A/N: Hello again! Its so brilliant to know random strangers out there are interested in my story :) I hope you enjoy and that I continue to be inspired.

Chapter Five

Contemplating Harry

It's June, 1510 AOP, and I'm not studying the Moon Step, or the Tempest Kick, or the Finger Gun with my instructors on an isolated island of the Grand Line, hoping to be inducted into the CP9. Ya know, I'm not even in the Grand Line anymore which is a particularly strange thing 'cause I've yet to see the famous Reverse Mountain or cross the infamous Calm Belt on a marine ship, no sirree, I seemed to have skipped all the steps in between and hopped directly into West Blue! And the only explanation I can give is Harry.

Harry is this guy I met on a tropical island when I was still in the Grand Line and though my own world was shaken, at least reality was still as right-side up as can be expected on the most dangerous of the five seas. Let me tell you, things didn't stay that way long. Just a few days of finding the island and me building a tree house, I look up towards the sky and see a door – a door – open up in the sky and out flies a guy and a coupla unidentifiable flying objects. Yep, if the UFOs weren't weird enough, they and the guy lands on the beach of my island just blocked from my view by the treetops in the way. I didn't honestly expect to start having hallucinations after just those few days without eating – heck, I did drink rainwater the day before – but I wasn't taking many chances after that. I forced myself to eat, but did that make the guy go away? Nope, no sirree, it didn't help at all.

At first, I was kinda curious about him, ya know, 'cause he was this random person who literally dropped out of the heavens and didn't seem to have much of a purpose. He wasn't looking for me, that's for sure. A few days of watching him swim and train with swords, it was pretty clear that he was too weak (I estimated a Douriki level of maybe 20, which is strong for a civilian but pretty weak considering that just a few days ago I was surrounded by people with levels of at least 150) to be a practitioner of the Six Powers. Although once I could've sworn he chopped down a tree and transformed it into a hut, all with a few waves of his hand but that's not possible, right, right? I mean, it was probably a trick of the light, or something, and if it weren't for the fact that he was swimming earlier I'd have guessed he was a Devil Fruit user, though nowadays I'm questioning even that conclusion.

After awhile, I started to ignore him. If I stayed in my tree house and only fetched food and water when he was asleep or busy, it was simple enough to stay hidden. I spent a few weeks trying not to think about anything, about her and him and not even acknowledging the possibility that I couldn't live this way forever. Of course I could live this way forever, yeah, I mean, geez, I've got all I need and I sure as heck wasn't going back and there was nowhere to go to, so I was going to stay right where I was and the rest of the world would just have to deal!

But before a month was up, I found myself watching the stranger train during the day and sleeping only in the presence of the fire he lit every evening. Then I had dreams about talking with him. I wanted, needed, to talk to someone, I'm a chatterbox, everyone back home knew it, but every time in my dream, he'd ask me where I came from, or why I was on this island, or about my physical ability, and I'd wake up in a cold sweat. I couldn't talk about that, and most definitely not to a complete and utter stranger!

Then one day, he finds me. I don't think he found found me; just happened to pick the tree I was living in and tried to chop it down with his katana. I think. He was hacking away at the trunk with his katana anyhow, stopping between strikes to examine the cut. I knew I had to leave, had to find another tree, build another home – certainly not just stay here and be discovered and have him ask strange questions or whatever else a weakling like him (come on, he couldn't even slice a decent cut into the trunk; his grip was decent but his muscles were too weak to properly utilize that blade) might do when he discovered what I was. But I didn't move. My body didn't listen, as was becoming customary by then, what with the sticking around even though I knew I should've moved camp a week ago when he started exploring the area and when the tree finally toppled, I landed right in front of him and proceeded to rant about the waste of cutting down trees when there was perfectly good wood on the floor.

Yeah, I enjoyed that. I had someone to talk to, and so I babbled at him about trees and wood and fire and nature and who knows what else as he stared blankly. As I finished by claiming that now I had to live where he did because he destroyed my home, he merely blinked, shrugged, and said "okay," before turning away to his strange hut, gathering fruit along the way. Actually, thinking back, we never did finish using that tree as a lumber source.

He never asked me about anything. I talked constantly, but never asked more than for his name ('Harry'), and what was for dinner ('fruit' and a weird look 'cause that's the only thing available to eat unless we caught a fish), and whether I could help with his training ('sure, pull me up if I start to drown'). I didn't want to give him any reason to ask me any more personal questions or questions about the past, so I never asked why he trained with swords, or where his weird style came from, or why he trained in swimming, or why – even stranger – his swimming ability plummeted so suddenly. Harry took it farther. He never asked me anything outside my opinion on leaving or staying on the two islands we've been to. Anything! Even my name was something I offered up.

