One Piece : New Life
is a One Piece For Want Of A Nail AU story created by Ancient Fun.
Luffy dies at the age of 15 before he even starts his journey but due to an astronomical chance, a higher dimensional being and an individual from another universe, he gets a new life equipped with the memories of a very different version of himself.
Follow a self-aware Luffy as he goes through his life and journey in his dark messed-up world with new knowledge as he tries his hardest to make everyone around him as joyful as possible, while at the same time, drive them crazy with his seemingly prophetic abilities.
This fic is available on both Fanfiction.Net and Archive of Our Own
Tropes contained in One Piece: New Life:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Reiju, the Vinsmoke family, Vivi, the Amazonians, Hancock and her sisters, Smoker, Tashigi, Sengoku, Tsuru, and Jinbe all make an appearance in New Life several arcs before they do in canon.
- Adaptation Personality Change: This happens to Luffy after merging souls with Leo and gaining his memories plus having foreknowledge of the canon story. Not only is he far more intelligent than his canon counterpart, but he's also become a lot more flirty when it comes to talking with women. Although, to be fair, this is just out of amusement for him, making Luffy more of The Gadfly rather than The Tease.
- Adaptational Sexuality:
- In the canon story, outside of 2 gag scenes involving Nami, Luffy has very little to no attraction to any character, leading to the popular belief within the fandom that he's possibly even asexual. In New Life, Luffy is very unquestionably straight, having a childhood crush on Uta, getting an erection from Reiju, and openly flirting with multiple women within the story (albeit, this is only out of amusement and to get a reaction out of them).
- Moodie is changed from being undisclosed but (presumably) straight to a lesbian. Her going on a date with Fullbody was only to attempt to obtain dirt on corrupt marines from him.
- Ascended Extra:
- Moodie goes from being a one-off character meant to introduce Sanji's casanova trait that never makes another appearance in the canon story to being a recurring character currently working for the Revolutionaries.
- Silk (who in New Life is given the appearance of the battle axe Prototype Nami design) and Ann, two characters who were early draft versions of Nami from the two versions of early One Piece one-shots, "Romance Dawn," are introduced into the New Life verse and are also promoted to side characters as friends, with the latter also being part of a rival pirate crew for Luffy.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Despite Luffy's best efforts, Hancock still falls head-over-heels in love with him like in canon. Not that Luffy is aware of that yet as this happens after he already leaves.
- In the Little Garden arc, despite Luffy's best efforts, Nami still manages to get infected with Kestia. Even worse, not only is she still sick like in the canon timeline, but now Vivi and even Luffy himself have fallen ill as well.
- Merger of Souls: One of the main premises of New Life. This happens between Luffy and Leo for the former to be revived from the dead.
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Just like in the canon story, Luffy still has no romantic interest in Hancock, to the point he even tries his hardest to make sure she doesn't end up falling in love with him like she does in the canon timeline. (Despite his efforts though, she still does anyway, though he's not aware of it at the moment).
- Original Character: Multiple within One Piece: New Life,
- Leo, a person who has the same soul as Luffy from a different universe who died in a motorcycle accident. Currently hosting the Dead Club along with his girlfriend, Serena.
- Ghost, The higher dimensional being.
- Lizz, the sister to Ann and the captain of her crew.
- Serena, Leo's dead girlfriend. Co-host of the Dead Club.
- Running Gag: Outside of the already canon gags like Zoro getting lost, Nami's greediness, etc. In New Life, there is a constant running joke of Luffy (and later Zoro as well) taking a shot everytime Nami screams "It's your fault!"
- Ship Tease: The author is seemingly pretty set on there being no explicit romance within this fic. At most, this is all you'll get if you're looking for that.
- Potentially between Luffy and Nami. Quite a few characters remark how they often bicker, banter & argue with each other akin to that of a "married couple" a few times within the story, Luffy admitting that he'd be open to the idea of getting into a relationship with her sometime in the far future (as implied while talking to Genzo and Bellemere's spirit in the Arlong Park chapter), and having their fair share of intimate moments throughout several arcs in the story so far. On top of the numerous sexual innuendos they have between each other throughout several chapters.
- Usopp and Kaya in "Syrup Village: The Sniper, The Ship, and The Dead Club." Especially thanks to Luffy's smart mouth and teasing nature, they become awkward blushing messes towards each other afterwards for the rest of the arc. This is only Ship Tease since neither go through a relationship upgrade before Usopp leaves.
- In the Whiskey Peak chapter, Usopp even makes a snow woman that looks like an almost exact replica of Kaya. Luffy and the crew do not hesitate to playfully tease him about it.
- Somewhat minor, but Sabo/Koala, at least on Koala's side as we know of currently.
- Pretty much subverted for most of the other female characters with Luffy as he makes it rather clear not long afterwards he just likes to get a reaction out of them and that he's not actually interested in them in that way. Or in other cases, they're mutually not interested in each other.
- Hancock is in an interesting position since Luffy is intentionally trying to get Hancock not to fall in love with him this time around as he still bares no romantic feelings towards her. Of course, she still does anyway so it'll be played for laughs.
- Shout-Out: There were so many, we had to give it its own page.
- Slasher Smile:
- Nami and Sanji has one while sweetly threatening to cut Usopp's balls off if he dares to finish calling the upgraded Buggy balls the "Mighty Ussopp balls."
- Vivi gives one to Zoro and Sanji when they start to argue over whose dinosaur was bigger. Considering what happened not too long ago with Dorry and Broggy, she was not keen on having a repeat of it.
