There is such a thing as being too comfortable with life. Just going day by day, not paying attention to the changes in society or the changes in anything at all that didn't directly impact that comfortable life.

And that is how they came to their end. Their name at the time is inconsequential. It will never be used to speak to them ever again, after all.

But perhaps that's only natural, when they hadn't put any effort into learning self defense or even developing much spatial awareness. People could stare at them for hours, and they would never notice— even if they did, they wouldn't care or see it as odd. They would just continue on with their comfortable life of reading manga, playing mindless things on the computer, and working. Same old, same old.

It wasn't even hard for the guy to overpower them, to spit whatever grievances he held against them right into their face before slamming the hammer down everywhere they could. Shoulders, limbs, and of course their head. He apparently really hated their face. The last thing the poor victim thought as they faded away, was how surprisingly pretty their dark red blood looked against the stark white tile of the floor.

—*—*—*—*—*

Faint sunlight began to filter through the cracks in shuttered windows, the rays bright enough to make the small child they shone on begin to wriggle. A few moments later, they opened chocolate brown eyes and stared at the ceiling.

It had taken quite a while to come to terms with the fact that rebirth was a thing, and that they had experienced it after being murdered. The fact that their mind stayed intact was a mystery for a while as well… at least, until their eyesight and hearing had grown strong enough, and their understanding of the language around them steady enough, to decipher what had happened.

It wasn't just reincarnation. It was transmigration. None of the famous cities or countries spoken of were from their old reality— or, well. Not outside of a certain manga anyway. Though the biggest giveaway was probably their brother.

"Get up, Zara!" The slightly scratchy voice of a boy called out, said boy jumping on the side of the child's bed hard enough to send them briefly airborne. "I'm going to another dojo today, so you gotta eat and come with me!"

Zara sighed fondly, sitting up to look at her very excited brother.

"Nobody wants to babysit, huh?" She asked blandly, not at all surprised. She was only six years old, but she and Zoro were orphans. Neither of them remembered how they ended up on this island, maybe their parents had always lived there. All they knew was that this was the only place they knew, and nobody else had green hair like them. All the other villagers would say was that they had the same mother, and she had left them here. No idea if the woman was dead or not, not that it mattered. The village did their best to raise two orphaned children pretty much from infancy, but there was a limit to their patience.

Zara was one of those limits. With her knowledge of her past life (secret though it was), she proved to be quite the hard to handle toddler. From the moment she could walk again, she was getting into trouble. Teaching herself how to climb, teaching herself how to hunt in the woods, spying on everyone in the village so that she could learn how to do all of their various jobs. If anyone took their eyes off of her for a minute, she would be gone the next time they turned around to address her.

Zoro was the only one able to reign his little sister in.

He took his job as an older brother very seriously ever since an older woman in the village had remarked that older brothers were supposed to be the protectors of their family. Though, Zara had been too little and her new brain too panicked by her rebirth to remember if he had been a good brother before that day too (he had). Zara had grown far too fond of her stubborn brother to give him too much trouble, and… well, he somehow always found her no matter where she snuck off to, so it wasn't like she could run away even if she wanted.

"Pff, who needs them anyway?" Zoro deflected, rolling his eyes. "You got me! I'm the best babysitter on this whole island! So come on, time to eat."

Zara couldn't help but smile at that, giggling softly. "Okay, okay," she slipped out of bed and stretched her arms. "But…" she paused, grabbing a ribbon and starting to braid her wild hair so it wouldn't get in her way. "Why do we go to different dojos all the time? Haven't you beaten enough of them already?" There was a stack of dojo signs in the corner of their bedroom, gathering dust.

Her brother looked down at her out of the corner of his eye, not saying anything for a while as he led her down the stairs of the small orphanage-like building where they lived. It was just a normal house, really— they were the only two orphans in the whole village. But nobody wanted to adopt them, so they lived in this house by themselves and someone from the village would come by to help with chores or make their meals. Apparently there was a chart for who would help out the kids on different days and everything.

The two of them sat down at the small dining table on the ground floor, one of the women from the village smiling as she served them both a simple breakfast of rice balls and miso soup. Nothing fancy, but it filled them up just fine. It wasn't until after she left that Zoro spoke up.

