"Woah, gramps, this is one heck of a ship!" Luffy shouted as he sprinted across the deck, peeking into barrels and dangling off ropes like a monkey.
"Bwahahaha! This ain't even my main ship, brat!" Garp bellowed through a mouthful of meat. "This is just one of my old caravels I keep at Loguetown. My battleship back in the Grand Line makes this thing look like a dinghy! A thousand times bigger, a thousand times cooler."
Luffy's jaw dropped. "A thousand times!? That's huge!"
It had been a few days since Garp returned, and every day he had driven Luffy to the brink with punishing training. Today was no different, yet instead of collapsing into food or sleep as expected, the boy was buzzing with energy, demanding to explore his grandfather's ship.
That alone made Garp pause. He'd noticed it before: Luffy's body didn't just recover fast, it grew from every scrap of strain. The kid was improving at a rate that wasn't normal, even for the family. 'Tch. Runs in the bloodline, nothing more,' Garp thought, brushing it off. 'There's plenty of freaks out there with talent like this. Nothing special.'
Still, his eyes lingered as Luffy stopped before an old iron-banded door, paint chipped and hinges rusted.
"What's behind this one?" Luffy asked, eyes gleaming.
Garp looked over, unconcerned, and shrugged. "Dunno. I haven't touched that one in a while. Find out yourself."
And with that, he hurled the stripped meat bone into the sea, not caring where it landed.
The door creaked under Luffy's small hands. He peeked inside, wrinkling his nose. The air smelled old, stale wood, dust, and salt that had long settled into the planks. It was obvious the room hadn't been touched in years; cobwebs clung to corners, and the floor was littered with faint prints of where rats once scurried.
Luffy's eyes sparkled. "Woah... treasure!" he grinned, pushing the door wide open to reveal rows of stacked boxes.
Behind him, Garp leaned lazily against the wall, pulling a massive fried chicken leg from his pocket as though it had been waiting there all day. He chomped down without a care.
"There's so much stuff! What's all this, gramps?!" Luffy asked, already tearing into the first box like an eager pup.
Garp scratched the back of his head. "Ah, those? My old clothes. Back when I was your age... well, six to seven years older. Teen years basically." He chuckled. "I was six feet tall by then. So unless ya shoot up overnight, brat, those'll hang off you like sails."
Luffy held up a loose flower-patterned shirt, the sleeves drooping way past his arms. He grinned from ear to ear. "But I'll grow taller, right? So can I keep them? I promise I'll wear 'em when I'm older!"
"Suit yourself," Garp said with a shrug, grease dripping from his chicken. "They're just rotting away in there. Don't have any use for 'em anymore."
"Yoshhh!!" Luffy cheered, tossing the shirt over his shoulder before diving into another box. This one rattled with something heavier than cloth. He paused, curiosity piqued.
Garp's chewing slowed ever so slightly.
"Oooo wowww...." Luffy held up an old framed picture, blowing the dust off it. The glass was scratched, the wood chipped, but the image inside was still clear.
Garp's eyes flickered wide for a moment before narrowing into a grin.
"Uh... who's this?" Luffy tilted his head, squinting. "He's got the same scar as you, gramps. The one around your left eye."
"Bwahahaha!" Garp's laugh thundered through the room. "That's me in my twenties, brat!"
"What?! Really?!" Luffy nearly dropped the frame in shock. His eyes bugged out as he brought the picture closer. There was Garp, broad-shouldered, no grey in his hair, arms crossed with his usual cocky grin. Standing beside him was a man with a huge afro and circle framed glasses, looking effortlessly cool, and a sharp-eyed woman with dark blue hair tied back in a neat ponytail.
"Who are they? Your friends?"
"Uh huh." Garp leaned over, a shadow of nostalgia softening his grin. "That guy with the afro is Sengoku, and the stern girl is Tsuru."
"Are they important people in the Marines?"
"Hah! 'Important' is an understatement!" Garp slapped his thigh, nearly choking on his fried chicken bone from laughing. "Sengoku's the Fleet Admiral now, the top dog of the whole damn Marines. And Tsuru-chan's a Vice Admiral like me. Back then though, we were just... rookies, running around, catching crooks, stuffing our faces whenever we could."
Luffy's mouth hung open. He stared back at the picture, at the three of them seated at some rickety tavern table, plates of food and mugs clinking, caught mid-laughter by whoever had snapped the photo. They didn't look like legends. They just looked... happy.
