- Waaaaaaaaa... Waaaaa," came the shriek.
Whoa, wait a minute. I opened my eyes and tried to move. With great effort, I raised my arms and tried to say something, but once again it rang out:
- Wa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a," Damn it, and really did fulfill the promise, sending me on a second lap.
Looking around, I realized abruptly that I couldn't see any colors. Everything around me was black and white. There were also two figures hovering over me: one was a smiling girl holding me in her arms, and the other was a man poking me in the face, wiggling and trying to cheer me up.
To say they looked extraordinary is to say nothing. My father had long hair that just covered his right eye, a scar on his left eye that was crisscrossed by two smaller ones, and two earrings in his ear to top it off.
I was able to make them out when the man wrapped me in his arms with joy. I didn't understand the language, but he was clearly overjoyed.
The girl looked standard, she had a bob and very distinguished eyes, they were huge, hence beautiful.
After half a year, my color blindness went away, and I finally exhaled. But something else struck me, the color of my parents' hair and eyes.
My mother's karee was split between blue and light pink, while her eyes were a shade of crimson. My father, for his part, boasted an impressive fuchsia-colored hairdo, and his irises were a deep purple.
- Do they dye them? No, impossible. Judging by the furnishings in the house, this is clearly not modern. We must urgently find a mirror and find out.
Starting to crawl around the house as hard as I could, I tried to find a mirror in which a small body crawling on the floor could look.
When I found a floor mirror, I leaned on my weak arms and stood up a little, but a couple seconds later I fell back down.
In the time I'd been on my feet, I'd seen a baby with bright sakura-colored eyes and dark pink hair. Such was the appearance I had gotten in this preternatural world. After a second attempt to see myself, I saw a scar on my baby face that was exactly where it had been in my previous life.
When I tried to roll up the sleeves of my pajamas, I only found that the rest of the scars were still there.
I don't care about that, but it became clear why the doctor who examined me some time after my birth and my parents looked confused.
By the way, I was named not after the birth, but a little later, about half a year later. At that time they argued heatedly, I did not understand what exactly, but I tend to think that about the choice of my name.
And now I understand why my father was stubborn for so long, as my mother insisted on naming me Anastas.
It seems that such a feminine name did not like my father very much, but a health-improving blow on the head from my mother quickly calmed him down.
Time passed quickly, even very quickly, children's minds absorb everything much faster than adults, so that after a year I began to partially understand what they were talking about.
Their conversations were quite ordinary, from what I could understand. I couldn't go outside for natural reasons, because the only way I could get around was by crawling. But I recognized the names of my parents. My mother's name was Anita and my father's name was Alfen.
I had a hard time controlling my body at first.
My mother... She had a "thing" for the beautiful, so she dressed me appropriately.
My father, on the other hand, was a real homemaker. This was due to the fact that my mother couldn't stand cleaning, which I realized when I never caught her doing it. As soon as I was 2 years old, I learned to walk and immediately started climbing wherever I could, including trying to find a book to see where I was. One day I climbed on a chair that stood right next to an open window, from which strange noises were coming. When I looked out, I found my mom beating up scarecrows and trees with her bare hands.
What is she doing? She's weird. Doesn't it hurt to hit her like that? - I'm in a weird family. I understand playing games like that when you're a teenager, but Mom was clearly in her early twenties.
For the first time, my bed was in the living room on the first floor, while my parents' rooms and theirs were upstairs. I'd better get up there soon, maybe that's where their library was hiding.
While I was pondering, sitting down and barely keeping my balance on the chair, my mom swung around and brought the damn tree down with a thud! Where the hell was I, in some kind of fantasy? But as soon as I moved a little, the chair staggered and sent me flying to the floor. At the noise, my homemaker father came running in and immediately started rocking me and hastily searching for something to cool the bump forming on my head so rapidly as if I were in a cartoon.
Now i'm three years old. When I was strong enough, I was able to climb up to the second floor and looked around. Upstairs there was a corridor with four doors. Perhaps behind one of them was the library I was looking for.
Pushing the nearest stool, I climbed onto it and cranked the handle of the first door. The door swung open, and I saw a sort of study with a desk in the corner of the room, a gun hanging just above it, and other banal furniture.
Dad's a gunfighter? Maybe he's military, maybe he's just a hunter, we'll see.
I did the same trick with the second door, but this time I lost my balance and fell in. I hoped my father, who was cleaning up downstairs, didn't hear that.
It turned out to be the library I needed. Taking the first book I could reach, I leafed through it. The letters were similar to the Asian characters from my world, but there were also books with English titles on the cover.
By trial and error, I found an educational primer or something, and began to study it. The book turned out to be a textbook of the local language, and I happily began to learn the local grammar, alphabet, and other trivia. It took me six months to learn the basics.
