The Life of a Pariah
AN: This is my attempt in adding my OC (Raizen) into the world of One Piece.
I'm sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors in my writing. I realize I'm not the best writer in the world but thanks for putting up with this. By the way if any of you guys get the hints of Rai's past you get a golden star of approval.
Tell me what you think, I'll take your suggestions!
And so without much further ado here is the story of One Piece told in Raizen's perspective.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but Raizen idea. Everything else goes to the wonderful Oda.
[HAH! I did it. I edited this monster, I added a bit more to it, nothing major, just a few touches here and there.]
Chapter 1
The day was calm with a few white clouds scattered across the sky with no sign of a storm to come for the day. There was a slight breeze that swept through the small island in the East Blue. I'm sure it had a name but I couldn't care less. I had other things on my mind, or on my plate, meaning I was on a job to look for some random pirate who pissed off the wrong people and I was hired to "relieve him of his duties" if you will.
During my search that had taken all of six days, I found myself walking down the street in broad daylight a strange thing for someone with my specific career choice. This pirate seemed to had to have some sort of hint that I was the assassin going after him, I did after all make quite the name for myself.
I groaned to myself when I heard my stomach begging for some food. It must have been around lunch time if my body wasn't too out of sync from my lack of sleep. I placed a hand on my forehead in frustration which turned into me rubbing one of my eyes until I was seeing white spots. Out of the corner of my other eye I noticed as I walked past a small boutique with the usual clothing, accessories inside. What caught my eye was a mirror stood up behind the glass with quite the price tag attached to it. I walked closer to look at the reflection and saw a perhaps less than average sized woman wearing a pair of shorts with a red shirt that had a sort of cloud in the middle and a pair of slightly worn out shoes. Her hair wasn't styled much, it was wavy raven hair reaching down with a couple of curls coming down a bit below her neck, her bangs were getting longer and we're starting to cover her left eye, cutting them would be a good idea, after all that soft blue color for eyes and the black hair watched with made her lightly tanned skin that had turned pale from lack of needed nutrition made her look like a walking corpse.
I growled at the reflection before me and turned to walk away from the store with the overpriced mirror. I had seen that face all my life and as the years go on my thoughts of disgust and hate have grown. All I ever saw was a murderer. A heartless, cold blooded, good for nothing murderer. I was plenty tired of looking at my own reflection and feeling nothing but anger.
I pushed the image out of my mind and went back to look for the man I was looking for. I continued my search by looking down all the alleys I could, stopping occasionally when I heard the smallest indication of life. Most of the time it ended up being a stray cat, more than once I found a drunk and I had managed to scare the shit out of them by putting a knife to their throat when I asked for their name.
I was becoming frustrated. Not only was I not told what the man looked like, but I was only told to look in a general area that covered four different islands. It was ridiculous, I wouldn't have taken the job had I know the customer would have given me shit instructions. Then again it wasn't really my call.
I was thinking about giving up on looking for my mystery target in the alleyways when I came down a particularly dark ally. Standing at the very end and looking a bit on the confused side, probably drunk, stood a tall, well built man. I pulled out a decent sized hidden blade from my boot and held it so the blade was almost touching my forearm. I walked slowly and made sure to not make a sound as I approached the man in the dim light, for all I knew he could be the one I was looking for, then I spotted his green hair. I frowned at the color, someone would have told me if my target had hair that stood out in a crowd. I was only about a foot and a half away at that point, so I was close enough to stab him but also close enough to notice the small movement he made to move his hand closer to his hip. I held my ground and only adjusted the knife so it was in front of me. I observed the man in front of me to notice he was wearing a haramaki and as strange as it was the green thing also had not one but three swords attached to it on his right side, where his hand was. The man I was after only used guns, or so I was told so I stood up a bit straighter and took a few steps back to show the man I meant no harm so I loosened my grip on the knife and placed it back in my shoe until I needed it again, but I did not relax. I continued to remain alert on case the man tried anything.
"Sorry about that, I thought you were someone else." I laughed a bit to bring on a lighter mood to the situation.
"Where did this town move the stupid port?" I didn't answer, instead I thought his sentence over and realized the man was either drunk, completely stoned or lost. As he didn't smell like a bar or like any drug I had been introduced to and he did not slur his words when he did speak I threw out drunk and stoned rather quickly. So he must be lost.
