Unfortunately for Garp, the monkey band didn't regain consciousness until the afternoon was over and it was starting to get dark. It was an afternoon lost, in his mind, but not lost for Luffy, apparently.
During the hours they waited, Luffy had decided to use the time to befriend and play with the baby monkeys, who approached her after she made herself seem less hostile. She had fun playing with the little primates, like climbing trees and showing them how to throw punches for some reason, and she was very disappointed when they all took off once their parents woke up and scattered.
Garp was honestly surprised that they took to her so easily or that she was even interested in playing with them in the first place. Luffy had never done anything like that before. His granddaughter was an odd one…
Once the monkeys were gone with no sign of returning, the two went back down to the village, where soon, they were seated in Makino's bar, enjoying dinner, along with all of Garp's men from his ship, who had decided to stay docked for the night before disembarking back to their usual business.
Luffy practically dug into her meal while Garp ate steadily, which was a rare act for him.
When his granddaughter took notice of this, she asked, "Are you okay, grandpa? You're not eating like how you normally would."
Garp forced a smile, "I'm fine. It's just been a long day is all."
However, the reason Garp was slow was because he was deep in thought about Luffy's actions that day.
6 years old and she figured out Conqueror's Haki! He should've figured that she'd inherit it, but he didn't expect her to use it so soon, and on a band of monkeys nonetheless!
He had no idea why he lied about having the power to her, but maybe that was because he felt like she would ask him to show her or something if he did. Her power seemed only capable of knocking out a small group of animals, while his could wipe out half of an army! The last thing he wanted was for Luffy to figure out how to do that and try it on the whole village!
And then there was earlier that day. Luffy had NEVER greeted him in tears before or said anything along the lines of fearing that he was dead and pleading him to not die. What was that about? There wasn't any news about any serious sea battles lately, and even if there was, Luffy never read the newspapers.
Something about Luffy had changed since he last saw her, but what?
Garp soon stood up from his seat and walked over to the snail phone in the bar, where Luffy asked, "Whatcha doin', grandpa? You didn't finish your dinner!"
"I need to make a quick call," Garp stated. "I'll get back to it, so don't you touch it!"
"Okay," Luffy replied, before going back to her own food.
Garp dialed the phone and after a moment, a familiar voice answered, "This is the East Blue Marine HQ. Sengoku speaking."
"Sengoku, it's Garp," Garp replied. "I have some important things to tell you."
"Garp? This is a surprise. I thought you were in Foosha Village with your granddaughter," Sengoku replied.
"I am. In fact, what I have to tell you involves her," Garp stated. "She did something crazy today. Two crazy things, actually."
Sengoku, not sounding too concerned, replied, "Well, children have a tendency for that, so that doesn't surprise me. What did Luffy get up into this time?"
"She cried when she saw me. Not frustrated tears, but tears of relief! She said she was happy to see I was alive and begged me to not die!" Garp exclaimed. Thanks to the loud chatter in the bar, nobody noticed, especially not Luffy.
Sengoku hummed with some interest, "Really? That is odd. Nothing eventful has happened for any Marines, especially nothing involving you, so I can't think of why she'd say that so suddenly."
"I can't think of anything either," Garp said. "But the other crazy thing is even crazier! You see, I usually take Luffy up into the mountains to train to fight by fighting this band of monkeys that live up there-."
It was then that Sengoku cut him off. "What?! Garp, do you have any idea how diseased monkeys are!? If they bit Luffy, she could get really sick!" his old friend shouted.
Garp winced, "Relax, nothing like that happened. The monkeys never had a chance to bite."
"Oh? So Luffy beat them, then? I suppose you're really proud of her," Sengoku said, not sounding one bit impressed.
"She did, but Luffy didn't even TOUCH the monkeys," Garp stated. "She knocked them all out using Conqueror's Haki!"
Sengoku was silent for a moment, before saying, "Please tell me you're joking."
Garp groaned, "It's not a joke, I swear. Luffy used Conqueror's Haki on the monkeys and knocked them all out-well, the adult ones at least; the babies she left alone and kind of played with them afterward-look, the point is, Luffy used HAKI! And she's only 6 years old! How many 6-year-olds can do that?!"
Sengoku hummed in agreement, "Yes, that is out of the ordinary. The youngest I've ever heard of any child using Conqueror's Haki was…Donquixote Doflamingo."
Garp tensed up, "As in that pirate who's been stirring up hell in the North Blue? How old was he when he used it?"
