3 Sailing to Alabasta

...

'The ocean , so vast , so beautiful; yet so empty and scary. Beneath its swaying surface there lies life and deeper withins its depths lays … death and darkness. So wide , so full , yet so empty . Forever swaying to the direction of howling winds and currents. It felt so similar … it felt like me . '

'Deep within me lays darkness covered by light and I will not shy from it . For no one is perfect and no one is incapable of committing acts of evil . It is within mans nature , and it is of that free will that people live as thus.'

'They do what they want and live as they want. While many others have been forced to do the unspeakable for the pure sake of survival.'

'But will I do the same ? Perhaps , but perhaps not . Time will tell and the count down has already begun '

——

"We of the marines must have unmoving permeance"

We must have indomitable will . For we stand for something greater than ourselves ,far greater than even the heavens above . We stand for Justice!"

"But Justice cannot be upheld by weakness only through strength!I felt the clutches of weakness before and never again shall it take hold"

"You all feel pain now but later on you shall look back and smile . All this hard work! All your efforts will build up to that moment where you will make yourselves proud"

"9,996!

"9,997!

"9,998!

"9,999!

"10000!!!"

Dozens sagged to the wooden deck in exhaustion .

A many were drenched in sweat , some drenched more than others.

Even the task master himself showed a few signs of exhaustion sweat pouring from his forehead like rain upon rock. His shirt stuck to his body due to its dampness highlighting the lithe muscles and abs beneath .

"This surely brings back memories wouldn't you say ?" He heard Spike say behind him .

Turning around to address his right hand who he now saw tinkering with one of his silver looking engraved revolvers.

'Perhaps a barrel inspection ' he thought

"It surely does , but unlike these lot we were scrubbing the decks more than doing exercises to improve on combat. Our commander was surely a scoundrel."Gyro replied

"And no doubt these sorry lot think of me as such aswell"

"Hahaha maybe they do!"Spike laughed

"Wells it's for their own good. Tell me Spike how long before we reach Arrabasta ?"

"Two more days at current speed to leave the calm belt and another two days to reach Arrabasta with strong winds of course."

"And if we don't encounter any more sea kings out of the blue like last time then even much quicker ." The gunslinger nervously stated reminiscing how they came across a sea king large enough to swallow the entire boat but by the grace of God the thing ignored them and swam away.

Thank marine science ingenuity for their sea stone based vessels.The sea kings ignored vessels with a sea stone coated over the keel.

"I see . Well the quicker we get there then the better. There's something going on down in that country and we must find out no matter what it takes" Gyro affirmed making Spike nod in earnest

But being the hypocrite and professional liar he was . Gyro knew well what was going on enough . He knew a lot . He knew about the machinations of crocodile to take over Arrabasta ,the uncovering of ancient weapon Pluton . He knew about the sabotage of King Cobra's rule , the inciting and creation of a rebel army to overthrow the current monarchy and the many others.

But even so futures can change out of the slightest deed.

So Interfering too much might commute a lot of things he didn't want to be changed .

He'd have to bid his time well and act with utter precision. Being in Arrabasta will alert crocodile indefinitely and the man being paranoid as he is will have him and his crew spied upon.

Nothing a simple shadow clone won't do to trick the fools.

And crocodile with his confidence as a shichibukai that puts him out of the jurisdictions of marines and local law enforcement will think that as long as he or smoker don't find out about his treacherous activities against a Royal kingdom and the world government then he can do as he pleases .

That thats where he's dead wrong and he has something else coming to him

Dark internal chuckle *

Now putting aside his inner thoughts he questioned his right hand man once more .

"Where's Kenshin?"

"Meditating with that sword of his I think ?"

———

"Don't you have somewhere else to be !? Why are you on my ship !?" Smoker quarreled at Gyro's junior Lieutenant who seemed to be ignoring him .

"Ahh"

"Apologies Captain smoker . I'm just here to give Sergeant Tashigi a gift since I didn't remember to give it to her yesterday ."

"Well don't you think the gift could've waited until we reached our destination? Tashigi is clumsy enough by her self she doesn't need you here distracting her from her duties now get lost!" smoker said as he used his devil fruit powers to propel the young swordsman off his ship and into the waters close to other marine vessel sailing meters away from his own.

'Damn nuisance ' he thought in annoyance

"Captain smoker suppose he drowns !?" Tashigi said in dismay as she ran to the ships edge

"Shut up Tashigi! I hope he does. Don't you have something to do than talking about swords all day?"

"Sorry Captain! " the timid sergeant apologized with a bow .

'Who does he think he is ? Coming over here trying to woo over his officer as if he's at some banquet!'

'And tashigi with her naïveté doesn't seem to understand his intentions.'

'Damn that Gyro can't he control his servicemen for once '