"It didn't move, you just seem to be disoriented," to say the least. I pointed out of the alley to the direction I was going before I spotted him. "The port's that way."
"No," green-hair replied looking towards the exit of the alley then back at the wall. "I already checked there, I didn't find it."
"Did you walk past the buildings?" He mumbled under his breath and held a stern look on his face, touchy guy. "I need to go back anyways so, I can walk you there if you want if you don't then good luck."I turned around and made my way out of the alley and towards where I had left the dinghy I had stolen.
It didn't take me long to put together how he had gotten lost, the man had a terrible sense of direction. More than once I lost the sound of his feet behind me and had to turn around and find him again a few feet away going a different direction. When I asked why he went one way when I went the other he claimed to have thought he remembered how to get back. The excursion that only should have taken five minutes took all of fifteen minutes for me to become frustrated enough for me to grab the front of his shirt and drag him towards the port.
"You missed the turn." He said looking down another alleyway as I pulled him.
"No, that's the same way you tried to go ten minutes ago." I yelled back regretting my decision to help.
"Are you sure?"
"There's a sign right there Green-Hair, read it." I dragged him past a sign that pointed towards where we were headed.
"That's not my name, Onna." He said ignoring the sign.
"And that is not mine."
"Then what is it, Onna?" I huffed in annoyance, this man was turning out to be more trouble than he was worth, which was nothing at all.
"Isn't it custom to state your own name first." I said looking at him out of the corner of my eye.
"Roronoa Zoro." He said in a flat tone. "You?"
"Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro?" I slowed down a little and released my grip on his shirt to look at his haramaki again and the three swords hanging from it. "I've heard you have an interesting style of swordsmanship."
"Santoryuu, what's your name?" He insisted.
"Raizen, I would say it was nice to meet you but it wasn't in any way." I caught the frown on his face and I grinned in return.
"That's it? Just Raizen?"
"It's simple, surely you will be able to remember that Pirate Hunter." With that we reached our destination and I gave him a final look. "Well, it's been fun," I told him as I walked to where I remember leaving the boat before returning again to keep looking for the pirate. I just wanted to kill him and leave, Sousuke would be worried if I didn't return in time, and he would end up doing something horrible to one of- no, I didn't want to think about that, not right now anyways. I had work to do, I would let my mind wander later. I didn't walk far before a smiling teenager wearing red vest and a Straw Hat appeared blocking my path.
"You brought Zoro back!" He smiled at me, like I was his long lost buddy or something.
"Yeah, you're welcome?"
Weird kid.
"Thanks!" He walked past me and patted Pirate Hunter on the shoulder.
"Sure. I guess."
"Hey, lady do you know where we can get meat?" He asked enthusiastically.
"Uh, well...I'm pretty sure there are a few restaurants in town." I replied as I continued to walk towards my things but I was pulled backwards and all too suddenly found myself standing in front of him. When I looked down to see how I had gotten there I saw his arm seemingly boneless wrapped twice around my waist.
"What the hell!" I struggled trying to wiggle out of his strangely strong grip pulling his arm away, but when I released it the thing snapped back to where it had been. "What are you?" This was not a trick, he must have eaten a devil fruit as well for his body to do something so strange.
"Come with us." He laughed
"Where? Hey, wait! Let me go!" I pulled at his arm when he started walking towards the town, I dug my heels into the ground but to my disadvantage it was sand so I was just being dragged along.
"Luffy let her go!" Yelled the voice of a woman, I don't exactly know what happened but I assume this Luffy let me go and as I was trying so hard to get away I fell backwards but instead of feeling the sandy ground I felt a hand on my back and a firm grasp on my arm that kept me up. I nodded a thank you to the swordsman and stood up on my own.
"LUFFY! You can't just kidnap people whenever you want too!" I stood up and looked at the woman as she yelled at the kid. She was redheaded and slender but still taller than me by an inch or two. Once she was done with the kid she turned to the swordsman and began a lecture on how he should stop wandering off and getting lost.
"I wasn't lost, I was looking for some swords." He said with annoyance clear in his voice.
"You were standing in the middle of an alley," I mumbled under my breath.
