Crossing Lives

By Silver Child of the Sea

Introduction

Something happened.

Something He didn't like.

Seven of the strands of light he had been watching so carefully had just curled into darkness.

It was rather pathetic, really. All it took to kill them was a mere 60 million tons of water moving at 500 miles per hour.

The Devil Fruit users had been the first to go. The sea had dragged them down, forcing the precious air from their throats and burning their eyes, making it impossible to see the surface that was so far away. Being hammers was their ultimate weakness. It seems fitting that it was their death.

The rest of the crew had struggled a great deal. It wasn't really the sea that had killed them, but the debris swirling so violently in the water. No one -not even the impossibly strong - can swim with a broken neck, after all.

He sighed. It would have been so easy to let them rest in peace, but they where to important for that. Their actions lead to so many different events and affected so many different timelines it was dumbfounding, even for Him.

So before death could get a grip on their souls, He gently took them in his arms.

Death was surprised. He rarely interfered to this degree.

"Are they that important?" Death asked.

He simply nodded.

"You can't bring them back to life now. Their souls have decayed too much," Death stated.

Souls without a body are like brains outside a skull. Fragile and quick drying. They had already decayed to such a degree that it would be impossible for them to go back.

But He already had a plan.

He simply carried the sevens spirits across the trillions upon trillions of lights, all criss-crossing and interacting together but separately, to a different section of strands; to a different timeline and universe. Slowly and carefully, He placed the souls into dim, newborn lights, selecting the ones that where most likely to meet when they needed to.

Feeling satisfied, He observed his work.

There was the captain, forever childish, optimistic, and looking.

There was the swordsman who had never touched blades.

There was the navigator, always disgusted by her urge to steal.

There was the marksman, who still told lies dressed as stories.

There was the cook, denied his passion by others.

There was the doctor, a reindeer whose thoughts where to human.

And finally, there was the historian, searching for a history that wasn't there.

Their lives would be difficult, and they would feel forever out of place, but their souls where intact. They would be able to return and set things right, when the time came.

"What of their memories?" Death asked. "Do you not need to restore them?"

He shook his head, and spoke for the first time in millennia.

"Their memories where so strongly imprinted in their souls, there was no need. They will recall themselves when the time is right.

Death nodded and left. He still had a job to do after all.

End Chapter 1