1 YOU DIED

''Urgh, my head feels like shit''

I woke up from a splitting headache and looked around for a bottle of water, but what I saw was sand all around me instead of my apartment.

"Did the goons pranked me again after I passed out?"

I looked around to figure out where I was when a blue screen suddenly appeared in front of me.

"Huh? What's this? Am I wearing those new google glasses that the kids wear nowadays?"

I tried to touch the side of my head but there are no glasses on my head. I tried to touch it but my finger went through the screen, then I tried to touch the mail sign in the centre of the screen, and a string of letters popped out.

"Hello there Arima-Kun, I took the liberty of moving your deceased body and brought you to my domain and fixed you up, and don't worry, I already placed a dummy body to replace your corpse to make sure your family can mourn you. If you want to ask me some questions tap here to summon me."

I was surprised by the content of the letter and checked my body and found I'm still alive and healthy like a horse. But I was curious about the letter because it said I was dead and the person who wrote the letter fixed me so I tapped the small blue blinking button at the end of the letter.

After I tapped the button a bright light flashed blinding my eyes for a second, then once I opened my eyes I saw a woman hovering above the water in front of me, she had a pink hair and weirdly enough her skin also pink, her eyes were white with no irises and pupils.

She slowly descended towards the beach and landed in front of me, I took a closer look at her and noticed that she didn't wear any clothes, she only wore a golden necklace, but the weird part was, there were no nipples on her breasts and there was no slit on her crotch.

"You know, it's rude to stare."

Her voice startled me and I immediately stopped thinking about her weird body, her voice was really soothing to hear.

"Uhm, sorry about that, I don't mean to stare."

I replied to her while scratching the back of my head embarrassed from getting caught.

"It's alright child. Now, what questions do you want to ask me?"

She replied to me then a chair appeared behind her, and a table with two cups of tea like drink on top of it between us. She took a seat and crossed her legs while gesturing to me to also sit with her hand, I looked behind me and there it was, a chair magically appeared behind me.

"Umm, how did you do that?"

I sat on the chair, but the wooden chair was surprisingly really comfortable.

"You can call it magic, that's how the people from your universe called it if I'm not wrong. Tea?"

I just nodded at her offer and picked up the small porcelain cup and smell the tea-like liquid. I sipped the tea and instantly I feel refreshed, and my headache is no more. I put the cup back on the table and look at the woman across the table, her pure white eyes kinda weird for me, but I don't feel uncomfortable by looking at them.

"I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but what are you? I've never seen someone like you."

I carefully asked her, I don't want to offend the mysterious woman after all.

"I'm what other beings called a deity or a god, your people called us."

"Umm, soo...which one are you? Amaterasu-sama? If I reckon Amaterasu-sama doesn't have pink skin."

I asked her with a thoughtful expression trying to remember which Kami that has pink skin.

"Oh no my child, I'm not Amaterasu, my name is Sanar, I'm the one in charge of the Omniverse, Amaterasu only governed the region where you used to live."

Her answer made me more confused, and Omniverse? What is that? I never heard of it before.

"I can tell that you're confused, I can explain it to you if you want."

I just nodded at her while sipping the refreshing tea to calm my mind.

"Let's start from the bottom then, Amaterasu and her entourage are the lowest of the pyramid, they govern a certain area on a planet, which is Japan for Amaterasu and her entourage, then there are deities that govern the planet itself, usually one planet only govern by one deity, but there some that govern by multiple deities. Then above them, there are deities that govern the Universe, the same rule applied, and above that, there is Multiverse, also governed by a deity or multiple, and on the top, there is me governing the Omniverse. You might be wondering why I am the one who is talking to you right now instead of Amaterasu which is the one in charge of your people. The answer is, she only can interfere with the mortals that are currently on her territory, and we're currently not in her territory."

She paused for a second, sipped the tea then looked at me then said.

"Do you understand?"

I take a moment to process everything she said.

"So, Sanar-sama is the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of Amaterasu-sama?"

I said to Sanar-sama what I comprehended from her explanation.

"Yes."

She simply said then sipped her tea.

"If we're not in Amaterasu-sama's territory, then where are we then Sanar-sama? If I guess correctly we should be in Sanar-sama's territory, but I don't know what an Omniverse is."

"Let me explain it with a simple example."

Sanar-sama said then a blue marble appeared hovering in front of her, she took the marble then said.

"This is your planet, you called it earth."

Then she let the earth marble hovering again in front of her, the moment she released the marble, eight marbles appeared with different colours orbiting the largest yellow marble in the middle which is the sun.

"This is your solar system."

She said, then the solar system shrunk and turned into a spiralling of small light dots.

"And this is your galaxy."

She reached for the spiralling galaxy with her right hand making it hovering above her palm, and another galaxy appeared hovering above her left palm.

"And this is your neighbour, you called it the Andromeda Galaxy. Combine these two galaxies with other galaxies, there is your Universe."

The two galaxies disappeared and replaced by marble with the size of a fist, inside the marble are countless tiny spiralling galaxies after I took a closer look at the marble.

"And this is the Multiverse, there are literally a transfinite number, that is, a number greater than infinity of parallel and alternate universes in the Multiverse."

Right after she explained what a Multiverse is, another marble appeared, but it's hollow and transparent, she grabbed the marble and opened it, she took the Multiverse then the Multiverse marble shrunk in size then put it inside the transparent marble, inside the transparent marble the single Multiverse multiplied by a lot until the transparent marble filled by the smaller Multiverses.

"Finally, this is the Omniverse. It also consists of transfinite number of Multiverses."

