Three Years Later (Age 8)
Shimotsuki Village was the picture of tranquility. It was a place of soft winds, rustling bamboo forests, and the rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of wooden swords echoing from the famous Isshin Dojo on the hill. It was a place where old men drank tea and young men dreamed of becoming samurai.
Sol hated the quiet.
At eight years old, Sol stood out like a sore thumb in the village. While the other boys were obsessed with "The Way of the Sword," begging Koushirou-sensei for lessons, Sol was in the woods, punching a boulder.
Thud.
"Ninety-eight," Sol grunted, sweat stinging his eyes.
Thud.
"Ninety-nine."
He drew back a fist that was scarred and calloused far beyond his age. He wasn't using Haki—he didn't know how to unlock it yet—but he was using every ounce of torque his small body could generate.
CRACK.
"One hundred!"
His fist sank two inches into the solid grey stone, leaving a perfect imprint of his knuckles. A spiderweb of fractures spread out from the impact site.
Sol pulled his hand back, shaking the dust off. He checked his knuckles. Bruised, bleeding slightly, but healing fast. Ridiculously fast.
"Still not enough," he muttered, wiping his forehead with a dirty forearm. "Luffy is probably eating a sea king right now. Zoro is probably lifting a building with his teeth. I can't slack off."
Since eating the mystery fruit three years ago, Sol had learned a few things.
First, he couldn't swim. He found that out the hard way when he tried to dive for clams and sank like a hammer. His dad had to fish him out with a net.
Second, he was dense. Not stupid-dense, but physically dense. He weighed three times what a normal eight-year-old should weigh. If he sat on a cheap chair, it broke. If he stepped too hard on a floorboard, it snapped.
Third, and most frustratingly, the "magic" part of the fruit was dormant. He couldn't shoot fire. He couldn't grow extra limbs. He was just a super-heavy, super-strong human.
"Maybe I'm just a Human-Human Fruit Model: Bodybuilder," Sol joked to himself, kicking a tree. "Lamest fruit ever."
He grabbed his water skin and headed back toward the village. He needed to get home before his mom noticed he'd ruined another pair of shorts.
The village market was bustling. Fishermen were haggling over the price of tuna, and the smell of charcoal smoke hung in the air.
Sol walked with a heavy, deliberate gait. He had to be careful not to bump into people; last week, he'd accidentally shoulder-checked a teenager and sent the poor guy flying into a crate of cabbages.
"Hey! Sol!"
Sol looked up. It was the village baker, a kind old man named Gen. "Your mom ordered some flour. Can you carry it back for her?"
"Sure, Uncle Gen," Sol grinned. "Put it on my tab. I'm gonna be rich one day, you know. I'll buy the whole bakery."
"Hah! Just don't become a pirate, kid. Marines are cracking down lately."
Gen slid a massive sack of flour—easily fifty pounds—toward the counter. Usually, a father would carry this. Sol grabbed it with one hand, swung it over his shoulder like it was a pillow, and winked.
"Pirates are scary," Sol lied effortlessly. "I'm just a humble traveler."
He walked out of the shop, humming a tune. He liked this village, even if it was boring. It was safe. But his "Plot Knowledge" was itching. He knew that in the One Piece world, safety was an illusion. Peace was just the intermission between tragedies.
As he turned the corner toward his house, which sat on the outskirts near the forest edge, the air changed.
The birds had stopped singing.
Sol stopped humming. He lowered the flour sack gently to the ground. His instincts, sharpened by three years of forest survival, were screaming.
He rounded the corner.
Three men were standing in front of his house. They weren't villagers. They wore mismatched leather armor, bandanas, and carried jagged cutlasses. Mountain bandits. Not the big-shot bounty heads, just the scum that drifted down from the peaks to bully civilians.
One of them, a lanky man with missing teeth, was holding Sol's mother by the wrist.
"Come on, lady," the bandit sneered. "We know your husband cuts the good timber. Where's the coin stash? We need a drinking fund."
"I told you," his mom said, her voice trembling but firm. "We don't keep money in the house. My husband is at the lumber mill!"
