Chapter One

Far away on an indeterminate island in the North Blue, alone in the middle of the woods, a young girl was skipping rocks across a small mountain lake. Like many small children she was somewhat scraggly in appearance, with grass stains and dirt on her clothing and mud between her bare toes. Her hair, bright golden like the sun winking down at her from between the branches of the trees, was long and thick and framed her small, pale face that was dotted with freckles.

One would assume any other child had been playing in the woods, off on adventures to save the world or find lost treasure. One would assume any other child would eventually tire of skipping rocks and run back home to their parents before darkness fell. One would assume any other child was, well, normal. But not this child. One had only to look into her steel blue-grey eyes to realize that this child was anything but normal. When the townspeople looked into her eyes, they did not see the eyes of a child. These were eyes that had seen things, knew things. Some of the more loose-lipped residents had commented that she had the eyes of an "old soul," which she had always found slightly amusing.

Her name was Koizumi Miyu and she had just recently become an orphan at the age of six years old. And, she thought as she savagely chucked a rock into the clear mountain lake, this isn't the first time I have been six either. It is decidedly less enjoyable the second time around though.

It had been quite the surprise for Miyu to come out of the darkness she had previously thought to be the afterlife and find herself reborn. Actually, surprise would be understating it. She had never thought to be having an existential crisis after dying and she hadn't enjoyed it in the slightest. For those first few months, when her mobility was severely limited and she was valiantly trying to ignore and/or cope with the indignity of being an infant, she had often wondered at what kind of cosmic forces would result in her being here. She had considered quite a few possibilities. There's not much else to do when you're a squalling infant- emphasis on the squalling, much to her embarrassment. Damn baby biology.

Perhaps she was a reincarnated soul and the Buddhists had it right. But then, you'd think there would be more people running around with memories of their past lives (and deaths…). And she had seen no evidence of that so far. Besides, weren't most people supposed to reincarnated as something ridiculous, like a squirrel? She'd come up with some pretty crazy theories while she was attempting to ignore the mortification of diaper changes and post-feeding spit ups, but each seemed crazier and more improbable than the last. Miyu finally decided that, despite having died and been literally reborn, she was no closer to figuring out the mysteries of life and the universe than she ever had been before and that she might as well get on with her life and concern herself with things that were more important. Things like relearning fine motor skills and the ability to use the toilet. If she was going to have a rash, she'd rather it be her own damn fault, thank you very much, and not because someone had either forgotten or was too busy to change her.

It was strange, learning to live life all over again. Even though some of her more personal memories had faded, such as her name and the faces of her family, she found that she had retained a lot of her memories and knowledge. In many ways she still felt like the adult she had died as, and having her new parents taking care of her basic needs, like feeding and personal hygiene, was appreciated but immensely frustrating.

Well, when they actually took care of them, she thought with a frown as she sent another stone skipping across the lake in a vicious arc. Her childhood in this life was markedly different than in her last one. Beyond the whole "remembering an entire past life" thing she had going on. From what she could recall, in her last life her childhood had been mainly happy. Sure her parents ended up splitting up and eventually remarrying, but they cared about both her and her siblings and her childhood had been filled with laughter and love.

That was definitely not the case the second time around. Miyu could feel her fingers tightening almost painfully on the sharp edges of the stone she held in her grip as she thought about all the hours spent alone in that decrepit house she had grown up in. Hours spent staring up at the water damaged ceiling from her crib before she was finally old enough to move around on her own. Endless hours with nothing to distract her from her hunger or chafing skin besides vague memories of a past life and knowledge that she had no context for that didn't help her situation in the slightest. What good was it to know how to solve differential calculus or knit together a queen-sized blanket when she wasn't even physically capable of getting herself out of the thrice damned crib? Many times Miyu had found herself so overcome with frustration that her younger body couldn't handle it and she found herself screaming and crying until she had exhausted herself into slumber. And because of the fact that her mind was that of an adult, she didn't have the luxury of forgetting all of her earliest memories like most infants would. No, she remembered it all.

