"No… don't!"
"I'm begging you—spare those innocent children!"
"You promised you'd let us leave, didn't you? …You cold-blooded butchers. Monsters. Heaven will punish you for this…"
Bang!
The gunshot cracked through the air, and the nun—tricked into despair—collapsed onto the blood-slick ground.
"God, you're noisy. You really will believe anything, won't you?" A soldier laughed until his voice turned ragged. "If I hadn't said that, why would you have walked straight into our trap with all these kids? You saved us a lot of work! Hahahaha…"
"Let me tell you the truth. Our orders are to leave no one in this country alive. Except that king who ran off early like a stray dog, dragging the royal family with him. Everyone else—old or young—dies."
A soldier beside him frowned. "Simmon. You're saying too much."
"What's there to be afraid of?" Simmon sneered. "They'll all be dead in a minute. Dead men don't talk."
He lifted an arm. "Fire. Finish them all."
The soldiers raised their rifles with savage grins, and muzzle flashes spilled deadly light into the dusk.
The last thing the nun saw was the children dropping one after another, cut down where they stood.
Their screams tore through her ears. Tears slid down her face—too late, too bitter—and then the world folded into darkness.
"I'm sorry…"
Even at the very end, no merciful salvation came. Only despair stayed with her.
…
Age of the Sea Circle, September 1506. In the North Blue, Flevance was wiped off the map as neighboring countries turned war into annihilation, and the "White City" vanished beneath roaring flames.
Throughout it all, the World Government and the Marines never reached out a hand.
The only confirmed survivors were the Flevance royal family—people who had contacted the World Government early, abandoned their country, and bought their own escape.
And yet, beneath those pitch-black clouds, it felt as if a thin thread of sunlight still pushed through, falling on the ruins like a stubborn refusal to die.
…
Flevance was gone, but the aftermath wasn't. The cleanup moved fast, almost frantic.
Bodies that the fire hadn't fully consumed couldn't be left where they lay. If they rotted, disease would follow—and people whispered that the "white ghosts" would have their first revenge on the living. One corpse after another was hauled to the border and piled high, waiting for fuel so they could all be burned at once.
The mound of dead looked like hell built by human hands. One glance was enough to turn your stomach and haunt your sleep for days.
Even the soldiers assigned to move the bodies didn't linger. They did their job, then hurried away as if the air itself carried a curse. What was the point of guarding corpses, anyway? It wasn't like they could get up and run.
Except… in that dead silence, a few bodies twitched.
A soft thud.
A ragged, shaking breath.
As several corpses rolled off the top of the pile, a small figure—thin, blood-smeared, filthy—forced himself out from underneath, gulping air like he'd almost been strangled.
The stench hit him a heartbeat later: blood, rot, and something worse he couldn't put a name to.
He doubled over. "Ugh—ugh!" He retched until his throat burned, and when he finally looked around and understood where he was, he kept gagging anyway.
"Is this hell after death?" he choked out. "No… it's not hell."
His eyes snapped wide. "This is Flevance. I'm Allen Stuart!"
By the time he had nothing left to vomit, the memories he'd been missing finally finished crashing into place. Two lives, fused into one.
In his previous life, he'd been what people liked to call a "self-made" success—an entrepreneur who'd at least managed to look the part.
He'd hit thirty and made a fortune, helped along a little by his in-laws.
Then he'd tried to prove he wasn't living off anyone else. He threw himself into his company day after day, until one night he drove while exhausted and never made it home.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in the world of One Piece—reborn as a baby, his old memories gone. Only now, in this pile of corpses, had they finally returned.
His name in this life was Allen Stuart, born in the North Blue in a place famed for its beauty and wealth: Flevance.
He'd even had a happy family. His parents were well-known local merchants, people with real money and real connections.
He'd grown up well educated, bright and outgoing. Good genes didn't hurt either—he'd always been handsome, always well liked.
If that was all there was to it, he might have thought this second life was a gift.
But as more memories surfaced—White City, Amber Lead Syndrome, One Piece, the World Government, the Celestial Dragons—his blood ran cold. He wasn't in some harmless fantasy world.
And his situation couldn't be worse.
He'd watched the Big Three when he was younger—Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Later, when work swallowed his life, he stopped keeping up. Every now and then he'd only check what the story was doing.
Like that whole Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika reveal. He remembered hearing people argue about it for ages.
"Of all times," he muttered, forcing out a bitter laugh. "My memories had to come back now. In a place like this."
Living in Flevance—the so-called White City—wasn't a blessing at all. Almost everyone here carried the Amber Lead Syndrome, incurable and inherited, and by his generation people didn't even make it to adulthood before dying in agony.
He stared at his own arm. Pale blotches stood out against his skin, unmistakable.
So he had it too.
Maybe getting a second life had already burned through all the luck he would ever have.
And the cruelest part was that if he'd regained these memories even a few days earlier, he might have found a way to run with his parents, to search for a cure, to gamble on survival.
Now it was too late. To keep the truth buried, the World Government had all but allowed Flevance to be erased through "war." His parents were dead—cut down like everyone else.
And that nun… those children… innocent people butchered for nothing.
Even thinking about it made Allen's fingers curl into a fist.
One day, he would make them pay—for his parents, and for everyone who died with Flevance.
But not now. Not like this. Right now he didn't have the power, the skill, or the leverage.
"What matters is getting out," he whispered. "I can handle the smell now, but if the soldiers find me, I'll be dead before I take three steps… and that's assuming I even get another chance."
He tried to roll up and stand.
Instead, his body betrayed him, and he tumbled off the corpse pile.
He hadn't eaten in who knew how long. He hadn't had a drop of water. The violent vomiting had hollowed him out, leaving him dizzy, weak, and trembling.
"Damn it."
Allen braced himself against a body and dragged in a few breaths, but hunger and exhaustion kept chewing at his nerves.
In this condition, slipping away unseen and crossing the border was a joke. He needed strength—at least enough to move like a person instead of a dying animal.
The problem was obvious. There was no food here. No water. And the longer he stayed, the higher the chance a patrol would come by.
He swallowed hard, anger scraping his throat. "Seriously… if I'm going to run into something as ridiculous as getting my past-life memories back, don't tell me I don't even get a cheat ability."
The moment the words left him, a voice spoke inside his mind—cold, clear, and unreal.
[Anime Crossover Trading System bound successfully. Newcomer gift delivered. Please check it yourself.]
Note: You can read up to chapter 10 on my Patreon FOR FREE. I'll keep working on this fanfic as long as it's getting enough support to justify continuing.
[End of chapter]
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