Chapter Text
Life had become lonely. More so than it used to have been at least
Back at the marine-funded orphanage, there was always noise and chaos. There were other kids in the dorms he slept in, people had talked to him. At the science department, at least there was human interaction. As much as he hated everyone there, at least there was something to listen to other than my own thoughts. Now? I had precisely one (1) scheduled discussion a week regarding archival updates and information requests and pretty much nothing else. Honestly, having constant watchers from the CP unit who had been benched from missions and were determined to make up for their 'failings' by catching him out on some misdeed did not count.
Yeah, sometimes the poor schmuck doing a document drop-off with him in person would sometimes say hi, but the nervous snivelling and obvious glances at the visual-snails stationed outside my door put a real dampener on that conversation.
In the cafeteria people gave him a wide berth and scattered if he sat at their table. The most he could expect for an interaction would be nervous laughter and excuses as the super obvious CP observer of the day scared them off.
Of course, there was the one rare exception. But after all the shitty assignments he’d been getting as incentive to stop talking to him, he was bound to stop anytime now.
The Archival Unit of the World Government’s Science Division—was the most secretive branch of the government. This division always had precisely one member, and if that member died or angered the wrong person, it could go years without the position being filled. Before him, the department was usually handled by the best and brightest -academics from Ohara, mostly- before the Buster Call wiped them out. There was a 35-year gap after the last guy had died. Then they forced Toby into the spot.
The backlog when he'd started? Nightmare-inducing. And even after five years, it’s still not done. Not that he could complain too much, the backlog was the only part of the archives that was completely untouched by mandated censorship and carefully crafted cover-ups.
Most days, the backlog is where he spent most of his time—endless crates piled into overflowing towers and mountains. Anything that can mean anything within the Marine network got routed here automatically, fed through a pneumatic tube system for important documents, and a trash-chute for the crates of general documents. Most aren’t allowed to deliver material in person and are under the impression that the government just trashes copies of all documents that don’t make it into administration. They think the chute leads to the incinerator next door. Needless to say, the amount of duplicates, snack wrappers, and actual paper trash is significant. The only people who can stop by the door to give him things in person have Level Six clearance and/or an emergency code from vice-commander or above. In the five years he'd run this place, that’s happened precisely three times. These three incidents led to having to file a haunting amount of “fell overboard” and “the ship randomly sank but for x reason so no one needs to investigate” reports.
The system just keeps humming, having faithfully dumped decades of orphaned documents into his hands. Most of them having horrendous implications about what was actually going on
But the backlog isn’t where Tobias started understanding the archivists before him.
That came from the shelves. The official archive. The one that's supposed to be clean and curated. During the hundreds if not thousands of hours that he'd spent down here, with nothing but the horrendous whispers of the past of the World Government as company, that’s where the past archivists did their real work—not by preserving forbidden texts, but by shaping what remained. The layout, the cross-references, the deliberate gaps... it’s like they were still there with him through the way they arranged the files.
I started noticing oddities as I tried to find background information on how to sort current backlogged documents—documents categorized under the wrong campaigns, timelines that contradicted public reports, euphemisms that fell apart when you looked at the original signatures. It wasn’t sloppy. It was intentional. Almost every inconsistency would lead me further back in time, deeper into the archives, directly to another inconsistency.
So I followed the thread. And I started building my own record—a personal project I never talk about. A de-censored timeline of history, drawn not from any one place, but pieced together through the patterns they left behind and the raw materials in the backlog. The pants of a man, reported to be held in prison uninjured, dead by sickness, but coated in unexplained bloodstains. An island mentioned in a confiscated log book, that matches the time but not the place of the cover-up. At first, I thought I was imagining it. But it was too consistent. Too careful. They used outmoded classification tags, outdated indexing styles, "misplaced" some confiscated material into the wrong evidence box, even left misaligned file codes that only make sense when you trace them in sequence. They couldn’t say the truth outright, so they hid it in the margins and hoped someone like me would notice.
And now, I do the same.
I review everything that comes in. I integrate what I can into the larger pattern. I preserve the chain—not by hoarding forbidden documents, but by shaping what survives. Quiet resistance, etched into the architecture of the archive. No one comes down here, and no one watches me closely. Not yet. So I work alone. And the ghosts of those who came before me work with me.
I’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble if anyone stormed in to find my full historical timeline project. It’s necessary to track where artifacts are from and who likely used them, but true history is always a touchy subject in a corrupt regime.
