Chapter 56

While Azul was undergoing his visions, his body in the real world was being looked after by Robin and Chopper. At first they had hoped that Azul would wake up after a couple hours but this proved not to be the case as his condition remained unchanged. Over the day various people had realised that the three of them had been missing for a rather long time and some decided to go look for them since the strawhats especially wanted to return back on to the grandline and continue their adventure. Though when they arrived in Shandora and came upon the scene of Azuls unconcious body being watched over by Chopper and Robin, worry sparked in some of their minds until the worry faded away and was replaced by confusion after being told what had happened with the young man. At first some of them had thought that a strong enough enemy had appeared and knocked him unconcious but that worry proofed to be unfounded in the end.

"So, how are we going to continue then? Azul seems to be fine, despite him being unconcious and we can't remain here forever, which would be pretty pointless anyways." Zoro spoke neutrally.

The rest of the crew couldn't really decide for themselves and Luffy wasn't much of a planer to begin with so they simply decided to flip a coin and it ended up with them boarding the flying lamb to go back onto the grandline. Though they were a little surprised that Robin decided to remain at Azuls side instead of jumping on board alongside them. Chopper at first wanted to remain as well but soon came to the conclusion that even though he was a doctor and it was his duty to watch after his patient he really couldn't do much for Azul anyways and proving to be more rational than most had suspected Chopper followed the crew on to the ship which soon set sail back into the grandline.

Robin all the while remained at Azuls side, watching over him and suplying him with water so he wouldn't dehydrate as the days continued to fly past the two. Solitude their only companion while Azul was still experiencing the visions, being tormented all the while but unknowingly growing in spiritual strength.

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After experiencing greed, arrogance, d.e.s.i.r.e, pain, fear, hopelessness, rage and falling into unconciousness once again, Azul woke up to the gleaming ghostly eyes of Lee Mu Bai, who was looking down at him as he was lying on the ground, gazing upwards. The drums had stopped playing and the voices of the masses had come to a standstill, Azul realised.

"How was it?" asked Mu Bai while sitting himself down next to the dazed young man, who slowly came into a sitting position himself.

"The visions? Horrific, to be honest. It felt so, restricting, for a lack of a better word..." Azul answered with a blank face as he observed the temple he was sitting in.

"That is not surprising. What you just experienced is the feeling your soul feels ever since you were born. In the visions you saw through the eyes of your body but could not influence it, only feel what the body feels and nothing more. You were literally the soul of your body while your body was taking control of itself, to let you experience the burden every soul has to carry. This is what it means to be a journeyman. 'follow the breath' is not just a saying. It means to follow the connection you have to your soul by experiencing everything your soul feels when you go through life until you reach a point where you see and feel clearly. Once you have reached that state as you have now, you are tasked with a quest which most have failed upon and only a select few have succeeded. Letting go. What that means and how to go about doing that is something you, like everybody before you, have to figure out for yourself, as it differs from person to person. At the end of letting the emotions go you experienced during your visions you will have reached the masters stage and fused your soul together with your body. Luckily for you, you found this poneglyph, because you now are able to hear the voices of nature in spiritual chokepoints that can be found all over the world and through it perceive the advice of nature and spirits of times long gone. It is also known as 'hearing the voice of all things' as I have come to experience on my travels though nobody knows anylonger what that truly means and simply take it as an advanced type of haki or some such thing. Nonesense of course." Mu Bai said with a chuckle at the end, remembering the stupidity of the people that ruled and tried to conquer the world without knowing anything about it.

"I see. Thank you for you help master. I guess this is it, hm?" Azul asked, sad that he had to leave his master behind once more but knew he had to continue on nonetheless.

"Yes, this is it. Though we may see each other again if we are lucky. Who knows? The grandline still holds many mysteries for you to discover which I'm not telling you about. Otherwise the surprises won't be as good hehehe" Mu Bai spoke with a grin on his face, clapping Azul on the shoulder. Afterwards he stood up, waved back at Azul and walked down the temples entrance to join the rest of the waiting people, before they all walked into the distance, disappearing together with the temple that slowly faded away, like fog in the wind, leaving Azul behind until darkness took him, bringing him back into the real world with a warm feeling inside himself and a new quest to fullfill.