Chapter 1
Kaiden stared off across the ocean to the horizon while being rocked gently by the sea. His right arm rested on the tiller for the little sloop he was sailing across the ocean of South Blue. He'd been sailing since dawn and expected to arrive at his destination the following afternoon.
“Hey, Kai! Check it out!”
Kaiden, sometimes referred to as Kai by his only friend, Mira, looked over at said friend as she held up a small device she'd been working on. He and Mira grew up together at the same orphanage and had spent their entire lives getting into and out of trouble together. She was also the woman he'd had most of his life experiences with. She'd always been the smarter between them and wanted to become the world greatest engineer. Case in point, the little gizmo she was holding up.
Kai looked over the device before asking the obvious, “What's it do?”
Mira tossed the small metal device, about the size of an apple, over to him, “It's one of those things you told me about. The exploding things.”
Kaiden, having caught the item, now held it a lot more gingerly. He trusted Mira with his life but she'd just tossed him a fucking live grenade!
“Are you crazy! You don't casually throw explosives!” He looked at the device, even from a distance, and recognized some of the form of a grenade. Though, given he'd only given her a verbal account, it looked different from what he would have expected, “Although... Are you sure you made it right?”
Mira casually shrugged, “Copy it and we can test a copy.”
Kaiden shrugged his shoulders and the grenade suddenly vanished from his hand. This was his special power, his 'Golden Finger' gained from reincarnating into the world of One Piece. He'd gotten it a few days ago on his seventeenth birthday and while he didn't hate it, he would have been a lot happier with something like the Goro Goro no mi instead.
An instant later, an exact copy of the prototype grenade appeared in his hand once more. His special power? An inventory. NOT a whole system, not even a mini system. JUST the inventory. Though, he would admit if asked, it was something a bit special, even if it didn't seem to have any direct combat usefulness at ALL. The most special thing about it was its ability to multiply anything he placed inside of it, infinitely.
That's right. He now had INFINITE prototype grenades inside of his infinitely sized inventory. Well... he didn't know if it really was infinite in storage capacity, but the capacity was definitely so large as to make no difference. So, once he stored the original grenade, he'd just copied it nine hundred and ninety-eight times. Why that many? Because each slot in his inventory could only hold a maximum stack of nine hundred and ninety-nine. Of course, it went down to nine nine eight for a single moment when he pulled out the copy, which was immediately replaced.
He looked over the device before casually asking, “So, how does it work?”
Mira pointed to a small metal pin stuck through the top of the grenade, “Pull that out to start a five second timing device I made. Toss it the moment you pull the pin. Done.”
Kaiden looked at the grenade, “Okay, for future versions you need to add a lever that the pin goes through that keeps the timer from starting. The pin should hold the lever in place, not start the timer. That way I can pull the pin and hold the lever as long as I need to so I can aim my throws. Then, when I toss it, have a spring pop the lever off and start the timer.”
Mira looked at him with narrowed eyes, “Since when did you become an engineer?”
Kaiden didn't flinch under her stare, “It's just an idea.” What was he going to do, tell her he lived a whole other life in a whole other world with weapons and machines more amazing than anything she could currently imagine?
She scowled at him, “Just throw the damn thing. It's waterproof so it will work even in the ocean.”
He nodded and pulled the pin before tossing the grenade as far and as hard as he could. Which, to be fair, wasn't super far. Despite the world he was in, he wasn't any stronger than an average person. He hadn't remembered anything from his previous life so hadn't taken advantage of his new body like he would have otherwise. Only getting his memories back after turning seventeen had seriously put a hamper on his ability to cheese the world.
It was probably why his memories had been locked away for so long. Otherwise he'd already have mastered the Rokushiki, Haki, and anything else he could think of. Instead, he'd lived an average life on a relatively peaceful island protected by a local marine base. His life hadn't been super easy, but it also hadn't been set on ultrakill difficulty. He'd been in a few fights, broken a bone or two, and in general wasn't a complete pussy. On the other hand, he hadn't gone through anything like Garp had put Luffy though and it showed in how utterly weak he was.
He'd spent the last few days trying to figure out where he was in the timeline and what he could do with his new ability. Figuring out the timeline didn't happen right away. It's not like the One Piece show cared about dates. The only thing he could do was look at his memories of the news and toward new news. There hadn't been any signs of Luffy getting a bounty, so he could be at any point before Luffy left home. Or, he could be decades in the future after Luffy had finished his adventures. He had no way of telling.
So, since he couldn't figure that out, he focused on learning about his gift.
First, the obvious thing he'd tested was storage capacity. So far he hadn't found anything he couldn't store in his inventory, no matter the size. Though, the item did have to be 'independent', meaning he couldn't store things like a house. Mobile homes not withstanding.
Second, he could make an infinite number of copies of anything he stored inside of his inventory. Case-in-point, the grenade that splashed into the water. They both grinned broadly as the grenade detonated with a mild 'whoomp' that sent up a spray of water.
Kaiden looked over to his companion, “Not bad. I wonder what would happen if I combined a few?”
Third, he could combine similar items together to make a single superior item. So, two prototype grenades could combine into a single one that would be better. What did that mean? Well, the item became a higher quality. In the case of the grenade, that would just mean less likely to fail and a bigger boom. He'd learned that trick when he'd tried to manually stack two bullets together and instead of automatically stacking, he'd been given the choice of adding to the stack or combining the two single bullets. Combining them had produced a bullet that was more well balanced and slightly more durable.