She finished her explanation by putting the Omniverse marble on the table. We both sat silently for a few minutes with a few tea-sipping intervals in between, once I thought I had processed the earlier explanation, another question popped out from my head.

"Oh yeah, how come I'm dead if I'm still standing right now? And how did I die?"

I asked her with a dumbfounded face.

"Ooh, you are dead alright, you standing and feel alive as you said because you are umm, what is the word your people use again? Zombie? No no no, you're an undead. Try touching where your heart is, it's not beating, and your body is cold as ice, and don't worry, you're not going to decay and become one of those zombies or undead like your people imagine them to be like, and you died from an overdose."

I immediately touched where my heart was supposed to be, and there was really no heartbeat from it. Then I tried to look for any heat source from my body like putting my palm on my armpit, and all I felt was the cold surface of my skin.

"Umm, so where are we again? And why am I an undead instead of stay dead? Do all died people got turned unto undead instead of dead...dead?"

I asked her after confirming that what she said was true.

"For your first question, we are in a newly created alternate multiverse, that specially created by a new Living Tribunal to accommodate the chosen people like you which also answers your second question, further pieces of information are still classified. Before you ask, Living Tribunal are the one who governed a multiverse, and yes, all of the deities that watch over the multiverse are called The Living Tribunal, and that's the only information you may know about them for now, you'll know about them later eventually."

She paused then sipped her tea.

"Oh yeah, the planet or place where specifically we are right now is a world called The One Piece world. And lastly, the third, simply put all living beings that died will eventually reincarnate, any more questions?"

Hearing the words One Piece, jolted my old memories. The only One Piece world I knew of is from the manga I read back when I was still a high school boy, I was an innocent freshman when the manga was first serialised, but I gradually stopped reading manga when I was on my second year.

Due to the neighbourhood where I lived in, and the influence of my everyday friends, I became a delinquent and eventually dropped out of high school on my senior year because I was joining the Yakuza.

"Excuse me, did you said One Piece world? Like the from the manga?"

I snapped out of my reminiscent of my old memories and asked her.

"Yes, an alternate version of it, it's the same with the one that created by its original creator, just a copy of it. It's a sandbox for the chosen like you to adapt and get used to your new body and abilities."

"Huh...so, with its being the same as the manga world, does that mean I know about the future? Like the events that I had read before? Even though I only followed the series for a few months close to a year I guess. Oh...yeah, what year are we in right now? Is it before the story begins?"

My brain immediately kicked in, and tried to think of what should I do to make sure I wasn't at the bottom of the food chain, because I was sure the world is full of powerful people with weird powers.

"The Living Tribunal said that the current year is eleven years after the Pirate King executed, what a weird way to count the year."

She paused for a second, sipped her tea then said.

"You can say that you know about the future of this world because it's the same one with the original. But, every time you interact with the people that play the major roles in the real One Piece world, the future that you know will distort, even though the effects of your actions with those people will seem unnoticeable at first, it will eventually get bigger and the future that you know will be useless. Do you know what it's called?"

She paused then looked at me waiting for me to answer her question. I thought about what she said for a few seconds then said to her with a hesitant tone because I wasn't that knowledgeable about the sciences and stuff.

"Umm, it's the butterfly effect isn't it?"

"Correct."

She simply said, sipped her tea then look at me with a look that said, ask away if you have further questions.

"You said earlier about me adapting to my new body and abilities. Does my body still function like a normal human or Its entirely different? And about the abilities, do I have superpowers and stuff? I don't feel that different even though my heart is not beating and my body is cold as ice. If I am and undead, does that mean I'm literally immortal?"

"You can figure it out yourself, you have all the time you can possibly think of. The only thing I will say to you about your current circumstances is, you are free to do whatever you want."

"Hmm...alright."

We both then sat there in silence for a few minutes, because I need to figure out what is the best thing I could do with the few years I had before my current future knowledge could be put to use. Even though I only read a few of the early arcs, but I knew most of the big events that happened from my nephew that really like the manga.

'Eeh, I shouldn't think too much about it. I don't know much about this world anyway, I should just explore it for a few years while figuring out about my abilities.'

I dismissed my earlier thought, and decided to just go with the flow then maybe someday I found something interesting to accomplish.

"I don't have further question, thank you for answering my questions Sanar-sama."

I stood up then bowed to her, she stood up after I bowed to her then said.

"Very well my child, good luck on your journey, and we will meet again when you're ready."

She said before a blinding light flashed, and once I opened my eyes she disappeared just like how she appeared in the first place.

°Trial participant detected, initiating Personal Assistant function.°

Another blue screen appeared with some sentence in it, but this time the text followed by a female voice.

•••

A few Author Notes (Can't fit the normal note)

First of all, sorry for the delay. I planned to post this chapter last night. I got distracted because there was a new episode of Trash Taste just uploaded last night when I was working on this chapter and I fell asleep after watching the video. (PS. If you don't know what Trash Taste is, then you should check them out, a great podcast youtube channel about Anime tiddies and Japan in general 😉)

Second, Sanar is a deity of the Omniverse from Marvel fandom, but she also appeared on other comics iirc, welp being the Omniverse is the whole collection of everything it makes sense I think.

Third, for the dudes and dudettes that had read the first version of the story. The premise is pretty much the same with the MC being a 40-ish Yakuza but less dumb than the previous version, and for the next and future chapters they are most likely completely different from the first version. So yeah, it's a basically a whole new story just with the same MC (Not dumb).

And lastly, what do you guys think about the new style with the First POV and stuff? Let me know in the comment. 👌