Garp's grin softened as he took the frame in his big hands for a moment. 'Man... how far we've come. Sengoku buried in paperwork, Tsuru-chan with wrinkles... and me? A tiger with gray stripes.' He snorted and slipped the frame back into Luffy's hands.
One box after another, Luffy dug out more pictures, some of Garp posing with his unit, some mid-battle, others candid, caught in rare moments of camaraderie. Each time, Luffy demanded the story, and each time, Garp told it-his voice booming, his arms waving, his laugh shaking the dust off the rafters.
For a brief moment, the cabin wasn't full of boxes anymore, it was full of memories.
"Can I keep them gramps?" Luffy asked. Garp scratched his head. "Why's that?Not like you know these people or anything." Luffy shrugged. "You don't talk about your past a lot. This is just me getting to know you more."
" Hmm...but I'm keeping the photos of me and my colleagues, wanna show them when I get back to Marineford." Luffy gave the pictures without a hassle.
"Can I keep them, gramps?" Luffy asked, clutching one of the frames to his chest.
Garp blinked, scratching the back of his head. "Why's that? Not like you know these people or anything."
Luffy shrugged, grinning in that simple, honest way of his. "You don't talk about your past a lot. This is just me getting to know you more."
For a second, Garp froze. His grin faltered, just slightly, before he covered it up with a snort.
"Hmph. Nosy brat. Always sticking your head where it doesn't belong." He plucked the frame gently from Luffy's hands and set it aside. "But these here, the ones with Sengoku and Tsuru-chan, I'm keeping 'em. Wanna rub it in their faces when I get back to Marineford."
Luffy tilted his head but didn't argue. "Heh. Guess that's fair."
"Ceh! Course it is!" Garp barked with a laugh, ruffling Luffy's messy hair so hard the boy nearly toppled over. "Don't worry, brat. I'll let you keep some of the others. The ones where it's just me looking all badass. That way, when you're older, you'll remember your old man of a gramps was the toughest Marine in the seas!"
"Shishishi! You don't need pictures for that, gramps. You're already scary enough."
"Oi brat! What's that supposed to mean huh?!" Garp's booming laughter echoed in the storage room, mixing with Luffy's smaller but just as genuine laugh. For all the dust and cobwebs, the place felt alive again.
Luffy kept flipping through more boxes. He found a lot of stuff, mementos and old things his grandfather had kept, each with a story behind it. Until he came across a box filled with books.
"What's this?" Luffy mumbled as he took one of the books and flipped through the old pages.
"Journal...." he mumbled as he read the title on the cover. "I didn't know you wrote down your daily life, gramps."
"Used to do that, but now I'm just lazy. Plus as time went on the job got boring, nothing interesting to write about anymore." Garp waved him off.
Luffy looked back into the box and was a little taken aback by the sheer amount stacked inside. "There must be at least twenty of them," he whispered.
"Can I-"
"Yeah sure, don't have anything to hide anyway," Garp grumbled, finishing his chicken and once again tossing the bone into the sea. He patted his pockets. "Aha!" He grinned, taking out another one from a different pocket, before happily munching down on it.
Luffy, excited, cracked open the first one on top of the pile. His eyes darted across the yellowed pages, sounding out words under his breath. "So many names... so many places..."
Garp leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, trying to look indifferent. But his eyes narrowed the moment Luffy flipped past an entry marked with a year he'd rather forget. God Valley.
The boy's lips stumbled over the words. "Rocks... Pirates? Who are they?"
Garp's jaw tightened. He didn't move, but inwardly, a storm brewed. 'Damn. Of all the journals, he had to grab that one...'
He barked out a laugh, too loud, too forced. "Oi, brat! Don't strain your brain! That's just old Marine business. Names that don't matter anymore. Crooks, criminal scum, long dead and buried."
Luffy squinted at him. "But you wrote a lot about them. And you underlined this page. That means it was important, right?"
For once, Garp didn't have a quick retort. His eyes went from the journal to his grandson's curious, wide grin, and something inside him twisted. 'Too young. He's not ready for this weight.'
"Listen here, Luffy," Garp finally said, his tone heavier than usual. "There are things in this world even I don't like remembering. Big battles, ugly truths, things that... don't belong on a kid's shoulders. You wanna read the journals, fine. But skip the ones with red ink on the first page. Those are mine, not yours."
