Chapter Text
Monkey D. Luffy, Captain of the Strawhat Pirates, heir apparent to the title of Pirate King, is unceremoniously killed about two yards from Koby’s terrified face.
Blackbeard flicks the arm gripping Luffy’s skull. Luffy’s head snaps to the side with a sickening CRACK and it stays there. Which, that’s not right. That’s not correct at all. Luffy goes boing and fwip and snap but never CRACK. His head should be bouncing back into place now, too. None of this unnatural holding nonsense. The bend in his neck is so… sharp. That’s not Luffy at all. Luffy is squiggles and stretches and curves.
Most importantly, Luffy is full of life and passion and determination. He never stops fighting, even when he’s down and out. Even when he should be long past unconscious. When he hurts and bleeds. He keeps going. A creature of kinetic energy until the fight is won.
But the thing in front of Teach - in front of Koby, too, he’s right here - is very dead. So it’s definitely not Luffy, even if it looks so much like him. Even if it was Luffy just a few milliseconds earlier. His soul’s voice was clear as crystal, and shining bright like one too. But now there’s no voice at all, void where it should be. So this… thing in front of him. It can’t be Luffy.
Because Luffy doesn’t die. He’d never die before Koby got to fight him. And he’d certainly never die before becoming Pirate King, killed in the middle of a fight that’s barely begun.
The broken Luffy-look-alike sways and falls chest-down into the earth. It would have been face-down if the neck wasn’t turned like that. Someone should really fix that, it’s unseemly.
What an odd thought to have about a broken neck...
Ah. Koby’s in shock.
Right, that makes sense. There’s a lot going on right now. A lot of shocking things. It’s a battlefield.
Well, when his men experience shock in the field, Koby takes them to a medic, to make sure they aren’t harmed while they’re out of it. If Koby’s in shock, he should see a medic.
Numbly, he turns away from the body and the cackling emperor standing over it. There are a few medics here. The ones from the marines are a lot further back, away from the epicenter of the battle where he currently is. But the pirates have a few.
The Surgeon of Death is close by, but he seems busy, his sword clashing with one in the hands of someone thrice his size. Best not to bother him.
His first mate, a polar bear mink, is the next closest medic, but he appears to be taking a nap. Ah, no, at a second glance he’s laying in a pool of blood, oozing from fresh pink chest wounds. And his eyes are open, unblinking. So he’s dead. Probably won’t be able to help.
Even further still, he spots a furry humanoid goring the last of a Blackbeard platoon with its massive horns. This is Luffy’s doctor. Chopper, Koby remembers. Luffy presented him very proudly. He’s a good doctor. Probably a good medic too.
He walks himself over just as the last of Chopper’s combatants fall.
“Excuse me,” Koby calls up to him.
Chopper turns to him, confused.
“Koby? What? You should be up with Luffy!”
“Oh, sorry. Luffy died. And I’m in shock. So I came to see a medic.”
Chopper stares at him, frozen.
“Wh- what?” Chopper’s voice trembles. He looks past Koby, eyes wide with horror. After a moment, morphs into a more deer-like form and takes off running the way Koby just came.
Ah, he’s busy too, then.
He’s about to just sit down here and wait for Chopper to return, when a gentle hand wraps around his arm. Koby stares at it dumbly, before tracing it up to its owner.
It belongs to a pale man he’s never seen before. Head shaven to the skin, a black cloth mask pulled across the entire bottom half of his face. His whole outfit is black, actually.
“Woah. A ninja,” Koby whispers, because ninjas are cool.
For a moment the man’s eyebrows shoot upwards in surprise, but they’re quickly schooled.
“Uh, no. Come with me, please,” he says, quiet but firm.
“Okay.” Koby lets the man pull him along. He can’t really feel his own body properly anyway.
As they walk through the battle, Koby senses a half dozen death rattles per second through his haki. He quickly shuts it off. It’s too much right now.
He’s guided behind a bombed-out wall that’s barely tall enough to reach his shoulders.