As she grew older she began to understand more and more about her situation. Her parents weren't anyone particularly important or special. He was a dock worker; she was a waitress at one of the local diners. The town they lived in, Linedown, wasn't small enough that everyone knew each other, but neither was it a sprawling metropolis either. It was located on an island in a sea called the North Blue, as far as she was able to pick up from her father's talk from the docks. Her parents spent their days at work and their nights out at the numerous bars that were scattered around the port town. By the time Miyu was four she was fairly self-sufficient, preparing her own meals and doing her own laundry, along with many other things. Her parents would come home late after a night out drinking and Miyu would make sure to be out of the house before her parents awoke to drag themselves to work hungover and start the cycle all over again. Sometimes she didn't even see them when the weekend came around, and only knew that they hadn't up and left because on Monday morning there would be a mess in the bathroom and a scant amount of groceries in the fridge that she had to stretch the entire week. Miyu got the impression that her parents had neither wanted to nor meant to have children, and she could only thank the random quirk of the universe that had made her their child rather than a normal baby that would have actually needed the love and attention that her parents were seemingly incapable of giving.

At times she was almost grateful for that inattention, because if they had been a normal pair of parents they definitely would have noticed how odd their only child was. The way she seemed to know things without being taught, the way she was able to organize and get things done without having any prior experience. But they didn't, and so Miyu was able to skate along in obscurity, teaching herself to read and write and generally take care of herself in this new life. She spent a lot of her time outside, relearning how to run and jump and climb. At Linedown's borders lay an extensive forest that most of the other townspeople seemed to ignore in favor or the comfort, warmth, and accessibility of Linedown's ports and trade. While Miyu knew that in her current state she would be unable to defend herself if she went too far into the woods and got in trouble, she still spent a significant amount of time on the edges of the forest exploring the plant and animal life that was similar but still different from what she remembered from her past life. Over time her hands and feet became strong and calloused from all the time spent running barefoot over the forest floor and clambering up and down the tree line in search of new and interesting things to discover.

And so her second life had steadily continued on and Miyu had been content. Maybe not happy, or loved, but content. Even if sometimes she felt like she lived with a couple of strangers rather than her second set of parents. Until the day that her father and mother came home from the bar a little more drunk than usual and both passed away in their sleep from what Miyu could only assume was alcohol poisoning. In hindsight it seemed obviously, now that she thought about it. It was almost inevitable that having drinking so entwined in their lives would eventually lead to Miyu standing in the doorway of her parents' bedroom, looking at the two blue, still forms that lay in their bed and realizing that now she truly was all alone in the world.

It's odd, Miyu thought as she stared blankly where the wind gently pushed the lapping waves against the beach. She sat down with a thump, legs sprawled in front of her, finally having exhausted her supply of available rocks and just now realizing how tired she was. It's so odd that a couple of people that wanted so little to do with my life have suddenly turned it upside down. Miyu felt guilty, in an abstract sort of way, that she wasn't more upset about the fact that the two people who gave her this new life were gone. But it was hard to miss someone that you had never really known. At times she felt she lived with a couple of delinquent roommates rather than parents. Roommates that she had spent significant time and effort purposefully distancing herself from. Because as much as she tried not to, Miyu couldn't help but feel a muted resentment towards the people who had made her early days so miserable and lonely. When she had been forced to live with people who found their partying and drinking more important than paying attention to their child. Even if she still thought of herself as an adult, and not a child, it still stung when her existence was overlooked so callously.

So when Miyu thought of her parents' deaths she didn't feel any grief, but rather a burning lump of frustration that sat low in her throat and made her immature child's body want to weep. Because they had died too damn soon and now, six years into her second existence, Miyu found herself having caught the attention of a town that had previously ignored her existence and suddenly thought itself responsible for her welfare. And sooner or later someone would notice that she wasn't, well, normal. That they would look beyond the idea that she was an "old soul" and realize that there was something truly different about her. And she recalled clearly how society dealt with people they saw as different.

