Chapter 1

The Pirate King

Luffy rolled over in his hammock for what seemed to be the millionth time that night. He couldn't sleep. It had been like this for days now. Never before in his life did he have trouble sleeping. Next to eating and adventuring, sleeping was his favorite thing to do. He didn't even know what was keeping him up. Or maybe he did know and just didn't want to take the time to think it through.

It was nearing dawn anyway so Luffy swung his legs over the side of his hammock and stood up. He looked around at his bunkmates. Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, Chopper, and Franky were all snoozing away like they didn't have a care in the world. They looked so comfortable. Luffy wished that he could be that comfortable. He frowned and exited the room as quietly as he could so as not to wake up his crew.

Once on deck, Luffy heard Brook strumming on his guitar as usual. Brook never really slept because he didn't need it. Then an idea struck Luffy. Maybe he should ask Brook about his little sleeping problem. Since Brook didn't need to sleep, maybe the skeleton could offer some insight as to what might be keeping Luffy awake.

To most people Luffy's line of logic didn't really make sense but it was perfectly sensible to him as he climbed the ropes up to Brook's favorite spot on the main mast.

"Hey, Brook!" Luffy greeted cheerfully as he settled himself down on the mast.

"Captain!" Brook answered just as cheerfully. He stopped playing for a moment. "Hm, you're up quite early."

Luffy nodded. "Yeah, I couldn't sleep."

"Really?" Brook asked putting a hand under his boney chin. "That is most unusual."

"Actually I haven't been able to sleep for the past few days," Luffy said with a sigh. He scratched his head. "And I don't even know what's keeping me up."

"Hm, well, back when I was flesh and blood, there was a time when I found myself in your situation," Brook said and began strumming his guitar again.

"Really?" Luffy asked. "What was the reason?"

"Ah, it was long ago, my captain," Brook sang as he changed his strumming to a more nostalgic chord progression. "It was back when I was a young man not much older than yourself."

Luffy looked wide-eyed at Brook completely absorbed in what the skeleton had to say.

"Verily I tell you, when I was but six and twenty, I found myself in a most extraordinary position."

"What position?"

"Ah! A position of conflict, my friend!" Brook said dramatically. "I was already a pirate for quite a few years by then and I thought that nothing would be able to tear me away from the sea. It was my home, and my crewmates were my family."

"Yeah, like our crew," Luffy said with a nod.

"Precisely," Brook answered. "But I then discovered something that I had not found before. Something very valuable. More valuable than any treasure or amount of money."

"What was it?" Luffy asked.

Brook dramatically stopped his strumming and looked Luffy in the eye. "Love, my boy. Love."

Luffy tilted his head to the side as he stared confusedly at the musician. "Love?" he repeated.

"Yes!" Brook cried dramatically as he resumed his strumming. "The first woman I fell in love with, Isabel. Oh, I still yet remember the fair maiden. She had stolen my heart, back when I had one anyway. It was then that I first thought of leaving the sea and starting my own family."

"Wow, I had no idea you wanted to start a family, Brook," Luffy said in amazement.

"I did indeed," Brook said looking up at the fading stars. "But alas, after many sleepless nights, I chose the sea over my dear Isabel. I felt as though my destiny had not yet been fulfilled and so I left that island with my crew, never to return again."

"That's…so sad!" Luffy sniffed. He always tended to get overly emotionally involved in other people's stories.

"I must say that I often wonder what my life would've been like had I chosen to stay with her," Brook said pausing in his strumming again. "I wouldn't have eaten the Revive fruit for one thing which in turn would have meant that I wouldn't have met you and the others, but still…" The skeleton trailed off and looked down at the guitar in his boney hands.

"Well, I'm glad that I met you," Luffy said enthusiastically.

Brook laughed but not in his usual way. "Why, thank you, Captain," he said with a smile. "But enough about me! What about you? Is something bothering you so that you are unable to sleep?"

"Yeah," Luffy said. "But I'm not even sure what it is."

