Sabo accompanies me and Ace back to the Dadan territory for once. There waiting is someone I haven’t seen in several months, still wearing her tiger fur coat from several years ago. Makino gasps at the state that all three of us are in but zeroes in on me to fuss over. As a guy who has lived twenty-eight years in total but is currently only six, the situation is both good and bad. Good because Makino is gifted in several areas, but bad because I’m eight, almost nine years too young to be able to really enjoy myself. Adolescence can’t get here soon enough; I mentally think with a huff.
After making sure that my wounds are tended to as well as can be, Makino updates me on things going on in the village. Partly because of my investment, and partly because Garp having stopped into visit with a big ship at our tiny village, more trade and business has come, with more on the way. Her bar and several of the other main facilities have been expanded, all thanks to the money I gave her for investment. She (and me by proxy) now owns at least fifteen percent of all those other businesses. The next few years will tell if I’ll have a little or a lot to take on my journey.
Me, Ace, and Sabo have to think. From what Sabo tells us, his family has a lot of money, and now that they know he is alive, will use that money to get him back by any means short of giving up their station in life. Something about the Bluejam pirates being guards is off, pirates are usually on the move fairly often unless said place is their base of operations. We need to find out what is in those barrels. Ace and Sabo want to leave things alone, but something is wigging at my senses, I just don’t know what.
A few more days of rest and we are mostly healed, though I catch Ace and Sabo admiring their new scars more than once. We go back to the kingdom, still no guards at the far outer wall, but the secret passage is no longer so secret, a few of Bluejam’s lessor minions sitting right by the passageway. They are no threat by themselves, and it just takes a couple of flying kicks to lay them out for a time. Even though I have killed many a time, it was almost always demons of a sort, or humans who were as bad or worse than some of the demons. I had no idea of what these guys had done if anything to deserve death, so they were left at unconscious for now. We get close to the docks again to find another unsettling sight, Bluejam and his crew working with the kingdom’s guards to offload the barrels. We barely get another indication of something being wrong as we hear the sound of armor jangling, right behind us. Ace and Sabo are able to react well enough to get a few hits in, but this is not flesh or the barest of armor, our attackers are actual knights with good quality plate mail covering them. The leader stands out with his raven-black armor and the symbol for Corvus, stamped on his helmet and pauldrons. I try to tune out most distractions as I try to defeat my opponent. His footing is sure enough that when I try a leg sweep, all I manage to do is hurt my shin, before I roll back out of the way of his weapon. I have better luck as I use the detritus around me, his morning star is strong, and he is quick, but not fast enough as I dent his helmet with a brick. I get blindsided by mace hit to the back of the skull, it is still enough to daze me, but the force is definitely a lot less than grandpa’s ‘fist of love’. It still gives them enough time to wrangle us all. Me and Ace take a few more hits as they ensure that we stay down, while Bluejam, alerted to the commotion, grins as he eyes Sabo. “Looks like we’ve earned ourselves a bonus boys. Those other two don’t matter, kill them and toss them, then get back to work.” He says with a grin.
Sabo is tied up and quickly taken away, and for the first time in this life, I feel fear, but not just for me, but for Ace too. I convinced them to rush in without any real plan and this happens. Then something strange happens as they prepare to make our deaths quick. Between one moment and the next I get a momentary feel of some power. Nothing has happened to me, or Ace, then I feel the person holding me go slack. The couple of Bluejam pirates present are foaming at the mouth, while the armored guards act as if they have been knocked for a big loop. Me and Ace get the rest of the way free and run off. When we get outside the walls, Ace slugs me out of nowhere.
“He was our brother in bond, why didn’t we go get him back. We could’ve freed him too.” Ace says as he begins to cry.
“He was in no real danger; we were the ones that got the crap beaten out of us even after they had held us down. Hell, they were planning to oh so casually kill us. Whatever that feeling was, our lives were saved because of it. We will get him back, no doubt about that, but we need a plan first. Weapons too, to counter the armor and greater numbers that we will be facing.” I say as I grit my teeth.
(With Sabo)
“You are finally coming back home after having run away almost a year ago. Where did we go wrong?” Outlook III says as he has hold of Sabo’s shoulder, steering him to the noble area of the Goa Kingdom, escorted by thirty guardsmen. He had just finished paying Bluejam the reward of fifteen million Beri for Sabo’s safe return.
“I was happy where I was, with my brothers.” Sabo shoots back.
A pause in their conversation is had as Outlook is paying the magistrate to wipe Sabo’s criminal record clean, something a noble shouldn’t have.
Now in the noble’s quarters, Outlook’s lips are a bit looser. “You will have to forget about them, or are you going to weep over the dead trash? Just another week to go and our salvation will be upon us.” Outlook says this with a grin.
“Why, what’s going on?” Sabo has a bad feeling about what the answer will be.
“We are going to be blessed. For a Celestial Dragon will be visiting the Goa Kingdom in said weeks' time. But before that, we will clean up the trash, the Gray Terminal will be no more. We will be so much greater after the fire’s ashes have been wiped away.” Outlook has a huge grin on his face, so great that the edges of his lips seem to touch his ears.
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By this time, they had entered a three-story mansion of a house. Before Sabo can say anymore, he is dragged off to have the filth of almost a year scrubbed away.
(Three days later, with Luffy and Ace)
Still a bit sore from the beating, we are nonetheless ready. Ace has multiple pipes in case another is broken. Me, well, after digging through some junk in the Gray Terminal, I found a buckler and a short sword, which is still huge in my six-year-old hand. I have a small blacksmith’s hammer as a backup, similar to Charsi’s hammer that I retrieved so long ago. Despite what happened, me and Ace still refuse to kill, but we have agreed that no other blows are off limits, so nut shots, eyes, everything else is fair game.
