[Kaienreki Calendar Summer 1498]
The last two and a half years had been rather eventful, when it come to important events happening around the world.
Gol D. Roger, the future Pirate King had not only sat sail, but he had also clashed with Shiki more than half a year ago. The World Government had already assigned him and several members of his crew a rather high bounty. But it was clear that they had not yet discovered that Roger had an intense curiosity concerning the Void century. Otherwise, with the power he had displayed, his bounty would have been much higher already.
Soon enough that would definitely change, as it should have been around that time when Roger was seeking out the Road Poneglyphs to learn more about history.
Still, for Lupin personally the last three years had been rather peaceful and uneventful.
The only interesting thing that had happened was, that the island the old marine, with the name Charles Kindred, had chosen to settle down were the Conomi Islands.
It was the exact same group of island, where Bellmere had been born and where she would raise Nami and Nojiko in the future.
Lupin had always liked the retired marine in the show, and now with the experience he had with his own mother in this life, he swore to himself to save her.
A mother, who had been willing to sacrifice herself without hesitation for her daughters, was worth the effort on his part to try and save her.
Of course, he didn't just plan to save a bunch of characters from the show, because he liked them or found them interesting. It was simply Bellmere, who had always struck him as special.
In addition to the proximity to where the incident would happen, he did not mind lending a hand, if he would be strong enough by then.
As for the rest, he had no plans to interefere with any of the events or people beyond his personal goals.
The village, where he lived with old man Charles, was called Eastwood Village and was located at the remote eastern corner of the Archipelago near the woods. Unsurprisingly that was also where the name originated from.
A boy with shoulder length black hair, crystal blue eyes and olive-tanned skin could be seen running around these woods regularly.
This boy was Lupin.
The old man had been very kind to Lupin, taking very good care of him. Making sure he was well-fed and clothed, while making sure the boy was not neglecting his personal hygene.
Their relationship was nevertheless only those of a child and his estranged uncle/grandfather.
Charles had told the boy what he knew about his mother, as soon as Lupin had started to talk, which had happened when Lupin had become two years old and decided it was time to become more independent. Of course he had told him a simplified and more kid-friendly version.
So the old man wasn't very surprised at the boys introverted and rather mature behaviour.
Still, Charles knew he probably should have waited with the story about his mother, but he had always been a straightforward and honest guy. So he could not bear to lie to Lupin, when he had asked about his mother. It simply was not Charles' way of doing things.
Lupin spent most of his time in the woods, while trying to master his shapeshifting.
Yes, Lupin was already able to shapeshift into a wolf, and even though he himself only had the body of a child, his wolf form was already massive. It seemed that the wolf form wasn't dependend on the size of his physical body. Of course it had yet to be tested, if the wolf form was wholly unrelated to his physique.
Still, his wolf form was already two meters tall at shoulder height, which was gigantic for a wolf.
He had trained hard to be able to transform instantly and spent hours each day getting familiar with this new form.
Though his enhanced senses and instincts had taken a bit time to get used to, to be honest.
One problem Lupin had taken note of was, that he had been more prone to anger since his first transformation. Inside his mind he could always feel the presence of the wolf, and how it urged on his violent instincts whenever he got angry or frustated.
Luckily he had never been a person who was prone to wrath or violence, which made it a little easier for him to surpress those urges. Lupin made sure to always try and keep his calm and collected demeanor.
He had also abused his new healing factor excessively for his body conditioning. If he had to take a guess, he reasoned that his recovery time was even faster than most of the normal Zoan fruit users.
He only 'lacked' a hybrid form and the curse of the sea.
He ran around the woods, doing parcour exercises and carrying big rocks in a basket on his back. As a shapshifter, he had been born with an astonishing physical strength in comparison to a normal human. Still, if compared to monsters like Big Mom, Whitebeard, Kaido and Garp, his strength fell far, far short.
But he had a lot of time to close that particular gap.
Lots and lots of time, as there was basically no entertainment in the village. Nothing to do besides training or playing with the other kids, which he obviously refused to do. As an adult in mind, he would be bored to death when playing with other children.
Lupin also had made a list of things he wanted to learn and/or thought were necessary i.e. useful to learn for him in the long run. Things like the Rokushiki, Haki and maybe pick up some weapon techniques or martial arts on the way.
He had also thought a lot about possible ways to go about learning these things without risking his life in death battles or joining the marines and having to work his way up the ranks.
The way he saw it, the Rokushiki,were all dependent on the physical strength and body control of the user, while Haki relied on the spiritual strength and willpower of its user.
His plan for the next few years contained training his physical body to the absolute limit, he could endure with the help of his healing factor, while simultaneously trying to learn Haki.
It was going to be very hard for Lupin to force himself to train beyond his comfort zone and enduring the resulting pain of that exercises.
He came from a modern world, where such brutal training was absolutely unnecessary. His mind and metal state would probably need the most training, as it wouldn't be easy to adapt to a life where fighting and killing would be the norm.
Still, Haki was not going to be easy to learn even then.
Nevertheless, he didn't think it would be impossible to learn it by himself. Luffy learned all three basic concept in a span of two years, while Rayleigh only guided him for several months.
Considering Luffy wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed anyway and no matter how good a teacher Rayleigh may be, he had absolute confidence that he could learn Haki by himself, especially since he had time in spades.
