The first two years of my new life were consumed by a single, obsessive goal: rebuilding my body from the ground up. Fortunately for me, modern Earth fitness programs provided the blueprint I needed—structured routines, progressive overload, and sensible recovery. I married those methods to the unique physiology and dangers of the One Piece world and watched the transformation occur faster than I expected.
Visible muscle arrived in six months; the first hints of abs carved their outline beneath my skin. I remember thinking any gym bro who'd seen the change would curse me for cheating. There were no powders, no synthetic shortcuts—just fresh seafood, steady sleep, and training that pushed limits without breaking me. The body became a tool and the confidence I had started growing back.
At fifteen I stood just shy of 180 centimeters, short by One Piece standards but lean and compact in a way that favored agility. Dark hair framed my face, streaked white from the trauma the previous owner suffered when consuming a Devil Fruit. My eyes shifted between amber and jade depending on whether I used my Devil Fruit or not, a small but striking sign of the power now woven into me. I was not a cinematic Adonis; I was above average in a world where averages were absurdly exaggerated.
Finding a mirror felt like staking claim to that new identity. Seeing myself—seeing the person I'd become—was the first step toward choosing what to do with the rest of my life.
The development of my Devil Fruit ability slowed after its initial rush, and money was a constant pressure. I turned to gambling to fund both training and experimentation, using quick, cautious schemes rather than reckless streaks. I never let a single win or loss define a run; I moved venues every two days, drifting from tavern to inn, picking the easiest marks from the rowdiest crews. The East Blue offered endless opportunities for small-time cons and bigger gambles.
When pirates balked at paying or tried to cheat me, I adapted my ability into improvisational violence. A pistol shot that seemed to miss would ricochet and find a target. A cutlass swing that missed me would somehow injure the attacker's partner instead. It looked like luck to those watching, terror to those who fought me. To the marines and local rumors, I became a nightmare they couldn't easily predict or punish.
My Reputation grew faster than I expected. I started redeeming bounties on slain pirates, not because I loved glory but because it bought visibility and leverage. From being a street rat I became a bounty hunter with growing notoriety, a name whispered in East Blue taverns. The marines even tried to recruit me. I wasn't a Whitebeard or a Buddha; myth takes time, but every legend begins somewhere.
Those two years on the island were not just for muscle and money. I learned to steer a small ship, to read tides and stars, and to navigate the tangled social currents of the East Blue. I learned where currents funneled merchant traffic, which islands harbored smugglers, and which ports were traps. Most importantly, I decided what I wanted from this life: not power for its own sake, not infamy for its own glow, but latitude—the freedom to explore, to understand, to find things the World Government might prefer remain buried.
The One Piece world is breathtaking: a million islands, a million cultures, and layers of history painted in ruins, murals, and forbidden texts. The World Government's iron hand labeled anyone who roamed without a permit a pirate regardless of intent, because what they truly feared were explorers stumbling over relics of the Void Century. Poneglyphs are not the only record of the past; cave drawings, paintings, and ancient books also hold threads of a history the Government could not erase.
If the World Government could not purge every record, it meant hidden histories still waited for someone willing to look. That realization shifted my aim. I no longer wanted only to survive and grow strong; I wanted to reach places no one else would, to uncover fragments of truth stitched into the islands' bones.
To explore meant building more than a body. It meant a crew that could be trusted, a ship that could weather storms, and the patience to wait until the right moment. I had five years, by my count, before the events that would send the world spinning again; that window was both a gift and a deadline. In the meantime I sharpened my skills, expanded my network, and stockpiled the resources I would need for a proper voyage.
Time to set sail had arrived in my mind long before I found the courage to say it aloud. The sea calls differently to everyone; it calls me to maps half-remembered, to histories carved in stone and wave, and to a life I can choose rather than inherit. I tightened straps, checked lines—because exploration is never a solo job, and the right crew turns a ship into a world-moving thing.
As Roger said, if you want my treasure, search for it.
My first destination after leaving the island I called home was Tidegrave, a small island that merchants avoid like the plague.
To respectable captains and cartographers it was a non-place, a blot on their charts labeled in polite ink as uninhabited. To sailors who lived by wind and compass it was a warning: steer clear, or the ocean will spit you back a different person.
Ask a pirate or a smuggler however, and the answer will be different.
