One Piece - A Man's Romance

In the midst of the devastation caused by the hand of man, a kid waited for death as every single house at the ruins that had once been his town burnt to crisp and every bleeding corpse laid on the noisy streets where the brutish raiders continued to make a mockery of the tragedy with their never-ceasing malicious laughters. His last breath was drawing closer by the second and he could feel it as his broken and bleeding body laid inert on the cold dirty ground. Death was coming for him and there was nothing to do but to wait for its arrival.

Maybe it would be subtle and agile like a tiger; there must a reason why people both feared and respected it.

Perhaps it would gentle; the phrase 'rest in peace' must have come from somewhere.

The kid was pretty sure it would hurt a lot and that scared him more than anything. All the villagers screamed their lungs out, literally in some cases, when the pirates attacked them and that seemed like the worst way for anyone to go. Instead of spending his last moments thinking about silly things like all the friends he lost in the raid and how cruel the world could be, he focused solely in finding a way to avoid the scary pain. He thought and thought until the answer finally came to him.

He would have a peaceful death.

Leaving the world after eating a sweet summer peach, his favorite food in the whole world, while staring at the silent starry night was probably a painless and pleasing way for anyone to die. It was such a shame there wasn't a peach tree nearby (not like it mattered, he wouldn't have had enough energy to chew and swallow his last meal anyways). And the annoying ruckus made by the scummy pirates ruined his chances of having a peaceful and serene death under the moonlight.

..shut up.

Mustering strength that he didn't have left on him, the kid raised his head one last time and gazed upon the stars, only to find a bunch of weird clouds blocking his view of what should have been the memorable last thing he ever saw before parting. Those dastardly fluffy assholes didn't even have the decency to be entertaining to watch since it was too dark to fully appreciate the forms they took, especially with all the noise that the pirates were doing.

"Hey, do you see what I'm seeing?"

"No way; fuck this."

"Impossible! HE should be partying in Wano."

"Shut up."

But the pirates, who had never learnt good manners from their mothers, ignored him in favor of gaping at the elongated form of the azure beast that appeared from between the clouds. The mythical flying snake, too dauting to ever be called magnificent and too big to be ignored, stared down at everything on the land with a judgmental glint in its yellow eyes. There were no words in any tongue that could make justice to what happened next. The dragon lazily opened its jaws and in less than a blink most of the pirate army that raided the island disappeared from this world together with their vessels. Soon the screams and the begging began as the survivors started to run like headless chickens around the island.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, the kid forced his feeble legs to support his weight one last time, swallowing both saliva and blood as he glared at the pirates. It hurt a lot, but an ugly death would definitively be more painful than this.

- "SHUT UP!"-

In that moment, something erupted from the kid, a soundless dark wave akin to a thunder fell upon the nearby pirates, knocking them out instantly. The silence came, but it wasn't the serene one that the kid was hoping for; this was the silence that could be heard when the executioners let go the rope of the guillotine. And yet even that was once again ruined by the dragon who decided to unceremoniously land in front of him, uncaring of how its colossal body crushed the unconscious pirates on the ground.

The world had recognized his will.

"Worororo! What do we have here?" The deep and haunted voice of the azure beast rumbled across the land as it watched the kid with curiosity. "To think that a mere brat at death's door would show more promise than the morons who dared to invade my territory while I was busy drinking; this reminds me of the good old times when Linlin would try to steal my sweet sake and then I-"

"You are noisy." The kid interrupted, glaring daggers at the retarded blue lizard who couldn't see that it was getting in the way.

It probably said a lot about how much blood he has lost that the kid didn't find anything wrong with a nine years old holding a glaring contest with awe inspiring mystical beast that could easily destroy an entire island in mere minutes.

"Do you have a death wish?" The dragon who couldn't decide whether it should be amused or angry quirked an eyebrow.

"Yes, I do." The kid immediately replied; he was happy to see that the two of them had come to an understanding. "All I want right now is to have a good death, so I want you to be silent as I leave this world in peace."

" ~ Hic ~ Death is a man's romance." The dragon of culture nodded in approval, using its whiskers to wipe off all the blood that the kid had spitted on its scales when he spoke. "But dying in some filthy burning town while surrounded by some weaklings is simply pathetic if you ask me."

Despite how much the kid wished to simply tell the wise and cultured snake to fuck off, it certainly had a point. Just the smell of this place alone was enough to give him a reason to live a little longer, if only so he could move to a more hygienic location so his last breath wouldn't taste like ashes and trash.

"Become my subordinate and I promise you a death that will put Roger's to shame."

Both fact the dragon's breath reeked of alcohol and that the random orphan didn't know what a Roger was supposed to be made the offer way less appealing than it should be.

"Can I have a peach?"

Fortunately, dying orphans didn't have high standards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later at Onigashima:

The vice-captain of the Beast Pirates didn't bat an eye when his now not so drunk captain entered the room through a new hole in the wall in his imposing hybrid-form and threw a barely alive kid to him. This wouldn't be the weirdest thing that Kaido had done this month alone given that he tried to take his own life by jumping off the top of the great waterfall just two days ago BEFORE getting drunk.

"That is our new crewmate so make sure he survives!" Kaido barked an order while holding his own head in pain because of his hangover. "The brat has potential."

"What is his name?" King dutifully asked. While he personally didn't care about that, it was his job to keep an eye on anyone who caught his captain's attention until they proved to be a disappointment like usual.

Kaido angrily scratched his head trying to remember the brat's name, but after five seconds of failing to do so he decided to just give him a new one; a proper name for the newest member of the Beast Pirates.

"He is…"