The woman looked at me and with a defeated sigh decided to drop her lecture. "I'm Nami, by the way. Sorry, the idiot trying to drag you away is our captain, Luffy, the other one is Zoro." She apologized with a smile on her face.
"Captain?" I took a few steps back and looked towards the child captain. "You're pirates." I didn't ask more, like demanded.
"Yeah!" The boy laughed.
"What's your name?" I was reaching for one if the twin blades I kept on my back. He didn't seem like my target, but I had learned long ago to not trust appearances and remained ready to kill him the name fit.
"Monkey D. Luffy! What's your name?" I relaxed my shoulders and brought my arm to cross the other one over my chest.
"Raizen. Nice to meet you," I replied forcing a smile. "We'll it's been...interesting, but I have things to do, oh and Roronoa, do everyone on this island a favor and stay close to your crew." I walked away and smiled to myself when the man cursed under his breath.
My supplies can wait, that took way too long anyways. Now back to work.
-#-
After spending the following 8 hours searching the shadows for my target, I gave up for the day and decided to search again tomorrow. So I made my way to the port where I had left the boat I used to arrive to the island. I struck me a bit odd to see the lack of people on the streets running around worrying about diner and returning to their families as I had noticed they usually did by that time of day. I decided to ignore the lack of people and put it off as some sort of celebration. When I arrived at the port I found where the townspeople had gone. They were standing around and talking about some fight involving two men, one woman and another group of pirates. I had a guess who the three were fighting, the other group was a mystery, but a grin grew on my face at the thought of finally leaving the island.
Weaving through the crowd of terrified villagers going the opposite direction was difficult to say the least, but well worth it. There, in the middle of a fight, was the pirate captain with the straw hat fighting a group of pirates, and to my surprise I saw his arm stretch as he punch a man that held two guns at the younger captain. "So he is a Devil Fruit user." It was quite rare to find them outside the Grand Line. Even more so to find one in the weakest of the four seas. I looked back at the man who the captain was fighting and noticed the few bits of information I was given to track him down. He had three classing colors painted on his face that split it into three parts, his right eye, his nose, and left eye. "Three Faced," I whispered to myself. With a sigh of relief of finding my target I pulled out my twin swords and started making plans on getting to him.
I was distracted from my plans by the sight of a few of my target's crew members heading towards tohe civilians with plans of murder in their eyes. I knew I was a killer, I had accepted the fact that the jobs I would be taken were not always the cleanest or most just, I had killed my fair share of civilians as well but I don't like seeing innocent people get hurt and if they were not interfering or in my way then I wouldn't hurt anyone that didn't have to be. I had seen enough innocent people be hurt around or because of me, so naturally I gave the idea to intervene no thought whatsoever. In a fraction of the time it took the pirates to reach the townspeople I had managed to stand in their way and sprayed the white and with red. Those that had not died on the spot tried to run back to their captain leaving a trail of blood. I again intervened and finished the few that remained letting the last fall infront of my target and smiled when he gave me a vicious look.
"Why you," the man looked from his men to me and quickly raised his guns at me, I in turn gripped my swords tighter
"What the? Raizen? Woaah!" I heard Luffy's voice behind me and judging by how he sounded I could be pretty certain he had a smile on his face.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I heard a low growl presumably coming from Roronoa.
"Where'd you come from?" Nami demanded even as she sounded a bit out of breath.
"Who are you! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I AM THE FEARED PIRATE -"
"Three Faced Mazgo." I cut him off before he finished with that annoying voice of his. "Yes, I am aware. You've caused me quite the bit of trouble you know. Traveling from one island to the other to avoid capture."
"So you have heard of me, what do you want? To join my crew?" He gave me a taunting grin and dropped the guns to point at the floor, I in turn returned with a raised eyebrow.
"Not at all. I have been looking for you for the past six days because it seems as though you stole something of value from my employer, and he would very much like it back you see. So I'll give you a choice." I placed one of my swords back in its sheath and held out my hand. "Give it back to me and the chance of you and your crew living goes up, or I can get creative." I had a small smile on my face as a held my sword to his neck.
"Employer? You're an assassin." He squirmed under the sword trying to avoid the point.
"That's not the answer I'm looking for." I motioned for him to hand me the thing I was looking for.
"Let go of our Captain you bitch!" Some of his crew members yelled, proceeded by the sound of gun fire.