Luffy blinked, pouting. "Tch... fine. But one day I'm gonna find out, gramps. You can't hide it forever."
Garp looked at him, a strange mix of pride and dread stirring in his chest. He forced another laugh, shaking his head. "Bwahahaha! You really are your father's son..."
Luffy tilted his head, confused, but Garp turned away before he could press further.
"I didn't know you used a sword, gramps."
Garp turned his head, eyes following Luffy's finger. A cutlass with a black sheath, leaned against the wall, the blade long, slightly curved, almost as tall as the boy himself.
"That's not mine," Garp grunted. "And you know I don't use swords." He waved it off with a dismissive snort. "Take it if you want, brat. Like I said, I got no use for all this junk anyway. Let's get outta here, I'm getting claustrophobic."
Luffy laughed, hugging the cutlass against his small frame before fumbling to gather the boxes too. "Shishishishi! So much treasure!" he shouted, chasing after Garp, who was already stomping away.
The boy's grin was wide, free of doubt. But beside him, his grandfather's face had grown tight, shadows flickering across his eyes.
'If the brat found out about God Valley... or Ohara...' Garp's jaw flexed. 'He wouldn't want anything to do with the Marines. Not after seeing what kind of "justice" we enforce.'
He let out a sharp snort, too loud, startling a seagull overhead. 'Tch! As if that idiot wants to be a Marine in the first place. His head's more like a pirate than anything.'
Garp rubbed his face with one hand, rough and weary. The image of Dragon, stubborn and fiery, flashed in his mind, then Sengoku's constant nagging, then the countless innocent faces he had seen vanish under the weight of orders he couldn't disobey.
Was he really about to let his grandson follow the same path? To bind that reckless, wild spirit under the weight of the World Government's chains?
"As a Marine, I can't allow it," he muttered under his breath, low enough that Luffy wouldn't catch it. "As a grandfather... I can't stop him."
Luffy came skipping beside him, balancing the oversized sword clumsily across his shoulders. "Gramps! Look at me! I'm a swordsman!" he laughed, nearly tipping backward.
Garp barked out a laugh in spite of himself, smacking his grandson on the head. "Idiot! You can barely lift it."
But as they walked back toward the sunlight, Garp's smile faded into something heavier. He glanced down at the boy, carefree and unburdened, and felt the weight of those journals he'd carelessly left in reach.
If Luffy ever opened the wrong one, the world would look very different to him.
And maybe that was unavoidable in the first place....
.....
'Brat's gotten at least twice as strong and fast ever since I got here,' Garp thought, arms crossed, watching Luffy heave a boulder across the clearing with every ounce of his tiny body. Sweat poured down his face, his grin never faltering.
It's been two weeks, and every day, Garp had pushed him to the limit, running further and faster, heavier lifting, sparring that always increased in intensity as Luffy kept improving. It made Makino fuss at him constantly. "Vice Admiral, he's still a child! You'll break him at this rate!"
Garp only laughed her off. "A broken bone heals stronger! And this world doesn't care how old you are, it'll crush you if you're weak!"
And deep down, he believed it.
The brat had been obsessed with Soru ever since their first spar. "Teach me that Soru move gramps! Shishishi! I wanna move that fast too!"
But Garp shook his head. "You'd snap your legs in half trying that now. Build your speed first, then maybe."
To feed the boy's fire, though, Garp decided to show off something else. With a single step, he kicked the air itself.
Whoosh!
A crescent blade of compressed wind tore forward, slicing through three trees and a boulder in one stroke. The forest echoed with the crash of falling trunks.
"Hah! That's Rankyaku for ya" Garp bellowed, standing proud.
Luffy's jaw practically hit the dirt. His eyes sparkled like treasure. "Wooooah!! You cut the air! That's so cool!!" He immediately began flailing his legs wildly, hopping around the clearing in a hopeless imitation.
"Oi, idiot, you'll just dislocate your hips like that," Garp barked, laughing all the while.
Later that same day, Garp spotted Luffy dragging the oversized cutlass around, nearly tripping every three steps. The brat puffed out his chest. "Look, gramps! I'm a swordsman now!"
The cutlass clanged against the ground. Luffy tumbled face-first into the dirt.
Garp roared with laughter until tears streamed down his face. "Bwahahaha! You swing that thing like a fish flopping outta water!"
But then his grin softened. He remembered the drills every new recruit suffered through at Marineford. Sword basics. Nothing fancy, just the stance, the guard, the discipline.
