Chapter 3
Catalysts
The year of her 14th birthday should become a year that Hogosha would remember for the rest of her life as the starting point for many decisions and events that would lead the female to become the woman that she was later on in life.
It began with a devastating event that shook the young pirate princess to the core and left her hurting and alone. The day itself had begun relatively innocent, it was a week after New Year and her adoptive mother had finally agreed to another visit to Mock Town after Hogosha had pleaded for the opportunity for weeks. Asuka had become even more careful and paranoid since the whispers about Hogosha's growing beauty had become louder and as a result barely let her out of the house anymore. So this visit to the Town, especially the port, had made the young girl's eyes shining with joy for days before hand. The two recluses had finished their shopping without any incidents and were already on their way back to the house when they stopped to watch one of the more massive merchant ship unload it's cargo.
What happened next was burned into Hogosha's memory for the rest of her life. One of the giant dews that kept the boxes fixed and suspended in the air until they could be unloaded gave under the heavy weight and started a chain reaction that not only destroyed a large percentage of the unloading area but also took Asuka's life.
To this day Hogosha couldn't say how Asuka had developed such fast reflexes or how she knew what was going to happen because only her actions saved the young pirate princess from the same fate. A powerful shove to her shoulder had the pink eyed girl stumbling out of the way of the deadly pole that buried her adoptive mother under its weight.
Hogosha remembered the bewilderment in that moment, she had felt like she was swimming in a sea of cotton, the sound was muted and her eyes were only seeing the still form of her adoptive mother and the slowly growing puddle of blood around her body. The young girl remembered being pulled away from the scene by a weathered hand, a glance upwards let her recognize him as one of the sailors working before. His rough and callused hands came around her and gently turned her head away from the scene. She still hadn't blinked since the accident happened and her eyes were slowly filling with fluid because of the exertion.
The rest of the day was blurry to the young adolescent; the only thing that she really could remember was the kind and warm voice of an elderly man that started talking to her some time after the accident.
Shimura Kohaku
Shimura Kohaku was in his late 50's and while he hadn't had a physically imposing statue, people listened when he talked. Shimura was the owner of the merchant ship that was responsible for Asuka's demise. After being informed by a frantic looking sailor of the accident he had taken control over the situation. When he realized that the unloading accident had left the distressed girl without anybody in the world the business man had done something that left both his allies and enemies reeling.
He adopted Hogosha as his daughter on the spot and made her the only heiress to his fortune.
Only his closest advisers and staff had an inkling why the man had done so. The answer was relatively simple, while Shimura had always been a successful business man and had been able to negotiate the contracts almost always in his favor, he had a rather unfortunate family life. Kohaku had been left childless after his wife died on lung cancer nearly three decades ago and he had never had the heart to remarry again. So adopting Hogosha had the twofold effect that he not only redeemed himself a bit for being indirectly responsible for her guardian's death but he also had finally found a way to continue his name and line in the pretty dark haired girl.
And so the second deciding catalyst in that year was Hogosha's adoption by the wealthy but not obscenely rich man and his death.
Yes, also Shimura Kohaku died in that year, and it was only a few months after taking Hogosha in. Said pirate princess hadn't had the time to completely mourn her adoptive mother's death yet when fate struck again. Only this time it was not in a tragic accident but through natural causes. Kohaku's heart gave out on him one night while they were on sea. Once more Hogosha was left without a guardian, only this time she was not only a young beautiful adolescent girl but also the heiress to a substantial business empire.
And that attracted social vultures en masse.
One of the worst ones was the son of one of her business partners, whose parents had rather high marital ambitions for him. Hogosha, who had been brought to her adoptive father's headquarters after his death, didn't know what to do about this situation. Said fourteen year old lived now in Kohaku's town house which was directly across from the company's building and unfortunately only a street away from said business partner's own home. Encouraged by his parents, the rather spoiled and arrogant boy tried to get closer to Hogosha at every opportunity. Having never had to deal with over amours teenagers who didn't know when enough was enough Hogosha was in a rather uncomfortable position. Thankfully her staff was quite helpful in this situation and especially the head butler ran a lot of interference for the shy adolescent.