I sighed heavily and brushed the last of the dust from my gloves, staring off into the void of boxes, piles, and cabinets in front of me. The room was filled with documents, uncensored photos, videos, and strange items. There had to be a few dangerous artifacts mixed in with the Celestials' garbage that would end up displayed in a museum someday.
I'd been ignoring the flashing light in the corner of my eye. The poor schmuck has been waiting there for almost half an hour now. I was doing everything I could to postpone having to deal with incident number four.
Having a visitor is never good news for my workload, or for my heavily frayed mental health.
Opening and closing the reinforced privacy door, the environment door to keep the moisture and temperature stable, and the bomb-proof, good-luck-getting-in-here door, I finally made my way through the drop-off chamber to the actual front door. Checking the visual-snail feed, ah, a schmuck, great.
"Usually, petty officer, at this point you're supposed to get the memo and send me a note instead of bothering me." I said, barely looking at the trembling man on the other side of the door. I was desperately trying not to think about the fact that I was staring at someone that would die within the next week or so. Your superior should know better and just burn whatever you found instead of reporting it. He was grey with fear, shaking in his standard-issue boots. The sight of my World Government issued jacket usually had that effect.
"A-ah yes sir, sorry sir. I was instructed that this information is too sensitive to be written." Well that's not ideal.
"... haah, get on with it, what is it, when should I expect it, etcetera etcetera." My hand came up without me realizing to scrub at my face, the only thing more tiring than dealing with people who are scared shitless of a mysterious archivist, is dealing with (or preventing) the fallout of a sensitive drop-off.
The Petty officer shakily released a breath "U-uh in around thirty minutes, sir, Lieutenant Makko will be delivering it to your front door."
...Makko? Shit. I was consciously refraining from tensing up. Last I heard, he was assigned to help with some Celestial Dragon project, and I'm not liking where this is going. Last thing I want is for the one guy who put up with my CP-level surveillance to get in fuckin’ die.
"Alright officer, I'll be here. Tell whoever that I got your message and warn Makko that I'm going to have a lot of questions. Keep absolutely radio silent to anyone else until you get orders from your ships' Captain."
The schmuck scampered off down my isolated and empty corridor after confirming he understood, heading upstairs towards the main levels. Half an hour? No way could I get work done waiting for the information.
Remember that one exception I mentionned a while ago? Yeah that’s Makko. Incessantly nice, strangely happy-go-lucky and persistent for someone of his rank, and a newly appointed Vice-Admiral. Always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and getting put on shitty assignment after shitty assignment for it. I was actually fairly confident that I was the reason for this particular shitty assignment.
Thirty-seven minutes later, I heard heavy footsteps approaching. Makko came into view, dragging behind him a wheeled dolly overloaded with baskets and boxes. Each container was stuffed to the brim with crumbling scrolls, yellowed papers, and strange-looking doodads that rattled with every bump in the floor. The dolly groaned under the weight, and it looked like the wheels would break at any moment. He must have emptied an entire Celestial Dragon’s basement, bringing who knows what straight into my domain.
...Wow. Fuck. I really don't like the look of this.
Heaving myself off the wall and snuffing out my cigarette, I punched in the code for the first door and motioned for Makko to enter the small, secure hallway that led to my fuck-you-if-you-think-you're-getting-in-here door. As he pulled the dolly inside, I made sure my every movement stayed calm and casual. Drop-offs are always hard, but this one was going to be harder since I cared about Makko, as much as I try to deny it.
The heavy metal door slid shut with a solid thunk behind us, sealing us inside one of the most secure spaces in the entire World Government base. This room was suffocatingly secure. No signal could penetrate these walls, and most importantly, in my archives, no one could spy on me.
“You’re safe here,” I assured him, my voice low. “No one can listen in. Signals are completely cut off in this space. But before we talk, I need to pat you down. Standard procedure.” This was a lie, but I needed to make sure nothing and no one would be listening to the treasonous speech I was about to give him.
Makko nodded, looking a little uneasy but not surprised. I went through the motions, my hands methodically checking every pocket and fold of his uniform. No bugs, no hidden devices. Just the murderous potential of whatever secrets he had unknowingly—or accidentally—brought in with him.
