"Die!"
A man roared, his voice cracking with a mixture of desperation and bloodlust. He raised a rusted, jagged-edged cutlass and rushed forward, the blade gleaming under the harsh glare of the afternoon sun.
He was a veteran pirate, twice the size of the boy standing before him, and he put every ounce of his weight into the downward swing. aiming to kill the "brat" who had butchered his entire crew just moments ago.
Lucian didn't retreat. He didn't even flinch. Instead of stepping back, he stepped in, closing the distance to negate the pirate's reach.
Steel met steel with a sharp, bone-jarring clang.
The pirate's eyes widened to the size of saucers, his arm feeling numb at the strike from a mere brat.
The force behind the small boy's casual, one-handed block drove the pirate's arm backward with such violence that the man's shoulder audibly popped from its socket.
"What—?! How can a brat have this much—?!"
Lucian didn't answer.
He pivoted cleanly on his heel, his feet drawing a perfect semicircle in the dirt. Roronoa Zoro's copied swordsmanship flowed through his muscles, guiding his grip and his center of gravity.
Lucian's blade came down in a single, decisive arc that left a trail of silver light in the air.
The pirate was split apart before he could even finish his sentence.
Blood sprayed across the tall grass in a violent mist, the metallic scent filling the air. Silence followed. Lucian stood amidst the gore, his expression flat, disappointed.
Lucian flicked his sword once, cleanly removing the crimson stain from its edge. He turned slowly, his mismatched eyes scanning the clearing. Bodies lay strewn about like discarded dolls, twenty of them in total.
"That's everyone," he muttered, his breath coming in a steady, calm rhythm. He exhaled, the adrenaline beginning to recede. "Really hope you idiots were worth the trouble."
With a flicker of spatial distortion, a golden, shimmering gate opened behind him. One by one, he pulled the corpses inside.
He was a little annoyed he had to use his ate for this, but it was the best way to provide proof of the kill, and he wasnt going to carry the bodies himself.
Saje Island.
Saje Island's Marine office wasn't large. The moment Lucian stepped inside, the atmosphere of tension that usually hung over the stressed recruits seemed to ease when they saw it was him.
The clerk behind the desk, an old man named Malcom with weary eyes and a permanent ink stain on his thumb, looked up and smiled. "Ah, Mister Lucian. Welcome back. You're earlier than expected. Did the 'Smiling Butcher' decide to go peacefully?"
Lucian gave a small, polite nod. "Malcom. Good to see you're still breathing. I thought you'd pass before I return, seeing just how old you are."
The man laughed out loud as he looked at the brat before him.
"Brat, I still have years left in me". The man replied.
Malcom leaned back, his chair creaking under the weight. "You're done already, I see. Most hunters take a few days just to track a crew. You were gone for just a few hours. So were they what you were looking for?"
Lucian let out a long, weary sigh. "No. Like all the others, he was a disappointment. Seventy percent of the pirates in this sea are just loud-mouthed fools dreaming of grandeur they don't have the spine to earn. They think a Jolly Roger and a mean look make them kings."
Malcom chuckled awkwardly. He'd known the boy for three weeks now, and the "kid" still unsettled him with his desire to find strong pirates for some reason.
At first, the entire office had thought Lucian was playing some elaborate, suicidal joke when he walked in and declared himself a bounty hunter. Then, Lucian had returned, dragging the corpses of an eight-man pirate crew worth twenty million Berries total. The laughter had died instantly.
The boy was strong, unnervingly so. He was stronger than most of the enlisted Marines stationed on Saje combined. According to David, the local Marine swordsman who had spent twenty years in the ranks, Lucian had a bit of talent with a sword.
Malcom believed him. He watched as a portal shimmered open beside Lucian, and the bodies thudded onto the floor with a series of heavy, wet sounds.
"That Devil Fruit ability of yours really is amazing," Malcom said, wincing as he moved to check the bodies. "Okay... let's see. Smiling Butcher... Long-jaw Pete...Long arm John....Yes, these are them. I'll send the details over to the back and process your reward immediately."
A few minutes later, he returned with a heavy briefcase. "Here you go. fifteen million Berries. The Captain accounted for nine million of that alone. The rest were just side-bounties for the crew."
Lucian frowned slightly, tapping his fingers on the case. "Really? Only fifteen million for the entire crew? I knew they were just an 'up-and-coming' group, but after the effort of tracking them down... ahhh, whatever." He sighed, putting the cash into his gate. "Thanks anyway, Malcom."
As Lucian turned to leave, Malcom spoke again. "Hey... I know I've asked before, but are you sure you don't want to join the Navy? With your strength and that ability, you'd be a Captain in a year. You'd have a stable life, men who actually follow orders, and the protection of the World Government."
Lucian paused at the doorway, the bright sunlight of the island casting a long, dark shadow behind him. He looked back over his shoulder.
"This devil doesn't work for other devils, Malcom."
Malcom watched the door close and shook his head with a faint smile. He didn't quite understand what the boy meant, but he had grown to respect him in what little time he knew him, the kid had guts and drive.
He was going to miss the strange kid.
