What is my past? (part 2)

"Okay, so wait, hold up!" This is very confusing. I know he said not to interrupt but I can't follow what's happening at all!

"You're me and I am you, you get our original body but I get put into a child?" Seriously, unfair but also, I am kinda lost. I need to process this quickly and try and catch up with the conversation flow.

"Technically, the child is our original body, and , if you would just shut up and stop interrupting like we, I mean you, always do - I could get to the point before we run out of time. Save the Q and A for when I finish saying what I need to say!"

uhhhhh ....

"Sure?"

"Good. Now, ah-- shit. My feet are already starting to disappear. " Looking down at his feet, I can see that it is true. They appear to be fading away slowly, breaking away into tiny sparkling pieces.

I made no comment though. The seriousness of what was happening starting finally clicking and my brain was, for the first time since I got to this One Piece world starting to finally focus the way I remember from my past life.

He looked back up at me.

"So, anyway, basically I started learning to go around the system and directly modify the programming of my body. Boosting my physical capabilities, etcetera, and so on. But devil fruit abilities and Haki are for more mysterious and interesting than the manga ever gave credit for. There are fruits out there able to reverse, damage, and even alter the code of my body. So, I executed a little program I had written, one of my first, but by its' very nature it was untested. It was untestable. I needed to do it because it was the only thing that could save me in the short amount of time I likely had to live. I could have tried examining the code that made up my body to reverse the damage, but the time was going to be too much. Debugging sucks as you know."

His legs starting from below the knees were now gone. Faded away. Now his knees were starting. I know I can't be 100% sure this guy is actually me, as he says, and that this conversation seemed very important, but watching someone slowly and seemingly fade from existence it seems was a very distracting thing.

"The program I executed on short notice was kinda like... a restart. New game. Or, it was supposed to be like a new game plus! But either my program wasn't written correctly, or the powers of the devil fruit interfered but I noticed immediately something wasn't right. I was slowly reversing my age, as was expected, but the code that comprised of my body wasn't getting properly reversed. The damaged parts of the code, for instance, it was like it was getting copy and pasted everywhere. I needed to act fast. I didn't know what this would result in. Hell, at that time I was still unsure if I would lose my memory with the reset or not that's why I made a script to attempt to restore a copy of me, well, actually, the me you see in front of you now, from an ocular input. That hex code. "

Now he was just is floating from the waist up. It would almost be scary in a different scenario. Still, I could not help but contemplate his words and his apparent imminent death. I felt sorry for him. If what he is saying is true, and if he is acting like this then...

"I was right to do so it had seemed. The memories were gone and I was an infant. The damage to the body of the child I became was extensive. I can only imagine how confused Ol' Brill was to see a child at his door. I barely managed to crawl in that basket as the last of my memories faded. Oh, I should probably add: part of the restart code was to pseudo-randomly choose new physical appearance features. Uhhhh I really shouldn't have added that part to the program, but how was I supposed to know I would eventually use it in that scenario!"

He was no longer disappearing evenly. Large splotches of areas were slowly fading away. Is there something I can do to save him? Why does the child seem largely unaffected?

"So, the damage to the body was randomly spread out, more code segments were being computed and randomized from my restart script, and, oh yeah, the system that was created when I first got here? Basically fell apart. I felt the code... well, I am not sure how to describe it. It was like pieces of it were being injected all over my body's code along with the damage. And then came along the kid version of us, forming his own personality in this body. He only made things even worse. Funny thing children. They need to learn by doing. They're so full of wonder for the world and usually adults are there to teach what is good and bad to do. No one was there for little ol' Nick here. Oh yeah, I used that name for fun, cool huh? It's from that anime with that blonde guy with the really high bounty. I felt using a name from that would be fun."

The hand holding the child's hand was now mostly gone. So was his upper arms. He was soon going to be nothing but an upper torso, neck, shoulders, and head.

"Anyway, the kid started copy and pasting the code everywhere, trying things out. Putting stuff in his mouth. Well, not code anyway. But my point is he was scrambling everything even further! a disaster! I only found out after we entered this space though. He messed with himself so hard he paralyzed his own legs and basically deleted himself. And so, we come to you."

The timeline of events were starting to make itself clear in my head, and I think I could guess what he was going to say next. I am not sure I want to hear it though.

"You were a back up copy of me from when I first entered this world. What was left of the system or devil fruit, or whatever... needed to fill the space of consciousness that was basically left empty after kiddo here accidentally copied himself out of his own mind and put it somewhere else. Seriously, this power is not good for children. Ugh, then you got loaded in and the devil fruit power seemed to make itself dormant. Right up until my script got triggered, which, honestly, I am surprised it was able to after everything. But maybe because of all the changes and damage it doesn't seem to be working correctly. It took us to this space and … well here we are. Instead of me being restored I get to have this little talk while the restore fails and I disappear forever. Fucking sucks for me doesn't it?"

He was just a floating head at this point. His disappearing seems to willingly slow itself down towards the end, almost as if it allow him time to give these last words. But… no. NO, there is something there, that just doesn't make sense, something isn't right. What is it? Why can't I put my finger on it!?

"Oh and uhhhhh one final thing. I've basically ruined the main plot of One Piece, so don't be trying to rely on that in the future. I accidentally killed Monkey D. Dragon. Heh, but at least… now you'll know that this will be your own adventure!"

He… HE WHAT!?