Nobody ever asked what happened to Gold Roger's nakama.
They postulated and pondered and concluded that the ailing doctor living in the frozen peaks of a perpetual December was proof enough that Gold Roger's nakama were alive and dispersed. But they were wrong. She was just an old woman who had sired a famous reindeer, whose fame concerning the First King was the product of a certain treasure residing in the Grand Line.
Happy with that falsehood, they turned their attention to the premature fate of the Demon Child, Luffy the King's nakama. Disagreements birthed, tempers flared: scientists pointed to Raftel's strange magnetic quality compared to the other islands of the Grand Line and proposed that a huge storm was caused thusly. Fatalists believed that the Devil was calling its child back home; realists assumed that it was just bad luck. The pseudo-sciences forced their way in. The Sandai Kitetsu was mentioned many times with only legend to back it up. Someone took a trip on stimulants and proposed that if the Straw Hats had not passed him by he could have saved them.
His suggestion was one of many. Soon the entire globe thought they could have saved the King. And none of them could prove their beliefs except for a single dead woman lying in the ruins of an ancient desert country. But the King had left her to die and c'est la vie.
People should have just let it go. And perhaps they would have if Time and the silver orb that was the sole inhabitant of a small island in the middle of nowhere had not crafted a different sort of plan.
Sentience. Conscious thought and ability to make decisions based on anything other than instinct. And emotion as well, all curses bestowed upon the pallid silver King of Treasures. For the first time since time smiled on the lonely planet Earth, the One Piece was unsure and divided within itself over its method of dealing with the late King.
The child
didn't really deserve to be denied a peaceful death with his
nakama.
No. It was the
heartless beast that stole the lives of hundreds of pirates every
day. It couldn't afford to feel bad for any tiny excuse for a King.
It would
follow through with its plan.
Taking in a proverbial breath, the One Piece concentrated its arcane power to the threads of time. Slowly, slowly, the threads ceased their movement until the entire globe was caught in a frozen beauty. Then backwards. Like a pendulum forced to swing the wrong way, slow at first: faster, faster, time spun backwards. Dancing. Spinning. The lines of time streaks of white on frozen black-
Then a
stop. And the threads were released so that time could run once
again.
The One
Piece pulled within itself, dormant once again.
And so it came to pass that eternity fled and time fled two years with it.
He shook his head and stared out into the clear sky. He could have sworn he was sleeping and had forgotten his dream right before waking up. There was a strange emptiness in his chest as he struggled to recall the dream and returned nothing.
His name was Monkey D. Luffy, seventeen years old. He had left his hometown two hours ago in a small craft to see out his dream. "I will..." He mumbled under his breath, "I will become the Pirate King. Just you watch."
/kanthia writes-
If you haven't read kanthia's piece of fiction entitled 'Raftel', please do so. 'Once More from the top' is its sequel.
A million thanks to the people who have been kind enough to comment. You guys are awesome- thank you so much. Your reviews are like little pieces of sunshine for Kanthia.