V For Vectors

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or To Aru Majutsu No Index. Nothing you recognize from any other works of fiction belong to me in any way, shape, or form. I am not profiting off of this story in any way and write for fun only.

A/N: No knowledge of To Aru Majutsu No Index is required for this story. The only element being taken from it is Accelerator's vector control, which I am translating into Devil Fruit format anyways. Heavily inspired by Acceleration by alanw6616. Also Nine Minutes by serpentguy. Fantastic stories, I highly recommend both of them.

East Blue: Romance Dawn

In a small bar, located in a small village on a small island in the East Blue, a rowdy party was taking place. Sake flowed like water, laughter filled the air, and quickly diminishing plates of food made erratic loops around the room from man to man. Suddenly, the sound of revelry was split by the high pitched shout of a child.

"Shanks! Let me come with you out to sea so I can become a real pirate!" Luffy cried out at the top of his lungs, prompting laughter from the surrounding men at the idea of a 7 year old pirate.

"No way, you're still so young and weak," Shanks drawled back with a lazy grin. "Maybe 10 years from now you can ask again."

As the laughter only grew louder and more raucous, Luffy charged Shanks with a face red enough from embarrassment to nearly match the infamous pirate captain's hair. All he needed to do was beat him up, show everybody how strong he was, and then they would let him join in on their adventures! Maybe they would even make him captain aft-

The optimistic line of thought was swiftly extinguished by the presence of Shanks' foot planting itself in Luffy's face and knocking the hopeful pirate down onto his rear with a loud thud. Laughter exploded around the room once more as the young boy stood up and glared all around with watery eyes while his dream was mocked for what seemed to be the hundredth time since he had decided on becoming the Pirate King.

When Luffy spoke again, his voice wobbled with pent up emotion at being mocked by his heroes. "One day you'll all regret laughing at me! I'm gonna be the strongest guy in the entire world, and then you'll regret not inviting me to join your crew right now!"

"Dahahahaha! I'll be waiting for that day to fight you like an equal then, Luffy!" Shanks burst out laughing once more at the passionate claim.

Suddenly, the door crashed open and tension cut through the previously jovial mood like a knife through hot butter as the current inhabitants of the building turned to look at the new arrivals. The group of men looked rather rugged as they swaggered up towards the bar behind a thin man with an angular face, wicked smirk, and goatee who appeared to be the leader of the bunch.

"So these are the pirates everybody is talking about, huh?" He spat on the ground without ever losing the sickening grin. "They look pretty stupid to me!" Sitting down at the bar while the surrounding men cackled like hyenas at the rather pathetic insult, the man slammed a hand down onto the wooden surface with a shout. "This doesn't have to end with trouble, you know? Just give us 10 barrels of your best sake and we can all be on our way."

"I'm really sorry, but we're all out of sake right now," Makino responded with a nervous glance over in the direction of Shanks and his crew.

Following the look with a groan, the man turned towards the gathered pirates with a frustrated glare. "All of it went to these useless pirates, huh?"

"Ah, I'm so sorry for that," Shanks smiled in a friendly manner, holding the last bottle of wine out in the newcomer's direction. "This bottle is brand new though, have it as an apology for us being so greedy."

Swiping out quickly with his hand, the scarred bandit shattered the bottle all over Shanks with a snarl at the peace-making attempt. "Don't waste my time you shitty pirate," he growled, whipping out a wanted poster from a pocket in his clothes. "Do you see this number? I'm Higuma, a wanted bandit worth 8,000,000 berries! I've killed 56 people! One shitty bottle isn't nearly good enough for me!"

"Well now the floor is all wet and there's a mess. Sorry about that Makino." Shanks crouched down, carefully picking up the pieces of glass scattered across the floor and ignoring the fuming man above him. "Oi, Makino, do you have anything to clean all this stuff up with?"

"You don't need to do any of that Shanks!" Makino blushed in response as she reached down underneath the back of the bar to grab some cleaning supplies. "I can get all of it, don't worry."

Watching on from the sidelines, only shock at how his idol was acting stopped Luffy from shouting something insulting at the stupid man with the pinched face who dared to come in here and ruin everything. Why wasn't Shanks saying anything or kicking this guy's butt? Was it just an act so that Shanks could get him with a sneak attack once his guard was down? Deciding to wait and see what the master plan would be, Luffy continued to watch without saying anything.