The ninja sighs. “I guess this is the best we’ll get in the middle of a warzone.” He turns to Koby. “This is going to be confusing.”
Koby opens his mouth, but he’s cut off.
“You’re unlucky number 13, sorry. You probably won’t succeed. But we need more intel. Here’s the advice I’ve gotten so far, plus my own.” He pulls out a tiny origami frog. “Hold it in your mouth. Don’t swallow.”
What? Why an origami frog?
“It’s what they folded for me,” the man shrugs, reading his mind.
“I- I’m not sure I understand-”
“You will when you get there, trust me. Just put the frog on your tongue.”
“A-Are you a revolutionary?” Koby asks, hesitantly placing the folded paper in his mouth. It tastes like paper and ink, sturdy enough that it’s not dissolving.
The man snorts. “No. They’re compromised too early. Dead end.”
Koby is very lost.
Nearby, there’s a huge BOOM and a roar of wind. He turns his head towards the source. Roronoa Zoro, his three blades gleaming black with haki, launches a flurry of devastating attacks against a dodging Blackbeard. A very small number of them connect.
Zoro isn’t supposed to be near Blackbeard, let alone fight him. That’s Luffy’s jo-
Oh. Oh god. Luffy. Luffy’s dead. Zoro abandoned his orders because Blackbeard killed his captain. Luffy is dead.
Koby’s going to hurl.
“Hey. Focus up.” The mysterious ninja man grabs Koby by the chin and wrenches his gaze towards him.
“I need you to concentrate.” The man is very close. Koby can feel his breath through the mask. “Think about the first time you met Luffy. The storage room on the passenger ship, the two years of misery in Alvida’s service, the heart attack when he leapt from that barrel, the joy when he punched her in the face. Focus on those moments. Focus on Luffy. The first time you saw his face. Picture that moment. How you felt. Exactly what it looked like. That first moment with Luffy.”
Koby is rapt. The words make it so easy to picture, like a guided meditation. There are hot streaks of tears rolling down his face, but he ignores them, because he can see that moment so clearly in his mind’s eye. Luffy.
“Keep thinking of that moment. And… I apologize, you’re going to discover a lot about yourself in very quick succession. Try not to worry about it too much. Focus on Luffy.”
Koby nods distantly at the words. He focuses on Luffy.
The ninja pulls down his cloth mask. Koby is staring into his own face. Completely shaved head, no glasses, an extra scar on his chin, but undoubtedly what he sees whenever he looks in a mirror. He’s talking to himself.
“Luffy,” the other Koby says urgently. “Remember Luffy.”
And then he grabs Koby by the back of the head and kisses him. With tongue.
That- It’s-
What-?
Koby’s brain short circuits.
It’s not totally unpleasant.
Koby has definitely never been kissed like this. Sometimes, when he saves people from pirates or criminals, a blushing young woman will run up and give him a peck on the lips, as a thank you. It’s rare, but it’s happened at least twice. Helmeppo teases him about it.
This is absolutely not that at all. It’s rough and a little slimy and pretty aggressive. The other Koby’s tongue is on a fucking mission to get in further between his teeth, and the grip on the back of his skull is firm and demanding, yet strangely comforting.
Oh shit. Koby might be gay.
The other Koby growls some sort of command distorted by the lip lock, and Koby wracks his brain through this truly bizarre experience to figure out what he could possibly want.
Oh right, Luffy, he said. Focus on Luffy.
So he does. And as he imagines that moment in the cargo hold, with Luffy’s radiant smile and proud declaration of becoming Pirate King, the other Koby’s tongue forces through the gap in his teeth and nudges the origami frog, causing Koby to choke.
The other Koby lets out a triumphant noise, and then the entire world goes white.
“-be King of the Pirates!”
Koby is sitting on a crate, in the storage hold of a ship. He is staring at a very young, very alive, Monkey D. Luffy. A vivid, perfect rendition of the moment he was remembering.