With Mira nodding excitedly, Kaiden selected two grenades and combined them together, then made a full stack of the improved grenades. Here's where it got a little silly and where the inventory might offer him a pathway to power. He took two of the improved grenades, dubbed as plus ones in his mind, and combined them to produce a plus two. He made a stack of plus twos and combined them into plus threes. He did that over and over until he stopped at plus ten.
Plus ten was a threshold he'd found. Once he reached that level of improvement, he could keep going but there was a chance of failure. Obviously he had infinite plus tens to attempt the combination with at something like fifty percent odds of success. But the plus elevens had maybe a twenty-five percent chance of success, and the odds just plummeted from there. He may have had infinite supplies to make the attempts, but each try took him a couple of seconds of effort to put the two new items in a new slot and will the combination to happen. Dozens of failures in a row got super annoying really fast.
So far he'd never managed to make anything past a plus twelve, and the only plus twelve item he had was a basic ass bullet. Oh, it was probably the highest quality bullet on the planet with every aspect of it nearing the heights of perfection.
But it was a fucking bullet. JUST the bullet, not even the gunpowder or anything like that. Just a ball of lead because One Piece didn't use modern type bullets but flintlocks and ball ammunition with loose powder.
Bright side, he had an infinite number of plus ten flintlocks loaded with plus ten gunpowder and the plus twelve bullets. He could literally pull out a cocked and loaded gun, fire it, and toss the empty flintlock into the ocean because the gun was literally worthless to him, even if each individual one was likely on the same level of quality as Meito swords! Much like he was pulling out a shiney new plus ten prototype grenade.
He pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade as hard as he could. If the plus ten gunpowder was anything to go by...
'KRAKABOOOOOOOM!!!'
There was no comparing the first grenade to the second. The plus ten grenade was an order of magnitude stronger and produce as gigantic geyser of water that rained down on them and waves that rocked their small boat.
Mira laughed and cheered at the explosion, “That was awesome! Do it again!”
Laughing along with Mira, he pulled out another grenade and repeated the process of pulling the pin before tossing it. Another massive explosion rocked their boat and soaked them in falling water. Mira laughed happily while standing there soaked to the bone, he white shirt clinging to her generous bust and turning nearly transparent. He'd known for years that Mira hated bras, but right now anyone would be able to learn that about her.
Mira was a beautiful young woman and he knew he was lucky to have her in his life. With black shoulder length hair she kept in a ponytail, bright expressive green eyes, a small nose, and lips meant for smiling, she was gorgeous. Add in her exemplary figure full of all the right curves and her large bust and it was no wonder she was the most desired girl on their home island.
Those fights he'd gotten into? Almost always over Mira. His friendship, that was more than friends but not quite lovers, generated tons of jealousy that led to macho dickheads picking fights with him. Some fights he lost, which only made Mira hate them, but most he won. Even if he never walked away from a fight without some form of injury to show for it. He even had a few scars from a couple of nastier fights where more than just fists and feet flew.
He wore all of them with pride, except one. The bullet scar. A coward had shot him from a distance. It was the closest he'd come to death. Not because of where he was shot, a shoulder wound was far from the deadliest bullet wound. He'd been so pissed off he'd nearly beaten the shooter to death, even with his primary arm disabled. No, it was the infection that followed that almost killed him. In a world filled with super powerful monsters wielding enough power to destroy the world, he'd almost been killed by germs. Things literally too small to see. He hated that.
Mira plopped back down on her seat, ignoring the fact she was giving him quite the generous show. It was nothing he hadn't seen dozens of times before anyway. Usually without the shirt in the way. She held her hand out toward him, “Gimme an original.”
Kaiden leaned forward and conjured up a copy of the original prototype grenade and held it out to her. Mira knew as much about his inventory as he did. The only secret he kept from her was the knowledge of his past life. As crazy as the One Piece world was, how did he go about explaining something like that? Maybe he'd tell her once she'd seen some of the seriously crazy things out in the real world and would be capable of understanding.
He pulled a steaming plate of food from his inventory along with some chopsticks. Fourth, there was a time setting on each individual slot in his inventory. He could set each slot anywhere from frozen time, to speeding up time by any amount he wanted. He'd learned that while putting food in his inventory for the first time. Who wouldn't want infinite food?! Especially infinite GOOD food.
He could freeze time on any slot and thus always have fresh hot or cold food and drinks whenever he wanted. He could also fast forward time in his slots. He'd watched as a plate of food aged ten thousand years in just a few minutes. All that was left was dust. It honestly made him wish he'd reincarnated in a cultivation world. Imagine being able to turn some five year cultivation herb into a ten thousand year one! In such a world his inventory would literally let him become an immortal god!
Still. He'd only ever have to buy anything he wanted a single time. Not that money meant a damned thing to him anymore. One of the first things he'd done when he learned he could make copes of things was to buy a single gold coin. Now he had infinite gold. Anything he wanted to buy, he could buy.
Which led to his current plan. He and Mira were planning on eventually heading to the Briss Kingdom located on the largest island in the South Blue and the last island before the Reverse Mountain. They'd be stopping at places along the way but that was there ultimate goal. Why? The rumored black market of the island.
