piece Week, so I’m going to post it as my contribution for both events.
Tumblr Post.

For the next prompts I’ll try to make something exclusive, but since the two events partially overlap I’m not sure I’ll find the time to do so for each and every one of them.  :faint:


A/N:
- this story contains spoilers up to chapter 840 of One Piece;
- my characterization of Reiju is similar to the canon one, but I still retained a bit of artistic freedom since I didn’t want to change the original draft I wrote too much;
- about Sanji’s mother, I like how she’s in canon too and I think I understand why Oda didn’t give her a bigger role (I may also write a post about this matter, when I’ll have time).

EDIT: I just fixed the layout; sorry for not doing it sooner but DA was in read-only mode for system maintenance.  ^^'
© 2016 - 2024 MajorasMasks
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AnaxErik4ever's avatar
Sanji seriously needs to marry Nami after this arc.  Otherwise, he'll never be able to fully leave his past behind.