Chapter 5: The Dogi Dogi no Mi

Hitoshi had seen a lot of things in his travels.

Men who could swallow fire whole.

Marines who could punch down buildings with no issue.

Fish bigger than battle ships, with teeth the size of a small child!

He had even heard rumors of other devil fruit users in East Blue, pirates who could split in to multiple pieces, turn into smoke, even one who could become a giraffe!

All of these phenomena were quite hectic, to say the least, yet they always seemed to Hitoshi as things still grounded to reality, super human but not inhuman.

He knew to have a chance against any of those things, he himself needed to ascertain a devil fruit, and when he heard very discrete rumors that there may, MAY, have been one in Tenki, he stopped all else he was doing to travel there.

And by fucks! It had been there, the fucking idiot brought it out with no discretion, naive fucks, they had been. All too easy, he was ready to get the fuck off the island and make his way to the grand line, find some relatively easy treasure, and live out his days in fucking peace.

Of course, that was until he had been hit with the fastest thing he had ever seen.

This, boy, this young SMALL boy, had arrived in what could almost be described as manifesting from the air itself. No possible way of being over six years old, the confidence and sheer strength he radiated off of his person didn't make any sense to Hitoshi.

One second the boy had been laughing, and next he had been eye level with Hitoshi, and before he knew it had his right index finger on Hitoshi's shoulder. Before Hitoshi had a chance to react, he felt his entire body blast back at speeds he didn't know were possible.

'BOOM', Hitoshi metal body acting like a ginormous cannon ball, he briefly touched the ground, in turn causing his body to stop rapidly rotating, before slamming into the very bar he had just before massacred.

'POOOW' was the sound the wooden walls made as they instantly gave way to Hitoshi's body making his way through the bar, continuing to bounce of the ground another three times before sliding on the gravel another 100 feet. Panting, Hitoshi barely opened his eyes as he attempted in vain to understand his surroundings. While his devil fruit on another day would have provided plentiful protection, the novelty and inexperience he had at this moment meant that during the impacts he had lost focus and had let down the armor for no more than a quarter of a second.

Big mistake.

Hitoshi felt himself going into shock at he looked at what was now his body. Unnatural was one way to describe it, his left foot was bended up at least 80 degrees, with his shin slightly sticking out the bottom of the foot. His right arm too was bended in an unnatural way, making a Z like shape with no intentions of returning to normal. Most damning, Hitoshi quickly noted that he couldn't feel anything below his stomach, and realized his entire torso he been twisted, in short, his back was broken.

Not one more moment had passed before Luffy was right in front of him, staring him down with slight concern.

"Oy, you looked pretty banged up mister, sorry about that, I guess you look stronger than you are"

Annoyed, but also terrified and very quickly drifting into unconsciousness, Hitoshi allowed himself to look up and meet eyes with whatever the fuck was in front.

"What.."

Fuck. His chest hurt from speaking, did his fucking lungs get crushed too?

"the…"

Shock was definitely taking effect now, he could feel his entire upper half feeling numb, was this it?

"fuck are you"

And with that unconsciousness overtook him.

"BAKA, I already told you".

For Luffy, the last couple of months had been hell, to say the least. Garp had taken a different approach to helping with the mourning process, distraction. Distraction meaning lots and lots and lots of training, all the time. Throughout the day Garp would throw things at Luffy at velocities vastly exceeding that of a bullet or cannon. Each time Luffy was expected to dodge it, or at the very least see it soon enough to slow it down to non-threatening velocities. Garp would challenge Luffy to races, and if Garp beat Luffy, he'd be denied dinner, something that the provided more than enough incentive for Luffy to reach new limits with his powers each time. Garp was convinced that this Devil Fruit was one of the most powerful he had ever seen, perhaps even on par with White Beards. He still didn't know what to call it, nor what the full capabilities of the fruit had been.

'BOOM' was the sound the boulder made right that had just before been right behind Luffy.

"Oi Gramps hold it, hold it, that one was REALLY hard!"

"Shut Up Luffy, if it's REALLY hard than you REALLY need to dodge it"

The entire area looked like a bombing site. Tremors in the ground, shattered boulders everywhere and trees with the girth of a small Sea King knocked over effortlessly by the Hero of the Marines. The past five hours had been spent with Luffy trying his best to run away from Garp's 'Fist of Love'. The boulder behind Luffy had instantly given way to Garp's overpowering Fist, a countless one in the succession of dodges that Luffy had barely managed to pull off.

But he was growing tired , there had been a couple near misses where Luffy had managed to expose himself to the aftershock of Garp's impact.