"Perhaps your dilemma is the same as mine was," Brook suggested.

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"I mean, would the reason you are unable to sleep be a certain red haired navigator currently residing on our ship?"

Luffy stared blankly at Brook, and a moment of silence fell heavily upon the two.

Brook broke the silence with an exasperated sigh and then bonked Luffy on the head with his guitar. "That's Nami, you idiot!" he shouted.

"Ow ow ow!" Luffy whined as he rubbed his head. "That hurt!"

"Yohoho!" Brook laughed. "Sometimes it takes a hard hit to get through a hard head. But that is beside the point!" The skeleton leaned closer to Luffy. "You care for Nami a great deal, do you not?"

"Of course I do!" Luffy said. "I care about all of my friends!"

"Ah, but you and Miss Nami are more than just friends."

Luffy thought back to the crew's last big adventure. Nami had found that she had had the spirit of Izanami, the goddess of the sea, inside her, and the god of the sun, Izanagi, had wanted to kill her to free the goddess. In the end, the gods allowed for both Nami to live and for Izanami and Izanagi to be united once a year.

It was during that time that Luffy realized he did have feelings beyond friendship for Nami. He had never felt so happy when he spent time with her or so desperate when Izanagi took her away from him. He had never been angrier in his life when he saw Izanagi with Nami on the cliff and, although he was usually reckless, he had never acted so rashly as he did when he jumped off the cliff after Nami into the deadly waters below. From that time forward, he knew that Nami was something special to him. Maybe Brook was right. Maybe the reason why he couldn't sleep was because of her.

It had been almost a year since the Izanagi-Izanami adventure. The Straw Hats had returned Nojiko, Nami's older foster sister, back to Cocoyashi and then they had set sail for the Grand Line once again. Their goal was to find Red Hair Shanks, Luffy's old mentor that had given him his prized straw hat. Shanks had told Luffy that once Luffy became Pirate King, he should come find him to return the hat, and Luffy intended to do just that. The only problem was that Shanks was rumored to have been killed by the legendary Colossal Sea King, but Luffy refused to believe it. The rest of the Straw Hat pirates trusted their captain, so even though their mission seemed futile, they all followed Luffy no matter what.

Luffy and Nami's relationship didn't extend too far beyond what they already had. Nami had always been the one Luffy went to when he had a problem or if he was just bored and wanted to bother her. She always made him feel better. He loved making her laugh and he even loved it when she became angry and bonked him on the head, which she did often. It didn't matter to him, though. The two made a great team, and everyone knew it.

The only difference was that sometimes the two would share special moments when they weren't around the others. Sometimes they would hold hands or even cuddle a little bit, but besides that they acted exactly how they used to act around each other, and that's the way they both wanted it to be, at least until now.

Lately, Luffy had noticed that every time he and Nami had a moment alone, he wanted to do more than just hold hands. The two had never kissed before, and Luffy found himself wanting to do exactly that with his redheaded navigator, but every time he had wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't even know why. Was it because he was afraid?

Luffy shook his head. He was the goddamn Pirate King! He wasn't afraid of anything, or at least he felt that he shouldn't be.

"Yohohohoho! Your prolonged silence has spoken volumes, my captain!" Brook laughed. "It seems I've hit the nail on the head!"

"Oi!"

The two looked down to see their cyborg shipwright calling up to them. "What are you two doing up there?" Franky called.

A huge smile broke on Luffy's face. "Nothing much!" he called back and waved.

"Well, you should come down," Franky said. "Sanji's almost done with breakfast!"

"FOOD!" Luffy shouted for joy and immediately hopped off the mast.

"Yohoho!" Brook laughed again and then elegantly slid down one of the sail ropes to the deck.

The sun had risen above the horizon, and a delicious smell wafted throughout the ship. The men were all eager to the have some breakfast and were already at the table. Sanji came out of the kitchen with plates upon plates of food.

"Eh?" he said stopping.

"What's wrong, Sanji?" Usopp said waving a fork in the air. "Bring over the food!"

