So, I wanna add something. I won't repeatedly show Yuji's and others training sessions, but I'll show their progress.
I have already chosen a title for Yuji, for now.
It can be changed later in the story.
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Now, from the next chapter, some new characters will be added into this story. But don't worry, they will all follow One-Piece world's rule, my AU world's rule.
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Thought of the day:
"You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the entire ocean in a drop."
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Attendance Please:
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ON THE GOING MERRY—
The ship sliced through the waves, eager for more adventure. Salt spray misted the air, catching the afternoon light in fleeting, scattered rainbows that flashed and vanished in an instant. The Grand Line lay somewhere beyond the horizon, but for now, the East Blue stretched endlessly around them, blue, patient, and deceptively peaceful.
Everyone was busy with their own tasks.
Below deck, Usopp hunched over his workstation like a man possessed, surrounded by glass vials, copper tubes, and the faint, sharp smell of substances that probably shouldn't be mixed together. He had been at it since dawn; his goggles fogged with concentration. Every now and then, the liquid in his flask would change color, prompting him to scribble furiously in a notebook already overflowing with diagrams and crossed-out formulas.
On the main deck, the air was thick with the rhythm of battle.
Luffy's fist cut through the space where Yuji's head had been just a half-second earlier, a punch that would have dented ship hulls now whistling harmlessly through empty air. But it wasn't Luffy's fault. The red cuffs wrapped around his wrists and ankles pulsed faintly, almost imperceptibly, as if they had heartbeats of their own. Every time Luffy threw a punch, his body betrayed him. His center of gravity shifted without warning, as though the world had suddenly tilted. His limbs felt as if they were filled with wet sand. His rubber body, usually so quick to respond to his commands, now moved like it was wading through syrup.
"Come on—" Luffy gritted his teeth, stumbling sideways as his ankle cuff suddenly felt like it weighed fifty pounds mid-step.
Yuji stood three feet away, his arms relaxed at his sides, breathing evenly. "That's it. Stop fighting the weight. Your body is telling you one thing; you need to tell it another."
Luffy lunged again, wilder this time. The cuffs flared red for just a moment, and his path curved drunkenly to the left. He hit the deck shoulder-first, rolled, and came up laughing. "Shishishishi...this is so weird! It's like my blood forgot which way is down!"
"Good," Yuji said, a small smile breaking through his usually stoic expression. "That means it's working."
From the galley window, the clatter of pans and the sizzle of something delicious drifted across the deck. Sanji moved through his kitchen with practiced grace, but his steps were heavier. The ankle cuffs Yuji had made for him were thinner than Luffy's but just as merciless. Every pivot from stove to counter felt like wading through knee-deep water. Every kick he threw during his training sessions now required twice the effort, twice the will.
Near the bow, Zoro stood before a post embedded in the Merry's deck, Yuji's blood, compressed, hardened, and woven so tightly that even wood grain paled in comparison. Zoro had been swinging at it for an hour. His sword had left absolutely no mark on its surface. Not a scratch. Not a scuff. Not even the faintest whisper of a mark.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the familiar burn spreading through his lats and deltoids. Sweat dripped down his chest, tracing the scars Mihawk had left on him. He raised Wado again. The blade hummed in his grip. "Again," he muttered to himself, and the world narrowed to the space between his edge and that impossible red surface.
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"Did you raise the price again? You're charging too much!"
The News Coo bird perched on the railing, staring at her with the special disdain only a creature that had delivered papers to every corner of the Four Blues could muster. Its cap sat slightly askew, and its bag bulged with rolled-up newspapers. Its eyes held the look of someone who had faced far scarier pirates than the orange-haired woman currently yelling at it.
It rubbed its head with one wing and replied with a "Kaw" that somehow sounded sarcastic.
"Don't kaw at me!" Nami jabbed a finger toward its beak. "If you do it again, I'm not buying from you anymore. Do you understand me!?"
