Insecurities

It's been a few days since they left Sabaody Archipelago, and still no islands habitual yet. On their way, they have met a few pirates trying to either claim the ship or steal everything, but of course, they never succeeded in either.

With Alexander's bounty gone and no pirate flag on his name, pirates have been flocking more frequently than ever. Some people still recognized his face and left, but some didn't care as they all had read that his bounty was fake.

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Early in the morning, Alexander woke up before Nojiko and could fall asleep again, so he went to the kitchen.

Taking a seat at the dinner table, Alexander started grumbling. For the last couple of days, Alexander has been sleepless.

'For a long time, I've been going around the seas aimlessly with no goal in mind or anything. It's always been let's just take Nojiko and go away and follow the story.

Sure I have done one thing off script, like saving Kuma and giving him to the Revolutionary Army. Even that felt like I was following behind someone and trying to follow in their footsteps.

With the kid on its way, I keep getting this nagging feeling that I have to show off like I had to prove that I'm good enough, not just that I also feel like this place isn't currently safe for it.'

Even if Alexander knew that the kid wouldn't come for a long time, these things just kept popping up. It made him feel insecure about everything.

Alexander felt like he couldn't keep holding all of these feelings to himself, so he just sat there and waited for Nojiko to wake up.

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When Nojiko woke up, she saw Alexander wasn't next to her, so she dressed up and went to the kitchen and saw Alexander sitting by the table.

"Is everything okay, Alex?" she said as she sat next to him.

"No, not really." Alexander sighs and finally vented out what he had in mind.

After finally talking, Alexander had first thought it was weird to have these feelings, but it turned out that he wasn't alone Nojiko felt the same.

Nojiko had been feeling for some time now that she wasn't fit to be a mother when she was so weak. So now, with both of them having vent out their thoughts and feelings to each other, they felt like they could make it, even if just a little bit.

All that mental pressure diminished by a bit, but it was noticeable. So they continued the day, some heavy training for Alexander and some light exercise for Nojiko.

Nojiko's Devil Fruit training never stopped, even away from the forest. With Alexander's suggestion, she had begun trying to use her powers on flower seeds. Alexander felt that there was potential in her fruit that even now is undiscovered.

When Alexander and Nojiko arrive on an island with no vegetation or nature, how would she be able to use her powers? So he figured, with enough mastery, she could use something like a seed she could carry with her if needed.

Nojiko could use her powers to grow the seeds and use the roots, with which she could control and defend herself.

As night came out in the middle of the sea with no ships nor land in the vicinity, Alexander felt uneasy not from the talk with Nojiko, but something didn't feel right.

So he walked out to the deck to check things out. As he stood there looking around the sea, his senses all of a sudden went haywire, telling him that something dangerous was happening.

His future sight kicked in and told him that something from the sky was approaching, and without a second thought, Alexander took his launcher and sent out Earth Eagle.

"Counter Smash" He told Earth Eagle as it hastily surrounds itself in a light purple ball of energy vibrations.

A few moments later, a black ball the size of 2 footballs fell towards them and was just a few hundred meters above them. Alexander found it weird, but he didn't hesitate.

"Earth Eagle, counter it." With that Earth Eagle, soar towards it in its ball of purple vibrations. Just when they were about to connect, Earth Eagle spread its wings from within the ball and made it burst, and the black ball redirected and flew up again towards the sky.

It didn't take long before Alexander understood what that black ball was as moments later, Earth Eagle countered it, and it exploded. The explosion was big enough to swallow a moby dick whole.

The shockwave that came after the blast was not that strong as it was far away, but you could still feel it as it shook the ship heavily. From the smoke, Alexander spotted a massive black dot emerging from the smoke cloud.

Using Earth Eagle's eyes, he could look closer towards the dot hastily flying away from them. Alexander was shocked when he saw the creature that just had tried to boom them. It was a giant pterodactyl, almost the size of a plane flying away.

As Alexander wanted to chase after the giant pterodactyl, Nojiko came.

"Alexander, what was that just now?" Nojiko asked with a shocked expression as she had both heard the explosion and felt the tremors from the ship.

"We were attacked as someone tried to take us out in the middle of the night and not silently either." He said as he looked towards the direction of where the pterodactyl went.

Alexander stood there on the deck for a long time to see if they would be coming back. Even after an hour, no one came. So he helped, and Nojiko got back to bed, and when Nojiko had fallen asleep, he went out on deck again and just stared up in the sky with anger, hatred in his eyes, and even glints of remorse for his actions before.

It didn't take long for Nojiko to come out again as she couldn't sleep, so they sat out on the deck together.