"Yeah! The food!" Chopper repeated also waving his fork in the air.

"You idiots," Sanji said. "I'm not serving you until Nami-san and Robin-chan are here."

As if on cue, the door opened and in walked the two ladies of the ship. "Good morning, everyone!" Nami greeted happily as she slid into her usual seat next to Luffy.

For some reason Luffy felt his body go stiff. Nami usually sat next to him for meals so this shouldn't have been any different, but now that he had talked to Brook about it, he felt a little squirmish and uncomfortable.

Nami didn't seem to notice.

"Good morning, Nami-swan!" Sanji sang. "Good morning, Robin-chwan!"

"Good morning," Robin said as she too sat down in her seat between Chopper and Zoro. "I see you've all waited for us again."

"You girls are always so slow," Zoro said crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall. "If you were here on time we wouldn't have had to wait."

"Don't talk like that to Robin-chan!" Sanji shouted his eyes flashing at the swordsman.

"Maybe we're slow because we want to make you wait," Nami said smugly.

Zoro frowned at Nami but said nothing.

"At any rate, let's have some breakfast," Robin said with a laugh.

"Of course, Robin-chwan!" Sanji sang as he laid out a beautiful plate of food in front of her and another in front of Nami. For the men, he placed down several plates of food from which they could just grab what they wanted. "Bon appetit!"

Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Franky, Brook, and Chopper all began to dig in to their shared plates like ravenous hyenas while the two ladies ate from their individual plates.

"Delicious as always, Sanji-kun!" Nami complimented the cook with a laugh.

Sanji's eyes turned into hearts at the compliment. "Ahahaha! Anything for you, Nami-swan!"

Luffy suddenly stopped eating and glanced from Nami to Sanji and then back to Nami again. Sanji always did and said things like that for any pretty girl that he happened to come across. It never bothered Luffy before when Sanji would try to win Nami's affections or even try to kiss her but for some reason it bothered him now.

"Is everything all right, Luffy?" Nami asked noticing that he had stopped eating. His cheeks were even full of food, but he hadn't swallowed yet.

Luffy quickly gulped down the food in his mouth. "Yeah! Everything's fine!" he said and quickly turned back to eating more food.

Nami raised an eyebrow but said no more.

"With all the cyclones, sea monsters, bounty hunters, Marines, and other pirates, I'm glad that we at least have the luxury of good food on board!" Usopp said once he was full. He leaned back and patted his stomach completely satisfied.

"Yeah, but even so, it's been so long since we've had a moment's peace to actually sit down and eat together like this," Chopper said. "We're so deep in the Grand Line now. Anything could happen at any moment!"

"It's ok, Chopper," Robin said with a smile. "We're getting closer and closer every day to finding Shanks. It can't be long now."

Chopper nodded his head.

"At any rate," Franky said standing up, "we should probably head out to our posts. Who knows when a storm or an enemy ship could pop up."

"Right!" the others agreed.

As everyone got up to leave, Nami quickly grabbed Luffy's hand holding him back. No one seemed to notice, and soon the two were alone.

"Is everything ok?" Nami asked worriedly.

"Hm? Everything's fine," Luffy said again.

Nami looked him in the eye and frowned. "Well, if you say so," she said. "You just seem a little off this morning."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" Nami shook her head. "Never mind," she finally said. She stood up and made her way to the door.

Luffy watched as she exited the room, and the door swung shut behind her. In reality, he had wanted to talk to her about what was bothering him. He always had in the past and he had no secrets from her. The two of them talked about everything, even if it wasn't the deepest topics. She was just the kind of person Luffy felt like he didn't need to hold anything back from.

Luffy sighed and got up. Maybe everything Brook had said was right. Maybe he was in similar dilemma. He put a hand on his chest and felt his heart beat. It was slow and steady now but it had been fast and irregular when Nami had touched his hand. Love was something he had had no prior experience with. The thought of starting a family had never even crossed his mind. The only time he had ever talked about marriage was when he had rejected Boa Hancock's marriage proposal, and that was it.