The bird stared at her for one long, deliberate moment. Then it raised its wing and gave her the middle finger.
It was off the railing before Nami could even process what she had seen, its wings beating hard against the salty air, already thirty feet away and climbing.
"WH—WHY YOU—!? COME HERE, YOU DAMN BIRD!! HOW DARE YOU FLIP ME OFF!! I'LL ASK SANJI TO MAKE ROTISSERIE OUT OF YOU!!"
Her voice echoed across the water, but the bird was already a speck against the clouds. Somewhere in the distance, a faint "kaw" drifted back, sounding suspiciously like laughter.
Nami stood for a moment, her chest heaving and teeth clenched so tightly that her jaw ached. Then she let out a growl from deep within her soul and stomped over to the deck table, where Usopp's chemical empire sprawled across every available surface.
"These damn news coo birds," she muttered, dropping into her chair with the gracelessness of utter defeat. "They've got some nerve, raising the price from a hundred berries to three hundred! That's professional-level extortion!"
"Inflation's a bitch, isn't it?" Usopp didn't look up. His pipette hovered over a conical flask filled with a substance that was emitting a faint, high-pitched whine.
"Damn right it is."
Nami unfolded the paper with a sharp snap of her wrists. The front-page headline screamed at her in bold black letters: ALABASTA'S PRINCESS STILL MISSING. Her eyebrows rose. "Well, that's some news right there."
She began reading. The world beyond the East Blue had always felt distant to her, like a story unfolding for other people. But now, the Grand Line was close.
She flipped to the next page, and two sheets of paper slipped free from between the folds, fluttering to the deck.
Nami glanced down at them, her mind still half-absorbed in the Alabasta article. "Oh, a special advertisement! I wonder what product it is—"
Her words faltered. Her eyes fixed on the images printed on the two sheets, and her mind simply... stopped. The newspaper slipped from her fingers. Her mouth opened, then closed, and opened again. No sound emerged.
Usopp hummed tunelessly, squeezing the pipette bulb with surgical precision, watching a single drop of amber liquid fall into the nitrous oxide.
ssssssssSSSSSS—
The flask briefly emitted a cloud of sparkling green smoke. Usopp waved it away and finally looked up, blinking through his goggles. "Hey, Nami, you okay? What's on it that made you so—"
He reached across the table, careful to avoid his chemical setup, and tugged the two sheets from her frozen fingers. "Let me see what the big deal is..."
His voice trailed off. His goggles fogged up. "WAAHHHHH!!!"
Usopp's chair tipped backward with a crash, sending him sprawling across the deck. His elbow struck the table leg, causing the conical flask to wobble dangerously before, by some miracle that could only be credited to whatever god watched over mad scientists, it settled back into place without spilling a drop.
Usopp didn't notice; he was too busy staring at the papers in his hands as if they had just revealed the secrets of the universe.
"What's going on?!" Sanji burst through the galley door, stumbling slightly as the ankle cuffs threw off his balance. He caught himself on the doorframe, his eyes immediately finding Nami. "Nami-swan, are you okay?!"
Luffy and Yuji paused mid-spar. Zoro lowered Wado and turned away from his training post, one eyebrow raised.
They gathered around the deck table where Nami sat frozen, her finger pointing at the two papers now clutched in Usopp's trembling hands.
Zoro reached down and plucked the papers from Usopp's grip with casual disinterest. He looked them over, then blinked. "Well... damn."
Luffy, Yuji, and Sanji crowded behind him, peering over his shoulders. Three pairs of eyes landed on the bounty posters, and their expressions shifted in unison, from confusion to recognition, then to something else entirely.
And then Luffy started laughing, a full-body, head-thrown-back, belly-deep laugh that rolled across the Merry's deck like thunder. "SHISHISHISHISHI... Look, look... I finally got my first-ever bounty!!! YAAHOOOOO!!!"
He snatched one of the posters from Zoro's hand and held it up to the sky as if showing it to the sun itself.
