A/N- I just realized that if you flip the last two letters of Toroa, it becomes 'Torao' which is Luffy's nickname for Law, yeah, that's about it, you can proceed reading now, happy reading! – Diwata
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"Speaking"
"Thoughts"
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece nor its characters, Eichiro Oda does.
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At the age of three, Brielle realized she had forgotten something very important.
She had been fairly distracted in her new life and accidentally forgot about all her promised self-obligations.
On the top of that list was to have a journal in which she would write everything she remembered about her past life.
She wanted to keep all her memories from her past life so she could never forget about her parents and all those that she holds dear.
The last thing she wanted to happen was to someday forget about her past life and that she would doubt herself that maybe it was just some distant memory and everything was just a figment of her imagination.
There was actually a rather simple solution to that problem, and that was to write it down in a notebook or a journal of some sort, the only issue being was that she doesn't have one.
She couldn't just ask out of the blue for a notebook, it would be far too suspicious, even if she was a toddler.
She's never been near any of it, nor did anybody taught her what it was. So how on earth would she magically know what it was? Or how would she know what it's called/what it's used for?
It was too risky, from her perspective.
She need to think of a more natural way to get herself a notebook.
The only thing close to a notebook that she has in her room currently, are fairytale books and coloring books, which are not really suitable for recording pivotal information and her personal last life.
While thinking hard after breakfast, it came to her. On her bed, she had devised a plan so fool proof that she couldn't help but give herself a pat on the back for that one.
And so, she proceeded with her master plan, which she named properly as Mission N. She waited patiently for play time, which was around eleven in the morning.
It was when Melody would cook lunch and leave her in her room after she'd baby-proofed the room and place one of those baby fences to keep her from roaming outside and get herself hurt.
With a sinister smirk, she picked up a bright blue crayon that was kept neatly in a box, and started to vandalize the pristine baby pink walls of her room like crazy.
Hard stain-inducing scribbles were drawn all over the walls.
With the guidance of her previous artistic abilities from her life as Bethany Elle, she began to draw crude drawings of the ocean, their house, and to not be scolded as much: a drawing of her family.
She also scribbled a bunch writings in English and Tagalog, so when she did manage to get herself a notebook, it wouldn't come off as weird that she wrote a bunch of systematically placed doodles.
No one would suspect a three-year-old to encrypt her whole life story and the OP world's future in an innocent looking notebook, oh no.
Now, she did feel partially guilty as she would not be the one to clean up her mess, but she still continued to do so not because she wanted to, but because she needed to.
She had drawn on every nook and cranny her little arms could reach. She thought if she was going to be rebellious at least once in her life, then she better make the most of it.
It's either go big or go home, which was nonsense because was in her home.
After putting a mini signature and a mandatory 'Brielle was here' sign, she declared her masterpiece officially done.
A few minutes later, she heard footsteps ascend the stairs. She quickly positioned herself on the floor, while holding a crayon and waited patiently for her parent's reaction.
It was an interesting reaction Brielle noted, she thought as she internally snickered. She had kept a poker face as she allowed her mother to carry her I her arms.
Melody didn't notice at first, but when she turned around after carrying Brielle, she noticed her holding a broken crayon.
She looked around her room, she saw the walls littered with crappy drawings and was gobsmacked. She knew very well who the culprit was, and it was none other than the child she was holding.
Her face contorted into facial expressions of anger, pride, and amazement all at the same time. She looked in disbelief at her daughter's doing.
"Brie…" Melody's voice slowly dissipated in an impending doom. If Brielle squinted hard enough, then she could probably see the menacing aura coming off of her mother.
The room temperature quickly dropped, Brielle almost started apologizing for everything she has ever done in both lives, had she not caught herself and remembered her initial plan.
She was on the verge of scolding her, when Brielle pointed at her drawing of the three of them hugging in a corner.