(With Sabo during that three days)
Sabo can barely believe what he is hearing, as several other nobles have confirmed his father’s words. The nobles don’t care that they will be killing thousands of people. His parents also adopted a boy while he was gone, less than a year younger than him, but with a monstrously long stick up his ass. He is arrogant enough to believe that he will be king of the Goa Kingdom one day. He also can’t get away either, guards keeping an eye on him from every corner, so there is no way to escape and warn Ace or Luffy.
(Luffy and Ace)
“Gramps would think us nuts for doing this, then he’d join right in. We have to find out what is in those barrels first, that will give us an idea of what they are planning.” I told Ace as we headed past the initial wall.
Our luck seems to smile as we spot one of Bluejam’s minions placing a barrel near a very populated part of the Gray Terminal. He gets a big concussion as the pommel of my sword strikes his right temple while Ace’s pipe bashes his left. We take the barrel away and then get a look inside it. Gun powder, the kind you would use for very powerful cannons. What, Gramps didn’t spend all of our training making us at times wish we were dead, he did teach us a few things outside of fighting. Like the differences between grades of gun powder for one. The barrels are thick and almost airtight. This means no real risk of an accidental spark setting the powder off. Despite the hold where we initially saw them having enough room for the fighting that took place, there were still a lot of barrels. The explosion from just one of these would do a lot of damage, but with all the others, most of the Goa Kingdom would cease to exist. Sabo’s words about how the nobles felt about the poor and unfortunate came back to me. They are going to destroy the Gray Terminal. “Ace we have to find as many of these barrels as we can and dump them into the sea. Also, we have no idea how long there is till they lite even one of these up, so we have to hurry. Warn people as you go to evacuate outside the walls for now.” Ace sees how serious I am about this and dashes off to look for more barrels.
Hours go by and people are in a panic. We have found and dumped more than thirty barrels, but who knows how many more are left. I turn the next corner to keep looking and who do I find, but Bluejam himself. I leap towards him with a scream of anger, all thoughts of not killing anyone go by the wayside with what he is participating in, the genocide of so many people. Bluejam’s nose flies off in a spray of blood, as his is almost able to get clear. He tries to slice at me with that really strong sword of his, but the blade gets lodged in my buckler. I twist my arm with the buckler out of the way, but Bluejam dodges after dropping his sword with a clang before I can claim more of him. He pulls out a dagger smaller than my short sword, but it is of no help to him. A feint with my sword in my right hand has his mouth slamming shut with a clack and some missing teeth as I bury my knee in his jaw. He gets a punch into my ribs with his other fist, but as I pull my sword back from the feint, it cuts across his chest, drawing a lot of blood. He is already woozy from blood loss, his nose less face gushing, while blood runs down his chest from the cut. “You think you won just because you have dealt with a few barrels. We were paid to ensure overkill. One hundred barrels of bustercall grade gun powder. The Gray Terminal is history.” He cackles. He then pulls out a pistol, but my adrenaline has me hyper aware. I dodge, and with a twisting leap, bury my sword into his brain from below. I pulled my sword free, and his corpse falls to the ground. Before anything more can be done, an explosion goes off. A huge one, fire shooting into the air, and the blast wave is felt even with everything else in the way. Before anything else, my thoughts go to Ace.
I then run off, calling out for him. Not thirty seconds go by before another explosion rocks the area. Another minute, another explosion, this one almost taking me off my feet. All the while I’m looking for Ace. I hear a cry for help in his voice as I feel the next explosion rock the area. He is pinned under a collapsed wall from one of the taller buildings. For all my training, these are huge chunks of rock, weighing thousands of pounds. I don’t have time to break them into pieces. I put my faith in myself to succeed. I grab the piece right by Ace, the bottom one of the pile, and try to wedge it up, even just a little bit. No go. I try again, digging deeper than I ever have before. I feel my body straining to the limit, but something has to give, either my body or the rubble. With a roar of victory and an explosion of power, I finally push past a plateau regarding my mana. Earth natured mana floods out of me and combined with the feeling of my muscles tearing themselves to bits, I’m able to toss the whole pile of rubble to the side. Ace is fine except for a twisted ankle. With more explosions going off, we struggle to make our way outside the walls. We get there and I can’t even blink before feeling the sensation of falling.
(Ace)
‘I can’t believe that Luffy was able to do that, there must have been 15 tons of rubble on that cart that I managed to mostly seek shelter under, as I barely saw the explosion happen not more than 40 feet from me. I’m lucky in more than one instance to be alive. Now I have to watch as the smoke and fire rises high into the sky. I see around me that a lot of people listened when we tried to warn them of the danger, but who knows how many more have perished this day, how many more are still trapped as they succumb to the fire and smoke. Damn those nobles.’
I awaken sometime later, the sky is pitch black, my body hurting when I try to move, let alone breath. My mana pathways feel scorched, but that may just be from the massive expansion they have recently undergone. Now they should be strong enough (once I recover), to perform some of my more basic spells. Dadan and her bandits walk into view, and seeing me at least somewhat alert, rush over to perform their bastardized form of first aid. I look beside me with a lot of pain, and there is Ace, ankle wrapped and dead to the world, like I should be. “How long has it been since the Gray Terminal started burning?” I weakly say, gasping in pain just to get the words out. I don’t get any response, or rather I don’t hear anything despite them talking, and I don’t have time to really think about it before I am out again.