The One

With my anxiety at the max, all I could think of was telling Shanks that "I got better, and feel amazing", and that "nothing was wrong". But I couldn't just do that, could I?

'What if he does something to me, like knock me out? What do I do then, just wait until he stops knocking me out? He could ask Roger to take care of me if he figures out what happened! I CAN'T fight against Roger, let alone fight at all! Wait. ROGER! IF HE FINDS OUT I ESSENTIALLY KILLED BUGGY AND TOOK HIS BODY, HE COULD LITERALLY TAKE ME OUT IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, I SHOULDN'T BE AFRAID OF SHANKS! I SHOULD BE AFRAID OF ROGER!'

While I was overthinking, me and Shanks acted like statues, unmoving and staring at each other. While Shanks was simple with a slight head tilt and arms crossed, I was sweating bullets and freaking out, still in a pose that looked like I had been caught yelling at God by a very devoted preist who thinks to never yell at God.

'WAIT A MINUTE! I'm not afraid of Shanks, I'm afraid of Roger! I should be fine saying something to him, right? NO! HE COULD PROBABLY KILL ME IF HE WANTED TO, SERIOUSLY, EVEN BEING YOUNG HERE CAN MAKE PEOPLE UNDERESTIMATE YOU! FOR ALL I KNOW, HE COULD HAVE THE STRENGTH TO POP MY HEAD LIKE A BALLOON!'

Shanks shifted in his chair, moving slightly.

My body winced on instinct. 'OH GOD! HES GONNA KILL ME! PLEASE DON'T, I HAVE TOO MANY THINGS TO DO IN MY SECOND LIFE TO MAKE UP FOR MY FIRST! PLEASE DONT END IT HERE!'

"Buggy, did you lose your ability to speak? Is that something that can happen with that disease? You get it and when you don't have it anymore, you can't talk?" He tilted his head even more, looking at the bed with half closed eyes and thinking out loud. I swear I saw a question mark pop out of his head.

"WHAAAAT!? THATS WHAT YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT? I THOUGHT YOU WERE PLOTTING MY DEATH OR SOMETHING! GIVE ME A WARNING ABOUT THESE THINGS!"

"Yeah? Why would I 'plot your death' anyways?"

"Um... I.. don't know. Why would ANYONE plot ANYONE'S death?"

"Ah."

"DON'T GIVE ME 'Ah.'! You know how much I freaked out over that!? A LOT! DON'T JUST GIVE ME 'Ah.' AS AN ANSWER, IT MAKES YOU SOUND STUPID FOR NOT KNOWING WHAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT!"

I was obviously fuming from the sheer stupidity of the conversation, but I had to calm down, stupidity isn't exactly a reason to get angry, but I did anyways. I realized how angry I was getting due to the heat coming from my face, and started to play around with my fingers, it was something I did in my last life to calm down, so it should work here, right?

I took in a giant breath of air, blinked, sat down cross-legged, and sighed. "Shanks, you really are stupid. But I can't do anything about that. Sorry about freaking out at you, even if you deserved it a little."

I looked directly at Shanks for a second, and the look on his face was as if he was looking at someone who just killed his mom or something. His mouth was wide open, his eyes were surprisingly open bigger than I thought they could, and it looked like he stopped breathing for a second.

"D-d-did you just... apologize? Normally? Like, without any.. force needed? Are you the same Buggy from before?" I could hear the sheer amount of surprise in his voice.

'Not another question regarding myself, I gotta come up with something on the fly for this, otherwise my whole life may end soon.'

"Well... being sick does things sometimes, I might've been close to death with that sickness. I realized we were near the end of the world, and so... *sigh*... I figured that I should probably reconsider everything. You know, near death can cause a lot to happen."

Shanks still had the same face as earlier. 'Is he breathing?'

"...Why did I want to hunt for treasure? In fact, I don't remember the reason. Why was I so fixated on it? I still don't have an answer."

'What DO I want to do though, if I give up treasure hunting, what would I do then? I could give some stupid esoteric answer to that question, but what is my goal? I never totally had one in my last life, because most of my ideas wouldn't work in that world. So what should I do now?'

Shanks finally shook out of his stupor as it seemed he had taken in everything I just said. "A-are you giving up treasure hunting? W-wasn't your dream to find treasure, Buggy?"

'Was I actually? Wait, can't I just use the "I'm going to flip the world on its head" idea? Wouldn't my ideas be able to do exactly that? I watched and read enough One Piece and One Piece fanfictions to have knowledge of the world and how to break it, maybe I should do that. Screw it. I'm gonna say it.'

I smirked, it felt like an evil smirk. "You know what Shanks? No, I'm not giving up treasure hunting. But I AM adding more to it. There are many treasures around the world that haven't been discovered yet. There are also a lot of things that haven't been made yet either."

I got up, walked over to the window I realized was there, opened the windows, and turned to Shanks, staring him in the eyes.

"I want to make things the world has never seen. No, I WILL make things the world has never seen. I WILL find and uncover things, treasures that have never been found. The One Piece? Nah, that's not enough for me. You think such a small treasure will satisfy me? I WILL amass a treasure bigger and greater than the ONE PIECE ITSELF. I WIL MAKE-"

'Oh crap. I didn't come up with a name for it. What do I name it? I'm already amazed at what I came up with, but I couldn't come up with a simple name? Wait, a simple name. I came up with just the thing.'

"Buggy, are yo-"

"NO! I WILL AMASS A GREATER TREASURE THAN THE ONE PIECE, AND IT WILL BE CALLED... THE ONE!" I swore that in my soul that day. I threw my arms in the air and laughed like a maniac to the sky, and I think I saw Shanks both surprised and happy at the same time.

An androgynous figure in a white void smiled. "So, you have already come up with a goal, my child? I knew this was the world I should put you in."

I finally settled down from the high I got from my goal and was sitting on the window ledge, I felt some of the first winds of this new world on my back, and was just feeling it. Shanks had left to go get food, saying something like 'We should celebrate your new goal!'.

'Now, to make "The One", I need to be one of the strongest people in the world, obviously I need to protect it, and I need some people too, partly to work on "The One", but also so I'm not lonely, otherwise being stronger than Roger will be hard. I guess I should call him captain rather than Roger, it would be better to do.'

I looked at my hand, and disconnected it easier than last time, because I remembered the feeling.

'I completely forgot all the knowledge I had of this world I'm in for a little bit, guess I was too stuck on everything else to remember much. Wait, can't I technically eat multiple devil fruits? I remember coming up with a theory that you could as many devil fruits as you wanted as long as you had multiple hearts. I don't have multiple Devil Fruits on me, much less basically anything, just clothes and some money left by Roger to stay here until they get back from Laugh Tale. So that test won't happen for a while, not until I start "The One" anyways. I can also use my advanced knowledge of basically everything from Haki to building techniques to materials and even scientific concepts that worked on my last world to make my goal happen. Where should I start, probably with strengthening myself, otherwise I can't even start to survive here. I also need to make money, like, a lot. I could rob other pirates and become a bounty hunter, I remember reading multiple people who wrote a story starting with that, it would probably be a good start too. But I should train first.'

I stared at the setting sun, since it took a while for all of that to happen. I spoke out loud, for no one to hear "Get ready world, you won't be when I appear." And smiled.