Louay was floating.
His body felt weightless, silent. He drifted through a black void, frozen and without reflection, as if the universe itself had been stripped of all light and echo. There was nothing. No ground, no sky, no borders.
He muttered in confusion,
"What is this place? Am I… dead?"
It was just him... and the fall.
"Hah... what's happening? I'm... falling?!"
He descended slowly, drifting into nothingness, with no end in sight, no bottom to reach.
A faint sense of abandonment settled over him, a crushing loneliness, as if time itself had stopped.
But the fall soon grew faster, sharper—like he was plummeting into a bottomless abyss.
Then… a faint mist…
like something gently pulling him out of a heavy dream.
Louay's eyes snapped open. He gasped for air, sharp and shallow, as if his heart had almost stopped just moments ago.
The gray sky stared down at him in silence. The rain had nearly faded. His ragged breaths mixed with the scent of wet earth. Half his body was submerged in a mixture of mud and water.
Panting wildly, he muttered:
"There was nothing… no light, no sound, no boundaries. Just me, alone in a void that didn't even reflect my shadow. It felt like I had lost my body, and all that remained was a thought… falling endlessly."
He lay there on his back, eyes fixed on scattered clouds that passed like pale ghosts above him.
He tried to rise.
"Haaah… my body won't respond!"
But it didn't move.
His arms felt impossibly heavy, like his muscles had been completely numbed. A dull tingle pulsed beneath his skin—as if something inside him refused to settle.
He struggled.
With difficulty, he extended his right arm, managing to free it from the sticky grip of the mud.
He exhaled.
"Finally!"
But moving didn't bring salvation—it brought the opposite. His body began to sink, slowly dragged deeper into the ground, as if the earth had decided to devour him whole.
"Haah—I'm going to die, I'm… sinking! I can't get out!"
He panicked, unsure what to do.
The more he struggled, the more he sank. The mud clung to him like a heavy cloak.
With each second, his heart pounded unevenly. His resistance only made the earth pull harder. His limbs felt heavier—like the mud had swallowed his will.
"I didn't think this would be my end… such a pathetic way to die," he muttered, shaken by his helplessness.
But he forced himself to calm down. He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes slowly.
"If I struggle, I'll just sink faster. As much as I hate to admit it… this is the perfect situation for training."
He began to meditate, trying to visualize the Haki in his heart, willing it toward his hands.
He noticed its flickering instability.
"It's not stable yet… but I have awakened it."
He tried to spread it throughout his body—but failed. Irritation flickered across his face.
"Haaah… this is going to be a pain."
Still, he kept meditating—without pause or distraction.
Time passed. A full day and a half. His hunger gnawed at him.
The gurgling of his stomach echoed into the nearby forest.
Depression etched itself into his features as he whispered:
"No food, no movement, no sound... just pain, ruin, and the self. There's no harsher training than staying alive when you wish you were dead."
But even trapped in place, he made progress—his Haki began to stabilize within him.
"I can now direct it from my heart to my arms… but what use is that, if I stay stuck here?"
Just as despair began creeping back in, he heard soft footsteps approaching.
"Hah... someone's here!"
The sound came closer until he spotted it—
A deer.
"This is my chance… and the mud's starting to dry."
He laid out a plan while waiting.
The deer wandered the area for nearly fifteen minutes, slowly getting closer to where Louay lay, most of his body buried in mud.
When it stepped near his left arm, he coated it in Haki—then grabbed the deer's front leg and crushed it.
The deer jolted in pain, rearing up in panic. In that moment, Louay pushed himself forward and stood up.
He shouted with a wild grin, black hair hanging in front of his eyes:
"Finally!"
"If you have no escape… turn your prison into a sanctuary."
At the same time, he raised his right hand—fingers outstretched like claws—coated it in Haki, and drove it into the deer's chest, his hand piercing through and emerging from its back.
As the deer convulsed near death, Louay's other hand—also hardened with Armament Haki—gripped its neck and tore off its head, blood spraying onto him and the surrounding ground.
As he pulled his hand from the deer's chest, he whispered with a smirk:
"Hoooh… two birds with one stone. My control over Haki is smoother than ever… and I've got myself a feast tonight, hahaha."
His body was stiff. He moved his joints. His clothes were filthy, caked with mud.
