Strawhat Luffy with the heal heal fruit

by ulfark

Luffy, before setting out, eats not one but two devils fruits... and lived. He sets out earlier then planned, and with a different mindset. He found out early on that not everything is 'rainbows and sunshine' and happy endings don't come cheap, and that small fact changes his whole life. OCs introduced along with the canon crew. Rated M for violence.

1. A nice day out in the forest with ninety

Chapter one: A nice day out in the forest with ninety-nine percent chance of dying forecasted

Prologue

Luffy was running for his life through the forest from some wolves his gramps said were perfectly harmless. Maybe to him they were just playful little puppies but to Luffy they were the ultimate predators.

He was lucky they had just been circling him so far and hadn't attacked yet. They were most likely checking to see if he had any fellow humans around that could ambush them.

It was a possibility Luffy wouldn't have put past his gramps, using him to catch a meal seemed right up his alley. He would probably call it training and in response to his complaints say 'you need to toughen up son, if you want to be a good marine'. And he seriously wondered why Luffy wanted to be a pirate instead, after all his complaining about lazy no good pirates. Luffy learned only one lesson during his training sessions with his grandpa and that was to do the exact opposite of whatever he said.

A wolf came closer as if testing him or for any other traps and ambushes, his time was running out. They were running him ragged on purpose to tire him out as he knew wolves did with larger prey but he was actually quite small. His only saving grace had been the ingrained fear of humans that they had to overcome, but soon they would judge him as weak enough to devour.

He frantically looked around the forest his gramps had dumped him in and wished once more he could figure out a map. He knew some basics like 'follow the river to get to civilization' but right now a concrete direction would be a godsend. Better yet would be the phantom hunting party the wolves feared but he wasn't that lucky. But if it did happen, maybe they would reward him for being the unintentional bait and get some meat as thanks.

Luffy was already drooling about eating some juicy wolf's hind leg when another one came in view just in front of him with his ears pointed forward his canines bared and his eyes wide open piercing him with a glare. He subconsciously changed direction without thinking about it and realized his mistake seconds after. They were herding him somewhere, most likely a cliff so he could fall off it or some other obstacle. He soon lost his footing when he stormed through some bushes and felt the ground fall out underneath him. Well no not literally but he had just ran off a steep hill so for a few seconds it felt like that. And then came the crash and he rolled down the hill bumping into every stray rock and plant on his way.

He groaned in agony cursing his luck that some thorny plant had to be in his path. He was covered in small cuts and soaking his clothes in more blood. He idly wondered if his blood would lure more animals to join the party. He heard the soft padding of the wolves approaching , he had to get up and show he still had some live left in him before they started to feast on him.

With great effort he sat up halfway and gave a yell of defiance, more to encourage himself than to scare the wolves away really. They just stared at Luffy giving him a 'are you serious' expression. Well maybe they weren't and he was just imagining stuff. But the important thing was that they kept their distance for now. He looked around once more knowing there was no way he could outrun them now that he was hurt. Well he couldn't outrun them before either but details details.

He spotted a weird spiral shaped tree just up ahead that had grown around another dead tree and covered in long thin vines that resembled a bride's veil. Luffy couldn't believe his eyes the easiest tree to climb imaginable was right there within his reach. He ran for it while clutching his wounds, the wolves let him seemingly amused by his last ditch attempt to get away. He clambered up into the tree using the vines as handholds while the spiral tree served as a foothold. The wolves recognized their prey getting away and tried to snap at his back. But the vines impaired their lunges, it denied them a firm foothold as they got caught in its constricting vines. Luffy screamed though, they jumped up and had caught his ankle. Luffy tried to hold on as they tried to drag him back to the ground. He could feel his bones being pulverized by the strength of the wolf's jaw. In a desperate attempt he kicked the wolf with his other leg. It caught him by surprise and he let go and fell back to the ground. Luffy took this respite to keep on climbing while favouring his other foot as much as possible.

he was soon safe high up in the tree and the wolf pack's caution had just cost them a meal. He was however alone and no one was looking for him. But whether this was unlucky or lucky for him was up for debate because in case of his grandpa. He was better off alone because Garp would eat popcorn and cheer the wolves on.

After a few minutes of catching his breath Luffy looked around the oddly shaped tree. The spiral shape had made it easy for him to climb. Which had saved his life as he seriously doubted he could have reached the lower limbs of a normal tree. But with this one he could just run up the trunk while holding onto it at the same time. The wolves had tried to follow but it soon it became too steep for them. They didn't have the advantage of grabbing onto the branches that Luffy had. But they were stubborn and didn't leave which worried Luffy. " How the hell am I going to get home now" cried Luffy

It didn't take long before Luffy got hungry, only fifteen minutes to be exact. It was also coincidentally the same amount of time it took for Luffy to stop worrying about the wolves. Luffy looked around some more and only spotted one weird shaped fruit. It was big and resembled a pineapple somewhat but this one had weird decorations. It was also green and Luffy didn't like green food in general but was willing to make an exception. He climbed up to the top of the tree and plucked the big green fruit.

