Day 37

We've left that island behind. It's been about two weeks of smooth sailing so far, and hopefully the weather will hold.

Greybeard plans to sail through the Calm Belt again, he's planning to make a stop at an island there, though I wonder what kind of people would be brave/insane enough to live on island right in the nesting ground of Sea Kings.

I wanted to ask him about his past, but when I tried to bring up the subject, his normally sparkling and smiling eyes suddenly turned cold and steely. I could feel some sort of...some sort of aura coming off him and it nearly suffocated me. I hadn't dared ask him about it again.

Instead, it was the first-mate, Lat who told me about it.

Or rather, he tried to.

He pulled me aside yesterday to tell me what he would, just so that I could avoid pissing Greybeard off.

"So what do you know about Frank?" he asked me.

I told him the story I heard back on the island. Lat frowned a little after I was done.

"I guess the truth gets distorted over time," he said. "But that story got a few things right. Frank was an Admiral and he did massacre more than half the Marines at Marineford. But it wasn't because of some powerful enemy or because he was driven mad."

"So what made him do it?" I asked.

Lat hesitated a moment, polishing his puppet's head.

"Do you know why Frank is considered the most dangerous and powerful pirate in the world?" he asked me.

I shrugged. I only knew that because that was everyone was saying.

"I guess anyone who could single-handedly wipe out half of the forces of Marineford would be considered dangerous," I said.

Lat chuckled at that. "Yeah, while that is pretty grievous offense against the World Government, that was just a smoke-screen, it really did happen, but for different reasons."

"What reasons are those?" I asked impatiently.

"What do you know about the Tenryuubito?" Lat asked.

"Do you answer a question with a question all the time?" I growled irritably.

Lat chuckled again. "Mind your manners brat. I just love dragging out a good story."

"They're the World Nobles," I said, sighing, still not sure where this was going. "They're supposed to be descendents of the ones who founded the World Government and they've got a mean streak in them just because no one can mess with them without getting into some serious shit."

"Right," said Lat. "So I suppose you know what would happen if you mess with a Tenryuubito?"

"You know," I said, irritated with Lat for asking yet another question. "I've always wondered if your overgrown puppet can withstand my quake powers. Maybe I can find out right now?"

I clenched my right hand and red glow erupted around it, a low rumble emanated from within the glow, sounding like the beginnings of an earthquake.

Lat laughed and raised his hands is a gesture of surrender.

"Alright, alright," he said good-naturedly. "Put that away."

I obeyed and Lat took in a deep breath.

"As an Admiral, Frank could command just about every division of the Navy. He had one battalion of Marine serving directly under him, and they all looked up to him and he looked after them. Now, there was an orphan who lived in Marineford who wanted to join the Navy badly, but was repeatedly rejected. One day, Frank ran into the kid, who was trying to join again but was kicked out. Apparently, Frank was impressed by the kid's guts and took him in. The kid's name was Zhen. Anyway, Frank looked after the kid as though the kid was his own son and the kid made it into the Marines and over the years, grew stronger and rose in the ranks."

Lat stopped here to look at me. Suddenly, his face turned pale and he scurried away to other side of the ship.

I suddenly felt an ominous chill behind me and turned to look.

It was Greybeard.

He was looking at me with steely eyes without a single hint of the warmth they normally have.

"Nosing around are you?" asked Greybeard coldly.

Even though I was as tall as him, I felt so much smaller then.

Greybeard suddenly drew his broadsword.

"What are you doing?" I asked nervously.

"Since you want to nose into my past so much, I'll cut you a deal," growled the old man thunderously. "If you can beat me half to death, I'll tell you the story myself."

Before I could even respond, Greybeard swung his sword at me. I ducked as fast as I could, only to find the old man's boot planted right in my face, sending me flying back.

I recovered and saw Greybeard advancing on me. The old man was serious; there was murder in his eyes.

"You'd better fight back, boy!" he snarled. "Or else I'm going to cut you up and feed you to the Sea Kings!"

I didn't have a choice; I took out Roy's bisento and swung at Greybeard at full strength. To my shock, the old man didn't even try to dodge it, but I was even more shocked when the bisento struck him, his body sort of broke into what looked like dust...or rather, ashes.

The ashes floated around before coming together to form back into Greybeard.

"You really think you can wound me with a half-assed attack like?" spat Greybeard. "I ate the Haiiro Haiiro No Mi, a Logia. I'm an ash-man."

I tried thrusting the bisento through the old man, but again, the attack went through him. Greybeard reached out with left hand and suddenly, a hand made out of ashes flew at me, knocking me back.

I suddenly realised that I had difficulty breathing. Greybeard was saying something, but I was too busy coughing and spluttering from the ashes to listen to him, anyway, I got the general idea of what he was saying.

His power chokes people to death.

Desperate, I sent a shockwave at him. Greybeard simply dispersed into ashes when the shockwave hit him.

The ashes flew at me, choking me again and in panic, I flailed my around with Roy's bisento but to no avail.

"You're so weak, Newgate," I heard Greybeard hiss. He suddenly reappeared right in front of me and threw a powerful punch that knocked me off my feet.

I couldn't get up, the power of his hits, his sheer savagery and ruthlessness in that one-sided fight completely overwhelmed me.

Greybeard stood over and just looked away dismissively.

I think that hurt more than anything else.

"Stupid brat," I heard him mutter. "Maybe that'll teach you to nose into other people's business."

"I still want to know," I managed to cough out through my own blood and ashes.

Greybeard looked back at me, surprise on his face for just a brief second.

"Like I said, you're going to have to beat it out of me, punk," snapped the old man.

He looked around and suddenly shouted out.

"If any you tell him about it, you'd better be ready to run as fast and as far as you can!"

Greybeard disappeared into his quarters after that.

A few minutes later, I found myself in the infirmary with Lat and Grunt.

Lat was sporting several savage bruises on his face and Grunt was treating us as best as he could, grunting irritably as he did.

"Idiots," he grunted as he applied some ointment to Lat's bruises. "Why'd you have to piss Frank off?"

Lat shrugged. "Thought Frank would like to talk about it to somebody."

I was thinking then, about how terrifying Greybeard was at that time. It was so unlike his carefree and cheerful attitude. I realised my heart was still beating quickly in terror.

Grunt noticed.

"Hey now," he said almost kindly. "Take some deep breaths. It's not every day I get to treat someone who's faced foul-mood Frank so don't go getting a heart attack on me now."

I asked him what he meant by that.

"Anyone who's face Frank when he's in a bad mood normally doesn't live to tell the tale," answered Grunt bluntly as he checked my jaw.

"I just can't believe that Greybeard could be so..." I struggled to find the proper word to describe it.

Lat chuckled.

"Well, there's a reason he's one of the Three Demons, you know," he said. "And that's also why he's considered the most powerful and terrifying man to ever sail the sea. Consider yourself lucky."

"Why?" I asked as my pain shot through my jaw.

"Well, he's clearly interested in telling you the story. You just have to get stronger to get it out of him," said Lat.

"How would you know?" I asked.

"Well, I've been sailing with him for over thirty years so I know him as well as anyone could," said Lat, chuckling. "And if he weren't interested in telling you, he would've just killed you."

Maybe I am lucky after all.