Chapter 5

West blue, Ishiria island, roku town

"The art that I will be teaching you consists of three stances that build the basics to everything else you will learn. Everytime you will be unable to proceed in the art it is a sign that you'll need to go back to the basics and improve those. Now, those three stances consist of the 'receiving stance', the 'confronting stance' and the 'avoiding stance'. We will begin with the receiving stance." Old man Bai spread out his legs to the side and lowered his hip in between the knees, building a square in the space between the legs and the ground.

"The receiving stances main characteristic is that you present your front to your opponent with seemingly no defense on your side. Often this stance is referred to as horse stance, though ours differs a little in the execution. Important is that your knees are always above your feet which makes it alot harder to keep a straight back. Remember, you only stand deep when you are training to improve your muscles density and fasten your movement. In a fight you simply stand, though never loose the tension in your body. Ahh, don't be too tense, otherwise you can't move. Yes, just like that. Now, stand deep and move up and down. Keep going, no slacking!" While walking around no name, Old man Bai kept correcting mistakes that he found before picking up a handful of pebbles from the ground and throwing one at no names forehead every time he moved up so he had to quickly move down again. They kept practising on and on until seemingly hours had passed by and no name was nothing more than a sweaty buddle on the ground.

"Alright, good work. Now we will begin the after-training exercise: meditation. In this exercise you will observe your breath. In the future you will receive different instructions on different ways on how to breath but for now keep your breath slow and steady. Yes, just like that. Keep it up and reflect on what you learned today. Afterwards the kitchen waits for you. I'll come back in 15 minutes." With those words old man Bai left no name to himself who did as he was told and found it surprisingly refreshing to simply breath.

After 15 minutes old man Bai returned and they ate the not so nice meal prepared by no name before he was sent to bed.

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The next morning no name woke up and could barely move. His body felt like one single cramp! 'Bloody hell, the old man will be the death of me if this keeps going...' no name said while slowly coming into a sitting position on the side of his bed while rubbing the remaining sleep out of his eyes. Groggily walking into the bathroom next door he went through his morning routine and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. "Morning master."

"Ahhh, good morning shorty. Hope you had a pleasant night. Ready for the day?" Old man Bai asked with a knowing grin plastered to his face.

"Urgh, please kill me now..." no name murmured to himself after seeing the face his master was making.

"Mahahahahaha lighten up shorty. You'll need your motivation today." His master said while turning around to browse through the Maichyo, the newspaper that reported all the important news from the 4 Blues and the grandline.

"Alright shorty time for your daily run, off you go!" And off he go he went, or rather sprinted.

On his run no name pondered the matter of his still undecided name. Should he just pick one randomly? No, that would be like reading a book and giving it a random title, ignoring its contents.

So on what basis should he base his name?

As he was running through a shopping street he looked into one of the windows and his face greeted him. His eyes roamed over himself wondering what seperated him from the rest of the people around him. Soon his eyes came upon his own. He had always been proud of their colour. Deep blue, just like the sea. All the people he had seen so far had had brown or brownish black eyes. So why not those? Now the question remained what name he could link to his eye colour. 'Hmm, maybe the old man has an idea.'

After finishing his run and the stretching no name walked into the living room to join his master for the study session. Taking a seat on the chair opposite his master he asked the question that had come up while he was running: "Master, do you know of a good name that I could link to my eyes?"

"Hmm, not a bad idea. Cobalt, Coby, no definetely not, sounds dumb. How about Bu-,Blu-, no that's not it either. Oh I know of a good one. How about Azul?" old man Bai stated with a grin to his face.

"Azul, Azuuuul. Ye, has a nice ring to it, I like it. From now on my name will be Azul." Azul stated with a happy smile on his face.

"Alright, now look so I can teach you how to write your name properly."

After the studying they went outside again and repeated the same exercise as the day before, though this time implementing how to punch and kick correctly. And so the days passed by. Days became weeks, and weeks became months. After 4 months of boring repetition they started on the next stance, the avoiding stance.