DEAD OR ALIVE
MONKEY D LUFFY AKA "STRAW HAT LUFFY"
CAPTAIN OF THE STRAW HAT PIRATES
BOUNTY: 70,000,000 BERRIES
WARNING: A VERY VICIOUS PIRATE. IF YOU SEE HIM, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NEAREST NAVAL BASE IMMEDIATELY.
And there he was, Luffy's grinning face, caught mid-laugh, flashing a peace sign at the camera as if posing for a family photo rather than a wanted poster. The cheerful smile. The casual gesture. The words 'VERY VICIOUS PIRATE' printed beneath in stern, official lettering. The overall effect was almost absurd.
The second poster was noticeably different.
DEAD OR ALIVE
ITADORI YUJI AKA "RED RIOT YUJI"
VICE-CAPTAIN OF THE STRAW HAT PIRATES
BOUNTY: 50,000,000 BERRIES
WARNING: THIS INDIVIDUAL IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND VIOLENT. IF YOU SEE HIM, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NEAREST NAVAL BASE IMMEDIATELY.
Yuji's face stared out from the poster with an expression that was utterly and unnervingly blank. The photograph had been taken from the side, shrouded in shadow, highlighting sharp angles and cold eyes. The Marines had clearly put effort into making him look like something that had crawled out of a nightmare. The effect was unsettling, predatory, as if he were already calculating how to kill whoever was looking at the poster.
"When did they take my picture?!" Yuji's voice cracked, caught somewhere between shock and indignation. He grabbed the poster and stared at his own face as if it had personally betrayed him. "And what's with YOUR picture?" He jabbed a finger toward Luffy. "It looks like you were deliberately posing for the shot!"
"Oh, this?" Luffy's grin grew even wider. "Yeah, when we were at that Marine base, I saw this bird carrying a camera. It was taking my photos, so I threw up the peace sign!" He nodded knowingly, as if this were the most logical thing in the world. "That bird even gave me toffees! Can you believe that!?"
Silence. Every person on the deck stared at him with the exact same deadpan expression.
Nami's fist connected with the top of Luffy's skull with a CRACK that echoed across the water. "THOSE WERE THE SECRET BRANCH OF NEWS COO BIRDS WHO TAKE PICTURES FOR THE BOUNTIES, YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT!!"
"OWW!" Luffy rubbed his head, a cartoonish bump already forming beneath his fingers. "Hey... why did you hit me!?" His pout was almost comical. The tick mark on Nami's forehead pulsed visibly.
"You're not taking this seriously, are you?"
"Huh? What's so serious about it?" Luffy tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. "It's just a bounty poster."
Nami pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and inhaled slowly. "You idiot, do you even understand what this means? With you and big bro now wanted men, more people are going to come after us, dangerous people: Marines, other pirates!" She threw her hands up. "We're marked now."
"So what?"
Zoro's voice cut through the tension like a blade slicing through still water. He had crossed his arms at some point. "We're pirates," he said. "We've been on the radar since the moment we raised that black flag. The bounties just show where we stand." His eyes moved from Nami to Luffy to Yuji, steady and sure. "At the end of the day, we're still enemies of the Navy and the World Government. So there's nothing to be shocked about." He let that settle a moment. "As for facing off against Marines and other pirates, we'll take care of it."
"Don't worry, Nami-swan~~," Sanji said, already at her side, one hand over his heart and the other extended dramatically as he dipped into an elaborate bow. "This humble chef is always ready to protect you from any harm that may come your way."
Nami looked at them, and the fight drained from her shoulders. "Fine," she sighed. "Fine."
"H-hey..." Usopp picked himself up off the deck and was now standing slightly apart from the group, his finger raised tentatively. "Is anyone going to ask for my opinion or not?"
Yuji glanced over. "Is there something you'd like to add?"