He coughs. A neatly-folded, slightly damp origami frog flies out of his mouth and lands between his feet.
He and Luffy both stare at it dumbly.
“That’s weird,” Luffy says. “You eat paper?”
Koby is still staring at it, mouth hanging open.
“Not usually,” he says weakly.
“Hm,” Luffy hums. “Paper’s not that good. Tastes bad.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
Koby’s eyes are still fixated on the frog.
“You should eat something better.” Luffy shrugs, then turns away to steadily shove a dozen apples into his mouth.
“Good… good idea.”
Wait.
“LUFFY!” Koby screams, launching at him.
Luffy, though bewildered, lets it happen. Koby fists his hands through his vest. Real. Grabs his cheek. Real. Pulls the skin until it stretches unnaturally. Still rubber, and plenty real.
“This is real,” Koby breathes. “You’re alive.”
“Yeagh?” Luffy says through his distorted mouth. He brings another apple to his teeth and pops it in like anyone else would a grape. “You’r’ weirgh.”
Watching the mechanics of Luffy chewing is truly horrifying, and it invokes memories of the last thing Koby was doing with his own mouth, so he quickly releases Luffy like he’s been burned and scrambles off his chest.
“Okay,” Koby says to himself, pacing. “Okay, just breathe. What’s happening?”
“I’m having a snack,” Luffy offers. “And you were whining.”
Right. Luffy is here. All things considered, that’s fantastic news. Seeing him not dead is very very comforting. It’s also making it a lot harder to think. He’s definitely having a panic attack right now.
“Hey, Luffy? You can have the rest of the apples if you look away and pretend you can’t hear me for the next two minutes.”
“Sure,” Luffy agrees, “I was going to do that anyway.”
And he proceeds to turn around and stuff his face.
Cool. Okay. Great. That’s problem number one, solved.
Problem number two. Koby is small. His body feels weird. Weaker. Lighter. No back pain, which is actually really awesome. He started getting chronic pain at eighteen thanks to Garp’s training. But the lack of it also means he doesn’t have Garp’s training. Which is terrifying, because it means Koby really is fifteen again.
Koby was - pardon the language - a real pussy at fifteen. Granted, a lot of that was an attitude problem as much as it was a skill issue. He can… he can work on that. But it’s not something he can immediately change. So he’s gonna have to get over it for now. Putting a pin in problem number two.
Problem number three. Koby was on a battlefield just now, and now he’s in the past, in the hold of a passenger ship.
This one is more of an abstract problem, isn’t it? Because how the hell do you fix something like that? The only possibility he can think of is that maybe this is a shock-induced hallucination. It would explain the weirdness of kissing himself as a ninja. And the frog.
Oh! The frog! Ninja Koby said something about it being… advice? Intel?
He plucks it off the ground and inspects it. It looks exactly the same as when he popped it in, just a little droopy from spit. When he fiddles with it, he can see that beneath the folds, protected by the architecture of the frog, is several rows of small handwriting.
Alright. Reading that can be a separate problem. He’ll circle back. One thing at a time. He can put a pin in problem three as well.
Problem number four. Koby is maybe gay.
The “maybe” is a keystone word for a few reasons. First, he’s still holding out hope that this is some elaborate fever dream, and that everything happening is irrelevant.
Second, he could be bisexual. Or even straight! He certainly hasn’t made out with a girl like that. For all he knows, it could be better. It’s never really crossed his mind to try. Koby finds girls… pretty scary. It’s an emotional artifact from the years as Alvida’s punching bag. He has no clue how to talk to women outside of a professional capacity, so in social situations he usually just smiles and listens silently unless he really needs to say something.
Oh, yikes. That’s… not really a point in favor of heterosexuality. He should also maybe get better at speaking to women.
But, third reason for the “maybe” here, is that he’s never kissed a boy like that either. And this one experience doesn’t really count, because it was technically sort of himself? Kissing yourself isn’t… it’s not the same as kissing a boy, right? Like, that’s you. Right?
