It was cold. Too dark to see anything. Something was pressing at their back and sides. The clothes they wore beforehand were nowhere to be seen. And, most importantly, it was so fuckin dusty in there.

They might've inhaled a cobweb. Ew.

Their hands explored their surroundings, which was hard, this space was so small that they barely fit in there. After some time, (it must've been less than a minute, but their breath echoed through small space, giving them anxiety and making it seem like hours), they've reached a multitude of conclusions.

First, it's stone. They're on, maybe rather in an object made of solid, relatively smooth stone.
Second, the object has roughly rectangular cross section, with the top arched outwards.
Third, there was a tiny bit of air, even colder than inside, coming from all around the upper angles of "square", so they assumed that this place was some sort of chest with a lid.
Although it didn't seem like a chest, they didn't want to say their other guess, which would be... a coffin. That would imply that they were already buried. That would be much, much worse.

Now, anxiety-inducing thoughts aside, branching from the third conclusion, they could theoretically get out of... here, by lifting the lid, provided they were strong enough.

They hoped they were strong enough.
They hoped that they would not die again, in a small box. They heard that suffocation hurt a bit before passing out, and while they certainly were curious if it actually does, they didn't want to find out just yet.

They tried to breathe slowly, steadily, but found themselves slipping up, gasping and holding their breath. Thinking about suffocation was probably not a good call.

Grey never suffered from claustrophobia, but they felt fear from the awkward placement of their body, fear from the walls that threatened closing in and crushing them into a bloody mush of organs and bone dust. Well, not dust exactly. bones were wet while inside the body, so maybe just a different kind of mush than the rest? No matter that.
They knew just enough to deduce that death by getting crushed was slow and one of the more painful ones.

They steadied their shaky palms against the lid, as their shoulders squeezed against the cold sides uncomfortably. 
It is like a reverse push-up. They tried to convince themself. It was not exactly working, but hey, can't hurt to try to calm yourself down, ey?

Grey felt their muscles flex and then fail multiple times, as if refusing to work properly, which prompted them to start panicking even more. To add to the situation, whenever they tried to put more strength into it, their back, not fitting correctly into the coffin, became bent in the middle, making it even harder to do anything at all.

Also, the tips of their toeas became tangled in some old as fuck spider web. How does a spider get into a coffin anyways?

Their panic didn't falter, on the contrary, it kept increasing, together with their heart rate and need to breathe. They couldn't think clearly at the moment. Air. They needed air, and they could not get any.
They were ready to give it all up, just... stop struggling and wait for the sweet death to claim them again in so short period of time. Maybe they could abologize to the entity that has thrown them here?
One last time, then, I give up. That was the only thought in their empty brain at the moment. They pushed and pushed, feeling so much strain... until the lid finally budged, only a little, but it did, and the, and then... their muscles hurt . It was like their arms were being frozen and at the same time boiled.
Then, they managed to lift it a tiniest bit more, just above the ridges that kept the lid from simply sliding off, (they would have appreciated the lack of those ridges greatly). Their fingers, shaking and wet with cold sweat, gripped the edge of the lid, and then, by rotating their whole body, because their arms couldn't take much more strain without the ligaments learing, they tipped the lid off the way so that it could slide to the ground instead of closing them back in.

And slide it did. Right to the floor, most like also made of stone, judging by the unpleasant and resounding crack that echoed  through the...

Crypt?  Mausoleum perhaps? It was hard to tell in the darkness that surrounded them.

But it was somewhat bearable, especially when compared to the absolute darkness that they saw inside of the lidded container that... actually was a coffin. They just checked and it, in fact, looked like a pretty fancy stone coffin.
Their fingers, still cold, still wt, still shivering, traced the rim of the solid stone. They were lucky to manage opening that thing. They were lucky that the lid was not properly sealed, or, well, that it was not sealed at all.