I hadn't tried writing yet, as I wasn't very comfortable picking up a pen at the age of three. I decided to take up studying the remaining books in that room. My parents didn't seem to notice me climbing up to the second floor and studying our library here, or they pretended to.
Well, anyway, they didn't bother me, and thank you for that.
One day I came across a very interesting book called The Encyclopedia of Devil Fruit.
Devil fruit? What kind of idiocy is that? Okay, types of devil fruit, "there are three main types of devil fruit: Logia, Zoan, Paramecia. By eating such a fruit, the user will gain one of the abilities, but in return will completely lose the ability to swim."
Well, this is where it gets interesting! If this isn't a children's fairy tale book, but a reality, I'd like one of these things.
"Mera-mera no mi. The fruit allows the user to become a fire person and gain invulnerability to physical attacks. The user can transform, produce fire, and control it in unlimited amounts. The power depends on the level of intelligence and training of the one who ingests the fruit."
I need to find out from my parents if devil fruit really exists, and if it does, I definitely need one. I just have to choose which one. Although if you think about it, I don't think you can find these fruits at the market. They're probably as rare as diamonds here.
Before asking my family about the devil's fruit, I decided to study the encyclopedia to the end, which, given the plenty of free time, took two days.
The main thing I learned from all this information is that not every fruit is known yet, and the second thing is that by eating the fruit, you can get the most unexpected ability.
From turning into a dinosaur to turning into a freakin' jacket. How do you even use it? It ended up taking me about three years to exterminate the entire library. And before I knew it, I was six years old. It was a big celebration, it was so good it was scary.
And what was most frightening was the fact that there was delicious food on the table, and my family can not cook from the word at all. Well, maybe my father can cook something edible, but my mom... What to talk about food, if my mother to let my mother in the household was tantamount to the destruction of the house. One day my father was too lazy to mop the floors, and he miraculously got my mother to do it for him.
As soon as she took hold of the mop, a total nightmare began. She was not enough even for a couple of stroking movements, the woman was immediately seized by furious anger, the mop and her hands were covered with some black substance, and she rubbed the mop to the fire.
My father, who was out in the yard hanging laundry, was quick to smell something wrong and arrived on the scene, surprising me with his quickness. He burst into the house just moments before the catastrophe, at a moment when it was impossible to catch the smell of burning from the street.
I'm still less and less sure of where I am. My mom's weird pirate stories, and my dad's always pining for his adventurous past.
And they began to look at me strangely, as if they realized that their son was gifted and had been interested in books since early childhood.
The birthday presents were books. My dad got me some kind of detailed textbook on how rifles are built, how they're made, and so on, and my mom got me a history book. Hmm, based on her tastes, I was expecting something like a fashion book.
Not missing the opportunity, I started leafing through my mom's gift, hoping to learn something about pirates. And I didn't miss a beat. The Pirate King Gold Roger was executed in September 1500 for his horrible crimes against world government and humanity. With his execution speech, he launched the great era of pirates, inspiring millions to search for the great treasure he had hidden somewhere in the dangerous Grand Line Sea. 1500... What year is it? I began to walk around the house looking for the calendar I had been neglecting all this time. Finally finding the calendar I saw the date May 3, 1511. Eleven years ago, the pirate king was executed.
It was my seventh birthday. On this date I was promised a surprise. The celebration was as lavish and raucous as usual, even though it was just the three of us. Toward the end of our meal, I began to notice that my father was getting nervous.
- You're a big boy now, son," she said, grinning ear to ear. - It's about time I made you "pretty."
Excuse me? What the hell was that even supposed to mean?
I got the answer to my question soon enough, which I soon regretted.
My mother decided to train me!
- You're a gifted boy," she said, her eyes filled with pride in her son. - I've decided it's time for you to train. Before you want to accuse me of cruelty, I'll tell you that the world is full of not very nice people, and no one will be nice to you. - Also, if you make it to your 15th birthday, you'll get the greatest gift ever.
A gift, huh? And what would that be? Something nice, maybe some clothes, a weapon, a rifle like your father's? To put up with eight years for some unknown thing? I exhaled. It's too late to back out. After my kin selflessly gave up their existence for me, I can't stand idly by.
- The first order of business is to strengthen your body and spirit, so standard exercises and building your base first. This will help us with that," she pulled out a bamboo stick.
- What's that for, mom? - I was really worried.
- You see, in order for your body to be able to withstand at least the pokes of an alcoholic in the future, you'll have to harden it, and I'll help you with that using a rather ancient method," my legs shook involuntarily, and my tormentor noticed it, and immediately softened.
She walked over to an innocent-looking cobblestone nearby and swung and hit it as hard as she could.