Luffy didn't bother to think about whether it might be poisonous or not or even if it was ripe. All he cared about was that he was hungry and he had something to eat. He took a big bite out of it and it tasted awful. " I guess it wasn't ripe yet" said Luffy and shrugged and continued eating. He got a weird tingling feeling all over his body and ignored that too. It helped that he had numerous small cuts and bruises over his body that distracted him from it. After he was done eating he took a nap, it wasn't like he was going anywhere after all.

Luffy woke up eight hours later and saw that the wolves had finally given up. " Lucky !" he shouted and jumped down from the tree and ran home. Never did he notice that he had miraculously healed all his wounds during his long nap. Luffy would just write it off as the power of food that healed all his wounds. He would later also become a devout believer that off all foods, meat was by far the most potent in healing and therefore must be consumed in vast quantities.

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Time skip

Luffy was in Makino's bar with his idol trying to impress him by claiming his punch was as strong as a pistol. Never quite realizing that a ordinary pistol wasn't that impressive to the red haired pirates. Though shanks hadn't yet reached the title of Yonkou he did have numerous voyages through the grand line under his belt both with his former captain and on his own. He was a man in his late twenties who had already done and seen more than most men would in their entire life. Right now though he was merely indulging the boy who sounded a bit like his old captain taking him down memory lane.

Then the mountain bandits showed up and demanded ten barrels of rum but shanks and his crew had already drank it all. Shanks tried to solve this peacefully by letting the bandits mess with him a bit so they could get it out of their system. When they left he saw a sulking Luffy who was bitterly disappointed in his hero.

"Why did you let them bully you around like that. Why didn't you stand up for yourself" shouted Luffy

Shanks had to admit that for most people that was a good question if they indeed lacked a spine but for Shanks it was more that he didn't feel like dealing with every weakling seeking fame once they heard he was in town. Fuusha town would be overwhelmed in pirate hordes searching for him and killing and torturing everyone for information. But he couldn't tell that to Luffy so he settled on another convenient truth. " Luffy sometimes it is better not to fight when it isn't worth it. Not everything can be solved with violence."

This didn't appease the young boy and he ran out of the bar screaming" You're just a coward". That hurt a bit coming from the kid who believed in him so much just five minutes ago. But Shanks just shrugged it off and figured Luffy would calm down and hopefully learn a valuable lesson. It was better to lose sometimes than to just keep escalating things till you win. Then Shanks looked at his treasure chest to reaffirm it was still there as most people do when they carry around something valuable and noticed it was missing. " Hey louts where did the treasure chest go"

After some confusion and conferencing among themselves they yelled back" We think the bandits took it when we were distracted by your sideshow with their leader."

Shanks cursed that was a valuable devil fruit. He didn't care much about the money but the power it could give might have helped save one of his nakama one day. Although he personally thought it was a pretty useless power. According to Vegapunk's book it historically belonged only to third rate pirates and marines.

No one had been able to make it into a decent weapon and was used more for entertainment than anything else. Shanks wondered for a minute if going after it was worth it but then realized he was in East blue the weakest sea. Even that third rate devil fruit could turn a two bit crook into a formidable pirate in these waters. So he rallied his men to give chase, sadly his crew were so drunk they could barely walk straight. That was due to the sense of safety of being in the weakest sea, it was their holiday for a reason after all. After a few minutes and a bit of arguing they got up and organized a search party.

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The bandits meanwhile were in the forest breaking the lock on the treasure chest they had stolen while no one was looking. They had the crowbar and lock picks all ready when they realized it wasn't locked. " Who the hell doesn't lock a treasure chest" they all yelled loudly. Then they looked inside and only saw a weird ass fruit. "No wonder it wasn't locked it's just a interesting peculiarity they picked up" Higuma said. Another asked "What's a peculariarity "

The group looked at him and let out a sigh, no wonder the world government looked down on them so much when the average bandit was this stupid. Everyone knew the marines was where the elites went. And the police got the rejects, and those same rejects were tasked in capturing bandits. Getting caught by rejects really hurt their pride, but they were thankful not to have drawn the ire of the elite marines. They decided to answer him rather than hit him for his stupidity as that could only make matters worse. Higuma said " An odd trinket or some such numbskull." The myth of devil fruits wasn't well known in east blue and so they didn't recognize it for what it was. The above average bandit wasn't that much smarter after all, they just had more common sense.

