Brothers (One Piece x My Oc)

Chapter 1

"My children, you must escape! I don't want you to get killed by them!" a woman's voice whispered as tears flowed down her cheeks.

"But, mothe-" Raku-aniki tried to reason with his mother, but she sealed his lips with index finger. In the shadows, Karu-aniki was crying, but he didn't show his face to everyone else. Their precious little girl Ruka is scared, Kura hug her tightly to comfort her.

"Don't worry, Ruka. I'm here." Kura said to her while patting her head gently.

Their father was peeking through a hole in the door, to see if his rival's crew was there. His left hand held a gun as he locked and barricaded the door. He ran to the fireplace, where he clawed through the sooty bricks somehwere high up inside the chimney. To everyone's astonishment, he had opened a secret passage. He turned and knelt down to talk to the children, his heart breaking a little as he addressed them. "Raku, take care of your younger brothers and sister. Remember what I told you?"

"Always protect the ones you love. Never leave them," the boy sputtered. The father patted Raku's shoulder as the boy tried to control his sobs. Kura's mother then grabbed him in a tight embrace.

"We will always love you, our strong and brave boys and protect your little sister. Remember that, too." She said this and then hugged the other children, letting go of each one slowly with hesitation. Her eyes were hot and stinging from crying, her pained face seemingly ageing her look by several years.

Their father spoke up again. "Now, go! Hurry!" He stood up again inside the stone pipe of the chimney, and lifted each of his children into the secret passage. He gave a lantern and some oil to Karu, who took it. Once all the children were inside, they had one last look at their parents peering through the mouth of the secret passage. "Love you my dear children," their mother said as she bit her lip. and then dad bricked up the passage again.

As the light from their home - the only one they had ever known, grew fainter with every brick their father placed, they could hear the muffled sounds of their mother wailing. This, too, weakened as they crawled a little further into the passage, which became high enough for them to stand in. The three young boys in the damp, dark passage saw neither beginning nor end to this long darkness, their only light being the lantern in Karu's hand. He moved to the head of their little queue, and the other three walked behind him.

Some eternity later, they could sense an exit. A cold wind seemed to blow from some point up ahead. "I see now; this must be a cave in the forest on the other side of the mountain our house is built on," Karu exclaimed. A few minutes later, moonlight filtered in from cracks above. They could see the mouth of the cave with the light from Karu's lamp.

The four children clambered above wet rocks and fallen leaves, emerging into the cold forest outside. A few paces ahead was a grove, where they could spy through the tall trees the house they had come from. It was all the way in the far end of the valley below, and looked like a speck no larger than a seed. It appeared calm under the quiet black of night; Kura pointed out that the trees around it had a strange, orange glow. The tiny house suddenly became a match lighting in the dark forest. The sound of the blast took a few seconds to reach them.

"MOTHER! FATHER! NOOOOO! Kura screamed at the top of his lungs as their house was engulfed in a fireball. Hot tears flooded his face as he tried to barrel down the hill to the valley. Raku and Karu held their brother by the arms, pulling him into a hug and shielding his eyes from the horror. While Ruka crying loudly as she sat on ground.

"Kura! Please stop! We should keep going, and do what mother and father said! I will never leave you three, ever!" Raku yelled as he held Karu, Kura and Ruka close to his chest. As Kura opened his eyes, he could see dark violet rainclouds thundering across the night sky. Lightning crashed about as a gale tore his little body away from the other siblings.