I turned to the sound just in time to see Luffy jump in front of the bullets, not giving me time to react but it didn't matter in the end, the bullets did hit him but much like rubber they bounced back flying in several directions, some hitting the crew others not.
"What- what are you?" I asked in awe, never had I seen or heard of devil fruit that could to that.
"I'm a rubber man!" Luffy laughed putting a finger in his mouth and stretching his cheek far beyond humanly possible.
"PUT THE SWORD DOWN!" I redirected my attention to Mazgo, who now held two guns pointed at me.
"You really don't want to do that." I glared at him as whilst he laughed.
"You're as good as dead girly." I narrowed my eyes and walked toward him and held my sword tightly. I knew exactly what was coming.
"Raizen get out if the-"
BANG BANG BANG BANG
Nami scream behind me, and I guess she had good reason too; the pirate had shot four rounds that would have killed me if I had not pointed my sword to the ground and used it as extra impulse to avoid them quick enough so that only one of them grazed my left cheek. I stumbled slightly and cracked a smile, raising my hand, a shadow followed and wrapped around his arms and chest pulling them together and making him drop the guns.
"So would you like to tell me where the diamond is?." I leaned down and grabbed one of the overly decorated guns he had shot me with. It was far too heavy so it accuracy wouldn't be as good, but I aimed the gun for two inches away from his forehead, aiming wouldn't matter.
"DIAMOND?!" Nami screeched.
"You wouldn't dare!" The man laughed which in turn caused his men to laugh. I pointed the gun a few inches away so the bullet went right through his ear then turning it back to point at his forehead. "FUCK! YOU BITCH!"
"Answer my question."
"I have it, goddamnit! It's in my coat pocket!" The shadows moved a bit to make room for my hand and with little rummaging I brought my arm back to me with the large pink diamond in the shape of a raindrop that took up a little more than half my palm in my hand. "There you got what you wanted, now let me go!"
"Is that it? Can I hold it? Please! I'll take good care of it!" I held my hand away from her as she tried to do something with her eyes to get me to give it to her.
"We had a deal!" Mazgo yelled once again trying to fight his way out of my shadows.
"My job was to retrieve the diamond, and to make sure you never try to steal it again. Goodbye." I watched his face morph into one of horror as I pulled the trigger and the bullet went into his head. I retracted the shadows and he fell back a lifeless lump of meat into the sand staining it red along with his crewmembers. "Anyone else?" I looked up at the few crew members that were still living and smiled when they backed away and ran to wherever their ship was. I dropped the gun onto the dead pirates body and walked past a stunned Nami towards "my" dinghy. There wasn't much in there just a bit of food, my bow and arrows, two guns and a few knives. I placed the jewel into a pouch and placed that in a pocket in my quiver, there it would stay until I could get to the next island that had some sort of passage Underground to get my money.
"What did you-" Ignoring the three pirates behind me, they were pirates, this sort of thing should be pretty normal for them.
"You- were, then you-and he-" Nami stuttered.
"Yes, he shot at me and I killed him. Thank you for the brief summary." I moved things around grabbed a map as I tried to figure out how to get back home since my business in the East Blue was finished.
"How did you do that? Why did you kill him?" She asked again, obviously not trusting me, not that I blamed her.
"I was hired to retrieve the jewel he had stolen from my employer and there I was promised a bonus if I kill him. As for how I kept him from moving, I happen to be a Devil Fruit user as well." Luffy's eyes lit up and suddenly grabbed my arm.
"Really? Which one do you eat!?" Surprised by how quickly he grabbed hold of me I stood silent for a bit.
"Kage-Kage no Mi, I believe. I control shadow more specifically those of inanimate objects ." I raised my hand and pulled the shadow of the dinghy out from under it and let it take form of a random blob floating rising from the ground.
"Awesome!" The boy yelled with sparkling eyes as he went to grab the dark form and found that his fingers went right through it. I flicked my fingers again and when he went to grab it again he hit a solid black blob much to his excitement.
"What do you mean hired?" Roronoa asked staring at the dinghy.
"I mean some guy paid me to kill him," I pointed over to the body on the ground, damn how hard was it to understand that simple concept!
"You kill for hire?"
"Yeah, that's usually what an assassin does." I was going to get a headache if I this kept on going.
