12 years later in the Northern Sea
The village of Iron Home is a not so-quiet little village in the middle of the Kingdom Thule. The village is bordered by the Iron strait to the north and is isolated from the rest of the kingdom by the Wolves Mountain. The name of the village derives from the residents' occupation as blacksmiths, swordsmith and anything related to the making of anything metal such as swords, shields, armor and axes. That is why despite the 'village' status the place is quite loud from the clanking of hammers and other activity of metalwork making it even more undesirable for tourists from around the kingdom to visit the otherwise picturesque place.
The 'Ironades' as what outsiders call people from the village are also famous for its fighting technic, warriors were its second export after ironworks and the Ironades are proud of it. Though it's all ancient history now that North Blue has advanced toward peaceful and harmonious relationship with its neighbors the fighting technic of the ancient warriors are still preserved from one generation to the other and is regarded as one of the most prized fighting technic taught in the 'Royal Military Academy' to the highest ranking of knights. The large statue of 'Jorgam the Ironade' the most famous among the ancient Ironade knights still stood tall in the middle of the village's square to commemorate the village's great past. Aside from its history there's nothing unique about the village overall, it's just like any Northern Province village with the typical Mountain (Bavarian) homes and views of the soaring mountains surrounding the seaside village that the elders said to be the place where the ancestors trained their kids into becoming formidable warriors like they were always remembered now.
And now at the present time, the place's history is relived once more.
In a small secluded waterfall cavern at the foot of the Wolves Mountain Leo stood tall meditating beneath a waterfall, sun from above shining down on him and the entirety of the cavern. Contrary to what one would expect from a meditating man Leo's expression shows uneasiness and frustration. Abruptly the boy's eyes snapped open "It's useless! I can't feel anything…I think all the fighting techniques you've been teaching me for all these years will suffice" complained the tall young teenage boy. The boy who no less than 12 years ago couldn't do nothing but sleep and cry has now grown into a dashing lively teenager while still retaining his blonde hair and light green eyes which childhood girl friends of his said 'easy to the eyes' every time during class or just simply when he passes by them in town. Said that if I wasn't such a martial art maniac they'd consider dating me, which is ridiculous because they've been taunting me since I was a kid for having 'imaginary' friend. He tilted his head to get as much water out of his ears as possible while wondering why he suddenly reminisced about his childhood when without warning his head got struck by a powerful flying kick from the side which sent him back to the little lake beneath the waterfall with a splash.
"That…is why it's not enough!" said an old man, who despite his age apparently still more than able to deliver some deadly blow.
"You keep saying about this tricks about how I could use my aura or haki or something to sense surprise attacks like that and it's been 3 months and I don't feel anything!" the young teenage boy argued, after finally regaining his balance and muttering several curses under his breath.
"I know it takes time, just don't give up, do you think I would have done all this if in the end it wouldn't help you?" said the old man handing the kid some towels for him to dry himself up.
"I just don't get it how this is an essential criteria to be a Nordhaim (North home) guard…I faced one once and he was worse than a kindergarten kid!" ranted the teenage boy as he dried his hair off and changed into a set of fresh clothes which consist of a typical white gi (karate uniform) complete with its belt.
"Yeah? and could you remind me how much money did it cost just so you can boast about it in this wide free world instead of in some subzero cell in the Northern Continent? I think that's enough for today, I have to go to town again to attend to my patient…it seems like Ms. Moerden's headache is even worse this time, I may have to give her stronger medicine…here's some food and there's more in the fridge" He said as he stood up
"Thanks dad" said the young teenager, he unwrapped the box to find his favorite meals which he chomped it down right away, well it couldn't be helped could it? 5 days of meditating is quite a long time.
"Ah I just remembered…Leo could you go to the town for me please, I've got these special concoctions that I need to make, I've written all the ingredients you need to buy on this list and here's the money, feel free to spend the excess" Leo opened his mouth to speak but afraid of the repercussion of talking with his mouth full, he quickly swallowed the food in his mouth and blurted "I thought you were going to the town!" to which the doctor's eyes widened "Not that town! Besides it's good for your training" he argued as he hurriedly stepped out of sight "If I found you in that town you'll have to buy me any food I choose! You hear me?"at that the doc quickened his pace. "Can I at least take Banshee (the family's horse) with me?" "Not a chance!" the doc's yell echoed throughout the walls of the cave.