"Alright, brat," Garp said, grabbing a stick to demonstrate. "If you wanna fool around with that blade, at least do it properly. Feet here. Hands steady. Don't strangle the hilt, it's not your enemy, it's your partner."
Luffy's eyes lit up, determination written all over his face. He mimicked his grandfather, wobbling but steadying himself, the cutlass gleaming in his hands.
Garp scratched his beard as he watched. He wasn't a swordsman, never would be, fists will forever be his main weapon, but seeing the boy's eagerness stirred something. The training wasn't just making him stronger. It was shaping him.
And though Garp would never admit it aloud, he was proud.
Garp didn't just hammer Luffy's fists into boulders. He hammered knowledge into his head too.
Makino had always been the boy's informal tutor, teaching him his letters and numbers in between tending the bar. But now, with Garp looming over everything, it was official. She was being paid, and the Vice Admiral expected results.
"My grandson won't be a dumb blockhead embarrassing the family name out there," Garp had declared, slamming a sack of beli down on Makino's counter. "Brains and brawn, that's what a Marine needs!"
And so, the schedule tightened. Mornings were training, numerous weight training, stamina training, endurance training, and sparring until he couldn't stand. Afternoons were books, paper, and ink.
To Garp's surprise, the brat wasn't hopeless at it. Arithmetic came easy enough; the boy could tally up fish and meat without much fuss. Still, Garp wanted more. Strategy, history, navigation basics, the kinds of subjects any proper recruit needed.
Reading was non-negotiable. Makino made sure of that. And though Luffy groaned every time she handed him a book, he never truly resisted. Secretly, he enjoyed the adventure stories tucked between the lessons, short novels of heroes and travelers, tales of strange lands. They fired his imagination almost as much as Garp's demonstrations of Marine power.
In fact, the boy's life began to look suspiciously like a cadet's already. Wake up at dawn, train until sweat soaked the ground, eat whatever Garp threw on his plate, then sit with Makino at the bar counter for lessons. Sleep. Repeat.
If not for his laughter and that boundless grin, one might mistake him for a soldier in miniature.
But despite the strict training, the boy's heart never settled on the Marine path. If anything, the more he read, the less it felt right.
The journals Garp let him keep, thick, worn books full of accounts from his grandfather's youth, painted a picture that wasn't always the shining glory Luffy expected. Victories, yes. Justice, yes. But also half-written lines of doubt, mentions of villages caught in the crossfire, comrades lost to orders he didn't agree with.
And then there were the newspapers Makino set aside for him. Page after page of "justice" being done, pirates captured, islands "liberated", yet the pictures and words didn't always match the tone Garp used when telling his own stories. Despite the comments, Luffy wasn't dumb. He noticed.
So the arguments started.
"C'mon, gramps! Marines don't sound fun at all! You just follow orders and boss people around!"
"They uphold justice, brat! You think this world runs on fun?!" Garp barked back, veins bulging in his forehead as he forced Luffy into push-ups.
"I don't care about justice if it means people suffer!" Luffy grunted, struggling under the weight of a boulder Garp had set on his back.
"They suffer more without the Marines! If it weren't for us, pirates would burn down every island in sight!"
"But some of your 'pirates' sound way cooler than the Marines in your journals!"
That one made Garp choke on his own spit. He smacked the back of Luffy's head, not too hard, but enough to sting.
"Cool don't keep people alive, brat! Strength and order do!"
But Luffy never backed down. Between every spar, every exercise, he kept bringing it up, questions about freedom, about choices, about whether justice was really the same as being right.
For the first time in years, Garp found himself not just training his grandson's body, but arguing with his spirit.
This was their way of bonding, to make up for lost time, even though the both of them wouldn't admit it, but they've grown closer to each other than before.
...
"Hah! What a shame, we were just getting started!" Garp shouted with his booming laugh as he stomped up the gangplank, his massive frame towering over the caravel's deck. Luffy stood on the dock, arms crossed but grinning ear to ear.
One more week had passed, and unfortunately Garp's vacation had come to an end.
"Remember to keep up with your training, brat," Garp called out, jabbing a thick finger in his grandson's direction. "If I come back and hear you've been slacking off, you're gonna get what's coming for ya!"
"As if I would skip training, gramps!" Luffy shouted back proudly. "Don't you know who I am?! When you come back again, you're gonna be surprised, that's for sure!"