"YOU'RE AN ASSASSIN?!" The three screamed at me.
"Good gods, YES!" I yelled back.
"I've never met an assassin before! What do you do?" Straw Hat asked his eyes sparkling. At this I hit my forehead with my palm and let out a loud sigh that sounded more like something dying.
"How are you an assassin?" Roronoa asked his hand already on the hilt of one of his katana.
"What do you mean how? I just am." I looked at him staring back, I have seen quite a few "hot shots" so one more did not intimidate me.
"Hey, Raizen's your name right?" Luffy asked
"Yeah."
"Join my crew!" He smiled brightly.
"You just saw me murder a guy in cold blood and you're asking me a question like that? You don't even know anything about me."
What is wrong with this boy?
"But you only kill the bad guys right?"
"Well, I guess that's the case on certain jobs, but-"
"THEN JOIN MY CREW!" Luffy insisted, I shook my head firmly.
"Look, I don't have time to play pirate with you and your-"
I had no chance to finish, there was a sudden gun shot and a bullet zoomed past my right shoulder.
"Shit! This is your fault!" I yelled at Luffy, who just stared back giving me a confused look "I should be out at sea by now! Dammit!" I faced the Three Faced Pirates and grabbed the small rod that was strapped to my lower back under the shirt.
"Hey, I can help!" Luffy smiled standing next to me.
"If you get in my way Straw Hat, so help me I will murder you." I growled before extending rod to a full sized pole, and touched the end of it to my shadow and let it crawl the rod and began to take shape. In a few seconds the blob took the form of a scythe. My favorite weapon, I spun it with ease and lifted it right side up.
"You bitch you killed our captain!" One of the pirates yelled, aiming his gun.
"You will pay!" yelled another.
"If you leave now, I won't hurt you alright?" They didn't piss me off, In fact they annoyed me. I knew the outcome of this 'battle' from the get-go.
"We'll kill you!" The other pirates yelled. I closed my eyes to take a deep breath, as the men kept firing. Luffy was already ahead of me and began taking them down. He was quite strong for a scrawny little brat.
"Oi! Luffy! Get down!" I opening my eyes. Knowing all too well what I was doing, my eyes had turned to a bright golden color. I could feel it, the tingling pain coursing through my body, it was my 'special' blood taking control. I never liked the sensation, but I can't hold it behind blue eyes forever. I quickly made my way over to Luffy who did as told just in time for him to avoid the slash of the weapon. I moved swiftly through the crowd of idiots and took out several at a time, making me slightly smile at the sight of them.
I guess at one point I forgot this wasn't a training exercise and dropped my guard. Before I could react, I heard metal hit metal. When I looked behind me to my surprise I saw Roronoa holding three swords, one in each hand and the other in his mouth. What an interesting guy. He glared at me from behind that black bandana of his.
"What are you doing assassin, this is your mess!" He spoke quite clearly despite the sword in his mouth. I frowned.
"Hey I had this under control! But YOUR captain just HAD to get involved!" I yelled back, such a troublesome guy. I gripped my scythe tightly and swung it, hitting the other four pirates behind him.
"Pay attention." I smiled when he frowned at me.
"Who the hell are you?!" The angry pirates questioned, and thank goodness they said something. I had almost forgotten they were there. Such a bother, I raised my hand.
"Shadows flame" A large group of shadows rose from the shifty sand and attacked them, taking the form of fire. Despite being only shadows, I made the black 'fire' copy the main attribute of the element, and watched as the pirates ran screaming about the pain of being burned. Of course there were some weaklings that refused to go down without some sort if satisfaction and in a desperate attempt, ran towards Nami.
"You pathetic pieces of shit!" I turned to them and luckily beat them to her. "You're here to kill me arent you?" With one simple movement of the weapon they were all down, either dead or passes out, I didn't know but surely didn't care. I looked back at Nami, the poor girl had fallen seated onto the sand.
"You ok?" The tingling sensation went away, giving me the comfort of knowing my eyes had gone back to their blue color, my scythe disappeared and returned to be a part of my dark shadow and with a shake of the pole it shrunk back into a small rod, which I placed on my back again. "Hey." I called her out, waving my hand in front of her face "Did you pass out?"
