Flying over the Marine Base and the surrounding port Bill focused his eyes towards in the direction that Nelson indicated and saw smoke rising along with the tell-tale sign of a fading signal flare.
With his mind racing, he sped up faster and it seemed that for a moment every bad possibility that could happen ran through his mind. Leaving Warden Isaac far behind him, he controlled his heart rate and stopped his speculations, and in this way, Bill forced himself to remain calm.
With his senses notched up he rocketed past the rolling hills where Yoko had met the kids before and began to smell charred meat.
Dark black smoke choked the air, but undaunted, he made his final push – kicking the air so hard that a sonic boom could be heard by the Warden who was now lagging far behind.
At his current speed it didn’t take long for Bill to find the pirates fort, and after a brief moment of searching he found Yoko and what he saw made him freeze while hovering some fifty meters in the air.
Watching that little girl he knew, slack jawed, he witnessed how she was happily standing on top of a terribly burnt large man.
With Boss not twenty feet away, she was taunting the big fellow, laughing at his burns and claiming that he should have never messed with her. She then went into a long hypocritical rant about how pirates were violent and how they were scourges, water wolves, and much more. Seemingly blind to her own actions.
Despite coaching himself to expect anything, what he saw induced feelings of shock, disappointment, and worst of all, guilt.
Bill was no stranger to violence. Do various lessons that he learned the hard way, he never held back during battles and often led spearhead actions which resulted in the deaths of many.
It was just a fact that during his short career as a Marine, he had killed scores of men and women. But no matter what, he never took killing lightly and had always tried to offer his enemies a chance to surrender before it was too late.
He had also done his best to impart the value of life to the girl he was watching now. She was also a Marine and Bill knew that one day she’d have to fight and, in those future battles, would also have to kill.
Though he despaired that she had already killed a person, what hurt him the most wasn’t that Yoko had taken a life, it was her actions after the fact.
As he hovered there watching her start literally dancing on top of a man who was almost certainly bound to die, she was like a stranger to him. That revelation was like the bridge that crossed over immature innocence and into mature culpability.
Despite all of that, he loved her, and with a frown he fell from the sky not thirty meters away.
Hearing his feet hit the ground Yoko quickly turned around and when she saw who it was looked wide eyed, but that was only momentary and soon enough her eyes turned red with a wide smile forming across her face.
Listening to her talk about her feats, about how she had exterminated the pirate infestation and barely even needed Boss to help, Bill stood there quietly thinking that girl needed more guidance.
As she excitedly continued on and on, through the smell of the blood, the smoke, the burning flesh, and the alcohol, as the girl spoke Bill continually smelled that familiar twisted o-zone that signified the presence of chaos.
Eventually, even in her current euphoric state, Yoko noticed that Bill wasn’t responding and so she asked whimsically: “So, what do you think?”
Furrowing his brow another inch, Bill’s eyes turned pitch black and ignoring Yoko as she reeled back, he asked her if she was drunk.
Of course, her drinking was one of the least of his worries, but now watching her fumbling lies and the mumbled truth spoken from the shadow behind her, Bill could see disunity between her enhanced soul and her natural logos.
Until now he had witnessed many Devil Fruit users, and with one exception in his experience, the devils were always in a position subordinate to the persons logos.
This was normal, after all, Bill had concluded that the devil fruit entities merged with the user’s soul and the soul was not something that should be exist in reality.
The realm of souls was Chaos, and the realm of the logos was Reality.
Bill had come to somewhat understand the ‘how’s’ – though not the ‘whys’ – and had come to the realization that what he had called devil fruit ‘entities’ were really just enhanced souls.
Since most normal people had spiritual balance, he couldn’t see normal people’s souls in the same way as he could see devil fruit users, but once a person ate a devil fruit, their souls were unnaturally strengthened.
It was very strengthening that caused the imbalance which was damaging to fundamental reality!
Watching Yoko lie about being drunk and make up excuses about why it shouldn’t even matter, he watched as she was nearly consumed by her enhanced soul and made the additional observation that while she was growing frustrated, it grew stronger until the point where it was hard to tell which was in control.
By the time Warden Isaac caught up, Yoko’s eyes were bloodshot red and had so much steam coming out of her it looked like she had been boiled inside a caldron. Working herself up more and more she began to rail about how Bill had no right to say anything – and it had to be noted that to this point he had barely spoken ten words – because he also killed pirates and since she was in the Marines it was her duty.
Under the influence of the entity that merged with her soul, Bill watched as Yoko seemed to have split a personality until she could take no more.
Whatever kind battle had been fought between her unnaturally enhanced soul and her natural logos, it was clear to Bill that her logos was losing, and thinking that she could be subsumed, he put aside any thoughts for immediate discipline and with a notion his entire body turned as black as his eyes.
