To Guest: Thank you!
Luffy was harshly tossed into an arena. He shakily stood up, before glancing around.
"Here is our initiation round! All the new participants have been defeated and disposed of, but now we have our last contestant!"
A man with a collar staggered into the arena. He was a large man, much larger than Garp. His eyes were glazed over, and his movements seemed mechanical.
Looking at the man, Luffy could see it every clearly. He was strong, and he was broken. Being forced to fight everyone, killing so many people, he became numb to everything around him.
"Begin!"
The man charged at Luffy, who managed to dodge the attack. Luffy tried to throw a punch, but it missed and bounced off a wall. The rebounded fist smacked the man straight in the cheek.
The punch seemed to snap the older man out of his daze, and he glared at Luffy harshly. Luffy just frowed at his arm. He still couldn't aim.
The man sent a strike with his sword towards the distracted boy, smacking aginst a wall. The force behind the attack caused Luffy to barrel into the wall, his rubber body absorbing the impact, before he bounced off the wall and into the man.
~Timeskip~
Luffy was starting to understand his fruit better. Not that training with Ace and Sabo didn't help, but they did, knida refrain from beating him into a pulp. Garp... well... using Haki didn't count.
His fruit went whoosh when he did that... he had to account for the wind and the distance...
Luffy usually never thought, but if he wanted to get out of this alive, he was going to have too.
The rubber boy ducked as the sword sliced the air above his head.
He had told Shanks his punch was a strong as a pistol, right?
Luffy let his instincts run wild, stretching his arm backwards, before dealing the finishing blow on the man, "Gomu Gomu no Pistol!"
His attack made contact, sending the man crashing into a wall, blood oozing down his head.
"Ne. The match's over, right? I beat him." Luffy asked innocently.
Charloss snorted.
"Afraid not, kiddo." The man staggered up, "This is a death match. Only those who live, win."
He did, pity the boy when his eyes widened, taking into realisation what the man had said. He felt the power the smaller boy had, and he could feel the underlying Haki the boy possessed.
Then, suddenly, as if he just thought about it, the boy's name.
Monkey D. Luffy.
The child was a D.
And suddenly, the man realised, that this boy could be the storm that all the slaves were waiting for, for "a D will always bring a storm."
The man resigned himself to his fate. The boy was strong, much stronger than him. Hell, he was getting beating up when the kid barely had a scratch on him. The match would have ended long ago, only if the boy had been willing to kill.
He wasn't.
And that was the difference. He wanted to live, but it wasn't until he was nearing death's door that he realised that the young D didn't wish to hurt anyone permanently.
"Do it." He hissed. He was tired of this game, this game off endless slaughter for amusement. He wasn't strong enough to think about others in this insanity, but perhaps... this boy could. His willpower certainly was strong enough.
He wanted peace.
And Luffy could see that in the man's eyes, the pain, the bitterness, those small shard of his mindset, broken beyond repair.
Luffy took in a breath sharply, and closed his eyes, before sending one more Gomu Gomu no Pistol at the man.
He never took another breath again.
And Luffy cried, not as hard as he did when he heard of Sabo's demise, but tears ran down his cheeks like a waterfall as he was dragged out of the arena.
He got to live one more day. At what cost?
The life of another.
The realisation, that this, this was the cruelty of the Celestial Dragons, was ingrained in his mind forever.