Chapter 3

West blue, Ishiria island, roku town

(no name pov)

As I was opening my eyes a ray of sunshine hit me and my head felt like five men started to play football with it. With a groan I sat up and while trying to shove the pain in my head to the back of my mind, with minimal success to my disp.l.e.a.s.u.r.e, I started to take in my surroundings. I was lying in a soft bed with white sheets, and judging by the smell freshly made at that. Looking around a bit more and by now getting used to the hammering in my head a little I saw a clean room filled with a desk, alot of bookshelfs, nearly topling over from the load they were carrying and a window from which the sun shone in.

After taking stock of and finding no threats in my immediate surroundings I looked down and checked my body for more injuries besides the obvious one on my head. Nothing, good.

Slowly shoving the bedsheets to the side I put a leg over the edge of the bed and took a careful step out of it. 'Well, could have been worse...' I thought to myself as I only felt a little dizzy and walked towards the door. 'Judging from the bandage on my head I guess it is safe to say that the two men didn't get their hands on me. Now the question comes up who got their hands on me instead.' No name thought with a frown.

Opening the door no name was greeted by a nice living room with a kitchen bordering it in which no name could see a tall back, belonging to a man. Hearing the door opening the man turned around and gave no name a kind smile.

"Morning shorty, how are you feeling?" the big man asked.

Confused by the seemingly peaceful athmosphere and expecting something more volatile no names only response to the seemingly nice question were questions of his own.

"Where am I? And who are you?"

"You are in my home and you can call me old man Bai. Are you hungry? I was just preparing something for my breakfast." Old man Bai said while turning around and while huming returned to turn something in the pan around.

"Uhm, yes. Where you the one who helped me? I can only remember a blur from a certain point in time." No name said while frowning at his lack of usable memories.

"Yes, I did indeed help you but how about we eat something first? I'm much more pleasant when watered and feed, hahahaha" Old man Bai said which made no names mouth twitch slightly, seemingly contaminated by old man Bais good mood.

They both sat down and after setting the table digging in. No name had never tasted something so good in his life before. Granted, besides the occaisonal pie he stole from the fat vandor he never really had anything good before so he was lacking a bit of material for comparison but if he were to venture a guess the food, which was nothing much but rice, vegetables and strangely bacon tasted like the food of the gods.

"So old man Bai *munch*, tell me *munch* what happened yesterday?" No name asked again while food was spilling out of his mouth since he gobbled up as much of it as possible. And manners? Well, nobody ever taught him about those so who cares. At least no name didn't really.

"We gotta work on those manners of yours, that's for sure. Anyways, nothing really happened that is worth mentioning. I followed you from the orphanage, saw you stealing, the idiots following you, beating you up until I beat them up and took you with me. End of story." Old man Bai said while burping slightly after stuffing himself full with thrice the portion no name had.

"Not that I'm not grateful but are you a creep or something? I saw some nasty stuff down at the docks sometime. Errr, what's it called again? Oh ye, stalker! You one of those?" No name asked while imitating old man Bai by burping as well while patting his round belly with a big grin on his face in satisfaction.

"Nanana, I'm not one of those. Stalkers are creeps that tail someone for psychotic reasons or something. I was just looking for a disciple and you seemed to fill the criteria so I picked you and brought you here."

"Disciple? What do you mean by that? And why would I become one?" No name asked with a frown on his face.

"Hmm, a disciple is mostly the same as a student though it goes a little deeper than that, at least in our case. Where a students relationship to the teacher is mostly superficial a disciples relationship with his teacher is build on trust and the deeper the trust the more the teacher will teach the student. Of course other criteria, like the abilities of said student, add on to the equation as well. And in the end the disciple will become the teacher and take over the teachers job or not if the disciple doesn't want to."

"Hmm, okay. And what exactly would you be teaching me? I don't know you." No name asked with a contemplative face. After all he had no roof over the head, no money for food (which he could steal obviously but the point still stands), and no plans for the future. On top of that his craving was becoming pretty much unbearable lately. The only time he had felt some sort of deminishing of the craving was when he punched the man in the alley, so that was a concern as well. So the offer seemed pretty enticing if no name was being honest with himself.

Old man Bai looked no name straight in the eye and as soon as they made eye contact no name felt as if the temperature in the room was dropping a hundred degrees below zero. He tried to move but couldn't. Neither could he remove his eyes from old man Bais which seemed to search for something. After a minute the pressure on no name lifted without warning, which caused him to release his held breath with a long exhale, and with said disappearance old man Bais smile returned in full force, lifting no names spirit along with it.

"The main focus of my teachings will revolve around the martial path. Not fighting, no. The path to conquer yourself and with it the world, if you have what it takes that is. I at least know that I don't mahahahaha" old man Bais full belly laughter filled the room at his selfcentered joke that only he seemed to understand. After a while it subsided and the normal easy going smile returned.

"Besides that basic education, manners of course will be a topic we'll have to tackle sooner rather than later, a little bit of anatomy, things that you'll need to learn when you live alone like cooking, which you'll be doing from now on, so you better learn fast. You know, stuff like that."

"Uhm, can I get some time to think this through?" No name asked.

"Think? Shorty you've already been taken in so stop hasitating already. I promise you won't regret it. Well, maybe a little in the beginning mahahahaha" And so with a firm slap on no names back, which nearly sent him through the wall, no name became old man Bais desciple, or maybe housemaid would be a better term?