"Liar," the bandit raised a hand to slap her.
Sol didn't think. He didn't weigh the odds. He didn't gamble.
He moved.
Step. Step. Launch.
Sol crossed the twenty meters between them in a blur of motion that shouldn't have been possible for a child. He didn't shout a cool attack name. He just drove his shoulder into the lanky bandit's stomach.
WHAM.
It sounded like a car crash.
The bandit folded in half, his eyes bulging out of his skull, and launched backward. He flew through the air, smashed through the wooden fence, and skidded ten feet into the dirt, unconscious before he stopped moving.
Silence fell over the yard.
Sol stood there, breathing hard, his small fists clenched. He looked at his mom. She was pale, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes.
"Sol?" she whispered.
"Get inside, Mom," Sol said. His voice sounded strange. Grating.
The other two bandits stared at the small boy, then at their fallen comrade. Shock turned to anger.
"You little brat!" the larger bandit roared, drawing a heavy pistol. "That was a lucky shot! I'll blow your head off!"
He aimed the gun at Sol.
And that was when it happened.
Sol felt a spike of emotion. It wasn't fear. It wasn't just anger. It was Wrath. Pure, unadulterated, boiling rage at the audacity of this weakling threatening his life.
Thump-thump.
Sol's heart beat so hard it hurt.
Inside his chest, the dormant fruit woke up. It didn't stretch, and it didn't flow. It ignited.
"You think..." Sol muttered, his head lowering.
Heat radiated off him. The grass around his sandals began to whither and turn brown.
"You think you can point a gun at ME?!"
Sol looked up.
His eyes were gone. In their place were glowing white orbs of pure energy. His skin, usually a tanned olive, was rapidly turning a deep, dark crimson, like cooling magma. Veins bulged across his forehead and arms, glowing with an internal orange light.
The air around him shimmered with heat haze.
"Monster!" the bandit screamed and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The lead bullet flew straight at Sol's chest.
Sol didn't dodge. He swatted it.
Clang.
His hand moved faster than the eye could track. The bullet deflected off his crimson skin as if he were made of solid steel, ricocheting into the dirt.
The bandit dropped the gun. "What... what are you?"
Sol took a step forward. The ground sizzled where his foot landed. He felt like he was burning alive, but it felt good. He felt like he could punch a hole in the sky. He felt like a god of war shrinking down to fit into a child's body.
"Gone," Sol growled.
He lunged.
He didn't use technique. He grabbed the bandit by the face with one crimson hand. The heat was so intense the bandit's bandana instantly caught fire. Sol slammed him into the ground.
CRUNCH.
The earth cracked. The bandit went limp instantly.
The third bandit dropped his sword and ran, screaming toward the woods.
Sol turned to chase, a feral growl rising in his throat. He wanted to hunt. He wanted to tear. The Asura demanded violence.
"Sol! Stop!"
His mother's voice cut through the red haze.
Sol froze. He stood there, vibrating, his skin the color of blood, steam rising from his shoulders in thick white plumes. He panted, the sound like a bellows fanning a fire.
Slowly, painfully, he unclenched his fists.
The white glow in his eyes faded. The crimson pigment of his skin receded, leaving him looking normal, albeit extremely sweaty and red-faced.
He fell to his knees, gasping for air. The transformation had only lasted ten seconds, but he felt like he'd run a marathon.
"Mom..." Sol wheezed, looking at his hands. They were trembling.
His mother rushed over, ignoring the unconscious bandits, and wrapped her arms around him. She didn't care that he was hot to the touch. She didn't care that he had just crushed a grown man.
"I've got you," she cried into his hair. "I've got you."
Sol leaned into her, his eyes heavy. He looked at the devastation in the yard.
So that's what it is, he thought as consciousness slipped away. It's not just strength. It's an engine. And I have to learn how to drive it before it burns me out.
The gamble had paid off. He wasn't a civilian anymore. He was a monster.
And he had a long way to go before he was the strongest.
End of Chapter 2