"That was awesome!" Luffy yelled, "You have to join my crew!"
"Just say yes, he won't stop bothering you till you do." Roronoa sighed placing his katana back in his sheath and tying the bandana to his left arm. They were all so strange, even Nami, who seemed to be a little less than the swordsman and captain.
"He's right." Nami said finally standing up again. "Just get it over with". She smiled at me. I knew what this would mean, not only for me but for them. But I guess a few weeks wouldn't hurt, just until they got anywhere close to the entrance to the Grand Line, then I would be gone.
"Fine."
"YES!"
"BUT! I'll only travel with you for a short period of time. Agreed?"
"Yes!" Luffy screamed, wrapping his arms around me several times. I sighed lightly, I had a feeling that I was going to regret this.
-#-
After the incident with the pirates I escorted Luffy to a restaurant that had Nami's qualifications of not being dreadfully expensive. It was the loudest lunch I had ever been a part of. The guy could really eat, a lot, if I didn't know any better I would have said he was a bottomless pit.
"Does he always eat this much?" I asked Roronoa who sat across from me drinking some booze.
"I don't think he would ever stop eating if that were an option" He laughed whole heartedly. I had found out a few things about him and Nami, nothing all too big, but enough to keep me satisfied about traveling with strangers.
"So where are you headed?" I asked chugging down another pint of rum.
"The Grand Line!" I choked and began to cough, assisted by Nami gently patting my back. "I'm going to be the King of the Pirates!" He laughed with that crazed smile ever present. This boy was crazy!
"King of the-" I repeated "Do you know what you're getting yourselves into? The Grand Line is no laughing matter, that place is very dangerous! If you're planning to go in a boat, you won't survive."
"We're gonna find a big ship! And sail in that!" Luffy smiled, using his hands filled with meat to show just how big it was to be, before getting distracted with food again. Diner didn't last too much longer, but I spent the rest of the time drinking tea and tugged my hair.
What have I gotten myself into.
All the same, they were going straight to the Grand Line, I guess it was luck in a strange way.
-#-
After two and a half hours of watching Luffy eat, he decided enough time had been spent and it was time to head out to sea, and seeing as my boat became even more screwed up with the fight earlier, I placed my things into the boat with Luffy and Roronoa while Nami sat in the other, not trusting that she wouldn't try to steal the jewel. It was a calming experience besides Luffy's continuous whining about his mighty need for meat, and Roronoa's addiction to sake. It was actually entertaining to witness.
Not long after the sun went down two of them were out cold, leaving me with the option of being the look out. Roronoa disagreed and wanted to take over my shift, so I yelled and yelled until I had finally annoyed him enough and won. Even If I wanted to sleep I couldn't, my memory would keep me awake and that would lead to the insomnia that kept me awake most nights. Usually I wouldn't sleep for a week or so before finally passing out on some floor and waking up hours later.
I positioned myself so I could almost touch the water, but I knew better so instead I played with the boats shadow, making figures and letters from an almost lost language.
"What are you doing?" A hoarse voice asked. It startled me, but when I looked up I saw the brute yawning.
"Being the lookout."
"You're supposed to be looking out towards the ocean, not into it."
"Don't give yourself an aneurysm about it. There hasn't been anything to bother waking you three over." I stared at him. I was finding him more of a bother the longer I hung around.
"What?" He huffed.
"Such a barbarian, Roronoa." I scoffed. He growled and ran his hand over his short hair.
"Zoro."
"Excuse me?"
"Just call me Zoro." He said looking away, "After all we are nakama now." I had never been called that before. Despite my... Well, I guess in my situation there is no use for such a word.
"Well then Zoro, go back to sleep. I'll keep watch." He nodded and in a few minutes began to snore. I looked up at the starry sky. It really had been a long time since I was last able to do this. I guess I would enjoy it while I could. I gently traced my hand over the mark on the left side of my stomach, and begun to hum a tune my late sister had taught me.
AN: That's finally over! HUZZAH!
Well then, this looked a lot longer in Word..
Now to write the rest of this.
It's been in my head for the longest time and I've been trying to write it down forever.
Tell me what you guys think! Hopefully this won't take all too long, I'll try to upload every week or two…or so…
[That didn't happen, and it probably won't, woops]
Anyways see you guys in the next chapter...