"Mama, look! Look!" Brielle butted in, as she showed her drawing with high expectations. She batted her eyelashes in fake innocence.
This action made her evade the volcano eruption that would have come from her mother. Brielle watched as Melody's eyes watered.
She was so touched that her daughter drew them in such a loving manner that it made her lips curl up in a smile.
Although her daughter did it in an undignified method of 'wall art', she still appreciated the drawing, it was the thought that counts.
She calmed down and gathered her thoughts before she eventually sighed.
"Do you like it Mommy?" Brielle asked her mom in a cutesy way to further weaken her mother's resolve at scolding her.
"Yes, I-I love it, but Brie, you've been a naughty girl, you shouldn't draw on the walls like that…"
Brielle slowly cried crocodile tears, seemingly upset at something she supposedly didn't know was wrong.
Brielle used tears, which was super effective, and as a result, Melody visibly stiffened, she felt guilt crawl under her skin that she made her only daughter cry.
"I-I'm sorry Mommy, I made you mad…I-I thought-" Brielle's voice wavered as she looked at her mother.
"Hah…..It's alright, I'm not mad, but I guess I'm at fault too, I failed to notice that you've taken an interest in drawing, why didn't you tell me? I could've gotten you a notebook." Melody asked her daughter.
"W-what's a notebook Mommy?" Her daughter sniffed and rubbed the back of her hands on her tear-stained face.
"Oh, that's right! You don't know what that is yet! Ugh Melody you dummy!" Melody blamed herself for not realizing it sooner.
"Well, it's like your coloring books, but instead of having things to color in, it's blank, so you could draw anything you want." Melody explained as she fixed the way she carried her.
"Really?" Brielle's eyes sparkled and she felt giddy at the thought of her finally getting her hands on a notebook, and that her plan was succeeding its purpose.
"I'll buy you some tomorrow, but, you have to promise to Mommy you wouldn't draw on the walls again." Melody said in a firm voice.
"Yes Mommy, I promise!" Brielle replied with a mock salute that was slightly similar to the marines'.
"Alright, so, are you hungry? Let's go have lunch." Melody asked as she carried her downstairs to the kitchen.
Brielle nodded in response and she couldn't stop a smile forming on her face.
"Mission N, complete! Success!" Brielle thought happily as she achieved her goal.
She gave herself another rewarding pat on the back for not only coming up with a great plan, but also executing the plan with great precision and succeeding as well.
Kudos!
The next day she had received her much needed writing materials and finally began writing. Her hand writing was wonky at first, illegible even.
Her new body didn't know how to write with a pencil properly, so she decided to practice a bit before she recorded.
It took her a few diligent days before she could properly write. She took daily writing lessons in kanji with her mother for show, and to avoid unneeded suspicion.
In all actuality, she already knew everything already, it was the one great advantage she had received in her second life.
She knew how to read, write, and speak kanji. She just needed some time for her tongue to cooperate with her, and her muscles to learn muscle memory.
Melody would teach her carefully and gave her little activities to further enhance her learning capabilities and learn new words.
Brielle did exceedingly well that her mother praised her frequently for her effort and usually left her on her own after about an hour or so to take care of other things, meaning, she had the entire day left to practice.
After getting the hang of writing once more, she wrote everything she remembered. She admitted that she became rusty, but that only made her even motivated and successfully remembered the important memories of her last life.
She started with the basic information, she wrote her previous name, date of birth, gender, age, nationality, where she resided, her personal likes, preferences and dislikes were.
Next she wrote about her parents, who they were, what they were like, their names, and her other relatives.
She wrote about her friends, the places she's been to, the happy and sad memories. She wrote them all, and against her will, tear drops fell from her eyes.
She found herself crying at the realization that she'll never see her former parents, relatives, friends, everyone, and everything ever again.
She'll forever be homesick and being unable to go back home.
She cried silently, and moved her notebook away to avoid being tear-stained. She stopped for a bit and rested her sore hand from writing.
