The village of Oakhaven slept in warm beds, bellies full, unaware a ghost walked among them.
Argentus didn't look back at the lights. He walked into the darkness of the treeline, his small body bowed under his mother's weight. She was light—terribly, heartbreakingly light—wasted away by sickness and the starvation she'd endured to feed him.
He walked for miles.
His legs burned. His lungs screamed. But his face remained a mask of porcelain—cold, white, completely numb.
He reached the northern cliffs, a desolate place where wind whipped off the ocean, salting the earth so nothing could grow. Perfect. She would never hear the villagers' whispers again. Only the sea.
Argentus laid her down gently on the grass. He knelt beside her. No shovel. No pickaxe. He refused to ask anyone for help.
Alone, the wind whispered.
He drove his fingers into the hard, rocky soil.
Scrape.
The earth resisted. Grass roots tore at his cuticles.
Scrape.
"Richest..." he muttered, voice flat.
He scooped out a handful of dirt. A sharp stone sliced his palm open. Blood, dark and hot, mixed with cold soil. He didn't flinch. Didn't pause. The pain was a distant signal from a body he no longer felt connected to.
Scrape.
"Strongest..."
He dug until his fingernails cracked. Until skin wore away from his fingertips, leaving raw, red flesh exposed.
Scrape.
"Most powerful..."
The words looped in his skull, overlapping, echoing louder than the crashing waves. They weren't just words anymore—they were gears turning in his mind, grinding away his grief, replacing it with cold, mechanical drive.
Hero or villain. It doesn't matter.
He dug for hours. By the time the hole was deep enough, his hands were unrecognizable—mangled claws of mud and blood.
He lowered her in. Filled the grave, patting earth down with those same ruined hands.
No headstone. He had no money for one.
Argentus stood. He swayed slightly in the wind, looking at the fresh mound. The sun began to crest over the horizon, casting a long, grey shadow behind him.
He looked at his hands. They trembled—not from sorrow, but exhaustion. He slowly curled them into fists, squeezing until fresh wounds wept blood onto grass.
"I promise," he whispered to the silence. "Mom, I will bring all the riches of the world here to sleep with you."
He turned his back on the grave, on the sunrise, on the boy he used to be. He walked back toward the world of the living—not to join them, but to conquer them.
Argentus returned to the docks, to the same foreman who'd worked his mother to death. He was small, his silver hair a beacon of oddity among grey laborers.
"I can carry," Argentus said, voice trembling but chin high. "I can work. Half pay."
The foreman didn't look up from his clipboard. "Get lost, brat. We aren't running a charity."
"I'm strong! I—"
A heavy boot kicked out, connecting with his chest. Argentus flew backward, landing hard in mud, air driven from his starved lungs. The dockworkers laughed—cruel and heavy.
"Go die somewhere else," the foreman sneered.
Argentus lay in the mud, clutching his chest.
First lesson: The moment you start begging, you've already lost. Strength is earned, not pleaded for.
Hunger wasn't a feeling anymore. It was a state of being—a sharp, twisting creature living inside his ribs.
Argentus found a half-eaten loaf behind the bakery. It was covered in mold, wet from rain, but it was food.
As he reached for it, a shadow fell over him.
"That's ours, silver-freak," a voice spat.
Before, Argentus would have tried to reason. Now, he simply looked at the bread.
"Drop it."
Argentus didn't drop it. He shoved the entire moldy chunk into his mouth.
The beating was severe. They kicked him until ribs cracked. Mashed his face into cobblestones until his nose shattered. But Argentus didn't spit the bread out. He chewed. Swallowed. Took every blow, curling into a ball, protecting his stomach.
As they left him bleeding in the gutter, someone laughed. "Look at him. Eating trash like a rat."
Argentus lay there, tasting his own blood mixed with sour dough. He smiled—gruesome and bloody.
I won.
Winter came.
The cold killed the other street orphans. It took the ones who waited for kindness.
Argentus stopped waiting.
He stopped looking for work. Stopped looking for scraps.
He watched the marketplace from rooftops. Studied the patterns of constables and vendors.
He didn't fight for pride anymore. He fought to survive. When a drunk sailor cornered him in an alley, Argentus didn't use fists. He used a sharpened piece of rusted metal from the beach. He drove it into the man's thigh and vanished before the scream left his throat.
Honor is a luxury. Survival requires dirt.
He was seven now, but his eyes said otherwise.
He sat on a chimney's edge, counting his spoils. A silver ring. Three apples. A pouch of tobacco he could trade.
His hands were calloused, scarred, and quick. His silver hair was chopped short with a knife to stop people from grabbing it in fights.
He looked down at the town that had rejected him. The town that killed his mother. He felt no anger anymore. Only cold, clinical detachment.
They're like sheep, he thought, watching villagers scurry through their safe, mundane lives. They graze. They sleep. They die.
He stood, his small silhouette cutting against the moon.
