Bob had always considered himself a simple man with simple pleasures. He worked a dead-end job at a convenience store, spent too much money on manga, and had watched One Piece approximately forty-seven times from start to finish. He could recite the episode numbers of every major arc, knew the exact moment Luffy punched a Celestial Dragon, and had once gotten into a three-hour argument online about whether Zoro could beat Mihawk yet.
He was, by all accounts, a massive nerd.
So when a truck came barreling toward him while he was crossing the street—because of COURSE it was a truck, it was always a truck—his last thought was genuinely: "Man, I never got to see the One Piece."
And then everything went black.
Consciousness returned slowly, like a hangover made of confusion and existential dread.
Bob opened his eyes to find himself lying face-down in dirt. Not comfortable dirt, either. Rocky, uncomfortable, "why is there a pebble literally inside my nostril" kind of dirt.
"Ugh," he groaned, pushing himself up. His voice sounded different. Deeper. More... commanding? That was weird.
He looked down at his hands.
They were not his hands.
These hands were large, calloused, and belonged to someone who had clearly done more physical activity than reaching for the TV remote. Bob stared at them for a solid thirty seconds, turning them over and over like they were some kind of alien artifact.
"What the—"
He scrambled to his feet, immediately noticing several things wrong with his body. First, he was TALL. Like, unreasonably tall. Second, he was BUILT. Muscles existed where Bob had previously only known the soft embrace of sedentary living. Third, and most disturbingly, there was a magnificent mustache on his face.
Bob had never grown a mustache in his life. He had tried once in college and it had looked like a caterpillar was dying on his upper lip.
This mustache, however, was a thing of beauty. Curved, black, and absolutely iconic.
"No," Bob whispered. "No, no, no, no, no."
He needed a mirror. He needed a reflective surface. He needed SOMETHING to confirm what his increasingly panicked brain was suggesting.
A nearby puddle caught his attention. Bob scrambled over to it, dropped to his knees, and stared at his reflection.
Gol D. Roger stared back at him.
THE Gol D. Roger. The King of the Pirates. The man who had started the Great Pirate Era. The legend himself.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL—"
Bob's scream echoed across the landscape, startling a flock of birds and probably traumatizing several small woodland creatures.
He touched his face. The reflection touched its face. He pulled at the mustache. It was real. It was attached. It was HIS mustache now.
"Okay," Bob said, taking deep breaths. "Okay. I'm dreaming. This is a dream. I ate some bad convenience store sushi and now I'm having the most elaborate fever dream in history. That's fine. That's totally fine. I'll wake up any minute now."
He pinched himself.
Nothing happened.
He pinched himself harder.
Still nothing.
He slapped himself across the face with the force of a man having a complete mental breakdown.
"OW!"
The pain was very real. Very, very real.
Bob sat there, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, wearing what appeared to be Roger's iconic captain's coat, looking exactly like the most famous pirate in anime history, and had what could only be described as a quiet existential crisis.
After approximately twenty minutes of denial, bargaining, and what might have been a small amount of crying, Bob finally accepted his situation.
He had been reincarnated. Into a fictional universe. Looking like Gol D. Roger.
"This is fine," he muttered to himself, standing up and brushing dirt off his coat. "This is totally fine. I've read enough isekai to know how this goes. I probably have some kind of cheat power, right? That's how it works. The universe gives you something to compensate for the trauma of DYING."
He tried to sense his Haki. Nothing.
He tried to activate Armament Haki. His arm remained disappointingly flesh-colored.
He tried to use Observation Haki. He observed nothing but his own mounting disappointment.
"Okay, no Haki. That's... that's fine. Maybe I have a Devil Fruit power!"
He concentrated really hard, trying to feel some kind of supernatural ability within himself.
Nothing.
He tried to stretch like Luffy.
His arm remained a normal length and he just looked like an idiot reaching for something.
He tried to turn into fire like Ace.
He did not turn into fire. He remained tragically flammable.
"SERIOUSLY?!" Bob shouted at the sky. "YOU GAVE ME THE FACE OF THE PIRATE KING AND NOTHING ELSE?! WHAT KIND OF BUDGET REINCARNATION IS THIS?!"
The sky did not respond. It rarely did.
Bob slumped against a nearby tree, running his hands through his hair—which was also wrong, by the way. It was black and wavy and far too nice for someone who had previously had what could generously be described as "adequate" hair.
