The sun rose lazily over the East Blue, casting a warm gold over the horizon. Gulls called overhead, and waves lapped gently at the harbor dock of Fisherman's Bay, a sleepy island known for its fish markets, lazy tides, and the rare salt-crystal pearls hidden in its reefs.
Kairos stood at the edge of the dock, arms crossed, coat fluttering in the wind.
Behind him?
Nothing.
The Rust Fangs were gone.
Briggs had left at dawn. No dramatic speech, no grand farewell. Just a note stuck in a rum bottle:
> "You're not meant to follow someone else's path. If you're strong enough to change others, then you're strong enough to chart your own course. — Briggs."
And so, just like that, Kairos found himself what every pirate feared most:
Shipless.
---
He slumped onto a crate and sighed, his satchel clinking faintly with meager loot — a compass, a broken Den Den Mushi, and one half-polished cutlass.
"Great. Pirate with a grand destiny," he muttered. "No crew, no flag, no ship."
Behind him, the morning market bustled to life — fishermen unloading crates, merchants shouting prices, townsfolk sipping morning tea. None paid attention to the boy with a Devil Fruit.
He felt invisible.
He hated it.
---
Suddenly—crash!
A trio of figures stumbled from an alley, two of them dragging the third: a lean girl with short, wild pink hair and goggles around her neck. She was bruised, barely conscious.
Chasing them were four brutes with matching tattoos — a jagged crab over a skull.
"Give her back, thieves!"
One of the fleeing figures — a nervous-looking boy barely older than Kairos — tripped and dropped the girl.
"We're not thieves! She stole our ship!"
The brutes didn't care.
Kairos jumped forward on instinct.
"Oi! Leave them alone!"
The crab-tattooed pirates paused.
"You again? The one from the Togari incident?"
Kairos blinked. Word traveled fast.
"Still playing hero, kid?" the leader sneered.
Kairos stepped forward, fingers twitching.
"You want a fight? Come touch me."
The leader lunged without hesitation, swinging a club downward.
Kairos dodged and grabbed his wrist mid-swing.
Swap.
A jolt surged through him.
The pirate staggered, suddenly disoriented. Kairos felt heavier, stronger.
Wham!
One punch — full force — sent the man tumbling into the crates.
The other pirates hesitated.
Too late.
The pink-haired girl stirred, groaning. Kairos stepped between her and the attackers.
"Your turn."
---
The fight was quick.
Two more swaps — speed and stamina.
Kairos moved like lightning, dodging, redirecting, outmatching every move.
The brutes fled, dragging their dazed leader, shouting curses as they retreated.
Kairos exhaled hard, body trembling from the short bursts of power.
Swap cooldown.
The pink-haired girl, now sitting upright, rubbed her head.
"Ugh... not the rescue I imagined."
Kairos turned. "You good?"
She squinted at him. "Did you just swap my broken ribs with that guy?"
Kairos smirked. "He deserved worse."
---
Later that afternoon…
The girl introduced herself as Jinx — a self-proclaimed "mechanic, navigator, and ship thief" who claimed to have once worked for Franky's old underground shipyards before "creative disagreements."
The two teens she'd been with — Lokk and Toma — were ex-fishermen turned wannabe pirates, inspired by rumors of Luffy's crew.
Kairos sat with them in a dockside shack, drinking coconut juice and staring at a crude sketch.
A ship.
Small. Fast. Ugly. Held together with mismatched planks and one balloon sail.
Jinx grinned.
"Technically mine. But I kinda… stole it from the pirates who stole it first. So morally, it's... balanced."
Kairos chuckled.
"Does it float?"
Jinx blinked. "Most days."
---
As evening rolled in, the four stood on the dock, gazing at the rickety vessel bobbing in the shallows.
Kairos stepped forward, staring at the crooked figurehead — a bent metal anchor shaped like a laughing skull.
"What's her name?"
Jinx shrugged. "She doesn't have one."
Kairos reached out and touched the hull.
It felt rough, beaten, patched a hundred times.
But it was real. It was something.
"Then I'll name her."
He paused, then said:
"The Moment."
Lokk looked confused. "That's a weird name."
Kairos turned, a faint grin tugging at his lips.
"Everything in life changes in a moment. That's all I need."
---
And so, under the light of a rising moon, with a bruised ship, a mismatched trio, and a Devil Fruit that most called useless, Kairos became a pirate with a crew — small, chaotic, and wild.
Not much yet.
But it was something to build on.
And in the seas ahead… even gods could be challenged by pirates who had nothing but will.