The village of Oakhaven was sleeping. They slept in warm beds, bellies full, unaware that a ghost was walking among them.
Argentus didn't look back at the lights. He walked into the darkness of the treeline, his small body bowed under the weight of his mother. She was light—terribly, heartbreakingly light—wasted away by the sickness and the starvation she had endured to feed him.
He walked for miles.
His legs burned. His lungs screamed. But his face remained a mask of porcelain—cold, white, and completely numb.
He reached the northern cliffs. It was a desolate place where the wind whipped off the ocean, salting the earth so nothing could grow. It was perfect. She would never have to hear the whispers of the villagers again. She would only hear the sea.
Argentus laid her down gently on the grass. He knelt beside her. He had no shovel. He had no pickaxe. He had refused to ask anyone for help.
Alone, the wind whispered.
He drove his fingers into the hard, rocky soil.
Scrape.
The earth resisted. The roots of the scrub grass tore at his cuticles.
Scrape.
"Richest..." he muttered, his voice flat.
He scooped out a handful of dirt. A sharp stone sliced his palm open. Blood, dark and hot, mixed with the cold soil. He didn't flinch. He didn't pause. The pain in his hand was a dull throb, a distant signal from a body he no longer felt connected to.
Scrape.
"Strongest..."
He dug until his fingernails cracked. He dug until the skin on his fingertips wore away, leaving raw, red flesh exposed to the dirt.
Scrape.
"Most powerful..."
The words looped in his skull, overlapping, echoing, louder than the crashing waves below. They weren't just words anymore; they were the gears turning in his mind, grinding away his grief, replacing it with a 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. He filled the grave, patting the earth down with those same ruined hands.
There was no headstone. He had no money for one.
Argentus stood up. He swayed slightly in the wind, looking at the fresh mound of earth. The sun was beginning to crest over the horizon, casting a long, grey shadow behind him.
He looked at his hands. They were trembling, not from sorrow, but from exhaustion. He slowly curled them into fists, squeezing so hard the fresh wounds wept blood onto the 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, and 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 went back to the docks, to the same foreman who had worked his mother to death. He was small, his silver hair a beacon of oddity in a town of grey laborers.
"I can carry," Argentus said, his voice trembling but his chin high. "I can work. Half pay."
The foreman didn't even look up from his clipboard. "Get lost, brat. We aren't running a charity."
"I'm strong!" Argentus insisted, stepping forward. "I --"
A heavy boot kicked out. It was a solid punt to the chest. Argentus flew backward, landing hard in the mud, the air driven from his starved lungs. The dockworkers laughed. It was a cruel, heavy sound.
"Go die somewhere else," the foreman sneered.
Argentus lay in the mud, clutching his chest. He learned his first lesson: The moment you start begging, you've already lost. Strength is earned, not pleaded for.
Hunger was not a feeling anymore; it was a state of being. It was a sharp, twisting creature living inside his ribs.
Argentus found a half-eaten loaf of hardtack behind the bakery. It was covered in mold, wet from the rain, but it was food.
As he reached for it, a shadow fell over him.
"That's ours, Silver-freak," Man spat, cracking his knuckles.
Before, Argentus would have tried to reason. He would have tried to talk. Now, he simply looked at the bread.
"Drop it," Man commanded.
Argentus didn't drop it. He shoved the entire moldy chunk into his mouth.
The beating was severe. They kicked him until his ribs cracked. They mashed his face into the cobblestones until his nose shattered. But Argentus didn't spit the bread out. He chewed. He swallowed. He took every blow, curling into a ball, protecting his stomach.
As they left him bleeding in the gutter, Man laughed. "Look at him. Eating trash like a rat."
Argentus lay there, tasting his own blood mixed with the sour dough. He smiled—a gruesome, bloody expression. 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. He stopped looking for scraps.
He watched the marketplace from the rooftops. He studied the patterns of the local 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 he found on the beach. He drove it into the man's thigh and vanished before the scream left the sailor's throat.
He learned that honor was a luxury. Survival required dirt.
_____________________________________
He was seven years old now, but his eyes said otherwise.
He sat on the edge of a chimney, 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 a fight.
He looked down at the town that had rejected him. The town that had killed his mother. He felt no anger anymore. Only a cold, clinical detachment.
They are like sheep, he thought, watching the villagers scurry about their safe, mundane lives. They graze. They sleep. They die.
He stood up, his small silhouette cutting against the moon.
He dropped down from the roof, landing silently in the alley behind the Salty Dog tavern. He wasn't looking for food tonight. He was looking for something more valuable. He had heard a traveler talking about "charts" and "maps."
He crept toward the open window, his movements fluid, practiced. He was no longer the boy, the world made him a predator, honing his claws on the rough stone of the world.
He slipped inside.
And there, sitting on a drunken man's table, was the leather-bound diary.
The struggle had stripped him of his innocence, but it had given him the tools to take what he wanted.
_____________________________________________________-
The alleyway behind the Salty Dog tavern smelled of rotting fish and urine.
He scrambled up onto a rooftop, finding a patch of moonlight away from the prying eyes of the city guard. His stomach growled, a constant companion he had 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 throat of the world for 800 years. It spoke of the Marines, their dogs of war, preaching "Absolute Justice" while people like his mother rotted in the 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, and command souls. They were the pinnacle. They were the ones who stood above the law.
Argentus traced the names with a dirty finger. He didn't feel fear. He felt a 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 again. 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. A place where nobles bought humans. A place where the law was twisted. A place 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 he looked at the moon.
He didn't care about the history and right or wrong. He only cared about the physics of power. The World Government had it. The Emperors had it. And right now, he had nothing.
Argentus stood up on the roof 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 had wedged himself behind a stack of crates labeled "Fine Silks," wrapped in a stolen piece of canvas to ward off the chill of the open ocean.
The sailors were superstitious; they whispered about food going missing, about shadows moving near the galley, about the "Bilge Rat" that 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—the calm waters indicating they were approaching 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. He knew the cook left the pantry unlocked until the second bell.
He snatched a hard green apple and a strip of dried jerky. He didn't eat them 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 the black waves. Somewhere out there, beyond the Red Line, were the monsters he had read about.
He took a bite of the apple, the crunch loud in the silence.
_____________________________________________________
Next morning, the silence of the ocean was shattered by the roar of cannons.
The merchant ship lurched violently to the left, wood splintering with a sound like breaking bones. Argentus was thrown from his hiding spot, tumbling across the deck as screams erupted from above.
Pirates? No.
He heard the distinct thwip-thwip of harpoon guns. He heard the heavy thud of boarding planks slamming down. And through the smoke, he heard 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 against his ribs, but his mind was cold. Hide. Escape.
He bolted toward the lifeboats, weaving through the 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 as if he weighed nothing.
"Got a runner!" a gruff voice barked.
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 the side of Argentus's head.
Crack.
The world spun. Bright white spots exploded in Argentus's vision. His ears rang. The fight drained out of his malnourished limbs instantly. He was seven. He was starving. Against a grown man, he was nothing but a leaf in a hurricane.
"Feisty one," a second voice chuckled, stepping out of the smoke. He grabbed Argentus's face, squeezing his cheeks to force his mouth open. "Good teeth, though. And look at that hair... Silver. That's a rare color. A Noble might pay extra for a pet like this."
Argentus kicked out, his boots finding purchase on nothing but air.
"Tie him up. Throw him in the hole with the others."