Deep

A small boat was sailing in the calm sea. This boat housed two people. A man stood on upright pole of the mast with his hand folded across the chest. A black sail hung on the horizontal post of mast, below it was a coffin shape structure with seat carved on one end. There sat another man in black ornate clothing. Two large wax candles burned diagonally across the seat, giving the boat eerie feeling like it was ferrying the souls of dead people to the underworld. In fact, this boat was a lot scarier than supposed underworld ferries because the person sailing in it would directly send people to hell, by cutting them in half.

This was the boat of Dracule Mihawk, one of the shichibukai, and standing on the mast pole was Vash. Both of them were leisurely roaming the grandline seas, chasing Krieg pirates.

"you know, you can always take a seat in the deck, and enjoy some drink.", said Mihawk holding a large wine glass, slowly sipping the red wine.

"you are expecting me to follow your ways of pirate, drinking and partying? No thanks. Besides, being a Martial artist, I have to be always in peak condition.", said Vash.

"tch, you are no fun. I tell you, you aren't enjoying life if you are not drinking." replied Mihawk.

"I get enjoyment from lot of other things which doesn't include alcohol. So anyway, how were you tracking those pirates? And could you still follow them now?" asked Vash.

Mihawk chugged the drink in one go, and put one hand into his pocket. Taking out a small paper, he put it down on the armrest of his seat, and trapped it in empty wine glass, just like people trap bugs for amusement.

Vash observed Mihawk's action in bafflement. "What is it now? are you playing with paper? don't tell me you like origami and your going to divine their location by making one?" asked Vash.

"Don't jump to conclusions if you don't know any better. This paper is called a vivre card, it's a handy tool. the torn pieces of the same paper will point to and move toward each other." replied Mihawk.

"There is such a thing!" exclaimed Vash.

"When I was destroying their ship, there was an unexpected storm due to which the flagship of Krieg pirates got away, but I had secretly slipped a vivre card piece on their ship through which I have been tailing them.", Mihawk further explained.

"I am curious as to how a person of your caliber was stranded on that island?", Mihawk added a question.

"hmm, I was not stranded. To tell you the truth, I suddenly appeared on that island after passing through a wormhole." replied Vash.

"...""...""???", mihawk had popped question marks on his head like he couldn't understand what he was hearing.

"in layman's term, wormhole is a tunnel connecting two spaces at vast distance. So I either came from different planet or an entire different reality." Vash clarified when he saw Mihawk's confusion.

"Are you messing with me?" Mihawk said with a stoic face.

Vash saw skepticism of Mihawk, and ranted. "Is it really unbelievable? Think about it, this world has such abnormal power like devil fruit which at first glance seems illogical. Furthermore, take yourself as an example, how can your small build pack so much power that you can even beat gigantic sea kings? In spite of Sea kings having more muscle mass. To me, you are more unbelievable. But you know what I think? These incredible powers and scenario obviously stems from logical reason. For instance, normal people seeing you cut a mountain would find it impossible to comprehend. They would surely think it's impossible for a human to possess such power because they don't know the reason behind your power; they don't know the struggle and tireless training sessions you've done to achieve the strength you now possess. Same could be said for devil fruit power. It must have some logical explanation as to how it bestows power to the user. My point is, why would you think that I couldn't have come from different world? when you deal with baffling things in daily basis. So you should know better to not just simply dismiss any impossibility in blind bias. After all, the universe is vast, so the things you think impossible here might be possible somewhere else."

Listening to Vash, his mind raced with enlightening thoughts, and started pondering on his words and meditated. Mihawk felt Vash's out of box ideas had removed the veil of facade which seems to shroud his mind from seeing the truth of this world.

Vash saw him getting quiet and decided to not disturb him. Suddenly, an invisible wave of overpowering will spilled from Mihawk as the center. Seagulls flying in the vicinity of boat took dive and fell into water, all kinds of fish floated upside down at the sea surface. At this time Mihawk had awakened his conqueror's haki. Sometimes, it just require a small amount of force in the right direction to achieve things. This conversation with Vash was that force which made him awaken the haki.

Before now, he always thought it was inborn ability of a person; either you have it or you don't. In his 40 forty year of life, he had been in countless life and death situation which is prime condition for awakening this haki. Unfortunately he never awakened it.

'Haki is the manifestation of one's spiritual strength and willpower. I should have known that these two factors always change throughout a person's lifetime, influenced by circumstances and situations. But I limited myself by thinking that I wasn't born with conqueror's haki when I failed to awaken it in the past.' thought Mihawk.

'hmm, So theoretically everyone possess the potential to awaken it. But there isn't any training manual for it, not that I have seen yet. And those who awaken it naturally, can only use basic ability to knock out people, and they think it's the only use of this ability.' thought Mihawk, and stood up opening his eyes. He again emitted a concentrated wisp of willpower. This time it wasn't omnidirectional wave instead it was like an invisible hand which caught hold of a large fainted fish. Mihawk pulled the fish on the deck and again sat down in meditation.

"oh, you also learned telekinesis. It's a handy ability isn't it? And Is this fish our lunch? cause very I'm hungry. But only one fish can't satiate me.", said Vash observing Mihawk's action and he also pulled remaining fainted fish on the deck, making a fish mountain.

"Now I firmly believe what you said previously, you being from different world. But in this world, it's called haki. It has three type; color of observation; color of arms; lastly color of supreme king." replied Mihawk after some time, and went quiet closing his eyes.

Vash hearing the reply, decided to go by this worlds standard, and changed the name of his abilities to their respective counterparts.

Vash got down to the deck and held a fish to eat. He was getting bored so he extended his observation haki to measure the depth of the sea, he did this by feeling the presence of marine organisms under ocean surface. Below certain depth, he shouldn't feel any presence due to sea floor, giving him accurate measure. But he could only sense the aura down to 7 km, his haki didn't reach the sea floor, meaning the depth was more than his reach."The water in the ocean is so deep!!" exclaimed Vash.

'Indeed, the waters run deep in this world.I didn't care about the past of this world and I have always sought strength. But it's time to change that. The world government has been ruling this world through misinformation. Even I, Dracule Mihawk was fooled by them for so long. They have omitted and purged many things. And I suspect that the information and teachings of haki also has been manipulated to fulfill their secret agenda. I feel there is a very big conspiracy at work. It's time I make my move.' thought Mihawk ending his contemplation.

"Vash, tell me what kind of world you are from? Are there any strong people?" asked Mihawk eating a raw fish.

"No, there are only normal people. And they don't have any supernatural power like you do. Even the physically strongest could only lift 500 kg. " said Vash in uninteresting manner.

"I trained a lot, it's not supernatural power." said Mihawk.

"You say that to normal people and tell me what they reply with.",replied Vash sighing.

"Enough of that, where are those damned pirates? I don't see them anywhere. It's been an hour since we set sail. We should have caught up with them.", asked Vash. He was itching for some fight.

"I forgot to tell you but we're taking a detour to meet someone first." replied Mihawk.