...
A year can do a lot for a person.
Apparently, it could also turn you into a freak!
I dropped from the pull-up bar and landed lightly in the dirt behind our house, breathing hard. I could feel a great pump going. I rolled my shoulders once, flexed my hands, then immediately went down for push-ups.
My palms hit the ground.
One.
Two.
Three.
I kept a steady pace. I was starting to feel the strain after about three hundred.
"Still disgusting," I muttered to myself as I pushed up one last time and sat back on my heels.
At fourteen, I had no business being built like this, and I'm a humble guy you know. A year ago, I'd already been on the taller side for my age, maybe 5"5? Big for my age, sure, but still within the range where people could squint and go, 'Yeah, alright' Now?
Now I was six foot five!
It wasn't just the training, either. That was the weird part.
Since eating the fruit, things had just been going absurdly well for me physically. My body responded to everything; training paid off much faster, and my recovery was quicker. Minor injuries were irrelevant as well, but my appetite had become monstrous, which my mom had mixed feelings about, mostly because feeding me now looked like provisioning a small army, and it didn't come cheap.
Then there was the hair.
I reached up and tugged a loose strand down in front of my face, staring at it.
White.
Not fully, not yet. There were still darker traces in places, mostly nearer the roots, but the change had been steady enough over the last year that denying it had become stupid. It had also gotten longer. At some point, I'd stopped bothering to cut it properly, so now it hung down around my face and neck in messy layers that the sea breeze kept trying to throw into my eyes.
I thought it looked cool, great to aura farm in the future.
I stood and dusted myself off before turning my right hand over.
That was another weird thing.
The mark sat across the back of my hand and over the knuckles, like some kind of ritual tattoo carved into me. Circular in design, with lines and spokes that all curved in a way that made the whole thing look eerily like the wheel of Mahoraga.
At first, I'd thought it could just be symbolic.
But nah, it moved. And not randomly either. It only moved when I was adapting. I flexed my fingers, staring at it as if it might decide to do something right now.
It didn't.
Shame. That probably would've looked cool to do it on command.
I still didn't know whether anyone else could see it move, and I had no intention of finding out yet. Explaining to people that the weird tattoo on my hand rotated in response to repeated damage was a conversation I was happy to postpone until never.
Still, it had helped me better understand my power, but for now, I'd been keeping it wrapped in some cloth. I cracked my neck and moved over to the large flat stone near the fence, where I kept a small cloth, a water jug, and a paring knife.
I picked up the knife.
Then sighed.
"This looks so bad out of context."
Carefully, I pressed the edge against the side of my forearm and drew it across just enough to sting.
A faint line appeared.
A year ago, that same pressure would've cut me deeper.
Now it barely broke skin.
I clicked my tongue and looked at the mark on my hand.
Nothing yet.
"Still not enough, huh?"
That had become another pattern. Once I'd fully adapted to a certain level of something, weaker versions barely registered anymore, which was great for survival and terrible for testing. It meant I constantly had to find a slightly more effective version of whatever I was trying to resist.
Really healthy hobby I had going.
I wiped the blade clean, set it down, and reached for the jug instead, pouring water over my head. It ran down my face and neck, soaking my shirt further, and I pushed my hair back with one hand.
The village had changed a little over the year.
Not dramatically. Goat Village was still Goat Village. Small and still too far from the important parts of the world, well, important to me anyway. Fishermen, farmers, loud older women, and enough gossip to fuel civilisations for centuries.
But lately, it's been getting…busy?
Shellstown had started paying attention to us.
That was the sort of sentence that would mean absolutely nothing to a normal person and just enough to make me deeply suspicious.
A few marines had started showing up around the area on rotating patrols. Not enough to occupy the village, but enough to remind everyone that they could. Some were normal. Some were a bit too smug for men whose greatest battlefield achievement to date was probably scaring fishermen. A couple were the exact kind of minor control freaks you get whenever someone hands a mediocre man a uniform and a reason to bark at people.
Think, Stanford Prison Experiment.
So naturally, I was interested.
Marines meant structure. Training. Real combat basics. Weapons. Access to stronger people. Access to danger. Access to the wider world.
In other words, growth.
I wasn't stupid enough to start believing the Marines were pure good guys. This was One Piece. Every organisation had dirt on it somewhere when it came to the Celestial Dragons, and the Marines had enough dirt to build a second Red Line. But if I wanted to get stronger fast without immediately becoming a wanted criminal at fourteen, they were a pretty solid option.
At the very least, getting close to them could teach me things.
At most, it could launch my life forward years ahead of schedule.
The only issue was that my parents would hate it.
I looked down at my still-damp shirt.
Actually, "hate it" might not be strong enough.
…
I should've waited. I should've eased into it. I should've, at the bare minimum, opened with something less insane.
Instead, halfway through chewing, I looked up and said, "I think I want to join the Marines."
Silence and not normal silence, either.
The room went so quiet I could hear the little crackle from the lantern in the corner.
My dad slowly lowered his utensils, and my mom blinked once.
Twice.
Then both of them exploded.
"WHAT?!"
I flinched so hard I nearly launched my bowl.
My dad shot to his feet with enough force to send his chair skidding backward. "The Marines?!" he repeated, pointing at me as I'd just announced I was running away to marry a Sea King. "Since when were we raising a government man in this house?!"