The stone split in two, as if it were not a stone at all, but a ripe watermelon.
- That's the kind of thing you'll get if you decide to train with me," the woman said, shaking the dust off her hands.
- M-m-mom, would I even be able to do that? - I wasn't sure at all. Ordinary people shouldn't be able to do that, much less fragile family women.
Those tree beatings were just a flower. I realized it too late, there was no getting around it now. It was the beginning of my own personal hell. I woke up, ate my father's cooking, my mother took me away to train, I sweated seven times, came home, took a bath in a barrel, ate and went to bed. It went on like that in circles until my 12th birthday.
Not that I achieved great results, but my body really strengthened. Thanks to this exercise, I grew almost to my father's height, but I was still puny. I didn't worry about it. After all, a kid shouldn't have mountains of muscle. I was much stronger now, and I felt like that boulder wasn't going to be a huge obstacle for me, but there was one thing I was worried about.
- Here's your test, son, show me what your mother has taught you in five years.
It was scary to hit the rock. In a previous life, in a previous world, such events ended in injury, but here it's not like that at all. I had fallen from nine feets high while jogging in the woods, crashed into all sorts of traps built by my father for my own training, but my body had never sustained any lethal damage.
I logically concluded that the laws of physics work differently here. Falls and other injuries are easier to take and heal faster. Though perhaps my conclusion is wrong. It could still be attributed to genetics. Gathering my thoughts and concentrating, I swung and hit the stone with all my might. It cracked slightly, then grew larger and larger, and collapsed in two.
- Well done, son, well done! Alfen, look what our son can do, and you said I'd be a bad teacher! - Her mood swings were common, so I just laughed on the sidelines, marveling at this picture.
- That's great, son, you've gotten pretty strong, but don't think your mom's going to get rid of you so soon, it was just the first stage," my dad said to me after the exam. And he was right. I regret that I didn't pay much attention to it.
- Anastas, honey, you're not handsome enough yet... - what's with the maniac look, am I going to be tortured?
All these five years I felt like I was living in hell. But after I passed my mother's improvased exam, and slowly learned how to survive in the woods, which my father taught me, I finally felt strong enough. Strong... Enough...
Speaking of my father's training, it wasn't very varied. He'd just throw me out in the center of the forest, which was at the back of the island, tell me to hold out for twenty-four hours, and disappear. And I survived with only the knowledge of how to make a fire by rubbing a plank with a stick. I ate whatever fruit I could find. In our house you could usually find well-known specimens, such as apples, bananas, pears. Most likely they were bought by my father and sometimes by my mother when they went down to the city.
In the forest, however, I was surprised to find an incongruous fruit that did not fit any geometric figure I knew. I noticed that there were marks on the ground from the ones that had fallen, but there were no fruits themselves. It looked like animals were eating them, so they were safe.
Plucking a bright yellow gift of nature, I took a tentative bite and felt something sweet mixed with sour, which I didn't really like, but I didn't have any other options yet.
The striped bears were quite aggressive when they spotted me, so dodging their clawed paws and taking advantage of my speed, I scampered off deep into the thicket. I wasn't very good at orienteering, and that's why it took me not twenty-four hours, but all of two.
I came to the evening of the second day, all torn and scratched by branches and local thorny plants. After I was fed, my father treated all my cuts and reminded me that tomorrow the second stage would begin.
I was going to be doing something I didn't understand for another three years. As I walked out onto our makeshift practice field behind the house, my mother said the following to me:
- Now the core of our training will be sparring and mastering the basic will of arming and observation haki," I opened my mouth in silent amazement. What kind of haki are we talking about?
- Haki? What is it, anyway? - There was no mention of it in the books, only of Dee's ephemeral will.
- Don't interrupt your elders! - my mother shouted at me, and then continued. - Haki is your inner energy, it allows you to strengthen your body, and also to beat the fruit-eaters who ate the logia, you already know about them, - she winked slyly. She and his father quickly realized that their son had already read all the home literature.
- All this time you've been strengthening your body to master this. The armament Haki. The second type of haki will help you determine people's intentions, their numbers in a certain area, and evade effectively.
- Sounds intriguing, and how do you train them?
- We'll train both Haki through sparring. The first type should be awakened when you are at the edge of your physical capabilities, and the second when you feel on the verge of death," she said with such a sweet smile, as if being on the verge of death should be something ordinary for me.
This was where I'd have to say no. I'd been defensive and dodging before, trying to escape my mother's blows, but to get into a full-fledged fight was a fun prospect I'd avoided.
- Mom, I don't know how to fight, so maybe I shouldn't.
- The enemies you might meet on your journey won't ask. You'll learn as you go.
I had to accept the situation, because contradicting my mother was more than just getting hit in the head.
The second phase of my traing has began.