Chapitre 28: The power of meat
It was a peaceful evening on the Grand Line, and Daz found himself enjoying the serenity of the ocean all around the Thousand Sunny.
As he was sitting there, alone with his thoughts and musings, he came to the somewhat startling realisation that he had never had this much time to himself to just contemplate his life in its entirety.
Before coming aboard the Thousand Sunny he had always been occupied by one thing or another, never enabling him to reflect and introspect properly.
Even when he had been meditating during training sessions it had always been to achieve something, never to just… be.
It was weird to him, just sitting there, watching the slowly sinking sun on the horizon, a mug of ale resting at his side, and simply take it all in.
And he had to admit that he was, surprisingly and rather unexpectedly, touched. Daz had never been one for anything supernatural, he could freely admit as much to himself, always having been a realist that saw the world as what it truly was. Dark with only a few glimmers of beauty hidden inside of it, like pearls buried beneath thick mud at the bottom of the ocean that were worth seeking at every opportunity.
After his transmigration however, things had changed for him. His sudden change of circumstances had shaken him rather strongly when it came to his believe in all that was beyond the scope of mere mortals like him, but he hadn't had the time nor patience to work his way through his jumbled mess that his outlook on life had become, as not soon after he had been taken in by the world government and hadn't even had a single moment of rest during that time.
And before he had realised it he was a member of the Cipher Pol and doing missions that demanded everything of him in order to stay alive and not crack under the pressure. After all, he still had been a prepubescent when he had been sent on his first assignment.
The years after that mostly became a blur to him. Each mission had demanded more of him, often concerning different aspects of his tutelage, and from every mission he had taken something with which he would push himself further and further in his training.
His training. Another point which he now realised was an important component that was the mess his life was.
He had always been a perfectionist when it came to subjects that he burned for with a passion. And in his younger years he hadn't been given much to entertain or educate himself with by his instructors, which coupled with the abilities he had been taught over the years, having before been nothing but fantasies to him, had resulted in Daz dedicating every single waking moment of his career, that wasn't spent taking care of some assignment, perfecting and honing his martial skills.
Perhaps he should have taken some of that time and just rested for a bit. It may have prevented him ending up in this state that was on the verge of cracking completely.
Still, he didn't really regret his decision to dedicate this much time to his pursuits of martial perfection. After all, Daz had become pretty much the premier expert on the Rokushiki amongst all those practitioners in the World Government and elevated the form into a true artform in his most humble opinion.
Which didn't mean he was invincible or even the strongest that had been raised by the World Government. Far from it, really. But his mastery of the Rokushiki, its application and execution, were something no person he knew of could challenge him in. And he found real pride in that fact.
Resting on those thoughts for a while, Daz smiled a little to himself.
Even through all the shit he had been through over the years, he still had managed to carve out a small legacy for himself, something that he had achieved, and nobody else. An achievement that would mark him down in history. And he wasn't even that old yet. It was still written in the stars how far he could push the limits of the Rokushiki in the coming years.
Truly a legacy worth admiration. If only he had found that ambition earlier in his life.
Before he had been thrown head first into this world and stuffed into the body of the young Daz Bonez, he remembered that he had been ambitious as well, at least the person he had been before.
Which was more or less one of the only things he could remember of his past life anymore.
And once he had been taken in by the world government that ambition had been laid to rest for a very long time.
He could freely admit that he had felt deeply lost for many years after entering the world of One Piece, and had simply gone along with the flow for quite some time.
It amused him a little in a sardonic way that even though he had been shaped and formed for years to suit the likes of his instructors, only to end up seeking out the traits he had always treasured the most about himself.
Ambition, dedication and discipline.
And even though he had taken all of those traits and transformed them into something that had resulted in him becoming who he was today, he now finally understood that he had missed something to counter balance those particular traits.
It was humbling in a way. To understand that he had been wrong in so many ways with his view of the world and how he thought reality manifested itself in life.
His first shake up had been his transmigration for sure. And only now, years upon years later did he have his second epiphany.
He lacked humanity.
How ironic, Daz thought to himself, as that is exactly what he himself had always accused the World Government of draining from its subjects they educated and formed into their future weapons.