They were trying to settle her in a new home with foster parents. Or this city's version of foster parents. When it came to things like infrastructure, this new life differed slightly from what she knew in her past life. Ever since she had found her parents' dead in their bed last Tuesday afternoon, she had been bombarded by city officials that kept insisting, "Don't worry dear, we know what's best," and "Listen to what your elders tell you and it'll all be alright." It was very clear to Miyu that they thought her a simple, helpless child and that they desperately didn't want her to be their problem. They had already moved her from her parents' house into the local orphanage and less than a week in the place had convinced Miyu that she would rather jump off a cliff than live the rest of her second childhood in that stinking rats' nest. The social worker, or whatever she was called, had dropped by today to tell her that she was close to being placed with a family. The longer the worker had talked about the family she was supposed to live with, the more frightened and angry Miyu had become. In the end she hadn't been able to stand being in the orphanage for even a minute more, and as soon as she managed to sneak out the door without having any of the caretakers spot her she had taken off at a run for the woods and hadn't stopped running until she couldn't breathe.

And so Miyu found herself at this obscure lake, high in the mountains of her island, away from Linedown and all of its associated stupidity and frustration, trying to figure out what she was going to do with her life now. Although she was exhausted, both from her mad dash up the mountain and her rage-fueled rock skipping session, and she could feel her stomach cramping with hunger, she found herself reluctant to head back down the mountain just yet.

She was surprised that she had managed to find this lake in the first place. It was obviously off the beaten path, and looked to have received little to no human traffic as far as she could tell. The small lake was cradled in between two mountain peaks and surrounded closely by towering pines. It was fairly small, but it wouldn't take her more than an hour or two to walk around the perimeter. To her right was a series of rock outcroppings that reached out over the lake like a natural-made diving board. The water was crystal clear in that way that only mountain lakes fed by runoff can manage and down in its depths she could see fish flitting between the rocks and moss.

Miyu let out a sigh and tilted her head back to look at the rapidly descending sun. Her life would be so much easier if her parents had just had the decency to wait a little longer to drink themselves to death. If only she were a few years older, she would be able to get a job and support herself. It wouldn't have been fun, or pretty, but she could have done it. She could have kept that rotten house that she detested and supported herself until she had the means to move out and make something of her life. But at six years old, that plan of action was nearly impossible, no matter how mature she was mentally. There was no way she could get a job, or at least one that doesn't involve illegal and rather unsavory activities, and no way she could continue living in her parents' house. As much as she hated to admit it, the foster family was looking like her best option at the moment.

With another sigh she heaved herself to her feet and finally acknowledged the gnawing hunger in her stomach. She scanned the tree line in the hopes that she might find something to snack on during her trip back down the mountain. At last she spotted a vine at the base of one of the trees that signaled she had found what she was looking for. In her various escapades exploring the edges of the forest, she had found a fruit that grew in the undergrowth that resembled what she remembered as a strawberry, except that they grew considerably larger. Here a fruit could grow to be the size of her small, child-sized palms, and made for a very tasty snack.

Crouching at the base of the tree, Miyu noticed with some disappointment that there were only two fruits on the strawberry vine she had found. One was red like she had come to expect, although less ripe than she would have preferred, and the other one was a light green color and looked far off from being ripe. She glanced again at the sky, noting that if she didn't leave soon she would be traveling down the mountain in the dark which was never a smart idea unless you could defend yourself. She looked at her bare feet and her scrawny arms and decided that she didn't have time to search out another vine. She grabbed both of the strawberries, figuring that a green strawberry was better than no strawberry at all what with how hungry she was.

As she set off down the mountain she took her time munching on the almost-ripe strawberry, savoring her treat. As she finished it off she realized that she had gone up the mountain farther than she had thought, and that she would most probably miss dinner at the orphanage by the time she got back. She looked unhappily at the green strawberry in her hand.

"Well, you're no five star meal, but I guess you'll have to do for tonight," she grumbled to the innocent looking strawberry, and she took a large bite. And promptly almost spit it back out. She reflexively swallowed and then stopped and spit onto the ground trying to get the rotten taste out of her mouth.

