450 Chapter 450 | Illusion

450 | Illusion

"This is wonderful!" Brook cried, tears impossibly leaking from his eye sockets as he continued to eat along with others, "I haven't had this much food in decades!"

"Oh, have some Takoyaki, Brook-san," Hatchan said, bringing along some steaming takoyaki.

"Eat all you want!" Luffy stated as he ate, "We have plenty!"

"Luffy, really should be careful on who he brings into the ship," Nami said quitely, while Vivi laughed. 

"You know I missed this kind of stuff…" the princess said, enjoying the wild nature of the journey. 

"I'm pretty sure you were missing more than the wild journey, princess," Nami said, rolling her eyes playfully as the princess blushed. 

"Oh, this is absolutely delightful!" Brook shouted, crying tears of joy. "I haven't eaten anything like this in decades… but then again, I rarely did eat… Yohohoho…"

Luffy gave a sad smile, the same was for other members of the crew, especially Sanji.

"So Mr. Brook," Robin prodded. "Have you always been a skeleton, or...?" He trailed off.

"Oh, no," Brook answered, swallowing (somehow) his food, "I'm actually not a skeleton…"

"What?!" Luffy looked at him with surprise. 

"Really? Now you are surprised?" Nami asked with a bit of irritation.

"This appearance is but an illusion…" Brook said, "Yohohoho~ how else do you think a skeleton like me can eat? You guys are weird…" 

"Again, you aren't one to judge that…"

"So you ate a devil fruit?" Kuina asked. 

"Yup, when I was young, I ate the Mist-Mist Fruit. And it lets me conjure up illusions from the mist…"

"That's quite the ability? But why do you dress up a skeleton?" Zoro asked, "Maybe to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies?"

"Eh… no. Back in my previous crew. We all liked to dress up and perform… and well, my powers were kind of unique in the sense that I could dress up as a skeleton and also help others dress up as well. And so I did. I really liked to scare people off with some practical jokes, if you know what I mean… Yohohoho…" Brook said with a fond tone, remembering his past. 

"Oh… your crew? If you don't mind me asking. What happened to them?" Coby asked. 

"Something terrible…" Brook said in a sad tone, "My crew was stuck by a very rare disease… even our doctor couldn't find a cure for it. We didn't have any chance of survival and so we accepted out fate… one by one all of them fell. Except me… For some reason, I survived, but I was alone… and have been since, till now."

"Wait? You said before that you didn't eat… so how did you survive?" Sanji asked.

"Oh, that… well, when I ate the mist mist fruit, I also gained the ability to survive off eating mist. Even though it wasn't anything delightful, I did eat raw fish from time to time… it was hard to survive." The musician said. "And even when I didn't eat for days, somehow I was able to survive… my powers are weird."

"So you are saying that your 'skeleton' is just an illusion?" Luffy asked a bit confused, while Brook nodded, "But wait… if it's an illusion. Then why don't you remove it?" 

"I… uh, kind of forgot?" Brook said, rubbing the back of his head, "It's been so long since I have to take off my illusion… so…"

Right then Luffy came over and touched Brook's shoulder, while his other hand was touching his Nameless Naginata. One of the perks of energy-energy fruit was being able to nullify devil fruit abilities, somewhat similar to the yami-yami no mi. So when Luffy touched Brook, the illusion started to lift off from Brook's body as the tall man felt weak. 

What the straw hats saw, surprised them, but especially Luffy. He expected changes, but not this little.

"You have cracks on your skin?" Law asked with a raised eyebrow. Brook did in fact have some, they stretched across his dried skin, making him look quite unhealthy. As a doctor it really intrigued him, making him wonder if his condition was similar to amber lead syndrome.

"And young… well, not young per say, but you don't even look over forty?" Kuina said.

Brook blinked, "What? Really?" 

Before he could say anything Luffy brought a mirror from somewhere showing his face, making the musician gasp. Brook looked similar to when he was with his crew. Relatively around his late thirties with dark skin complexion. But what mostly stood out was the small blue cracks that appeared around his skin, some spots even looked like they suffered from frost bite.

"I… I can see myself again? But why do I have cracks on my skin?" Brook asked, holding the small mirror as he touched his skin, he could always touch his skin even through his illusions, but seeing it again was something else.

Luffy frowned, "Hey, Brook. What age were you when you lost your crewmates?"

Brook blinked, looking at the young pirate captain, "It was decades ago… if I'm not wrong I might be around 38 or 37 then? I… should be well over eighty now…" 

"Wow, talk about being a grandpa…" Zoro said, gaining a pout from Brook.

