Tomorrow's Promise
A One Piece Fan Fiction
By Sacred Sakura
Conceptualized/Written: 8/26-28/2006
Published: 11/22/2006
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Supernatural
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece; Oda-sensei does. I wish I did, though. However, this story and all characters not original to One Piece do belong to me.
Dedication: To Darkmaster2—for your, eto, "support"—and to starah, a marvelous storyteller whose fanfic "Reborn" inspired this fic.
A/N: This was interesting to write, and I really enjoyed it as a whole. I also liked the fact that I finally managed to finish a single fanfic chapter in a short amount of time. (Three days! A record!) Please R&R!
Prologue: The Doorway to Heaven
I open my eyes.
I am surrounded in darkness, save for a rectangle of light glowing before me. I step through the doorway and find myself in a strange place overflowing with whiteness.
My legs carry me across a marble floor and toward a marble desk with a glass top. Behind the desk sits a brunet with light blue eyes, wearing spectacles and a white robe. A large book is open on the glass surface before him, a quill in his hand.
He looks at me.
"Ah," he says, starting to write in his book. His gaze fixates on mine briefly, then transfers to the cream-colored pages of his book. "You must be Kuina. Female. Age 14. Born October 6th, Year of the Sea 1500, also known as Year One of the Great Age of Piracy. Description: Bluish black hair, dark blue eyes, pale skin, lanky build. Cause of Death: Accidental fall from stairs."
I stare at him. "Wait a minute. 'Cause of death'? You're kidding, right?"
He continues writing, "Placement: under the jurisdiction of Ward 702, Sector 43, Division—"
"I can't be dead!" I yell, interrupting him. "I can't! Not now!! Not after Zoro and I promised that we would someday fight each other for the title of Master Swordsman!!!"
He stops writing, places his quill down next to the book, and waits patiently.
"This—this is just some stupid joke you're all playing on me, isn't it?!" I demanded angrily. "Right now I'm actually unconscious, deep in sleep, and this is all a dream, a sick, sick dream, and any moment now I'm going to wake up from it, and you'll be gone, you and your stupid book about me dying, and I'll be awake and okay, and all this weirdness will be behind me, and I'll go back to training to become the greatest swords master in the world, and I'll do it, and Zoro and I'll fight to see who's the strongest in the end, and we'll continue to compete, even after one of us has won, and, and—"
I stop, gasping for breath, as I realize the inanity of my words—as the realization hits me.
I'm still here, in this strange white place, still standing on this cold marble floor in my bare feet. The young man with brown hair and those odd light blue eyes, wearing those ridiculously small pince-nez glasses and that too-bright, too-white robe-thing, is still here, still sitting behind this polished marble desk with its glass top. And still there on that desk sits open that thick book, with the snow-white quill that never seems to need ink next to it; and the cream-colored pages of that book still contain the neatly scripted words that state my name, my age, my date of birth…my cause of death.
I sink to my knees, unable to stand any longer, unable to support myself with my own strength.
"Are you done?" the man asks me patiently.
I stare off into the distance, unable to respond. My mind has gone blank, my will lost.
"All right then," he sighs, picking up his quill again. "Now then. Where were we? Ah, yes. Placement: under the jurisdiction of Ward 702, Sector 43, Division 19, Prefecture 21, Sub-Province—"
"It's not fair," I choke out as tears begin to fall from my eyes.
"—Sub-Province 56," he continues despite my interruption, as if I hadn't said anything in the first place, or as if he was used to hearing people cry, scream, wail, and complain, and he simply ignored them out of habit and necessity. "City-State 49—"
"Send me back."
He stops again and regards me coldly, by this time obviously irritated by my persistence.
I struggle to my feet, my legs shaking. "Send me back!" I yell.
The neutral expression on his face becomes sour with impatience and exasperation. "That is not possible," he tells me, his tone frank.
"Wh-what do you mean it's not possible?!" I explode, frustrated. "You guys have done it before, right? I mean, some people died and came back! Why can't you do the same for me?!"
He sighs in irritation, then sets down his quill. "Let me explain. Those people who died and came back into the world of the living came back because it wasn't their time to go yet. Or, God decided that they needed to keep on living in order to fulfill a certain purpose in life. In your case, it was your time to go. Got it?"
