(Bellamy POV)
In the end, Luffy didn’t all of a sudden decide that everything was fine again, but he had listened and stopped avoiding me. Or my crew for that matter. Same with the rest of the Straw Hats, though I suspected that a certain archeologist couldn’t resist listening in and spread the word around. Zoro probably hadn't needed much convincing and Sanji wasn't exactly an innocent either. His mentor figure was Red-Leg Zeff, enough said.
As for Nami? Considering how she had initially wanted to kill Arlong and how often she had left pirates to die in a storm, I found it difficult to believe that she was that averse to death being used as a safety guarantee. And I was pretty certain this held true, even if she had mellowed out a lot after meeting Luffy, like all of them had.
I was just happy he wasn't going to view me in the same vein as Eustass Kidd…though they would also work together in Wano, so maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad. Then again, Kidd had never killed someone in front of Luffy. Eh, it was probably going to be fine, so there was no need for me to worry about it now.
One thing of note that did happen during the cleanup, had been the discovery of Gan Fall's corpse, which had left the Skypieans without effective leadership.
This in turn mandated that Luffy and I stuck around to help mediate between the Shandians and the Skypieans, in order to prevent another conflict from breaking out immediately. Well Robin mediated and Luffy acted as a smiling figurehead.
The big beef the Shandians had with the Skypieans, was that they hadn't done anything to contribute in the war against Enel and his priests, but still wanted access to the Upper Yard.
For the Skypieans, the Upper Yard had been theirs for four hundred years, which had only briefly been occupied by Enel’s gang, and hence ceding it in its entirety purely because the Shandians demanded it, rubbed them in all the wrong ways.
The only way we could get them to talk to each other was by seating people both sides respected at the negotiating table, and even then both sides argued about everything, from street names to the number of forms needed for home application. If I had to sit through another meeting, where grown men and women screamed at each other over the minutiae of crop prices, I would have probably gone insane. Fortunately for my sanity, Robin managed to broker an agreement, which while being one both sides weren’t quite happy with, was still one both could live with.
To cut to the chase, my meddling had ended up with the founding of the first Shandorian Republic of Skypiea, governed by a joint council of four Shandians and three Skypieans. The Shandians had gotten an extra seat in recognition of their sacrifices during the war, to be renegotiated in ten years time.
To fill up their numbers, the Shandian chief was also reaching out to the other scattered tribes of Shandora’s children, who had split off over the course of the last centuries. Tribes, I had not known existed before now. However it did make sense that not everyone would have been happy to be fighting a reclamation war for 400 years and decided to go their own separate ways. But now that Shandora had been reclaimed, it wasn't taking that much to convince them to return.
Apart from being instrumental in the founding of a semi-stable government which would *cough* definitely *cough* not devolve into infighting, the only positive part of the whole ordeal had been the time I managed to spend with Robin.
As perhaps the most experienced fruit user I had access to, she had a lot of knowledge on the topic of devil fruit usage. To my great pleasure, this also extended to powers other than her own, Robin being able to draw upon the vast experience she had gained during her youth and give me a lot of good advice. After all, in an age where superhuman law enforcement existed, most larger criminal undertakings had devil fruit users of their own to act as a counterweight, with all sorts of abilities.
Apparently, she’d also been awake when I tanked Enel’s thunder bird, which was mighty impressive for someone of her build, as Robin was not what most people would think of when imagining the “super tough girl” archetype. Not that she looked soft mind you, but she wasn't She-Hulk either. Though, considering how she regularly broke the spines of grown men with just her arms…
…moving on.
Anyway, she was the one who told me, that I had turned into the equivalent of an electric coil just before Enel’s attack had hit me. According to her, not long after that happened, Enel had started flickering and distorting like some unholy lovechild between a broken lamp and an old television with a faulty antenna.
Naturally, I had tried to recreate my full transformation and I did manage it after a few tries. I think it was relatively simple because it wasn’t that difficult to picture in my head and my body remembered doing it once before, but it still felt awkward, like trying some new stretches.
It also really felt weird ‘seeing’ without eyes. Like, as in nothing changed in the way I perceived the world, though my ocular organs no longer existed in the form that gave them function. That hadn't made any sense to me, but Robin just shrugged and told me to chalk it up to devil fruits being weird.
In the days that followed, I took my transformation further. I had already been experimenting with just turning my fingers into little individual springs. With Robin’s help, I simply extended that idea, so that the ‘segments’ of my body turned into springs in series. Something like my upper arm and forearm being separate springs. It wasn’t exactly stronger per se, but it added another dimension of flexibility to my movements. For example, I could angle my elbow to extend my punch orthogonally to the initial direction of my punch, which could be a really useful card up my sleeve.