"Roughly 9 or 10 years old," Sengoku answered. "His younger brother, Rocinante, told me about it. Apparently, he activated it when an angry mob was attacking him, his brother and his father."
Garp winced, "Damn, no wonder why it activated when he was so young. It was probably out of frustration over being helpless or being attacked by the mob in the first place. But how could Luffy have activated it? As far as I know, she's never been through anything that stressful! I'd know if she did!"
"Makino's still taking care of her, right? Ask her," Sengoku suggested. "Maybe something happened shortly before you arrived, and she never had a chance to tell you about it."
Garp nodded, "Alright. That makes sense. I'll do that. Thanks for the advice. It was just…so weird how Luffy suddenly developed Haki and her being so relieved to see me alive and well today. I had to tell someone about it."
"You're welcome, Garp. Let me know if anything else strange happens with Luffy," Sengoku replied.
Once Garp hung up and turned around, he found, much to his surprise, his plate of dinner untouched and Luffy gone. He had honestly half-expected Luffy to eat from it anyway, despite his earlier order, like what she'd normally do. She was acting stranger by the hour…
The old marine walked back over to the counter and asked, "Makino, where'd Luffy go?"
Makino, with a smile, answered, "She went to her room after eating dinner, but first, she needed a notepad and pencil to write some things down. I can't think of what she'd need to make notes of, though. Did she learn something interesting during training?"
Garp winced, "Well, she learned of a rare technique earlier today. Probably jotting the name of it down or something. Say, has anything happened to her lately? Like anything out of the ordinary? Maybe something really intense?"
Makino furrowed her brow, "I don't think so. Why? Did she say something earlier?"
Garp crossed his arms and said, "When I arrived at the docks and greeted her, she suddenly ran at me and hugged my leg, crying, saying she was glad that I was alive and begged me to not die."
Makino's brows rose, "Really?" Then she gasped, "Oh! Luffy had a nightmare last night! One where she said all her friends and family died. Maybe that has something to do with it."
Garp raised his brow. Something as simple as a nightmare wouldn't trigger Conqueror's Haki, would it? Still, it was something to go off on.
He nodded, "Yeah, that makes sense. I'll have to talk to her about it. Thank you."
"You're welcome, Garp," Makino replied.
Garp knocked on Luffy's door, saying, "Luffy, you in there still?"
After a moment, Luffy's voice replied, "Yeah! Come in, Grandpa."
Garp entered Luffy's room to see the girl sitting on her bed, notepad and pencil in hand, seeming to have already written down three pages of notes.
Garp smiled, "Keeping busy, I see. Whatcha writing down?"
Luffy shrugged, "Just some notes to keep track of. Things I really need to remember."
Garp nodded and walked over and glanced down at the page she was working on. He managed to read a bit about someone named Kuina dying, but Luffy slammed her book shut before he could see anything more than that.
She looked up at him and asked, "What's up, Grandpa?"
Garp sighed and took a seat in a nearby chair. "Makino told me you had a nightmare last night. Do you want to talk about it?"
Luffy sighed and set her notebook and pencil aside. "It's not a big deal. It was only just a dream…"
"But it caused you to be really worried about me," Garp stated. "You cried when I arrived today, remember?"
Luffy huffed, "Yeah…"
After a moment of silence, Luffy looked at him and said, "I had a nightmare that I had become the greatest pirate in the world…"
Upon hearing that, Garp couldn't help but cringe.
"Me and my crew and all my other friends were celebrating and having a good time…but then this army called the Holy Clan attacked us out of nowhere! They began killing everyone and I ended up all alone in a lifeboat at sea. I was so sad and scared…"
Luffy's eyes began to well up with tears.
"You were there too, along with some other Marines, and you died protecting me from the clansmen…it…it felt so real, and when I woke up, I was worried that you'd be dead without me knowing!"
Garp grabbed a nearby tissue box and handed it to his granddaughter, who began to wipe her eyes. "That sounded scary, Luffy. It probably felt like hell being all alone, but it was only just a dream. I'm not dead and all the people in that dream that were your friends were just made up. You have nothing to worry about!"
Luffy nodded, but bit her lip, "Grandpa…is there actually something called the Holy Clan?"
Garp furrowed his brow, "It's the first time I've ever heard of it. What were they exactly in your dream? Some kind of cult?"
Luffy nodded, "Yeah; they're a cult that hates devil fruit users! They think people that eat devil fruit are actual demons! Isn't that insane!?"
Garp frowned, but nodded, "Yes, it is. I know some devil fruit users, and they're not demonic in the least…well, except for Sengoku if you REALLY piss him off!"