Being orphans led to him and Mira learning all kinds of things from other people down on their luck. One of the bigger rumors was the black market. It was said you could find anything there from the lowest grade of Meito all the way up to 'legendary' Devil Fruits. South Blue might be more in the know than East Blue, but even here a Devil Fruit of any sort is considered legendary. Still, he wasn't opposed to the idea of getting his hands on a Devil Fruit or two. He wondered what he could do with them. What would happen if he made a Devil Fruit into a plus ten version of itself? Would it make it more powerful? Or would it have no effect? He had no idea and he wanted to know.
More importantly, could he combine two, or more, devil fruits into a single over powered fruit? Again, he had no idea. The rules around combining things were unclear and still needed him to do a lot of experimenting on. He fully planned to find out though!
Although... even with his knowledge, he had NO idea where to find any devil fruits. His only hope was the fact that he could carry an infinite amount of fruit on himself at all times without it going bad. That meant that it was possible he could be around someone that died with a Devil Fruit power and have it reincarnate into one he was carrying. That would be a total crapshoot though. First, he would have to have the right fruit. Second, he would have to get lucky and have his fruit chosen. For all he knew, the power of a Devil Fruit would pick one fruit throughout the entire world that matched what it wanted, not the nearest one.
The only problem with all of that is the actual people dying part. He could only think of two people he knew would die and he couldn't just going out of his way to kill people and harvest their Devil Fruits for himself, He might not be the most empathetic guy on the planet, but he wasn't some cold blooded murderer. Hell, he wasn't even certain if he could kill someone in self defense. He wouldn't know until such a situation arose and he was in the heat of the moment.
At the very least, he knew he would do whatever it took to keep himself and Mira alive. He didn't know if he would get a third chance at life. There was no way he was just going to lay down and die then hope to get a third chance. No. He would fight to survive and fight to protect what mattered most to him.
Which led nicely into where they were currently sailing toward. While the Briss Kingdom was their ultimate goal before heading into the Grand Line, it wasn't their current destination. That distinction went to Karate Island.
Kaiden could brawl a little but had no real clue how to fight. Neither did Mira. So, they decided that the first thing they needed to do was fix that problem. Lucky for them, they lived in South Blue where Karate Island was famous for all the various dojo's and martial arts being taught.
The plan was to spend a minimum of six months on the island learning martial arts. Heading into the Grand Line without the ability to protect themselves was a death sentence. He might have had some of the finest guns on the planet capable of firing bullets that would put the fear of god into most pirates, but they wouldn't do piss all to the true powerhouses. All he had to do was remember Usopp to know that a shooter without powerful Armament Haki would be rendered useless. Usopp's solution to people being able to shrug off a simple lead shot was his Pop Greens and various special ammo like his Tabasco Star.
What the hell would a regular bullet do to someone like Zoro? Nothing. The dude would slice the bullet in half or redirect it like Dracule Mihawk. Shooting at the stronger people in the world was pointless. So, his guns would help, for now, but would become worthless in a short amount of time. He couldn't recall anyone that wasn't a literal faceless goon ever dying from a gunshot in all the episodes of One Piece he'd seen.
The grenades would help, especially if Mira was able to create better and more powerful ones for him to enhance in the future. But even those would lose meaning. What did it matter that he had good grenades when people like Ace could fire off a single Hi-Ken and literally blow a huge ship in half?! Or god, what about the difference between his grenades and freaking Enel dropping literal pillars of lightning?!
He watched Mira as she disassembled the prototype and began working on a new version. He would just have to do what anyone else would do. He would push himself to his limits and force himself to become superhuman. He might not have a Devil Fruit, special training, or anything like that, but he did have his special ability, his best friend, and a whole lot of determination.
After all, he was in the world of dreams and he did have a dream to fulfill!
-----Line Break-----
Kaiden sighed as he stretched, his bones popping as they realigned. The little sloop had a small cabin on it. Emphasis on small. It was made even smaller by Mira's terrible sleeping habits. He looked at his best friend with mild annoyance. She was completely sprawled out taking up as much space as she possibly could while simultaneously wearing as little as possible. Though he didn't blame her for just wearing a tank top and booty shorts, it was hot as hell out.
He ran a hand though his red hair, the most unique thing about him. He was rather proud of his hair since he couldn't recall very many people sharing the bright crimson red color. Now, the obvious and most famous red head in One Piece was 'Akagami' or 'Red Hair' Shanks, one of the four Emperors of the New World, the second half of the Grand Line.
As much as Kaiden wished he had some relationship with such an awesome guy, he knew they had nothing to do with each other. Although, if he ever met Shanks in person he planned to prank the man by calling him 'dad' and trying to go for a hug the moment they met. He was sure Shanks' crew would get a big laugh out of it.
Wanting to start his day, Kaiden pulled Mira's arm off of his chest and her leg off of his and made his way out into the sunlight. He ignored the half asleep grumbling behind him. Mira was not a morning person. Though, there was one way to easily call her from her bed...
He opened his inventory and pulled out a steaming cup. The scent of coffee and sugar hit the air. Immediately there were loud thumps from the cabin before Mira slammed the door open. Her eyes were wide and crazed as they locked onto the steaming cup in Kaiden's hand. He slowly moved his hand back and forth, watching, amused, as Mira's gaze tracked the cup of coffee like a predator stalking prey.