"Okay," he said, trying to think logically. "I'm in the One Piece universe. I look like Roger. I have no powers. I need to... I need to..."
He paused.
Something was wrong.
Bob looked around more carefully. The trees were normal enough. The sky was blue. But there was something off about the landscape. Something that didn't quite fit with what he knew of the One Piece world.
And then he saw the mountain.
It was enormous. Massive. And it had faces carved into it.
Very familiar faces.
Bob stared at the mountain for a long, long time.
"Those are the Hokage faces," he said flatly. "Those are the Hokage faces from Naruto. I'm not in One Piece. I'M IN NARUTO."
He laughed. It was not a sane laugh.
"I look like the Pirate King, and I'm in a world with NINJAS. Ninjas who have CHAKRA. Chakra which I probably DON'T HAVE because the universe HATES ME."
He tried to mold chakra.
Nothing happened.
"OF COURSE NOT."
Bob slid down the tree until he was sitting on the ground, staring at the Hokage mountain with the dead eyes of a man who had been personally victimized by cosmic forces.
"Let me get this straight," he said to no one in particular. "I died. I got reincarnated into a different anime. I look like a character from a THIRD anime. I have no powers from ANY universe. And I'm probably going to get murdered by ninjas because I look suspicious as hell."
He buried his face in his hands.
"This is the worst isekai ever."
After another extended period of feeling sorry for himself, Bob finally decided he needed to do something productive. Sitting in the forest having a breakdown wasn't going to help anyone, least of all himself.
He stood up, brushed himself off again, and took stock of his situation.
He was near Konoha, based on the mountain. He had no idea what time period he was in—it could be during the show, before it, or after it for all he knew. He had no money, no identification, and no explanation for why he looked like a pirate captain in a world of ninjas.
"First things first," Bob muttered. "I need to figure out when I am. And I need to not die."
He started walking toward what he assumed was civilization. The forest was dense, but there were paths, and Bob followed them with the confidence of a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
As he walked, he tried to come up with a backstory. He couldn't exactly tell people the truth—"Hi, I'm actually a reincarnated convenience store worker from another dimension who happens to look like a fictional pirate"—because that was insane. Also, he had decided very firmly that he was NOT going to tell anyone about the reincarnation thing. He had read too many fanfics where the protagonist told people about being reincarnated and it always led to drama and annoying plot points.
No, he was going to do what any sensible person would do: lie through his teeth and hope for the best.
"My name is Roger," he practiced saying. It felt right. If he was going to have Roger's face, he might as well have Roger's name. "I'm a... traveler. A wanderer. A man of mystery."
He struck a dramatic pose.
A squirrel looked at him judgmentally.
"Shut up," Bob—no, ROGER—told the squirrel. "You're not part of this narrative."
The squirrel continued to judge him before scampering away.
Roger kept walking.
It took him about an hour to reach the outskirts of what was clearly a village. Not Konoha itself—he was approaching from an angle that gave him a view of a smaller settlement, probably a civilian town nearby.
People were milling about, doing normal people things. Shopping. Talking. Not being ninjas, as far as he could tell.
Roger took a deep breath and walked into town.
Immediately, people started staring.
This was understandable. He was a giant of a man with a magnificent mustache, wearing a captain's coat, and radiating an aura of someone who had made several questionable life decisions. He stood out like a sore thumb in a world of relatively normal-looking civilians.
"Good morning!" Roger said cheerfully, trying to channel the energy of the original Roger. Confident. Charismatic. Completely unbothered by anything.
People continued to stare.
A small child pointed at him. "Mommy, why does that man look like that?"
"Don't point, dear," the mother said, hurrying her child away while shooting Roger nervous glances.
"Fair enough," Roger muttered.
He wandered through the town, trying to get a sense of the time period and current events. He listened to conversations, observed the surroundings, and generally tried to be as inconspicuous as a massive mustachioed man could be.
Which was not very inconspicuous at all.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for: a notice board. The kind that had announcements, news, and—most importantly—dates.
Roger scanned the board quickly.
Based on what he could see, he was somewhere in the timeline before the main series. The Third Hokage was in charge, which meant... a lot of possibilities, actually. It could be before the Nine-Tails attack, during the time of peace after, or any number of other periods.
