Chapter 003 – Seimei Kikan
[Kaienreki Calendar 1500, Third Month of the Year]
It had been roughly nine months since Kindred had started to teach Lupin. At this point he had grasped the basic fighting stances and techniques Kindred had taught him, while getting more familiar with using the sword.
Also a lot has happened in the world in these last few months. Gol D. Roger had been annouced the King of Pirates several months ago, by the World Government, which had caused a significant unrest in the world. Many more pirates had sat sail to try and challenge Roger for his title.
Still, Lupin knew that the worst has yet to come. The moment of Rogers execution was nearing rapidly, which meant the Great Age of Pirates would start soon and plunge the world into even more chaos.
Even now the Four Blues weren't as safe as they used to be, and as soon as the Great Age of Pirates began, it would only get worse.
Fortunately he had made great progress with his training.
Lupin could now use Observation Haki ten out of ten times, his mind being calm like a clear lake. His range had also increased to more than 70 meters in radius. His physical strength had also increased to being able to lift more than double his previous limit, roughly 1000 kilogramms.
But the most incredible thing that had happened to him was the skill he had unknowingly trained himself in – Seimei Kikan.
Seimei Kikan was a technique that described the perfect control someone had over his own body. When mastered, one was supposed to be able to control even ones own hair like an extra limb.
He himself had only realised he had learned the very basics of the skill, when he had used it subconciously to digest the food he hunted in his wolf-form faster one day.
It seemed the constant need to hold back his strength in the spars with Kindred to avoid injuring the old man, had given him an advanced control over his physical body. This paired with his already very strong senses and his Observation Haki had enabled him to learn the very basics of this superhuman technique.
He had been overjoyed at the discovery. It would have probably been nearly impossible to learn such a thing by himself conciously, as he did not know where to even start develop such a skill. It was also never mentioned in the show how someone trained this obscure skill and very few even were capable of using it.
More than that, this technique was basically invaluable when it came to learning other physical techniques like the Rokushiki or martial arts.
Perfect control over ones own physical body was a massive boon when it came to learning techniques that involved such precise movements.
So, Lupin had decided to wholly focus on this skill in his free time when he wasn't meditating, conditioning his physical body or learning from Kindred.
He would only start trying to learn the Rokushiki after having gained basic mastery over Seimei Kikan, instead of his instinctive use of the technique.
Lupin had also turned five years old last month.
Kindred and him had celebrated with only the two of them on the first of March, as that had been the day were Lupin and his mother were rescued by the marines. So Kindred had decided to celebrate his birthday on that day.
As it was also the day his mother had died, Kindred always brought Lupin to the beach to throw some flowers into the ocean and take a moment to pay tribute to her.
As a birthday present, Kindred had bought a normal steel longword with a sheeth for Lupin, from a passing by merchant. The merchant had visited the small town on his way to Loguetown some weeks back.
A few months later, it was August, which also meant that Roger, the Pirate King, should have turned himself in already.
…
A young boy with an olive-coloured skin and black hair, was sitting at the base of a large tree.
The boy wore only a pair of black shorts and a pendant carve out of a piece of wood. On that pendant the words 'Lupin D. Black' had been carved on one side, while the other had the letters for 'My Beloved Son' carved into it.
A few strands of his shoulder-length black hair were covering his forehead and face slightly.
At the moment the boy looked rather terrifying. Blood covered the area around his mouth and throat, as if he had bitten into someones neck. One could also see his belly bulging out slightly.
He had his eyes closed and a concentrated look could be observed on his face beneath the blood and hair. Suddenly his skin gained a red shade and his belly started to shrink successively, showing of his perfectly toned abdomen.
Lifting his head up, Lupin opened his piercing blue eyes and and began to grin wildly: „Hahaha!"
Letting out a short laugh of happiness, the young boy soon calmed down again. After months of focusing his efforts on Seimei Kikan, he had finally achieved a small success with the technique.
Over this period of time he had only found one way to train the skill, which involved stuffing himself with an enormous amount of food and than trying to focus his whole concentration on digesting said food.
It had taken almost half a year of constant hunting and overeating for him learn to conciously accelerate his digestion. Now he was finally able to use it actively, while furthering his proficiency in the technique.
The first step had always been the hardest, so now that he had taken it, he just had to steadily walk the rest of the way.
