Daniel & Torino

I turned to see a bald guy with giant muscles, standing there. He had blacked out sunglasses, a tank top, jeans, sandals, and a jacket wrapped around his waist. He had his arms crossed, eccentuating the bulging muscles of the entirety of his arms.

'This guy wants to fight me? Why?'

"No, I don't really want to. Why?"

He pointed at me, letting the other arm drop: "Yo kid, I saw ya wandering around the island. Ya seemed to be lookin for something, so I wanted to show you why you should stop lookin and follow me."

A couple people started to notice that there was a challenge happening, and we're interested in who was going to be fighting.

I noticed the people and asked "Do I maybe.. have a choice in the matter?" And put my hand on Surya, readying to draw at a moment's notice.

Crossing his arms again, he said "We don't use weapons here, only fists." He then held out one of his hands, beckoning me towards him, while the other was already in a fist.

'Do I have a need to actually fight this guy? He just appears out of nowhere, and then wants to fight me, because he wants me to join him? I don't have a need right now, and I have other stuff I need to do, so I can't just do that. I can.. just leave.. right? He's the wrong direction to stop me from leaving, so I can, right?'

I turned away from him to face the ship, which Rosalina was moving supplies on to, along with a little bit of help from Taki and Alice, with Mariga doing what I could only call 'Supervising'. I was also technically supervising, but that was only because I was idiotically talking to someone who wanted to fight me.

"Well.. guy.. I'm gonna be leaving the island. I was only here for a couple hours and had that time to kill. I may be back, I don't know when exactly, but it may be a couple years. See ya, possibly never again." And started to walk away.

The guy didn't take kindly to my declining of his proposal, as he lunged forward towards me, jumping with some speed to attack me, but I sensed it coming, and knew what he was going to do.

He was going to punch the back of my head to knock me out, but I don't think he expected me to move out of the way.

'Too bad you don't have Observation Haki, otherwise it might be useful in becoming stronger. I may still come back, just to study different ways to attack, since it could be useful for attacking with my devil fruit. It sucks that it won't end up how he wants though.'

While heading to me, he started to say "YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE LIKE THAT!"

People had started to circle around the.. not a fight.. more like.. attack. They were very interested, and the way I could actually tell was not from the crowd cheering this guy on, but because of a betting booth that was being run.

'Do these guys fight so often that they have portable betting booths or something?'

Also while looking around at the crowd, I overheard, more like used observation, from someone "Is Daniel doing this again?"

Someone replied to them with: "I learned before that Dan had gotten all of his deciples by forcing them to become his students."

A third person joined in on the conversation: "When he challenged them before they would have left, they would get knocked out, and then wake up in Daniel's Dojo, then being forced to do manual labor for days straight."

The second person talked again "Oh, poor kids, I know they're learning from one of the best people on the island, but he can't just do that."

"No one's been able to make him stop, since there isn't any Marine presence here. Besides, we can't exactly do anything about his 'Students'."

"Oh poor kid. He's gonna end up like the rest, may the gods smile upon you."

I frowned a little. 'Do these people not know actual strength? I swear that martial arts isn't always useful. I mean, Brick, or whatever his name was, in the arena on Dressrosa wasn't very good, nor did he last very long, and so my point is proven to myself, not all martial arts are good for everything.'

Without turning towards Daniel to give him any satisfaction for knocking me out, it seemed as though the guy, who I now knew was named Daniel, was almost about to hit me with whatever attack he had and could use. I felt that it was just a punch with a little spin on it, but I didn't care, since I had my own plan.

As soon as his fist neared the back of my head, I used Soru and Geppo in quick succession.

I used one to fly to the side, a second one to go backwards just enough to use them a third time to end up directly behind Daniel.

Focusing on what I was doing, I gripped Surya's handle, and used Quickdraw in combination with Thunder Vacuum to make the blade appear as if had teleported to right next to his neck.

I didn't actually cut his neck, just put Surya up to it. And as soon as the blade appeared beside his neck, a sound of thunder appeared, deafening almost everyone nearby.

With my eyes narrowed, looking at Daniel, who had a face that said 'I got him' and 'Oh crap, I don't got him'. He had yet to realize that I had defeated him in less time than he could even reach me, at least until he saw Surya sticking a little over his shoulder.

Almost everyone around who was looking at the fight, especially the people I learned about Daniel from, was more shocked that someone had defeated Daniel more than the fact that it was done using a sword, or the fact it was done in such a short amount of time.

Using my eyes to stare daggers into Daniel, I said "You know, it doesn't take as much effort to do this than to use your fist. I don't care if you want me as a deciple of yours, I have already said: I. Don't. Want. To. Be. I also said I would come back in a couple years. I'm only here because of running low on supplies, nothing else. But if, or more like when I come back, I'll be ready to learn, but right now, I am personally on a time schedule, so you cannot force me, like your other deciples, to join you. I do not care about your background, but if you try to force me to do something, I won't want to do it, especially if it's a second or third time you do it. So cool your jets, and watch as I leave."

In less than a second, I resheathed Surya, and walked around Daniel, who was frozen where he stood. Then standing in front of Rosalina, who had watched the end of the fight, I said "Are you done? I would've helped, but some clown wanted to pick a fight with me."

Rosalina chuckled at that.

"What? What's so funny?"

Going up to the deck, Rosalina told me "Oh, it's just that you called someone a clown while you, yourself, are a clown. A bit of ironic comedy is all."

".. Okay then." I turned my head and looked at Alice and Taki, who were just stood there. "Hey, you two, aren't you gonna come along? We got stuff to do!"

I heard an eep come from Alice, and Taki just moved like a ghost, wearing a cloak to cover her appearance, and they both got on, then saying "You were really cool Bugs!", "That was awesome!", and "When can I learn that!? I wanna do that!"

All I could say to those statements was "Thank you! I tried to be cool, and it worked! I'll teach you in due time, so just wait a while."

And then we set sail. Pulling out of the dock, I watched as the once shocked people crowded around the frozen Daniel, who was not moving at all, along with people heading towards the betting booth, angry and wanting their money back. Some were also scattering, moving away from the dock altogether.

'How do those guys keep the island's economy going? It revolves around fights, I assume, so what do they do? I habe a while to think about it, since I may be coming back to gather some crew members, but I don't need to make any promises.'

A couple of weeks passed by, and this time, it was to a destination I needed.

Rosalina pointed it out, and I looked at it.

"That, right there, is the Torino Kingdom. One of the best places in the South Blue to find a doctor. As I said before, the people are a little primitive, but you can't let their appearances fool you."

I was stuck looking at the island. A rocky base with stones and boulders, all moss covered. And then a massive tree towering high into the sky, with only very few sets of leaves and branches.

Scrunching my face and looking at the island, things started to click in my mind.

'Isn't that the place where Chopper trained during the time skip?'