"Since you seem to like cleaning so much, you'll enjoy this even more!" the now introduced Higuma yelled as he knocked everything off of the top of the bar onto the floor with a single sword swipe. The crashing sound of breaking plates and bottles didn't quite drown out Makino's horrified gasp, and Higuma just smirked as the noise died down and several moments passed without a word or movement from Shanks. "No point wasting anymore time here if you don't have any sake, let's go boys! Later, cowards!" he directed the final comment at the motionless pirates before stalking out the now broken door with his cronies right behind.

Silence reigned over the room for a full 10 seconds before Shanks finally broke it.

"Dahahahaha!"

"They really got you captain, that's funny!"

"How shameful!"

"Why are you all laughing?" Luffy screamed, unable to take the laughter a single moment longer. Standing up on his stool to point around at all the members of Shanks' crew in the bar, he continued. "Why didn't you fight back as they trashed this place? You just let them mess up Makino's bar for no reason because you're scared? How can you call yourself a man if you won't fight back?"

"Ah, relax won't you, Luffy? Something like this… it's just some spilled sake. It's nothing to get angry over, you see?" Shanks grinned as he tried to calm down the young boy to no avail. "Being strong isn't just about beating people up, you need to know when to fight and when it's not worth your time. Higuma is just some small time bandit out here in the middle of nowhere, he could never defeat me in a thousand years!"

Luffy fell quiet as Shanks' words sunk in, turning them over and over in his head while the pirates focused on helping Makino clean up the mess at the bar and door.

Then he saw it.

Sitting innocuously in a tiny open treasure chest on the bar was a strange looking fruit. Bright purple, nearly as big as his head, and covered in unnatural looking swirls, the rest of the noise in the bar slowly faded away to a dull background buzz as all of Luffy's attention zeroed in on the fruit. Something about this was… wrong. Wasn't everything knocked off the bar by Higuma? Where was that faint feeling of power coming from? Could it possibly be this weird purple fruit? Luffy was so lost in thought that he didn't even realize he was holding the new object of his obsession in his hands and leaning in to take a bite until it was too late.

Ashes, dust, decay, rot.

The trance Luffy had previously been trapped in was broken and noise returned to the world with a bang as he hacked and wheezed so hard it felt like he would throw up. How was it possible for anything to taste so bad? This… monstrosity was an insult to the good name of food everywhere? Forcing his watery eyes open again and spitting to the side in an attempt to remove the vile taste from his mouth, Luffy distantly realized Shanks was yelling at him.

"Luffy, did you eat the thing inside of this box?" Shanks kept switching his horrified gaze between the now empty treasure chest and the small boy on the stool in front of it. "Spit it out, spit it all out now!"

"Wh-what was that thing?" Luffy asked in a small voice, cowering before the pirate captain as the reality of his situation sunk in. He had never seen the normally mild-mannered man so panicked before. What if the fruit was poisonous or something?

"What you just ate is called a Devil Fruit! They give whoever eats them a random ability from the Sea Devil but at the cost of a curse! You'll never be able to swim again!" Shanks exclaimed with a frown, evidently realizing that it was too late for Luffy to try and spit it out. "We don't know what kind of fruit that was. Your power could be something crazy strong like causing earthquakes or becoming hard as steel, but it could also be something completely useless like changing your hairstyle or turning into a giraffe. We can't possibly know for sure. Do you feel any different?"

Screwing his eyes shut once again and turning his focus inwards, Luffy attempted to see if anything about him had changed. Imagination racing at the speed of light thinking about what kind of cool superpowers he would end up with, the boy eagerly tried mentally prodding the funny new feeling in his gut to provoke some kind of reaction that would shed some light on the mystery… and absolutely nothing happened.

"Why isn't it working?" Luffy whined at the red haired pirate captain. "I can feel this weird tingly difference in my stomach but it's not doing anything!"

"I don't know," Shanks mumbled, reaching out to poke at the boy's cheek to check for any kind of change to the skin. When no obvious power manifested itself there either, he continued. "You definitely ate the Devil Fruit and your ability to swim is now gone. I don't have any experience with the fruits myself, but from what I hear most of the powerful ones are usually very apparent once the change occurs. Maybe you just got the Useless-Useless Fruit! Dahahahaha!"