"For some reason, it seems to me I have stopped aging… But then again I'm all bones… wait? I'm not? It's so confusing… Yohohoho…"

Luffy removed his hand from Brook's shoulder as the man again automatically turned (illusioned?) to his skeleton form. 

"What? No?!" Brook said, a bit dramatically, before thanking Luffy, "Thank you for allowing me to see myself again."

"Shishishi… no problem, we are crewmates after all."

Brook smiled, it would have been good if he was able to turn back on my own. But for now this would do.

"Um… Brook…" Chopper said, bringing the now skeleton's attention to him, "What kind of disease did you and you crewmates get… if you don't mind me asking?" 

The skeleton's shoulder dropped, "It was a common cold at first if I remember correctly… but then all of us started to get frost on our skin… oh I remember now… some of us did get cracks on our skin. It's also around the time when I lost control over my powers… wait? Don't tell me, it's my powers that brought this disease?!"

"Not likely," Law said, he was now wearing glasses and on his hand was the devil fruit enclycopidea. "From what was noted from the mist-mist fruit, it doesn't have this kind of ability… it would have been different if you ate the ice-ice fruit…"

"Speaking of which… you do look similar to Aokiji?" Gin said, brining all of their attention to him. "What… he does look like the ice admiral?"

"Eh? Who's that?" Brook asked scratching his head, "I'm sorry, but I'm not that aware of the outside news. But he does sound like a strong young man…"

The crew shrugged explaining a bit about the outside world, Flordia triangle was quite isolated. Even the news birds didn't come here, so it was no wonder why Brook wasn't up to date with the news. 

But while the crew was busy with exploring about Brook's mysterious disease, no one saw how pale Robin had gotten after seeing Brook. Especially noting the similarities between him and Kuzan. 

"I think I might know what that disease is…" Kuina said bringing all of their attention, "It's an old legend that I had heard from Whitey Bay… and there might also be some relation to it, with my virf powers…" 

"Really?" Luffy asked, "Anything we should worry about?" 

"I don't know, much." Kuina admitted, "But according to legends sailors would sometimes catch a cold that would turn their bodies to ice… only staying near fire might contain it… but that wasn't a solution as all of them would die eventually. Only virf users are supposed to be immune to it…"

"Wait before that…" Law intervened, "We should do some check up on Brook, even though its not likely… there might be some chance that this virus might be contagious… so we should be careful." 

The others nodded. But right then someone suddenly appeared, almost like a glitch. And it was a young woman with bright pink hair and an umbrella, who was floating in air.

"Eh? Who are you guys?"

"We should be asking you that…" the crew replied, tensed by the sudden appearance.

"Oi, what are you doing on our ship, lady?" Zoro asked hands already on his sword. 

"Perona-chan… I thought you left to get out of Florian Triangle?" Brook asked, "Oh, don't mind her… she's a bit out about. But Perona here is good… she is a friend. Oh and Perona, meet my new friends…" The skeleton musician said trying to defuse the situation. 

"Wait? You said something about leaving Florian Triangle?" Luffy asked.

"Oh, that… I kind of lost my way… so I teleported back to the nearest landmark," Perona said waving him off. Vivi who was hearing that was confused as her powers worked somewhat similar. 

"No, that's not… the issue," Luffy said, "I know about you." He said walking towards her with a frown, "You are one of Gecko Moria's crewmate, aren't you?"

"I… uh, who are you mister?" Perona said as she backed off, "If you are one of Dr Hogback's lackeys…" 

"I'm Luffy… one of the warlords. I came here to investigate Gecko Moria." Luffy said cutting her off, before she misunderstood something, "So what can you tell about him…"

Perona's eyes widened in some form of hope, "Wait?! Really?! Then you have to help Moria…" And with that she started explaining what had happened.

— — — 

A/N: In some sense, I like to make characters overpowered on both sides. And the idea of giving Brook illusion powers came to me when I saw the episode in wano, where Robin and Brook faced the illusions. 

So, I started thinking, what kind of changes I could make. And one thing led to another, I was going to chance Gecko Moria from being the villain to Hogback, beforehand. And if I was going to set the theme for aliens and parasites, so why not illusions? 

Also, I did leave a few clues on things. Which might get wild in this arc. This arc, and the next one, I will try to focus on Luffy's growth a bit. His other fruit power, haki and other stuff. 

-----

Shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, goes by the username (FallenCrown) on there. 

Support me if you want, but don't feel pressured, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.

Read my other fics if you have the time. If you want to have a chat with me, hit me up on discord.

discord.gg/Gnxnuw56ks

Gnxnuw56ks