An: I've been wanting to make a One Piece self-insert for a while, but I had the hardest time trying to figure out how since it's so long and complicated. What motivated me though was when Ace died and he still questioned if it was okay if he was born, it just pissed me off that he grew up thinking that way because of who his father was. *Sobs* 'Don't worry so much Ace everyone loves you so much! Of course it's okay!'

Anyways enjoy!

General Warnings: Self-insert OC, Pirate violence, some AU, harsh language from time to time.

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece!

When we first met, you set my heart ablaze. When I see you, all I can do is gaze. Gaze at the beauty and wonder that is you. The constellation Gemini will make me think of me and you. You are my Yami and I your Hikari. I love you, my Yami. Now and forever. -Yu-Gi-Oh! Yugi, Muto.

Looking back now, I knew that I regretted nothing. Even if the journey was long and hard as heck, even if there had been times when I had almost given up, there was nothing I regretted.

Staying beside him, no matter how violent it got, was the best decision in my two lives. No I didn't mis-speak, I have in fact lived two lives. But honestly my first life is a dim memory now compared to the present one.

I'm still not quite sure if I belong here, even after spending so many years living here, but I do know one thing.

My Nakama are enough of a reason for me to be here, if it weren't for them I wouldn't have survived this chaos of a world.

My name is Monkey D Drazo and this is my story.

Tentatively I would say I was reincarnated. But even now I'm not quite sure I even believe it. For all I know I was in a coma and this was just a dream my brain made up to entertain itself. Either way though I was going to try and survive this , dream-rebirth-thing and if it wasn't real I suppose I'd wake up at some point.

The reason why I am so reluctant to believe this is reality, is because the world I was currently in had been one of the many anime I had watched.

I was in the One Piece-universe.

I was surprised as you are when I finally figured it out. Out of all the anime, One Piece was the one I knew less about, I just hadn't gotten into it as much as Naruto so I panicked when I realized where I was.

But as far as being reborn goes, I wasn't quite sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I grew up in a small town where violence was unheard of, and the country was well protected so any attacks were held off if needed. So to end up in a world run by pirates, with fruit that could give someone unimaginable power, I wasn't too sure if I had been rewarded or not. I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything terrible in my past life, but perhaps I had done something to piss off someone up there that I didn't know about? Maybe the gods were bored and decided to amuse themselves, or I had been born here by accident? I mean there was the one time with the cat and the ice cream...

Whatever the reason was, I suppose all things considered being born as Monkey D Luffy's twin brother wasn't all that bad.

I could have been born as a bug and eaten by a spider, so it didn't have it too bad...Maybe...

Honestly I was clueless why this had happened, and why my memories stuck with me. I really did nothing spectacular in my life, I had a mother, got my GED and then worked minimum wage jobs the rest of my life. I never had any children, nor did anyone really notice when I died, no one would talk about me for years to pass and I certainly didn't accomplish anything worth mentioning.

So why was I here?

As I said before, I'm the twin brother of Monkey D Luffy, I can't tell you who our mother was because as a newborn my eyesight was something to be desired. She vanished before I had fully understood where I was and started paying attention. People are usually happy when twins are born, but being born conscious wasn't anything to be celebrate. I was torn away from the peaceful darkness I had started to enjoy and squeezed down a tight tunnel with no idea what was happening. I was confused, scared and cold as two large hands grabbed me and a voice murmured something about a boy before I was handed sideways and another pair of hand were holding me.

Having no idea what in the world was happening I tried to open my mouth and ask what was going on, but all that came out was a shrill wail.

People murmured, I was passed around to be poked and prodded. A bright light was blinding me as I tried to figure out what was happening, who everyone was and why it was happening.

To tell you the truth I cried for a long time. It wasn't because I wanted to though, it was just how my body reacted since I was frustrated and confused as hell. I had no idea where I was, who the baby beside me was, and what in the world was happening. Theories ran through my mind, but all of them were impossible. But it wasn't just frustration, something in the air made my body burn, and it was only when certain people came that determined how much it hurt. The old man who had a warm laugh, and loud voice made it feel like I was having coals set on my body whenever he so much as touched me. His very presence had something around it, as if a cloak was surrounding him that made the hair on my arms stand up.