He muttered with sarcasm, just as his stomach growled:
"Ugh… I really need a wash. And I can't believe I'll have to wear those leaves again."
He glanced at the deer and added with a grin:
"But this feast will make it bearable."
He slung the dead deer over his right shoulder and made his way toward the sea.
As he walked, he looked up and said:
"I didn't kill the deer because I'm a hunter… but because I'm weak and starving. Hunger turns us into monsters in human form."
...
Before stepping into the water, he removed the blood-soaked black bands from his wrists. He stripped off his clothes and lifted the deer again.
He washed himself, then his clothes, skinned the deer, and returned. He laid the meat over a large rock and jogged along the shore to dry off.
Later, he dressed himself with leaves, slung the deer around his neck and carried his damp clothes in his left hand, heading back to the cave as his empty stomach screamed from nearly three days without food.
He lit a fire using flint. He hung the entire deer above the flames with some branches until the scent of roasting meat filled the air.
Louay's mouth watered at the smell.
"Hunger doesn't just kill the stomach… it makes your mind devour itself."
He sighed,
"I deserve this… I haven't eaten in at least three days."
As he waited, he placed a few sticks near the fire and hung his clothes on them to dry, ready to wear the next day.
Louay sat on a log across from the fire, organizing his thoughts.
"If I remember correctly, the Straw Hat crew will arrive here in three days..."
About half an hour passed. The meat looked cooked.
"Looks ready," he said.
He sliced the thigh and added,
"Let's taste it… see what wild deer meat is like."
He blew on it and took a bite—barely chewing before swallowing.
"Delicious..."
It was still hot, but he didn't care. He ate relentlessly.
After half an hour of nonstop eating, most of the meat was gone.
He sighed,
"Haaah, that was a meal worth gold, hahaha."
Stuffed, he stood up.
"I need to move around… or I'll explode."
He strolled along the beach, catching the view of the sunset.
Golden light shimmered on the water. Seagulls glided freely across the reflection—creating a breathtaking scene.
He chuckled bitterly, then glanced at the leaves he wore, his mood soured instantly.
"I really need to do something about this… these leaves are uncomfortable—and make me look pitiful."
His eyes scanned the area as he wandered farther from the cave. Then he spotted a boulder, roughly the size of the tree he shattered during his first Haki outburst.
He smiled.
"Let's try it on this rock. I wonder what will happen."
He approached slowly, raised his right hand, coated it in Haki, and struck.
The front of the rock shattered. Cracks spread across the rest.
Louay studied the result, staring at his Haki-covered fist.
"The coating is consistent now… I can activate it instantly, unlike before when I had to imagine it. But..."
He raised his gaze to the fractured boulder.
"It's still way too weak."
He sighed and deactivated the Haki.
"Haaah… can't be greedy. I did master it, after all."
Suddenly, he remembered something and looked at his wrists.
"The pain... it's almost gone. And I forgot to rewrap them… doesn't matter—they're starting to heal."
Something had changed. His fists were no longer empty.
The Haki felt closer now—not stable yet, but alive.
He decided to spend the next three days training… before the Straw Hats arrived.
He stood before another rock.
"Since they'll take three days to reach this island… I'll spend those same days punching trees and boulders, refining this Haki."
He coated his fist again, then punched the rock in front of him, shattering it entirely.
A grin stretched across his face as he laughed,
"Things are finally starting to move, hahaha!"
...
The harbor was quiet. The wind rustled the leaves across from the small shop.
Old Ajer stood behind the wooden counter, staring silently at the path that led into the forest.
His scarred face and weathered hands tightened as he muttered,
"It's been two days. That boy still hasn't come back… is he even alive?"
He glanced at the old clock on the wall, then back at the open door—half expecting the boy to appear.
But the doorway remained empty, like a morning without sunlight.
The old man sighed, flipping slowly through the account books—not out of interest in the numbers, but to distract himself from the heavy feeling in his chest.
He murmured, seriousness deep in his ash-gray eyes,
"That storm… it was brutal that night."
His gaze drifted back to the forest path. A faint frown etched his wrinkled face.
He wasn't sure if he should worry—or leave it to fate.
But his heart, aged by a lifetime of hardship, felt anything but calm.
He said quietly, still staring into the distance:
"Maybe he was killed by those fish-men... or swallowed by that cursed storm…"