"But—but that's not fair!" I protest angrily. "I still had my entire life in front of me! Why did I have to croak just because of some stupid fall?!"
"Life's never fair. That's why there's an Afterlife. And as for dying so early—that was your destiny. Your death was fated to set off a chain of events that would alter the lives of many people—and, indirectly, prevent the Other Side from winning."
"Wha…? What do I care about whether Heaven or Hell loses?!" I snap. "I just want to go back—back to the way things were!"
"Well that's too bad," the brunet retorts, picking up his quill. "Once you're logged into The Book, you can't return to the realm of mortals." He is about to start writing again when a hand rests on his shoulder.
"You left out that God makes a few exceptions, Alistair," says a dark-haired man with honey-colored skin, clapping his hand hard on the brunet's shoulder all the while.
"Rafael! What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be going through the paperwork for Cases GR1, PK1, and PK2?"
"Aw, don't worry about it," the heavyset man says with a cheerful grin and too-white smile, waving away at the matter the brunet has brought up. "I'm almost done."
"'Almost done' meaning only halfway done!!!"
"Besides," the man called Rafael continues, as if the man named Alistair hadn't interrupted him in the first place, "God sent me over to pick up a new arrival known as 'Kuina.' Her file's almost taller'n me; it's so thick…"
"Wait a minute. God wants her to go to the Department of Dimensional Transfers and Relocation?!" Alistair frantically gestures in my direction.
"Ah! So this is her?" Rafael's odd copper-brown eyes brighten at the sight of me. "Hey, she's sure a cutie! Much better looking than the old ratty black-and-white in her file! I've been telling God for centuries that we should switch to holograms—or color photos, at the very least—but the guy upstairs won't listen!"
"First of all," Alistair interrupts him, "it's 'This is she,' not 'This is her'. Secondly, we use monochromatic images of all subjects in order to ensure that out work is always objective—a concept that an emotionally and hormonally overcharged angel like you can never seem to fully grasp. And third, you can't just waltz down to the Department of Induction and Allocation while Placement is in progress and announce that the subject is to be sent elsewhere! No one can erase what's been written down in The Book but God, and he's already rather quite busy dealing with more pressing issues—including the mess that's going on at Skypiea—so he's not going to bother Undoing the Placement of some petulant little girl who refuses to Ascend!"
Rafael absorbs his words for a minute, or appears to.
'So these guys…are angels?' I frown. 'Not exactly…typical angels… Or at least…not what I would expect…'
"Well then… 'Where there's a will, there's a way.'" Rafael reaches over, snatches the snow-white quill from Alistair's hand, and begins to scratch out the last portion of writing.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" exclaims the blue-eyed angel in horror. "You can't just deface The Book like that! And you're using Sacred Ink to do it, too!!"
"Relax. All we're doing is fixing it. Besides, it's not like we've correction fluid or tape to blank out the stuff we don't want."
"This is why only God Himself is allowed to alter the records!" Alistair wails. "Gahhhh!! Why do you always have to break the rules like this?! God may be omniscient, but I'm still going to get in trouble for permitting you to deface The Book!! Why me?!!"
Rafael ignores him, murmuring as he writes: "Placement: to be sent to the Dept. of Reincarnation for reinstatement of Mortality."
"That's 'Dept. of Dimensional Transfers and Relocation,' you dolt! Quit giving everything a nickname, for crying out loud! It ruins the image of organization and professionalism we're trying to maintain!"
Alistair sighs in extreme exasperation before continuing, "Arghhhh!! Why?! Why?!! Why did I have to be assigned to the Department of Induction and Allocation, and thus be constantly harassed by this fool?! I would have been perfectly fine reorganizing and filing the Records in the Department of the Treasury of Historical Matters!!"
"Dude, no one calls it that anymore. Not even God. Just call it the Dept. of History like everyone else does." Rafael sweatdrops.
As the angel Alistair cools down from his tantrum, I summon up the courage to speak. "'The Department of Reincarnation'? Is that what I think it is?"
Rafael flashes his supposedly charming smile as he directs me to a door behind Alistair's desk. "Yep. Sure is. Right this way, my dear."
I step nervously through the doorway and into…
A total pigsty. Thousands of books and trillions of file folders are strewn about the entire expanse of the large white room, save for a black desk smack in the middle of it all, a tight radius of barely half a meter of clear space surrounding it.
