'What does death feel like?'
As the Truck-kun charged toward him with a blaring horn, Lucci swore he could hear the muffled sobs of the little girl clutched in his arms.
"Wuwuwu… everyone's trying to steal my transmigration slot…"
Darkness swallowed him whole. And when he opened his eyes again—
He was nothing more than an infant, swaddled in rough cloth.
Men in black suits loomed over him, murmuring incomprehensible gibberish. It wasn't until later that Lucci understood: the World Government knew well the principle that brainwashing worked best when begun early.
Fortunately, his mind was strong enough to resist. Their words passed through him like wind through empty halls.
And so the days trickled by—grim, suffocating, yet safe enough.
Until he learned to walk.
From then on, everything turned sharply, mercilessly worse.
The first training left him broken with exhaustion.
The first kill made him vomit.
The first torture carved pain into his bones.
He adopted Hattori. He befriended Kaku, Kalifa, and others. But no companionship dulled the endless torment gnawing at his nerves. Hatred, weariness, and numbness crept in, corroding him slowly.
Over time, Lucci's heart stilled. No waves. No warmth. A dead sea.
Killing became routine. Torture, something to endure with a blank face. His peers called him a machine. His instructors called him a prodigy.
But only Lucci knew the truth—he longed for the boundless sea. He carved that vow into himself: 'I must escape the World Government's cage.'
And so, half in a daze, he arrived at this day.
Before the treasury.
A sudden blow slammed into him like the fist of a god. His body flew like a kite cut from its string, crashing into a thick stone wall. The impact buried him deep, then dragged him down in a rain of dust.
When the haze settled—
His eyes had rolled back, limbs grotesquely twisted, his chest collapsed inward. He looked every bit a broken corpse.
Yet faintly, his lips moved. His breath whispered like the last flicker of a dying flame.
That single strike had shoved him to the edge of death itself.
"Gugugu! Lucci! Lucci!" Hattori's feathers were ragged as it pecked desperately at his cheek. Tears streamed as it saw the massive figure drawing closer.
"Wake up, coo~ coo~~!" The pigeon's jade beak clamped onto Lucci's collar, flapping furiously, trying to drag him away.
But a pigeon is just a pigeon.
Intelligent, yes. Loyal, yes. But still weak. Its beak bled from straining, yet Lucci's body didn't budge.
Moments stretched into eternity.
"…Fly away, Hattori. Save yourself."
Lucci's voice rasped like glass grinding stone, but Hattori refused. It only pulled harder.
"Wororororo…"
A voice rolled through the dust, rough and mocking.
"Tekkai can't block my Hassaikai. Still… to awaken Armament Haki at your age? You're leagues ahead of my stupid daughter."
The smoke thinned. A towering Oni silhouette emerged, clutching a spiked kanabo.
Lucci's pupils shrank.
There was no mistaking that face.
Kaido of the Beasts
'So unlucky… is this the price of defying fate?'
The aura that bore down on him was suffocating, primal. His body refused to rise, every bone screaming mutiny. All he could do was sit against the wall, broken yet composed, and stare back.
"Interesting." Kaido's grin split wide.
Fear—he saw it every day. But calm? Calm, here at death's door? Rare. Amusing. Worth keeping.
"Kid," he rumbled, "be my subordinate."
It wasn't a request. It was the declaration of a king who assumed the world would kneel.
Lucci chuckled hoarsely, blood flecking his lips.
"Kaido of the Beasts… Governor of the Beasts Pirates… Emperor of the New World… conqueror of Wano three years ago, with King, Queen, and Jack at your side."
"Worororo~ You really do know quite a bit about me!"
Kaido bellowed with laughter, flashing a mouth full of sharp, white teeth at Lucci's calm words.
But only Hattori, who had followed Lucci longer than anyone else, understood—what came next would be the true climax.
And, as expected—
"But I refuse."
Even as his body trembled on the brink of collapse, Lucci delivered his rejection with a blank, detached expression.
He didn't care about his condition.
Even though his life was hanging by a single fragile thread.
The laughter died on Kaido's lips.
"Kid… aren't you afraid of death?"
"I am," Lucci admitted, voice steady, "but in this life, there are things that weigh heavier than fear. After being a caged bird for so long, sometimes… I just want to spread my wings and fly."
"…Is that so."
Kaido lowered the Hassaikai from his shoulder and gripped it firmly in one massive hand. His eyes narrowed at the battered assassin sprawled before him. Then, without hesitation, he began to swing.
"Then show me just how much spine you really have!"
With a grunt, Kaido unleashed his power. The Hassaikai blazed with a red aura, the ground cracking beneath its path. Lightning snapped across the battlefield as the shockwave raced toward Lucci.
On his shoulder, Hattori had long since stopped tugging at him. The pigeon sat still, resigned, like any ordinary bird awaiting the inevitable.
"You're even coating your weapon with Haoshoku against a small fry like me? Quite the extravagant funeral."
In Lucci's fading vision, the massive club seemed to slow, each movement dragging out into eternity. For an instant, it felt like if he could only twist his waist, he could slip past the fatal blow.
But he knew better.
His body was shattered beyond repair.
At this point, lifting even a finger was a fantasy.
'If I had another chance… would I still defy fate?'
Lucci's eyes fluttered shut. In this stillness, everything sharpened into brutal clarity—the howling wind of Kaido's strike, the labored rise and fall of Hattori's breath, the agony of his crushed bones and screaming organs… and the suffocating weight of death itself.
"I surrender…"
Then, in the very next heartbeat, his eyes snapped open.
Defiance burned in his gaze. His ruined legs strained, cracking and groaning as adrenaline drowned the pain, forcing him upright.
Creak… creak…
Facing the descending club, Lucci had only one thought left.
"But I will never accept my fate!"
BOOM!
Black and red lightning erupted violently from beneath his feet, roaring against the heavens.
…
…
"This aura…"
The storm of wind and debris faded, revealing Lucci's unconscious body still standing upright, defiant even unconscious.
Kaido stared in silence. Then, with a grunt, he eased back the Hassaikai, halting it an inch before the boy.
"…I've changed my mind. I want you on my crew. But first—don't die on me, brat."
"Worororo~"
As Lucci's breathing grew ragged and shallow, Kaido laughed again. From within his cloak, he pulled out a small wooden box.
Crack!
The box splintered and broke easily in his massive hand, revealing a strange Devil Fruit, pure white in color.
"Once you've taken my gift, you're mine."
"Worororo!!!"
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