The bandits weren't interested in it and threw it down the hill were it rolled into the bushes and moved on. An hour later they were confronted by the red haired pirates who demanded to know where their fruit was.

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Luffy was skulking through the forest after that pathetic display by his idol. He couldn't believe that Shanks was that big of a coward. It didn't make any sense, his gramps had been disapproving of him but didn't bother arresting him. That only made sense if Shanks was either too weak to bother with or too strong to take on alone. He knew the local bandits were too weak to be bothered with but his gramps didn't like his relationship with Shanks so he would probably arrest him to put a stop to it.

Unless he didn't, to spare his feelings which Luffy seriously doubted. His gramps had overlooked how he felt about things for years by throwing him into different forests with wild animals. So that meant that Shanks had to be too strong to take on without back up. But why didn't Shanks defend himself then against those lowlifes. He was getting a head ache from all this thinking.

Luffy was snapped out of his thoughts as he heard something roll down the hill a little up ahead. He ran over to see what it was. He saw it was another of those weird fruits he ate a while back. He remembered the weird taste but hoped this one was ripe enough to eat this time and ate it.

He was wrong this one tasted awful as well and he got a weird tingling all over his body but Luffy wasn't that worried. But then it intensified and came from inside his guts and felt like it was bursting open. He started to bleed all over, not just from his mouth but his eyes and ears as well. Luffy was in intense agony and he screamed his throat hoarse.

Luffy got dizzy and stumbled and fell into the river and his screams got muffled by the water. He wanted to get out or he would drown but he couldn't move. His entire body seemed to be on fire and he couldn't even lift a finger.

Luffy thought he might die before he showed Shanks that he was a better pirate than he would ever be which was unacceptable to him. Luffy fought with his willpower to survive somehow fighting through the pain to stay conscious.

Luffy triggered his heal heal fruit and it started to heal his wounds as fast as it could. But Luffy's entire body was disintegrating and it was struggling to keep up. The two fruits were battling it out inside of him trying to impart their special properties on his cells. By trial and error they tried different combinations until they found a DNA combination that allowed them to coexist. This decomposing and recomposing was sheer torture and couldn't be survived by any man.

This was the reason for the iron clad rule that you couldn't eat two devil fruits. But the iyasu iyasu fruit allowed luffy to survive it. Although he was most definitely not thankful for it at the moment. He was still trapped inside the river and was being carried to the sea which was a sure devil fruit user killer.

He had tried to learn how to swim in the shallow bits of this river before but hadn't tried it in the sea. For a good reason because even Luffy knew about the sea king just offshore. Luffy had by now fallen unconscious and wouldn't have been able to swim even if he was awake. His body was still in excruciating agony and wouldn't be done incorporating his two fruits anytime soon.

His body flowed down the river bumping in debris along the way that he could have grabbed onto if he was awake. It was by a stroke of misfortune and luck that his clothing got caught on a tree branch. It would have been good if he could breathe. But he was still underwater thus drowning, luckily his heal heal fruit prevented any major brain damage ( though some doctors disagree). After some time his gomu gomu fruit finally reconciled with the heal heal fruit and activated.

The current of the river stretched his limbs and this increased the pull the river had on him. Eventually the branch broke under the strain and he washed up on the river bank. He would have drifted out onto sea if it wasn't for his long limbs that clogged up the river and changed his direction. So in the end the branch actually saved his life after trying its hardest to kill him, maybe it gave up.

When Luffy woke up he was still sore all over and this time he did think that maybe weird looking fruits were poisonous. He limped to town to get some help and eat something non poisonous.

When he got there he spotted the red haired pirates standing in town arguing with each other. He asked a villager what was wrong " Those mountain bandits were stupid enough to steal something valuable from those pirates so they gave chase and killed them when they found out they threw it away" replied the villager

"Really why would they throw away treasure" asked Luffy not understanding why anyone would throw away treasure.

"Apparently they claimed they didn't know what it was." replied the villager calmly. He was glad that the rather docile pirates had gotten rid of the annoying mountain bandits.

Luffy went up to Shanks and greeted him " Dear god, Luffy what happened to you" asked Shanks

" Nothing I fell in the river" said Luffy not bothering denying it as he was still drenched and had cuts and bruises everywhere from the debris in the river. " Never mind that. what happened with you and those bandits when you said that it was better not to fight" asked Luffy. Although he didn't mind standing up for yourself. Getting revenge because someone stole something from you by killing them was going too far.

