It was the year 1517 by the Sea Calendar.
Rocks hadn’t memorized the exact One Piece timeline, but he knew enough.
The Rubber Man Nika hadn’t set sail yet.
Nothing in the papers about him.
The sky was barely light.
Rocks was already up.
He washed up, then started his morning training.
First came his hand-to-hand work, the Dick-Style Fist as his foster father called it.
The style that supposedly could defeat the Yonko.
Of course.
That bit about defeating the Yonko was pure old Dick blowing smoke.
The man had genuinely been a member of the Rocks Pirates, which gave him a broader view of the world than most.
In terms of actual strength, he was thoroughly average.
If he’d been anything more, he wouldn’t have retired to the East Blue to grow old.
Crack.
Rocks threw a straight punch.
Ripples of force rolled off his fist.
The blow connected dead center with the tree stump in front of him.
The energy discharged in an instant.
With a muffled boom, the far side of the stump exploded outward, wood chips flying in every direction.
“Completely mastered that force technique.
That’s what I’m talking about.”
Rocks looked at the damage he’d caused and nodded with satisfaction.
“Old Dick’s strength isn’t worth much, but there’s something to this style of his.”
“If I can pair it with advanced Armament Haki someday, the effect should be even better.”
Old Dick’s personal strength was nothing to write home about.
He was no match for Rocks.
But the Dick-Style Fist he’d developed had genuine depth to it.
Mastered properly, it could project shockwaves and focused force, similar to striking through a mountain, where the impact passes through the surface and causes destruction directly inside.
Rocks figured that kind of technique would double in effectiveness once he had advanced Armament Haki behind it.
It was a solid style.
“Old Dick doesn’t know the first thing about advanced Haki training either.
I’ll have to figure that out myself.
And this man calls himself a member of the Rocks Pirates.”
Another muttered complaint about his foster father.
Though in fairness, even basic Haki knowledge was rare, and old Dick at least knew how to develop the fundamentals.
Without that, Rocks might have written the whole “former Rocks Pirate” claim off as an old man’s fantasy.
“Alright, hand-to-hand’s done.
Time for swordsmanship.
I can’t afford to lose to Kuina in a few days.
Otherwise I’ll be taking orders from her for the rest of my life.”
Swordsmanship was Rocks’s second discipline.
If anything, he valued it more than hand-to-hand.
No complicated reason for it.
Swords were cool, and that was enough.
There was also a deeper ambition tucked away in the back of his mind: he intended to become the greatest swordsman in the world.
“Let’s go.”
Rocks picked up his weapon, a tachi with solid craftsmanship, and started working through his sword forms.
He was practicing the foundational swordsmanship of the Isshin Dojo.
Compared to his unharmed combat, his swordsmanship was difficult to watch.
It wasn’t that he had no structure at all.
It was that the whole thing looked deeply awkward, a rough uncomfortable motion that brought to mind someone waving around a fire poker more than anything resembling a trained swordsman.
“That’s painful to look at.”
Old Dick, watching from the side, covered his face.
He took a long pull from his pipe, then offered his honest assessment:
“Listen, kid.
A word of advice from someone older than you: swords really aren’t your thing.”
“You don’t get it.
The sword is a man’s romance.
And my ability basically guarantees I’m going to be a powerful swordsman someday.”
Rocks wasn’t listening.
He said with complete confidence: “If swordsmanship has levels to it, I’ve already hit the iron-cutting threshold.”
His ability was the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Black-Winged Hollow Demon.
How could someone with that fruit not be a swordsman?
Ulquiorra was a master of the blade.
Rocks was certain his swordsmanship would reach those heights eventually.
(TL: lol?
did we watch the same bleach?
)
Actually, not eventually.
Even now his swordsmanship wasn’t weak.
He’d already reached the iron-cutting threshold.
Old Dick stared at him.
He genuinely did not understand why this kid was so obsessed with the sword.
His real gift was physical fighting.
The talent Rocks had for body-based techniques was staggering.
He’d taken a made-up style that Dick had basically invented out of thin air and “mastered” it, actually producing the kind of impact that causes internal damage.
When that happened, Dick had been genuinely stunned.
He’d known the kid was talented.
He hadn’t expected talented to mean that.
It was just that the kid refused to focus on what he was actually good at.
Instead he wanted to be a swordsman, despite having almost no natural aptitude for it.
Iron-cutting threshold.
Fine, technically he could cut iron.
That was accurate.
But technique?
None.
Zero.
The kid was running entirely on raw monstrous strength.
That was the Devil Fruit talking.
Pure force overwhelming any need for skill.
That wasn’t an iron-cutting threshold.
That was brute strength with a sharp object.
Let it go.