"Helpful," Roger muttered sarcastically. "Very helpful."
He kept reading. There were notices about merchant caravans, warnings about bandits in the area, and—
Roger froze.
There was a notice about increased ninja activity. Something about tensions between villages. A warning for civilians to be cautious.
"Oh no," Roger whispered. "Please tell me I'm not here during a war."
He didn't have enough information to know for sure, but the prospect was concerning. Wars meant danger. Danger meant death. Death meant his second life would be even shorter than his first, and that was just embarrassing.
"I need more information," Roger decided. "And probably money. And food. Definitely food."
His stomach growled in agreement.
The problem was, Roger had no skills that were useful in this world. He couldn't use chakra. He couldn't fight. His only abilities were extensive anime knowledge, the ability to make sarcastic comments, and a truly impressive talent for making bad decisions.
What he DID have, apparently, was charisma. Or at least, Roger's face came with a natural confidence that made people pay attention when he talked.
"I can work with that," Roger said to himself. "Probably."
Roger spent the next few hours wandering the town, picking up information where he could. He learned that he was, in fact, in a period of relative peace—the Third Shinobi World War had ended some years ago, and while tensions existed, there was no active conflict.
He also learned that he had arrived in a small trading town on the outskirts of Fire Country, which explained why he hadn't been immediately confronted by ninja. This was civilian territory, more or less.
Most importantly, he learned that there was a festival happening in the town center that evening. Some kind of harvest celebration.
And where there was a festival, there was food.
Roger's stomach growled again. He hadn't eaten since dying, which was honestly rude of the universe to not consider.
"Festival it is," he decided.
As the sun began to set, Roger made his way toward the town center. People had gathered, lanterns were lit, and there was a general atmosphere of celebration that felt almost nostalgic. It reminded him of festivals from his old world, just with more ninjas lurking in the shadows.
Actually, he couldn't see any ninjas. Which either meant they weren't here, or they were really good at hiding.
Probably the latter.
Roger wandered through the festival, taking in the sights. There were food stalls, game booths, and a large stage area that looked like it was set up for some kind of performance or announcement.
And in the very center of the square, there was a platform.
Roger stopped dead.
It was a raised wooden structure, probably meant for the festival's master of ceremonies or something equally mundane. But to Roger's reincarnation-addled brain, it looked like something else entirely.
It looked like an execution platform.
"No," Roger said to himself. "No, that's stupid. That's the stupidest thing I could possibly do. I am not going to—"
He took another look at the platform.
It was the perfect height. The perfect position. There were even stairs leading up to it.
"This is such a bad idea," Roger muttered. "This is the worst idea I've ever had. This is—"
His feet were already moving toward the platform.
"—this is nostalgia and I can't help myself apparently."
Look, here's the thing about Bob—Roger. He had watched Roger's execution scene approximately one million times. He had cried every single time. He had memorized the speech, the atmosphere, the way Roger had smiled in the face of death and changed the entire world with a few words.
And now he HAD Roger's face. He HAD Roger's voice. He was in a world where no one knew who Roger was, where there were no pirates, no Devil Fruits, no One Piece.
It was completely, utterly, absolutely pointless.
And he was going to do it anyway.
"For nostalgia," Roger whispered to himself as he climbed the stairs. "Just for nostalgia. It's not like anyone's going to take it seriously."
He reached the top of the platform.
The crowd was milling about below, not particularly paying attention. Why would they? He was just some weirdo climbing onto a stage.
Roger took a deep breath.
And then, channeling every ounce of Gol D. Roger's presence that he could muster, he spoke.
"PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD!"
His voice BOOMED across the square. Conversations stopped. Heads turned. Everyone was suddenly looking at the crazy man on the platform.
Roger grinned. It was the grin. THE grin. The one that said "I know something you don't know, and it's hilarious."
"My treasure?" Roger continued, his voice carrying with the confidence of a man who had absolutely nothing to lose and no survival instincts to speak of. "If you want it, you can have it! Search for it! I left everything this world has to offer there!"
The crowd was staring at him in complete bewilderment.
Roger didn't care. He was having the time of his life.
"ONE PIECE!" he roared with the force of twenty years of fandom. "IT EXISTS!"
Silence.
Complete, utter silence.
A child dropped their candy somewhere in the crowd. The sound was deafening in the quiet.
