"Sabo is dead..."
That...that was the very first sentence I heard from Dogra's mouth on the very first day of my return to Goa Kingdom...
...
Today was a rather special day...
It was actually what people refer to as the day they were brought to the world... a very special day indeed...
Today was actually my birthday...
I don't know why a lot of people didn't like to celebrate their own birthday for some obscure reasons (That I don't really care about...) but I in contrary always like and did my best to celebrate it. Candies, chocolates and gifts set apart, It at least deserve to be remembered... After all we are only born once right ? or so I thought... until today that is...
I had already anticipated it one week ago to come back here to celebrate it with Luffy, Sabo and Ace as well as Dadan & co of course.
What's more, due to some important things that were happening between the Navy and the outside World, every teacher were asked to attend to a huge meeting and so the Training Camp had been stopped while every students had been sent back to their homes for three whole weeks. in short it was like some kind of holydays.
So with this opportunity at hands, I immediately thanks the Good Lord thinking that it would be the best vacation I would pass...
And to make these holydays plentier and merrier, I had even invited Zaz, Kyara and Cyera, along with the four turtles brothers.
Zaz with no much surprise accepted it right away and so by extension the twin sisters too. The four brothers however refused. They for a certain reason didn't like the thought of being surrounded by human beings and so they refused outright. What a pity...
Grandpa Garp and Grandpa Z too couldn't come as this "important matter" in the Navy seemed to required their presence.
And so after packing up our luggages with some clothes to last two weeks, we embarked into a Marine's ship to send us right to Goa Kingdom.
The journey was long...really long...but fortunately I wasn't alone, I had Zaz and the sisters to talk to.
Eventually, we reached the said destination.
From far away we could already see the port along with the largest and gigantic ship I saw in my entire life.
"Ugh..." For a certain reason I didn't like the smell and even the feeling coming off of this ship, it kind of remind me of some bad memories.
Zaz "..."
Kyara and Cyera "Huge and really bright..."
It seems that there was someone important coming today...
As we were on the deck looking at the port and the giant ship, I and the others were drew by a weird smell.
It was the smell of something burning and as expected when I looked at the side I saw a fisher-boat completely wrecked and charred black while black smoke were slowly going up to the sky. The smell of cannon-powder was present... The poor boat seemed to have been attacked by someone just an hour ago.
However the thing that really drew my nose was another certain smell, a smell that I knew well but... for whatever reason or maybe because it was mixed in with the smell of burnt fish along with burning woods and the sea's smell I couldn't recalled it.
As I watched the boat, my gaze wondered about to rest on a black flag... or more like what was left of a black flag... Written on this piece of black flag was the huge letter "S".
'Poor guy, It seems that he was about to become a pirate...' I thought having no care about the significance of the letter "S" having only the black color of the flag in mind.
Looking around I didn't even see the corpse of a man or such... or more like I didn't really care if there was anyone in fact.
I just had one single thought at this moment 'Hope he's alive...' as I thought it was just a stranger, a cruel thought maybe but anyway I just brushed it off of my mind.
Disembarking from the ship, I first of all show everyone the port and some other spots while recounting the things I've eaten or destroyed with Luffy & co...
It was kind of funny when the people looked at us. Especially at Zaz, Kyara and Cyera's animalitics features. I could hide mine tail but not them so I just told tge onlookers that it was a disguise. Some believed it, some not but who care...
There were of course some idiots who want to be somehow interesting as they came to mess with us but they were sorry to learn that we weren't people to mess with.
After half an hour of tourism, we then took half an hour again to make our way to Mount Colubo.
Instead of going through the kingdom and then Grey Terminal I choose to take a longer path. That's why we went through the forest for a good half an hour.
On the way I even met again the harmless and friendly animals I befriend before I left. The two horned-rabbits, the gentle deer, the comfortable bed-like wolf, the mischievious squirrel...etc... they all seemed to be doing great it seems, nothing much had changed for them.
When I presented them to the three minks, they seem to hit it off right away, maybe because of their animals traits...who know...
...
And then when we were at about fifty meters or so from the ugly and dirty but so familiar house, I found myself already running happily toward it as I then tried to hear what was actually happening in the house... but all I heard was...
"Sabo is dead..." the sound of Dogra's annoying voice sounded out.
'What...?'
I stopped right in front of this small and crappy door that I had pushed opened a hundred of times for months in the past... It was so easy to pushed it before but now...
Now only four words came to my mind...
Heavy... it was heavier than anything...
Cold... I've never feel this cold before...never... I had goosebumps all over my body...
Scary... This feeling of horror was... dreadfull...
Repulsive... indeed...My hand was just an inch from the handle...but I couldn't...I didn't want to...
The truth behind this door...I didn't want to accept it...
But still...
Maybe...just maybe...
Maybe I didn't heard it well...maybe I misunderstood it, that my enhanced ears had a "bug" or something, or maybe it was a joke and Dadan just want to say "Sabo you're dead !" right...?
Maybe it was like that...no it has to be...
It has...
...Pah...!
While I was blanking out for a minute or so, the door opened up suddenly as an enraged Ace walked out, and because my mind was blanked, I even found myself falling to the ground on my butt at the side.
And maybe because he was angry, he didn't care about who he had pushed to the side as continued to walked furiously as a shouted resounded.
"Stop right there...!"
And the huge silouhette of Dadan rushed like a missile as she grabbed Ace's head and slam it on the ground violently.
Slam...!
Though it was rather violent, it was a must if you want to stop Ace, even more to stop an enraged Ace.