"I hate it here," he grumbled. Zara stopped with her spoon halfway to her mouth, staring. Zoro had taken a few bites of his food, but clearly wasn't eating with the same appetite as he normally did. His brown eyes seemed like they would burn a hole in their dining table with how fiercely he glared down at it. "This island is too small. And I have other things I want to do than waste away here. Wouldn't it be great for us to set sail? Explore the world on the open seas?" He slowly raised his head to look straight into Zara's eyes. She held that gaze for a while, the two of them just examining the emotions on one another's face before she let loose a tiny smile.

"And I guess we have to be able to protect ourselves if we go sailing, huh?"

"Exactly!" Zoro agreed, his smile wide on his face. "But I don't just want to protect myself. I want to be the best! So nobody will be able to say nasty things behind our backs about orphans being useless anymore. And you! I need to be strong enough to protect you from everything!" He calmed down a bit, casually reaching out to grab another rice ball from his plate. His eyes slid away from his sister and slyly to the side. "I have to be the best if I'm gonna keep a troublemaker like you alive on the open seas."

Zara choked on a piece of rice when she heard that, quickly coughing to clear her throat before slamming her hands on the table in outrage. "HEY! Who's to say I won't be the one protecting YOU, huh?!"

"You're too tiny for that."

"I'm gonna grow up! Maybe I'll even get taller than you!"

"Hah! As if, pipsqueak."

A little more grumbling and sibling banter later, and the two of them were making the long trek out to the latest dojo.

This was yet another piece of evidence that the One Piece world was different from her old one. Zara knew that she never would have been able to handle such a long walk in her old life, not at such a young age. And yet, she didn't even get that out of breath despite being only six years old.

Her eyes slid over to the taller form of her brother walking next to her. Maybe it's the monster genes, she thought. I don't think the other kids in the village are as active as us.

The sun was already well overhead, brightening up the blue sky and settling a gentle warmth over their skin when they crested over a hill. At the bottom lay a dojo, the sounds of practice swords clanking being loud enough to reach them even at their fair distance away. Zoro grinned almost ferally, looking over and reading a glance with Zara. At her nod, he chuckled and ran to the dojo at full speed.

Zara was used to this. She hadn't really expected Zoro to have spent his childhood essentially putting kendo schools out of business, and yet that's exactly what he had been doing for at least the past year. Places that claimed to teach swordsmanship couldn't exactly stay open if their masters were beaten by an eight year old (and the first few were beaten back when Zoro was seven, so that was… extra painful for them).

Zara followed her brother at a much more sedate pace, wondering if maybe this school would last long enough for her to actually learn something from it. Swords were interesting, and she wanted to learn how to use them… but that was kind of hard when Zoro was shit at teaching and he was putting all the actual teachers out of a job. None of the teachers he beat could even stand to look at her, only able to see her brother in her bright green hair and defiant eyes.

Zara took her time getting down the hill, not wanting to trip. Getting hurt would distract Zoro, and that… no, Zoro already did more than enough to take care of her. Zara set her mouth in a determined frown, paying extra attention to every step she took. She would not inconvenience Zoro and make him worry about her more than he already did. Not an option.

Finally at the dojo steps, she reached up to open the door—

Fwoomp!

The doors slammed open, a small body hurtling through them to land right on top of Zara. The unexpected flying body knocked the young girl over, and it's weight took the breath from her as it smooshed her to the wooden floor.

What. The fuck. Was that?

Zoro better not have gotten carried away, he usually didn't knock anyone towards the doors in case she was watching, but maybe—

"Oh no! I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone else was here!" A girl's voice, slightly panicked, cut through Zara's thoughts.

"Oh no! Zara!" That was Zoro, finally coming to his senses. He rolled off of Zara, eyes wide. "You jerk! You sent me flying right into my sister!"

Wait… Zoro was the one sent flying?

Gasping for breath, Zara allowed hands to help her up into a sitting position. Slowly, once her whole body didn't ache so badly, she raised her eyes up to see her brother and a blue haired girl who looked to be a few years older than him.

A blue haired girl? Who was bickering with Zoro and sent him flying?

"Kuina," a man's voice— Zara moved her eyes to see an older man who could be none other than the owner of the dojo. "Focus, the girl is the one hurt. Miss, how are you feeling? Are you okay?"

Zara didn't answer right away, because there was only one thing going through her head at the moment.

Oh holy shit.

--*--*--*--*--*

A/N: Hiiiii. Heh. Some of you may know me as the writer behind the other OP fanfic I made, Second Guessed.

I am still writing it! Life got in the way and I'm at a huge mental block for that story. For now, I'm using this new story, made with a new spark of inspiration, to get back into the hang of writing for the OP universe. I will eventually return to Second Guessed, but for now here you go!