Roger stood there, grinning like a madman, feeling absolutely incredible for reasons he couldn't fully explain.
And then someone in the crowd spoke.
"Did... did that man just say he left treasure somewhere?"
"One Piece? What's One Piece?"
"Is he drunk?"
"He looks really confident about it though..."
"Wait, treasure? Like, actual treasure?"
Roger watched as whispers began to spread through the crowd. He had expected confusion. He had expected people to think he was crazy. What he had NOT expected was for people to start looking... interested.
"Hey!" someone shouted. "Old man! What kind of treasure are we talking about?"
Roger's grin widened. He had no treasure. He had literally nothing. But Roger wouldn't let a little thing like reality stop him.
"Everything!" he declared grandly. "Wealth! Fame! Power! Everything this world has to offer, I gathered it all and hid it in one place! If you want it, you'll have to search for it!"
More murmuring. More excited murmuring.
Oh no.
"But where is it?" another voice called out.
Roger laughed. It was Roger's laugh—the one that seemed to echo with the promise of adventure and the dismissal of impossible odds.
"Where indeed!" he responded cryptically. "That's for you to find out! The greatest treasure in the world... is waiting for those bold enough to seek it!"
He was making this up as he went along, and he was having FAR too much fun with it.
The crowd was getting bigger now. People were pushing forward, trying to see the strange man making outrageous claims. Somewhere in the back, Roger could see people running—probably to tell others about what was happening.
"Who are you?" someone demanded.
Roger straightened to his full, impressive height. He adjusted his captain's coat. He smiled the smile of a man who was either a genius or completely insane.
"My name," he said, "is Roger. And I am the King of Pirates!"
More confusion. In a world without pirates, that title meant nothing.
But it SOUNDED impressive, and that was apparently enough.
"Pirates?" someone asked. "What's a pirate?"
Oh.
OH.
Roger realized, in that moment, that he had made a critical error in judgment. This world didn't have pirates. This world had NINJAS. Nobody knew what a pirate was.
Which meant he was going to have to explain.
"Pirates," Roger said, thinking quickly, "are those who sail the seas in search of treasure and adventure! Those who live free, bound by no rules but their own! Those who chase their dreams across the horizon!"
He was winging it. Hard.
"I am the greatest of them all! The one who conquered every challenge! The one who found the ultimate treasure! And now, I pass that legacy on to the next generation!"
The crowd was eating it up. Roger could see it in their eyes—the spark of interest, of curiosity, of GREED. In a world where ninjas controlled power and civilians lived ordinary lives, the promise of treasure and freedom was apparently very appealing.
"But why tell us?" a skeptical voice asked. "Why not keep the treasure for yourself?"
Roger's grin softened into something almost sincere.
"Because treasure means nothing if you don't share it," he said. "Because a dream that isn't passed on dies with you. Because the world..."
He paused, and for a moment, he wasn't performing. For a moment, he was just a fan, speaking the words that had changed anime history.
"Because the world should know that the greatest adventure is still out there. Waiting."
The square was completely silent again.
And then, incredibly, impossibly, someone cheered.
"YEAH! ONE PIECE!"
Another voice joined in. "TREASURE! ADVENTURE!"
More and more people started shouting, caught up in the energy of the moment. Roger watched in growing horror as his "nostalgic recreation" spiraled completely out of control.
"I'M GOING TO FIND IT!" a young man shouted, pushing through the crowd. "I'M GOING TO FIND ONE PIECE!"
"NOT IF I FIND IT FIRST!" another responded.
Within minutes, the festival had devolved into chaos. People were running around, shouting about treasure, making plans, forming groups. Some were already heading toward the exits, apparently planning to start their search immediately.
Roger stood on the platform, watching the absolute pandemonium he had created.
"Oh no," he said quietly. "Oh no, no, no. This was supposed to be a joke. This was supposed to be NOSTALGIC. I didn't mean to actually—"
Someone grabbed his arm. He looked down to see an old man with desperate eyes.
"The One Piece!" the old man pleaded. "Please, at least give me a hint! I'm too old to search everywhere!"
"I... uh..."
"Please! I've always dreamed of adventure! Of treasure! Of meaning! You've given me hope, Roger-sama!"
Roger-SAMA?!