Another piece of good news was that his physical training continued to bear great results, allowing him to lift nearly 1600 kg.
His progress may seem slow, but he only trained with boulders in the wild and had not even the most basic training equipment available to himself. Something he planned to change in the near future.
His Observation Haki had also advanced another few meters, which wasn't such a great progress in range, but it had become more detailed and accurate.
He was also able to grasp the intents of the wild beast he hunted in his wolf form more accurately then before.
His Observation Haki seemed to also strengthen his limited precognition, that he had been gifted with since birth, due to his unbelievable accute senses.
From what he understood Observation Haki differed from user to user, with some only being able to sense intents and the presence of others, while some where even able to sense the emotions of those surrounding them.
Of course it could also simply be that the proficiency in the technique decided how much and what one could sense.
Lupin definitely planned to try his hands on all forms of Observation Haki, as they all were incredible useful.
He had yet to try his hand on Armament Haki though, as he found it relatively difficult to train it by himself. So he had decided to wait until his proficiency with Observation had advanced even further to get more familiar with these spiritual powers.
His initial thoughts about Haki had also been confirmed over these last few months.
Haki was based on spiritual strength and strength of the mind. Every time he kept his Observation Haki active for extended periods of time he also felt a little drained, signifying the usage of some kind of spiritual energy while the technique is activated.
Unfortunately he had been unable to get a more than an occasional feeling of that energy. He had been unable to really sense this spiritual energy consiously, as of now. Even though he would subconciously get an infrequent touch of it.
Still, Lupin believed he would get there eventually – with time and determination.
His training with Kindred had meanwhile produced very good results. It seemed Lupin had a rather good talent, when it came to fighting.
Even though he still lost the sparring matches against the old man, they now went on for several rounds and there weren't always decisive victories. Kindred's expierience in battle making the difference in their matches.
Of course, Lupin held back his physical strength and speed, as he wanted to compete in pure fighting techniques and not beat up the old man.
He knew he would eventually need to find some more powerful opponents to get more expierience and familiarity with his own battle prowress.
Still, as he was now, Lupin was sure that he could at least fight a normal member of the Arlong Pirates on equal footing.
Fishmen on average were ten times stronger than normal humans, and Lupin himself had also reached the same physical strength even with his young age. Though he seriously doubted that he could take on Arlong one on one.
Arlong was not only physically stronger than the average fishmen himself, he had also way more battle expierience, a basic proficiency in fishmen karate and swordsmanship.
In the big picture Arlong was only a small fry, but that was only because the world was full of superhuman fighters, especially the Grand Line and the New World. Beings capable of leveling a whole island, spitting fire, causing earthquakes, etc.
Lupin was only five years old and he knew that he had a long road ahead of him, if he wanted to stand tall and free in this world.
Taking a short moment to clear his mind, Lupin stood up and grabbed the sheathed longsword nearby and his blue shirt. He had placed them there along with his pants, before transforming into a wolf and going on a hunt, to avoid ripping it apart while he transformed.
He had no need to take off his pendant as the string was made out of an unknown material that would just stretch to adjust to his bodysize when he changed into a wolf, so he basically never took it off.
Walking to a nearby creak and washing the blood of his body, he put on his shirt and kept the sword in his hands, as it was to big for him to strap on his back and still be able to draw it out in a moment of need.
Turning in the direction of the village, he walked back, as the sky was slowly starting to darken.
As he walked through the woods he kept his Observation Haki activated and tried to indentify every living presence he came across, classifying its threat level and exact position, as some form of training for himself.
Roughly half a kilometer away from the village, he could hear loud fighting noises. Poeple screaming, guns firing and weapons clashing.
A raid.
Focusing his senses completely in that direction, he began sprinting back to the village.
When the trees left his vision and he had an unobscurred look at the ongoing battle, he realised that there were more and stronger enemies than usually. Nearly twenty pirates fought against the village milicia, which only amounted to thirty people in total.
For the untrained eye it might look like a numerical advantage, but the village people were mostly untrained men and women, who – while having expierienced several raids - were no real fighters.
Uncle Kindred was by far the strongest among them, and he was an over fifty year old man far from his prime. The numerous injuries he had collected in his younger years, meant that his strength left much to be desired.
If it had been him in his prime, he could take care of these low-level pirates all by himself, but now that wasn't the case anymore. The only thing he had in spades at his age were expierience and a steady mind.