Accepting that there was nothing, I stepped back and gestured for him to start talking all but bursting with anger. “Alright, what’s the deal? How did you end up with all of this, and why? And for fucks sake what could be important enough to do an in person report. Don’t think for a second that I believe that you don’t know what an in person report leads to “
Makko scratched the back of his neck, his eyes darting to the dolly loaded with boxes as if they might give him an escape. “It’s... complicated. Only petty officers and up in our squadron were allowed to pack the stuff. Hina’s fleet and mine. It was kept really quiet. Some Celestial dragon found this stuff in their basement and wanted it gone.”
My stomach tightened, I barely resisted visibly grimacing. "Go on."
“They’re old, Tobias. I looked at some documents when we were sorting them, and they were dated... well, one of them was from the year 602.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, jaw dropping. "602? That’s... that’s early Void Century." My heart pounded louder in my ears. My head shaking in disbelief and fear. This could not be happening. "It was just sitting in this Dragon’s basement all this time?"
Makko stared at me, not understanding the gravity of what he had just revealed. But I did. If these documents were from that time—if they were that old—then reporting this to Vegapunk, or worse, the Elders... his entire squadron would be wiped out. No one was supposed to see anything from that era except for me. Hell--if they found out I knew too much from the era then I'd be good as gone as well. This could blow the entire archives open as all the higher ups would get busy digging as much information out of this dolly as they can.
I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “Makko... do you understand what you’ve found?”
Makko’s eyes widened as my reaction hit him, and I could see him starting to grasp that something was at stake. I stepped closer, lowering my voice to a harsh whisper.
“You didn’t see anything. Do you hear me?” I grabbed his arm, I couldn't resist shaking him a bit to try to make sure he understood. He's always known me as a lifeless and stoic shell of a person, and I could tell the urgency and shrillness in my voice was jarring him. “You will tell everyone you saw nothing. No strange documents, no artifacts, nothing out of the ordinary. Every last one of you guys believe that all you saw was junk. Nothing notable, no dates. I’ll delay submitting these for as long as I can, but the most i can give you two days—36 hours if we're being realistic. After that, I have to submit something to Vegapunk, and once the Intelligence Branch catches wind of this—"
His face paled. “What do you mean?”
“They’ll bug everything,” I said, my voice dropping to a barely audible level. “Your room, your ship, the crew's quarters. They’ll listen in on every conversation, every whisper. They'll watch your every move and go through all your things. You won't be able to tell what they went through until they find something they don't like, and trust me, you won't like what they do when they find something they don't like. If there’s even a hint that word of this has spread, or that you know anything, Makko, they’ll kill all of you. They'll send out all the CP agents available to go after you. They'll infiltrate anywhere surviving crew is for years after just to make sure they didn't miss anyone.”
Makko’s breath hitched as he stared at me in disbelief. “But… but Hina—”
“Especially Hina,” I interrupted, locking eyes with him. “Anyone who packed these boxes—every petty officer, every officer up the chain, your cabin boys that didn't even go on the trip—everyone will be marked for death. You need to come up with a story, and fast. Make sure everyone sticks to it. Tell them this is above their heads. Something they can never speak about again.”
The weight of my words hung in the air like a noose tightening around his neck. I could see the fear rising in him, but I had to drive the point home. I couldn’t afford for him to misunderstand. This wasn’t something we could take lightly.
“Even if you do all that, Makko, I can’t guarantee any of you will live.” I exhaled shakily, running a hand through grown-out buzz cut and down my face. “This goes beyond anything the elders will let slide. Just pray they believe your story, and that no one cracks under the pressure. Fuckin hell, pray that they take it out on me and not you guys.”
Makko swallowed hard, his voice barely above a whisper. “What if someone cracks? What would they do to you? To us?”
I met his gaze, cold and unflinching. The tension was making me a little more irritable than usual.
“Then they’ll be silenced. And it won’t just be just the one that cracked. It’ll be you. It'll be their family, anyone they talk to, anyone they look at, anyone who uses the same rooms as them. It will definitely be me too if they find out I warned you. I just told you this, Makko. Every single word I'm saying right now needs to be memorized and burned into your brain, man. I'm not kidding when I'm saying this is life or death.”
Makko looked like he was about to collapse under the weight of it all. I almost felt bad for the guy, but we were in too deep now. There was no turning back.
“Get back to your fleet, get to Hina, and figure out your story. You’ve got 36 hours—no more. After that, you’re on your own.”