Whatever traits her Devil Fruit had; one thing Bill knew for sure was that it was definitely a sentient idea, and upon seeing him exert his Haki, the girl immediately tried to flee with what looked like to him a somersault.
But with him already being on edge, she was never going to be able to escape. Bursting forwards he caught her with one big hand, pulling her down by the ankle, and in one swift motion he laid his left hand on her head with his right hand across her heart.
Immediately closing his eyes, Bill sank down and down and for the first time in his life intentionally entered the sea of souls.
Opening three sets of eyes to Chaos, he found himself on a solid cloud which hung above a huge mountain and below a sea of crystals which gave an echo of fractal light as far as his three perspectives could observe. Looking forward, he saw an amalgamation between a human and bipedal monkey which looked back at him with a mixture of surprise, pride, and rage.
To his sight, the entity in front of him was stark against the awe-inspiring background. Though it wasn’t as visually impressive, it held a touch of something that Bill impulsively wanted to monopolize.
But mercifully his instincts were stronger than his urges, and finding reason in the space of Chaos, he dared not touch the amalgamation with his logos.
Instead, as if answering to his Will, his souls moved in tandem with each other and Bill watched through the logos as a battle as old as time itself raged.
The human/monkey amalgamation was powerful but against his soul of many eyes and wheels and his soul of three heads it was ground down until it was so feeble that he dared not continue lest it be completely destroyed.
Then, using a method he had never yet imagined, he Willed his soul of many eyes and wheels to sit upon the monkey – holding it down firmly.
With the wheels slowly turning, it ground down the amalgamation at the speed of which it regrew, Bill watched through the eyes his three headed soul and needed no confirmation. Seeing that it was forever unable to get up for as long as he Willed it down.
Finished with what he had come to do, the logos again closed its eyes and with a notion surged upwards.
Returning back to reality, Bill felt his world dim but was able to catch Yoko from falling down. From Isaac's point of view the two stood still for only several moments but when they moved again Yoko collapsed white as a sheet.
“What is the meaning of all this, Captain?!” hollered the Warden who was thoroughly mystified by what had just happened but was very certain that the girl and her beetle had destroyed one of his important plans.
Not immediately answering Isaac's call, Bill felt mentally drained and nauseous. He knew he had returned to Chaos and knew he had indefinitely suppressed Yoko’s soul to the point that her abilities would never manifest again unless he deemed otherwise.
What he did not know was why he felt so mentally exhausted. It was like he had an idea on the tip of his tongue but no matter what it never came to him.
Breathing heavily, he returned another of Isaac's shouts with: “What is the meaning of having this camp of outlaws across from the largest population on the island?!”
Of course, the Warden was smart enough to play ignorant, to which Bill directly demanded compensation for the danger that Yoko had faced.
Jail Island was not like most other Marine bases, the entire island was under Marine occupation and that meant that the leader of the base was responsible for all local law and order across the territory.
In this way, Isaac had egg on his face when it was discovered that there was a major pirate encampment barely an hours walk away from Steel City.
Feeling tired and seeing that the man had no intentions of responding to him, he told Isaac that he’d talk about it tomorrow. Then, with Yoko in his arms he climbed on Boss’s back and told the beetle to head back to the ship.
It was only around mid-day, but no sooner than he put the sleeping Yoko on one of the medical beds, he himself fell into a deep sleep. When he finally opened his eyes again, he still felt somewhat off, but sat up from the medical bed. Seeing that Yoko was gone he looked sour and remembered the scene he had happened upon.
The girl would be punished, he thought to himself, but for now he was starving and needed to get some calories.
Making his way to the mess hall, Bill didn’t pay attention to his crews surprised faces and directly dug in to the most nutritious foods he could find. Eating beans and sea king meat by the handfuls, Bill reached into a crate holding Mini Express Shrimps and delivered the hand to his mouth without thinking twice about the shells.
The Mini Express Shrimps were the ticket, he thought, and as he gorged himself he directed the nutrients around his body until he felt more or less whole again.
Still feeling somewhat foggy, he rested his back on the wall and only stood up when he heard a commotion from the dining hall.
Walking out to see shocked but happy Ricky, Bill said with a sarcastic laugh: “What, you missed me?”
Nodding his head, Ricky wiped his face with his one hand and replied happily: “You fool! You don’t even realize!”
“Realize what?” Bill asked, now not so sarcastically, to which Ricky replied:
“You’ve been asleep for 8 days!”
Despite hearing this surprising news, Bill still felt a little foggy.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
Sorry for the delay on this one, hopefully the chapter is readable, but I had a serious case of writers block. I knew where I wanted this chapter to go but for whatever reason I couldn't put it together.
Just to reaffirm, the goal for this fanfic is 4 chapters per week.