He dropped from the roof, landing silently in the alley behind the Salty Dog tavern. He wasn't looking for food tonight. He'd heard a traveler talking about "charts" and "maps."
He crept toward the open window, movements fluid and practiced. He was no longer a boy—the world had made him a predator, honing his claws on rough stone.
He slipped inside.
There, sitting on a drunken man's table, was a leather-bound diary.
The struggle had stripped him of innocence, but given him tools to take what he wanted.
The alleyway behind the Salty Dog smelled of rotting fish and urine.
He scrambled onto a rooftop, finding moonlight away from the city guard. His stomach growled—a constant companion he'd learned to ignore—as he cracked open the spine.
"The Grand Line Journal - Property of Navigator Oris."
Argentus began to read.
The text spoke of a world far larger than this miserable island. It spoke of the World Government, a titan that had held the world's throat for 800 years. It spoke of the Marines, their dogs of war, preaching "Absolute Justice" while people like his mother rotted in mud.
"Justice..." Argentus whispered, the word tasting like bile. "Justice is a fairy tale for the rich."
He turned the page.
The Three Emperors. Whitebeard. Big Mom. Kaido.
Monsters who ruled the New World like gods. The diary described their power with trembling ink—men and women who could shatter islands, summon storms, command souls. They were the pinnacle. They stood above the law.
Argentus traced the names with a dirty finger. He didn't feel fear. He felt cold, strange hunger.
He flipped further, looking for a location. A starting point. The diary was filled with warnings about the Grand Line, but one name appeared over and over—a place where all paths converged before the descent into hell.
Sabaody Archipelago.
The diary described it as a paradise of bubbles and mangroves, but warned of its darkness. Where nobles bought humans. Where the law was twisted. Where the strong gathered to prepare for the New World.
"Sabaody," Argentus tested the name on his tongue.
He snapped the book shut.
He looked down at his hands—scarred, dirty, empty. Then at the moon.
He didn't care about history or right and wrong. He only cared about the physics of power. The World Government had it. The Emperors had it. Right now, he had nothing.
Argentus stood on the roof's edge. The wind caught his coat. For the first time since his mother died, he wasn't just surviving. He saw a path forward.
"Three Emperors," he murmured to the night sky. "They must be lonely without someone above them."
The hold of the Saint Germa smelled of nutmeg, damp wool, and rats.
For seven days, this darkness had been Argentus's world. He'd wedged himself behind crates labeled "Fine Silks," wrapped in stolen canvas to ward off the ocean chill.
The sailors were superstitious—they whispered about food going missing, about shadows moving near the galley, about the "Bilge Rat" no trap could catch.
They didn't know the rat had silver hair and eyes that saw in the dark.
It was midnight. The ship rocked gently—calm waters indicating they approached a harbor. Argentus uncurled his stiff limbs. His stomach was a hollow pit, but his mind was sharp.
He crept across the floorboards. He knew exactly which ones creaked. Knew the cook left the pantry unlocked until the second bell.
He snatched a hard green apple and a strip of dried jerky. Didn't eat immediately. He retreated to a small porthole near the waterline, the only source of fresh air in the suffocating hold.
Through the thick, salt-crusted glass, he looked out at the ocean. The moon was high, reflecting off black waves. Somewhere out there, beyond the Red Line, were the monsters he'd read about.
He took a bite of the apple, the crunch loud in the silence.
Next morning, the ocean's silence shattered with the roar of cannons.
The merchant ship lurched violently left, wood splintering like breaking bones. Argentus was thrown from his hiding spot, tumbling across the deck as screams erupted above.
Pirates? No.
He heard the distinct thwip-thwip of harpoon guns. The heavy thud of boarding planks slamming down. And through the smoke, the shouting.
"Don't damage the merchandise! Aim for the legs! Pristine captures get double shares!"
Slavers.
Argentus scrambled to his feet. His heart hammered, but his mind was cold. Hide. Escape.
He bolted toward the lifeboats, weaving through chaos. Sailors were being clubbed down, netted like fish. He was small—a shadow in the smoke. He almost made it to the railing.
Almost.
A heavy, calloused hand clamped onto the back of his neck, lifting him off his feet like he weighed nothing.
"Got a runner!"
Argentus didn't scream. He twisted violently, sinking his teeth into the man's wrist.
"Gah! You little brat!"
The slaver didn't let go. He swung his other hand—a backhand slap that connected with Argentus's head.
Crack.
The world spun. Bright white spots exploded in his vision. His ears rang. The fight drained from his malnourished limbs instantly. He was seven. Starving. Against a grown man, he was a leaf in a hurricane.
"Feisty one," a second voice chuckled, stepping from the smoke. He grabbed Argentus's face, squeezing his cheeks to force his mouth open. "Good teeth, though. And look at that hair... Silver. Rare color. A Noble might pay extra for a pet like this."
Argentus kicked out, finding only air.
"Tie him up. Throw him in the hole with the others."
(END OF CHAPTER)
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