Chapter 7 – Haki and Sword

Lupin had obviously thought about capturing the Captain alive, to test the theory about the reincarnation of devil fruits, but it would have been a real hassle to accomplish that.

Still, Lupin knew he had been lucky to find the fruit, as there were a lot of pears in the villager's homes and probably a lot of pear-shaped plant in the sea. The fruit could have reincarnated in anyone of those.

The fruit had also only been an ordinary Zoan-type, so he had not wanted to deal with all the trouble of searching for it. But now that he found the fruit, Lupin had his answer.

Devil Fruits did reincarnate into nearby fruits of the same shape.

And now that Lupin had found the fruit, he obviously wouldn't just give it to someone else. He had fought and killed to get it. So he simply burried the devil fruit beneath the others pears and placed the lid on the barrel and carried it up the deck like he had done with the rest.

At this point he saw Kindred and a handful of other men from the village climb onto the deck from a small row boat.

Placing the barrel down and opening the lid, Lupin took a fruit and began eating it, while silently looking at the men who had already started to inspect the few goods.

Kindred then walked over to Lupin and started to talk to him.

"Are you alright, brat?"

"I am, old man. And you? Apart from the 'old man'-back, any problems I should know of?"

"Tchh. You and your sharp tongue. One day someone is gonna cut that thing off for you."

Lupin just stared back at the man blankly, so Kindred just continued.

"Anyway, is that everything you found? Anything interesting you came across?"

"Yeah, and no. Well, except the dog, don't know why they kept him on board. Still, there were only several million berry and some other goods. They probably robbed some poor merchant. Anyway, I am heading back now, I still have some training to do. Also, I am keeping these fruits."

Saying so, Lupin closed the lid again and shouldered the barell, preparing to jump overboard.

"Hmm. See ya for dinner, kid.", Kindred answered, not feeling as if anything was off.

Nodding in goodbye, Lupin jumped over the railings and landed in the sea with a splash. Swimming back to the shore, as he pushed the barrel forward.

Arriving in shallow waters, he simply picked up the barrel again and made his way to the shore.

The rest of the villagers didn't bother him and just kept a respectful distance, securing the prisoners and cleaning the battle site up a little, which mainly amounted to the captain's bisected corpse.

Seeing what Lupin had done to a man that had transformed himself into a hulking 3 meter tall man-beast-hybrid with only a swing of his sword, was more than enough to instill respect and a healthy amount of fear into the villagers and prisoners alike.

Looking around for his sword, Lupin saw Ina approaching with the sheathed blade in her hands. Not saying anything, he simply walked back home, as she followed him.

Meanwhile, as soon as the villagers thought Lupin out of earshot, they started to gossip about his and Ina's strange friendship.

Lupin just shut out their voices in his ears.

He had afterall incredible senses, so he had learned a long time ago to just let most of the things he perceived with them fade into the background of his mind. Only perking up, if he sensed something unusual.

Reaching his training area a few short minute later, Lupin placed down the barrel to the side and than took his sword back from Ina. Putting the sword in its usual spot, with it leaning on a crate next to the house, he went into the direction of the forest, which began only two dozen meters away from the training field.

Ina did not follow him towards the forest, as he had told her not to do so a few days back.

Walking for a few minutes, he crouched near a big tree and began throwing up bis lunch.

Meanwhile the sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing echoed in his mind. Even though he did not go into a frenzy this time or into shock, his nausea was still there especially after having just strangled someone to death with his own hands.

He simply was not used to such violence and gore, and while he could force himself to keep his calm while in battle, he couldn't suppress the nausea after the tension of battle faded away from his mind.

Lupin guessed that he would get over it soon enough, as he had hunted plenty of animals in his wolf form, which often meant making quite a mess.

The only difference was the prey being human now.

…

As Ina waited for the boy to come back from the forest, she thought back to the fight she had witnessed.

The ruthlessness and decisiveness with which Lupin had fought and killed his oponents, had been a shocking and enlightening thing to observe.

When the bandits had raided her home and kidnapped her all those years ago, and the time when the pirates had raided the bandit camp. Both occasions had been very different to what she had observed from Lupin.

While bandits and pirates liked to jeer at their oponents or prolong their pain whenever possible, Lupin had just methodically cut down his opponent and broken another's neck.

She had no idea what transpired after he had climbed the ship, but it didn't matter as she had seen enough.

Lupin did not talk while fighting and just moved with the sole purpose to take down his opponent swiftly and efficiently.

In a way, it had been beautiful to watch. A piece of gruesome art, the way he had bisected the devil fruit user.

Ina could clearly see the little boy, who trained with such fevor and focus, in the way he fought.

He simply did what was necessary, nothing more and nothing less.

She admired him for that – for his resolve and determination.

Seeing a small figure emerging from the woods, Ina went back to observe the mysterious boy.

…

Feeling a lot better after throwing up, Lupin went back to the training area and drank a few mouthful of water from a prepared waterskin to rinse and flush his mouth.

Afterwards he opened the barrel and took some fruits from within for Ina and himself. Walking up to her, he dropped half of the fruits into her lap. And after having sat down a short distance from the girl, he began eating his own fruits.

"Thank you."

More of a whisper than actual words, but Lupin heard them clearly and in response he simply gave her a short nod.