Now that he was older, the prospect of love and marriage was more applicable to him. He had always had a special place in his heart for Nami but now he was beginning to realize that what he felt did go beyond just friendship.

On the other hand, he had made a promise to Shanks that he would find him and return his hat once he had become King of the Pirates. If he wanted to keep sailing around the Grand Line looking for Shanks and keep the title of Pirate King, there was no way he could get married let alone start a family. Besides, there was also something else that had been bothering him.

Back when they had first met Nagi, the sun god had said that Luffy was the Pirate King by name only, that he wasn't truly the Pirate King that Gold Roger was. Luffy had the One Piece. Not only that, he was also the strongest, most feared, and richest pirate in all the seas. He also had a record bounty on his head. Weren't all those things enough for him to be the true Pirate King?

Luffy shook his head. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew that there was something missing. Something that Gold Roger had that he didn't.

And Nami…she was the greatest navigator and cartographer known to man. She was brave, intelligent, strong, and beautiful. Not only that, she had been the chosen vessel for Izanami, goddess of the sea. No man would ever be good enough for her except the true Pirate King.

He clenched his fist. There was no way he could even think about asking Nami to marry him if he wasn't worthy of her, and right now he knew he wasn't. In order to become the true Pirate King, he would need some advice. The hat!

Luffy quickly ran out the door and then down to the bunkroom where he kept all of his things. There was a captain's cabin, but Luffy chose not to sleep there since he wanted to be with his crew. Even though he was captain and sometimes used that authority on the ship to make decisions, he didn't feel that he was above any of his crewmates. They were a family and that's how he wanted it to be.

Once in the room, Luffy pulled out the dusty, old captain's hat that was the fabled One Piece. With a deep breath, he put the hat on his head.

"What now?" Gold Roger's gruff voice sounded in Luffy's head.

"Gold Roger," Luffy said firmly, "I want to ask you something."

Roger's voice seemed to sigh in annoyance at the request. "Lad, ye just interrupted me sight-seeing tour," he said. "It's so bloomin' annoying that me spirit gets sucked back into this damn hat every time ye put it on."

"Am I really the Pirate King?" Luffy asked ignoring Roger's complaints.

Roger didn't respond immediately but slowly began to laugh. "AHAHAHA!" he guffawed like a maniac. "Who told ye to doubt yerself, eh?"

Luffy frowned. "So it's true then?"

"Eh, I'm not saying it's one way or the other," Roger said.

Even though Luffy couldn't see Roger's face, he knew the old pirate's spirit was enjoying Luffy's frustration.

"Lad, being the Pirate King is more than just having me hat," Roger continued. "Ye've got to have the strength and the will to back it up."

"But I am strong!" Luffy said making his hands into fists.

"I don't doubt yer physical strength," Roger said, "but that's not what I'm talking about."

"Well, what are you talking about?"

"Lad, there's a lot of things in this world that go beyond the physical realm," Roger said. "Ye had a small encounter with that before, haven't ye? That navigator of yers showed ye something that no one besides ye and yer crew have ever seen."

Luffy didn't respond but only because he was confused and didn't know how to respond. A big question mark formed above the young captain's head.

"The deities, you idiot!" Roger roared after a moment of silence. "Shiver me timbers! Yer not the sharpest tool in the shed, eh?"

"Oh, you mean Nagi?"

"More than that," Roger said in a calmer tone of voice. "The spirit realm. If someone can reach into that realm from the physical world, that would be what I would call true strength. And only I've been able to do it! Ahahaha!"

"Oh, I get it!" Luffy said hitting a fist onto the palm of his hand. "You were able to attach your spirit to this hat. That's reaching into the spirit realm, right?"

"So ye figured out that much, eh?" Roger said sarcastically. "I wanted me legacy to live on forever and overcome the so called fate the gods have set fer each of us, and the only way to do it was to find a way to keep me spirit in this realm instead of going to heaven or hell or what have ye. By manipulating the spirits, I was able to fulfill me wish!"