He lets out a keening noise of despair. Problem number four isn’t going to be solved by thinking. He’ll have to put a pin in this one too. Maybe try kissing someone later to test? No, that idea is terrifying.
What was it that Ninja Koby said? Focus on Luffy. Right. Luffy first, gay thoughts later.
That leaves him with problem number five. The note.
Very carefully, he peels back the folds, unveiling a tiny square paper, and a note written with his own cramped handwriting.
Save Luffy. Here’s what we’ve learned.
- Don’t tell Luffy.
- Don’t tell Helmeppo.
- Don’t tell anyone.
- The Loop-Loop Fruit is on Eternal Orchard Grove in the New World.
- DO NOT eat any other devil fruit.
- Don’t save Ace.
- Don’t save Whitebeard.
- Don’t save Thatch.
- Don’t get promoted past Vice-Admiral.
- Don’t tip off any revolutionaries.
- Don’t try to kill Teach at Marineford.
- Don’t try to kill Teach at Impel Down.
- Don’t try to work for Blackbeard.
- Don't try to kill Teach alone.
Okay. That’s a lot of rules. And Koby has no idea who Thatch is.
“Don’t tell Luffy” sort of kills his immediate plan of action. And “don’t tell Helmeppo” kills his second. As does the “anyone.” He was really hoping someone could help him figure out what the hell is happening.
Then there’s the rule against becoming an Admiral. Koby is a Captain, why on earth would he have to worry about that? Scratch that, right now Koby isn’t even a marine, because if this isn’t a fever dream, then he’s apparently still a whipping boy for Iron Club Alvida, and has never even thrown a punch.
Also, Loop-Loop fruit? That’s important to him? It sounds like he ate a devil fruit. Or… will
This is so much bigger than him, Koby realizes, like a bucket of ice water pouring over him. Five minutes ago he saw Luffy get unceremoniously executed by Blackbeard. He didn’t even get a chance to help. And now he’s years back in time, with a laundry list of very vague instructions about what not to do if he wants to prevent that, given to him by a ninja version of himself that kissed him on the mouth.
This- this is insane. His breath is coming short and shallow. It’s not enough to fill his lungs. He’s dying. Just like Luffy on that battlefield, his neck at that wrong angle, Koby is dying. He can’t breathe. The air is so thin. His shirt is choking him. He yanks at the collar, to clear his airways, but it doesn’t help. He needs to rip it off before he-
A hand slaps him hard across the cheek.
Koby blinks. Luffy, the young, alive Luffy, is standing over him.
“I said two minutes is over,” Luffy says sternly.
“R-right,” Koby stammers. “Sorry, thanks. I’ll, um.” He awkwardly folds the paper (into quarters, not back into a frog) and tucks it away in his breast pocket. His cheek stings where Luffy slapped him. It’s grounding.
Luffy nods, satisfied. And steps away, already wandering off into another room.
“Oh! Wait!” Koby remembers this part. “Alvida-”
He cuts himself off at the sound of crashing when Alvida falls through the ceiling.
“Nevermind,” Koby squeaks.
He’ll have to come up with a game plan later. For now, his mission is to help Luffy take down Alvida and seize his freedom. As long as he doesn’t break any of the rules, it’s probably fine. Everything is fine.
Koby is fine.
Except… he never truly got over his fear of Alvida. She beat the shit out of him for two years, it’s hard to forget. And logically, he’s long since outclassed her in terms of strength, especially at the level she’s at now. She’s nothing more than a bully.
But in this moment, Koby is in that same tiny body that took all those beatings, the one he’s in when he has the rare nightmare about them, and it’s hard not to close his eyes and just brace for a blow.
“L-Luffy?” Koby stammers.
“Who’s the big chunky lady?” Luffy asks, way too loudly. Koby might cry.
Alvida screams with rage and slams her club, Luffy bounces and stretches, grabs Koby with a “Let’s go!”, and jumps up onto the deck.