Pacing back and forth in the small space available I raked my hand through my hair, tugging the strands and forcing my brain to spin different stories and lies, anything to help his case.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do. You guys were distracted while packing, you know me already and I accidentally let slip that some things I sort through is garbage from dragons that they think is important just cause they're important, little things, scrap papers with scribbles, daily itineraries and the like. I let this slip when we were drinking together. You got assigned to this and told your group that it was nothing. You told them it was probably junk that would have to be filed for standard procedure's sake. You told them this because I gave you the impression that all assignments like this are just junk." I chanced a glance at Makko, I'm sure he's never seen me like this before, crazed-looking and rambling. He's only ever known me as tight-lipped, quiet, and awkward. It's not like I can talk about much that I do, nor do most people feel comfortable talking to the guy who is very obviously under heavy, top-brass surveillance. I suspect that their fleet had been sent on this trip because he was willing to hang out with me in the first place.
"I'll scuff up some of the papers, crumple them and you'll say that they looked so scattered that it couldn't be anything worth looking at. You guys stuffed everything into boxes while gossiping about whatever's happening on ship and you guys didn't see anything. You're scared cause after I closed the door, and after I checked you for bugs I bumped into a box and knocked over a box here." Hastily I knocked over a box precisely where he wouldn't be able to see it from around the hulking pile on the dolly.
"I looked surprised and absolutely freaked out, and started acting weird and shooing you away after putting them all away -"
I looked down, recreating the moment for him to recall and put into his story when I saw it—the Nerona family insignia from the late 7th century, the very same insignia of one of the 20 royal families that established the World Government. My pulse quickened again.
"... Fuck" I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to block out the panic. It was getting worse. I could hear Makko’s footsteps shifting awkwardly behind me, his breathing erratic. "Just like how I'm acting now. That's how I acted when I saw the papers and I rushed you to get out. You could see I was tense, and it shook you up to see me so different than my usual demeanor. That’s why you’ll say I acted strange, rushed you out. I was acting like it was something to hide. You play confused and scared, like you’re just as shocked as everyone else"
I finished putting the papers away as quickly as I could and stood before rethinking my trajectory and leaning heavily onto the handle of the dolly.
I dropped the papers back into the box and turned to face him again. “Makko, you need to become the best damn actor you’ve ever been. You need to get out of here and play this perfectly. There are visual and audio snails all over base, in places you don’t even know about. From the second you leave here, you’re going to head straight to Hina. You’ll act tense, confused, but not suspicious. You’ll look rattled, and then you’ll tell her everything I’ve told you—exactly as I’ve told you. She’ll need to know. "I dropped the papers back into the box and turned to face him again. “You will set a timer for 15 minutes and by then she needs to be on the same page as you, and you both need to set up the act and the story for the crew. If you think anyone might break, or anyone that caught a hint of what y'all were searching, then you need to pull them aside one by one in the most inconspicuous way possible and make sure they're on the same page as well. They need to understand the fact that this is so life-or-death, that their third cousins might not survive.”
Finally braving looking at Makko, he was paler and more shocked than I've ever seen him. His hands were shaking and he looked moments away from vomiting.
"Breathe Makko. You have to pull yourself together. Break down when it's just you and Hina, you have to do this."
He started to nod his head much to rapidly and jerkily, before steeling himself enough for it to be believable. "What about you though?"
Reaching for the panel to unlock the door, I hesitated before turning to Makko again - "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I hope you make it out alive. Be careful Makko. Good luck."
I took one last chance to really look at him, nearly twice my height, and definitely four times my weight, Makko was a huge, goofy, and out-of-place guy. He'd had a similar start to me, both of us being orphanage kids, somehow though, his sunshine-filled personality survived, while mine got snuffed out promptly. He had initially approached me wondering why a kid was being followed around by CP agents, only to find out I was a legal adult (if barely at 19). He saw how lonely I was and tried to be my friend. Look at the good that did him, eh? Where he got good role models, and good meals, I got the worst science department psychos as my mentors, and solitary confinement. God was I jealous of the guy, but I enjoyed living vicariously through him. I liked knowing there was a good guy, and I dearly hope he gets to stay alive after all this.
Turning back to the keypad to hide my teary eyes, I said my last goodbyes "Don't worry about me man, thanks for everything, I hope you know I really appreciated it all."
