Pioneers of the Stars

Chapter 1

‟Inherited Will, the Flow of Time, and the dreams of people. These are things that cannot be stopped. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of freedom, these things will never cease to exist.

-Gol D. Roger„

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What was happening? He wondered. His head hurt as if it was ready to explode. His body shrieked from the pain of his wounds, even though they were miraculously healing.

He felt his body being dragged without any regard by two revels that grabbed him by the arms. He could hear them complaining about the job entrusted to them by a certain Kaido, however, he guessed he must have been a big shot in some organization or something.

"Ah, if I had been the captain, I would have killed him immediately," the first spoke in a hoarse voice. "Do you really want a dog like him in the Beast pirates?"

The second passed a hand over his wrinkled beard. He, who seemed wiser and more reasonable than his companion, thought over the last events. "He defeated a hundred of us, including a tobiroppo, using the power of his Devil Fruit and Haki," he spoke, feeling a mixture of emotions that were not necessarily negative.

His companion grunted while he could feel a bit of admiration because, even when one of the three All-Stars come on the battlefield, he had endured longer than many before him and he was still alive.

Devil's fruit? Haki? What were they talking about? He didn't understand.

The first one passed a hand on the frizzy beard. Haki was a power that just a few people possessed, and although it was possible to develop that of perception and armour through training, the King's Haki was something innate.

"Consider yourself lucky," the first said frowning. "Your life will last one more day."

They arrived before a cave blocked a large stone. While one was in charge of holding the prisoner, the black-bearded man went to open the entrance to what was actually a dark prison whose only source of illumination was a small crack in the ceiling.

"My luck is E Rank," he chuckled.

He easily got rid of the man's grip and hit him with a strong fist in the jaw making him fall to the ground.

"Consider yourself lucky," he paraphrased the man he had just punched. "If you give me your guns and lock yourself in that cell, you will live one more day."

Obviously, they were more afraid of Kaido's wrath than the threat of a stranger.

"You are dead," the frizzy-beard man threatened.

The young man widened his eyes slightly as they began to transform into a monkey and an ibex.

He had also seen those he had defeated do it and he wondered if it was a common skill of the inhabitants of that place or it was simply the power of the Devil Fruit and the Haki they were talking about before.

Well, the answers should have waited for now.

Taking advantage of his enhanced speed, the ibex man threw himself at the prisoner and tried to hit him with a rotating kick that, however, was blocked with his bare hands and then he was thrown at the gorilla man who attempted an attack from above.

He saw without enthusiasm while they crashed against the bare rock, raising a cloud of dust that covered them.

"You were warned," he said apathetically.

"You are dead."

The ape-man and the ibex man spat blood from their mouths and watched the prisoner with bloodshot eyes.

To be on his feet after being beaten by one of the All-Stars, he had to possess a Devil Fruit that guaranteed some sort of formidable endurance and a healing factor like a Zoan-type Fruit.

They were Beast Pirates, the fleet of Kaido, one of the Four Emperors. They could not be defeated so easily.

"Very threatening, but you see..." he closed his eyes before opening them and releasing his murderous intent. "This is a killing intent."

Under the pressure of such murderous intent, the two pirates lost their will to fight, allowing him to defeat them.

He broke the kneecap of the ibex man with a kick before hitting him hard in the jaw and then focused on the ape-man. He took a rock and threw it in the air to distract him before he threw a direct at his jaw and blew his teeth out.

"Grr..."

He blocked the gorilla's blow with the right elbow and hit him in the ribs, before locking with his left elbow and hitting him again in the jaw and finally hitting him with a series of reverse punches to the abdomen, breaking his ribs.

"You made the wrong choice," he said before kicking the ape-man in the stomach.

The blow was so violent that the gorilla man crashed into the wall before first crashing to the ground unconscious.

Sighing, he approached the two and requisitioned the flint pistols they had with them. Considering the weapons he'd seen, these looked older.

"How long do you pretend to be hidden?" he asked, turning his back.

Realizing that she had been discovered, a woman came out from behind a tree.

She was a tall, thin woman with light brown eyes and long, wavy white hair that fades into aqua green and blue at the tips. She wore a white kimono with blue wavy lines, red trousers held up by a white and purple shimenawa, sandals, earrings and golden hair clips. However, the thing that intrigued him the most were the steel handcuffs that tightened her wrists.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Go straight to the point." Not that she disliked this. "The name is Yamato."

Her name was Yamato, the daughter of Kaido, the Captain of the Beast Pirates.

"And you?"

She walked forward cautiously, holding her giant kanabo tightly in her hands.

"Yuto," he replied.

The mere fact that she could carry a weapon larger than her suggested that she was not a pushover, although perhaps not as strong as the guy capable of generating fire who had previously defeated him. He had to thank his natural heat resistance if he didn't burn to death.

"There are two ways to solve this: we lower our weapons and we talk or..." a nodachi sword whose blade was unusually long appeared in his hands wrapped in blue particles.

A defiant smile spread across Yamato's face. "Or we fight until one of us collapses."