Kenji Sato settled into the corner seat of the half-full commuter train, earbuds in, thumb lazily swiping up his phone screen. The muted hum of overhead fluorescent lights blended with the rhythm of the train clattering along the rails. Rain hit the windows, city lights blurring behind the streaks like smeared neon paint.
It was just another forgettable Tuesday.
He scrolled through news articles, job listings, and the same three group chat alerts from a conversation he'd muted weeks before. Eventually, muscle memory prevailed, and he found himself opening the manga app on his home screen.
"God," he whispered, half-laughing at himself. "How many years is it?"
He flip-read the panels. Roger smiling on the gallows platform. The title words "Wealth, fame, power…" scrawled across the top of the page. Kenji couldn't remember most of it—only that it was insane, ridiculous, and in some way or another always left him feeling as if anything might happen.
"The world had really come into the Great Pirate Era."
He smiled weakly. Consider it: sailing the seas instead of filling out resumes all day. Fighting sea monsters, eating magical fruit, gaining a reputation. No spreadsheets. No applications. No rejection.
The train jerked suddenly—violently. Lights flickered. Kenji's phone slipped from his hand and hit the floor with a dull thud. His body pressed forward against the seat in front of him, and the world outside the windows went white—not from lightning, but something else. Too bright. Too clean.
He blinked.
The music in his earbuds faded away. The rattling tracks silenced. The air itself vibrated, as though someone had scraped a string against the sky.
Then—
"Inherit my will…"
A voice. Deep, calm, resonating from nowhere and everywhere.
Kenji looked around, his heart thudding. The train was frozen in time. The commuters disappeared. The rain had suspended mid-fall, suspended in the air like glittering beads.
His breath caught in his throat.
Another flash of light. Then nothing.
Nothing but blackness.
Kenji came to as something cold slapped against his cheek.
He groaned, rolling onto his side. The ground beneath him was hard and damp—stone or maybe compacted earth. His hoodie was wet and clinging to him, and the air stank of salt, smoke, and something vaguely rotting.
More rain hit his face.
His eyes slowly opened. Above him, gray clouds writhed in a bruised sky. All around him, footsteps thundered—dozens of them, maybe hundreds—accompanied by shouting and laughter in the distance.
Where the hell am I?
He tried to sit up, groaning at the pain in his shoulder. His phone was missing. His earbuds were missing. Even his bag—missing.
"Move it, dumbass!"
A man with a tricorn hat and a missing eye shoved through, nearly knocking him over. Kenji stumbled back against a crate as a wave of humanity poured past. Tattered cloaks on some, striped jackets and odd, pirate-like garb on others. Swords at their belts. Muskets over shoulders. One barefoot boy ran past, trailing behind him a string of dried fish.
He was in a port town—or something like one.
Signs hung over crooked storefronts in languages he didn't recognize. A huge scaffold loomed above the buildings to his left, drawing the crowd toward it like gravity. And there, rising high above the plaza, was a wooden platform guarded by men in white uniforms with rifles.
Kenji's breath caught in his chest.
He knew that symbol. The seagull. The justice kanji.
The Marines.
"Wait…" he whispered. "No way…"
Then he saw him.
At the top of the platform, arms shackled, golden mustache swaying in the wind, stood a man smiling like he'd already won.
Gol D. Roger.
Kenji's legs gave out. He slid back down against the crate, hands shaking.
No. This can't be real.
The sky cracked with thunder as Roger's voice rang out:
Want my treasure? You're welcome to it! I gathered all I found in a single place!"
The crowd went wild.
Shrieks, cheers, a rush of roaring energy like a spark to gas.
Kenji covered his ears, pulse pounding. Those around him started shoving, fighting, pulling weapons from coats. One man fired a pistol into the air. Another started climbing the side of a building to see better.
The Great Pirate Era had just begun.
And somehow… he was here for it.
Kenji didn't hang around to see what came next.
The crowd stormed around him like a hurricane, and all he could think was get out get out get out. His legs moved on autopilot, skidding across wet cobblestone as he ducked behind a cart, then dashed into a narrow side alley.
His hoodie slapped against him with every step, soaked and heavy. Rain poured down in sheets now, drumming against the roofs above like a war drum. He nearly fell again turning a corner, saving himself on the edge of a busted barrel.
The sounds of chaos fell behind him—yelling, metal clanging, a voice screaming "He had a treasure map!" before a musket discharged. None of it felt real.
His breathing was rapid and shallow. His heart was in his throat.
He ran until his legs hurt, until he was sure that no one was behind him, until all he could hear was the beat of rain and the sound of his own heartbeat.
Finally, he ducked under the protection of a gnarled wooden awning at the rear of what looked like a disreputable tavern. The structure groaned with age, and a pipe overhead leaked brown water onto the ground.
Kenji collapsed to his knees in the mire.
Water poured over his face, plastering his hair to his skull. His shirt stuck to him like glue. He was hungry, barefoot, broke, and in a world where pirates could punch buildings in half.
What the hell do I do?
He looked at his trembling hands. No powers. No swords. No Haki. Just a tired college student with half-remembered plot points and no survival skills.
This was not the One Piece he remembered.
There were no grinning background characters or adorable sound effects. The rain did not sparkle. It stung. The ground was chill. The blood on the plaza he had seen was not stylized—it was real.
Kenji leaned back against the wall and let out a shaking breath.
"I'm gonna die here."
The words seemed small. Weak. But they were true.
And yet… down in his chest, underneath the panic and bewilderment, something stirred. A spark of stubbornness. Or maybe just the complete absurdity of it all.
He was alive. In One Piece. And if Roger's execution had only just taken place… then the world hadn't even started to go mad yet.
Kenji pulled his knees up to his chest, staring out into the alley as the rain kept falling.
No food. No money. No idea what was next.
But he was here.
And he wasn't dead.
Not yet.