Mira wasted little time before lunging at Kaiden and retrieving the beverage from his hand. She held it lovingly as she took a dainty sip. The moment the overly sweetened bitter beverage touched her tongue she let out a moan that would have made every virgin in a hundred leagues blush crimson. It was only the sheer amount of exposure he'd had to her morning routine that kept Kaiden from blushing himself.
He waited until she'd taken a few more sips, knowing that speaking up too soon would earn him her ire, “Good morning.”
A mumbled, “G'mernin'.” was all he got in return.
It was better than getting his head ripped off verbally. Still, he had to comment as he almost always did, “I don't know how you can drink that abomination.”
It was an abomination too! There was only a single cafe on their little home island that served coffee. Mira's complex overly sugery order had singlehandedly caused ten baristas to quit on the spot. The moment she'd learned that his inventory could maintain temperatures and make copies, she'd gotten an order of coffee and forced him to store it away.
The less said about the look he'd gotten when she found out about his ability to combine things to make them higher quality, the better. Needless to say, she was no thoroughly addicted to her morning cups of plus ten coffee. So addicted that he was afraid she would hunt him all the way to Laugh Tale if he even thought of running away from her.
Personally, he couldn't stand coffee. Instead, he pulled out a bottle of cola and popped the top of the icey cold beverage. Even this early in the morning the sun was already heating things up. He couldn't help wondering, not for the first time, if the cola he was drinking was the same as what Franky had access to. He hoped to find out one day.
After they both enjoyed their morning beverages, Kaiden pulled out some breakfast. Not just any breakfast, but food cooked at the best restaurant they could find at home, then turning into plus ten meals. Ever since learning he could combine things he'd been eating the best food he'd ever eaten in either life. Even just making a normal apple into a plus ten make it an entirely different experience.
About half way through the meal, Mira gazed at Kaiden and spoke in a dead serious tone, “Marry me!”
Kaiden snorted, “No.”
Mira pouted outrageously, “Oh come on! Please?! We can have all the dirty sex you want! Just say yes!”
Kaiden gave her a flat look, “You just want me for the coffee.”
“Of course! I can't have some other hussy stealing my precious coffee dispenser from me! I refuse! Marry me!”
Kaiden rolled his eyes and went back to his delicious breakfast. This had become something of a ritual recently. The first time he'd nearly choked to death on his food, but once he learned the reason for the proposal, he flat out refused. He had nothing against marrying Mira, far from it. However, he refused to marry her just so she could lay claim to him for her coffee fix.
He didn't know if he would spend the rest of his life with Mira or not, but he liked to think they would be together until the end. Maybe they would get married some day, but it would be fore love, not for her coffee addiction!
After they finished breakfast, Kaiden started removing a bunch of stuff from his inventory. For very obvious reasons, everything either of them owned was stored there. He had all the materials Mira could ever want and had modified all of her tools to plus ten. Infinite gold meant she bought one of everything she could find on their home island. While they sailed, she would experiment and he would sail them toward their destination.
He wasn't the greatest sailor ever, but he'd learned enough sailing around home doing odd jobs to know how to do it safely. He'd never sailed across the ocean before, but he had a map, compass, and more to make his job easier. They would need to be on the lookout for a good navigator before making their way to the Grand Line though. His meager skills would get them killed before ever reaching the first island!
They sailed in silence, neither feeling the need to fill the void between them with pointless words. Mira only addressed him to request materials or tools. If it were anyone else he might have been mildly annoyed, but she was the exception and always would be.
As she asked for yet another item, he decided to try something out of sheer laziness. He was relaxing at the rudder and didn't feel like getting up and making his way over to her. So, instead, he opened a window into his inventory in front of her, “Try and get it yourself.”
Mira didn't even bother questioning him and reached into his inventory screen to pull out a specific size of spring. They both paused and stared at the spring in her hand. Mira was obviously surprised it had worked. Kaiden, while also surprised, had just discovered another aspect of his ability. The moment he'd offered to let her get the spring and she'd accepted by trying, he'd felt the change.
It was the same as how he discovered other aspects of his ability. The first time he did something the inventory allowed, he would get a certain feeling. Like... it was like he knew all along that his inventory was capable of the feat and was only then remembering.
He began to explain to Mira, “It looks like I can give people limited access to my inventory. You can only insert and remove items, but now that you have access you can use it anywhere anytime. I'll still have to multiply, copy, and otherwise make modifications to items.”
Mira looked at Kaiden with an unholy gleam in her eyes, “You mean, I can take out ANYTHING inside of your inventory?”
Kaiden focused on the new aspect of his power and slowly nodded, “Yeah. Looks like you have unlimited access to anything inside of it. There's no way for me to prevent you from putting anything in or taking it out.”
That was mildly concerning to him. He trusted Mira, period. End of story. But he would have to be exceptionally careful before giving access to it to anyone else in the future. He would need to trust them as much as Mira or who knew how they could abuse his inventory.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the scent of coffee. His eyes widened in horror as he looked at Mira holding a fresh steaming cup of her favorite sugery brew, “Oh lord, what have I done?!”
Mira moaned as she took a sip of her second cup of coffee that morning while Kaiden trembled in fear. Before his inventory enhanced coffee became the norm, Mira would need to drink a whole pot of coffee to wake up properly. Thanks to the enhanced caffeine in his copies, one cup was enough now. Mira was only ever allowed just enough coffee to wake up, never a drop more.