I felt slightly bad for the people who were taking care of me, I was louder then the other baby, which was saying something, and they were always clueless at to why I started crying out of the blue.

Finally, I got slightly used to it as time passed. Though the old man never failed to make my skin prickle and heat up, it didn't feel like I was being tortured which meant I didn't end up screaming whenever they were around. I was eventually able to calm down because, heck, crying wasn't going to help anything no matter how helpless I was.

It was then I tried to figure out what the heck had happened.

I remembered dying, the sharp, agonizing pain of having all the bones break in my body and the cold terror as I fell into the river. I could remember ignoring the echoing stabs of pain as I tried to claw back up to the surface, my heart beating wildly in my chest as I desperately clawed my way up toward the sun. The horrible realization that I wouldn't be able to make it and the sadness that slammed down on me as I once again started to descend into the dark water.

I had died. Yet here I was breathing and remembering dying.

I wasn't stupid, the realization finally hit me and I was left shocked. Rebirth was for the heroes, I hardly deserved being reborn much less being reborn as a human without having to start over as an ant or something. So why was I here? What was the purpose of me remembering everything?

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be getting any answers anytime soon, not when I could barely walk much less talk.

There really wasn't much I could do when it came to being a child, I had minimum control over my limbs and depended on someone else to feed and clean me when I needed it. The child beside me, a boy with little tufts of black hair and wide dark-brown eyes, was my constant companion. He was also the only one who kept me from dying from total and utter boredom.

He was a lively little thing, always giggling and squirming around as if he had so much energy he had to do something. I entertained him, and myself, by trying to make him laugh as much as possible. His smiles spread from cheek to cheek and his eyes closed in joy whenever I made a funny face or noise, it was heart warming to be around such a happy person I couldn't contain myself.

The woman who took care of us, one with particular green hair and warm brown eyes was named Makino, but she wasn't our mother, something inside of me recognized her but it wasn't because she was our mother. It was if I had seen her before...

Time passed by relatively slowly and as I just started crawling, my brother was still squirming like a worm, I eventually learned our names, Luffy and Drazo. Which made me pause and stare at Makino, who just smiled not knowing she had completely blown my mind.

Luffy and Drazo.

Luffy.

We must have had interesting parents, who in the world named one of their children after a anime character? I mean theoretically Luffy was a cool name, but it was also weird. It certainly fit Monkey D Luffy from One piece though...and it also just so happened to fit my brother too.

I stopped crawling across the floor to stare at my brother, he was currently wiggling on his stomach as he stared imploringly in my direction as if we were hundreds of miles apart instead of only a few inches away. His hair had grown to cover his head and was rather spiky, his eyes were wide and when he smiled it took up his whole face. I stared some more, plopping on my bottom to make myself comfortable.

It couldn't be possible right? I mean one doesn't just get born into an anime universe willy nilly. Much less as the sibling of a main character. Maybe Luffy just happened to look like his namesake, maybe our parents had been Otakus and couldn't stop themselves from naming him Luffy, maybe...

I waited a few days to finally accept that I had been placed in the One Piece universe. Everything was adding together now, the old man who was Garp with his crazy intimidating aura, which was probably Haki, and the green-haired woman who was Makino from the village Luffy grew up in.

What the Hell?

I wasn't too familiar with One Piece, I had only watched up to the Fisherman Arc and then I had been preoccupied with something else. Unlike Naruto, which I had obsessed over, One Piece was new to me. I had only just started learning about Haki and trying to fully understand all the twist and turns the anime took.

Honestly I didn't know what was worse, being born in a world run by pirates or being born as Monkey D Luffy's twin brother. This world was harsh, people killed without mercy even Luffy grew up to be someone who didn't want to be a hero. He would much rather keep the meat to himself then share it with someone, he knew that being a pirate meant people would fear and hate him yet he was dead set on being one.

