-Broadcast-
On the knife's edge between life and death, Kozuki Momonosuke had rediscovered his purpose. He would not die in disgrace in a garbage dump. He would have his revenge—against Kaido, King of the Beasts, against Kurozumi Orochi, against this unjust world that had stolen everything from him.
The boy's trembling hand closed around the fruit that had rolled to his feet. Even in his weakened state, he could tell this was no ordinary fruit. Nothing in this purgatory was ordinary.
Besides, the fruit had been in the garbage dump for some time—he'd seen it discarded days ago—yet it showed no signs of rot. That violated the natural order. Even a child could recognize the strangeness.
Without water or food for three days, Kozuki Momonosuke's throat moved reflexively at the sight of the fruit. He couldn't even swallow his own saliva to quench his thirst, let alone manage solid food easily. His cracked, bleeding lips and bloodshot eyes indicated he wouldn't last much longer. The boy might die of dehydration before starvation claimed him.
"Mother... Father... Hiyori..." Momonosuke whispered to the darkness above. "Please protect me. As the heir of the Kozuki clan, I cannot die here."
With desperate courage born of having nothing left to lose, Kozuki Momonosuke raised the fruit to his mouth and bit down.
The taste was unspeakably vile—worse than anything he'd consumed during his six months of survival, worse even than the things he'd been forced to eat to stay alive. It was like rotted garbage mixed with sewage and something chemically toxic that made his tongue burn.
"It's so disgusting!" Momonosuke gagged between bites, tears streaming from his eyes. "I've never tasted anything so horrible!"
But he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. He chewed through the revolting flesh, forced himself to swallow each mouthful. When he reached the core, he ate that too—grinding it between his teeth, swallowing the fragments.
The moisture and nutrients from the fruit pulp flowed into his dehydrated body. After weeks of starvation, even this cursed sustenance felt like salvation. A sense of fullness he'd nearly forgotten washed over him.
The artificial Devil Fruit had found its host.
Momonosuke sat up slowly, leaning on one arm for support. Some strength had returned, though his body still felt weak, fragile. At least the desperate hunger had subsided.
"I need to get out of here," he muttered to himself, looking up at the distant opening above where garbage was dumped. "This place... I can't stay here any longer."
Eating human flesh to survive had been necessary, but if he continued much longer, he might lose his humanity entirely. Become something bestial, something that could never return to civilization.
"If only I could fly..." The words emerged without conscious thought, a child's wishful fantasy. "If I could just fly, I could escape this pit..."
Then something impossible happened.
Momonosuke began to float.
His feet lifted off the ground. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, his body rose into the fetid air of the garbage dump. By the time his mind caught up with what was happening, he was already several meters above the refuse pile.
"What... what's happening?!" Panic flooded through him. He looked down at his hands, intending to pinch himself to verify this wasn't a dying hallucination.
But his hands were no longer human.
Scaled claws had replaced his fingers—azure-pink scales that seemed to shimmer even in the dim light. His arms had elongated, powerful muscles rippling beneath the scales. His entire body had transformed into something serpentine, majestic.
Kozuki Momonosuke had become a dragon. A small pink dragon with auspicious clouds forming from thin air, circling his transformed body. These mystical clouds provided the means of flight, allowing him to defy gravity itself.
The realization struck him with overwhelming force: he'd eaten a Devil Fruit. An artificial Zoan-type that granted the power to transform into a dragon.
"A blessing in disguise..." Momonosuke whispered, marveling at his new form despite the horror of how he'd obtained it. "With this power, I can escape! I can survive! I can grow strong enough to—"
He cut himself off. No time for planning revenge. First, he needed to leave this hell.
"I can do this!" The little pink dragon began ascending toward the light far above. "I can do this! I can—"
The opening grew closer. Sunlight—real sunlight, not the dim glow that filtered down into the pit—began illuminating his transformed face. Freedom was meters away.
Then the shadow fell across his mind.
Kaido's enormous hand closing around his throat. The King of the Beasts holding him over empty air, over flames, threatening to drop him into fire and death.
"Your father was a fool, Your Highness."
The memory crashed over Momonosuke with physical force. His heart rate spiked. His breathing became rapid, panicked. The height—he was so high up, and if he fell, he would die, just like he'd nearly died that night in Oden Castle.
"No... no, please..." Fear overwhelmed his will. The transformation destabilized.
The trauma Kaido had inflicted manifested as severe acrophobia. At the worst possible moment, with freedom within reach, fear of heights seized control of Kozuki Momonosuke's mind and wouldn't let go.
The auspicious clouds began dissipating. His dragon form flickered, unstable, as psychological terror interfered with his Devil Fruit control.
"Father, help me!" Momonosuke's cry echoed through the garbage dump as gravity reasserted its claim.
The little pink dragon plummeted.
He fell the same distance he'd risen—dozens of meters straight down, spinning in the air, too panicked to even attempt transforming back or creating new clouds to catch himself.
"I'm so unwilling to accept this!" his mind screamed as the refuse pile rushed up to meet him.
CRACK.
Momonosuke's head struck the ground first. The impact would have killed any normal eight-year-old instantly—shattered skull, catastrophic brain trauma, immediate death.
But the artificial Devil Fruit had enhanced his physical constitution beyond human norms. His skull held. His neck didn't snap. Instead, the tremendous force simply knocked him unconscious, his small body going limp atop the garbage heap.
[If he hadn't consumed that Devil Fruit moments earlier, the fall would have been instantly fatal. Even a healthy adult male would have died from such an impact. But the Zoan-type transformation had reinforced his body enough to survive—barely.]
The commotion—the burst of Conqueror's Haki earlier, followed by the crash of a small body falling from great height—had attracted unwanted attention.
