Author's Note: Heya peeps! This is my first attempt at a fanfic meant for others to read (meaning not just me inserting OCs trying to change the plot the way I want it to) so this is inevitably going to need some tweaking. Please feel free to comment!
Oh and this story was inspired by A Cup O' Joe's "Adventures With A Brother Long Gone".
Prologue: I'm Pretty Sure I'm Dead
Sabo looked around himself, confused. The last thing he remembered was BOOM!FireHOTHOTHOT and PAINowmyheadmylungsGLUB and then darkness. Thinking back, he was pretty sure he'd died, either by being blown up, burning to death, or drowning (maybe all three at once?), so why was he still here? And where exactly was here? Then he looked down and shrieked because his own dead face was staring up at him. Once he'd calmed his racing heart (did he even have a heart if he was dead?) somewhat, he backed away to sit down and think (and also avoid staring back at his dead face, because that was creepy). Except the rock he was going to sit against decided that he wasn't real (was he though?) and he fell right through it, leaving him staring at his lower body which disappeared into the rock. Well, looks like he's a ghost. Yippee.
Sabo wasn't sure what to think of the situation he was in. He was a ghost (a freaking ghost) with his very dead body not quite two yards away on the beach he'd apparently washed up at. He'd wandered around for a bit, but hadn't dared to venture too far lest he get lost. His corpse was creepy, but at least it was something he knew (he'd lived in that body for ten years before he died...). He thought he'd seen smoke rising from somewhere on the heavily forested island, but he'd lost track of it quickly.
The ship he'd set sail on was now a mere cluster of charred driftwood, floating in the water nearby. He glanced forlornly at his hat, which was rather ripped up and lay by his corpse. It was his hat, dammit, and he felt weird without it (the setting sun was shining rather annoyingly into his eyes).
Then, suddenly, a powerful gust of wind blew across the beach and Sabo closed his eyes reflexively as sand flew (none of the sand could touch him anyway, but he did feel a queer tingling feeling as the wind passed through him). When he opened them again, he saw the cloaked man from the city standing over his body, an unreadable expression on his tattooed face (where had he seen that face before...?). The man knelt, touching his corpse's neck as though he were checking for a pulse, then leaned back and removed his hand with a sigh. "So he's dead, huh," the man murmured, bowing his head solemnly. "And that boy had so much potential, too..." He gazed down at Sabo's corpse for a while, then carefully picked it up, covering the face with Sabo's hat. Sabo stared at him for a moment, wondering what he was going to do, then scrambled to his feet as the man headed into the forest.
The cloaked man moved quickly, but having lived in a forest for much of his life (with Ace and Luffy - he tried not to think too much about them lest he miss them too much), Sabo kept up easily - especially since his body (spirit?) didn't seem to get tired much. By the time they emerged at the edge of a town, the sun had set and night had fallen. There weren't many people around (something he was glad for), and he soon found himself on the deck of a large ship moored near the docks. He found himself marveling at the sheer number of cloaks around him, and felt a little embarrassed by the amount of attention his corpse was receiving. Then, before he knew it, the ship was moving and he was sailing away to who knows where with these cloaked strangers...
Well, this was going to be fun.