Shanks saw the confusion on the boy's face and decided brutal honesty was best as a sugar coated one would only make matters worse. " Luffy what they stole from us was something that could turn a weakling into a strong guy overnight. If those scoundrels got their hands on it they would terrorize this town and no one would be able to stand up to them. We tried to get it back but they lied and said they threw it away. We checked were they said it was supposed to be and found nothing. They must have hidden it somewhere but they didn't tell us where. So we had to kill them all so none of them could find it and use it."

" You didn't have to kill them! You could have just handed them over to the marines" yelled Luffy with a vein pulsing above his right eye. Though he preferred to be a pirate he did still respect the marines in no small part because his gramps was one.

" Luffy I'm a pirate they would arrest me on first sight not to mention that the marines around here are lax and corrupt. They could have just bribed their way out of jail and then terrorize this area, Killing them was the only way to make sure that didn't happen. I know I said that sometimes fighting wouldn't solve anything but also sometimes it is the only way to solve something. You understand? " tried to explain Shanks unsure of himself whether he was doing a good job.

" I guess" said Luffy trying to wrap his brain around it. The only basic notion that got through his skull though. Was that you had to kill the bad guys or they would kill your friends. Gone was his childish notion of just beating up the bad guy and it would all be okay. As they would just get up again once you turned your back. With this one conversation Shanks had set in motion a massive shift in Luffy's personality.

Instead of teaching him restraint as he had tried to do earlier in the bar. He had taught him that mercy wasn't always deserved and could bite you in the ass. " Luffy don't worry about that for now. " Said Shanks he then took off his straw hat and put it on Luffy's head " Give that back to me when you become a great pirate okay" said Shanks trying to distract him, though he was serious and had been planning on giving it to him before. He had finally acknowledged Luffy's dream, and unconsciously associated the necessity to kill with becoming a pirate for Luffy, which had never been Shanks' intention by giving it right after killing the bandits.

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AUTHOR NOTES

minor spoiler alert

This is my first story and English isn't my first language so please criticize it into the ground or else I will think you're lying. I'm in need of a beta, preferably a female beta who absolutely hates weak female heroines and loves those who kick ass. I want to write something along those lines so I need someone to tell me if what I write actually makes sense from a female's perspective. also some love for background setting is appreciated because right now if my background descriptions were clothes my story would be more naked than a nudist on a beach. I need the kick in my pants to actually write some.

I welcome all constructive criticism and off course creative insults. if you are going to complain about my writing skills you've got to show me how it's done by the experts. I really need a few tutoring lessons on creative cursing as I tend to stick to only a few that roll of the tongue but are really unimaginative. Preferably some kind of metaphor that takes a few seconds for the other guy to realize he's just been insulted.

I have already written out another couple of chapters which I really only need to polish and add the capital letters to. so it might only take me a few months to finish the next chapter. I really hate capital letters if it wasn't mandatory to seem smarter than a six year old, I would boycott them.

In case you haven't noticed, the first part of the story will be before Luffy turns seventeen to prevent the boring drudgery of Alvida, Morgan, Buggy, Krieg and Arlong. I only glanced at a few One piece fics but after reading the same story with minor variations a dozen times I was already sick of them. so I will try to prevent that but will most likely fail miserably, so feel free to shoot me then.

To those complaining about a overpowered luffy, just picture the cannon luffy with the heal heal fruit and triggering it unconsciously during big fights. Now doesn't he have a miraculous tendency to pull through crippling injuries. Couldn't it have been that he ate the heal heal fruit but never realized it ?

The heal heal fruit is my answer to my personal annoyance with good guys being able to fight through severe injuries to the point of being soaked in their own blood and actually fight better than when they were uninjured. That's just taking wish fulfilment to the extreme and kills the tension. I no longer care how beat up they get so long as it looks good. The same problem with endings, I know its going to end well I just want to know how. The process is more interesting than the result and I want to at least give a more believable explanation for it than willpower.

That being said I still love the scene where Arlong rips of Zoro's bandages and reveals his torso almost cut in half, fighting on despite that shows you why Zoro is a boss. But Zoro actually suffers from his wounds on a regular basis unlike luffy and ichigo etc. Special abilities are great but they need to have limitations. That's why death note and code geass are my favorites, they had god like powers but severe limitations as well forcing them to work around it. Not to mention the bad ending where the MC died without fulfilling his goal. I had to take a moment to actually believe what just happened it was that shocking. And to this day I firmly believe Lelouch is still alive because I can't bear the thought he isn't and that is good writing. Sadly I'm not that good so don't expect it here.

P.S. disclaimer I do not own one piece or any other copyrighted work or else I wouldn't be here now would I. I would be lounging on my couch thinking of another book that actually earns money.