There were different types of pirates in One Piece, ones like the Straw Hat's and ones like Black Beard. It wasn't that they were good or evil, it was more along the fact that the former was a little less willing to kill then the latter. So all things considered I had more of a chance surviving then I did if I were on my own, which was about one percent, but hey two percent was better then nothing. I was going to have to train like crazy though, to even think that I would be able to keep up with Luffy and his crew if I planned on being a pirate. I could become a marine...

Absolutely not because of them Ace...

That's right, Ace.

I remembered the anger I felt when he died, even if he was just a fictional character he didn't deserve to die. The way he questioned his existence always saddened me, no child should question if it was alright if they were alive. It wasn't right.

He was going to be Luffy's brother, and maybe if I was lucky enough my friend at least, and I refused to hear Luffy's screams of sadness as he finally came to terms with Ace's death. I refused. I didn't plan on defeating everyone I saw while here, I didn't plan on trying to become the strongest person alive, no what I wanted was for Luffy to be happy. They may have been pretend before, but now that they were real I would stop at nothing to make sure Ace survived.

Even if that meant sacrificing myself in his place.

As a two year old, Luffy was something else entirely, as soon as he could walk he was running around and causing all sorts of mayhem. He took delight in scaring the Hell out of people, and soon made a name for himself in Foosha Village. Being so small he could run away rather quickly without me noticing, which meant I was almost always yelled at first when the villagers once again mistook me for my brother. Once they calmed down though they realized their mistake and apologized, not that I was too bothered in the first place. Luffy was my source of entertainment and my younger brother by an hour, as I had learned from Makino, so I was bound to get in trouble because of him eventually.

Luffy and I weren't identical twins, thank the lord, but we looked enough alike that Makino sometimes mixed us up. Really when I looked in the mirror the only difference I could tell was our eyes, mine were more narrowed then his, and when I smiled I looked rather evil. In fact I looked a lot like Dragon when I smiled, which meant my life would be a little more complicated seeing that Luffy only seemed to get Dragon's spirit.

Garp stopped by once in a while with a nice hardy hit to our heads as a hello, but he usually was away most of the time doing whatever Marines did so he didn't see him very often. Not that it affected us very much, he wasn't too important to either of us since we didn't know him very well, and we both knew that when he did come over our heads would be aching for days.

"Drrrraaaaaazzzzzoooooo!"

The loud shout was my only warning before a body slammed into mine and I was sent flying face first into a tree. I groaned in pain and pushed my face away from the bark of the tree, feeling pieces of the wood fall off as I fell down on my butt. "Luffy." I growled, already knowing who had caused me to make out with the tree. "What did I say about stopping?"

Luffy snickered and I turned my head to glare at him, spotting his slightly smaller form laying in the grass a few inches behind me. He had made me travel quite a distance from where I had been sitting to the tree, but I suppose that's what happens when Luffy is your brother.

He suddenly got serious, his eyes squinting. " 'Luffy you have to stop when you reach someone, you're not suppose to keep running or you'll end up sending them flying.' " He replied, his squeaky voice sounding awkward as he tried to make it deeper. "Is what you said Drazo-nii!" He beamed proudly, nearly glowing.

My eyebrow twitched. "Then why didn't you?"

"Because it's funny to see your reactions!"

I face palmed, something I had been doing a lot more recently, wondering what was the matter with his brain. "It was fun huh?"

He nodded happily. "Un!"

I snapped my head up, sending him a smile. He froze accordingly, gulping and paling. "You know what else is fun?"

He shook his head, starting to scoot back as I got up my hair hanging in front of my eyes.

"Killing your younger brother!"

He ran away, laughing loudly as I chased after him.

Honestly, younger brothers, what can you do?

AN: Ne, ne, what do you think about Drazo? Is his name lame? I had the hardest time trying to come up with one, but I think it's okay. So do you think he should eat a Devil Fruit? I think it would be cool. Or maybe he should use a weapon? Reviews are always appreciated and sorry for any mistakes.