That was also the reason he could hold back several of the attackers including the leader by himself, even though he was losing slowly.
The rest of the villager, even though they ganged up on the attackers together, were slowly losing. The ferocity on both sides was equally fearsome.
One side fought to protect what they held dear, and the others fought for greed and against time, as they couldn't risk to stay too long and risk a nearby patrol ship to come to the village's rescue.
By observing, Lupin knew that this time they could not win against the pirates and drive them back to the sea.
He also knew that he could change this fact by helping the villagers. His strength being at least equal to that of Kindred himself.
The only problem he faced was the momentary fear that froze his movement, when he thought about killing another human being. Because if he decided to fight, he could not show mercy, that much he knew.
In a world like this, mercy was a privilege of the powerful and he was not powerful.
Nevertheless, he had something that he didn't have in his last life.
The natural fear for violence and blood he had carried with him from his past life, could only surrender before the animalistic instincts of his inner wolf.
Using these instincts to push back the fear and aversion he had towards violence, like he had done often when he had hunted in the forest for some game, Lupin prepared to enter the battle.
Gripping his sword tightly, he drew the blade from its sheath and took a deep breath, while closing his eyes for a moment.
'This is no different than a hunt. Don't think of this as killing another human being. This is just prey. Just prey.'
Lupin repeated this mantra inside his head, before he succeede in calming his mind and activating his Observation Haki.
'HUNT.'
With this last thought of his, he advanced towards the battle that took place on a clearing inside the village, where normally merchant offered their goods when they came to the village.
Lupin zeroed in one the battle between a villager and a pirate who fought one on one.
The villager was already injured, having received several light slash wounds across his limbs from the pirate in front of him.
The moment the pirate deflected the villagers sickle with his own cutlass blade and prepared to drive the blade into the man's chest, a sharp pain in his chest stopped him in his tracks.
Looking down he could see the a long straight blade protuding from his chest and promptly let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain, while the blade was already withdrawn from his body.
Lupin having finshed off the first pirate in a sneak attack, hurried towards another villager, who found himself in a pinch against his adversary.
Lupin made sure to not involve himself into the group battle at the moment, trying to pick off the pirates one by one and creating more favourable odds for the villagers.
He did not know how long he would be able to keep his act together, while fighting and killing other human beings. Still, he gritted his teeth and sneaked up on another pirate, swinging his blade and cutting off his left leg.
*Shwoosh*
„ARGHHHGHH--"(Pirate)
Spinning around he brought his blade down again, this time on his fallen enemies neck.
Blood splashed and hit him in the face.
This time the rest of the fighting villager and pirates took note of him. Several of the pirates cursing and one in particular screaming in his direction in rage.
„Fuck, that braf killed Olaf and Snout!"
„Damn, someone go and chop up that little bastard!"
„ARGH! You little shit, you killed my brother! I am gonna rip you apart!!"
The short moment, where all participants just watched the little boy, with blood dripping down his face and a longsword in hand, was enough for Kindred to throw Lupin a look.
He didn't scream at him to run away or anything like that. He also did not shout any encouragement. He simply nodded at the boy.
Kindred knew that they would have lost eventually and could only imagine what these pirates would have done to the villagers.
This wasn't some childrens cartoon, this was the brutal reality of this world.
If they had lost, mostly likely the women would have been raped, while the man would have been killed and the children would have been kidnapped to work on the ship. Or be sold through some underground channels to nobles or other criminals.
Kindred had seen it many times when he had sailed as a marine on the Grand Line. Small villages being raided by pirates, slave trade and massacres.
So he was very clear that Lupin, who was strong enough to make a difference in this fight, had no reason not to join the battle.
Not only to protect the village, but himself first and foremost.
If Lupin waited for the outcome of the battle, he would have to face all the pirates himself, so he had to fight now or he did not have a chance at winning at all.
Kindred knew this, and even though it pained him to see the child he raised having to fight and kill, he also accepted it and was glad he had trained the little boy.
'Sigh, how fucked up this world is. To need a child to kill and fight, just so he can be safe.', lamented the old man in his mind.
Focusing his thougths after a short moment, he used the momentary lull in the battle due to Lupin's appearance and attacked a nearby opponent and managed to take him down, before he was once again besieged by several foes at once.