A/N: Sorry this took longer than usual. My employment got crazy.
Luffy stared intently at the ocean, as if it could be the answer to some great puzzle. She knew it wasn't, just as she knew that within a week's time, both Zoro and she had somehow managed to become helplessly lost. Judging by his reaction to this news, he felt it was a fact of life. Somehow, he had managed to adapt to being adrift so successfully that it was a constant expectation.
The young woman had that in common with her new first mate, it seemed, but she didn't share his unwavering confidence that they would find their way to their next location without aid. Rather, she kept their supply level ever in the back of her mind. There was no way to avoid this eventuality with her eating habits being what they were.
It wasn't really something she did out of spite, but she suspected her metabolism was at least five times as fast as an average human. She couldn't remember a time when she didn't feel a constant, unabiding hunger that pushed her towards what others could only describe as terrifying gluttony. There was no satisfaction until everything was distended and her proportions were ridiculously inhuman. Even then, the relief lasted only a few hours, and no amount of meat would remain on her slim form.
During her youth, she had sometimes become so desperate that she would shove random plants, wood, and even mud into her gullet to stop the burning. All things considered, she was lucky to not be desperately ill.
It had taken years, but she became accustomed to going without. She'd eat only enough to prevent her from thinking of inorganic material and clearly-sentient beings around her as food. Even this was sufficiently distressing to most who would watch her fill her cavernous maw. She stopped caring overmuch about what other people thought of her eaten habits (except to the degree that she enjoyed watching them squirm), but she still had moments where she wished she were under less scrutiny. Her attempt to stretch out the small boat's food stores by catching and eating raw fish with her bare hands qualified as one of these instances that was slightly out of her comfort zone (though in her opinion, she hid her self-consciousness admirably).
Reactions varied to devouring raw meat, but Zoro, mercifully, seemed to be accustomed to this behavior, just as her brothers were. He even emulated it to the point that he grunted in approval with every catch and made moves to prepare the beasts himself. She was happy enough to allow this, as Luffy seldom fared well bladed objects and didn't always do a good job of sanitizing her meals when the task fell to her clumsy hands.
She typically made short work of the majority of their raw nourishment, though she let Zoro take more if he asked (though using the term 'ask' was not entirely appropriate in this context, as the two pirates communicated about the shares with silent movements, breathing patterns, and tugging contests).
He would stare only at the beginning and the end of the horrific ritual that was her mealtime, and would often give an amused smirk as opposed to the gaping frown his captain had come to expect from nearly everyone else.
It would not be a stretch to say that Luffy had bonded with the swordsman further through their wanderings. Providing for mealtime was not the only source of difficulty in their lives: even the relatively calm ocean they currently traversed had its storms, and they happened with only a couple hours of warning.
Usually, the travelers only had to worry about getting soaked. With a typical lack of decorum, the two managed to deal with that by curling into one another under a single tarp after securing what cargo they possessed. However, there had been two instances of waves that threatened to take what little they had.
The first time, the two had managed to keep their supplies and ability to stay above the water by the skin of their teeth, bracing for each wave and hoping fortune would be kind. As was often the case, they hadn't needed dialogue to coordinate their movements or prepare. Each of them behaved as an extra limb of the other. They looped around the vessel, bailed water, and towards the end, held onto their miniscule mast while tying a safety line in the midst of extreme danger.
When the storm finally passed, they laid down upon the deck and just laughed for thirty seconds straight.
The second storm cost them. Lubricated with rain, one of their containers of precious freshwater fell into the deep. Luffy wasn't a meteorologist. She had no way of predicting rains, though she was certain they would always come. She simply couldn't be sure that they would be often and sufficient to keep the two sailors alive. It was this desperation that nearly drove her into the sea after it.
She stretched too far and lost her balance during a particularly strong-armed thrust on the part of the sea. Only Zoro's reflexes kept her above the drink.
She smiled up at him, her default response uneffected by the situation at hand. She would wager he could feel it, even after so short a time. She had been told that her smiles could have the force of a punch. However, she'd have to wait to ask about that hypothesis, as Zoro was gripping onto the mast for dear life until the current wave finally abated.
That had been the night before. Zoro snored from behind her, taking a well-deserved nap (though it resembled a coma more than regular slumber). She wouldn't bother him with their current problem. He either wasn't concerned about the lack of water or somehow trusted in her to somehow supernaturally come up with a solution to it.
She would, of course, but that had no bearings on Zoro's belief that she could do so. He had no way of knowing she could use any sort of otherworldly ability that did involve stretching or inflating, so why that was, she wasn't sure.
She hoped that in her absence the man was a more proactive individual. He seemed put-together during those afternoons wherein he spent tedious hours providing wanted posters and drilling her on the names of the villains depicted upon them. She'd take that description a step further and say he was also mature in that he pardoned the fact that all of the pirate's names began to blur together.
As time wore on, she somehow managed to do an even worse job of putting the monikers to the people they represented. She remembered the most important thing, however. She remembered they existed. She even recognized some of them from her former (stolen) life. Unfortunately, she couldn't glean more than that.
She hadn't been able to gauge the state of the moon during the tempest. She had utilized her ability only once, she believed, during the last lunar cycle, but she wanted to be careful to mark the start of the next one. The new moon had to be close; if it had happened last night, she had regained her alotment of multiplicity. If it hadn't, then this would be the last time she could use her fickle power safely for the following few days, and a great deal could happen in that time.