"Let me go...! I will kill this bastard...!" Ace struggled as he screamed crazily with his face covered in blood.
"You calm down right now...! Listen carefully, you can't do anything...! the people who killed him is the government itself...! The world itself killed him...! And you won't do anything because you can't do anything...!"
"Your father's death had changed the whole world...! Reach his level at least and then you can go die if you want it so much..." Dadan let go of him as she then say to her subordinates. "Go and tied him up."
"Let me go...! Dammit let meee goooo...!" he struggled in vain.
She stood up and turned around and just as she was going to get back in the house to rest a bit, a shout rang out.
"E...Ed...Edam...?!" Ace shouted hesitantly as he was being tied up on a tree.
"Nii-chan...!" Luffy run with a crying face toward me and jumped in my arms.
"What...?!" Dadan looked at me with a stunned expression on her face.
As for me, I just tried to processed everything that was happening right here, right now.
Ace, Dadan and Luffy seemed to be injured and exhausted.
And from Dogra's eyes that were looking at me fearfully as if I would eat him alive...
I could see it... his eyes were clearly telling me what had happened...He didn't even need to tell me anything...I already guessed it.
In an instant, some fleeting pieces of memories came hitting my mind violently as I recalled the broken and burning boat, the black flag with the S letter on it, the so familiar smell I had picked up on our arrival... Everything came back...
I had already guessed it but I still asked...
"What...what happened...?" My voice came out against my will, trembling as I heard the entire story from Dogra's mouth.
'Celestial Dragon...'
'Them again...'
BA-DUM...
Sabo... was... dead...
BA-DUM...
My friend...
BA-DUM...
My brother...
BA-DUM...
Was dead...
BA-DUM...
...Dead...
Crack...!
I didn't know why or even how but I heard something... a sound...
In my mind, something broke...
Like the sound of a mirror breaking suddenly...
Unknown to me but clear to everyone...
Swich...!
My black eyes flickered and then turned pale yellow and then gradually bloody-red while some tear drops trickled down my cheeks to fall to the ground.
Around my body a strange wave of something resembling red smokes expanded out of my body surrounding me like a snake before coming back in me quietly and calmly with whistle-like sound.
BA-DUM...! I could heard my heart pumping my blood powerfully even while not focusing on it.
Even my body's temperature began to reach a peak quickly so much that Luffy let go of me.
"Nii-...Nii-chan ?! What's happening...?" he asked with a confused look on his face, just like everyone in fact.
"Don't...Do not follow me...!!!" I shouted with all my might as I then rushed into the forest and deeper in the mountain not caring about where I was going only thinking about putting the longuest distance between me and them.
I don't know where I end up running to and I couldn't careless about where I was...
My vision itself was blurred maybe because of my tears... I don't know...
My heart was still beating powerfully...pushing my blood to every corner of my body invigorating it by the minutes.
And this strange bloody energy was back once again swirling around me again and again and again...constantly... for who know the reason...
I was panting so hard that I even found my knees touching the ground as I tried to regulate my breath...in vain...
There was a lot of things that I didn't know about that day but there was one thing...one single thing I was certain about...
And that was...
I wanted to KILL...!
BA-DUM...!
I wanted him to suffer...!
BA-DUM...!
I wanted him gone...!
BA-DUM...!
I wanted...!
BA-DUM...!
Unlike when it is a full moon night when his killing intent was being amplified by the moon, his current killing intent was a genuine one, a desire to murder someone so badly that his entire being seemed to be set on fire.
Ugh...!
The kneeling Edam slowly lifted his head as his bloody and shining eyes seemed to break like a mirror and then,
Rumble...!
The ground began to vibrate powerfully as if there was an earthquake ongoing right now, making the beasts flee in a hurry to save their own lifes.
"Aghhhhh....!" He took hold of his head seemingly in pain as a hollow-like cry came out from him ranging about everywhere in the mountain reaching even Ace & co's ears.
Around his body, the strange red energy flowing around him quietly in a terrifying calm since a moment ago now suddenly became fierce all of a sudden and burst out like a flame covering his entire body.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...!"
An even more terrible cry rang out as a sort of dome of red energy covered him completely for a moment before,
BOOOOMMMM....!
Exploding out in the sky with a piercing sound, taking then the shape of a large pillar.
The forest was thoroughly devastated... innumerable trees were rooted out, huges rocks were sent flying far away while some smaller rocks could be seen floating about mysteriously around the pillar of red light while massive amount of winds were generate by the pillar changing even the calm weather of a few hours ago into an apocalyptic-looking landscape.
The once terrifying landscape of this mountain that had instill fear for ages was now nothing more than a joke compared to this present sight.
And anyway, at the center of the rising pillar, Edam was slowly rising and floating quietly. He was no longer crying in pain, instead a terrifying silence had replaced his wails.
His previous full black hair was completely gone replaced by a golden-colored hair along with a faint golden-colored aura pressed tightly against his skin and then lastly surrounded by a huge amount of red-colored aura bursting off wildly in all directions.
...
(And then everything that followed afterward was in the precedent chapter... lol)
....
Everything that followed was a total white page for Edam. It was just like how his head would end up like when he would transformed on a night of full moon.
Waking up, a surprise greet him.
...
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Truly sorry for this wait my dear readers (as if you had wait for this lol 😆)
Haah... I had some problems IRL, nothing too severe but it still stopped me from writing for some days... anyway, here is another chapter about how he learned about Sabo's death. Hope it's readable.👍