"Look, Papa, I can use Haki too! Look!"
"That's great." I said with a smile. "What else have you learned while I was away?"
"Oh, oh, sister Marguerite taught me how to use a bow! We went hunting together and-"
I smiled as I quietly listened to Alethea's excited rambling where we are resting in the small hut. If someone had told me more than three decades ago that I will one day fall into a fictional world, experience the life written and drawn in it, gain powers that are not supposed to be possible, and one day have a daughter, I would have laughed it off and labelled them crazy.
Yet, here I am right now. If only Alethea's mother can be here with us then things will be perfect. But she has her dreams to chase and things that only she can do. Having Alethea is a total accident but she is still our pride and joy no matter what anyone else says. It's just a pity that she is wanted by the World Government and even me being one of the Seven Warlords is unable to provide her the safety she needs.
"Papa, where do you think mama will be now? I want to see her someday."
"You will." I promised. She had gone MIA again, which is not surprising considering that this world is huge and it takes days to travel from place to place at the shortest. Tried as I might, it is hard for even me to keep accurate track of her location.
"I'm already seven… And I never saw her once..." Alethea pouted as she childishly kicked her legs back and forth from where it was dangling in the air.
"Mama is-"
"Wanted by the World Government, the bad guys, I know." Alethea grumbled. I can do nothing else but ruffle her hair to comfort her. Alethea is smart for her age, something which she definitely inherited from her mother. Out of the two of us, she is definitely the brains. I am the brawn. Always had been.
"Your mother has been up to some interesting stuff recently." I told Alethea with a smile. "Last I heard, she joined a pirate crew and they are stirring up a storm."
"Really?" Alethea perked up upon hearing the news. I nodded back in reply.
"Since when did papa lie to you?"
"When you had obviously gone drinking again but kept insisting that you did not drink." Alethea said without delay, her face scrunching up in slight disgust. That's… I have no words to argue against her accusations.
Alethea tugged at my shirt to get my attention.
"Papa, you didn't complete your story. Which pirate crew did mama join?"
"Oh, that-"
"So this is the kid that had been stirring trouble?"
The chief of Cipher Pol lazily surveyed the surrounding area that had been razed to the ground. A logia type Devil Fruit user that has rudimentary knowledge of how to use Haki, now that's a rarity in itself.
However, it is painfully obvious that the boy has only the very basic understanding of Haki and how to use his devil fruit powers. He probably only just got his devil fruit. As for Haki… who on earth taught that to this boy on this backwater island?
"F-Fuck you guys..." The kid wheezed from where he was on the ground. It's a miracle that he is even able to form a reply seeing that he just got a beating from yours truly. He is the chief of Cipher Pol CP-0.
"You got spunk kid, I'll give you that. I just want to know one thing, why were you causing trouble?"
"If your definition... of causing trouble is escaping from the people who were... trying to enslave me, then yeah, I was causing trouble. Problem?" The kid challenged as he struggled to stand up while trying to catch his breath, only to fail spectacularly. The chief can feel the edges of his lips slowly curling into a slight smile.
This kid has talent and grit. He will make a good CP-0 agent. This is definitely a find that he wasn't expecting to stumble upon when he came to this backwater island in East Blue for a vacation.
He held up two fingers in front of the boy.
"As I see now, you have two choices. One, die by my hands for going against the World Government."
"And let me guess, the second one is to submit to you if I want to live?"
"Yes." The chief affirmed. This boy catches on fast, that is for sure.
"If you want to live, be a Cipher Pol agent under my command."
"... I guess this is pretty much a no-brainer question, eh? Cunning bastard."
The chief's face stretched to a full-blown grin.
"If you have the strength to talk back, then you have the strength to train. Go run a hundred laps around this island."
The boy's looks of incredulity was satisfying to watch.
"You fucking crazy?! Me, running a hundred laps around the island, in this state?!"
"It's either that or you die. Hurry and make your choice, brat."
"... I hate you."
"You got a name? Or do you want me to keep calling you boy, brat, rascal, or other weird names forever?"
"Ain't got one. I fucking escaped from an auction house, remember? I was born there. Slaves don't have a name."
The chief idly looked around to search for any inspiration to name a snarky little brat. He saw a half-burnt piece of wooden sign that might have been a signboard or something. He couldn't really tell. What he can make out is the only word left on the half-burnt wooden sign.
"Jake."
"Wha?"
He looked at the boy squarely in the eyes.
"From now on, you are Jake."
"You know, I never got around to asking where on earth you found that devil fruit of yours."
It's been only a year ever since he forcefully wrangled the boy to become a CP-0 agent. Time had proven that once again, his eye for talent had not failed him. Even at nine years old the boy is rapidly proving himself within the ranks of the organisation.
"On an empty as fuck island called Sixis." Jake grunted while lifting weights as required of the training regime he set for the boy.
"How do you know that there is a devil fruit there?"
"Luck."
The chief hummed in response. Luck? He doubts it, but if Jake doesn't want to be open about it he won't press the issue. He's not particularly interested in this tidbit of information.
"You can stop now. We will be going through our lessons on how to use a sword today." The chief told Jake, who merely quirked an eyebrow upwards upon that statement.
"Didn't you say we will only be going through the lesson on swords two months later?"
"I changed my mind, are you complaining?"
"Nope." Jake put down his weights as he grabbed himself a practice sword. "Let's do it."
"Burn down an island? What kind of nonsense mission is this?"
"Orders from above. We don't question, we just do it because it is our job."
"This-"
"And before you start to run your mouth again, we are Cipher Pol agents. We do our job as required of us. We don't question orders from above. Get it?"
Jake clicked his tongue and walked off ahead, fuming the entire time. The chief can only heave a mental sigh at the sight. Jake obviously does not hold the World Government in high regard, and understandably so.
Even he, the chief of CP-0, sometimes has problems trying to stomach the facts of many of the missions he had been sent on over the years.
And so, he never said a word when Jake burnt down the island only after the islanders had evacuated it. The orders were simply to burn the island, it never said anything about whether the islanders have to be burnt down with it.
Even then, that act alone still gave the boy the moniker of Island Destroyer Jake.
"Hunt down the Devil Child?"
"The one that escaped Ohara. Bounty of 79,000,000 beli." The chief confirmed with a lazy nod of his head from where he was sitting behind his desk.
Time does fly. In the blink of an eye, the boy had now grown to an even bigger boy. How old is he again?
Ah, thirteen.
And at thirteen years old the boy is now easily his most reliable agent within the CP-0. Sometimes he does wonder if this boy is secretly an adult with how mature he carries himself at this age.
"Why her? Why me?"
"The World Government wants her dead. The Cipher Pol does what the World Government wishes to see done. It falls to the CP-0 to complete this task and I decide to let you do it. That's all."
"Fine, anything to get a damn vacation away from here. This should get me out of here for a long while at the very least." Jake scoffed as he turned to leave the room and slammed the door shut in his exit. The chief picked up the bounty poster of Nico Robin once more, staring at it.
Devil Child of Ohara. What had she done to warrant such a high bounty on her head at eight years old? Just what does she know that has the World Government so afraid?
He sighed and crumpled the bounty poster before chucking it into the bin.
Forget that. He has better things to do.
AN: As promised, here is a one piece story. Warning, slow updates