It was pure coincidence that the Pirate Ship happened to pass through that area.
The ship's Captain had been eating his meal on deck, enjoying the cool sea breeze, when the report came up from the Watchman.
"Hah? A small boat floating out there?"
"Yessir. Looks like someone's aboard too... Whaddya wanna do, Captain?"
"Leave it, who cares... No, wait. Come to think of it, I heard a Black Market Merchant's ship went down around here recently. Supposedly got caught in a storm right in the middle of some big deal..."
"! You think it could be a survivor? Then they might have somethin' valuable on 'em."
The Pirates launched a small boat of their own, sending a few sailors over. They pulled alongside and boarded the drifting vessel. The only person aboard was a single girl. She must have been adrift for a very long time; she was visibly emaciated and weak.
But The Pirates showed no interest in the girl herself. They gave her one dismissive glance, as if looking at something beneath their notice, then snatched up the bag she'd placed beside her. Inside they found some jewels and a few other valuables, but far less than they'd hoped for. Clicking their tongues, they pulled the items out.
"Captain, this is all there is."
"What the hell, that's it? Pathetic... Gems that small might not even cover a round of drinks."
"Tell me about it. Well, we'll take 'em anyway... Hm?"
"! What is it?"
"Oh, nah, it's just, looking at this girl more closely, she's got a collar around her neck... Looks like she was a slave."
"Might've been a slave on that Black Market Merchant's ship. Probably escaped but ended up drifting till she ran out of strength."
Learning there was nothing of real value, the Pirate Captain lost all interest at once. With a bored expression, he tore off a bite of the bone-in meat in his hand and said while chewing:
"Don't care. Take what there is to take and get back here. We're setting sail."
"Got it, bos... Huh?"
As the sailors were about to return to the main ship, one of them suddenly stopped. Looking down, he saw the emaciated girl's hand clutching at his leg, clinging desperately. He'd assumed she was already a corpse, but apparently she still had breath in her.
The man twisted his face in irritation, barking "Let go, brat!" as he kicked her hand away. But the girl reached out again, trying to grab his leg once more.
"Tch... Persistent little half-dead wretch..."
"Hey, what's the holdup over there!? Get your asses back here!"
"S-sorry! This one, she's still alive, and she..."
"Don't waste your time on garbage! If she's in the way, just put her out of her misery!"
The delay in pulling out, combined with getting screamed at by the Captain, only fueled the Pirate's irritation further. He drew the saber from his hip. Then, to turn the annoyingly half-dead girl into a proper corpse, he swung it down at her neck.
The blow caught the girl's neck dead-on, cleanly separating head from body, reaping her life in one stroke.
Or so everyone thought.
"...Hm?"
The man who had swung the saber was the first to notice something was wrong. Two things felt off.
First: despite having just cut through a human neck, there had been absolutely no resistance. No matter how thin she was, severing flesh and bone should have produced some solid feedback. And yet it felt almost as if he'd swung through empty air.
Second: there was no blood. If you severed the neck of a living person with a beating Heart, blood should have sprayed out with considerable force, and the blade should obviously be stained with it. But there was nothing.
Something was wrong. He looked more carefully at the girl's remains, and then...
A soft rustling.
Before his eyes, the girl's body began to peel away from the point where she'd been cut. Layer by thin layer, it came apart, unraveling.
"What?"
As the man stared in bewilderment, the girl's entire body, her emaciated frame, her severed head, all of it dissolved into countless sheets of Paper that spread out around them. And in the next instant, they attacked the men on the small boat.
"GYAAAAAAGH!?"
In the space of a heartbeat, the men swarmed by countless papers had their bodies sliced to ribbons, drenched in blood. Whether dead or merely unconscious from shock, they collapsed, some falling straight into the sea, motionless.
Before The Pirates watching from the main ship could even process their shock, the countless papers whirled upward and descended upon their vessel in a torrent. They gathered at an unoccupied corner of the deck and reformed into a human shape.
The emaciated girl who had been on the small boat moments ago now stood there. She swayed as though she might collapse at any moment, but the Captain could see her eyes blazing with light. Like a starving beast.
"Th-this girl... she's an Ability User!?"
"Captain! Torval and the others are...!"
"...! All of you, kill her!"
At the Captain's Command, The Pirates raised their weapons in unison.