But arguably the largest benefit I had gained was something else entirely.
“Hey Robin?”
“Yes, Hyena-san?”
“Have you killed someone before?”
“I have.”
“Have you cut…uh…” I tried again but Robin preempted me.
“If you’re asking if I have dismembered or decapitated someone before? Why, yes. Yes, I have.”
“How did you deal with it?” I was having nightmares. Enel had arguably been already dead by the time I separated his head from his shoulders, but I kept seeing his empty eyes staring up at me. I could still smell the blood.
“A better question would be, how do you feel about it?”
“At the time I felt giddy as I was just glad I had survived, and it was like I had won a big competition.” It had been such an uplifting feeling too. So much in fact that it scared me.
“And now?”
“Now, I feel sick. I can smell the blood, feel my sword sinking into flesh…and it felt so easy. It shouldn’t be that easy to take a life.” All my life I had been taught that hurting another human being was despicable and should not be done. And now? It had been less than two weeks and I had already decapitated a man.
“It usually is. Humans tend to be fragile.” she told with a shrug.
“And you know what’s the worst part of it all? I feel absolutely no remorse about it.” Nightmares? Yes. Disturbed by how easy it was? Absolutely. But remorse? Not at all and I felt horrible about it.
“Should you?”
“I just killed someone! I should feel bad about it!” My indignant protest was easily dismissed with a small wave.
“Killing someone does not automatically make it a crime.” she stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it was. "Would you accuse a child who's killed her attacker in self defence of a crime?"
“…” I felt as if that was a jab at my maturity, which I sincerely hoped it wasn't, or a reference to her own past, in which case it was really, really sad.
“I hear the locals are calling it a war. You both fought in the war, and you walked away while Enel did not. You could say the killing was justified.“
“That seems like a stretch.”
Robin just shrugged before trying another track.
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“Think of it this way, Hyena-san. Why did you kill him?”
“Because, if I hadn’t, he would have killed my crew.”
“Maybe it will make you feel better, if you remember this. It wasn't cold-blooded murder. You were protecting your crew instead.” That logic had crossed my brain, but it felt nicer hearing it from someone else.
“Thank you. That does make me feel a bit better. It probably shouldn’t but it does.”
“You’re welcome.” Robin smiled. She really did exude that big sister vibe sometimes, allowing you to feel at ease around her. It was easy to see how the Straw Hats fell for her charms so quickly. “Well, I need to get going. It's been nice talking to you, Hyena-san.”
Wait a gosh-darn minute.
“Wait, you still didn’t answer my question.” We had only talked about me after all. But Robin didn't answer. Instead, she just smiled that little enigmatic smile of hers.
“A woman should have some secrets, don’t you think?”
That hadn't been the last time we talked. Instead, I would seek her out several times over the course of the next week. We didn’t only talk about my issues, though that did come up quite a bit more frequently than other topics. Instead, we also discussed history and how to view it, science, and literature. As it turned out, a lot of the literary works from my old life existed here too, just written by locals with the same names.
And throughout it all, my nightmares lessened. They didn’t go away entirely, but I no longer felt afraid to sleep. And if a certain raven-haired beauty featured in my dreams? I wasn’t going to complain.
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(Eddy POV)
“No, I don’t have time to train you.”
Eddy couldn’t help but feel crestfallen at the curt refusal. He hadn’t really been expecting Zoro to agree, as the Pirate Hunter had no reason to help him, but a small part of him had hoped that maybe…maybe he’d offer some advice or something.
However Eddy failed to ask for that next. Instead, what came out was, “Do you mind if I train next to you?”
Roronoa quirked an eyebrow but in the end just muttered, “Do what you want.” before going back to his exercise routine. So for the first day, Eddy just watched. Watched and recorded everything the more experienced swordsman did in his little notebook. How many pushups, situps, pullups…what stances he took, how he swung his sword…at least as much as Eddy understood.
The second day, Eddy started copying Roronoa. He was soon faced with the first pothole in his plans, when his body refused to continue Roronoa's insane routine after just the morning workout. However, Eddy gritted his teeth and powered through, going to Muret in the afternoon to get treatment for his aching and torn muscles.
The third day, fourth, fifth…it didn’t get any easier and Roronoa continued to resolutely ignore Eddy, though he did glance over occasionally at his ever increasing pile of notes.