An hour later Leo arrived in the town, after bidding the fine farmer who gave him a lift to town farewell Leo proceeded to the raw ingredient store a few blocks away from the main street. The resort town with its hot springs and hiking trails is famous within the kingdom as a retreat for people from the capital. The town itself, named Wolves Peak is actually not that much larger than Iron Home, the village he resides in but it's growing faster since it's nearer to the center of the Thule Kingdom so most of the aristocrats and citizens of the capital prefer to take vacation here, and also for the fact that it's quieter and the summit of the Wolves mountain offer great views of the capital, Gylfenhaim. For scientists, alchemists, doctors, illegal logger and some weird cults the mountain also contain a vast amount of plants, ores, woods and creatures that they often use as ingredients, income or rituals that are not available or offered in anywhere else in the kingdom, but to save time it's better and safer to buy them at shops since some of the plants grow in the edge of cliffs, the depth of caves and other dangerous and secluded places, and also nobody wants to end up picking the wrong shrooms because it looks similar.
After approaching and asking all of the ingredient shops lining the street Leo couldn't seem to find 2 more ingredients. These two are beeswax and some 6 leafed clovers. The first one he could grab some from the bees' farm further down the road, but the clovers, that's got to be rare.
Minutes later on his way down from the bees' farm he decided to take the scenic route where he hoped to find some clover leaves. Then he found some and looked for the 6 leafed ones.
After minutes of looking Leo shrugged his head in frustration "Man that thing is rare and this is tiresome!" he kept following the wild arrangement of the leaves not realizing that he's trespassed into somebody's lawn. He looked up when he saw two pair of shoes in his line of vision.
"What are you doing?" said a tall, bald stalwart man looking down at him with black suits. Arms folded.
"I was just looking for some 6 leafed clovers, is this your lawn or something?" he asked visibly annoyed. Without bothering to answer the bald guy reached his mini denden mushi and told the receiving end that someone was "spying on the Lords."
"You're going to have to come with me"
"No way, you want to get beaten or something? Look why don't you just let me go so I could find the damned clovers somewhere else" He said, it's going to be dark soon and he wouldn't want to be lost in this scenic route. Besides he wants to get back to town and start the hunt for the sneaking doctor. His planned fanciful diner depends on this.
"Sorry but no, what you're going to do is follow me and drop the load of that bag you got there and you're free to go IF you're proven to be telling the truth" said the guy remaining unmoving.
"What if I refuse?" Leo said, deciding that the guy need to get some ass-kicking to deliver his point to this bald headed wise-guy.
"Then you shall suffer" said the guy with a smug smirk, the bald guy's clearly underestimating him.
"YOU'RE UNDERESTIMATING ME!" He said as he swung his best punch toward the guy's head only to be met with nothing but air. The bald guy avoided the sudden attack swiftly by ducking down and just as quick as he dodged the punch he seized Leo's neck around his arm, choking him and forcing his head to rest on the bald guy's shoulder and then he delivered an unbelievably powerful knee thrust up his gut. Even with years of defense training Leo couldn't get past his shocked state which led him to be kneed in the gut again and laid crippled on the ground like a weakling. Nobody has ever dodged his punch like this guy did. Normal punch a guy or two could manage to dodge or countered it in his lifetime but not with surprise attack like this. This guy practically knew he was going to attack his at that exact moment! That's impossible in every aspect…
"Now it makes it easier for the both of us isn't it? it seems like I've overestimated you" Leo could only look from the ground as he began to search his bag.
"Here's your bag back, nothing but a bunch of garbage and with that kind of combat skill I'm sure even if you were a spy you wouldn't ever get near to the Lords…so what are you, some kind of shaman or something? If you are, you're a lousy one…now…" the bald guy paused to straighten his tie "if you've finished being a weakling get the hell away from here, this is a private property you understand?" the bald guy chuckled and walked away. For once in his life Leo could only look at his foe walk away laughing as he lay there writhing on the ground, cursing at himself for being such a loser.