Kaiden stared at her drinking the coffee, paralyzed by horrific memories from his past. By the time he returned to the present, it was too late. Mira was already tossing the empty cup overboard and opening his inventory once again. As he jumped to his feet and prepared to tackle Mira away from the inventory screen, he noticed the first sign already.
Her right leg had begun to bounce!
Kaiden launched himself across the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Mira before smashing his lips against hers. There were only two things that could be done when Mira had too much caffeine. First, find a spot to ride out the storm of chaos and pray. Second, distract her. With the size of their small sloop there would be no surviving the chaos. It was entirely possible Mira would accidentally sink the boat. Sure, he had hundreds of copies in his inventory, but he didn't want to deal with her possibly sinking more than one!
That left only distraction. The ship was tiny as hell and there wasn't much that could distract a fully fueled Mira rampage. In such circumstances, there was only one solution.
He had to sacrifice his body!
His surprise kiss worked its magic at distracting the hyperactive engineer causing and explosion of desire instead of an explosion of flames and shrapnel. He could still hear the last tongue lashing he'd gotten from the Marine's when Mira had accidentally caused an explosion that had them thinking the island was under attack by pirates!
Thankfully a little playtime would burn off Mira's excess energy and save them both from potential bodily harm.
-----Line Break-----
Hours later, Kaiden stumbled out of the cabin while pulling his shirt back on. They hadn't had sex, but they'd done just about everything else to burn off the chemically induced hyperactivity in Mira. Kaiden was exhausted and honestly surprised he hadn't passed out like Mira had. He glanced over at his naked and sleeping companion with a small frown as he tried to figure that out.
Before his seventeenth birthday and his old memories coming back, he'd have passed out along with Mira, easily. He always had before. Except, this time he was still awake. Oh, he wasn't going to run a marathon or anything and he felt like he could sleep if he wanted to, but he didn't NEED to and that was a difference. Where had this extra stamina come from?
He'd have to keep an eye out for anything else that was different and try to figure out the common denominator. For now, he believed it had to do with his memories and inventory somehow. How exactly? He didn't have a clue. He might never figure it out, but he would try.
For now, he sat back at the stern of the ship and checked their heading. No one had controlled the ship for the last few hours so it wasn't a surprise to find they were off course by a bit. He quickly got to work fixing that. The thought of arriving at Karate Island brought a smile to his face.
He wasn't just heading to Karate Island to learn how to fight, he also had a dream, one he inherited from his past self. In his previous like he'd had leukemia from when he was a child. The only bright spot was sitting through and recovering from chemo treatments gave him plenty of time to watch that awesome new anime One Piece. Like millions of children the world over, and many adults, he wished he could join Luffy's crew and explore the whole world. Even more so with how much time he spent in a bed.
He even gained his own dream from watching the show. Everyone in the crew needed a dream and no one seemed to share or compete over the same dreams. Everyone's was unique, and so was his. He wanted to become the worlds greatest martial artist. He obviously couldn't learn martial arts while weakened from chemo but he beat leukemia into remission.
That was when reality crashed in. The cost of his treatments, even with insurance, had decimated his parents and put them deep in debt. They simply couldn't afford to pay for training of any sort. He hadn't minded and instead sought to learn off of the internet. He was happy with that and dreamed that one day he would be strong enough to join Luffy and the others.
Yet fate, that ugly bitch, wasn't finished kicking him around. After three short years, his leukemia returned with a vengeance. After that, his life became all about survival. The leukemia kept going into remission and then coming back. He fought it every step of the way, he fought to survive. He fought until he realized he was forty and his entire life was about fighting his leukemia and the debt fighting it put him in. He realized his whole life had become all about working to make enough money to pay for his right to live.
His whole life was hell. He even realized it had been over two decades since he'd last watched a single episode of One Piece, the show that gave him the will to fight for his life as a child. That couldn't stand. At that moment he made a decision. His leukemia was in remission and he had no idea when it would come back, so he planned to spend that time living his life and pursuing his childhood dream. Maybe it was a midlife crisis, or just a life crisis, but he didn't care anymore.
He spent the next year joining every adult martial art class he could find. He didn't care what the art was specifically because he'd found himself drawn to the style of one of the greatest martial artists to ever live, Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do. Jeet Kune Do was considered by many to be the origin of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting styles. He found the moves that fit his style and worked on them tirelessly.
Until he died.
He'd ignored all signs of his leukemia returning until his body collapsed and he was forced into the hospital. By then, it was too late. Three months later he closed his eyes for what was supposed to be the last time.
Yet, here he was. His eyes had opened again, or maybe his memories had just returned? He wasn't sure. It wasn't like his old memories had taken over his new life, they were just... there. As if they had always been there. He just... remembered his past life. Obviously it had some influence on his current life, case in point his current journey.
He didn't know if he could or would join Luffy's crew and adventure with them and right then it didn't matter. What mattered was he was young, fit, and healthy. What mattered was he lived in the one sea in the whole world with an island completely dedicated to martial arts. What mattered was he could fulfill that childish dream if he was willing to put in the effort.
He was.
There was a fire within his soul now that burned brightly. He was determined more than anything else to become the greatest martial artist in the world! He didn't care what it would take. He didn't care how much abuse he would have to put his body through. All he cared about was his dream and making it real. He would suffer breaking every bone in his body, ripping every muscle to shreds, and even death all in the pursuit of his dream because nothing, NOTHING, could be worse than living a life like his last.
