How many was that? He had run out of space on the walls of his 10 by 10 foot cell and had to start marking his old books to keep track of the days. So far, it had been 4,744 days since he woke up in this cell. Well, he had gone to sleep and woken up that many times. There were 365 days in a year, right? That made 12 years, give or take 3 days for leap years. He hoped to God that he hadn't just been napping constantly... Pfft. There was no God to hope to. Certainly not one that would allow what had happened to him to transpire.

Back before he was stuck in this cell, 13 years ago when Giru was 8 years old. Mom had been crying all day. Dad was angry, and Giru had been told not to come out of his room. He could still hear them from the top of the stairs. "HOW DID A LOW CLASS GET THE BEST LAWYER IN NORTH BLUE!?" Mom yelled through her tears.
Dad sounded angrier than before, "I don't know. But this is serious. With all we did to that lowlife scum, he could sue for our entire fortune, and then some."

He knew suing was the greatest weapon in the world. Or at least, he thought he knew. Low class people shouldn't have lawyers, though. Mom and Dad always said they only spend money on prostitutes and drugs. "GIRU!" called dad. He had never heard his dad yell like that. He waited a moment to make it seem like he hadn't been at the top of the stairs, then rushed down.
"Yes sir?" He asked, hands behind his back.
"Put your best suit on. We're going to court". Giru frowned. That suit was itchy, and he couldn't eat anything until he got out of it.

The court was always so quiet. Giru could never do anything but sit quietly when he was there. He could imagine things, but that usually led to him moving and humming, so he tried not to do that. The low class man said that mom and dad had did a lot of mean things to him. Giru didn't know what 'extreme sadism' meant, but it sounded mean. Nothing with whips laced with glass could be nice.
"They offered me a week's stay, free of charge with no strings attached. But when I got there, they threw me into a basement and treated me like an animal!"
The man pulled up his shirt to show his scars. Everyone said he was lying, and that he did that to himself. But the man pulled out video den den mushi, and Mom fainted. It was the one mom never let Giru play with, and Giru knew it because it had the same crack on the shell that mom's had. The video showed mom and dad doing really weird things to the man... so weird that Giru had to look away.

The low class man won the trial. He got so much money that Giru figured he could run his own prostitute and drug market now. Mom and Dad didn't seem very happy for the man, though. When the three of them got home, Giru had to go upstairs and bag up all his toys, and the suit he was wearing. All his good suits, actually. Anything that was fancy, plus his toys, he had to bag up neatly. All of it was gone so fast that within the next two days, the house looked deserted. All except for that one fruit that Dad wouldn't even let Mom touch. It used to be up on a gold pedestal. Now it was in a plastic fruit bowl.

"We still owe him another three million!" Mom cried out, reaching to clutch at her chest, forgetting that she had sold her pearls the day before.
"Wait," Dad said, "The Celestial Dragons."
Giru had been told to never talk to, look at, or deny a Celestial Dragon. He knew they had funny bubbles on their heads, but he didn't know what they looked like.
"Impossible. We're mere humans. We can't ask them for money!"
Were they actually dragons? Is that why they didn't like humans? Giru stood there in his pajamas, looking back and forth between parents as they talked.
"No. Not that... The dragons... pay a lot of money for slaves."
"You're going to-"
"For the love of God, no! But... there is one of us who has yet to contribute to the money..."
"... No. He's just a child, they'll have no interest in him."
"Although..."

Dad looked at the plastic fruit bowl.
Mom looked at the plastic fruit bowl.
Mom and Dad looked at each other.
Mom and Dad looked at Giru.

It tasted awful. It felt squishy and almost alive, like wriggly worms or octopus tentacles. Giru could almost swear he heard a voice laugh. It was a male, but it wasn't his father. It said "thirteen" very softly. Right after he finished it, Giru's back started to hurt a lot. He passed out.
He was dizzy. He couldn't move or talk. But he could hear. A very weird voice, sounding like it belonged to a fat guy, said "Yes, yes! A fine slave, he will make! What devil fruit did you say he has?"
"Akuma Akuma, your greatness!" His father replied happily.
"Akooooomaaaaa... yes, yes! We could just take him, but since you humans decided to bring him straight to us instead of go through slave auctions, we'll give you... oh, I don't know. Let's just call it 500 million."
Was father jumping? Was he... smiling?