Lucian strolled through the streets of Saje Island one last time. He was leaving soon. It was a picturesque place, popular for its sweet, high-end wines and the occasional gold vein found in the northern hills, just valuable enough to be a target for low pirates, but too small to draw the attention of the Great Powers of the sea.
It had served as a comfortable hunting ground for the last few weeks.
It had been four months since he entered the world of One Piece. In that time, he had grown stronger, richer, and significantly more grounded in his power.
He also found out that He couldn't stay in this world indefinitely. After long periods of time, he would abruptly wake up back in his original world, lying in his bed in the DxD universe.
Apparently, he just couldn't leave his world indefinitely, he had to come back. If he didn't, then his powers would send him back.
He had also used this time to learn more about his powers, of his Meta Essence: The Essence of the Merchant.
And the main thing about it was VALUE.
Value was everything, but value wasn't fixed. It is composed of two distinct layers, Conscious Value and Unconscious Value.
Conscious Value was the price humans or others placed on things, thereby making it the value that it was set at, for example, money, gold, or status.
If an idiot found a diamond and thought it was just a "shiny rock," the Meta Essence would price it as a rock because that was the owner's conscious reality.
Then there was Unconscious Value, the inherent worth assigned by instinct and existence itself. Air, space, freedom. Humans and others didn't consciously price oxygen, but they would trade a kingdom for one final breath.
His power calculated both. When he made a deal, so if he wanted to gain control over the space of this world, he could, but the value would be set by the collective unconsciousness of the people around and the world's will.
Using this and with further testing and learning, he had expanded his hoard. In four months, he had acquired three new Devil Fruits from fallen bounties, and given that a person could go his whole life without even seeing one, it was impressive.
Kime Kime no Mi (Texture-Texture Fruit), A Paramecia that allowed him to alter the physical texture of any surface he touched—making stone as soft as silk or cloth as hard as diamond.
Ana Ana no Mi (Hole-Hole Fruit), A Paramecia that allowed him to create temporary "holes" in anything, somewhat similar to the door door fruit.
Yagi Yagi no Mi (Goat-Goat Fruit), A standard Zoan. While simple, it provided a massive boost to his physical endurance and leg strength, giving the user goat like abilities.
But the most critical discovery was the "Compatibility Barrier." as he called it.
It seems like no matter how hard he trained, Armament Haki refused to respond. He had eventually come to learn that while he could go to other worlds and such, he was still of his own whole, his body was not one that operated with the laws of this world, so it didn't work like theirs.
Let's give an example. Let's say he goes to the Naruto world, he wouldn't be able to use chakra just because he found a scroll or anything, because his body would lack chakra points, but if he made a deal that got him chakra, then he would have them.
So while he had haki for some reason, it was only observation, and armament refused to be trained.
He eventually found a dying pirate captain who valued life more than anything and was a bit good at armament. In exchange for saving his life, the man "sold" Lucian the access to his Haki, and this time he made sure to specify Haki, not just observation, like the last time.
Now that He could use haki, Lucian could train haki in general, not just the one he had, though awakening conqueror's haki was still up for debate.
His Armament was still weak, a mere thin coating of grey, but it was his, and it was improving the more he trained and fought.
Lucian reached his boat and pushed off as he set sail, leaving the island.
As Saje Island shrank into a speck, he closed his eyes to practice his Observation Haki. Now, it was becoming second nature to him already, he felt that if he pushed hard enough, he would reach advanced levels, but he would wait. why?.
This is why.
He felt it.
The Gaze.
He had learned to live with it so far when he used observation haki. It was like a distant, searching pressure that appeared whenever he pushed his senses too far. It felt like someone, or something, was standing just behind yet unable to properly see him, so they were searching, watching him through a pinhole.
He had learnt to hide in a way to use observation just enough to let them notice, but not enough to be able to truly see him. Usually, it faded after a few minutes.
But not today.
The pressure sharpened with a sudden, violent intensity. A stabbing pain ignited behind his eyes, and his breath caught. It felt like a hook had been snagged in the center of his soul, and then—
Tug.
The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of grey and black.
When Lucian's vision cleared, he wasn't on his boat. He was standing in a vast, impossibly grand throne room. The floors were polished marble that reflected his own terrified face like a mirror. Cathedral ceilings were lost in the gloom above, and towering stained-glass windows depicted symbols.
At the end of the hall sat a being.
It was tall, terrifyingly so. Its body was draped in black, regal armor that seemed to absorb the light. Its head was a bleached crow's skull, its beak long and sharp as a scythe. But it was the eyes that froze Lucian's blood.
Two black, empty voids. And a third eye, embedded vertically in its forehead.
The moment Lucian arrived, all three eyes opened. They shifted focus and locked onto him. The third eye pulsed with a faint, sickening crimson light that matched the color of Lucian's own left eye.
The pressure was unlike anything he had ever felt.
"..." he couldnt make a sound.
The being shifted on its throne, its movement making the very air vibrate with the sound of rusted metal.
"At last," it spoke. The voice, like a grating vibration that scraped against the inside of Lucian's skull, he could hear distant crows crying out. "We meet, little one."
Lucian felt smaller than he ever had in his entire life. Seems his Observer had finally decided to stop watching.
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