One near his lower abdomen, he felt like he was going to throw up.

Both legs had been hit, each step he took felt like it was going to tear his upper legs in half.

His right arm had taken two blows, and he couldn't bring himself to even lift it for a pointless defense if he wanted to.

He landed 20 meters to the left of the boulder, with that jump he felt like his legs were going to collapse in on themselves.

"Gramps! I hurt! Everything hurts! I don't think I can run anymore!"

Garp wasn't going to let him off now.

It is in our most desperate moments that we manifest our deepest potentials.

"Then this is it Luffy, I'm not holding back, you better dodge"

With a look of solemn serenity on his face, Garp eyed down Luffy and leaped off the ground.

Luffy was terrified, Garp hadn't given him that look before.

'Shit, shit, shit this is really going to hurt'

Garp was midair now, retracting his arm, ready to live up to his name. Luffy made an effort to speed himself up to dodge but as he was tensing his body for position he felt his right leg give way, he was almost kneeling on one foot now and clenching his teeth in anticipation.

"Oi Luffy, it's now or never, how are you going to get out of this eh?"

He had to do something, he couldn't make himself fast enough to dodge, what else was there to do?

'There's gotta be something, I can do, ANYTHING I can do…'

'I can ask him to stop'

"Oi Gramps, please stop!"

"No"

'Okay, um, um, I can speed up this pebble next to me and hit his eye'

The pebble he Garp's forehead and shattered on impact

"Now I'm mad Luffy, is that all you got?"

'It's been a good life' Luffy thought, as a small wave of serenity washed over him.

One

Two

Three

"AHHHHHH I don't wanna get hit" It was a small wave, and while it had been a good life, he didn't want it to be over just yet . Even though Garp was moving at speeds unseeable by most, to Luffy he felt like he was watching the steady creep of death right in front of him, and he felt hopeless.

'God this is going to hurt'

'Man I don't wanna get hit'

'I don't wanna get hit'

'I DON'T WANNA GET HIT'

Garp had seen a lot of abilities in his time. He could tell he was still perceiving things in what felt like real time, but everything around him had slow down considerably.

His body was moving with the same trajectory toward Luffy, but at a much slower pace. The wind he had felt before was now unnoticeable, yet he could look out a couple hundred meters and see it pushing over trees in the distance. Though he had originally thought time itself had slowed down, it appeared that it was actually Luffy that had nearly FROZEN in motion everything around him. Even the dust in the air appeared unmoving.

Luffy looked up. What was supposed to be his death in any moment had now turned into ten. He looked up and nearly fell over when he saw what was his grandfather nearly 3 meters in the air above him, with a full loaded fist ready to rain down on poor Luffy. But he was going slow, like really, really slow. Convinced he now had enough time, he quickly started to limp away, while his grandfather continued to move ever so slightly closer to where he had originally been. He limped for another thirty seconds, at which point he had been about 20 meters away.

"Oi, that could have been BAD" and with that, Luffy let his nerves relax a little. As soon as he let down his guard down, everything seemingly went right back to normal. Garp's punch connect with the ground, which quickly decided that the next appropriate action was the form a crater nearly 5 meters deep.

Luffy was terrified, surely his grandpa would come at him with another one, but instead of a fist…

"BAWAHAHAHAHA Oi Luffy, what the heck was that" Garp said as he flashed his grin ear to ear, he started to walk towards Luffy, that had been enough for today.

'Just what are you capable of, what is the depth of your power'

Since that event, Garp had been convinced that his fruit had something to do with speeds, or momentum, or some other quality not yet seen. Luffy had the ability to push things from him at great speeds when needed, and in times of extreme need, like with death looming in the distance, even direct influence on objects he wasn't touching. He could also accelerate his own body, and help diffuse attacks on impact that hit his body. All in all, this fruit had limitless potential for close and long range attacks, and Garp had a sense that within a few years Luffy's name would be renowned across the world. But for now, the most important thing was to ensure Luffy had some control over his new abilities, and if nothing else had some mentoring after the incident.

All in all, Luffy had been given a chance to sail around and get a sense of just how vast East Blue. In that time period he got to learn about different islands, what it meant to be a marine, to be a pirate, to be free.

"Vice Admiral Garp, there is call for you from Henki" a Marine had appeared next to Garp during his musings over Luffy.

"Oh Henki eh? I bet it's Luffy"

Picking up the Den Den Mushi, Garp asked

"Luffy?"

"Oi Gramps, can you come help me" Luffy sounded frantic and worried, for once in his life Garp took on a serious demeanor.

"Oi what happened?"

"I….I think I killed someone"

End.