Time for the show to begin. As I typed in the code I started to babble and ramble at Makko, saying whatever came to mind about not seeing him for a while and probably not seeing him again for a while - the documents would take a while to get through - ushering him out and shoving him none-too-gently out the door before hurriedly shutting them behind him. With one final shove, I hurried him out the door and shut it behind him, sealing myself back in. I made sure my body language remained tense and frantic until the last second. Makko looked utterly confused, still shaken from my earlier behavior. He made multiple starts during my ramble, trying to cut in and get some more answers - undoubtedly to my final goodbyes. As he left, the visual snail outside my front door caught every detail of our interaction—just as planned.
Once the door clicked shut, I slumped to the floor, burying my head between my knees. My heart was pounding too fast. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars, trying to get a grip on myself.
Fuck. It’s basically my fault that Makko is about to be sentenced to death
Maybe I can make the fallout of this drop-off less deathly than the last ones if I do it just right. Maybe I can succeed in my half-baked plan that I’d said to Makko and make everyone believe that this was a false alarm triggered by the idiot who was insisting on becoming my friend despite any repercussions he’d faced. Maybe, just maybe, I could twist this in a way where he gets off only being removed from his post and having his tank stripped.
I’d tried similar things after the first drop off. Minimized the severity of the information provided in the second, and tried outright lying after the third. Neither of those had worked but this time, I absolutely had to make it work.
The hours blurred together as I sifted through the documents Makko had brought in, they were scattered throughout the main archives, I barely restrained myself from reading them right there in the entry hall. Luckily for me, many of them were actual trash just from the void century. Many had summaries I could read through to cut down the time it took to go through everything. The gadgets and artifacts weren’t anything too special either so I was feeling ever so tentatively hopeful about Makko’s chances of survival.
The ticking of the clock on the far wall growing louder in my mind with every passing minute. I was running out of time despite all the good luck and I hadn’t even started arranging the cover story properly. By 4pm tomorrow, I would have to submit a preliminary report—just the “brief overview” of the findings, they say—but that was would never appease them with these findings. As soon as the Science Department, Fleet Admiral, or -god forbid- the elders, saw even a fraction of this (which I would have to bring in with me as “evidence” to the overview), the Investigation Bureau would sweep in. Then there would be no escape.
I stared at the scattered papers and doodads in front of me, documents ranging from the year 400 to 800, each one giving more insight into the Void Century than any historian had ever dreamed. It was horrifying. Names long forgotten resurfaced in the text, events written in vivid detail, all pointing toward the same terrifying truth: the world government’s darkest secrets.
Joyboy. The appearance of the Devil Fruits. It was all here, written as if the ink was still wet.
Each page felt like a ticking bomb. Every word another nail in the coffin for anyone connected to this information. I couldn’t submit it—not to Vegapunk, not to the World Government. They would weaponize it. I had seen it too many times before. The smallest detail would be twisted, manipulated until it became something even more dangerous.
But I couldn’t lie either. I couldn’t say it was all junk. Someone—maybe one of the petty officers—had already noticed how old these documents were. If I dismissed them, it would set off alarms.
I ran a hand through my hair, eyes burning from hours of reading, hands shaking from lack of food, but I couldn’t stop. Not yet. I had to figure out a way to erase all this without tipping anyone off, but every plan I thought of was a risk. I felt like I was trapped, balancing on the edge of a knife, one wrong move and—
My gaze shifted to the worn leather bag sitting on the corner of my desk. I hadn’t paid it much attention when I first started sorting through the pile. It looked like a simple map bag, with a belted flap and a long, thin strap. But something about it caught my eye now.
I reached for it, unbuckling the flap. The inside seemed empty. I tilted it toward the light and saw... nothing.
That didn’t make sense. The bag was far too heavy for something empty. Maybe the bottom was metal?
"What the hell..." I muttered, flipping the bag upside down and shaking it slightly, tapping the - very metal - bottom. Nothing fell out, but the bag produced a conspicuously not-hollow sounding clang as I knocked on the bottom and sides.
A chill ran down my spine as I inspected it again. There was something off about this bag—something I couldn’t explain. A vague outline, like a shadow of something moving inside. Well, not moving exactly, but floating. Something was giving me the absolute heebie-jeebies and unfortunately it's my job to figure out what exactly that something was.
My hands shook as I pushed the bag open wider and reached inside. The moment my fingers brushed the inside, I realized there was something wrong. I couldn’t feel the sidewalls, my own fingers—nothing. It was as if the space inside was far bigger than it should have been.
Jerking my hand back, it took everything within me to not shriek and throw the bag away from me like some lice infested hat. I grabbed the nearest object I could find—a staff from the boxes Makko brought—and shoved it inside the bag. The staff slid in, disappearing further and further into the bag, even though it was only a foot long.