Flying over the Marine Base and the surrounding port Bill focused his eyes towards in the direction that Nelson indicated and saw smoke rising along with the tell-tale sign of a fading signal flare.
With his mind racing, he sped up faster and it seemed that for a moment every bad possibility that could happen ran through his mind. Leaving Warden Isaac far behind him, he controlled his heart rate and stopped his speculations, and in this way, Bill forced himself to remain calm.
With his senses notched up he rocketed past the rolling hills where Yoko had met the kids before and began to smell charred meat.
Dark black smoke choked the air, but undaunted, he made his final push – kicking the air so hard that a sonic boom could be heard by the Warden who was now lagging far behind.
At his current speed it didn’t take long for Bill to find the pirates fort, and after a brief moment of searching he found Yoko and what he saw made him freeze while hovering some fifty meters in the air.
Watching that little girl he knew, slack jawed, he witnessed how she was happily standing on top of a terribly burnt large man.
With Boss not twenty feet away, she was taunting the big fellow, laughing at his burns and claiming that he should have never messed with her. She then went into a long hypocritical rant about how pirates were violent and how they were scourges, water wolves, and much more. Seemingly blind to her own actions.
Despite coaching himself to expect anything, what he saw induced feelings of shock, disappointment, and worst of all, guilt.
Bill was no stranger to violence. Do various lessons that he learned the hard way, he never held back during battles and often led spearhead actions which resulted in the deaths of many.
It was just a fact that during his short career as a Marine, he had killed scores of men and women. But no matter what, he never took killing lightly and had always tried to offer his enemies a chance to surrender before it was too late.
He had also done his best to impart the value of life to the girl he was watching now. She was also a Marine and Bill knew that one day she’d have to fight and, in those future battles, would also have to kill.
Though he despaired that she had already killed a person, what hurt him the most wasn’t that Yoko had taken a life, it was her actions after the fact.
As he hovered there watching her start literally dancing on top of a man who was almost certainly bound to die, she was like a stranger to him. That revelation was like the bridge that crossed over immature innocence and into mature culpability.
Despite all of that, he loved her, and with a frown he fell from the sky not thirty meters away.
Hearing his feet hit the ground Yoko quickly turned around and when she saw who it was looked wide eyed, but that was only momentary and soon enough her eyes turned red with a wide smile forming across her face.
Listening to her talk about her feats, about how she had exterminated the pirate infestation and barely even needed Boss to help, Bill stood there quietly thinking that girl needed more guidance.
As she excitedly continued on and on, through the smell of the blood, the smoke, the burning flesh, and the alcohol, as the girl spoke Bill continually smelled that familiar twisted o-zone that signified the presence of chaos.
Eventually, even in her current euphoric state, Yoko noticed that Bill wasn’t responding and so she asked whimsically: “So, what do you think?”
Furrowing his brow another inch, Bill’s eyes turned pitch black and ignoring Yoko as she reeled back, he asked her if she was drunk.
Of course, her drinking was one of the least of his worries, but now watching her fumbling lies and the mumbled truth spoken from the shadow behind her, Bill could see disunity between her enhanced soul and her natural logos.
Until now he had witnessed many Devil Fruit users, and with one exception in his experience, the devils were always in a position subordinate to the persons logos.
This was normal, after all, Bill had concluded that the devil fruit entities merged with the user’s soul and the soul was not something that should be exist in reality.
The realm of souls was Chaos, and the realm of the logos was Reality.
Bill had come to somewhat understand the ‘how’s’ – though not the ‘whys’ – and had come to the realization that what he had called devil fruit ‘entities’ were really just enhanced souls.
Since most normal people had spiritual balance, he couldn’t see normal people’s souls in the same way as he could see devil fruit users, but once a person ate a devil fruit, their souls were unnaturally strengthened.
It was very strengthening that caused the imbalance which was damaging to fundamental reality!
Watching Yoko lie about being drunk and make up excuses about why it shouldn’t even matter, he watched as she was nearly consumed by her enhanced soul and made the additional observation that while she was growing frustrated, it grew stronger until the point where it was hard to tell which was in control.
By the time Warden Isaac caught up, Yoko’s eyes were bloodshot red and had so much steam coming out of her it looked like she had been boiled inside a caldron. Working herself up more and more she began to rail about how Bill had no right to say anything – and it had to be noted that to this point he had barely spoken ten words – because he also killed pirates and since she was in the Marines it was her duty.
Under the influence of the entity that merged with her soul, Bill watched as Yoko seemed to have split a personality until she could take no more.
Whatever kind battle had been fought between her unnaturally enhanced soul and her natural logos, it was clear to Bill that her logos was losing, and thinking that she could be subsumed, he put aside any thoughts for immediate discipline and with a notion his entire body turned as black as his eyes.