Swords, spears, guns. Every manner of weapon aimed at the girl who had boarded their ship. They attacked all at once, and they failed.
Neither blade nor bullet had any effect on her. She evaded every attack by transforming her body into Paper.
And then:
"N-no... the paper, the paper is attacking us!?"
"Ow!? Th-this paper cuts!?"
"Stop... damn it, stop, don't come near me! AAAAAGH!"
A storm of Paper raged across the entire ship. Each sheet cut with the sharpness of a blade, and The Pirates, utterly helpless, were shredded apart.
The hellish paper blizzard raged for a full minute or so before it finally subsided, once not a single scream or shout could be heard from The Pirates.
And what remained in its wake was a sea of Pirate corpses... and at their center, a single girl, ravenously devouring the meal The Pirates had left half-eaten.
"...munch munch... ugh, hack... cough, cough cough... munch munch... gulp gulp... glug. ...Hm? ...Wait, where am I? What was I doing?"
***
So, um... let me try to sort out this situation.
How exactly did things end up like this? Here I am on some Pirate Ship, its entire crew lying dead all around me, and I'm sitting in the middle of it all... eating?
My consciousness, or rather my memory, had gaps in it. But if I tried hard enough, I thought I could piece things together.
Right. I'd been on the small boat, pushed just about to my absolute limit, when I sensed something that felt like a ship, still far off in the distance. Then, hours later, a ship actually appeared, and I thought, 'Oh, it wasn't my imagination. I'm saved.'
Though at that point I was already half-unconscious, so it was more like a vague impression that I might have thought that.
But it turned out to be a Pirate Ship, and they were about to make off with just my valuables. So I grabbed someone's leg, thinking something like, 'Oh, come on, at least help me.' Then they flew into a rage, and I was cut down with a sword and killed... no, wait. That's not right.
I thought I'd been killed, but I was alive, and after that... ah.
"Oh, right. I did this."
Having finally recalled what happened, I clapped my hands together in understanding, standing before the scene of utter carnage.
Then I set down the bone-in meat I'd been holding onto a plate and focused my awareness on my hand. It came apart with a soft rustle, transforming into Paper.
"...So that Devil Fruit was the real deal."
So this was my Powers. My body turns into Paper. That's actually pretty interesting.
But... was there anything like this in One Piece? At least as far as I knew, I didn't think it had appeared...
Well, no point worrying about it. Maybe it was a Devil Fruit that existed in the setting but just never showed up in the main story.
For now, I should just be glad I survived that brush with death.
After finishing my meal and resting a while, I thought about what to do next and decided to simply claim this ship as my own. Its entire crew had just conveniently passed away moments ago, so no one would mind.
First, I threw all the Pirate corpses into the sea, then cleaned up the blood-soaked deck.
Next, I rummaged through the ship's storerooms and food supplies. With so many people having been aboard, there was plenty of food.
Oh, and a decent amount of valuables stockpiled too. Had they just come off a raid, perhaps? There was too much for one person to take everything, so I sorted through the better items and packed them into bags, ready to grab at a moment's notice.
I checked every other room one by one, gathering anything useful.
In what appeared to be the Captain's Quarters, I found several Eternal Poses, along with sea charts and a Logbook. Also, one of the corpses had a Log Pose strapped to its wrist, so I claimed that too.
From the navigation records, I was able to figure out roughly where I was, so I decided to head for the nearest island I could identify. Using this ship, of course. The Elite Slave Education I'd been put through had drilled at least the basics of navigation into me, and I was grateful for it now.
I did take down the Pirate Flag, though. Getting spotted by a Marine ship or causing a commotion when approaching an island would be a hassle.
Over the following days of sailing, I successfully reached the island I'd set as my destination. I gathered all the food and valuables I could carry and left the Pirate Ship behind.
Oh, and one more thing, for reference.
Having now become a proud Devil Fruit Ability User, I naturally wanted to know exactly what fruit I'd eaten. But I wouldn't learn the answer to that until some time later.
It was when I happened to get my hands on a Devil Fruit Encyclopedia at a certain island. Flipping through its pages, I found what seemed to be a match.
Paramecia-type: Paper-Paper Fruit.
It grants the power to transform one's body into Paper, turning the user into a Paper Human. Though classified as a Paramecia, it is the type of ability where the body loses its original form, similar to a Logia. That had to be it.
To be continued...