With her staff looking out for her, Hogosha felt brave enough to take charge of her life and she determinedly focused on gaining control over the business that had been left to her as fast as possible. Hogosha was desperate to have a semblance of control back, even with Asuka she hadn't felt like this, locked in a golden cage unable to do anything, watched by everybody around her. Like this she would never be able to search for her younger brother. Determined to achieve her lifelong goal of finding her baby brother and being independent Hogosha threw herself into her studies. The more than unconventional education that she had received from Asuka proofed now to be incredibly useful, that combined with her sharp intellect and stubbornness baffled and elated her tutors in equal measures.
Had Hogosha's life stayed undisturbed she would have probably taken over her company in three to four years. But her life didn't stay undisturbed, during a rainy Sunday the young pirate princess slipped on the unroofed marble patio, just outside the library and cracked the back of her head on the unforgiving stone, Hogosha had been running because she was already late for her lesson and she didn't want to make her teacher wait even longer.
In another timeline the young pirate princess also slipped and landed with her head on the marble, but in that timeline she died on her brain injuries only hours later and never met her brother. In this timeline there was one distinct variable, a soul which had been drifting around this new world for a time now and saw it's opportunity and for a lack of a better word, possessed the dying girl.
Hermione Jane Granger
This soul was once known by the name of Hermione Jane Granger. And before Hermione the soul had been called Susan Hopkins and many more before even Susan, but said soul only remembered her last life, because every time before her life as Hermione Granger when the body of her reincarnation died her memory was wiped and it wandered through what many called Nirvana to begin anew in an infant body. The problem was that in her last life there was a distinct difference.
You see Hermione Granger, Gryffindor and bookworm extraordinaire had the not so great pleasure of being a war hostage of the Voldemort regime. Voldemort had built his dark empire on the isles that were once called the British Isles and being the dark genius he was he experimented with obscure and forbidden magic that often needed human sacrifices, and what better way of executing them was there than using them for 'the Greater Good', as Voldemort liked to call it, mocking the late Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. In one of these experiments he was attempting to force a ghost and like this take the option of the person that was dying away from them. The only problem was that he made a mistake and instead of returning only a sliver of the person's soul, he called the whole thing back and let it lose without an anchor. Hermione Granger's soul at first wasn't even conscious of what it was doing, it did what was instinct to it and returned to the Nirvana, only that this time the soul hadn't lost its memories. With this came a distinct disadvantage, the memories and full grown persona was too much for a feeble newborn's body and the host always died at the end of the day, which started the circle anew until Hermione one day frustrated refused to move back into the Nirvana and just wandered around in the world that she had been born into the last time. It took Hermione a year of ambling around in the World of One Piece before she found a host that suited her purpose.
The girl was not only young enough that a distinct personality change wouldn't catch attention if Hermione was careful but even better the girl was an orphan and so she wouldn't feel guilty about steeling somebody's identity that still had loved ones around. That the young adolescent was the heiress to a fortune also meant that money wouldn't be a problem. Another intriguing and deciding factor was that she had a gift that was eerier similar to magic which comforted Hermione somewhat about the loss of her powers. But what made Hermione finally act was the fact that the girl was dying, Hogosha's soul was just about to leave the body.
Hermione had learned to be patient and so she waited for the exact moment Hogosha's soul left the body and quickly slipped into her place. So while the soul former known as Gol D Hogosha joined the Nirvana, Hermione regained a body.
The first thing Hermione did when she had finally felt her soul getting anchored to the body and she gained control over her new bodily functions was enhancing her healing abilities. With her intricate knowledge and sheer stubbornness Hermione stopped the internal bleeding in her head and repaired most of the brain damage. The whole take over cost her a week of unconsciousness but in the end the body opened its eyes and Hermione could finally move again.
She had just received the means to have a second life.
Decisions
Now what Hermione didn't anticipate was the sudden immense wish of searching for her brother. The former witch hadn't anticipated the fact that the physical part of this body, more specifically the brain would guide her own thinking in certain directions. Later on it made perfectly sense to Hermione; after all she had known that the brain developed additional synapses to facilitate the thought processes that were often used. Hogosha had always desperately wanted to find her brother and so a big percentage of her synapses had build around this topic. But it still felt somewhat surreal and even somewhat frightening to Hermione how much this new brain of hers could influence her soul and reasoning.
At least on the first day, on the second day of her new life her soul had apparently adapted to the new situation and Hermione, now Hogosha had taken on the search for the lost younger brother for herself. Yes these feelings and memories may have belonged to the original Hogosha, but it was her that now lived in this body, so she was also at least partially Hogosha.
With that reasoning the newly created person began to plot.