~

It was a normal day at the Swallow Island, the snow fell from the sky that was covered with thick clouds all the time, not letting sunshine through. A normal day indeed for the residents of this island in the North Blue, one of the five* seas of the world.

The townsfolk carried on their business as usual, making way through snow-piled roads to their shops and homes. The harbor was nearby where many ships were docked and their boarders swarmed the town, stocking supplies for their journey through the seas. Swallow Island was a small island and thus had no airports, let alone helipads, making sea route the only way to reach this place, as such, it was famous to the Navy, Pirates and others who preferred travelling through sea.

There weren't many attractions in this town except for the large bell in the town square that rang loud enough for the whole island to hear. For an island that was not big and had no real material value for people of the world, it was oddly divided into classes, with the upper class occupying the most land and keeping the middle and lower class as their servants. The food items used by the upper class were also produced separately in their privates farms worked on by the unfortunate lower class.

The upper class, though refined and elegant, earned their living through dirty means i.e. by illegal trade of weapons, making deals with the brokers of the underworld and laundering their money for them, and their most active occupation, bringing them millions, was none other than the various forced prostitution houses in many parts of the island.

The majority of the island belonged to the rich pigs and the lower parts, close to the harbor with their small, dandy houses and shops was the habitation of the middle and lower class residents who preferred earning for themselves by putting up businesses for the travelers. It was there that the four prostitution houses were, one in all the prominent directions of the compass.

Near the harbor, in the south, was the most traffic of pirates, brutes and businessmen who didn't like wandering far for pleasure. The Navy and other government bodies preferred the isolation of the other three locations.

In these brothels, the rule was simple, a satisfied client equaled to a piece of bread. Any behavior otherwise from the merchandise was punishable, harshly at that. There were about fifty bodies in each of these houses scattered on the island. These were big places with each having their own room but occasionally sharing on the request of the clients. Then there was the reception, the kitchen, the fee office, the combined bathrooms, the punish room where the wayward women and children were beaten into submission and thrown in their rooms, and finally the infirmary, another name for the drug storage room. Some days when the sales were high and the business was fast, the products were given relaxants to keep them going.

Even though the south house had the same number of products as the other three houses, there were some products for whom some clients demanded rather fiercely, against the advices of the administration staff. The kind of clients that went after them were strict sadists and pedophiles who wanted to tame and break them or just needed pleasure at their obvious expense. One of them was the wayward product because of whom the punish room was made. He was prone to hurting his clients all the time especially when he had food in his belly or fatigued from the side effects of the relaxants he would be forcibly given – the reason why many wanted him, because he was the Boss' favourite too.

His name was Luffy. He was eleven years old, nothing special in terms of beauty or fitness except his small body that was built with enough harshness of the raw world, his face that often came off as 'cute' to the clients twisted enough to be in that sort of thing.

Today was no exception for him.

He bit the neck of another man – three times his age, he guessed – drawing blood and punched him in the gut, earning a hard slap to his face, knocking him to the cold, hard floor. He hadn't had food in weeks and could not stand up after taking that kind of beating. His not getting up served as the unwanted signal for the old man to do whatever he wanted. He did not like it one bit. He never did but he did not have the energy anymore to fight back. All he could do was glare through the short, messy hair that fell on his forehead.

When the man was done with Luffy, he gave his face a good lick, smirking but that soon went away when the boy whose face he was holding spat at him, straight in his eyes – he had learned this from his brother. He was given another hard slap and the force of it burst his lip. The man left, sneering, and Luffy stayed on the cold floor, unable to move from the lack of energy and will.

He relished in the freedom that by such a display of behavior, he would soon be escorted to the punishment room, would be beaten or raped – like that was new –thrown into hot as fuck water as a means of getting him clean. He would then be thrown into his room and locked there for two days without food or water before another hungry, sadistic pedophilic pig would be led to him.

All the two days he was alone, Luffy was half-alive, clutching weakly on his treasured straw-hat. He was so starved that he could not sleep but so tired that he could not stay awake. He was in that annoying state where one wished that either sleep would come or death. Whenever he was blessed with sleep, he would wake up in cold sweat from the haunting memories of his past years, leaving him all the more out of energy at the recollection of the time he had been in this place and how there was little hope whatsoever of leaving it, at least not alive.

There was one window in the room Luffy was in, but that too was barred and too small that he couldn't even see the sky properly. Never once in the time he had been here, had Luffy been under the real sky long enough to feel alive.

Luffy could only despair.

He could only focus on surviving one day to the next.

He could only imagine what it was like to be free.

Until one day, he would be free.

~

At the harbor in the south where a number of ships anchored and many more could be seen in the distance, it was an unusual sight for the water to be disturbed from within. There were huge ripples and the sea looked like it was gurgling.