Kaiden clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He had a new life and limitless drive to succeed in his goal. He would succeed, or he would die trying.
He was okay with either outcome.
-----Line Break-----
It was a few hours later when Kaiden spotted a black smudge on the horizon. A quick peek through a spyglass showed it to be an island. He grinned broadly and called out a single word, “Coffee.”
Mira shot up like she'd been electrocuted and looked around quickly, “Where?!” Seeing nothing she turned toward the source of the magic word and pouted, “I hate it when you do that, Kai.”
Kaiden smirked at her. Mira was notoriously difficult to wake up when she was sleeping. Only one thing every worked, coffee. Either the word or the scent was good enough. However, after all the effort he went to to calm her down he wasn't about to give her another cup of the stuff so the word had to do, “Too bad. Now get dressed, we're almost at Karate Island.”
Mira grumbled a bit then stretched, knowing exactly what she was doing to Kaiden by doing so while wearing absolutely nothing. Nudity might not be a taboo between them, but it was generally avoided so they could keep their hands off of each other. Her stretching forced Kaiden to grit his teeth and do his best to ignore her. Especially when she bent over and wiggled far more than necessary to get dressed.
By the time she finished putting on her clothes, the island could clearly be seen with the naked eye. It took a little more sailing to find a populated spot near the shore where the docks and piers were located. They could have pulled up on shore anywhere, but it was better to do so in a town so they could easily find roads and make their way to wherever they wanted to easier.
On their approach, Kaiden stored everything not nailed down inside of his inventory. Then, once they docked, he stored the sloop inside of his inventory as well. The sight of the boat vanishing into thin air caused some of the nearby locals to gasp in shock. Kaiden just smiled and ignored them. Lucky for him the world of One Piece came with a built in excuse for his special ability. If anyone asked he planned to say he had the Saifu Saifu no mi, or the Purse Purse fruit and was therefore a purse-human who could store things away.
He ignored the stares his blatant usage of something supernatural caused and walked with Mira into the town. It wasn't all that different from their home town. It didn't take much talking to find out that the whole island was filled with dojos for a variety of martial arts. The place might be called Karate Island, but there were dojo's for karate, muay thai, taekwando, boxing, and more. The only martial art that didn't seem to be represented was Fishman Karate, which was too bad because that was the one Kaiden was most interested in.
He'd have to see about finding a teacher later on. For the time being, he could learn from the various disciplines available and work on increasing his strength and skill. His goal was to get strong enough to perform the Rokushiki. He didn't care for all of the techniques in the Rokushiki, but several of them were impossibly useful. The top of that list was dominated by Soru and Geppo. He definitely planned to focus a lot on his leg strength to get strong enough for those two techniques and Rankyaku as well. Throwing out air blades with kicks would be amazing.
He didn't care so much for Shigan or Tekkai, but he would learn and master them as well to unlock the ultimate prize, the Rokuogan, the secret hidden seventh technique that could even hurt someone like Luffy who is immune to blunt force trauma. The attack was a shock wave of power that wreaked havoc on the internal organs bypassing almost all defenses. It was also extremely similar to an advanced usage of Armament Haki. Kaiden hoped knowing the Rokuogan would help make learning that technique easier in the future.
Regardless of his future plans, he needed to start at the beginning with the basics. In this case, he led Mira toward the first karate dojo he could find directions to. Mira worked on a small device uncaring of where they were or what they were doing. The only reason she even followed Kaiden was because he was Kaiden.
Kaiden watched the sensei teach the students for a bit before he left. The dojo didn't seem bad but... it reminded him too much of the commercial dojos in the middle of suburban malls in his last life. While he could learn at such a place it felt... well it just didn't feel right. On top of which, he expected it would take him years of work to gain what he wanted moving at the pace of the slowest person in the class.
He wanted something smaller and more intimate. A place where he could progress at the maximum speed he was capable of. He didn't think of himself as some sort of martial arts genius or anything. For all he knew, he had no talent and would take years to get anything useful going. It didn't matter to him though. He would put in all the hard work necessary to get stronger. He would accept nothing less from himself.
-----Line Break-----
Three days later Kaiden and Mira were both getting frustrated. Mira was getting annoyed at not being able to sit around long enough to get any real work done on her inventions. Meanwhile, Kaiden was getting annoyed at not being able to find a dojo that felt right. He'd even expanded his search looking for any dojo that felt right instead of focusing on karate dojos.
He was more determined than ever to join any dojo today. He lifted up the morning copy of the newspaper and read the front page article again. 'Firefist' Ace had joined Whitebeard. As far as he could recall that put him somewhere around a year or so before Luffy began his own journey. Luffy's journey marked when the world went crazy and super powers began rising all over the world.
Kaiden needed to get stronger. He needed to be strong enough to master at least one or two of the Rokushiki before he could feel safe heading into the Grand Line. Being able to perform them was literally a super human feat and would be a good measure of his personal strength.
He also needed to spend time tell Mira about things from his past life, technologies she could work on creating and mastering. Just a basic steam engine would be a massive advantage over most ships in the sea.
With Ace joining Whitebeard, there was no a time limit to push Kaiden to be better. He would make the best of the time he had, he would...
He stopped and looked at Mira tugging on his arm, “What?”
She gestured to a run down building that looked more like a shack than a dojo, “What about that place?”