"Yes! Yes, I want to add something!" Usopp's voice rose higher with each word. "Why the hell didn't I get a bounty!?"
The question hung in the air like a dropped plate. Everyone blinked in stunned silence.
"What!?" Nami's eye twitched. "Why do you want a bounty? I thought you were with me on this!"
"Oh, believe me, Nami, I am with you on this." Usopp placed a hand over his chest, the very picture of wounded dignity. "But at the same time, how the hell is the world going to know about the great pirate Usopp if there's no bounty on me!?"
Nami's mouth fell open. Her right eye twitched, and her left eye followed a moment later. "What? Did I say something wrong?" Usopp asked, looking around the group with genuine confusion.
Zoro and Yuji broke at the same time, laughter rolling out of them in waves. Zoro had to brace himself against the mast, while Yuji bent over, hands on his knees, shoulders shaking. Sanji just shook his head, but the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips gave him away.
Luffy, meanwhile, nodded with the seriousness of a wise elder passing down ancient knowledge. He placed a hand on Usopp's shoulder and gave him a thumbs-up, his expression radiating absolute sincerity. "Don't worry, buddy. Soon, you'll have a bounty of your own too. Just believe in yourself."
"That's...that's not the point!" Nami threw her hands up and stormed off toward the bow, muttering about crazy people, how she was the only sane person on the ship, and why the universe hated her specifically.
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WINDMILL VILLAGE (INSIDE MAKINO'S BAR)—
The bar had never been this full on a weekday afternoon before. But this was no ordinary weekday afternoon. It was a celebration. Tankards clinked together, spilling foam across wooden tables worn smooth by decades of elbows and laughter. Someone had hung a banner that read, "OUR BOY DID IT!" in letters dripping red paint, as if they were sweating.
"Hey, Luffy has become a wanted man!"
"Seventy million! Seventy! In the East Blue!"
"Good for him!"
"This village is going to become the home of yet another famous pirate!"
"That would be—"
CRASH!
The bar doors slammed open with enough force to rattle the bottles behind the counter. Old Mayor Woop Slap stood framed in the doorway, his cane raised like a sword, his face a thundercloud of righteous fury. "SHUT UP, FOOLS!" His voice cracked through the bar like a whip. "WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT THIS VILLAGE BEING HOME TO PIRATES!?"
The silence lasted for about three seconds.
"Geez, old man," someone muttered from the back, "can't you at least pretend to be happy to see Luffy finally make a name for himself?"
Woop Slap's head swiveled toward the speaker with the slow, terrible precision of a cannon finding its target. "You want a beating or something!?" The man suddenly found his drink fascinating.
Woop Slap huffed and stomped his way to an empty table in the corner. He sat down with a heavy thump. Moments later, Makino appeared beside him, holding a glass of juice in one hand and two bounty posters in the other. She set the juice down gently. Woop Slap accepted it with a grumble that might have meant "thank you" in some ancient, forgotten dialect.
Makino chuckled softly, the sound like wind chimes. "Why are you upset, Mr. Mayor? Aren't you happy that Luffy is finally making his dream come true?"
Woop Slap scoffed, "Being a pirate is not a dream, it's a crime." He jabbed a gnarled finger at the top bounty poster. "First Ace, and now Luffy!" He flipped to the second poster and stabbed it with his fingernail. "And look at THIS guy! This is who he's found as a crewmate!" He shook the poster, making Yuji's shadowed face flutter. "He looks so menacing, like he'd cut your throat without even blinking!"
Makino leaned in slightly, examining the poster. A faint shade of pink dusted her cheek. "But he is so good-looking..." she murmured, more to herself than to the mayor. "Even though it's only half his face."
Woop Slap's head jerked up. "Huh? Did you say something?"
"O-oh!" Makino straightened immediately, suddenly finding the poster very interesting to look at. "It's nothing. Nothing at all." She turned away quickly, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and busied herself with wiping down a glass that was already spotless.