Fishermen and passersby-s moved closer to the edge to see what was happening. Their eyes were glued to the water from which after a good amount of disturbance an antenna started appearing, followed by a small deck until more than half of the vessel was above sea level and visible. It was a submarine. A yellow submarine with markings on it of a round smiling face with round T-shaped arrow-heads pointing out. It had "DEATH" written on its sides and immediately the people who were very curious about it stepped back and some even left the place altogether, fearing for their lives because all they thought after seeing the submarine and its strange appearance, was that it was pirates.

Pirates often came to the Swallow Island, mostly to restock their supplies and to empty their balls. Sometimes they wreaked havoc and looted from the people, sometimes they would be pissed enough at the lack of loot and kidnap women from the pleasure houses. The residents present at the harbor thought that the pirates that would come out of the submarine would also be here for one of these reasons, however, when the bridge was dropped and bodies started exiting the vessel, everyone who was holding their breath felt its release in relief.

"They are just kids... I thought it would be big, mean men. Thank goodness, it would be peaceful for once." Somebody said quietly to the agreement of others. People started scattering and went back to their businesses, unafraid.

"Shachi, Penguin, you both go gather supplies. Take the others with you if you want to." The captain of the submarine-pirates said, stuffing his hands in his yellow hoodie pockets. The mentioned two swung their arms around the captain's neck and sniggered.

"What are you going to do, Captain?" Shachi, the nineteen year old man with red hair, asked the comparatively shorter teen i.e. his captain.

"Yeah, are you going to go to the pleasure houses seeing as you are finally the 'legal age'?" The other man, Penguin, twenty years old, teased with a grin. Their captain had turned eighteen last month.

"That might be true for this island but its twenty where I am from. And those places all across this island are off limits. You all know it's forced labour. I don't want any of you anywhere near that." The boy spat shrugging the arms off him and starting his walk. "Bepo and I will go over the navigation route once again. I don't want to stay here for more than a week, so keep your wits about you and don't wander off course."

"You got it captain." Penguin called to the figure going out of his sight until he stopped and turned around.

"And stop calling me Captain, I have told you, it's Law." Saying this, the eighteen year old boy, with messy raven locks and golden eyes, turned back around and kept walking with his polar bear friend.

Law really just wanted to roam the Swallow Island one last time before he set sail for his destination. This was the place he had stumbled upon after a very tragic incident in his life and where he had met his best friends, Bepo, Shachi and Penguin, where he had learned and honed his skills as a surgeon without even having the need to go to school. He had left the place an year back to gather information and create some ties that would help him achieve his goals. He knew everything he wanted and all that remained was to put his plan in action. Stopping by the Swallow Island was Law's way of trying to let go of the past as much as he could to move forward and to also gain strength for what was about to come.

"Those were the forests you found me in, Captain, do you remember?" Bepo nudged Law with his elbow, he was four years Law's junior.

"Yeah." Law looked up, a bit shocked that he had wandered this far in such a short amount of time. This was the forest he was roaming as a thirteen year old when he found Shachi and Penguin bullying Bepo who just wanted to find his brother. Law smiled to himself remembering how he had beat up the two boys and rescued Bepo but later when there was an explosion, he had also went to the aid of those bullying idiots. Penguin had lost his arm but Law had managed to sew it back, much to everyone's shock and horror. He didn't know himself that he had it in him to actually be able to sew back a severed arm when he was just thirteen years old. Later, Shachi and Penguin were also 'adopted' by Law and together they started their small "Hearts" group.

"The people at the harbor all think we are pirates."

"Can you blame them? We did come out of a morbid looking submarine." Law didn't care about what the people thought but they weren't pirates. Law didn't like the kind of work he would have to do to achieve his goals when all he really wanted was follow his benefactor's teachings. If he made an earnest living, he would soon be found out by the one person he was keeping himself hidden from until the time and place and preparations were right.

Law adjusted his spotted hat on his head, nestling his nodachi, Kikoku, under his arm and over his shoulder – he preferred carrying a sword over a gun, it suited and appealed to his aesthetic as a surgeon, a gun was sometimes messy and more than often, lethal but a sword could maim and mutilate and discouraged insistence on following the man – and stuffed his hands back in his hoodie pockets, walking aimlessly with Bepo until it was time to head back to the Polar Tang for the night. The submarine was still anchored where they had left it and the Hearts, minus Law and Bepo, and a few others whom he had left where he would soon be heading to make the place live-able, were having a small party on deck.

"Oh Captain! Come join us!" Uni waved at the approaching figures. Bepo stayed but Law just took a bottle of sake and onigiri, and kept walking to his quarters. It wasn't that he didn't like spending time with his group but after coming to the island, there were memories that came back and Law wanted to be alone so he could deal with them without causing anybody any worries.

By the time the night reached its peak, the noise from the partying outside died down gradually, the sake Law brought with himself was completely gone, and with sleep not gracing him again, Law found himself awake and wallowing in his messed up existence and how he got there.

~

*Five Seas: East Blue, West Blue, North Blue, South Blue, Paradise + New World Sea

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