All the other men from Alvida’s crew that treated him like dirt are there, ready with swords, and Luffy side-steps them all, dancing around and throwing a few punches that seem like they’re more for his amusement than necessary to win the fight.
As they go down he strikes a victorious pose, sporting a massive grin and flexing a little noodle arm as if there’s a bicep there. Red rushes to Koby’s cheeks as he recalls that, in about 3 years, there absolutely will be, with a set of 1.5-billion-belli abs to match.
There’s a man flying out of the crow’s nest with a cutlass, and Koby’s instincts kick in. He tackles Luffy, throwing him to the side, as the sword sinks into the deck where he was. With a quick kick to the head - though much less powerful than he’s used to - the man falls over, unconscious.
“Shishishi! I thought you were a crybaby!” Luffy laughs.
“T-trying not to be!” Koby replies.
He spots a hoard of men approaching from the other end of the ship. At least two dozen.
“I’m not strong enough to take them all. Can- can you please help me?” Koby asks.
Luffy’s face splits into a massive grin.
“Of course!” He pumps his fist and then takes off running, stretching his arm on the mast to prepare a gum-gum rocket.
Koby’s heart explodes. Logically, he knows that Luffy does what he wants. Last time, he fought everyone while Koby cowered in the corner. So he’s not even doing this because Koby asked. But that smile… it felt so much like it was just for him. Like even if Luffy is going to enjoy this fight, he’s entered it for Koby’s sake. It’s making him irrationally happy.
This is a crush, he realizes. Koby has a crush.
…Guess that solves problem number four.
Luffy flies past, bowling over twenty men in a pile. Koby isn’t going to sit idly by this time, he’s going to help his friend.
He takes care of the stragglers, putting in a lot more effort than usual thanks to his lack of muscle. It doesn’t help that a good chunk of Koby’s fighting style is fisticuffs, thanks to Garp’s training. As he fights back-to-back with Luffy, he’s amused to notice some of those same fundamentals in the way Luffy fights too. Just a lot more… primal. And stretchy.
Working together, the men go down quickly. But before Koby has half a second to be relieved, Alvida climbs out of the hole in the deck.
“KOBY!” She roars, hefting her club.
Everything he’s learned in the past three years is completely smothered by the terror that yell generates. Koby is suddenly shaking like a leaf. His fists are up, but it’s the equivalent of using a postage stamp as a shield.
“I HATE YOU!” Koby screams, screwing his eyes shut, “Y-you horrible monster! You r-ruined my life, and I can’t w-wait to see Luffy beat your face in!”
“KOBY, YOU LITTLE-“
“GOMU GOMU NO-“
Koby wraps both arms around himself and forces one eye open through the fear.
“-BRAT!”
“-PISTOL!”
Luffy’s fist connects with Alvida’s face, and she goes flying, sailing over the railing of the ship and splashing into the sea.
It’s over.
Koby runs across the deck to confirm, yes, she’s too far away to swim back, and finally lets the tension bleed out of his shoulders.
“Oh look, the marines are here,” Luffy says. And the tension winds back up instantly.
“Boat! We need a boat! We gotta move!” Koby says quickly. He’ll invite himself into Luffy’s dinghy again. He has not learned enough about whatever the hell is happening to feel safe leaving Luffy alone. And if he’s not in line of sight, Koby is going to keep picturing that corpse.
“Sure. HEY GUYS! GIVE US A BOAT!” Luffy calls across to the tattered remains of Alvida’s men. Terrified, they comply.
As the navy ship approaches, Luffy and Koby are in a tiny lifeboat, sailing vaguely in the direction of Shells, because even if Luffy hasn’t asked, Koby is going to make sure he gets Zoro.
Is… is it bad that he didn’t ask this time? Koby’s memory isn’t sharp enough to figure out beat-for-best what went differently, beyond him helping with the fight. Hopefully, as long as Koby takes Luffy to the same place, it won’t be super different.