Kaiden looked at it with a frown. The only sign it was actually a school was the literal sign that read 'Ryu Nami School' and nothing else. He paused at the name of the school remembering the orange haired navigator of the Mugiwara crew. In this case the name of the school translated into Dragon Wave. It sounded impressive, but the run down look of the building did not build confidence.
Mira tugged on his arm and began dragging him down the overgrown pathway to the school's front door, “I'm tired of walking around. Stop being a picky bastard. This place is as good as any other.”
She shoved him toward the door while yelling, “Hey! There's a new student out here!” Then she turned to glare at Kaiden, “Stay. Learn. I'm going to find a place to rent and work in. I will see you at the hotel tonight and so help me god, if you don't start learning something today I will drink an entire gallon of coffee where you can't see me to stop me!”
Kaiden paled drastically at her threat. A whole gallon?! He feared what would happen to Karate Island as a whole if she drank that much caffeine. Island full of master martial artists or not, they would all be doomed! He rapidly nodded in agreement with her demand, “Whatever you want!”
Mira gave him a coy smirk and began walking away with a decided sway to her hips, “Damn right whatever I want.”
Before Kaiden could reply, the door to the dojo opened and a rude high pitched voice called out, “The hell do you want?”
Kaiden turned back to the door and found himself looking at a young boy with dark blue hair and a sneer on his face. The kid was short but well built and wearing a sleeveless gi that showed off arms so well sculpted they would have looked freaky on a kid in his previous life. Not wanting to risk Mira going through with her threat, especially after getting her to agree not to touch the cups of coffee in his inventory, Kaiden explained, “I'm looking for a dojo to learn martial arts from.”
“Yeah, and?”
He frowned a bit at the continued rudeness from the kid, “This is a school, yeah?”
The kid grunted, “Yeah, but you look broke as hell so buzz off.”
Kaiden arched an eyebrow while simultaneously causing a golden coin to appear in his hand from his inventory. He casually flipped the gold coin through the air and caught it in his hand, “You sure about that shorty?”
The moment the gold coin, worth one hundred thousand Belly, was in the air, the young boys eyes were locked on it harder than Nami's would have been. After flipping the coin into the air a few times, watching the kid's head move up and down with his eyes locked on the coin, Kaiden stored it away once more, “Still think I'm broke?”
The kid clicked his tongue in clear annoyance, “Fine. Whatever.”
Without another word, the kid turned and walked into the dojo while leaving the door wide open and shouting, “Hey! Old geezer! Some old loser is here to learn from you.”
From deeper inside the dojo an old man's voice shouted back, “Show some respect for your elders you disrespectful little shit!” There was a slight pause before the voice came once more sounding confused this time, “Wait, did you say there was a student?”
Loud thumping came from somewhere and grew closer until a door slid open to reveal a man that looked positively ancient. What hair he had on his headwas thin and pure white, though he did sport a magnificently long fu manchu beard and mustache as well as eyebrows so long they reached his chin. His face was pure wrinkles that damn near hid his eyes and it took a moment to notice, but his earlobes were even longer than Enel's and capped with similar thick golden hoops.
The old man raised his right eyebrow enough to reveal a crystal clear dark eye staring directly at Kaiden, “Oh ho! A new suck...” He coughed, “...student! Come to learn the legendary Dragon Wave style of martial arts have you?” He rubbed his hands together like a greedy car salesman, “You couldn't have picked a finer school of combat! The Dragon Wave style is known for its flowing movements that hit like an angry dragon.”
Kaiden stared at the old man. On the one hand the guy looked like the exact image someone would picture if you said 'hidden martial arts master.' On the other hand, the guy gave off the exact same feeling as a sleazy car salesman trying to sell a beater that would break down in a hundred miles as if it were a brand new BMW.
Before he could decide to turn around and run away, the old man grabbed his arm in a shockingly firm grip and bodily dragged him into the interior of the dojo, “Come! Come! We can begin your first lesson right away!”
They finally stopped in an open room with traditional tatami mat floors. All around the walls were a variety or training tools including weights, wing chun dummies, punching bags, and more lined the walls. If nothing else the place actually looked like somewhere someone could train. Even if the staff left much to be desired thus far.
Once in the training area, the old man took on a more professional, and somehow even sleazier attitude, “The very first thing we must work on is your foundation! Strength! Stance! Balance! It is from the earth that we draw our strength! A firm root to the ground, yet still capable of moving swiftly and deliberately.”
The old man took a stance that looked like a modified horse stance with his arms curled and held tight to his sides, “Do as I do.”
Kaiden silently mimicked the man's stance to the best of his ability. The old man straightened up and moved to Kaiden to push and pull here and there and modify the stance. When the man finished, Kaiden immediately felt the difference. He could feel some strain in his legs as they supported his upper body in a new way.
The old man hummed in approval and walked all the way around Kaiden to make sure his stance was perfect, “Good! Now stand like that for the next hour without moving. Move and inch and we begin again!”
Kaiden stared at the man incredulously. It had only been a minute and he could feel the muscles in his legs beginning to burn as lactic acid built up. Uncaring of Kaiden's look, the old man proceeded to lay down on the floor and pull out a magazine from somewhere to read. It took a moment for Kaiden to realize just what kind of magazine the man was reading right in front of him. The slight blush on the mans cheeks and the perverse giggles sent a shiver down his spine.