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BARATIE—
The floating restaurant buzzed with its usual sounds, the clatter of plates, the sizzle of seafood on hot iron, and the rise and fall of conversations from customers who had traveled across entire seas just for a taste of Zeff's kitchen. Every table was full, and every chair was occupied. Yet, in the kitchen, something was different.
There was a lightness in the air, a current of shared satisfaction flowing beneath the shouted orders and clanging pans. The chefs moved with an extra spring in their steps, exchanging knowing glances across the line, small smiles hidden beneath the brims of their toques.
Zeff's peg leg thumped against the wooden floor with the steady rhythm of impending significance. Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound cut through the kitchen's chaos like a ship's prow slicing through calm water. He stopped before the bulletin board, reached into his coat, and pulled out a single sheet of paper.
He pinned it to the board with a pushpin. Then he stepped back, crossed his arms, and allowed himself to smirk.
Luffy's grinning face beamed down from the bulletin board, his peace sign as bright and cheeky as ever, positioned directly beneath the words: THE EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH.
A beat of silence, then the kitchen erupted with laughter and applause.
Zeff let it go on for exactly ten seconds. Then he turned back to his station, and the kitchen snapped back into its relentless rhythm, but the poster remained, and everyone who passed it for the rest of the day found themselves smiling.
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COCOYASHI VILLAGE—
The afternoon sun lay warm and golden across the tangerine groves. In Genzo's small house near the edge of the village, three people gathered around a worn kitchen table.
Genzo held the bounty posters up to the light, his weathered fingers carefully gripping the edges. "Look at those numbers," he said, his voice tinged with surprise.
Beside him, Izuku leaned in, his eyes widening. "Seventy million and fifty million..." He shook his head slowly. "I've never seen anyone in the entire East Blue reach nearly a hundred million berries in bounty! This is unheard of! The numbers alone—"
Nojiko's laugh cut him off, light and easy. "Well then, it looks like my little sister is going to have her hands full."
Genzo laughed deeply, a rumble that shook his shoulders. "Hahaha... don't worry, Nojiko. I have complete faith in that Straw Hat boy." He tapped Luffy's poster with his forefinger. "There's something about him, something you don't see in bounties like this. He's not just strong; he's good."
"But seeing their bounties, everyone will think they're bad guys!" Izuku's voice rose with genuine worry. "People see numbers like that and assume the worst, they'll be targets everywhere they go, and the Marines will send stronger and stronger people after them, and—"
Nojiko reached over and took his hand. The gesture was simple and effortless. Her fingers slid between his as if they had always belonged there, and she squeezed once, gentle and sure. Izuku's words died in his throat.
"Don't worry, Izu," she said, the nickname landing softly between them. "They'll be fine. Nami's with them, remember? She would never let anything happen to her crew."
"I—I hope so," Izuku said, his face flushing a shade of red.
Genzo's eyes narrowed as he observed their interlocked hands. He noticed Izuku's blush and the way Nojiko's thumb traced small circles on the back of Izuku's hand, completely unconscious, completely natural.
'It's only been a few days,' Genzo thought, his fatherly instincts flaring like a bonfire. 'And they're already this close!'
He cleared his throat, loudly. Neither of them seemed to notice. He cleared it again, even louder.
Nojiko glanced at him with a smile that was just a little too innocent. "Is something wrong, Genzo-san?"
"...No," he managed to say. "Nothing at all."
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NEAR THE REVERSE MOUNTAIN (EAST BLUE WATERS)—
The ship was unremarkable, average in size and build. It was the kind of vessel that slipped through harbors without raising eyebrows and passed through patrol routes without drawing attention. A ship designed to be forgotten. But the people on board were an entirely different matter.
The afternoon sun beat down on the deck, where two figures sat beneath a large umbrella.
