Hours bled into days.
Days bled into weeks.
He sat cross-legged in front of that boulder until his legs went completely numb, until the pins-and-needles sensation faded into complete absence of feeling. He sat until his lower back screamed in protest, until his spine felt like it would fuse into a permanent curve.
He listened to the wind rustling through bamboo leaves. He listened to the creek burbling over stones fifty meters away. He listened to the sound of his own heartbeat slowing, calming, becoming part of the forest's natural rhythm.
And slowly—agonizingly, maddeningly slowly—he began to understand what Koushiro meant.
He stopped trying to sense the rock as if it were an enemy to be tracked.
He started trying to feel the vibration of the earth it sat upon. The subtle frequency of the stone's existence. The way it resonated with the world around it.
It wasn't a voice in the traditional sense. It wasn't words or intent.
It was a hum. A constant, unchanging, static existence that simply was without needing to announce itself.
One evening, as the sun began to set and paint the forest in shades of deep orange and royal purple, Argentus opened his eyes.
He didn't look at the rock with the intensity of a predator sizing up prey.
He looked at it with acceptance. With understanding. With the calm recognition of seeing an old acquaintance on a familiar street.
He stood up slowly, his joints popping audibly from the hours of stillness. He walked to the equipment rack where Koushiro kept various training weapons and selected a simple bamboo sword—not his heavy iron spear. Just a fragile, hollow piece of bamboo that would normally shatter against stone.
He stood before the boulder, the practice sword held loosely in his right hand.
He took a breath.
He didn't tense his muscles. He didn't summon his strength. He didn't prepare for impact.
He simply swung, letting the blade fall naturally, matching the "hum" he felt resonating in his mind—the frequency of the stone's existence.
Thwack.
The sound was soft. Almost gentle.
The bamboo didn't shatter into splinters. It didn't bounce off harmlessly with a hollow thunk.
It bit into the stone.
Argentus pulled the sword back carefully, his silver eyes wide with something approaching wonder.
The cut was only an inch deep—a pathetic scratch compared to what a true master could accomplish. Koushiro could probably bisect the entire boulder with a single strike.
But it was a cut. A clean, precise groove carved into solid rock.
And the bamboo sword in his hand remained perfectly intact. Not a crack. Not a splinter. The edge was as smooth as if it had just been carved.
"Heh," Argentus breathed, sweat dripping down his nose despite the evening chill. A small, exhausted smile touched his lips as he turned and walked away from the boulder. "I heard you, you stubborn bastard."
Koushiro stood in the fading twilight long after Argentus had left the clearing to wash up and rest.
The master of the Isshin Dojo remained motionless, staring at the mossy boulder that had sat in this clearing for longer than he'd been alive. He approached it slowly, almost reverently, and reached out with one hand.
His fingers traced the shallow but unmistakable groove etched into the stone's surface.
It wasn't a smash mark from brute force. It wasn't a chip caused by repeated impacts. It wasn't damage.
It was a cut.
The stone had been severed, even if only slightly. The internal structure had been understood and separated along its natural grain.
Koushiro picked up the bamboo sword Argentus had left leaning against the rock. He held it up to catch the last rays of dying sunlight, inspecting the edge with the critical eye of a master craftsman.
It was smooth. Unblemished. Perfect.
As if it had cut through air instead of stone.
"Impossible," Koushiro whispered to the empty forest, his voice barely audible over the evening birdsong.
His hands trembled slightly—something that hadn't happened in decades. Not since the day he'd lost Kuina.
He knew what this meant. He understood the significance of what he was witnessing.
This was merely the entrance to the realm of true mastery—a single toe dipped into the vast, infinite ocean of the Breath of All Things. The boy had barely grasped the most fundamental concept, the absolute beginning of a journey that could last a lifetime.
But he had done it in one month.
One. Single. Month.