A porno magazine, seriously? Kaiden hadn't even known those existed before just then! What the hell?! He wanted nothing more than to stomp out of there right then and never look back. The only thing stopping him was Mira's threat.
He stayed, for the good of all peoples on Karate Island.
-----Line Break-----
Kaiden collapsed into a twitching sweaty heap on his hotel room bed. His legs felt like nothing buy pain and regret. He hadn't succeeded in the challenge to stay standing for the last week, but he hadn't given up either. He refused to ever give up. The only reason he was back at the hotel was because he'd been kicked out of the dojo and told to return the next day just like every other day thus far.
He fully intended to succeed in the exercise the next day. He wasn't going to give up or give the old man the satisfaction! He could feel his legs growing stronger and his stance more stable. His sensei might be a sleazy dirty old man, but at least the training was the real deal.
Mira chuckled as she observed Kaiden, “Still not good enough huh?”
Kaiden grunted. It was all he was capable of as far as communication went. Mira chuckled at his suffering, “By the way, I got something new for dinner. Do the things to it, I'm hungry.”
Kaiden sighed and opened his inventory to find the new item, which took a moment. Mira had done a LOT of shopping ever since she gained access to his inventory. More than half of what was in it was just her clothing! Which, naturally, she made him improve to plus ten status because 'it just feels sooooo much better.'
She was right, of course, and he did the same to his own clothing. But he had no intention of telling her that, EVER. It also made the clothing more durable and easier to clean so it was just good all around. Not that he actually washed his clothing anymore. Instead, he stuck his dirty clothes inside of his inventory and then deleted them. He had infinite copies so why waste time washing them when he could just have brand new copies all the time?
Man, infinite everything was making him LAZY.
After doing as Mira wanted and turning their dinner into a plus ten variant, he joined her in eating it. One of the things he'd discovered about eating the enhanced meals was that they were crammed with an enormous amount of nutrition in a very small package. This had the unexpected effect of helping his body heal faster from his efforts.
Or... maybe it wasn't so surprising? Luffy, and others, had shown a penchant for healing rapidly after large meals. Hell, the rubber-man had healed from a through and through gut wound in a matter of days! Considering Luffy only ate normal food and one could imagine what the miraculously nutrition packed food Kaiden and Mira ate did for the body.
It took two meals for Kaiden to feel full, which was a huge increase from before. The plus ten meals were extremely filling so eating even one took a large appetite. With two stuffed down his gullet, Kaiden had the energy for the second half of his day, even though it was dark out already.
He opened his inventory and pulled out a set of weights he'd copied from the dojo. He had an amazing plus ten set, of course. The problem was he couldn't LIFT the plus ten set. It seemed that, in the case of weights, combining them enhanced their weight while keeping the same size. So his plus ten discs that originally weighed twenty-five kilos? Yeah, they now weighed twenty-five thousand six hundred kilos. They weren't even the heaviest weights he had!
So, yeah, he wasn't lifting even the five kilo weights since they weighed over five thousand kilos at plus ten. Even though he couldn't use the heaviest set, yet, he was already using the plus two set. He set up his bench press and placed three plates on each side of the bar. All told, he was benching six hundred and eighty kilos (1,058 pounds), which was more than he could have ever dreamed of bench pressing in his previous life.
Even though he was extremely happy with himself, he wasn't too happy with his progress. Compared to someone like Zoro he was still an utter weakling. He remembered scenes of that guy waving around bars holding plates even bigger than the man himself. He had no idea what kind of weight that was, but it would have taken even more strength to wield such weight as if it were a sword! Leverage could be helpful or a total bitch.
Those thoughts were pushed aside as he began his workout. He wanted to get his body as strong as he possibly could as fast as he could so he would push it hard every. Single. Day. Until he reached the minimum level, then he would push even harder!
This was just the beginning of his journey!
-----Line Break-----
AN
Okay so this isn't Psion, but there's a reason for that. As part of writing Psion I was rewatching MHA and deciding where changes needed to happen as well as to remind myself of stuff I was forgetting. Unfortunately, as I was watching it I had a thought and that thought depressed the hell out of me.
So, I switched to something less depressing. I found something called the Essense of the Infinite Multiplying Inventory, thought the concept was hilarious, and picked the series I loved that it would be the least broken in, thus One Piece. I modified the original concept in some ways. For instance, the original version would allow paper money to be multiplied infinitely while also changing the serial numbers. Kaiden's doesn't.
The original also didn't list any limitations to combining items other than needing to be similar. So the original could get a single basic health potion and keep doing combinations of it until it became the single most powerful healing potion in the multiverse, then multiply it infinitely. Technically, Kaiden can do so as well, but it would be extremely tedious and annoying to get there. Eventually his chances of success would get so low that it would take tens of millions of attempts for a single success. At roughly 5 seconds per attempt and 1 million attempts, that's 57.8 DAYS of non-stop attempts.
It has one last trick it can do that he hasn't discovered yet and it what will give him some real power with it in the future. But even that feature relies on other people and some creativity on his part. So, mostly he'll be a martial artist in combat. Though I do plan, in the future, for him to get his hands on Dials. I think +10 Impact Dials, Axe Dials, and Reject Dials would be awesome for a melee combatant.
Also, Title Ideas? Thanks in advance!
Anyway, that's all I have for now. Until next time.
PS. OH! Almost forgot, 9.4k words. It's this long because it wanted to be. Enjoy.