“What the...?”
Holding the bag under the light, I realized what was happening. The bag didn't just seem like it was bigger on the inside, it was bigger on the inside. I could see the staff disappearing too far into the bag, and when i maneuvered it just right, I could see the end of the staff looking like it was much too far away. The sides of the bag and the bottom—they weren’t real. They were an illusion. Just a disk at the top of the bag existed, everything else was just a metal tin to make it look like the bag was full.
My mind was racing. For some reason, this bag is scaring me almost as much as Makko's visit earlier.
Taking a deep breath, I reached in again, pushing my arm in all the way to my shoulder, praying I wouldn’t lose it. My fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. I grabbed it and yanked it out—a thin chain with a pendant.
My heart raced. What was this?
The thin chain felt cold, unnaturally so, as I yanked it out of the bag. My hand came free without incident—and thankfully still attached—but what followed nearly made me drop the chain altogether. A pendant emerged, old and tarnished, but the craftsmanship was undeniable. It looked ancient, covered in engravings I didn’t recognize, swirling patterns etched into the metal. Gears, buttons, springs, and stones pressed together in a clearly ingenious was I was simply not smart enough to grasp. I had no idea what it was, but there was a weight to it, like it held more significance than its appearance suggested. Pressing a button on the side, the face of the pendant popped open, revealing a strange watch-face, designed to look like the gas gauge you would see on motorized ships the navy had. Absolutely bizarre.
Breathing heavily, I set it aside for a moment, adrenaline still buzzing through my veins. What the hell was this bag? This doesn't feel like junk.
I glanced back into its seemingly empty depths. It made no sense. The interior I saw—what looked like the sides and bottom of the bag—was nothing but an illusion. The space inside stretched far beyond its physical size, breaking the very laws of reality. This had to be the work of a Devil Fruit, maybe a Heya-Heya user. It would explain the impossible dimensions... but how long had it been like this?
With shaking hands, I reached in again, pushing the boundaries of reason. I felt around, finding more objects that didn’t belong inside a simple map bag. I pulled out a bundle of thin leather journals, tied together with a frayed cord. The pages were brittle, their edges yellowed, and each cover had a distinct insignia I couldn’t immediately identify. Upon investigation, multiple of the journals were filled with distinct but similarly cramped writing. The journal with an insignia similar to the engraving on the pendant-thing caught my attention longer than the rest.
Chrono Chrono... Time... partner...
The words blurred in my mind as I skimmed the text. I flipped through the pages, my pulse quickening. These weren’t just journals. They were detailed notes on the creation of... something. Something incredible. Something dangerous.
I shoved the journals aside for now, feeling the need to reach further into the bag. My hand brushed against something smooth and cold again, but this time, when I pulled it out, it wasn’t a pendant or a chain—it was a small, palm-sized device, metallic, covered in dials and buttons. I stared at it, baffled.
“What the hell is this?”
The journals hadn’t gone into much detail yet, but I had a feeling this was one of the “gadgets” mentioned in the notes. Some kind of tool, maybe? Or was this the measuring device? I placed it down and went back into the bag, more carefully now, pulling out item after item. Another device followed, then what looked like a strange pair of goggles, some kind of worn mechanical tool, and more pieces that were completely beyond me.
But I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that these were all connected. Gadgets, technology... tools for something bigger.
Finally, I reached in again, my fingers brushing against something oddly textured. It felt like... fruit skin. My breath caught. No. Absolutely not, please please please don't let this be what I think it is. Pulling it free, I found myself holding two strange, twisting fruits. Devil Fruits. The sight of them made my stomach churn. One had a dark, almost inky black color with swirls of white patterns, and the other was a pale, almost translucent blue.
The Chrono Chrono Fruit. And... the Heya Heya Fruit.
I dropped them onto the table, my mind racing. These had been lost since the Void Century. No wonder there hadn’t been any fruit users with these powers in over 800 years—these fruits had been locked away, waiting. Waiting on bated breath, hoping no one would find them.
I had to sit down, my legs shaking. The implications were overwhelming. Time travel wasn’t just a theory—it was real. There was a way to move through time, and these items—these fruits, these gadgets—they were the key. The journals were a blueprint, a guide on how to use the time-traveling technology created by someone who wielded the Chrono Chrono powers. And the Heya Heya Fruit user... they’d partnered to create this bag, an endless room that could store anything, forever.