"So how do I reach into the spirit realm?"

"I could tell you how I did it, but then that wouldn't really help ye," Roger said. "Ye've got to find yer own way, otherwise ye won't succeed."

"Huh…" Luffy said feeling that he hadn't made as much progress to finding out what he was supposed to do as he thought he would.

"Well, chat time's over," Roger said. "I best be getting back to me tour."

"Oh, ok," Luffy said knowing that there was nothing else he could get out of the former Pirate King's spirit.

With that, Gold Roger's spirit vanished leaving Luffy with nothing but a beat up old hat.

"The spirit realm, huh?" Luffy said to himself.

"LUFFY!" Usopp yelled down into the bunkroom.

"What's up, Usopp?" Luffy called back up and waved.

"We've got trouble!"

As if on cue, the ship began to tilt violently from one side to the other.

"A storm?" Luffy asked as he put his straw hat back on.

"Yeah!" Usopp said. "You'd better come up quick! Nami's going crazy!"

Luffy sprinted up the stairs and onto the deck. It was pouring rain and lightening was flashing across the sky at an alarming rate. When Luffy had first gone down into the men's cabin room, it had been a perfectly sunny day without a single cloud in the sky, but storms like this one were common in the Grand Line.

"Luffy! Where've you been?" Nami yelled at him.

"Uh-"

"Get over to the mast and help Zoro!" she continued to yell before Luffy could respond.

Luffy nodded and ran to help his first mate.

"Geez," Nami said shielding her eyes from the rain. She had managed to navigate them away from the main part of the storm, but it was so large and so sudden that they were still caught in the tail end of it. "Franky, we need more power!" she shouted.

"I know! I know!" Franky shouted back. The shipwright was furiously pushing buttons on a control panel while grasping onto the helm.

"We're gonna die!" Chopper sobbed as he clung onto Nami's leg.

"No, we're not!" Nami yelled and bonked the small reindeer on the head.

"Ow!"

"You always say that every time we hit a storm! Don't you have any faith in me?"

"I…I do! It's just these storms are scary!" Chopper cried.

Nami sighed and then patted his head. "Yeah, they sure are," Nami said. "Sorry for hitting you."

"It's ok."

Suddenly a huge gust of wind swept across the ship practically lifting everyone off their feet.

"AHH!" Nami and Chopper screamed together. Then they felt themselves get held down.

Robin had sprouted her devil arms around everyone on the ship making sure that they didn't fall into a watery grave.

"Thanks, Robin!" Nami called.

Robin smiled calmly and nodded in response.

"Ok," Nami said. "We just need to hold on a little longer, and the storm should be ending soon!"

Almost as if it had been planned, the rain, winds, and lightening ceased as suddenly as they had sprung up. All was calm.

"Whew!" Usopp said wiping some rain out of his eyes. "That was a pretty fierce storm."

"You're telling me!" Franky said as he began running around the ship surveying the damage. "My poor baby!"

"The further we get into the Grand Line the worse the storms will get," Sanji said also wiping rainwater off of his face. "If Shanks is really out there somewhere, then this isn't even the worst one we'll be seeing."

"Unfortunately he's right," Zoro said crossing his arms. "Luffy, are you absolutely sure that Shanks is still alive?"

"Of course he is!" Luffy insisted.

"We've only heard that his crew is still here in the Grand Line," Zoro said. "Everything about Shanks himself is says he's dead."

Luffy shook his head. "Nope, it's not true," he said lightly. "If he was dead, I'd know it."

Zoro looked at his captain and then shrugged his shoulders content with his answer.

"Where to now?" Usopp asked Nami.

Nami had been studying her previous maps that she had drawn of the Grand Line. "Well, we got a little off course," she said tracing their path with her finger. "The fastest way to the New World is to turn 73 degrees south by southeast."

"Then that's what we'll do," Luffy said with a determined look.

"Aye!"