Didn't matter if it took him ten or twenty years, he would eventually figure it out, he just had to preserve. Which would be the hardest part to do, he guessed.
Lupin would just start with meditation excersises from now on and maybe that would give him a hint about Haki, before trying some more drastic measures.
Half a year later, after meditating for two hours every morning before his daily training, Lupin used Observation Haki for the first time.
…
[Kaienreki Calendar 1499, First Month of the Year]
Lupin sat under a tree in the woods, wearing a black hoodie, blue pants and black leather boots. Right now he had taken of his boots and sat in a lotus position.
Deeply immersed in his meditation. Keeping his mind focused and serene, while dispersing any distracting thoughts.
From one moment to another, he suddenly sensed his surroundings in a radius of roughly fifty meters. The shock from this unexpected sensation, disturbed his formerly calm state of mind, which led to the deactivation of his Observation Haki.
Surpressing his excitement, he tried to replicate his success again by going back to meditating, which went unsuccessfull.
It had taken him a week to once again use the Observation Haki.
From then on, the intervalls between each activation became smaller and he would succeed more often in actively trying to use it while meditating.
Months passed like this.
…
[Kaienreki Calendar 1499, Fifth Month of the Year]
When May came that year, he had finally achieved a basic mastery over his Observation Haki, being able to activate it at will eight out of ten times.
His range had also increased by a few meters.
In Kindred's eyes though he had become an even more mature and independent child, never acting up or being impatient like a normal child. Trying to always keep a calm and focused mind was the key to Observation Haki, so he tried to do exactly that.
It had come with a surprising ease for Lupin.
He had also made very good progress in his body conditioning. His natural strength was around ten times stronger than a normal human his age and with excessive bodily training he had managed to lift several hundred kilogramms by his estimation, using big rocks as training weights.
A full-powered strike with his fist would easily be able to shatter the trunk of a tree, of course that would also leave a significant bruise on his hand. Still, such bruises would completely heal after a few minutes.
Though Lupin realized that simple training will not be enough, he also had to learn how to fight.
Because while his training went great so far, his unfamiliarity and inexperience made him seriously doubt his capabilities in a real fight.
…
A few days later on a sunny day in Eastwood Village, Lupin awoke from his sleep early in the morning and after doing his morning duties, began his daily meditation.
For the last several months he had kept up with this meditation exercises, as it had helped him clear his mind and be more focused.
Two hours later he left his own little bedroom and went to the dining/living room.
Old man Kindred had at this point finished cooking breakfeast and was already waiting for the young boy to take their meal together.
„Good morning, Lupin. Come on let's eat."
„Moring Kindred."
Their meal passed in a comfortable silence, with both of them not being really the talkative type anyway. And after having taking his last bite, Lupin stated a request to Kindred.
„Uncle Kindred, you were a marine who sailed the Grand Line before coming here to retire, weren't you?"
Pleasently surprised by the interest of the child in his 'glory days', Kindred answered.
„I wasn't just some low-ranked canon fooder, boy. I was an officer, a lieutenant junior grade even. And that was a rank awarded to me by the headquarters themselves. Nothing like the crappy ranks in the Blues, but a true-blue officer of the marine headquarters. I tell ya, I was quite the fighter in my prime."
'Isn't that like the second-lowest rank in the marines? Well, at least he is right that a marine from the headquarters is leagues above the ones from the Four Blues.', Lupin thought, though didn't voice out to protect the man's pride.
„So you can teach me how to fight, can't you?"
Frowning for a moment, Kindred asked the boy: „Why would you want to learn how to fight, boy?"
„Well, life isn't really peaceful even in the East Blue, now isn't it? The last year alone we had to endure half a dozen pirate and bandit raids. Granted, they were a weak bunch and the village was easily able to push them back with your help, Uncle. But that may not always be the case in the future and what happens when I want to go out and adventure a little when I am all grown-up. I am gonna need to know how to defend myself eventually, don't you think?", Lupin reasoned, tyring to persuade the the former marine,
Thinking a moment to himself, Kindred's former pride at his accomplishments was nowhere to be seen as he answered.
„Sigh, you are right kiddo. Even though it pains me to admit it, the marines won't be able to protect you out on the sea. These last years haven't been peaceful ones and I have a feeling that it will only get worse in the time to come."
Pausign for a moment, the old man continued: „I will be honest, I've never been especially gifted when it comes to fighting, but I will teach you everything I know. We will start with basic close-quarter-combat lessons every morning and light sparring matches. And I'm not a really good shoot, but I know enough to teach you, so you won't shot yourself in the foot. Same goes for swordsmanship. But as long as you don't slice your own ears off when swinging one, I have done my part. We will start tomorrow, so let me prepare some things before than."
„Thank you, Uncle Kindred.", Lupin said with a sincere tone in his voice.
He knew the old man didn't have to teach him anything, as he had already done enough just raising him these past few years.
Still, he knew the retired marine felt true affection for him and cared for him like a blood-relative. So, even though he had tried to surpress it, Lupin also held affection and care for the man, who was basically his foster father.
His last few months of meditation had helped him in working over the trauma with his mother's death, and made him realise that he could care for others without being shackled by those emotions.
He would still follow his orignial plan and become the freest man in the world, but that didn't mean he couldn't spent his live making some nice memories with people he cared for along the way.
Living a life worthy of his mother's sacrifice, so when the time came, he could look back on a life lived to the best of his abilities.