My mom clutched her chest and leaned sideways dramatically. "No, no, I can't hear this," she said, voice trembling with theatrical despair. "Not from my sweet boy. Not from the child I carried for nine months, shouting 'justice' all day~!"
"I wouldn't shout about justice," I said carefully. "Probably."
She made a wounded noise.
"That's not helping!" my dad barked.
"I'm just saying, if I did join, I don't think I'd be very enthusiastic about the shouting part."
My mom stood now too, placing the back of one hand against her forehead as though struck by a curse. "What happened? Was it the height? Did getting too tall make him rebellious? I told you we should have fed him less fish."
"Less fish?" my dad snapped. "He eats enough for six grown men! If anything, this is what happens when a boy gets too much protein, and none of it goes to his brain!"
"I'm still here."
"Where has my poor baby gone!" my mom said.
I rubbed my temple.
My dad began pacing the room.
"Why the Marines?" he demanded. "Where is this coming from? You hate being told what to do. You glare at people when they give you simple instructions. Last week, your mom asked you to peel potatoes, and you looked at her like she'd insulted the ancestors."
"In my defence, I had just sat down."
"You see?" he said, turning to my mom and stabbing a finger toward me like he'd made some tremendous point. "He's impossible! They'd court-martial him in a week!"
"I don't think they court-martial children," I said.
"That is not the part you should be responding to!"
My mom was now fully in the bit, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes that I was ninety per cent sure were fake. "You want to leave us. That's what this is. First, the hair changed colour, then you got all broad and mysterious, and now you want to run off to Shellstown and be stolen by handsome uniforms."
"The uniforms are not that handsome."
"Oh, so you've been looking at them?" my dad said, scandalised.
"That is somehow not what I meant!"
He gasped and pointed at me with both hands now. "He's already halfway gone!"
I let out a slow breath through my nose and set my chopsticks down before I accidentally snapped them.
"Can you two calm down for one second?"
"No," they said together.
I stared at them.
They stared back.
Then my mom sat down dramatically, though not before making sure her robe swished for maximum effect. My dad remained standing for a few more seconds before sitting as well, muttering under his breath about betrayal.
Good. Progress.
I folded my hands on the table.
"I'm not saying I'm leaving tomorrow," I said. "And I'm not saying I've signed anything or decided everything already. I'm thinking about it. That's all."
My dad narrowed his eyes. "Thinking leads to doing."
"Usually, yes."
"That was a trap," my mom whispered to him.
He ignored her. "Why?"
That made me pause, not because I didn't have an answer, but because I had too many.
Because I wanted to get stronger, and I knew the world was bigger and more dangerous than this island. Staying small and safe was how you got crushed the moment real monsters arrived, and I had a Devil Fruit that was either going to make me extraordinary or get me killed if I wasted it.
Opportunity had finally walked close enough for me to grab at it.
Instead of saying all that, I shrugged.
"It seems useful."
My parents both stared at me in disbelief.
"That's your speech?" my mom asked.
"That's what you prepared?"
"I didn't prepare a speech."
"That much is obvious," my dad said.
I leaned back slightly. "Look, Shellstown's close. Marines are already coming around more often. If I can learn from them, train with them, maybe get noticed, then that's better than sitting here forever doing push-ups in the yard and pretending the world isn't moving without me, this'll be good for all of us"
That, at least, landed.
The room quieted.
My dad's expression changed first, losing some of its drama. My mom followed, though she still looked like she might resume wailing if the conversation stopped entertaining her for too long.
"You've thought about this seriously," my dad said.
"Yes."
"You want more than the village."
"Yes."
My mom looked down at my right hand, resting on the table, the cloth slightly unwrapped. The mark was hidden partly by shadow. Her gaze lingered there a moment before lifting to my face.
"This is also about your sudden changes, isn't it?"
I didn't answer straight away.
Then, quietly, "Partly."
No point insulting them by lying. They weren't stupid.
My dad exhaled through his nose and leaned back. "I don't like it."
"I figured."
"I like it even less because I can tell this isn't some childish impulse."
"That sounds almost supportive."
"It isn't," he said immediately. "Do not misread me."
That almost made me smile.
My mom reached over and flicked my forehead.
"Ow."
"That was for dropping this on us in the middle of dinner like a lunatic."
"Fair."
"If you were going to announce something life-changing," she said, "you could at least have waited until dessert."
"I didn't think timing would save me."
"It would not have," my dad admitted.
I looked between them, then down at my bowl.
"So… you're not saying no?"
My dad and mom shared a look.
That weird, silent parent look. The kind where twenty years of marriage passed between them in half a second, and you, the child, were cruelly excluded from the meaning.
Then my dad grunted. "I'm saying we're talking about it properly."
"And," my mom added, pointing a chopstick at me, "you are not marching into Shellstown tomorrow and throwing yourself at the first marine."
"I was not planning to do that."
"Good."
"…Probably."
"Kai."
"Fine."
Dinner resumed after that. My dad kept glancing at me, and my mom served me extra food with the sombre dignity.
I accepted both because, frankly, if I were about to argue my case over the next few days, I would need the calories.
Besides, they hadn't said no…and their opinion mattered to me.
…
End of Chapter!
Word Count - 2269
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