Meanwhile at the back of the private mountain retreat
"Isn't that a little bit much…using haki on someone who clearly doesn't have any control of his?" said a fit middle aged man with greying hair on the backyard patio of the vacation mansion. The man was sitting behind a little girl who's only a tiny fraction of his size, she was wearing a little karate suit one size too big, his palms a little over the girl's back.
"Ah, I'm sorry my Lord… It wasn't my intention to, the moment he was about to punch me i sensed some suspicious aura from that boy, it's as if he was a fruit user…it somehow forced me to activate my haki, I couldn't take chances…" said the bald man apologetically. The man just nodded and smiled weakly.
"Maybe you should train more" the man said, dismissing him without turning his attention from the little girl in front of him. He knew the bald man which is one of his three head guards he employed have some temper issue, it sometimes become a liability to him to have such short fused subordinate but the guy's quite experienced being a former Rear Admiral of the North Blue division of the Marine.
"Ouch daddy that's too much!" said the girl as she jerked her back away from the pair of hands behind her back.
"Sorry Honey, I was a little bit distracted, let's start again shall we"
1 hour later
"ZAMMITTT! That guy beat me like I was nothing!" he muttered the barely intelligible words to the doc, now back in their house, lying in the doc's clinic bed while pressing a bag of ice on his gut where the bald guy landed his blow on earlier.
"That's horrible what that guy did, it was definitely a haki imbued attack, just look at this mess! You're lucky you could walk back here without passing out with this kind of bleeding!" the doc just came back from gathering the equipment needed to fix his child up.
"How…h…how bad izzit?" said Leo as he tried to shift his body so it won't hurt so much
"Bad, the bruising is only getting larger, I think I'm going to have to operate you, here take this pill it'll prevent your blood from clotting" he gave the suffering kid the pills and went on to grab some blood for some transfusion and some anesthetic as it's going to be messy. What kind of bastard would use a haki attack on a defenseless kid like him, this is exactly why people shouldn't teach haki to everybody! Everybody knows that if you used haki on a completely clueless and defenseless person the pain would be nothing short of agonizing, it's like a gunshot without there being an actual bullet hole, because the haki itself is the bullet destroying everything on its way. As a result of that among its practitioners there's some kind of tacit agreement that haki should only be used as a last resort. You just don't go around punching and kicking the town thug with haki.
"My God! am I gonna die now?" Leo said breaking the doctor's thoughts as blood began seeping from Leo's mouth again.
"No not under my treatment you won't" he connected the blood bag to the plastic pipe to be later infused to the boy's blood vessel.
"I'm sorry dad…if I had been more serious I could have beaten that guy" to which the doc just smiled, the kid's years too early to think about beating anybody with that level of strength.
"Steady now, I'm going to get you under" It was the last words Leo heard before he went to a deep sleep.
**Flashback**
"As I said, to be a formidable soldier you have to be beyond your enemies, true you could punch and kick some of them into oblivion but there are some other foes that are just so strong…or stupid that no matter how effective your defense and attacks are they always find a way to land powerful blows on you. If that's the case you have to know when and where are they going to attack, how are you going to counter it and more importantly finding out their weakness, everybody has one and you could do that by making the best out of your aura, your haki. This is the last chapter of my teaching which will take the longest time for you to learn. This is going to be a great test for your patience and most importantly your will. So observe carefully…" the doc's palm slowly touched the surface of a huge boulder and then it started to crack, starting from the part where his palm touches the boulder and spreading and branching outward producing bigger cracks. In no less than 10 seconds the huge boulder has been transformed into no less than a hill of pebbles.
Right then and there Leo woke up from his sleep, with half of his abdomen still bandaged having not fully recovered from last night's surgery. He quickly put his bracelet back on, ripped the IV off his wrist and got up from his bed.
"Hey where do you think you're going?" the doc was outside in the middle room sipping his morning coffee as usual, newspaper in his hand. He was surprised that the kid could even move as he just concluded the operation hours earlier.
"I'm going to the waterfall!" Leo said while putting his robe back on.
"I know I can't stop you but please have some breakfast first, I've prepared it there on the table along with some medicines that you must not forget to take!" he was wrong to think that's going to stop him from leaving the house as he heard the front door being swung open.
"LEO COME BACK HERE THIS INSTANCE!"