Had Giru ever seen him smile?

Then he woke up here. A tiny, dingy white cell with a metal door, a light bulb, and a bed, wearing a black jumpsuit that, no matter how much he pulled, didn't come off. He hadn't left since. He never needed to use the bathroom. Never felt hungry. Never got sick.

Never heard from the Celestial Dragons.

Maybe that was his devil fruit power? Never needing the bathroom or food? The celestial dragons might have known that and just not fed him or gave him a toilet. He knew they didn't forget about him, almost every time he woke up, there was a new book. Some on battle tactics. Psychology. The human body. Physics. It was like someone was preparing him for something. To be a strategist. It was very odd to have a slave do such a thing. He had read every book he was given hundreds of times over. He knew the information like the roof of this cell. There was just so much nothing. If his math was right, tomorrow would be his 21st birthday. How much longer would he be in here? He couldn't starve to death or kill himself- he'd tried. As his eyes drifted closed, Giru Donogaka hoped they would not open again.

Sleep is never conscious. It's like as soon as you fall asleep, you wake up. Giru's eyes drifted open.

And standing there in front of him was a demon.

At least, he thought it was a demon. It had grey skin and white hair. Its forehead bore golden horns. Its eyes were black where they were supposed to be white, and the irises were red. Its face was shaped a little like his mother's, but a whole lot like his dad's. It wore a black and red vertical striped muscle shirt- or maybe that was just its skin- and black baggy pants, held up with a yellow sash. There were three golden spikes half wrapped around its torso, and bandages wrapped around its forearms. It wore black tabi. Worst of all, it had six black, red spiked tentacles coming out of its back, and a long grey tail with golden spikes and black and red stripes at the spikes.
Giru sat up, extending his neck. "Please, kill me quick. If you wanna do it slow, please, please don't take too long."
The demon laughed. It had a wide, unstable smile. "No, no, no. I'm not here to kill ya, bucko."
Weird. It sounded a little like dad too. Just distorted and demonic.

"I'm here to let you go."

Giru's head shot up. That had to be a trick. 13 years in this tiny cell, and now he's being set free? "Yeah, right." Giru responded. He then froze. His own voice sounded like the demon, just undistorted. Had he stopped talking for a few years?
"Yeah, it is right. I'm letting you out. Your sentence is up. 13 years."
Thirteen? That was...
"You know, 13? The unlucky number? Devil's number? Akuma fruit? I did give you books, right?"
Giru stood up, not sure whether to be angry or confused.

Angry sounded good.

"Don't play with me like this." He said threateningly, even though he knew he was no match for the demon. "I've been sitting here for 13 damn years, and now all of a sudden I'm free? Are you a celestial dragon?"
The demon folded its arms, shaking its head. "Wrong again. I'm YOU."
Before Giru could retort, it spoke again.
"This was consequence for eating the most cursed fruit. The fruit of the demon. 13 years locked inside your own mind. I read a book, it appears in here. We two are now one."

The demon made a face. It didn't like the sound of that. "Us two... are now one? We one are two? Eh, I'll figure it out." It levitated, turning clockwise circles in the air.
Giru was now too confused to be angry. "So then... I get to go?"
The demon, or, Giru's other half, kept on spinning. "In a manner of speaking. You were still sold to the Celestial Dragons. Once you're out of our head, you can choose to either serve them or escape. I've given you everything you need- Oop. Someone's coming."
The demon pulled a book out of thin air and tossed it to Giru. "Read that! Once you're done, go to sleep. Then you can make your choice!"
Then Giru was alone again. He sat on the bed, staring blankly at the book.

"The Tale of Straw Hat Luffy"