I flipped through the journals, scanning the dense notes for some kind of explanation. The information was all here, but the more I read, the more the pieces slowly started to come together.
The Chrono Chrono Fruit… it wasn’t just about stopping or speeding up time like the stories I’d heard of from other Devil Fruits. It was something far more dangerous. According to these notes, the user of the Chrono Chrono Fruit had the ability to manipulate timelines, jump between alternate timelines they had created, move back in one timeline and then go forward and choosing which side of the split to follow. They could move backward and forward through time, up to ten years, and bring certain things or people with them. It wasn’t permanent, though; the user couldn’t go back further than a decade, and they couldn’t leap forward, only back. As they lived through the progression of time, they somehow had the ability to chose which branch of the timeline to follow through their actions, or could choose to sidestep onto an alternate timeline at some unspecified cost.
The Heya Heya Fruit created spaces—rooms within objects like this bag, turning them into massive storage units. Together, these powers created the perfect hiding place for these gadgets, these fruits, this knowledge.
I paused, staring at the open pages. The fruits themselves were here—right in front of me. But I wasn’t going to eat them. No. That kind of power… it would only lead to disaster. The last thing I needed was to become a Devil Fruit user, chained to the sea for the rest of my life.
But the gadgets—they were different.
Whoever had created these devices had done it in partnership with the fruits’ powers. The Chrono Chrono user, in particular, had devised a way to channel their abilities through these tools. From what I could gather, these gadgets allowed anyone to travel back in time, as long as they were within the ten-year limit. The catch? It was forever and only once. Where the Chrono user has the ability to differentiate timelines being created, and make sure that he doesn't create tremendous changes he doesn't want - anyone using the device would not. The device would let you step back through the years, but you’d be trapped there as you accidentally change the world so much that where you came from doesn't exist anymore. Your best bet if you wanted to make sure the new timeline wasn't so bad would be the pendant I found first. It could tell you how much the current timeline was diverging from the previously measured timeline. Right now - whichever timeline was previously measured was so different from the reality I was living in that the dial was pointing past the "Polar Opposite" option.
I held the strange metallic pendant and the palm-sized time jumper in my hand, their dials and buttons unfamiliar yet strangely compelling. It wasn’t until now that I realized the potential here. These weren’t just relics of some forgotten power—they were a way out. I could clearly see on the face, the spinners you could use to set up the day, the year, the time.
At first, the thought was ridiculous. Time travel? Me? What would I even do with it? Why am I even considering this? Why am I looking at this thinking I'm going to use it? I wasn’t interested in messing with the past, or changing events. That wasn’t my goal. But as I stared down at the scattered documents—the records of the Void Century, the knowledge that could upend the entire world—I started to think differently. Maybe I could use this. Not to change history, but to erase it.
The government couldn’t know these documents existed. Not even their ashes could remain. If I destroyed them here, someone would find out, even if I buried them deep. There would be whispers, questions, traces. But if I took the worst of these documents with me—back in time—and destroyed them there, in another era, far removed from this place, no one would ever know they’d existed. They wouldn’t have the chance to abuse the knowledge. The government wouldn’t even know what they’d lost. There would be less blood on my hands too.
I gripped the edge of the table, feeling a surge of energy course through me. It was risky—insanely risky—but it could work. I could take the most dangerous documents, the artifacts that would reveal too much, and erase them from existence in a time and place where no one would ever look. No one would connect the dots.
And I could do it without anyone knowing. I could go back, make a spectacle of it, divert attention away from Makko, and my first and only friend could be almost guaranteed to live.
I flipped open the journal again, searching for more information about the gadgets. The notes were meticulous, detailing how to activate the device, how far I could go into the past before things got unstable. How going back creates essentially a new timeline - a new world, and our old one goes on. The creators of this technology had been thorough, but they’d also been desperate. They’d hidden these gadgets and fruits for a reason. I needed to figure out why they had made them in the first place, and why these powers had been locked away for so long.
But I had a feeling the answer was already in my hands. These gadgets were too powerful, too dangerous for anyone to use freely. Even now, I could feel the weight of their potential abuse pressing down on me. Still, if it meant wiping out the documents that could kill Makko, it was worth the risk. Hell, I could even mess with the people that messed me up like this while I'm at it.
I’d have to move fast. Time was running out.
For the first time in my life, I had the power to quit my job.