Garp let out a low chuckle, but his eyes softened as the caravel drifted away from the dock, its sails catching the afternoon wind. He didn't wave back, but the small smile tugging at his lips spoke louder than any farewell.
Luffy kept waving until the ship was a blur against the horizon. Then, as silence fell over Foosha Village's pier, he let his hand drop.
"...Geez... I'm bored already," he muttered, sticking a finger up his nose and flopping onto the dock planks. The sun was warm above him, the sea gulls circling, but the world suddenly felt too quiet without his grandfather's growling voice or ridiculous snoring shaking the walls at night.
Still, as he dozed lazily on the dock, the memories of air blades slicing boulders, journals filled with old battles, and words about "justice" and "freedom" lingered in the back of his head.
Right after Garp left, Luffy tried to keep himself busy. He started his morning pushing the same boulder Garp had him train with. But without his grandfather barking at him to push him harder, he gave up halfway and flopped on the grass.
"Ughhh, this is boring without gramps yelling at me…" he groaned, staring up at the clouds.
By noon, he wandered into the village and tried to help the fishermen again, but this time he "helped" by accidentally scaring off a whole school of fish when he cannonballed into the shallows. Gyoru nearly had a heart attack.
"Luffy! You're supposed to help catch the fish, not chase them away!"
"Shishishi! They're too fast anyway. Not as fast as me though!" Luffy grinned, but got a boot to the backside for his trouble.
In the afternoon, he went back to Makino's bar, but even she noticed his restlessness. He was doodling circles on the counter while she served customers.
"What's wrong, Luffy? You've been sighing all day," she asked, wiping a glass.
"It's too quiet," Luffy muttered. "No gramps yelling, no fighting, no new tricks to learn. I don't like it."
Makino smiled softly. "Quiet isn't so bad, you know."
"Yeah, but quiet is boring," Luffy huffed, stealing a piece of meat from the counter and chomping down. "I need something fun! Something exciting! Otherwise I'll go crazy!"
That night, he even tried reading one of Garp's old journals again. But the long-winded reports about patrol routes and Marine logistics nearly knocked him out cold. He tossed it aside and flopped back into bed.
"Adventure's gotta show up soon… right?" Luffy mumbled before dozing off, dreaming of giant ships, strange islands, and battles where he'd finally figured out what he wanted.
...
"The hell is Haki…?" Luffy mumbled, chewing on a chunk of meat while dangling upside down from a tree branch. He flipped another page of Garp's old journal, his head tilting with confusion. "Gramps writes like a crazy person sometimes…"
Then, movement on the horizon caught his eye. He squinted, his chewing slowed down.
"Huh?… Is that… a pirate ship?"
In an instant, he swung upright onto the branch and dropped to the ground with a thud. His sandals slapped against the dirt as he sprinted toward the docks, heart pounding with excitement.
When he arrived, his jaw nearly dropped. A massive vessel towered over the dock, its figurehead carved fierce and bold. And there, balancing on the figurehead like it was the most natural thing in the world, stood a girl.
Her long hair split perfectly down the middle: stark white on one side, vivid crimson on the other, both tied into two high ponytails that trailed behind her. Bright purple eyes glimmered with confidence, almost daring him to say something.
"Huh? Whatcha lookin' at?" she said, narrowing her eyes but smirking at the same time.
"You're pirates, right?" Luffy asked, gaze sharp and steady.
The girl's smirk grew wider. She puffed her chest out, pointing at herself. "That's right. Got a problem with that? If so, say it now. I'm Captain Shanks' daughter, Uta."
Luffy frowned. "If you're here to cause trouble, then it's best you go somewhere else."
"Oh?" Uta leaned forward, her voice dripping with mockery. "Or what? You gonna fight us? What's a guy like you gonna do, huh?"
Before Luffy could snap back, a calm voice cut through the tension.
"That's enough, Uta. We're not here to fight."
Luffy's eyes shifted. A man had stepped toward the rail of the ship. His hair was a deep, vivid crimson, catching the sunlight. Three scars slashed across his left eye, an eye that, despite the mark, still glimmered with life. His smile was easy, but sharp underneath.
Luffy stiffened.
"I didn't know this village had a tough little sheriff," the man said, smiling down at him.
"Who are you?" Luffy demanded.
The man chuckled, resting a hand casually on the railing. "I'm Shanks, captain of this crew. And what about you, Mr. Tough Sheriff?"
To be continued.....