"This is fine," Roger said, his eye twitching. "This is totally fine. I have definitely not just started a treasure-hunting craze in the Naruto universe. That would be crazy. Ha. Ha ha."
Another person appeared at his side. Then another. Then another.
"Roger-sama! Is the treasure in Fire Country?"
"Roger-sama! How do I become a pirate?"
"Roger-sama! Will you teach me the ways of the sea?"
THE SEA?! THERE WASN'T EVEN A MAJOR SEA NEAR HERE!
Roger backed away from the growing crowd, his magnificent captain's coat flaring dramatically behind him.
"The search begins with the first step!" he announced, because he couldn't think of anything else to say. "Go forth! Chase your dreams! Find your own ONE PIECE!"
And then he RAN.
He jumped off the platform, pushed through the crowd, and sprinted into the night with the speed of a man who had made a terrible mistake and needed to be anywhere else immediately.
Behind him, the crowd continued to cheer.
"ALL HAIL THE PIRATE KING!"
"FOR ONE PIECE!"
"THE AGE OF PIRATES HAS BEGUN!"
Roger ran faster.
He didn't stop running until he was deep in the forest, far from the town, far from the chaos, far from the consequences of his actions.
He collapsed against a tree, breathing heavily.
"What," he gasped, "have I DONE?"
He had recreated one of the most iconic scenes in anime history. He had done it for nostalgia. For FUN. He had expected confusion and mockery.
He had NOT expected to apparently kickstart some kind of treasure-hunting revolution.
"This is bad," Roger muttered, sliding down the tree. "This is really, really bad. I just told an entire town that there's a treasure called One Piece hidden somewhere in the world. A treasure that DOESN'T EXIST. In a world with NINJAS. Ninjas who are going to investigate. Ninjas who are going to find out that I'm a fraud. Ninjas who are going to KILL ME."
He buried his face in his hands.
"I hate my second life."
But even as he despaired, a small part of him—the part that was still, fundamentally, a massive One Piece nerd—couldn't help but feel a tiny spark of excitement.
He had just started a new era.
The Great Pirate Era.
In NARUTO.
"This is either going to be the greatest thing I've ever done," Roger said to the uncaring forest, "or the dumbest thing anyone has ever done in the history of any universe."
Probably both.
Definitely both.
Roger laughed. It started as a chuckle, then grew into full-blown hysterical laughter that echoed through the trees.
He had no powers. He had no plan. He had no treasure.
But he had a legendary face, an iconic name, and apparently the ability to cause chaos on a massive scale just by being himself.
"Fine," he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "FINE. If this is how it's going to be, then this is how it's going to be."
He stood up, brushed himself off, and struck a dramatic pose that no one was around to see.
"I am Gol D. Roger, the Pirate King! And if this world wants a legend, then that's exactly what I'll give them!"
The forest remained unimpressed.
"I really need to stop talking to myself," Roger admitted.
But he was grinning. Because as terrifying as this situation was, as impossible as his circumstances were, he couldn't deny one thing:
This was going to be HILARIOUS.
Back in the town, the chaos continued to grow. The festival was completely forgotten. All anyone could talk about was the strange, mustachioed man who had appeared from nowhere, declared himself the King of Pirates, and announced the existence of the world's greatest treasure.
By morning, the story had spread to three neighboring towns.
By noon, it had reached Konoha.
By sunset, the Hokage was reading a report about a mysterious figure named "Roger" who was apparently inspiring civilians to become "pirates" and search for something called "One Piece."
The Third Hokage took a long drag from his pipe and stared at the report.
"Pirates?" he said slowly. "What in the world is a pirate?"
His advisors had no answer.
In the forest, completely unaware of the political storm he had created, Roger was trying to figure out how to start a fire without any survival skills.
"I should have paid more attention in Boy Scouts," he muttered, banging two rocks together uselessly. "Also, I was never IN Boy Scouts. This is really inconvenient."
The rock did not catch fire.
Roger sighed.
"Being the Pirate King is a lot less glamorous than the anime made it look."
But somewhere in the distance, he could hear it: voices. Excited voices. Voices talking about adventure, about treasure, about ONE PIECE.
The age of pirates had begun.
And Roger, whether he liked it or not, was at the center of it.
"This is fine," he told himself for the hundredth time. "Everything is fine."
It was not fine.
But it was going to be one hell of a story.
END OF CHAPTER 1