Chapter 17

West blue

The peacful days Azul spent meditating and furthering his understanding of sailing on a trial and error basis meant for the rest of the world nothing since with the appearance of a new faction that threatened the sovereignty of the world governments power the kings mobilize their respective armies in preperation for the invading revolutionaries, and soon it came just as expected. First it was only different islands all over the blues that possessed a monarchy as their form of governance but soon the wave of revolution reached the shores of the grandline and slowly but surely the world was embroiled in war.

Meanwhile two days had passed and Azul had finally reached the next island, which came kind of convenient to him since a few hours prior to his arrival Azul had spotted a small leak in his boat and due to him having already digested his devilfruit meant he ended up in quite the conundrum. But all his worries disappeared in thin air as soon as he spotted the island and while standing on the tip of the main mast slowly entered the harbor, all the while his boat was sinking deeper and deeper to the oceans floor. But did he give a f.u.c.k? Why should he? He had reached land so who cares. And with that Azul stepped foot onto the pier like a king on unclaimed soil while his boat gave one last defiant gurgle before being silenced forever. His entrance however earned him quite a few gobsmacked expressions from the spactating sailors which brought an amused grin to Azuls face.

'Couldn't have timed my entrance better. F.u.c.k.i.n.g epic!' Azul thought to himself, finally having found some other kind of distraction from the boredom of the open waters that had ennoyed him for the past two days. It would have been a bit different had he been able to train a little but that had been impossible due to his tiny boat being in danger of capsizing if he did. And so he had nothing else to do but to reflect, meditate, sleep and occasionally adjust the sails. Even the wind had been slow going for f.u.c.ks sake! If at least some kind of storm had been in his path but no. Mother nature decided to be calm for once when he wanted some action. Just his luck, but no matter. Let bygones be bygones.

And with those thoughts Azul stepped foot on the shores of Ka no Kuni, kingdom of the flowers and home to the happo marines, like a motherf.u.c.k.i.n.g badass.

Walking through the city he soon came to the conclusion that this city was even more boring than his stay on his tiny boat! Nothing seemed out of order. Nobody was causing chaos and it irked him, a lot! So Azul decided to get the hell off of this island and find his amus.e.m.e.nt somewhere else. Sadly he had no money, at all which had put him into quite the conundrum on how to get off the island. Returning to the harbor an apiphany hit him and walking down the port Azul started to ask the sailors that were busy carrying the different goods from and on the sh.i.p.s if they knew of a ship that was looking for some helping hands, and lucky him, he found one. The first one was looking for a cook which caused him to fidget a little, not sure if he could live with his conscience to torture the guests for two whole weeks on end for his own gains, and in the end declined. The second one though was looking for someone who at the very least knew how to set and bring in the sails, which Azul did. So he accepted and started his journey to the main island of the west blue from where sh.i.p.s started their journey into all the other blues which was exactly what Azul was looking for.

Over the following weeks he began to learn more about sailing from the different sailors that took him under their wing for his time on the ship and showed him how to navigate and repair easier to fix stuff on the ship, which the sailors were experts in as he came to know. And so the two weeks passed by in a flash, in which Azul finally had some room to train and exercise his body, not as much as he would have liked but at the very least a little bit, and soon they reached their destination, Las Camp, a city of gigantic proportions for someone like Azul who only knew of little towns, namely two: one that he had been living in for all his life and another that he had visited for one day. So his experience was kind of lacking which is why he took everything in with hungry eyes. After receiving his salary for the voyage Azul had a few main objectives he came here for. Number one, and the most important to him at the moment: finding out what the f.u.c.k his devilfruit represented since he had no clue, so he decided to browse through a library if he could find one, which he later did by asking the various people that lived in this city. Before visiting said library Azul entered a bar, booked a room for the night and ate something to satiate his hungry stomache. While he was eating a board entered his vision with wanted posters nailed to it. Walking up to it Azul started to collect all the high bounties he found interesting which earned him widened eyes and silenced the whole bar to which Azul responded with a raised eyebrow, seemingly asking what their problem was.

Going back to their discussions the various patrons started to quietly whisper to each other which didn't really interest Azul, no matter what bigshot they thought they could send to take care of him. It had already grated on his nerves when he entered the city and soon spotted the telltale signs of the underworld in a few people, signs that he was only too familiar with.

Walking back to his table and finishing his meal while flipping through the posters he had collected he realised that not many of those from the west blue would earn him some solid cash, which meant he would have to traverse the rest of the blues but he didn't really mind that much since he decided he would only enter the grandline after having at least a decent level of mastery over his devilfruit, which meant training and what better way than to flatten some weak-ass pseudo pirates and criminals. With a satisfied smile Azul walked out of the bar and down the street into the library where he began to peruse book after book. Soon hours had passed by and the sun was already about to sink beyond the horizon. Having found out what his powers could represent Azul, began his way back, not being able to wipe the excited grin from his face. He truly had chosen correctly by eating that fruit, even though it had tasted like shit, literally.

When Azul was travelling in his tiny boat to Ka no kuni he had tried to find out what his powers were and oh had he been surprised by his arms cracking literally and flames to sprout from his arms, billowing with intense heat towards the sky. Afterwards he had further experimented but without moving his body it had proven to be rather difficult so he had stopped. But now that he was on solid ground and could exercise, and following his instincts about what his inner flame told him his fruits powers would manifest he had looked through the library in the hopes to find some ideas on how to further his powers and maybe get inspired to try something he hadn't considered yet.

So ingrossed was he in his thoughts that he only registered the large crowd that had gathered before the bar when he was about 10 meters away from it. Not knowing and not really caring either way Azul began to walk towards the bar about to ingnore the crowd when one of the man yelled to his comrades as it seemed: "Hey, isn't he the one?" And with that the crowds eyes turned towards Azul who, having felt the excitement his inner flame was generating, realised that he would probably still get the workout he had been so remiss of. What an awesome way to end the day!