The man was tall and dark-skinned, with black hair twisted into spiky dreadlocks that jutted in every direction. A brown trench coat hung from his shoulders, and beneath it, a pink cravat added a splash of color that somehow made him look more dangerous rather than less. The number 5 was stitched onto his coat in bold white thread. His sunglasses completely concealed his eyes, reflecting the ocean back at itself.
Beside him, a young woman with short blond hair lounged in her chair. Her hat was a vibrant confection of yellow and orange, perfectly matched to a dress patterned with lemons. Lemon-shaped earrings dangled from her ears, swinging gently with the ship's rocking motion. Her heels were propped up on a small crate as she flipped through the newspaper with lazy disinterest.
Then, she stopped.
Her bright green eyes, previously half-lidded with boredom, snapped into focus. A slow, feline smile spread across her lips, revealing deep intrigue. "Oh... oh my~~," she drawled, savoring the words. "What do we have here?"
The man tilted his sunglasses down with one finger. When his eyes appeared, they were sharp and calculating. "Something caught your attention, Ms. Valentine?"
"Why, yes, Mr. 5." She plucked two sheets of paper from between the newspaper's folds and held them up. "Look at these."
Mr. 5 took the bounty posters and looked at the first one, then the second. His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. "Well, I'll be damned. A seventy-million-berry bounty and a fifty-million-berry bounty..." He let out a low whistle. "In the East Blue, of all places." He handed the posters back, his expression settling into a thoughtful look. "Looks like we need to keep an eye on them if they enter the Grand Line."
Footsteps approached from behind, measured and unhurried. Ms. Valentine didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
A tall woman stepped into view, her dark hair cascading past her shoulders, her eyes holding the particular depth of someone who knew more than she would ever reveal. She wore a cowgirl hat that somehow appeared elegant rather than rustic, and her smile was that of someone playing chess while everyone else played checkers.
It was Olivia, the woman Yuji had met at the Baratie bar.
"What are you two discussing now?" Her voice was as smooth as aged whiskey.
Ms. Valentine's grin turned sly. "Ah, Ms. All Sunday. I think you're going to love this." She passed the bounty posters over with a flourish. "Fresh off the press."
Olivia took them. Her eyes landed first on Luffy's poster, the carefree grin, the peace sign, the absurd bounty attached to what looked like a boy who had just wandered out of a village festival. "Monkey D Luffy," she spoke the name slowly, savoring each syllable. Her eyes flickered with something. "What an interesting name you have."
Then she moved to the second poster and stopped.
It was subtle, so subtle that neither Mr. 5 nor Ms. Valentine noticed. Olivia's lips curved upward slightly, but it was a smile that reached her eyes. Her gaze was fixed on Yuji's face, as if she had found something she hadn't expected to see again so soon. The poster stared back at her, all shadows and sharp angles, a heavy-handed attempt by the Marines to portray him as a monster. But Olivia had met him in person.
Ms. Valentine leaned forward in her chair, resting her chin on her hand, her expression brimming with mischief. "He's an eye candy, isn't he?"
Olivia didn't look up from the poster. "Well," she said, and there was something in her voice that made Ms. Valentine's eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline, "he's much more than that."
"HUH!?" Miss Valentine sat bolt upright. "And how do you know that!?"
But Olivia just winked and turned away, the bounty posters still in her hand, her footsteps carrying her back toward the cabin with the same unhurried grace with which she had arrived.
"Heyyy... No fair!" Ms. Valentine scrambled out of her chair and hurried after her, her heels clicking rapidly against the deck. "Come on... you need to tell me about it! Was he in a report? Did you meet him? Ms. All Sunday! MS. ALL SUNDAY!"
Her voice faded as the cabin door swung shut behind them.
Mr. 5 sat alone beneath the umbrella, staring at the empty chairs where his colleagues had been moments earlier. The newspaper fluttered in the breeze. The ocean stretched endlessly in every direction. He sighed and muttered a single word into the silence.
"Women."
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Like the chapter, then please share your powerstones with me.
See you in next chapter.
Peace out....