And now here he was, a weapon, despite his best efforts to remain a human who had never truly been a human being to begin with. Or had he? It was already so long ago his memories were getting patchy in some places.
But maybe he could still change himself back a little. Regain some of that warmth he believed he once had held, before transforming himself more and more into the blade his body personified, quite literally.
And who knows, maybe he could still find some true happiness this time around? It certainly wouldn't hurt to at least look for it…
/////////////////
Monkey D. Luffy was probably one of the dumbest people intellectually there was. And he would be the first person to admit as such, he believed.
But what he lacked in intellect, he made up by instinct. An instinct that practically pulled him into certain directions at times without him even realising it.
As such it may actually have been a blessing in disguise that he was not as sharp as other people, making it much easier for him to simply go along with his instincts.
And right now those instincts were pulling him to the back of the Thousand Sunny, and like all the times before, he simply went along with it.
Thus, Monkey D. Luffy came upon the scene of one of their two passengers sitting laid back against the cabin that made up the kitchen area, with a tankard of ale half emptied, a small smile on his face and still managed to look broken to Luffy's mind.
Now, Monkey D. Luffy, as established earlier, wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed but he knew people and something about the scene told him that he should lend support, and so he did.
Plopping himself down next to the man named Daz, Monkey D. Luffy did nothing for a while, simply sitting there with the man they had taken with them and who had helped them greatly upon the Thriller Bark, and simply lending silent support.
"Are you alright?" He asked however after some time, and only received an answer a minute or so later.
"Do you care?" The man asked back, which confused Luffy a little bit, as he wasn't quite sure himself why he shouldn't care. Wasn't it normal to care for other people? Or was that another example of his extraordinarily dumb brain blurting out something that other people took for granted? He didn't know, but he really didn't think so.
"Yes. Why would I not?" He questioned back, while his head tilted to one side, softly knocking on the wood of the cabin at their backs, while the by now orange light of the sinking sun illuminated the both of them completely.
"Because you don't really know me. But I suppose something like that doesn't much matter to a person such as yourself, does it?" came the uncanny and slightly amused response from Daz, further confusing Luffy who shrugged in response before really answering in kind.
"I don't really know. All I know is that you look like you could use some help and I felt like helping." Again, Luffy shrugged and Daz only stared at Luffy for a time, his sharp grey eyes practically dissecting Luffy from head to toe in their intensity before Daz began to laugh quietly into the warm evening air, somehow losing some of that brittleness that had hung over the man like a veil when Luffy had found him sitting there in silence.
"You are a weird dude, Luffy. But I can't say I dislike weird people. They give life the spice it often times lacks, that's for sure." Still chuckling softly Daz replied and Luffy nodded in agreement.
Spice was very good for practically everything. Be that meat or adventures. It made things more interesting and he was proud of being a "weird dude" as Daz had named him so aptly.
Silence once more reigned between the two but soon Luffy's stomach rumbled in hunger, shortly after followed by Daz', which caused the two of them to glimpse at each other with a small grin on their faces.
"How about we see about getting some different spices for real this time around, hm?" Daz asked then, and Luffy certainly couldn't fault the man's sense of right and wrong. Truly, he didn't get why the rest of his crew were so wary of Daz Bonez. He seemed like an alright guy to Luffy, if a little scary, admittedly. But anyone who like meat with different spices to get some variety into their lives couldn't be a bad person in his opinion.
Now if only Sanji hadn't put that damn lock on the refrigerator!
Daz however seemed to have read Luffy's thoughts at that moment and transformed his right index finger into a dangerously glinting blade with a grin on his face, and Luffy decided then and there that the two would probably become very good friends in the future!
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
bobbarker12
bobbarker12 Not an easy chapter to write, but I still enjoyed it. I hope you did too, even though it was a very reflective one, and nothing much happened. However, I'm not writing those chapters without a purpose in mind. It serves as a foundation for what I'm thinking of doing with this story in the future. I only ask that you trust a little in my ability to come up with something interesting once the time is right.
Anyway, leave a comment with your thoughts if you feel like it (I'm actually reading those, I know, disturbing) and have a nice day^^
— Un nouveau chapitre arrive bientôt — Écrire un avis
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone