Liberation Chapter 4: Showing Progress, an one piece fanfic

Edited: 04/06/2019

The two stood facing one another.

They were a whole field away from the rest of the recruits, giving them privacy to train. Kuma was an imposing figure, that hadn't changed, but Sabo found that it didn't matter that much. After having beat Porchemy and escaping, Sabo didn't find the size to be all that much of an intimidation factor. Still, most would have found the comparison between their two sizes hilarious – Sabo roughly came up to his opponent's knee, after all.

Sabo found himself more excited.

He was going to get stronger and stronger. Strong enough to protect the things that he cared about. Strong enough to change the world. Even such a large speed bump wouldn't slow Sabo down.

"Thank you for agreeing to spar with me, Kuma-san, are you any good?" Sabo asked, going through a few stretches before the fight started.

Kuma looked at Sabo for a moment, seemingly assessing him, "... Try your hardest."

Sabo grinned and darted forward.

The blonde had given this spar a lot of thought the night before. Sabo realized he had two advantages; his speed and size. Both made him a natural enemy for someone large. It was more strain on a large person to keep up with speed, and it was harder to reach someone properly if you were so tall.

The same sort of idea worked against Hack due to his stance, so if Sabo could just slip underneath his guar –

FWOOSH!

Sabo was hit off the ground and sent flying across the field.

Salt exploded around him as he braced himself against the ground and pushed himself up. He looked back to his opponent.

It was starting to make sense.

This was the reason they were so far away from the other recruits. Kuma was standing there as though nothing had happened.

Interesting.

Kuma had not shown much movement. The little Sabo had been blurred, the younger fighters eyes not able to keep up. The most interesting bit was how it happened though. People were capable of amazing feats of pure strength, but Sabo doubted that was the case. Which meant that there was likely a Devil Fruit at work here.

'Damn, I underestimated this guy.' Sabo thought to himself but only felt more determined.

Still, even though there was a Devil Fruit at work... The fact that Kuma's hand had moved forward that fast... It was clear that Kuma himself was skilled. The man didn't rely on his power. So Sabo couldn't allow himself to fall into the trap of thinking that power was the only thing at work here.

His original idea still had a lot of merits, maybe even more!

Two ways of beating the opponent in front of him came to mind. Simply outsmarting him being one. Tempting, but that wasn't the point of this outing. Secondly, there was outlasting him. Like the first plan of tiring Kuma out through speed, this worked on the same principle. Make the enemy use his ability and speed until he got too tired. This would make Sabo the winner by default.

Plus, it didn't defeat the purpose of the training. He'd still be getting a huge workout.

So, Sabo ran at Kuma again. This time trying to angle himself behind the man. There might be another weak spot to exploit dependent on the direction of attack.

FWOOSH!

From behind

FWOOSH!

From the air, dropping down from the sk—

FWOOSH!

Sabo had tried everything he could think of before too long. At least as far as different ways to come at his opponent. The blonde was panting from the effort. Body aching from being constantly flung to the side and into the ground at high speeds. His legs were starting to tire out from running at such high speeds toward his opponent. The young fighter couldn't recall a time where he'd ever been this tired.

"... We are done for today." Kuma announced.

Sabo almost wanted to refuse, feeling stubborn and wanton to beat this opponent that was before him. Then again, he thought back to the situation. He couldn't win, it wasn't possible, and Sabo wasn't Ace. He didn't need a swift kick to the head to get his brain working when it came to setting some fights aside. Right now, Sabo was too weak.

"Of course, thanks for your time, Kuma-san." Sabo spoke, walking over to his top hat, which had been flung from his head at some point during the right.

He placed it on his head and started to make his way toward the compound. A thoughtful look plastered to his face.

"Sabo," Someone spoke from behind the blonde. The young man turned to look behind him, met with the now familiar face of Hack. "So you've finally met an insurmountable obstacle in your path. Kuma is one of the strongest of us."

It wasn't a question, it was a reality. For his current level, Sabo couldn't pass this obstacle. This was a clear fact to Hack, despite Sabo having the suspicion the Fishman didn't even watch the fight.

"Something like that."

Sabo had to admit. He rubbed the back of his neck sort of sheepishly. After all, it was the sort of humbling gesture that he'd been practically begging for with his interactions with Hack. Kuma had reminded Sabo of how weak he was. Reminded Sabo of why he was trying to get stronger in the first place.