Yeah, he calls me Spaz. It's not my real name, no, ha, the poor kid to have parents who would decide on a name like that! But just because Harry never asked me questions doesn't mean he never said anything, just very little. That first day, I talked and talked and talked as he stored away his gathered fruit, bouncing around and probably making a nuisance of myself – hey, it was the first time I communicated with a human in a month even if he never said much back – and finally, he looked at me with an exasperated expression and said "calm down you spaz."

That brought up some unwelcome memories. Instinctively, I made an annoyed sound in response. Spaz. She used to call me that, those few years when a group of us trainees were staying at a marine base. Thinking of her was painful, especially when I remembered how she was murdered by someone I had actually admired – ! But there was Harry, an eyebrow raised in question over why I actually shut up because of such a simple phrase. It was an awkward pause, but just as Harry shrugged off his curiosity to go back to his fruit sorting, I cut in, "That's my name, don't mess with it."

"Spaz." It wasn't a question, but I could hear the disbelief in his tone of voice.

"Yep, that's me, Spaz is my name, and – "

I don't remember what I said after that. Nothing of any meaning – just me trying to fill the silence, to forget the last person who used it, to not think about the reason behind me telling Harry about it.

I'm thinking about that reason now. Have you ever heard of the psychological explanations behind the Stockholm syndrome? It's pretty weird, but, well, the mind works in strange ways. The ease I feel around Harry, the reason I gave him that name to use even though he is nothing like the only other person to use it – she was bright and cheerful and talked almost as much as I did though she wasn't nearly as jittery – is it because I've watched him for a month? Because I craved companionship? Because he was the only person there after abandoning my old life?

Watched him for a month. During that month, he was a mystery, but as a Grand Line dweller, I was confident I could find a "how" behind his sudden appearance, even if I didn't dare discover the "why." Hah. Yeah right. That transformed hut of his? It's made of wood alright, by that tree he cut down right before, I'm quite sure. But the origin of the wood isn't the problem. The hut had no cracks. Don't get why I'm so uppity about that? There's a floor, four walls, a flat ceiling and a hole for a door that he sometimes covers with palm leaves like a curtain, but the grain of the wood flowed flawlessly across the corners. It's not just awesome craftsmanship, this is serious craziness 'cause no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see a single point where separate pieces of wood came together, and the direction of the grain tracing from wall to wall – he didn't just cut down a monstrous trunk and hollow it out one day when I wasn't looking.

I honestly didn't believe he was someone who could survive the Grand Line when I first met him, which begged the question as to why he was here. And yet, he's no innocent, naïve little kid who came to challenge the stories and legends he's heard of about this ocean. He looks older than I am – I'm sixteen, he looks maybe nineteen. He takes his training seriously. If he took it seriously his whole life, he'd be better though, so maybe an experience in the Grand Line shocked him to start now? But he has good work ethic, pretty good reflexes, and decent wilderness survival skills, suggesting previous experience in fight conditions.

I fell through him once. Literally through his body, though it looked no different before and after. Was it a Logia fruit power? But there were no wisps of some element reforming into his body after I fell through, so maybe Paramecia? He looked just as shocked as I felt. And the next morning he went swimming again. He didn't have any issues in the water the next two days either, before we left the island.

Leaving the island. Now that's the mystery of mysteries when it comes to the Harry, and I'm finally back to the problem I was thinking about. Within the span of a second, bam! The two of us were transported from the Grand Line to West Blue! Like, like, that shouldn't be possible! It was unthinkable! Reason and common sense about the Grand Line is pretty loose compared to what we've learned about how the outer seas work, but there was one thing we all held as true – the only way in and out was Reverse Mountain, Mariejois, and through the Calm Belts unless you're crazy buff and decide to just climb the Red Line. Just what the heck is that strange power and does it have anything to do with his almost Devil Fruit power or his seamless hut or his weapons that never seem to be around until he trains with them or the rain bouncing off a good half centimeter before reaching his skin?

That was a mistake I regret. It was just such a shocking sight that the question blurted out. Harry, thankfully, just gave a mysterious answer and let it go. Isn't he funny? I don't understand him one bit! That power – how strong is it? Could he potentially use it to make himself immune to the weakening affects of water as a Devil Fruit user? From "another world" is how he put it. Is that a reference to the second half of the Grand Line known as the New World? Is he actually some really experienced traveler of the Grand Line who has the strength to travel instantaneously wherever he likes or is it just a neat trick? And why did he choose this village? Is there any relation to the sudden headache he got before making the decision to come? He's just too weird, too unpredictable, and unbelievably frustrating!