She slowly wiped her tears and walked towards the bumped window seat. She lifted herself up and sat there quietly.
It was her favorite spot, as she could see the beautiful view of the ocean from way up there. She stayed perched on the window seat for while in order to organize her thoughts and get a move on.
She watched the ocean as the glittering blue waves crashed by the shore. It was a serene sight and calmed her jittery feelings.
She sighed, and finally got a hold of herself. She came into terms of her situation, and she thanked God that she was given a second chance at life.
Sometimes she took things for granted and never appreciated the things that were given to her. This time, she wouldn't make the same mistake again.
If she just cried, complained, gave up and never tried to solve a problem with her own two hands before, then she wouldn't now. Not now, not ever.
She needed to avoid making a repeat of her past life.
This time, she would be different. Instead of doing absolutely nothing about her personal problems under the guise of loathing in self-pity, then she would be the starting cause of her own personal change. To lift her heavy spirit and improve herself for the better.
She needed to open up and have more trust in the people that genuinely love and care for her. She needed to take care and love herself more, because for Brielle, the first step in changing one's self is to accept and love themselves first and foremost.
Only then could she face her problems more openly and grab life by the balls.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome, was the saying, and that was what she intended to do.
Nobody knows who Bethany Elle is in this world, so she would no longer have the need to carry the burdens of her past.
She was free, free from her self-deprecating thoughts. She was a new person now, and she would become a lot stronger for the harder times ahead.
She would push herself harder and become the person she's never expected her to be.
With a firm resolve, she continued to write, and with the last of her memories jotted down, she stretched her back and decided to take a much needed nap.
When she woke up, her mother called her downstairs for dinner, and after a few chit-chats with her, she retreated back to her bedroom.
She sat crisscross applesauce, and placed a different notebook unlike before, and pulled out a pen. She realized that, what made her a danger to this world was that she held the knowledge of how the events of the future would unfold.
She knew secrets about the marines and pirates alike, and that if she ever felt bold enough to play her cards dangerously, then she could easily blackmail, change the entire timeline, or probably mess with key characters that would eventually elicit change in the whole One Piece plot itself.
Either way, she needed to write down her most important assets, her knowledge. She had mentioned it before, and she would continue to say it again. Knowledge is power.
"Now, how do I start…" Brielle whispered to no one.
She felt a bit anxious of what she was about to write. If someone ever got their hands and successfully decoded her writings, then what would happen next would be the result of a major oopsie on her part.
"Wait, before that, what language do I use…?" The child thought hard.
She only knows two languages that this world didn't know about: English and Tagalog, so there really wasn't a hard decision to make, but what she needed was to make some sort of code.
What she quickly had in mind was the Vigenère Cipher. All she needed was an alphabet grid, and a keyword and she'll be ready to encode.
It was a method of encrypting words using an alphabet grid and well, it was hard to explain. How she knew of using such a code was because of watching game theory way back, and in one episode, she learned how to use it. She was glad to know it came in handy one day.
Taking a blank piece of graphing paper she kept in her drawer that she found lying around near her father's room last week, she proceeded to make the said grid.
After a painful 20 minutes of writing the English alphabet over and over again, she was finally done. She decided to encode the names of certain people, devil fruits, attack names, places, dates, and other important details in different codenames first.
She ended up choosing Tagalog, because she remembered that people sometimes used English names to name their attacks, so there could be a slight probability that someone in this world uses English, and so to be safe, Tagalog is the way to go.