Footsteps echoed through the facility above. Someone was coming to investigate.
-Unknown Time Later-
Consciousness returned slowly, reluctantly. Momonosuke's eyes fluttered open to brightness that made him wince after months in darkness.
A bedroom?
He lay in a real bed with clean sheets. The room was sparse but well-maintained—a man's private quarters, judging by the austere decoration. Medical equipment stood nearby. A desk held scattered papers.
Someone had changed him out of his filth-encrusted rags into a clean white hospital gown. His skin felt different—scrubbed clean for the first time in half a year.
Who rescued me? Why?
Suspicion warred with confusion. Momonosuke didn't dare make a sound. His eyes darted around the room, cataloging potential exits, searching for weapons, trying to determine if he'd escaped one nightmare only to fall into another.
What if they want to use me for experiments? What if this is just another part of the facility?
Footsteps approached from outside the room.
Momonosuke's eyes snapped shut. He forced his body to relax, his breathing to slow and steady. Made his heartbeat as calm as possible. To outside observation, he would appear unconscious—still recovering from his injuries.
Let them think I'm asleep. Let them reveal their intentions before I decide whether to run or fight.
The door opened with a soft creak.
Someone entered with measured steps. Momonosuke tracked their movement through sound alone—walking to a table, setting something down with a metallic clink. A sword, perhaps? Then the person found a chair and sat down.
The characteristic sound of crossed legs—one ankle resting on the opposite knee—reached Momonosuke's ears.
"Stop pretending." The voice was male, young but authoritative, carrying an edge of sardonic amusement. "I noticed you were awake before I even opened the door. You're quite cunning for a brat."
Momonosuke remained perfectly still. Didn't even twitch. Maybe if he committed to the deception, they'd give up and leave, or reveal more information.
The sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath whispered through the room—the distinctive shing of a quality blade leaving leather.
"I don't tolerate people occupying my bed under false pretenses," the voice continued, still casual but now with an undertone of threat.
Terror spiked in Momonosuke's chest, but he didn't move. Couldn't move. If this person was bluffing, revealing himself would be the worst choice. If they weren't bluffing...
Please be bluffing. Please—
The blade whistled through the air with lethal intent.
CRACK!
Kikoku—a nodachi nearly as tall as its wielder—slammed into the mattress inches from where Momonosuke lay. The force of the strike split the bedframe, sending splinters flying.
This person wasn't bluffing.
Momonosuke rolled desperately to the side, tumbling off the bed and landing in a crouch. His eyes flew open as he straightened, glaring at his apparent "rescuer."
"I'm still a child!" Momonosuke shouted, fear and indignation mixing in his voice. "Were you really going to kill me?!"
The man sitting cross-legged in the chair raised one eyebrow, facial muscles twitching slightly. He looked young—early twenties at most—with distinctive tribal tattoos marking his arms and chest. A white-spotted fur hat sat on his head, and his eyes held the calculating coldness of someone who'd seen too much death.
Trafalgar Law, studied the boy with undisguised interest.
"Moral kidnapping? That's your first response after waking up?" Law's voice carried dry amusement. "Interesting. If I'd actually wanted to kill you, brat, I wouldn't have pulled you out of that garbage pit in the first place."
He gestured at Momonosuke with Kikoku, the blade still unsheathed. "Besides, your physique is anything but ordinary. I watched you fall from a height that should have cracked your skull open like an egg. Not only did your head not explode, you only suffered unconsciousness. When I examined you, there weren't even any internal injuries—no concussion, no brain swelling, nothing."
Law's golden eyes narrowed. "That's not normal for a child. Hell, that's not normal for most adults. So before we go any further, you're going to answer some questions. Starting with: what are you, and whose child are you?"
From a doctor's perspective, the boy he'd rescued defied medical logic. No external injuries beyond malnutrition and dehydration. No internal trauma despite the catastrophic fall. Either this child possessed an extraordinarily durable constitution, or something else was protecting him.
"Be polite to your savior, you little brat." Law's tone shifted slightly—less threatening, but no warmer. "Didn't anyone teach you manners? Or were you raised by wolves in that garbage dump?"
The question hung between them—half mocking, half genuinely curious. Law leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, clearly prepared to wait as long as necessary for answers.
Momonosuke stood frozen, mind racing. This man had saved him, true. But he'd also just tried to cut him in half. The boy's instincts screamed conflicting messages—run, stay, trust, suspect, fight, submit.
Finally, he straightened to his full unimpressive height and tried to project confidence he didn't feel.
"My name is Momoko," he lied, using the alias Kin'emon had prepared. "And I... I got separated from my father. We were traveling when pirates attacked our ship. I hid in cargo that ended up on another vessel, and then..." He gestured vaguely. "Here."
The story was weak, full of holes, and both of them knew it.
Law's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes—a glint of recognition that this child was lying, followed by the decision to let him keep his secrets. For now.
"Momoko, huh?" Law stood, towering over the small boy. "Well, 'Momoko,' you have two options. You can stay here temporarily while I figure out what to do with you, or I can throw you back in the garbage pit. Your choice."
It wasn't really a choice at all. But at least it was better than death.
Momonosuke swallowed hard and nodded. "I'll... I'll stay. Thank you. For saving me."
"Don't thank me yet," Law replied, sheathing Kikoku with practiced ease. "Nothing in this world comes free. Eventually, you'll owe me for this."
The Warlord moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame. "There's food in the cabinet. Don't eat too much too fast or you'll make yourself sick. And don't touch my medical equipment. If you break anything, I'll find creative ways to make you regret it."
Then he was gone, leaving Momonosuke alone in the borrowed room with more questions than answers.
But alive. Against all odds, still alive.
And now possessing the power of a dragon.
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