Travel and Taki 2

'What's Bugs mean by "my spirit is me"? Aren't I.. me? But if my spirit's me, then how do I use it? Am I using it.. right now? If my spirit's everything I am, then I'm using it, right? What am I sposed to do with that?'

My mind was spinning. Buggy had asked me to figure it out, and had given me hints on how to use wherever he wanted me to, but I still had very little in ability to figure it out.

I was stumped.

I sat on the floor, still confused.

'How do I do that? He showed me what he could do, and I can't figure it out! He told me what he did too! Is it something that I should figure out easily? I don't know! Why did you give me this impossible task Bugs!'

After telling Taki how I did it by telling her what she should to replicate what I did, she sat around, pondering, at least I thought. It was closer to a mindless staring off into space, and it didn't seem to help her in any way. I spent a couple days using observation, watching Taki, and most of the time, aside from normal interactions, she was in such a state of staring into space.

And so, I decided to say something.

"Taki."

She jumped a little, presumably because she very much wasn't paying attention, even with her heightened senses. She turned, looking at me with eyes that seemed to be tired and empty, as if she was only ever thinking about what I said.

".. Okay then. *Sigh* Um.. you shouldn't have taken my words that seriously. I didn't NEED you to learn it right now, I just wanted to see if you could do it. *Sigh* and now that I know you've probably lost sleep over this, how about you stop thinking about it? You can start again later if you want."

'Yeah, at the bare minimum, I'd like you to have it for the New World, but that's a bit away.'

Turning all of her, she said "It's fine. I wanted to learn it, because it's cool."

She smiled faintly after saying that. I felt awful for doing that to her, even if it was something she wanted to do.

Clenching my fist against my chest, I said "Okay, I'll make you a deal regarding.. this. You can learn it, I'll help you if you need it, but don't spend every waking minute just trying to figure it out. I just wanted to prepare you a little for where your Homeland is, but it seems to be too much for you."

I was about to finish talking but scrunched my face and said "Actually, no. I'm not making a deal. I am ORDERING you to not spend every waking moment of free time trying to figure out what I meant. It will not be needed for a while anyway, and your devil fruit can make up for any shortcomings you have with what I'm teaching you about. So.. just don't lose your mind over a thing that will be months, or even years away. I'll have plenty of time to teach you about it, and you'll have plenty of time to contemplate it. Just.. please don't kick yourself over it is all."

Her eyes changed a little. While she was still tired, they were less empty than before. I hugged her and said "You should probably get some sleep. It'll be fine to do that now."

The rest of the trip was uneventful. After talking to Taki a little, she had decided to work little by little on her Haki, which I still hadn't informed her of the name, thanks to paranoia, while she relaxed and didn't do much most the time.

After having Taki slow down on the extremely tiring training that was getting her nowhere, I had a conversation with Rosalina, who was steering the ship.

She opened the conversation with "You seem to be like an older brother and mentor to Taki."

'Out of the blue, but okay.'

I was on the deck where she was sailing from, watching Taki while leaning against the railing, still being paranoid and concealing my observation as a just in case from Rosalina.

"Well, eh.. it kinda feels like it. I do feel a somewhat familial connection to Taki, as I did with Mari and Alice. They're kinda like family, so what you said makes some amount of sense. Um.. yeah. Well, I don't even know who my biological parents are, so family that's not blood related is the best thing I really have."

'I really don't remember anything before Buggy being with Roger, so it's not that wrong.'

"And that is the reason you seem to be like an older sibling to her, which was my exact point. It is a strong bond you have with her, even with differences between the two of you."

I thought about it, and rhetorically stated "I am so surprised you could figure out that there were differences between us."

Rosalina smirked. "You know what I meant though. I conveyed it well enough." The smirk disappeared for a second. "My family is a bit.. odd. There are.. many differences between me and them. They like to play it safe, and I like to explore and see the world. While they may be annoying at times, I am part of the family, without question."

"Hmm. Yeah. Family's weird sometimes."

We ended the conversation and just continued on with a little bit of traveling without issue.

We arrived at the home island of Rosalina, an island I had to ask the name of, and a name Rosalina didn't really want to give up: Graphen. It wasn't very exciting, as it was very gray in color compared to anything else, as the sky was also dark, covered in clouds, allowing some light to appear, but diffused through the clouds.

There looked to be no life on the island, in fact, the spiked mountains were sticking out of the ground, and it looked as of there was no one or any type of civilization on the island of Graphen.

There was surprisingly a dock, with a couple of the same ships we were currently sailing on, all also in good condition.

It was very confusing not seeing any civilization, and yet finding a dock on the island.

'I really should learn how to control a ship. Maybe Rosalina could teach me, it would be helpful as a skill, especially since I really couldn't do with a dinghy, like how Luffy started out. I needed space, and a bigger ship, not a giant ship, would be needed, at least when I get to it.

I observed Rosalina docking the ship and then packing a bag, I could assume it was for her family, but paranoia got the better of me, and it was exactly what I had said before, a bag full of stuff that could only be thought to be for her family.

Before Rosalina left the ship, she had something to convey.

"Do. Not. Leave. This. Ship. My family does not like random people showing up, so do not leave the ship. Do you both understand?"

Me and Taki both nodded, but I knew I couldn't stay on the ship without learning if Rosalina was under any kind of control, and hopefully find out about why she had a weird Not-Multiple-Personality-Disorder thing going on.

Watching Rosalina walk away, bag in hand, she wandered into a dust cloud before disappearing from sight.

As soon as Rosalina was out of sight, I ran to our room, grabbed my cloak as quickly as possible, knocking over a couple small things. I left the room, and went to where I was standing beforehand. I then changed to looking at Taki, and asked "Can you watch the ship? I have something I need to do here."

Taki's face turned serious from a questioning look.

"She just told us that we shouldn't go on the island! She said her family doesn't like people who show up!"

I turned my head while still looking at her, having my body facing towards the massive, somewhat apocalyptic land mass in front of us.

"And I said I needed to do something. It's like how YOU needed to not focus as much on tying to use what I do, but I have a need to use the opportunity to actually find something out. I can finally, hopefully, get rid of my paranoia with what I'm about to do. I leave this ship in your hands."

And I then jumped off the side of the ship, constantly having observation as a form of surveillance all around myself, falling feet first.

I landed on the floor as softly as I could, trying to not make a sound, wearing the cloak with my hood up, the back fluttered from the wind, getting to the ground, and then following behind me as soon as I started to run into an abyss of gray.