Once this kid actually sees the ocean and the people on it, he’ll figure out on his own that the sword isn’t his path.
Old Dick shook his head, quietly resigned.
He’d said his piece.
He’d given his advice.
The kid wasn’t listening, and there was nothing more he could do.
So he stopped thinking about it.
Once Rocks had a proper look at what the world’s great swordsmen could do, he’d understand that swordsmanship wasn’t the right road for him.
He puffed at his pipe and asked:
“When do you set sail?”
“There’s a merchant vessel heading to Shimotsuki Village in a few days.
I’m going to the Isshin Dojo to keep my promise with Kuina.
We’ve got the same goal, after all.”
Rocks answered without stopping his sword practice.
Because of his obsession with the blade, Rocks had naturally sought out proper sword training at some point.
By a stroke of luck, he’d ended up training at the Isshin Dojo under Koushirou Shimotsuki and had spent a stretch of time working on the fundamentals.
Naturally, during that time, he’d gotten to know two other people training there: Kuina and Zoro.
And because of Rocks’s presence, a tragedy had been avoided.
Kuina never fell down those stairs.
He and Kuina had also made a promise: they’d meet again in three years.
By his count, that time was about up.
It was time to go keep his word.
A few days later.
Rocks was ready to depart.
Down at the dock.
Besides old Dick, a handful of others had come to see him off, villagers from the island.
They were simple, good-natured people, and on the whole they’d gotten along well enough with Rocks and old Dick over the years.
At this moment, their faces wore expressions of reluctant farewell.
But the happiness underneath was impossible to hide.
The demon king of this island was finally leaving.
Thank goodness.
This little island couldn’t take much more of Rocks.
Now the kid was taking his particular brand of havoc out to the open sea, where it would become someone else’s problem.
The villagers were delighted.
“Go on, kid.
The Grand Line, the New World.
That’s where you belong.”
Old Dick puffed steadily at his pipe.
He didn’t look particularly torn up about it, as if he’d known this day was coming for a long time.
The kid’s heart had always belonged to the sea.
This island had never been able to hold him.
Dick had understood that much for years.
Besides, eagles were meant to fly.
A man’s ambitions reach in every direction, and with Rocks’s talent and strength, only the Grand Line and the New World were a worthy stage for him.
He paused and blew a smoke ring.
“That sea is dangerous.
But I know you’ll push through it.
You’re Rocks, after all.”
Then, as if something had just occurred to him: “Oh, and if you run into trouble in the New World, you can look up that old fool Whitebeard.”
Dick added: “We had a decent relationship back in the day.
I owe him my life, and he owes me a drink.”
“Given the history between us, he should, probably, possibly…
be willing to help you.
Maybe.”
Rocks stared at him.
This old man actually knew someone like Whitebeard?
But that framing.
You owe him your life, and he owes you a drink.
That was not a balanced ledger.
And he had the nerve to call that a relationship?
With a gap that wide?
Also.
Was that last sentence a question?
This old man was genuinely unreliable.
And there was something about this that felt suspiciously like Dick was trying to get him to go settle an old debt on his behalf.
Rocks looked at him flatly.
“Old man.
You’re not trying to get me to go pay off that debt for you, are you?”
“Don’t read too much into it.”
Dick shook his head with absolutely no shame whatsoever.
“Don’t worry about the part where I owe him my life.
Just remember that he owes me a drink.
That old man is a true hero.
He won’t sweat something like this.”
Rocks had nothing to say.
The sheer thickness of that skin never stopped being impressive.
“Alright.
I’m going.
Take care of yourself.”
Rocks wasn’t the sentimental type.
He reached over, straightened old Dick’s collar, and said:
“I’ll come back when I have time.
But by then…
I should be someone worth knowing.”
“Go on.
Let the name Rocks—”
“I’m leaving.”
Rocks wasn’t sitting through another one of the old man’s speeches.
He clapped Dick once on the shoulder and turned to walk.
“This kid…”
Old Dick watched the resolute line of Rocks’s back until it disappeared, then let out a short, fond curse.
He took another pull from his pipe and exhaled a slow curl of white smoke.
“Watch yourself out there, kid.”
He watched the merchant vessel grow small in the distance.
“Since you’ve made up your mind to sail, go all the way to the top.
Just don’t go and get yourself killed.”
He had placed his hopes on Rocks not only because of the kid’s monstrous talent, but because Rocks had always had his own reasons for wanting to go to sea.
Dick admired Rocks D.
Xebec more than anyone.
But that didn’t mean he actually wanted someone he cared about venturing into those waters just for the sake of a dead man’s legacy.
He knew how cruel and dangerous that sea could be.
But sailing was Rocks’s own choice.
So Dick wouldn’t interfere.
He would simply believe in him.