The change came on the sixth day. Eddy was swinging his sword as was his new normal, trying and objectively failing to recreate Roronoa’s basic swings. Outwardly, they were the standard moves every student of the sword knew by heart. Downward swing, diagonal swing, thrust. But when Roronoa did them, they felt different. Just, what made them ‘different’ was difficult to grasp.
“Stop!” Roronoa's shout stopped Eddy mid-swing, the navigator turning to see the former pirate hunter stomping towards him. “You’re doing it all wrong and it’s making my eyes hurt!”
"What do you mean?" Eddy began but the more experienced swordsman didn't give him an easy answer. Instead Eddy’s sword was snatched from his hand and tested for its balance with a few waves.
“This is how you swing a sword properly.” Roronoa stated before demonstrating the most basic downward swing. What followed was an in depth explanation of every habit, malpractice and mistake Eddy had made over the course of the last five days. Complete with repeated demonstrations.
"Like this?"
“No, no, no! That’s not what I just told you!” Posture corrections would be delivered via sharp raps of the scabbard to the shin. Course deviations from the perfect swing were drilled into him by force of repetition, sometimes with the pirate hunter guiding his arms.
This impromptu teaching didn’t stop at a one time deal either. Instead, Eddy was taken to swordsmanship bootcamp. Over the next week while the captains discussed politics, Eddy was running drills like a madman during the day and at night he was recording everything he had learned for future reference. Of course, he didn’t forget to visit Muret either. Her massages felt amazing after a grueling day of training and did wonders for his muscle recovery.
And by the time the Straw Hats were about to leave, two weeks after the War of Liberation, Eddy had managed to extract a compliment from the pirate hunter. “At least you’re not an eyesore any longer.” At least Eddy thought it was a compliment.
Despite Roronoa insisting that he did it only for himself and that it wasn’t a big deal, Eddy knew it was. And considering just what he’d received, Eddy had no qualms about bowing as a show of thanks.
Also, Roronoa’s allergic reaction was pretty funny. Who knew the big bad pirate hunter was weak to compliments?
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(Hewitt POV)
Sanji was a great teacher once you got passed his crude language, though to be honest, his wasn’t nearly as bad as Lily’s. Someone should really wash her mouth with soap sometime, but the last time Ross had tried, he had almost lost his arm.
It turned out that the key to getting the chef of the Straw Hats to teach you, was to showcase 'subpar' cooking and an earnest desire to improve. Apparently, good food was something to aspire towards and it was every cook’s duty to better the world by ridding it of less than acceptable cooks.
Just, Sanji’s methods involved more teaching and less…removing.
“Chop the leek more uniformly. That allows the flavor to spread more evenly and is better for visual presentation.”
Like he’d realized before being flung into the sky, Sanji was a genius of the likes ordinary people like Hewitt just couldn’t compare to. This didn’t mean though, that there wasn’t anything for Hewitt to learn. Quite the contrary, cooking encompassed a myriad of techniques which only required discipline, diligence and patience to learn. And Hewitt had newly gained all three in spades.
Sure, he wasn’t going to be creating original dishes or new menus all the time, however he didn’t need to. There were already thousands of proven recipes for him to follow. The basics which were required? Those could be honed like a fine knife with enough practice and a bit of supervision from an expert.
“The heat’s too high. Lower it if you don’t want your vegetables to go all mushy.”
Hewitt hadn’t known there was so much thought involved in making good soup. It wasn't just soups either. Roasts, baking, frying, sauté…even washing the vegetables could be optimized. It was always about the little things. A slightly tighter grip on the knife, a better angle of the pan, a half teaspoon more oil in the frying pan; little things but they made all the difference.
Sanji obviously couldn’t impart all his knowledge to Hewitt in the short amount of time they had together, but Hewitt would like to think that he was a different cook afterwards. His crew had already mentioned that his cooking tasted significantly better.
Naturally, if one spent any length of time with Sanji, one would get to know about his dream of finding All-blue, a legendary part of the sea where all the fish in the world gather. It was a tale Hewitt knew as well, but didn’t really believe in, not that he would say that aloud in front of Sanji.
Hewitt’s dream, if it could be called that, was far humbler. Get rich, retire to a nice mansion with servants and staff, get married to a nice woman who would…passionately enjoy his cooking.
“And done. This actually tastes good. Try it, Hewitt.”
That did taste good. It was by far the best soup he had ever made. It was a small achievement, making soup, but Hewitt was still immensely proud of himself.
“Hey Sanji, you’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“I just wanted to say thank you. You’ve helped me a lot.”
Sanji smiled. He did that a lot, Hewitt noted, except when the man was around Zoro.
“Glad I could help!”