Veins throbbed in Luffy's forehead. "Shut up stupid Shanks, you're definitely wrong!" He shouted, but there was now a sinking feeling in his stomach. What if the pirate captain was right? Could he have just traded his ability to swim and be a good pirate for a Devil Fruit that did nothing? "I don't even care if I got the Useless-Useless Fruit, I'm still gonna become the strongest person in the entire world! Then I'll be able to protect everybody I care about and not be a big coward like you were just now! The whole world is gonna know my name!"

With that said, Luffy darted out the broken doors before anybody else in the small bar was able to stop him. Makino quickly made her way out from behind the bar and moved as if to go chase down the runaway boy until Shanks stopped her by lightly grabbing the back of her shirt.

"Ah, you need to just give him some time Makino," Shanks sighed with an unusually melancholy tone as he watched the small figure disappear off into the distance to presumably try and discover his Devil Fruit powers. "His dreams were just crushed, he doesn't know you can be a good pirate without being able to swim or fantastic powers yet. Give him some time to cool off first."

Stumbling back into to town a few days later, Luffy was a dejected mess. Despite spending the last 2 days doing nothing but throw himself into increasingly dangerous situations in a desperate attempt to prove that he had not actually eaten the Useless-Useless Fruit or something similarly stupid, he'd had no luck in awakening whatever it actually was. Getting chased by wild animals, punching trees and rocks until his knuckles bled and wrists ached, jumping from trees, exercising until he collapsed. Nothing worked. Tears welled up and threatened to spill as the reality of the situation began to sink in for the young boy, and Luffy's feet subconsciously followed the familiar path towards Makino's bar for some comfort and advice from Shanks.

Then the bar came into view and Luffy stopped with a gasp, shocked to his core.

The previously well kept and homey building was in shambles. Every window within view on the front of the building was shattered, frames cracked and falling apart. Slurs, curses, and profanity were vandalized in what appeared to be paint at various points on the walls. Numbly entering the building, Luffy was greeted by demolished furniture, shattered glass, and scars crisscrossing the wooden surface of the bar itself. Makino's pride and joy was shredded as though a natural disaster had hit it, and he stood motionless for a long while until a sharp sting suddenly struck through the haze Luffy had found himself in.

He had been gripping his hand into such a tight fist that the nails on each finger had broken through the skin.

Whirling around and storming back outside with a snarl, he quickly tracked down Mayor Woop Slap and cornered the obviously nervous man to prevent him from running away and avoiding the question.

"What. Happened."

It wasn't a question so much as an earth shaking demand, and Woop Slap swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat before shakily trying to prevent what would inevitably happen once the furious boy learned the truth. "N-now calm down first, eh Luffy? We wouldn't want you to make a mistake that you end up regr-"

"What happened to Makino's bar? Tell me." Luffy once again demanded, unable to be shaken from the issue at hand.

"Ah, well t-those damn bandits came back last night while Makino was shutting down the bar…" Woop Slap winced hard as Luffy's anger managed to manifest itself in the form of a pressure filling the air. The humble mayor had never experienced anything quite like this before, much less from Luffy of all people, and stammered even more as he continued with the explanation. "Th-they demanded that she st-stay open for longer to serve them. When M-makino refused," he trailed off for a few moments before the glare from Luffy prompted him to resume speaking. "Well, they hurt Makino really badly. She's currently recovering at my home but…"

The rest of Woop Slap's words were wasted on empty air as Luffy tore off towards the man's home in a blur of motion.

Luffy had never felt rage like this before. He had been angry with Shanks for making fun of his dreams or frustrated with Makino treating him like a baby, but this sensation of liquid fire filling his veins and a haze of red coating his vision was brand new. Quickly reaching the house in question, flinging the door open, and darting upstairs, he froze at the sight of the bedridden woman.

Bandages were wrapped diagonally across Makino's head, covering her left eye and a portion of her face. Angry black and blue welts caressed the normally pale throat patterns unmistakably shaped like a hand, and a few peeked out from beneath the collar of her shirt implying more damage further down.

Gaze trailing downwards in horror at the state of his friend in such bad shape, Luffy's mind stumbled over a change in the usual silhouette that took nearly a minute to process.

Her left arm was missing.

Her left arm was missing.

