Fanfic #87 The Butcher Bird by RagnarokAscendant(OnePiece/TokyoGhoul)

This fanfic is a self insert into one piece with the si having the powers of a ghoul from Tokyo Ghoul. This fic has really interesting world development and really interesting characters. I really like the characters that the author created for this story, like they're interesting and fun to read about.

Synopsis: Ghouls, devils, and pirates, oh my.

Rated: M

words: 460k

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-butcher-bird-one-piece-si-canon-expansion.661948/reader/

Here's the first chapter:

The man was old, and dying. He'd been dying for years, but now it was tearing him apart.

I don't know where I am. A jungle, duh, but no idea where it was. I'd tried eating some of the fruits over the past weeks I'd been trapped in this green hell. They'd tasted worse than anything I'd ever eaten. Everything tasted like that.

Neither of us had the supplies or the expertise to fend off old age, not really. He'd lived longer than most, in this world.

But now? I could smell something delicious. I could barely see, was crashing through the underbrush like an idiot, but there was food somewhere.

Two years of training. Of ridiculous tasks, of killing wild animals, of battling the pirates that passed by and taking what we wanted and needed from them, all so I could grow stronger. He'd given that, for a promise.

I'm on it before it realizes I'm there, blind with hunger, mad with it, teeth finding an artery easily and opening it up, so sweet.

It was a price I'd been more than willing to pay, once I'd realized which world I'd been sent to, and in what era.

Something struck me in the side, driving me away from my catch, and I growled. Pressure in my back relieved itself, and red tendrils lashed out, cutting down the prey where they stood. More meat, after all. Other members of the herd ran, and I let them. I had food.

The old man raised himself off the bed with effort, and I was at his side in an instant. "Easy, you bastard. You're not well," I say quietly.

It wasn't until the first of the crew had been reduced to blood and cracked bone that I realized what I was devouring so desperately, and what the red tendril-limbs that had burst from my back were.

"You think..I do not know that, little monster?" the old man replies. "Help me up. I will not...die in my bed."

I don't remember what happened after, not clearly. Flashes. Violence, men screaming for their leaders to save them. Running from me in fear. Men in white uniforms trying to burn down the forest, falling to me, becoming food. I don't know how long it was. But then He came.

"If you say so, Sensei." I can feel the bones where I lay a hand on his back, sharp under thin skin. When had the old man gotten so frail? It seemed like only a few days ago he'd been lifting boulders and chopping down trees beside me.

He came alone, and the memory of the ambush I laid for him is still clear as day. I hurtled down from the trees, tendrils striking- and hit nothing but dirt as pain ripped through me.

Slowly, I help him shuffle out the door and onto the porch of the tiny wooden house we'd lived in for two years. He sinks into the rocking chair with a groan, and nods fractionally.

I'd expected to die as I lay there, unable to move, my body refusing to heal the damage, hearing His footsteps draw closer. I welcomed it. I deserved it, for being too weak to end myself when I'd realized what I'd become. Instead, He spoke.

"You know what you must do," the old man whispers. I nod. We'd spoken of this, agreed on it. It still hurt to do it.

"So. You are the monster that lurks, guarding the treasure of the forest," He said, leaning down so I could look at him from where I was frozen. His voice stripped away madness, cleared the hunger. "An eater of men. A ghoul. But…" He paused, and looked at me closely. "You are not one by choice, but by necessity. Hmm. When you are healed, little monster, seek me out. It will not be easy, but I doubt your life has been."

I hand the old man his sword, an ancient thing, near as long as I am tall. He leans on it at first, levering himself out of his chair, but as he gets upright strength seems to return to his limbs, and his eyes clear. By the time we head down into the grass surrounding the house, he stands straight, the image of a wise man who was still strong.

I clung to the sanity He'd given me in the days that followed. And I followed his trail and his scent, down to the harbor. I'd forgotten my name, so I chose a new one. With half-remembered speech I secured passage aboard a passenger liner, and waited. When a man aboard attacked a woman one night, I waited for a stormy night, ate well, and spun a tale of him having slipped over the side. His scent spurred me on, and with stolen funds I bribed a fisherman to follow it to monstrous shores. Serpents and strange creatures rose up to try to sink the fisherman's vessel, and despite the growing hunger in my belly. and the wounds they inflicted, I cut them all down, staggering ashore with blood spilling from my wounds.

We face each other in grass that has grown up to our knees. I focus, and a single tail bursts free, coiling out to my right as I slip off the red captain's coat I've grown to favor. In response, the old man raises his sword.

He found me at the entrance to his home the following morning, and smiled. "You have survived. Well, little monster...what is it you desire? Survival? Power? Riches? What in this blood-soaked world do you want most?"

I lunge forward. So does he. Tendril and sword strike as one.

"Scale Cut!"

"Blade of Want!"

What did I want? If I wanted mere survival, I would never have followed Him. If I wanted to rule, I was terrifying enough. If I wanted riches...what man could stop me, in one of the Blues?

Fragments of memory tell me. Men who call themselves dragons, slaving and raping with none to stop them. Islands burning over the fears of bureaucrats. Countless lives ruined by petty cruelty and the desire for power. Madmen with abilities none can counter suffocating countries under their rule.

"I want…"

Blood spatters the grass, and I stagger as a cut appears across my chest, bone-deep. But healing.

I raise my eyes to meet his own. "This world is a cruel place, filled with monsters. And so I'll kill them. I want the strength to do that."

The old man falls to his knees as his sword breaks, his blood staining the ground.

"Then I think we can make an accord, little monster," He said. "I will give you that strength, if you will add seven to your list of monsters."

My tendril lashes out and severs neck and spinal cord, coiling around the head in an instant, returning it to me. I close the old man's sole remaining eye, then lay it down in the grass. It will keep. The body will not.

I eat.

"Seven lives? What have they done?" I ask.

"They killed a dream," He replies. "Do you have a name, little monster?"

"Yoshimura Kaneki."

"Hm. Then, young Yoshimura, my name is Arima Zoss. Until you die or your training is complete, you will address me as master."

When that is done, I gather up a burlap sack and cotton cloth, wrap the head carefully, and place it in the sack. I get the meagre possessions I still have- a few beri, a sharp knife, a few changes of clothing- and then set bales of hay against the walls of the house.

By the time I set foot into the small skiff that Zoss had kept for supply runs, the house is burning merrily.

I have a large bounty to claim, a crew to gather, and a better ship to either buy or steal.

After all, while the skiff is plenty for the South Blue, it isn't something that'll survive the Grand Line, much less the New World. And I have business to handle.