Another Piece

Pilot Chapter

Chapter 0: Konton - Several journeys

"Come on Koko! You gotta start catching up, haha!" Tenshi, one of my older brothers, called out for me as we had our usual race to our favorite hill where we would play pirates all day. Despite living in east blue, we would get to see our fair share of pirates visiting our town and they all looked so cool! All those battle scars, the amount of treasures they carried around has always made us dream of adventures of our own.

"I'm not even that far behind you guys!!!" I complained as we all reached the green hill eventually. It had a single willow standing tall and proud.

"You're always last though! You have to become faster if you want to become pirate king!" Ichiro, my other older brother, teased and leaned on the willow tree.

"Oh I'll show you! I'll make my own pirate crew who's super strong and I'll become the pirate king!" I boast with all my confidence. It has been my dream since I was little and it's something I would forever hold onto.

"Haha, sure!"  That's how our childhood memories always played out. Playing together until the sunset. The three of us made the promise of setting out on our journey at the same time. Or so I thought.

"Whaaaaaaat?! Why can Tenshi and Ichiro start their adventures already and not me?!" I shouted, jealous to see my two brothers loading crater boxes into their separate ships.

"Sorry Koko! We are older than you so we naturally get to go earlier!" Ichiro explained but I didn't buy that excuse one bit. It was unfair and I wanted to go out too!

"Besides. There is something out there we need to find..." I gasped in shock as I could somewhat figure out what Tenshi meant by those words.

"No way! Are you guys going after the one piece already?! That's not fair! We promised to start together!!!" Some of the adults around me had to hold me back from not barging into the ships and cause a riot. In the end I got to say goodbye to my brothers with a grumpy attitude which carried on even when I got home to my mother.

"It's not fair! Why did you let them go without me?!" My anger had passed over to my mother but she knew this was temporary and did her best to comfort me and even prepared some fruit salad for me before she had to go to run some business. I was quick to finish the appetizer but I wanted to eat more, probably as a coping mechanism for the anger and I found a strange fruit on the counter. It was a pale yellow color. It split into five elongated curves and I easily mistook it for bananas. It didn't peel like a normal fruit which should have been suspicious but I was too angry and hungry and just ate the strange fruit which tasted TERRIBLY.

"Ew! What kind of fruit is that?" I threw away the fruit and stomped back to my room to cry things out. Curled up in a ball on my bed, my body started to get used to the unusual power the fruit had given me. Before I knew it, I looked up from my curling position to see... several ghosts surrounding me!

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" I ran out of my room and even rushed out of the house to get away from the ghost but they kept following me!
Eventually I would've run so much I'd exhausted myself, causing me to fall over, begging and crying that the ghosts wouldn't hurt me. As I laid down on the ground I even realized for how long I've been trying to escape the ghosts as the sky was covered with stars at that point. I expected to be consumed by the spirits but no. Nothing was... happening?

"Huh?" I sit up to look around and see that the ghosts were just... looking at me?

"You're... not going to hurt me?" The ghosts didn't necessarily reply, but they did get closer to... nuzzle my face? I was so confused about the whole situation but I ended up just giggling and laughing and the ghost seemed to cheer up along with me.

"Oh I get it now! You just want to be friends with me! I'm so sorry for running away scared like that!" We all had a great laugh and played around in the forest but only for a few minutes as it was already late. The stars were bright so it was a good indicator to go home.

I stormed back into my home to reveal this great news to my mom who started to shout in panic. Not because there were ghosts in the house but because of a fruit?

"KOKO!!!! WHY ARE THESE GHOSTS WITH YOU? DID YOU EAT THE HOLLOW HOLLOW- FRUIT?!?!?!"

"... The what?"

"KOKO YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT THAT YET" I had to spend fifteen minutes listening to my mother scolding me that I ate a devil fruit. I didn't understand the burden of it. All I knew was that I got new ghost friends! I got to do the punishment that was my mother training me to a vigorous extent so I could become stronger and utilize my ghosts better. All of this to the cost of my swimming abilities. Which is very much worth it if you ask me!
But after 10 years of training after consuming the fruits, mom finally let me start my journey to become a pirate king.

"Do you have the food barrels?"

"Yep!"

"Do you have the water reserves?"

"Mhmm!" My mother would continue to remind me for the 3rd time if I have everything that I need while loading my ship with the last few crater boxes.

"Phew! I'll be off then!" The "ship" was barely a rowing boat for four people. But hey it fit me and my essentials.

"Ugh try not to get into trouble first thing first, alright?"

"Mmm can't make any promises!" My mother sighs while I take a seat on my boat, grinning with excitement.

"As expected. Just send my regards to your brothers when you meet them, okay?" Despite the gentle smile on her face, there was a hint of bittersweet-ness. She was bidding her last child goodbye after all.

"Will do! Goodbye mom!" Mother took the honor to kick off my boat into the sea to travel towards the horizon.

"Just you wait mom! Soon you'll see my face on those wanted posters! Haha!" I shout with burning passion, leaving my old home behind. At the age of 18 is where my journey starts.

"Toku Horo!" I created a large ghost that helped my ship move by blowing air into it.

"Thank you Horo!" I haven't named the ghosts themselves and usually just refer to them as "horo". However I do have a small ghost friend who frequently accompanies me who I call "Obake" which I also summoned shortly after. He was very much happy to see me out at sea finally knowing it's been my dream.

"Today, Obake, we will fight toward our dream to become the strongest pirates!"

"Boooo!"