"Welcome to the Dept. of Reincarnation! Please—"
"It's the 'Department of Dimensional Transfers and Relocation'!!!" Alistair continues to complain, but the closing door shuts out the rest of his protests and harried speeches of indignation.
"—excuse the mess. I've been swamped with work lately—"
"But mainly you've been lazy!" yells someone from underneath the desk, chucking a five-kilogram volume smack into the side of his head.
"Owww… Watch it, Althie…" Rafael rubs at the victimized spot behind his ear. "You could hurt someone with that…."
An…elf-thing…pops up behind the black lacquered desk, pale beryl eyes flashing, wielding an eight-kilogram volume threateningly. "That was the entire point!"
"Hey, hey! I didn't do anything to deserve this abuse!" Rafael protests, shielding himself.
"Bet you did," I mutter, arms crossed.
My comment attracts the elf-thing's attention.
"Ah! You must be Kuina!" The bony, white-robed angel waves with her free hand, her odd pale beryl eyes dancing. "Name's Althea! I'm the Adjutant Angelic Head of the Dept. of Dimensional Transfers and Relocation, in other words Raff's assistant! Nice to meetcha!"
I stare at her alexandrite hair, a downy bob of curly light-yellow-green locks with a pencil-thin wisp of a ponytail floating at the nape of her neck. "Anou… Are you sure you're an angel, and not an elf…or a pixie-thing?"
To my surprise, Althea tilts her head back and belts out a hearty—and not at all pixyish—laugh. "Hahahahaha!! Oh, ange, is this rich! I've been called an elf, a sprite, a dwarf, even a pixie—but a pixie-thing?! BWAhahahahaha!!!"
"…Anyway…" I begin, trying to redirect the conversation to the matter at hand, "…So what's all this about my being reincarnated?"
Having finally settled down, Althea focuses on my query. "Eh? Whaddaya mean? You're gonna get Reincarnated. What's confusing about that? Aside from 'how,' that is."
"Well…why can't I just go back?" I ask, starting to feel a little foolish, yet irritated by having to repeat myself. "Why do I have to be reincarnated instead?"
Althea raises an eyebrow. "Didn't Alistair already explain? You were destined to die. I could hear the guy all the way from here; he was so blessed loud."
"But if I was 'destined' to die, then why am I being reincarnated?"
The green-eyed angel sighs. "Not only would you not like the reason, but I'm not at liberty to say. God's orders," she adds, already ahead of my next question.
I swallow her words for a moment. Then I ask, "So how's this 'reincarnation' process work?"
"I'll explain—"
"Not you, you dolt!" Althea interrupts Rafael, chucking a 50-kilogram box collection of books at the brown-eyed angel. "Knowing you, you'll leave out an important detail! Just go take a nap for a while! I'll wake you up when it's time to take her back Down!"
Rafael slumps back onto the floor, unconscious, as a rather large bump swells on his head.
"Anyway, back to the 'how.' You're welcome to sit," the angel says, gesturing toward a stack of books in front of the desk.
I sit, somehow apprehensive for a reason I can't understand.
"Okay. In most cases of Reincarnation, the soul in question is simply Reborn as a 'new' person. Some souls manage to retain—well, it's more remember than anything else—memories of their past life—or lives, but that's usually rare—depending on their level of Spirituality. Kinda like willpower, except on a totally different plane of existence and meaning.
"But in your case," Althea continues, "the process is different. Instead of bring 'Reborn' as an entirely different individual, you'll return to the Mortal Realm in your original body and live out a completely different life. Whether you'll be the same person—whether your dreams, beliefs, purpose in life, and so forth will remain the same—is uncertain. Not even Fate decides that. Your name might not, in all likelihood, still be 'Kuina.' You might not even remember your past life.
"And because we're skipping the whole 'growing up' process humans go through—you'll be returning in your 14-year-old body—your soul might not be the same. Breaking the rules of Life can drastically change the very Fabric of a soul's makeup."
I digest the pixie-angel's words. 'Am I sure this isn't all a dream?'
"So are ya ready to return to the Mortal Realm? Or do ya need a coupla minutes to prepare yourself?" Althea spreads her arms out wide, grinning. "Well, you've got all eternity to do it."
Well, what do you think?
:D