"So, what will you do?" Hack asked, genuinely interested in what the blonde would say.

There was the opinion to give it, that was always an opinion. Of course, it wasn't one that Sabo would take.

In this case, there was only one other option that Sabo wanted to take, "I guess I'll take a page out of my two brothers books. First, I won't turn my back on this fight. Second, if I can't beat this opponent, how could I ever hope to be worthy of being on the same crew as the future Pirate King."

Ace and Luffy, those two stubborn brothers of his... They were likely out there taking on things they couldn't handle. Fighting more than they should, eating more than they could, and being more selfish than most people could stand. Sometimes though, sometimes it was so very clear why they made such good brothers. Despite how it usually seemed, Sabo was capable of the same bullheaded stubbornness.

He just hid it better.

"If there is an obstacle that I can't climb, I'll just go through it." Sabo finished. Filling with renewed determination, "It might take a while before I manage to pull it off... but that's exactly what training is for. To get stronger, to measure yourself, and so, I will do that I'll become stronger."

Sabo looked down at his hand and clenched them into fists.

"No matter how long it takes, I will beat Kuma." Sabo declared.

...

Immediately after the fight with Kuma, Sabo started to work on how he could prepare himself for future spars.

There was a huge difference in strength, something that Sabo would need to work to close the gap on. Easier said than done, but not impossible.

So he trained.

He did twice as much physical training as he had before, and that was saying something.

When he was training with the trio, he made sure to make it as difficult as possible for himself. When he was reading, he started to add in exorcises. When there was a moment that he had free, he added to it. Reading, eating, everything became another step to him overcoming his adversary.

Every day he did this, and every day he lost to Kuma.

Time passed, and people that trained with Hack started to twiddle down. What used to be a large class now only held around ten members. Sabo didn't pay much mind to that beyond the fact that his roommates were still a part of it.

Sabo's knowledge of time passing became measured by his next battle and next meal.

Speaking of meals, those had increased in size proportionately to how hard Sabo was pushing his body. And that was no small amount.

Eventually, the skin around his scar had become malleable. The scar didn't fade at all, but as far as movement had been recovered. There wasn't anything he could do before the accident that he couldn't do now.

Sabo was at his lunch eating as he read a book about the islands of the North Blue when he was tapped on the shoulder.

"You're always pretty busy, huh?"

He turned around and was met with the image of a young brunette girl with a purple dress on. She seemed about his age, if Sabo had to guess. Still, he was sure that he hadn't seen her around here. She was likely part of the new recruits that came trickling in every now and again.

"Nice to meet you," Sabo greeted, reluctantly putting the book down. Showing some semblance of manners toward the new person, "My name is Sabo, and you are?"

"Koala, nice to meet you Sabo-kun." She spoke, and there was a small smile on her face, but it seemed static.

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Miss Koala, was there something you wanted?" Sabo exchanged, keeping his eyes connected with hers. Even though all he wanted to do was go back to his food and book.

"Hack-sensei was telling me about you, and I wanted to see if the rumour mill matched up." She explained off-handedly, almost nonchalantly. Yet, the smile stayed exactly the same, "I suppose they weren't wrong."

"What exactly did they say?" Sabo asked, and though he didn't care, he was mildly interested in what they thought about him.

"You were stupidly determined. To the point where you don't pay attention to anything other than your goal. I can tell, because I've been here for a month, yet you think I'm new. Also, I was standing behind you for a good ten minutes before I called your attention."

"Oh? Sorry Miss Koala, I guess that those rumours are right." Sabo apologized.

Normally, apologies were followed by an action that showed you would change your behaviour going forward. Sabo followed up his apology by immediately turning right back to what he was doing before. Reading and eating, paying the girl no mind. In fact, he completely ignored her presence at all.

"Really?" He heard her whisper to herself, but instead of leaving as most people would, she sat right next to him and stared.

Okay, so maybe Sabo was finding her amusing a little bit. People usually stopped trying to get his attention. This girl was different. She thought she could annoy his eyes away from his book by placing a heavy glance on him. It wouldn't work, of course, but it was a decent enough try.

Sabo could ignore Luffy and Ace's rather obnoxious snoring. A set of eyes on him was nothing compared to that.

...