After the short meal, Lupin simply went back to training.

Swinging a bar with 2000kg of weights around like a sword, over and over again. He did this to build up endurance, arm strength and control. It was also great for accuracy training.

While training he thought about what to do with the devil fruit, as he had no plans to eat it himself.

He could simply save it and maybe sell it later on the blackmarket, or he could give it to Kindred. The old man would definitely benefit from the fruit.

His physical fitness would probably reach his prime state again, maybe even beyond that. It would also make it easier for him to defend the village against raiders and their spars would also become more challenging and rewarding.

It would also be good for Lupin to train against a devil fruit user.

'That settles it. I will simply tell him I found the fruit in the forest in a few days and gift it to him. Hopefully he will just accept it and eat the fruit, and not insist on me eating it myself. Well, if push comes to shove I will simply stuff it down his throat. He won't be mad for long anyway.', Lupin thought to himself.

Of course there was also the option to give it to Ina, but he only knew her for a few days and didn't really know about the nature of their relationship.

Were they friends? Acquaintances? A stalker and his victim? He had no clue.

It was simply more logical to give the fruit to Kindred, so he could share his burden when fighting against pirates. For now Lupin used these pirates as whetstones for his mentality and lacking experience, but soon fighting off these weaklings would have no more benefits – besides the loot.

Still, Lupin trusted the girl quite a bit, as his inner wolf had not detected any falsehood from her. But she also had absolutely no fighting experience, so the fruit would be more than wasted on her.

Lupin's musings stopped there, as he continued to train with full focus for the next few hours.

As the sun slowly vanished from the horizon, Lupin stopped his training as Kindred had already prepared dinner for the two of them. While Ina had already left at this point.

As he had a vastly superior condition and regeneration compared to normal humans, he obviously could train for longer, but most nights he devoted his time solely to meditating on spiritual energy, trying to gain a more accurate sense of it and learn to control it.

This had already paid off a lot since he felt himself getting closer to understanding this energy each day.

Spiritual energy wasn't just a dormant energy source anyone could dabble into if they had the knowledge.

It was alive by itself. It wasn't only an energy source, but also part of one's spirit. At least that was the conclusion he had come to after meditating for a long time.

It was very difficult, almost impossible to control, as sensing this energy by itself was a hopeless endeavor for basically anyone on this planet. But somehow Lupin was different, he wasn't only able to sense this energy, he was also able to consciously control it every now and then.

Most people would train by focusing their willpower on a simple task like protecting oneself, or forcing oneself into a situation were Observation Haki was needed to avoid pain. Though they weren't actually able to sense or gain control of this energy.

With time they learned to gather their focus and intent to such a degree that it seems as if they could control it, but that was a misconception. It was an indirect form of control they had over their spirit. Through their strong willpower, they learned to influence their spirit and infuse it with their intent to do as they wish.

Whereas Lupin's control was a direct form of energy manipulation. And that difference was what gave him the chance to achieve truly unbelieveable things with his Haki.

He, of course, noticed that the way he used and learned Haki seemed different from what he remembered from the show, but he was also very clear on the advantages his method would bring with it – If he managed to master it.

As it was now, Lupin was very close to actually gaining some basic control over his spirit.

It had been difficult at first, but the more he tried to sense and influence his spiritual energy, the easier it became for him. He estimated that in a few months time at max, his control would be strong enough to begin learning and experimenting with the other forms of Haki.

Washing himself in the bathroom, he put on a fresh set of clothes and went to the dining room, where Kindred was already waiting for him at the table with the food ready.

While they ate their meal, Kindred told him of the spoils they had found on board of the ship, which amounted to several million berry and different goods.

Again, Kindred had handled the negotiation about the distribution of said items. The Marines had also shown up at some point, but the Captain's bounty was only at one million.

It seemed he had not found the devil fruit long ago, as his bounty would have been several times higher otherwise. As this had been a rather small bounty, the Marines had directly handed it over.

Important to note was that they had only paid 70% of the bounty. Not only today, but also the last time, as both targets were already dead.

Lupin wasn't very interested in the money, he just asked Kindred to prepare two or three more longswords for him and a block of steel.

Lupin wanted to advance his swordsmanship level according to his knowledge from the show.

There were several steps on the road to become a swordmaster. For example being able to cut apart steel, union between sword and man, flying wind slashes, channeling Haki into the blade, elemental infusion, etc.

Another important part was to be able to consciously decide what to cut and what not to. A true swordmaster was able to swing his sword at a piece of paper, but not cut it.

This should be a very elementary form of Haki, but Lupin wasn't sure.

The one thing he knew was that it required great focus and dedication to advance as a swordsman, and he did not lack both of these things.

Even in his last life, he had loved the European-style longsword. On the other hand he did not like katanas very much.

The art and dedication involved in making a traditional katana, he could definitely appreciate, but somehow he always felt more of a connection with European-style longswords.

He enjoyed learning to fight with the longsword greatly and definitely wanted to master it.

At this point he had also nearly mastered the way of handling a sword in battle and being able to move it like an extension of his body, so he knew the next step was to try and connect spiritually with the weapon and learn the more obscure skills.

And so he spent the next few days with normal training, until Kindred had managed to procure the things Lupin had asked for.

It was now also time to give the old man the devil fruit.