Tidegrave was the black market. It is THE central black market of the East Blue, an ecosystem of barter and vice where everything forbidden finds a broker. Contraband food that will keep a crew alive through monstrous storms; medicinal rarities that can mend a broken spine or spike the pulse of a dying man; forged documents and fake Marine papers that let a wanted man walk into a port as if it were his front yard. Smuggled weapons and specialized maritime tools hang under tarps. Pirate maps are traded like religion. Clandestine transport bookings are scribbled on the insides of seasick palms. Bribery is a currency in its own right. Information brokers trade whispers as if they were coins. One-off illegal ship modifications are offered to captains who'd rather cheat the sea than challenge it.
Everything can be acquired on this island if you have the funds. Of course, many seasoned pirates tried looting and taking control of the goose that laid the golden eggs, none of them succeeded, and their heads were paraded in the island harbor.
The reason for their failure was the supposed king of the black market, [Joker].
The reason I chose this place wasn't for any of the services mentioned, but for one service that no other black market in East Blue offers: slaves.
I was not Luffy, able to turn foes into friends using my god-like charisma, in fact I have the charisma of a salted fish that was left in the sun for too long.
Luckily for me, the island's name reflected the fate that swallowed so many who never made it to the Sabaody Archipelago. Most who brave the Grand Line never reach that glittering Archipelago: rival pirate crews carve them apart for sport; erratic weather chews fleets into driftwood; mysterious phenomena snatch ships and men in half; and, most importantly, the Navy hunts like a pack of northern dogs scenting blood. The Grand Line was not called a pirate graveyard for nothing. For the unlucky, paradise was a nightmare—unless you were a Straw Hat, blessed by luck and plot armor.
The navy's presence is heavier on the first half of the Grand Line. Gain a high profile and they will hunt you relentlessly. Don't be fooled by Luffy's seemingly leisurely pace; without the likes of Garp and Sengoku bending the rules of attention, vice admirals would have been knocking on Water 7's boathouses well before he left the docks. Many of those labeled losers in the world's ledger are sold on Tidegrave by pirates and even by the Navy itself. Those of high quality—dangerous, valuable, rare—are shipped to Sabaody Archipelago. There, the Celestial Dragons' interest can turn a supernova into trophy meat or a puppet for a man's perverse pastime. But those who won't garner that attention are cast back to the Four Blues, auctioned as soldiers, laborers, or comfortable bed warmers to kings and nobles who pay to feel important.
Sometimes, some gems pass through the cracks and are returned by mistake. That is where I enter the equation. I am a gambler at heart, and my special power is a sliver of sight that helps me spot those unlucky or lucky few who slip through the system. My eyes catch the tremor in a man's hand that hides a blade, the way a woman's spine remembers how to brace for a storm, the silent promise of a child who will not be broken. I look for people who have been discarded but who still burn with the possibility of becoming something more than what they were sold as.
I wanted a crew made of former slaves and losers, men and women given a second chance to make it big in the Grand Line. I wanted them not because I pitied them but because I knew what they carried in their battered chests: hunger, cunning, quiet rage, and the kind of loyalty forged in places where life is cheaper than a loaf of bread. I wanted fighters who had already learned how to survive the worst the world could throw at them. I wanted navigators who had been sold a dozen times and still found harbor. I wanted the fallen to become the storm.
The Chainbreaker Pirates sounded like a good name. It was blunt, honest, and had just enough cruelty to make a promise: we would not wear chains forever. It whispered of sabotage and liberation, of taking back what was stolen and doing the stealing with better taste. It felt like a loop of rope that snapped open when pulled hard enough.
So I walked Tidegrave's alleys with a purse light enough to be dangerous and a purpose heavier than any cargo. I watched the auctions where men were sold like tools, and I catalogued the faces that the world had miscounted. I learned the rhythm of Joker's markets, the silent marks where a secret meeting would happen, the back alleys where favors were bought with teeth. I listened more than I spoke, because in a place named for burial, you learn quickly that a closed mouth is often the only thing that keeps you breathing.
That night I left Tidegrave not with a single prize, but with a list and a map of hearts that could be turned into a crew. The Chainbreaker Pirates were only an idea at that moment, a fragile hatchling needing feeding. But the Grand Line devours ideas or crowns them, and if there is anything Tidegrave taught me, it is that the world will test what you build with the terms it likes best: fire, blood, and the kind of betrayal that polishes resolve into a blade.