Using the keyword 'dagat' the Tagalog equivalent of sea, she proceeded to make secret codenames for the various information. She named them appropriately first. For example, she'd name the big shots equivalent to colors in her native language:
Gold Roger – Ginto (gold)
Whitebeard – Puti (white)
Shanks – Pula (red)
Big Mom – Rosas (Pink/Rose in color)
Kaido - Itim (Black)
She'd name the future Shibukai as various words that correlates to them:
Mihawk – Espada (sword)
Kuma – Oso (bear)
Boa – Ahas (snake)
Moria – Anino (shadow)
Crocodile – Bayawak (crocodile)
Jimbei – Tubig (water)
Doflamingo – Tali (string/rope)
Those are just some of what the child wrote in code. She now felt safe and secure, maybe even confident that there is at least some level of secrecy that no one would know what she knows.
She made a makeshift pocket at the back of the said notebook, which fortunately had a hard cover.
She put a slit in it and there she placed the alphabet grid she made and the list of the Tagalog equivalent of the codes written within the book inside the slim pocket, just in case she forgot.
Now that she got that out of the way, the child continued to write in the dark with a little lamp to light her room. The truth was, she had been writing for hours now, it was way over midnight, and her mom was already fast asleep it the other room.
She couldn't stop writing as she was so engrossed with what she was doing that she forgot the time altogether.
By the time she finished, it was already two in the morning. She put down her pencil at last and gave her hand and fingers the rest it needed.
She stretched her back and finally laid down on her bed, but still she couldn't fall asleep despite how tired the child was. Her head was occupied with many things that she couldn't let herself rest just yet.
She thought of possibilities she might cause to alter the storyline, and what would be the drastic results. Would she be willing to risk the unknown for her personal doings?
She couldn't predict the future, though in some instances she could, prior to her knowledge, but that was about it.
She didn't know what would occur if something totally unexpected happened and render her stocked information useless.
She sighed, and let the future be, what's more important was that, whatever might happen, she better be prepared for that rollercoaster of a ride.
She thought of other things, like what she would do if she ever encountered Luffy, the Monkey D. Luffy? Son of the most wanted man in the world, the grandson of the marine hero Vice Admiral Garp, and the brother of both the future Fire Fist Ace and Chief of Staff Sabo.
Did she forget to mention that in the future he would obtain a FREAKING FLEET?! The Strawhat Grand Fleet?! Which was during the Dressrosa Arc.
She would probably lose it. In her last life, she has always loved Luffy as a character, not in love or in a romantic way, but just she couldn't help but love the guy. She loved him platonically, like a brother, or maybe even as her own son.
He had many charming qualities, such as being friendly, perseverant, honest, fun-loving, adventurous, and the list goes on and on.
For Brielle, she's never encountered anyone like him, a person so hell-bent on making nakama that no one can resist his overflowing charisma.
For a pirate, he was actually a really good person at heart, a bit childish, but that made his youthful personality radiate and give off a refreshing vibe.
He has the most fearsome ability of making friends out of anyone, even his former enemies, like Bon Clay, Mr. 3, Buggy, Hatchi, and even good 'ol Crocy.
She can say confidently that he can make allies out LITERALLY anyone, he can round them up and have them at his side. She was not even kidding, it was a factor that made the boy even more lovable for Brielle.
Heck, he could even be friends with Akainu if not for—yeah, she doesn't want to think about that. She wasn't ashamed to admit she cried for weeks because of that, and the whole flashback thing that followed made it the feeling even worse.
As much as she hated to see the loving brother die, she could understand that it was the major turning point, the climax, and a point of maturity for Luffy to realize that sometimes, he cannot dive head first into situations unprepared, and also it used to give a much needed character development.
But that didn't mean she's gonna let that happen this time, could she?
Ahhh, the memory made her cry yet again, Ace that boi, she wanted to give that fiery bean the love he deserves.
Maybe in the future, where she can be independent and venture of to sea, she could, but in the meantime, all she could do was patiently wait when that time comes.
Brielle could only daydream at two in the morning. She then said her prayers, before she finally settled in and drifted off to sleep.
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A/N – Yeah, Brielle's finally got her shizz together. Hope you like this chapter, and I hope you all have a good one – Diwata
Word Count: 3,322
Date of Publication: January 1, 2020