Looking around, they could make out more shapes, in the dark, all looking like boxes. All in approximate size of bigger human. So, that meant more coffins. Therefore, more dead bodies.
But now, when their eyes made themselves more used to the dark, they compared their coffin to others real quick. They wanted to know if there is any difference, maybe that could help them discover where they are.

However, the only distinguishable thing was that the other coffins were, compared to their plain one, heavily decorated. By what seemed to be some sort of metal, gems that glinted very faintly and something that gave off very dim glow. They hoped that is was something relatively harmless. They didn't need radiation poisoning or... well, they didn't need any sort of poisoning.

Before they could crawl out of the coffin and make a run for it, or at very least hide, they heard footsteps. Many, many footsteps, coming from one side.
Now that they focused on it, they could faintly see light shining through gaps of what could've been a very big door. A single door in the room, making any escape impossible, once whoever is running outside now makes it to here.

They could have deduced that the loud sound would alert somebody, they could have started their escape soon enough. Maybe if the were not trying to calm themself and maybe if they weren't on a verge of panic attack a moment ago.
And now, they could hear some sound that resembled opening old door, sqeaking of half-rusted hinges and scraping against the floor. It was close. Too close. Were they going to die right here or something? Why weren't they able to move? Moving just out and to hide could've been enough for whoever is out there right now not to find them.

But they couldn't. Every single of their muscles was locked up, unable to do much more than tremble.

And then... footsteps stopped right before the door, casting shadows through the silouette. For less than a second, it was quiet, exception being some light shuffling and murmurs from behind the door.

And then, light assaulted their eyes. They instinctively brought their hands up, to shield their face from light and their head from any possible damage these people might want to inflict onto them.
They heard the people coming closer, they saw the light getting closer through their impromptu hand shield. Somebody hollered some words into the hallway, which prompted more footsteps to close in on the room. The words spoken were in a language they understood. They knew the words, and yet they couldn't make it form sentences that would make a semblance of sense.

A hand grasped their forearm relatively gently, but firmly, dragging it away from their face. There was other hand, tugging at their other hand with much more force and aggression. Then another hand and another hand.
They didn't struggle. Their muscles were burning so much that after just covering their face, they felt exhaustion and pain. The light shone into their face directly now, and their eyes were adjusting slowly to it. A man was saying something pretty loudly and they were sure it was directed at them, but they couldn't still make any sense of what the peron was trying to say.

Meanwhile, something clicked over their wrists that were brought together beforehand.

Cuffs. These people put cuffs on my hands. They realized. And that's when something in their brain finally clicked. They didn't want to end up in jail just yet! They had so much places left to explore! To do! It would be wasted time to just get locked up after getting reincarnated!

So they struggled.

They kicked the person who cuffed them into the face, which made a satisfying cracking sound, which was followed by a yelp.

Probably only a broken nose, the crack didn't sound loud enough for it to be broken jaw.

Nobody else was holding them at the moment, so they took the opportunity and jumped out of the coffin, stumbling a little, dodging a grabbing hand on luck and heading right towards the door. They could see the dimly lit tunnel outside of the chamber, when they stumbled again as one of their legs gave in, and they plumeted straight onto the wall, hitting their head, the falling to the ground.

In their last seconds of consciousness, they regreted many of their choices in the last few minutes.

---------------------------------------

Originally planned to cut it here, but... naw. Almost nothing has happened in the chapter yet, so I made it longer instead of another cliffanger!

---------------------------------------

Waking up felt like trying to get out of a pool of half-dried glue. Or honey. Or some other sludgey and sticky substance. Their thoughts were all over their head, flying too fast or too slow, changing pace inconsistently, crossing paths in patterns they shouldn't.

When they finally freed themself from the haze, they did their best to keep pretending to sleep, while listening to their surroundings. It was a learned skill, one, that has proven to be pretty useful before. So, they listened. For first few seconds, they only heard their own breathing, echoing a bit. Were they in a small room?

