5 Reaching town and Kuro

The feeling of finally setting out was like a weight was lifted of my chest that I didn't know ever existed until then. My mind feels a lot clearer and there is this giddy feeling like I am a child again....

Whatever.

I even feel like my haki as grown a bit,I guess such a thing should have been expected. When you want to learn or do something, your will to do it only increases when you actually take initiative and start to do it. Just thinking about it will just wither away your will until it becomes just like any other dreams and goals you left behind without even trying.

It's entirely possible for me to just run super fast on water from island to island in just a fraction of the time it would take by ship but such a thing is just too robotic and boring.The feeling of just sailing carefree is just different and feels much more satisfying for my mind somehow.

The ship I am on right now is just around 15 meters long and around 5 meters wide with only a single room for the sailors and all the space inside the ship being used for heavy storage.

The storage has more than half of all the grain produced by the village in the last few months which will be traded for other essentials by the other three crew mates who were with me.

Now that I have left my village behind, I felt that it was time to break my self imposed oath of silence and actually start to speak with some people.I started having conversations with my crew mates, I mainly talked with Jack who was taught navigation by the elder mainly about the elders past.

It was kind of awkward at first understandably since They know that I am only 8 years old even though I looked like I'm almost into puberty, But they soon got used to it due to my more calm and mature way of talking.

"Did you know that the elder used to sail the seas in his youth?" I asked him,

" Oh yeah, he talks a lot about his travels, He told me he traveled all around East Blue for more than a decade. He even was a marine soldiers for a few years"

That was surprising info, since he never told me, send I have underestimated the elder.

And so the talk went until he asked me,

" Why do you want to sail the seas on your own? especially at such a young age? I read the papers and I know how hard it is man, I've seen pirates robbing a ship while I was in town, I've read of pirates killing ship full of Marines let alone a lone little kid, are you sure you don't want to turn back and maybey try again in a few years?"

Now That, is something I can't just take lying down, I don't like the way he's looking down on me at all. I think years of not talking much has slightly taken a toll on my social skills. I felt the compulsive need to prove him wrong and decided to show off a bit.

I smirked at him and displayed the most basic application of geppou and hopped in the air in one place in front of them. I then shot myself into the air and then launched myself down into the sea some distance away from the ship and punched with all my strength.

The result was a huge crater like indentation in the water, almost looking like I hit a huge wobbly jelly sea . The waters spread out fast forming a huge wave in all directions. I turned towards Jack with a smug smile for some time until my mind registered that the huge wave was tipping over the ship and the ship was almost 45 degree tilted .

The crew was totally panicked and were desperately trying to hang on to the ship by having ahold of whatever they can get their hands on.

I rushed to the other side of the ship and pushed the ship back straight and held it in place against the next few waves. I then jumped back into the ship and looked at the soaking wet guys who where gaping at me without stop for a whole minute.

I felt indescribable happiness when I saw their faces,I think I have been denying myself acknowledgement too much that even such a small thing makes me so happy,I hope I don't become some kind of attention whore. Needless to say, they never questioned my power again and where entirely convinced my place is out in the sea.

Just like that, a week passed on the ship, until I was able to see the island on the horizon. I spend every day training a few hours deep under water punching water under high pressure while trying to geppou very fast through water.

I was barely able to reach the speed of a car since the viscosity of the water at that speed is just brutal. I even fought some of the bigger whale-like fish at this depths, Using geppou to move out of the way of their attacks and punching it. A few hours was also spend on meditating my observation haki while the rest of the time, just lying down on the hull of the ship.

My body seems to have started going through puberty for the last few weeks, at the young age of 8 since I felt that I was much stronger than the last time I checked, which was around a month ago. My strength has reached around 1600 doriki from the 1200 from just a month ago.

I'm very happy now that my exponential growth is back and I intend to take maximum advantage of it and stay at the peak of my bodies potential throught my growing up process.

As we got much closer to the island, I expanded my senses to cover the whole town.

I was very surprised to find a pirate ship at the docks that I am actually familiar with, The Black Cat pirates.

Kuro seemed to be in town, threatening the town Mayor into giving up money while jango was in a merchant ship hypnotising them and stealing everything. These poor people can't seem can't seem to catch a break since in a few years they would have been terrorized by buggy.

Seeing Kuro at this time seemed like god send since I have been having trouble with soru and his pussy foot manuever is like a ripoff of soru. Maybey it IS God send.... Fucking R.O.B.

Some time passed and we docked at island. Jack seem to have located the ship and seem terrified for some times until he remembered something, looked towards me and relaxed slightly.

The people in kuro's ship seem to have seen our ship by now and have regrouped with jango, discussing the plan to raid our ship.

I guess it's time to protect them for the lift and also get some combat experience against actual humans. I could use the skills I got from meditation to shut down my haki and most of my super senses leaving only a little and fight at around the strength of around 20 doriki.

"Hey Jack, don't worry man, I'll go and start my career as a bounty hunter. Consider this payment for the trip"

I walked casually towards the pirate ship whose crew all seemed to be looking at me since I came out of their target ship and leaped on board their ship.

The crew gaped at me for a minute at the sheer ridiculousness of a pre-teen just casually walking and jumping onto a damn pirate ship.

The pirates started shouting at me after a while,

" HEY KID !! ARE YOU LOST ? "

" No I am not"

"DO YOU KNOW ON WHOSE SHIP YOU'RE ON RIGHT NOW?!"

"Oh yeah I do, Kuro of a hundred plans"

They looked at me dumbfounded since I apparently jumped on to their ship knowing full well that it is the ship of one of three most notorious pirate of the East. The guy speaking to me suddenly looked like he had a revelation,

"YA WANNA JOIN THE CREW KID? TOO BAD THOUGH SINCE WE WON'T ACCEPT WEAK KIDS, YOU LOOK QUITE CUTE THOUGH, MAYBEY WE SHOULD SELL YOU TO SOME RICH NOBLE. YOU'LL FETCH QUITE THE PRICE"

I looked at them totally unfazed at their threats and told them,

" I'm here to steal your ship and treasure and collect your bounties"

Without waiting for a reply from them, I launched myself at them, punching the jaw of the guy who dared to actually threaten me, sending him flying and knocking down 3 of his crew mates.

The rest of the crew quickly took out their weapons and lunged at me screaming obscenities.

I found myself smiling at the thrill of my very first actual fight in this world, and jumped towards them grinning all the way.