Whatever traits her Devil Fruit had; one thing Bill knew for sure was that it was definitely a sentient idea, and upon seeing him exert his Haki, the girl immediately tried to flee with what looked like to him a somersault.
But with him already being on edge, she was never going to be able to escape. Bursting forwards he caught her with one big hand, pulling her down by the ankle, and in one swift motion he laid his left hand on her head with his right hand across her heart.
Immediately closing his eyes, Bill sank down and down and for the first time in his life intentionally entered the sea of souls.
Opening three sets of eyes to Chaos, he found himself on a solid cloud which hung above a huge mountain and below a sea of crystals which gave an echo of fractal light as far as his three perspectives could observe. Looking forward, he saw an amalgamation between a human and bipedal monkey which looked back at him with a mixture of surprise, pride, and rage.
To his sight, the entity in front of him was stark against the awe-inspiring background. Though it wasn’t as visually impressive, it held a touch of something that Bill impulsively wanted to monopolize.
But mercifully his instincts were stronger than his urges, and finding reason in the space of Chaos, he dared not touch the amalgamation with his logos.
Instead, as if answering to his Will, his souls moved in tandem with each other and Bill watched through the logos as a battle as old as time itself raged.
The human/monkey amalgamation was powerful but against his soul of many eyes and wheels and his soul of three heads it was ground down until it was so feeble that he dared not continue lest it be completely destroyed.
Then, using a method he had never yet imagined, he Willed his soul of many eyes and wheels to sit upon the monkey – holding it down firmly.
With the wheels slowly turning, it ground down the amalgamation at the speed of which it regrew, Bill watched through the eyes his three headed soul and needed no confirmation. Seeing that it was forever unable to get up for as long as he Willed it down.
Finished with what he had come to do, the logos again closed its eyes and with a notion surged upwards.
Returning back to reality, Bill felt his world dim but was able to catch Yoko from falling down. From Isaac's point of view the two stood still for only several moments but when they moved again Yoko collapsed white as a sheet.
“What is the meaning of all this, Captain?!” hollered the Warden who was thoroughly mystified by what had just happened but was very certain that the girl and her beetle had destroyed one of his important plans.
Not immediately answering Isaac's call, Bill felt mentally drained and nauseous. He knew he had returned to Chaos and knew he had indefinitely suppressed Yoko’s soul to the point that her abilities would never manifest again unless he deemed otherwise.
What he did not know was why he felt so mentally exhausted. It was like he had an idea on the tip of his tongue but no matter what it never came to him.
Breathing heavily, he returned another of Isaac's shouts with: “What is the meaning of having this camp of outlaws across from the largest population on the island?!”
Of course, the Warden was smart enough to play ignorant, to which Bill directly demanded compensation for the danger that Yoko had faced.
Jail Island was not like most other Marine bases, the entire island was under Marine occupation and that meant that the leader of the base was responsible for all local law and order across the territory.
In this way, Isaac had egg on his face when it was discovered that there was a major pirate encampment barely an hours walk away from Steel City.
Feeling tired and seeing that the man had no intentions of responding to him, he told Isaac that he’d talk about it tomorrow. Then, with Yoko in his arms he climbed on Boss’s back and told the beetle to head back to the ship.
It was only around mid-day, but no sooner than he put the sleeping Yoko on one of the medical beds, he himself fell into a deep sleep. When he finally opened his eyes again, he still felt somewhat off, but sat up from the medical bed. Seeing that Yoko was gone he looked sour and remembered the scene he had happened upon.
The girl would be punished, he thought to himself, but for now he was starving and needed to get some calories.
Making his way to the mess hall, Bill didn’t pay attention to his crews surprised faces and directly dug in to the most nutritious foods he could find. Eating beans and sea king meat by the handfuls, Bill reached into a crate holding Mini Express Shrimps and delivered the hand to his mouth without thinking twice about the shells.
The Mini Express Shrimps were the ticket, he thought, and as he gorged himself he directed the nutrients around his body until he felt more or less whole again.
Still feeling somewhat foggy, he rested his back on the wall and only stood up when he heard a commotion from the dining hall.
Walking out to see shocked but happy Ricky, Bill said with a sarcastic laugh: “What, you missed me?”
Nodding his head, Ricky wiped his face with his one hand and replied happily: “You fool! You don’t even realize!”
“Realize what?” Bill asked, now not so sarcastically, to which Ricky replied:
“You’ve been asleep for 8 days!”
Despite hearing this surprising news, Bill still felt a little foggy.
UberNuber If you enjoy the fanfic hit the heart icon and consider leaving a rating!
Sorry for the delay on this one, hopefully the chapter is readable, but I had a serious case of writers block. I knew where I wanted this chapter to go but for whatever reason I couldn't put it together.
Just to reaffirm, the goal for this fanfic is 4 chapters per week.