Gods that was awful! She knew that it wasn't going to be tasty, what with it not being ripe quite yet and all, but she hadn't expected it to be so putrid. Maybe there was a reason that it hadn't ripened, she thought with a grimace as she desperately wished for some water to wash her mouth out. She looked down at the rest of the strawberry and her face involuntarily twisted with disgust. I'd rather starve than eat the rest of that!

She chucked the half-eaten strawberry off into the bushes with a shudder. Served her right for trying to eat something before it was meant to be eaten. Next time, no matter how hungry she was, she was sticking with the fruit that looked ripe. No hunger pains were worth having to eat something that… that… rancid. As she continued down the mountain, having sped up her pace at the possibility of getting to rinse the ghastly taste out of her mouth, she chalked this up to another difference between this life and her past life. Apparently eating the immature fruit here was a big no-no. Just… ugh. Never. Again.

Finally she made it to the edge of the forest. The street lights were just beginning to turn on in Linedown and she hurried down the narrow streets she had memorized so that she could find the orphanage again. After managing to wiggle in through the window in the laundry room, Miyu discovered that she had indeed missed dinner. She considered sneaking into the pantry for a small snack, but changed her mind after catching a glimpse of the head caretaker's face.

Oh right, it's bath night, she thought. While bath night only came once a week in the orphanage, at least as long as she had been there, it never failed to send the head caretaker, Ms. Garthon, into a right snit. Miyu absently wondered how someone who so plainly detested children ended up as the head caretaker for the city orphanage. She then dismissed it as unimportant when Ms. Garthon spotted her bare feet tracking mud on the floors and chased her into the bathing chambers with the business end of a ruler.

It turned out that not only had she missed dinner, but also most of bath night as well, which meant that she was left with the dirty, cold water that everyone else had already washed in. Apparently water conservation was more important than children's hygiene to Ms. Garthon and all the other lovely ladies that ran the Linedown City Orphanage for Unfortunates. Or maybe they're just lazy, Miyu thought to herself grumpily as she stripped off her clothes and steeled herself to get into the cold, murky looking water. With a shudder she reluctantly stuck her left foot into the tub up to her knee.

Abruptly, she found herself overcome with a wave of dizziness that sent her slumping to the floor, pulling her leg out of the bath as she went. She lay on the floor gasping for breath as she tried to understand what had just happened. Was it because she had missed dinner? Yes, she usually didn't feel great if she missed a meal, but she had never fallen to the ground before. She tentatively raised herself to her hands and knees, and then got to her feet. She stood there for a minute or two, hands held out to catch her in case she was overcome with dizziness again. Although her heart was beating loudly in her ears and her head hurt from where it had thumped into the wooden floor when she fell, she otherwise felt okay. Carefully she began to get into the tub. Thankfully she had decided to prop herself against the wall, because as soon as the water in the tub went over the top of her knee she felt herself going boneless and barely caught herself on the wall as she started to slump to the floor. She stayed propped against the wall, panting heavily as she tried to figure out what was going on.

It didn't make any sense. She was fine before she got into the water. The water wasn't even hot, so it wasn't like it was causing her to feel faint. And yet it felt like every ounce of strength had been sucked from her body. Just the prospect of trying to drag her submerged leg from the tub seemed like a herculean task. She didn't want to imagine what would have happened if she had fully gotten into the tub. She didn't know if she would be able to drag herself back out. And with how small she was and how large the tub had to be to accommodate all the different children at the orphanage, there is a very good chance that she would have drowned had she gotten in all the way.

Wait… she thought with dread. An inability to be in standing water… That disgusting green strawberry… Alarm bells were going off in the back of her mind, insisting that this was something she had heard of before. Something she had read about, back in her first life. About fruits that took away a person's ability to swim…

Suddenly it dawned on her with terrible clarity. She had been reborn… into the world of One Piece. Not only that, she had just inadvertently eaten a Devil Fruit.

She was so fucked.