It was a concept that baffled veteran swordsmen for decades. It was the insurmountable wall that separated the merely skilled from the true masters. Most practitioners spent their entire lives attempting to reach this threshold and died without ever touching it.
And this thirteen-year-old boy with silver hair had just casually stepped through it like walking through an open door.
"I thought he was a monster," Koushiro murmured, his glasses catching the rising moon and reflecting it like twin silver coins. "A prodigy born with talent that defied understanding."
He looked down at the bamboo sword in his hands, then back at the cut in the stone.
"But he is far more terrifying than that. To grasp the silence of stone so quickly... to hear what most cannot hear in a lifetime..."
He paused, his throat tight.
"His soul must be either incredibly loud—burning with ambition so fierce it drowns out all other noise..."
He set the bamboo sword down carefully.
"...or incredibly empty. A void so vast that it can receive the whispers of the world without interference."
Koushiro sighed, a deep, weary sound that carried the weight of his years. A complex mix of emotions settled in his chest—pride at having taught such a student, apprehension at what that student might become, and a touch of grief that his own daughter had never lived to reach her full potential.
"The world is not ready for what that boy will become," he said to the night air, to the spirits of the forest, to the memory of his daughter watching from beyond.
"I pray it survives him."
Late That Night
The dojo was silent.
The training hall, usually filled with the sounds of students practicing and wooden swords clacking, sat empty and still. The only sounds were the rhythmic chirping of crickets outside and the gentle rustle of bamboo stalks swaying in the night breeze.
Argentus lay in the guest room on the second floor of the main building, his body stretched out on the simple futon provided to him. His breathing was shallow and controlled, the rhythm of someone technically asleep but not deeply so.
His body was exhausted from the intense mental strain of the day—achieving even a glimpse of the Breath of All Things had drained him more thoroughly than any physical training ever could.
But his mind remained sharp, hovering in that strange twilight state between wakefulness and true rest.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
Wide. Alert. Fully conscious in an instant.
He didn't gasp or jolt upright. He simply lay there perfectly still, staring at the wooden ceiling above him, his silver pupils contracted to pinpoints.
His Observation Haki, which he habitually kept running at a low-level "hum" even while sleeping—a paranoid survival habit from the cannibal island—had just been triggered.
This presence was massive.
Overwhelming. Ancient. Powerful beyond anything he'd encountered before.
It felt like a sudden, dramatic drop in air pressure—the sensation that came moments before a devastating storm. It felt like the sky itself had descended from the heavens to press directly against the earth. It was wild, turbulent, barely contained.
And beneath that crushing weight... it was familiar.
Argentus sat up slowly in the darkness, the sheets rustling softly.
Argentus stood, not bothering to dress in anything more formal than the simple sleeping clothes he wore. He moved through the darkened hallway with quiet confidence, following the pull of that massive presence.
He reached a sliding door at the far end of the guest wing. Behind it, he could feel not just one presence, but two.
The first was the familiar storm-like pressure.
The second was... chaotic. Vibrant. Swirling beneath the heavier presence like a tornado dancing beneath thunderclouds. Wild and unpredictable in a completely different way.
Argentus didn't knock.
Clack.
He simply shoved the door open with one hand, the wooden frame sliding aside with a sharp sound that echoed in the quiet hallway.
The room was dimly lit by a single oil lantern sitting on a low table, casting long, dancing shadows against the paper walls. The flickering light created an atmosphere that was simultaneously intimate and slightly surreal.
But the figure standing near the door required no additional light to make an impression.
He was enormous.
Or at least, he appeared to be—a man with the proportions of a giant somehow compressed and squeezed into a roughly human-sized frame, as if reality itself had bent slightly to accommodate his presence.
He wore a revealing, reddish-purple leotard that left very little to the imagination, complete with a high collar, fishnet stockings that climbed up impossibly long legs, and a flowing cape that seemed to move with a life of its own.
But it was the face that dominated the entire room.