All the same, she didn't have much choice. Their spare rain barrel already took in seawater. They wouldn't have long before thirst set in. She had to find out how her other iterations managed to survive the coming days. They had to have found land again, but that was hard to fathom as she found nothing but endless horizon in every direction.
She had experienced a sister situation to this before, but she'd be damned if she remembered exactly how it had been dealt with.
She extended her hands out and closed her eyes, immediately skimming over thousands of other selves.
Not all of them were in their location, which was jarring to experience, but not at all unexpected. Though no time passed without, within the experience, it took what felt like hours to settle into a close simulacrum.
Again, she joined a male counterpart, and as one they worried about a lack of supplies and impending doom. She (he) didn't spend much energy on it, however. Instead, they opted to join Zoro in napping and only awoke long enough to take a quick meal and relief before returning to blissful sleep. It was only at the sun's zenith the next day that he awoke, only to find they'd been visitted in the night by an enormous seabird that had taken to breaking into a barrel of apples.
The current Luffy woke Zoro and decided to catch the thing as a meal in comeuppance. This Zoro merely snorted as the thing took to the air, wiping a little drool away. He inquired about how his captain would accomplish this.
It ended… badly. He(she) decided to take it down by force, shooting himself directly at the winged thief. She revelled in her current skin's recklessness. They experienced an incredible surge of adrenaline that quickly turned to fear as the beast clamped a beak around their neck.
Alternate Zoro swore and shrieked at them, forcing meta-Luffy to cry out for help. It hurt. Luffy felt the rigid form of their bonds keenly. It was both of their form, and as always, she experienced the sensations therein keenly. Still, she had to follow through for at least a day to find an answer she sought. That, or death.
Oddly, Luffy had always been able to detach before she died in another form completely. She had never truly been suicidal; the thought of actually hitting the ground in the proverbial nightmare never appealed to her. Some times, she feared that it would come and she would experience her own mortality irrevocably in another form. Other times, she wondered if her own life's ending would freeze her own reality in the hell that was the moment of her trance's beginning, or if she would simply cease to be a part of it.
This was to be one of those times. She held onto the bird's neck along with her host with all of their combined strength. Only after hours elapsed was there to be relief. It came in the form of a screaming projectile.
If she were to judge by the shockwave, she would wager it was a high explosive of some sort. It ended how she needed it to, however.
Her feet hit solid ground.
But where was alternate Zoro? He wasn't right behind them. Only a bunch of shocked thugs were, and they certainly weren't worth the time this Luffy had to spend to get his hat adjusted.
Then, she heard a voice, and recollection began to turn the She-Luffy's cognitive gears. Nami. Nami would meet them here!
She hijacked her counterpart and beamed at the red-headed woman.
They met within an abandoned house and spoke of the abomination that was Buggy's reign of terror.
Luffy remembered. Everything that would follow in the next two days according to that first potent life slid into place as if it were a fixture that had always existed in her mind.
She severed the connection and grimaced. It hadn't been a whole lunar cycle yet. The bloody nose that had started indicated this, but she wasn't too concerned. The whole thing should reset the coming night, if nothing else. Now, she just had to bide her time.
She had been gifted with the foresight to come up with the beginnings of a plan, and she didn't dare waste the opportunity. Still, as always, she gambled with life. This truth wasn't something she could dwell on anymore than she could the absurdity of her story.
Zoro slept on, blissfully unaware of the lengthly adventure that had occurred less than a meter away. She sat down and stared at the sky. Her counterpart was content to wait, but she didn't want any variation in their story to take away the chance to find dry land before the captain and first mate dried out in the most literal of senses.
It wasn't far-fetched to assume timelines varied. She had witnessed this many times, though some events were more likely to happen asynchronously than others. Most of the differences between universes were superficial or delays of up to 24 hours, though time was easy to lose track of in the transcendental haze. Some, however, were far more drastic.
She remembered entering selves of varying circumstances. For example, she'd merged with a marine version of herself and one surrounded by nothing but darkness and shrieking monsters. She'd been elderly, captive, and in the middle of bearing a child. She didn't hold onto these experiences with a great deal of effort, but she had to acknowledge that any difference could exist. Destiny and existence were hard enough to prove, let alone predict.
The precaution of staying awake paid off, though only by a matter of a hours. The avian poacher from her other life showed up that very evening, alighting on the tip of their vessel and cawing. She stared at it and cocked her head, her hunger in check as it approached and took from their stores.
She allowed it a meal, not daring to move an inch. It spent a torturous span of time on the deck, digesting and preening. It even had the audacity in all of its creature glory to take a nap. Again, she waited.
When it took to the air at last, she grabbed the oars and followed it. It was very fast, but she still had years of physical training and wilderness survival under her belt. She wouldn't be outwitted by an oversized seabird. A mutant seagull gifted with the ability to break the sound barrier, maybe, but not this bird nor this day.
Night had fallen by the time it led her to land. Exhausted but as happy as it was possible to be given the circumstances (moderately), Luffy nudged Zoro into wakefullness and pointed to the dark mass she knew to be an island. His eyes widened only for the briefest of seconds before lapsing into something she hoped was pride.
Two sets of hands pushed their little boat with more efficiency than simply her own. They would be there soon, and Luffy would soon fulfill a common childhood fantasy wasted upon her duplicate destiny; the punching of a clown.