So, it would seem that Koala was as determined to get Sabo to talk to her of his own volition. Just as determined as Sabo was to completely ignore her existence in favour of his goal.

Then he realized just how his actions might come off as.

He'd been acting like Ace. If Sabo fell into those sorts of actions, they would end up without a brother to talk them out of trouble. Next thing you knew all three of them would end up arrested.

"I'm sorry Miss Koala, I've been treating you horribly. Do you need anything from me?" Sabo inquired, only a few minutes after his realization.

They were walking together toward the salt fields. She'd picked up the habit of walking him toward his spar with Kuma.

"No, I don't need anything from you." She admitted, "I've been watching you. I want to understand how someone who was a noble could join the Revolutionaries. It's nothing personal."

That smile she had.

Sabo was starting to see that it didn't seem like much of a smile.

"I hate them." Sabo gritted. Letting those emotions rise for a minute. Enough emotion to give her something to go off of, "They forced me to try to be a part of their perfect world. Tried to make me into something I wasn't. If I didn't do things the way they wanted, if there was so much as a single flaw, I was punished for it. I ran away. I got a taste of freedom."

Sabo paused, swallow down some of the disgust he felt, " Then... They ripped that away as well. They took me away from my sworn brothers. My own parents locked me away from my brothers. Then, just because they were getting visitors, and because they wanted to make sure I wouldn't misbehave again... They burned down my home and tried to burn my brothers away with it as if they were trash. To my parents, I guess they were trash. They took everything I wanted and burned it away in less than an hour. I'm lucky, so lucky that I still have my brothers."

Koala stood there, and Sabo walked on to his sparring match.

That small smile, fake as it was, had faded away.

...

It was about fifteen more matches with Kuma before Sabo saw her again. When he did, she had that smile back. Sabo felt somewhat annoyed with that, so he gave her the sweetest smile he possibly could in return.

"Let's be friends.'

"Of course, Miss Koala~!" Sabo teased out, that sweet, polite smile still on his lips.

For a second, Sabo thought he might have seen her eyes smile too. But when he blinked, there was still poison on her lips.

With that, they walked together toward Sabo's sparring session with Kuma. She stood off to the side and watched as Sabo ran toward the man with determination. The elation of a fight settling in his eyes as he forgot her very existence during the spar.

FWOOSH!

But he was getting closer to his goal, a grin shown to Sabo's mouth.

For the first time in a long time, it was a symmetrical smile. Sabo hadn't noticed, but his missing tooth had grown back in.

...

With the number of times Kuma had hit Sabo, you would have thought Sabo would get used to the fighting style. Would be able to pull off some sort of lucky hit, but it never happened. It was reading some rare novel from the grand line that Sabo got his first idea of why.

Haki, and it wasn't only mentioned in that book.

It was mentioned in several different places. The likelihood that it was fake was slim the moment Sabo looked it up in a scientific book and there it was. Haki.

Haki that helped to somehow predict where attacks would land.

"I wonder if that's considered cheating..." Sabo mused to himself but grinned. Because before he was getting stronger, faster, and no matter what he'd done, he couldn't win.

Now all he needed to do was learn Haki.

He went into the next battle with that in mind.

Sabo didn't attack, he waited for Kuma too. It wasn't a new strategy. It was one of the things he had tried the first day. This time, Sabo continued to have Kuma attack first, and he kept trying to dodge instead of hit him. He used his sparring opponent as the training tool that Kuma was meant to be. Though Kuma didn't say anything, Sabo had the feeling he knew what was going on. It didn't show on Kuma's face or anything, it was just a feeling that Sabo had.

And that continued.

Not just for that day, but going forward.

Sabo had Kuma attack him and tried to dodge, and it didn't work –

FWOOSH!

Maybe it had been a month.

FWOOSH!

Was it a year?

FWOOSH!

Koala was still standing there, watching as Sabo attempted again and again. Some point down the line her smile had started to become more real. They started to talk to one another as they walked down to Sabo's daily beating. She shared facts and interesting little bits about the places that she'd been, the things that she'd read.

Sabo learned a lot about her. Taking a liking to the fact she was intelligent enough to hold a conversation. In fact, she seemed even better at retaining information than Sabo was.

FWOOSH!

