Chapter 32

Grandline, Paradise, Drum island

Soon afterwards the four of them had arrived before the castles gates and promptly entered while Azul lead them towards doc Kuleha who after quickly checking Nami found out that said bruise was the cause of said feever, as they had guessed already, but what they hadn't guessed was that the bruise was caused by the bite of a prehistoric insect and would have been the death of Nami in a day or two, had they not arrived in time to treat her, which caused Sanji to begin sobbing crocodile tears in fear for his beautiful Nami, as he so sugary called her and Luffy to begin to panic for his nakama. Azul on the other hand was pretty calm, since the doc had just said that she could be treated, meaning she would survive, probably.

'When did I become so callous?' Azul asked himself, not really feeling any worry but pretty much only calmness. Thinking deeper into his thoughts, Azul didn't really realise that Sanji and Luffy had turned their attention to the reindeer doctor named Chopper, who in fear hid behind Kulehas legs, though only until the two pissed him of by calling him a racoon, and him transforming into his heavy hitter form, and smacking Sanji and Luffy through the room, while Kuleha was only smirking.

Removing himself from his thoughts, Azul turned to Kuleha with a question on his face which he had been wondering about since he first saw the castle they were in at the moment.

"Say doc, are you a world noble or something? And if you are, why are you and Chopper the only ones that live inside this castle?" he asked her.

"I'm not a noble, though the castle now belongs to me since I claimed it as my spoils of war from that fat moron, Wapol, the former king now turned pirate, checheche" she responded while cackling like the witch that she was.

"A king becoming a pirate? hahahahaha" Azul laughed openly, drawing the attention from the still arguing trio.

"Wapol? We met someone like that on our way here! That fat dude ate part of our ship!" Sanji said which made Azul stop for a moment before breaking out into even bigger laughter.

'Ahhh, the weirdness of the grandline. You just have to love it hahahaha' Azul thought while wiping some tears out of his eyes.

"Say Kuleha, did Wapol leave any doc.u.ments here when he left to become a pirate? Or did he have a study of some kind?" Azul asked the old woman who hummed in thought before replying.

"Yes he had one, but I'm not sure, though if he did leave any doc.u.ments, he closed them inside and took the key with him. He did that to many doors which remain closed till this day."

"Would you tell me where the room is loc-"

"OYY, you hold hag! Come out and give me back my castle this instant!" a voice which from the tone of it already annoyed Azul.

"If you speak of the devil, he shall appear checheche" Kuleha laughed in mirth at the irony.

Azul understanding what she meant just walked towards the entrance, simply intending to use this opportunity to make his life a little easier, as such a chance didn't come often.

Standing before the castle walls was a fat, round man, with a white hippo fur put over his head and down his back, while clothed in some kind of iron armor.

"You Wapol fatty?" Azul said while sticking his finger inside his nose. Something was itching inside it for a while now!

"How dare you adress a king that way peasant! Have you no manners? You don't speak to your betters that way!" the fatty, now identified as Wapol by the redness of his face it had taken after hearing Azul calling him a fatty, yelled, charging at Azul who only took a glance at Wapol before turning his right hand into a claw, which in turn started to release a black, smoke like substance, which caused a shiver to run down Wapols spine.

Finally pulling his finger out of his nose with a big booger ontop of it, which he snipped at Wapol, Azul took a closer look at Wapols eyes, sinking to the bottom of said mans soul.

'It seems my devilfruits power over reaping souls really is based on instincts at the moment. It sensed the distorted character this mans soul possessed and judged him accordingly, preparing to reap him....' Azul said while his face took on an emotionless look, and plunged his right hand straight into the kings c.h.e.s.t, which caused said man to scream in silence and his eyes to turn completely black. Soon afterwards Azul pulled his hand back while still gripping Wapols soul until with a snapping sound it seperated from the mans body, which fell down lifelessly.

As Chopper, Luffy, Sanji and Kuleha finally arrived at the scene, horror gripped their souls from what they saw in front of them. Azul, his hand, covered in black vapor, plunged into Wapols c.h.e.s.t who had his mouth open in obvious pain, until he pulled his hand back, pulling something with him. At first, the doctors that they were, asumed it would be an organ like the heart, but it turned out to be something different entirely. A transparent, winding and twisting, human shaped body, which only could be the soul of said man, after all he had fallen over, dead, just right after the extraction.

And from there, after observing the soul in front of him for a few seconds, Azul turned his black, vapor covered hand into roaring flames, burning the soul into nothingness.

They all stood there, rigid, not being able to move. Even Luffy, having understood on a deeply primal level, that what he had just witnessed was nothing to make fun of.

After searching for the masterkey of the castle, Azul turned around to the trio with a serene smile on his face while saying and walking past them, to search the castle: "Welcome to the sailors graveyard."