Then, another breathing joined in, much heavier and a little faster and deeper than their own. Somebody was standing less than five meters away from them. Then, a pair of footsteps, coming closer and closer, walking by somewhere in fromt of them, continuing their paths, until they were near inaudible, stopping, then walking back. Patrolling, perhaps? They still could feel cuffs on their hands, so maybe this was some sort of prison?

They opened their eyes, just a tiniest bit, and... realized that this does really look like a prison cell. At least they aren't cuffed to a wall? That would have been much worse.

They tried thinking of any way to get out of this situation. Nothing really came up in their mind. They didn't know where they were or what year currently was. They didn't even know if this actually is the universe of One Piece. Sure, the bizzare as hell entity showed them the Mary Geoise, the so-called top of the world in that piece of fiction. But were they really there?

It didn't matter. For now.

So, with hestitation, they opened their eyes, to see their surroundings.

They were in a cell. Definitely a cell. There was another cell across the hallway that stretched right behind the grid of bars, and it was not empty. There, laying in piles, were people. Gaunt, dirty, and empty-looking, but every single one of them was definitely a human. And none of them looked like actual criminals. None of them was wearing a uniform that would befit a prisoner, and... oh god. Was that a child? Were those people slaves or something?

A slightest movement made their chain jingle, and a cold part of it touched their forearm. They cringed, as they realized that they are on verge of shivering. It was cold. How did they not notice that?

They looked down had had to make a double take.
First, these chains were glowing. Like, not full on blaring light like a lightbulb, more like... something fluorescent.
And well, the secornd reason for the double take, the much more obvious one, was the amount of hands present on their torso. Not two, like always, but four full arms laid motionlessly in their lap, as they sat there, absorbing cold from the wall behind their back and the floor.

Like, excuse me, what the actual fuck?

Was this the power up promised by the entity? If so, they wanted at very least a partial refund. Or, in case it was a just two additional arms as a some sort of bonus, to thank it.

When they glanced up, their eyes met the gaze of the person who stood before their cell. Some sort of guard, probably-

They recognized that armor. It was not shown many times, and never for too long, but, despite only seeing it in black and white and cartoonish style of manga, they recogized it. Yep. This, was one of the most fucked up places in this whole world, at least in their opinion. And they were sitting in a cell. In the land full of people who think they are gods and who are notoriously known for owning and bying slaves.

They wondered if their two new additional arms made them more valuable or devalued their price. Neither would exactly help them, but they were curious anyways.

The man in armor proceeded to pull out a den den mushi, tiny one, with no numbers on it, which, if they remembered it correctly, meant one-line connection, muttered something into it and stuffed it back into a pouch.

It didn't take too long for a group of people to come into their vicinity. Four of them, to be exact. They couldn't hear any footsteps though, so how exactly could they know? Was this Observation Haki? Were they going crazy?

×××

So the guards were taking them somewhere. They didn't know where, nobody has bothered even talking to them, only to the person who stood by their cell, and even then, it was so hushed that they only could hear parts of words that didn't make any sense. What joy.

At least they got the time to study their bindings a bit. It was grey, almost metal-like material, but it had green tint to it. There also was the glow earlier and the un-metal-like soud the chain links made when they cliked against each other.
Also, the chains were wrapped aroud each other, so that, without unlocking at least one of the heavy cuffs, they couldn't move each arm independedtly, lower set forced to closely mimic the upper.

There were pleasant surprises though. Such as feeling all four of the arms and not really having many problems with moving them in sync, and being pretty tall.
The latter was only good because so many characters were taller than it was normal. It will hinder their stealth a bit though, being so tall...

Door opened before them, and the guards continued to drag them, inside the room, then another room.
And they now knew why did the guards drag them here.

The reason was sitting at a table, gorging itself with mouth-watering delicacies.

It was a Celestial Dragon.

×××

This chapter is literally too long, but nothing happens... I promise that the next chapters will go faster.