Luffy snickered, which gave Garp a relieved smile. At least she was cheering up a little. Then, the child looked up at him with a serious expression and asked, "So IS there a Holy Clan?"
Garp furrowed his brow. He'd never heard of anything like them before. A cult that scorned devil fruit users. It sounded so odd…yet so specific. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if there was such a cult in existence, but wherever they had influence, he had never been there.
"I don't know, Luffy…but if I ever find out, you'll be one of the first to know," he said, patting her on the head.
Luffy sniffed and nodded, "Okay, Grandpa."
That night, Luffy was lying awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Garp seemed to treat her fears of the Holy Clan as if they were nothing more than a child's imagination, like a monster under the bed. But Luffy knew full well that the Holy Clan were not in any way imaginary. And her friends that had died in her "nightmare" were not imaginary.
"Still, you could appreciate his attempts to calm you down," Umi commented in her head, a smile in her tone.
Luffy sighed, "Yeah, but let's face it; even if the Marines DO find out about the Holy Clan, they wouldn't stand a chance against them." She gripped her blanket tightly, "At least not without me."
Umi hummed in agreement, "Yes, that is true. You should get to sleep, Luffy. Tomorrow is going to be a big day."
"Yeah, I know. Got to deal with more of Grandpa's training..." Luffy turned over in her bed and curled up slightly, before eventually drifting off to sleep.
She soon dreamt that she was standing in some kind of ghost town, covered in snow. She looked around wide-eyed, trying to figure out where she was, until she spotted two tall figures standing nearby.
One was a man with shaggy blonde hair, wearing a black feather coat and a dark red cap with heart-shaped tassels. He was staring down a man with short blond hair, wearing…a pink feather coat and sunglasses.
Luffy's blood began to boil when she recognized him. It was none other than Donquixote Doflamingo, the man who would take over Dressrosa and become the cause of half the pain of Law's childhood.
The black-coated man was speaking to Doflamingo with extreme intensity in his voice, "Law's not going to follow your lead, Dofy! He overcame his fate that he would die at 13 years! He was not the same Law who was out of his mind and wandered into the midst of 'Mad Pirates' 3 years ago! He has nothing to gain from you, the incarnation of destruction! Just let him go! He's free!"
Luffy's brows rose. Wait a second, was that Corazon?! Law's mentor/father figure! Luffy had never seen what he looked like before! Was this a flashback of the past in her old timeline?!
Doflamingo stared Corazon down for a moment, before pulling the trigger on the gun he was holding. He fired several times into the other man's upper body. Luffy couldn't help but scream as she watched Corazon take every single bullet before eventually collapsing to the ground.
Luffy turned her head towards Doflamingo, tears streaming from her eyes and teeth clenched and bared. How could he?! How could he shoot his own brother like that!?
Then, in an instant, Luffy found herself standing somewhere else on the snowy island, looking at a collection of chests and boxes. The largest chest suddenly started to lift open by itself, taking Luffy by surprise at first, but her heart immediately ached when she recognized the familiar white fur hat decorated with black spots poking out of it.
Law climbed out of the chest, tears running down his face, his mouth open, as if crying, but Luffy heard nothing. He walked away from the boxes, and Luffy followed him closely, wondering where he was going, and once he had gotten a certain distance away from the shore, Luffy heard his voice cry, forming no words, but full of the pain of loss and anguish. The same pain she felt when she lost her loved ones to the Holy Clan...
Luffy woke up with a start, gasping, and finding her face wet with tears and snot. She sniffed and reached over to her nightstand to grab her tissue box, where she immediately noticed Makino standing there, with a worried frown.
"Luffy, did you have another bad dream?" she asked.
Luffy nodded and wiped her face as dry as she could. "Y-yeah…I had a dream that this guy got shot to death by his own brother, who was evil! And this kid he was looking after was really sad about it. He was crying so much, and I felt so bad cause he lost his friend, and I couldn't do anything to stop that man from dying!"
Makino winced, "That sounds horrific, Luffy. I wonder what's causing you to have such violent nightmares…"
Luffy shrugged, "I dunno…I wish I did know." But Luffy knew the reason all too well, which left the question: What could she do to stop it?
Garp is a little suspicious of Luffy's sudden development of Haki and is aware of her "nightmare", but what else could he become aware of?
And Luffy had a vision of Corazon's death by the hands of Doflamingo and Law's grief in her sleep. What could she do to prevent that?
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