When had Koala and the trio become friends? Oh well, if all of Sabo's friends were friends it made life easier. It also made them less likely to leave. More and more of the original recruits had disappeared. Sabo had come to understand that was because they were getting their "desk jobs" as Hack had called them. Either that, or they were sent home. Anyone that showed combat progress was still being trained.

FWOOSH!

There was a near-manic grin on Sabo's mouth as he was hit into the air again. This time, the smirk wasn't because of determination. It was because that determination had started to pay off. It had to have been paying off. Otherwise, how could Sabo have almost dodged that last attack?

Almost didn't count in horseshoes or with hand grenades.

But it was closer than he'd ever come.

FWOOSH!

"Sabo-kun, why are you so determined to beat Kuma-san?" Koala asked she was in the room with the trio as they were studying. Trading deals between countries, dry material, but useful for the cause. At least, should it ever come to them needing to disrupt should treaties.

Sabo grinned, "Well, a while ago, Dragon said that it was a step in my training to get a hit on Kuma. I guess at some time it evolved into something way more important."

"More important?" She quarried, and that small smile on her lips was more real than it had ever been. She smiled because he already knew what Sabo's answer would be. It had taken a lot of time, but she had started to understand him along the way.

"I gave my word that I would. Besides, if I'm going to be on the crew of the Pirate King in the future, I should be able to do at least this much, right?"

They went to bed, Koala going back to her own room, and Sabo getting some much-needed rest. Needless to say, he got up bright and early in the morning and started the same thing over again.

FWOOSH!

"Pssh...ha...ha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!" Sabo laughed out as he dodged the paw that was aimed at him, it went wide, missing him completely. In his joy, he completely missed the other paw that was following it up.

FWOOSH!

Dragon was standing there, watching for the first time in a long time. Or at least, it was the first time that Sabo had noticed the man, and was that Hack?

It had been a while since Sabo had seen him, but he hadn't changed a bit. Koala was there as well, though she did seem unsettled by the fact that Dragon was there. If her eyes were saying anything, they were telling Sabo to be on his best behaviour.

Sabo squared up against Kuma, and unlike the last (hundred?) few times, Sabo went to charge at his opponent first.

FWOOSH!

Yet, unlike usual when he was sent away, Sabo landed in a stockpile of weapons. Had Kuma meant to do that? He did seem to have decent aim with that ability of his, and yet, why would the man be sending Sabo into weapons. Learning a new weapon would set him back in ability. It took a while to learn how to use a weapon after all –

Then Sabo saw it, a pipe.

His hand drifted over toward it without Sabo even noticing, and he held it, tested its weight.

Memories crashed into Sabo, nostalgia filling him, and damn it, he missed his brothers.

Forcing that feeling away, Sabo rose to his feet and started to make his way back to Kuma. Once he was close enough, he spun the pipe around in his hand. It was smooth, it seemed that some things really were like the saying, 'It is like riding a bike!'

An idea rose to his mind, and oh how his brothers would approve.

That pretty much settled it, and he ran toward Kuma with that particular plan in mind.

He saw the paw coming before it actually happened, and he used his pipe for the first time in so long. Not using it to hit Kuma, but instead, he used the pipe to hit the top of Kuma's paw and propel himself over to his real target. Within Dragon's reach, Sabo swung.

His vision started to fade, "You really are related to Garp with that level of brashness."

"Really, Sabo-kun?!" Koala sounded off, clearly pissed, and Sabo knew that when he woke up, he'd regret whatever he'd done to make her angry.

And that was the last thing he heard before he completely lost consciousness.

...

Ace, Luffy

That annoying girl that I mentioned, we became friends. I know, I know, but I couldn't help it when I thought about how much Ace would absolutely hate her! But seriously, we became friends, and she isn't that bad once you get to know her. Though she is still super annoying. She tries to get me to train less, something about over stressing my body, but she doesn't understand that my body doesn't work that way!

I have to train as hard as possible to beat that super strong guy.

Ace would be so frustrated at it, I'm sure. I've faced this guy hundreds of times now, and I've lost every single time to a single move. I won't give up though, because if I did then I wouldn't deserve - Well - You know the thing. I don't want to say it too often, Lu might start to get a big head or something if I have too much faith in him. If that happened with his devil fruit, he might start to float into space.

I started to learn something that might give me an edge in the fight. I'll let you know how that goes soon.

Sincerely, Sabo