All of a sudden, the previous liquid fire filling Luffy's veins was replaced by ice. An unnatural calm filled the child's mind. Beating the bandits up wouldn't be enough. It could never be enough to repay them for something like this.

They would die.

They would die for daring to hurt Makino like this.

In hindsight, Luffy had no idea how long he remained standing there silently watching the unconscious woman he practically viewed as a surrogate mother struggle to take even breaths through her damaged ribs. It didn't really matter. He just stood there. Watching. Waiting. Hoping. Hating. Why hadn't he been here? If he hadn't been messing around in the forest for so long trying to make this stupid Devil Fruit do something, he could have…

What could he have done?

He was still little. No matter how much he denied it to everybody around him, Luffy was fully aware of the size difference between him and an adult. He was still just a kid. The best he would have been able to do was maybe distract the bandits, pull them away from Makino and the bar chasing him. It wasn't like he was some strong fighter able t-

Shanks.

Luffy's rage found a second, lesser outlet as he remembered that there was someone super strong in town who could have stopped Higuma. Who could have saved Makino and her bar from the disgusting, spiteful bandits. Why wasn't he there? Hadn't Shanks said Higuma couldn't defeat him in a thousand years? What had the pirate captain been doing as Makino was beaten into the ground, her pride and joy trampled down by this filth?

"He's back!" shouted someone from outside, interrupting the seemingly endless flow of questions running through Luffy's mind. Taking a few more moments to stare at Makino's injuries and sear the image of her into his brain, he turned and slowly made his way outside.

As he slowly left the room and exited Woop Slap's home, Luffy distantly realized he didn't really care whether it was Shanks or Higuma that was back. He wanted to hurt them both.

As Shanks slowly walked back into town with Lucky Roo and Beckman following closely behind, he held his straw hat in one hand while running the other through his flaming red hair.

"How did things become such a mess so quickly?" the pirate captain questioned the air, not receiving any response. "First Luffy steals and eats our Devil Fruit, then those garbage bandits ruin the bar and hurt Makino, now we'll have to leave town because Garp won't be able to ignore the reports of pirate activity so close to his grandkid and will come investigate…"

Coming around the final corner of the path leading into the village, the trio stopped in their tracks at the sight of Luffy's small frame standing squarely in the middle of the road and glaring in their direction and Shanks in particular.

"How could you let this happen?"

Luffy's accusation drew a wince out of Shanks as he sighed heavily. "Luffy…"

"Save it. I don't want to hear some dumb excuses or anything this time. You're so much stronger than them, right? He could never beat me in a thousand years, you said. Where was all that strength while Makino was being hurt and her bar destroyed?" Luffy asked in an unnaturally calm manner in comparison to his usual boisterous self.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Shanks glanced at both of his companions only to get helpless shrugs in response. This wasn't how he had wanted the conversation to go. "Look, Luffy, it's over and done with. Higuma and his bandits will never be able to hurt anybody ever again."

"Good."

The single word response drew surprised expressions from all three members of the Red Hair Pirates as they looked between each other in shock. Luffy had never been comfortable with the idea of killing before, had what happened to Makino managed to shake him that much?

Clearing his throat, Beckman decided to cut into the conversation and hopefully defuse the ticking time bomb that was Luffy's anger right now. "We can't be everywhere kiddo, it doesn't matter how strong anybody is if they're not around to stop scum like those bandits from trying anything."

"Bullshit!" Luffy finally lost his composure and screamed at them, his eyes never leaving Shanks once as he unleashed the pent up fury that had been steadily building since first seeing the bar in shambles. "You don't have to be everywhere to stop weaklings like that if you're strong! All you had to was show how strong you where when Higuma came the first time and this could have been avoided! If he was such a weakling and knew you were out of his league, he would have never had the guts to touch Makino because he'd know you would crush him into paste for it!" Luffy's chest heaved as he caught his breath again following the outburst before continuing in a calmer voice that somehow managed to not lose any of the accusation his yelling had contained. "You're the reason Makino is hurt," he concluded with an air of finality, his childish mentality latching onto the pirates as someone to blame for all of this now that Higuma was dead.

"…" Shanks was at a loss for words in the face of the rage behind Luffy's surprisingly coherent argument, and that moment of hesitation just solidified the child's belief in his new idea of power being the solution to protecting people that are precious to him.