A massive, arrow-shaped jaw that could probably crack walnuts. Eyes framed by lashes so absurdly long they looked like decorative fan blades. And crowning it all, a towering afro of deep indigo hair that practically brushed the ceiling, defying both gravity and good taste.
The figure turned dramatically, striking a pose that defied both human anatomy and the laws of physics. His hands landed on his hips with theatrical precision.
"HEEE-HAW!"
The shout was whispered—somehow both quiet and deafening at the same time—but it carried enough force to rattle the tea cups sitting on the table and make the lantern flame flicker wildly.
The massive man leaned down, bringing his face within inches of Argentus's, close enough that Argentus could count every individual eyelash. Those lashes batted once with an audible flutter, creating a small breeze.
"Vat is this?" the Okama asked, his voice a flamboyant rollercoaster ride through several octaves. "A little candy-boy wandering ze halls past his bedtime? Vere you expecting perhaps... ze tooth fairy? Ze Sandman? A midnight snack?"
He blinked deliberately.
WHOOSH.
A literal shockwave of compressed air pressure—what could only be described as a heavily suppressed "Death Wink"—blasted directly into Argentus's face, whipping his silver hair backward and making his eyes water.
"I am Emporio Ivankov!" the man announced, spinning on one heel with balletic grace despite his size. "Queen of Kamabakka Kingdom! Commander of the Revolutionary Army! And you, little boy, have rudely interrupted my skincare routine!"
He placed one massive hand over his heart dramatically.
"This is a crime against beauty itself!"
Argentus stood his ground, his feet planted firmly despite the theatrical hurricane happening in front of him.
His hand hovered near the small dagger he kept tucked in his waistband even while sleeping—a paranoid habit he'd never broken.
From the center of the room, behind Ivankov's truly massive afro, a deep, gravelly voice spoke up—a sound like distant thunder rolling across a dark sky.
"Let him in, Iva."
Ivankov stepped aside with a dramatic flourish, sweeping his cape like a matador revealing a bull.
Sitting cross-legged at a low table, shrouded in the same dark green cloak Argentus remembered from years ago, was the man he'd originally sensed.
Monkey D. Dragon looked up, his heavily tattooed face illuminated by the flickering lantern light. The geometric red marks on the left side of his face seemed to glow in the dim illumination, giving him an almost demonic appearance.
"You have changed since we last met, Argentus D. Drake," Dragon said, his voice low and rumbling like tectonic plates shifting beneath the earth.
He pulled his hood back slightly, revealing more of his stern, weathered features.
"To think you were able to sense my presence even though I deliberately relaxed my guard on this island, trusting in Koushiro's protection... You have grown massively, boy. Far more than I anticipated."
Ivankov's massive head tilted to the side with exaggerated curiosity, his indigo afro swaying like a ship in rough seas.
"Vat is this?" Ivankov demanded, his voice climbing back into theatrical territory. "You have met this candy-boy before, Dragon? A secret love child? A long-lost fan? A illegitimate nephew?"
He gasped dramatically, covering his mouth.
"Is he ze product of a youthful indiscretion?!"
"I gave him a ride once," Dragon replied with the patience of someone long accustomed to Ivankov's antics. "Nothing more dramatic than that."
"All these changes you're seeing are thanks to you leaving me stranded in the Goa Kingdom," Argentus spoke up, his voice cutting through Dragon's dismissive explanation.
He walked further into the room without invitation, moving with the confidence of someone who belonged, and leaned casually against one of the wooden support pillars.
Dragon finally raised his eyes fully, giving Argentus his complete attention.
"Is that gratitude I hear in your voice?" Dragon asked, one eyebrow raising slightly. "Or resentment for being abandoned?"
"Neither," Argentus said, crossing his arms. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand—a gesture that made him look younger, more human. "Just stating a fact. Because shortly after you vanished into the wind like a ghost..."
He paused for effect.
"I ran into someone else. Someone considerably louder and infinitely more annoying."
(END OF CHAPTER)
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