LET ME PROTECT YOU [Ace X fem! reader]

Chapter 21 // The Great Sea

When you first signed up for this journey to adventure on The Great Sea with the Whitebeard Pirates, you were aware that it wouldn't be smooth sailing. Anyone daring to traverse the New World has to be prepared for anything. Only an experienced seafarer could survive on these treacherous waters, and even they're dependent on a team.

You see it on your fellow crewmates. They work for an Emperor of the sea, one of the four strongest and most influential pirates in the world. It's clear they know what's required of them as they all have their own purposes and duties to fulfil in order to keep the gears in this giant clockwork of synergy working. Teamwork is the reason they've come this far.

Despite just being a guest, you expected to get your own fair share of meaningful tasks to help with this journey too. Patrols, on-field mission or fights. Half of your life has consisted of training for an adventure like this. You're aware you're slightly behind your peers in terms of real-life experience, but that only means you'll work ten times as hard to catch up. You're ready for anything the Whitebeard pirates could throw at you. Though, it never occurred to you that the difficult work you'd be doing onboard an emperors ship would be one of a maid...

It's been two weeks since you left your hometown Kariko to sail with the Legendary Whitebeard Pirates, and the most meaningful thing you've done on this grand fleet is scrubbing leftovers off from dinner plates.
After every meal, you are sent to the lower decks of the ship and tucked away in the back of the kitchen. Far away from the salty breeze and baking sun and forced to instead breathe in soapy bubbles and crusty oil flakes. If you're lucky, you're put on mopping duty on the alcohol-stained deck and can get a breath of fresh air. It's all humiliating either way. If you have to choose something, you've come to prefer cleaning the hundreds of halls hidden below deck. That way, nobody will get the pleasure of observing you soak in embarrassment and you won't have to wash puke off a broken glass.

It's truly humbling to go from a respected warrior on your home island to the new girl on a Yonkou ship.

On a more positive note, you do have an awful lot of free time now. You don't have nearly the same number of responsibilities here compared to back at C.H. so when your tasks are done, you're free to spend your time however you'd like.
During your short stay here, you've already read three of the books you brought with on Grand Line history. Back home, reading as consistently as that would be a far-fetched dream. There could go weeks between each time you picked up a book, so whenever you finally had the time to sit down and read again, you could barely remember where you last left off.

After finishing your second book, you did start to worry whether you brought enough material to fill this short adventure. To your relief, you stumbled upon a hidden room with a small book collection a few days ago while cleaning. You wouldn't by any means call it a library, but it still had a decent number of untouched, dusty covers written in a strangely familiar language. You doubt many crew members know of its existence, so you've decided to keep it a secret for now and maybe ask Ace about it later. Right now, you're just glad you didn't waste all the hours lost in the maze underboard as a cleaning lady. At least you've gotten to know the ship.
Another thing you've been spending a lot more time on is polishing your swordsmanship. Once your shift is over, your sword doesn't leave your grip until you have to work again. And even then, you sneak in some technique practice with your mop. Ace must've noticed how you've trained because the second Moby Dick reunited with the rest of the Whitebeard fleet, he didn't wait to recommend stopping by at the fifth division. Apparently, blade mastery is their specialty, so there's most certainly a lot you can learn from them.

Every day since then, you've been hopping from ship to ship, hoarding valuable lessons from the swordsmen willing to share. Despite mostly being met by eager smiles who're glad to help, you've also had to put in a conscious effort to ignore the uncomfortable comments getting thrown after you. You found out the hard way that some of these pirates are not used to be in the company of swordswomen.
A few days ago, you accidentally asked to spar with the division commander, Vista of the Flower Swords, mistaking him for a normal—but lavishly dressed—fifth division crewmember. The chuckles and sneers around you should've been warning enough that you've picked the wrong fight. However, since the top-hat-wearing swordsman didn't back down, you couldn't either. Make no mistake, it was hardly a duel at all, as the commander wiped the floor with you. However, based on the agape jaws and bug-eyed stares from the swordsmen observing, you did a lot better than they initially expected, leaving the fight with only a few scratches and a lot of weak points to reflect over.