Or, wait. Should it be different? If he’s going to protect Luffy, is he supposed to just sit around for a few years until opportunity arises to nudge the odds in his favor? Ninja Koby had said something that churns a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
‘It won’t be you.’ He’d said it so casually, like he was certain. That stings, honestly, that he’s no more than a pawn in his own game. The 13th pawn, apparently. That this life he’s living right now, on this tiny boat with Luffy, having experienced the best day of his life for the second time over, is just a chance to gather intel, nothing more. That he will inevitably watch Luffy die like that again, hand off whatever he’s learned, and then… what? Keep fighting? Die? Retire? Try again? Ninja Koby didn’t tell him anything. That’s stupid.
…hold on.
That’s stupid.
Koby isn’t going to waste what could easily be the rest of his entire life failing to stop Blackbeard just to get information. This is his life. Even if he’s been launched here by some version of himself from another timeline or the future or whatever, he doesn’t owe him his life.
Koby loves Luffy, his oldest friend and rival (and, apparently, crush but he can sort that out later). He’ll do everything in his power to prevent his untimely death, he’ll even follow the stupid rules he was given, but he’s going to live while he does.
“Luffy?” Koby asks.
Luffy hums inquisitively.
“If you’re headed to the Grand Line, you’re gonna need a crew, right?”
“Yup!”
Koby nods. “Could… could I join?”
Luffy tilts his head.
“Why?”
Koby pauses for a moment. Being a great marine is- was- sort of still is- his dream. He wouldn’t trade that time in the navy for anything. Time spent with Helmeppo, his best friend and unwavering support, commiserating over intense training and bad military food. Time spent with Garp, learning how to fight, to use the navy’s power to help, to undermine the dubious orders. Time spent saving people and fighting evil pirates and just helping wherever he went. Time spent making the world safer for the people who can’t do it themselves.
He wouldn’t trade it for anything. But the thing is, he’s already lived it. He already knows that Helmeppo’s favorite color is secretly purple, even though he says it’s green. He already found all 18 of Garp’s emergency rice cracker stashes. He already saved dozens of towns, and hundreds of people, and rose through the ranks, and learned to tell the good orders from the bad. Granted, he thought he’d be doing it for another few decades, but…
Doing it all again, going through the motions, seeing his friends do and say everything for a second time like a broken transponder is not a life. And when it comes down to it, his dream to be a great marine isn’t about the institution itself. It’s about taking down bad guys - like Alvida - who use their power to hurt others. If there’s one thing Luffy taught him in the last few years, it’s that anyone can do that if they choose. The Strawhat Pirates took down way more bullies than Koby, despite their two year hiatus.
“I want to do good recklessly,” Koby says. “I’m sick of blindly following rules and orders that hurt others or make me miserable because it benefits some higher goal I don’t understand. I-I’m allowed to choose too!”
He whirls around to face Luffy, who is lounging on the other side of the dinghy, watching him critically.
“I want to join your crew because I want to join you. Because it’s what I want.” He heaves a breath. “Would you have me?”
Luffy’s intense gaze rakes him over. Koby had just been saying what was on his mind, but he suddenly feels horrifyingly vulnerable. He’s cupped his dreams in his hands and held it out here to Luffy, begging him to take it, to care for it. To be kind. And with a single word he has the power to crush it between his fingers. Under his boot. To tell him no, and leave Koby completely lost in this world, in this bizarre and unsettling circumstance.
“I will be King of the Pirates,” Luffy says, phrased like a reminder.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I’d be your captain. I could give you orders. Even orders to hurt people. I’m a pirate, not a hero.”
“I know,” Koby says firmly. “But as long as you’re the person I know you to be, I’ll gladly trust those orders.”
Luffy eyes him again. Koby is still holding those dreams in his hands, offering.
Then Luffy breaks into that wonderful, sunny smile, and it’s the most beautiful thing Koby has ever seen.
“Koby! Join my crew!”
“Aye, Captain!”