"If being a pirate means not using your power to protect the people you care about like this, then I don't care about being one anymore." Luffy continued with a level of sincerity that let Shanks know he was deadly serious about this. "Marine, pirate, neither one matters. All that matters is being the strongest. And I'll show you that one day. I'll come fight you once I'm strong, prove to you that I'm right, and take that hat from you."

Walking forward without a word, Shanks stopped right in front of the young boy for a moment before reaching down and tousling his hair with a sad smile. "Alright then Luffy, if that's your new dream then so be it. I look forward to fighting you one day as a man. Just… don't forget why you want to be strong, okay? The strongest person in the world has nothing without people he cares about surrounding him."

"Of course!" Luffy shouted with a slightly watery smile at his idol finally acknowledging him and his dream. No matter how much they disagreed over how to use strength, Shanks was still one of the most important people in the world to the young boy. "I'm gonna build my own crew and we're gonna make a name for ourselves! Just you wait!"

"Sure thing Luffy, I can wait for that." Shanks nodded to both Lucky Roo and Beckman, passing Luffy and beginning their trek towards the village harbor. "C'mon guys, it's time for us to go. We need to gather the rest of the crew and head out. Luffy, apologize to Makino for me, won't you? After hearing about what we just did to so many of those bandits, marines will be here soon. Don't need an unnecessary fight like that and the risk of Foosha being caught in the crossfire is too high."

"Yeah, I can do that," Luffy responded softly, anger now extinguished by the fact that it could be a very long time until he saw the pirates again. "I'm gonna miss you guys, even if Shanks is really dumb sometimes."

"Dahahaha! There's the Luffy we all know and love," Shanks burst out laughing and tossed a wide grin over his shoulder towards the boy. "I'm not gonna say goodbye, alright? 'Cause we're gonna meet up again years from now and have that fight. Don't go dying on me anytime soon little anchor! I'll see you on the Grand Line!"

Nodding wordlessly with tears fully blurring his vision now, Luffy couldn't think of anything to say in response. He just stood there, watching the three men walk away. There was nothing else that needed to be said anyways. The promise had been made.

They would meet again.

In another world, another life, the discovery of his Gum-Gum powers set Monkey D. Luffy squarely on the path to become the notorious Pirate King. An encounter with bandits, escape from a Sea King, and a precious gift from an injured friend all contributed to this and solidified that goal. But that was another life, in another world. In this one, Monkey D. Luffy ran away to the nearby forest to train and discover what his new powers could possibly be. He did not get into a fight with bandits in that small bar, and ironically enough that small change shifted the vector of his destiny by just a few degrees. A new dream was chosen, and this would come to change everything.

Nearly a decade later, a young man stood out by the same harbor that Shanks and the Red Hair Pirates left from all those years ago. Spiky white hair hung down from his head to roughly ear length, pale skin practically shone in the bright sunlight, and piercing red eyes surveyed the endless expanse of ocean in front of him and his small rowboat. Wearing long black jeans with a simple leather belt tucked into a pair of comfortable boots on his feet and a long sleeved shirt with an alternating black and white arrow pattern on his torso, the man continued staring out to sea for another minute before cracking a wide grin.

"Sabo, watch over me. I'm gonna go out to sea now and make you proud!" Luffy cried out to the heavens as he hopped in the 'boat' and began to row away from the safe harbor and the only home he had ever known. "Shanks, you better get ready. I'm coming for that hat! I'm ready to become the strongest in the world."

A/N: So if you've made it this far and know anything about One Piece, you can clearly tell I won't be just following canon exactly with a different Devil Fruit. I have no issue with those who choose to just rewrite the main story with their OCs or added romances because many of them turn out to be great stories. It's just not for me. There's no fun or challenge in trying to write that to me personally, so I'll be changing things every now and then. My Luffy won't be exactly canon, so to me it makes sense for things to change. Whether these things are large like him just wanting to be the world's strongest instead of Pirate King or small like Shanks still having his left arm you'll just have to wait and see!

One thing to keep in mind is to be gentle with me when I inevitably make mistakes with One Piece lore. I haven't actually read much of the manga or watched the anime, all of my knowledge comes from Fanfiction and the One Piece Wiki. I'm going to make mistakes, so please just point them out to me either in Reviews or Private Messages and I'll either fix them or explain why I'll be keeping things the way they are in this particular story.