I often wonder what kind of life he had before we met. Sometimes, he seems pretty wise and stuff for his age, like, that work ethic I was talking about earlier, or how he doesn't ask me questions like he understands why I don't either, or just his more mature attitude when he was the first to reach out after our little row back on the island. Haha, yeah, I don't even remember what it was that he said that got me mad, but it wasn't all his fault. I think, in my anger, I remembered all the worries I had about ever talking to him in the first place, so once I stopped, I just got frustrated and couldn't start again, was afraid to start again; maybe even too proud. And then he was the first one to talk, and it wasn't to ask what my problem was. He admitted a weakness, the same weakness as mine but I was too afraid and proud to acknowledge, the dependency on just having someone. He's a better person than I am, even if he's weak. And then I discovered his ghost-power, which messed up the weak/strong thing even more.

But for all that attitude of his, he often does things that seem really naïve. And stupid. And bad for future survival. Like trusting a total stranger to rescue him from drowning. Or his ignorance about the identity of a Yonkou, of Shanks who has such a presence in the world that people recognize him and his crew by his red hair alone – did he live under a rock? Sure, some islands of the four Blues are pretty isolated from any of the famous pirate battles, but a guy who lives in the Grand Line and has split second access to this island in West Blue, the ocean Shanks hails from, should have some idea at least of the significance. He even seemed pretty damn oblivious to the significance of Nico Robin's visit, yet another huge name pursued by the World Government and who was born in West Blue.

Sometimes he does stuff that I don't know whether is because he's stupid or because he's just that kind of guy. Like him paying for everything for the both of us without a word or question or explanation. It started with just sharing a loaf of bread – yeah, I was an idiot and forgot about the concept of money. Can you blame me? Before, all my food was either supplied by our trainers or to be collected ourselves from the wilderness. But he also paid for a double room at the inn, and all our meals afterwards. Is it wrong to complain about this behavior when I'm benefitting from it? But really, now I wonder where all his money comes from, to have enough to spare for an extra person he knows nothing about without so much as a blink of an eye.

Haha, maybe he's some rich heir to an estate who felt like traveling the world before having to be tied down to his "duties." Pfft. That may explain why he has a good work ethic – probably studying finances and stuff – yet little strength to show for it, but he doesn't buy anything extravagant like you might expect of someone who's grown up in the lap of luxury. Other than room and board, I've only ever seen him pay for that first loaf of cabbage bread and any of the sake we end up drinking. Ah, the sake. The time we got into a drinking contest; boy did he seem five years younger with that prankster glint in his eyes and later when totally buzzed from all the alcohol.

Though, he never lost consciousness. The only other person I know who I can't drink under the table like I threatened Harry is. No, the only other person I knew who I couldn't drink under the table like I threatened Harry was – was a female marine who called me Spaz and then was murdered because she was an obstacle, a hostage in that marine base to a pirate but the one who murdered her wasn't the pirate but someone I admired, someone I and my training mates aspired to, because at the age of thirteen the World Government held him in high esteem for a mission I had not known, had not realized was what resulted in a massacre and –

I kick the air with a Moon Step, feeling my mind battle between the disgust I had for what this technique might have helped that man do three years ago and my rational understanding that these techniques are all I know when suddenly Harry steps through – literally – the door.

"Hey Spaz," he says, ignoring how I fall from the air onto my bed. "What do you think about tagging along with Shanks' crew for a bit?"

Tagging along with pirates. With a Yonkou pirate crew. I search his face and see curiosity, some anticipation, a bit of excitement, but otherwise completely casual. Yeah, I don't get him at all.

A/N: So there you have it, some of Spaz's background. I hope this helps in understanding him as more than just a filler character. If you have any questions or suggestions or even requests, I'll listen and answer but no guarantees I can fulfill all your desires, haha.

Thanks again to my beta, RedValentino.

Question for the readers! I've noticed that isn't picking up on the lines I insert to split chapters at time breaks. Have there been any confusing transitions so far in the story? Because if you can understand just fine, then I think it's better if I don't add the lines, but if you think it would make things clearer, I don't mind. Thanks.

Thirty-one reviews as of today, October 29, 2010. *squee*

Thanks guys :)

Bunny jumped for joy too much, so he'll be taking a break here.

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