Chapter 12: The First Journey Part 1 // The Start of the Voyage
Green enjoyed his time on the marine ship. Having access to everything other than the armories, which were spread across the entire ship so you can get a weapon in under a minute in case of a surprise attack, was an eye opener for him. It reminded him of a well oiled machine where different parts work in tandem together to keep itself running.
Of course after the first week of watching the ship he analyzed it with his System to the point where he had optimized it where he could keep the ship running with half the crew but nearly 3 times the efficiency, only keeping that many people on board to have 24/7 all positions filled.
The first harbour they ran in was still part of Green's home country, as such he stayed inside the ship for a whole 2 days entertaining himself with drawing up plans for the future. Tsuru gave him access to her book shelves inside her cabin under the condition of having to show every book he read first to her. Which totally made sense to Green when he read over the back of the books and found in the first row a book titled:
"The Steps to successfully learn Each of the 6 Powers"
Of course he tried his luck, but the woman just gave him a small smile and said to pick another one.
Nonetheless the small collection of books turned up to be mostly about strategy which fits what Green knew about Tsuro. Sometimes there was a book about islands around the world sprinkled in between.
While reading so much about strategy; Green grew more curious about how good Tsuru actually was, not as a fighter but as an tactician on the battlefield, which led Green to the discovery that apparently there was no strategy game in the One Piece world, which people played for fun.
After they then arrived on the next island, Green went out to buy some small figurines which in some form resembled chess pieces. It was relatively easy to find the pieces, despite that he still had to paint each set white and black first as he could not find uni-colored figurines. The board he also quickly made of a square piece of wood and painted the tiles on it with the paint he had from the figurines.
While between their second and third stop, Green asked Tsuru for a game. It took surprisingly little convincing from Green's part to get Tsuru to play a game after briefly explaining the rules.
The first game Green won with ease.
The second game he had to be careful of his moves already.
By the third game he got really close to losing.
During the fourth game he had to have the system calculate the probabilities of each move to not lose.
They could not play another game, as it was already dinner time and Green was really running low on calories at that time. Tsuru was surprisingly in a good mood when they walked together to the cantine.
"How have you been enjoying your time on my ship?", Tsuru asked Green.
"Greatly! Being able to explore a big ship like this is amazing!" Green tried to tell a lie which fitted his role.
"I have not heard any complaints about you and or the princess hindering any of my crew's work and I hope that it stays like that!", the Vice-Admiral reminds Green sternly.
Green over the last 3 weeks has observed the Vice-Admiral closely. He knows from his past life that she was portrait to being a wise leader and he remembers the scene of her admitting to her subordinates during the War at the marine HQ that she will also probably have to put her life on the line despite her age.
He saw this wise leader during the past weeks, when she would do an inspection tour throughout her ship. She would never punish anybody if they did something wrong, no, she would explain their mistakes and a solution to them and sometimes even show them how to do the task even if it was something really easy which the marine should have known. From a special grip for raising the sails better, a special order in which the cannonballs have to be stacked to the order in which the food is present in the cantine Green has seen her give advice to anybody without her sounding like a boss who sticks her nose in everything.
"What is your view of me now after watching me for the last few weeks?" Tsuru asked out of the blue.
Green was shocked for a moment, but then recovered his mind to come up with a suitable explanation.
"You really know how to run a ship. I wanted to see who the only female Vice-Admiral really is." Green quickly answered with a sort of lie-truth and continued while remembering some books he had read back in the capital about the feats of former Admirals. "I read about some Admirals being able to destroy mountains with just a simple punch, some being able to turn in some beast or even some element and I even read that one was supposed to see into the future! But there were like only a handful of women in these stories so I really wanted to see for myself if these stories were just fiction."
"So you are disappointed in me that I can not do these things?" Tsuru asked in a sort of teasing way.
He tried to think of a way to answer something and remembered a small incident which happened on the deck. "Oh no, I am actually surprised that it was true," Green replied.
Tsuru looked surprised by that, but before she could answer anything they arrived in the cantine. They got their food and sat down. During this time Tsuru was watching him intensively. After they took some bites, Tsuru asked in a defeated voice.
"What did I do that would make you think that these things are true?" Tsuru ask.
'She probably did not figure out what made me confirm those things', Green thought to himself.
"Right before we left our last stop, you were transporting something back onto the ship in the suitcase with Gion next to you. When you walked up the ramp onto the ship you suddenly stopped and looked up to one of the marines which was working on one of the yards(A.C: the thing the sails hang from, the beam that is horizontally attached on several levels to the mast). You then proceed to shout something at the woman, she then checked her work again and thanked you." Green saw that Tsuru understood what he meant so he asked the question.
"Soooooo~ how does the future seeing thing work?" Green asked sheeply.
What happened next surprised Green and all the other marines enjoying their dinner. Tsuru started to laugh wholeheartedly. The woman recovered back to her normal perona after a short moment. She still had a smile on her face.
"You have to excuse my outburst; it's just funny to this old woman to see a kid being able to figure out something like that, but there are marines who are absolutely shocked when we tell them that when they reach their captain promotion never supposed to have heard or seen it. We always have to show them with some demonstration that we are not lying. But you have just figured it out by just watching me…. " Tsuru explained.
"You still have not answered how it worked" Green tried to come back to his question.
"It requires years of training, only just for the basics and then it only shows you what effect your own being, but what you saw me using back then is a good decade training away for most people." Tsuru answered but did not give away a lot.
"So what did you see?" Green realised he would not get more about Haki out of the women so asked about the incident.
"The girl did not tie the sail the right way and when she would have stood up to walk back to the mast the sail would have opened, which would have resulted in her falling through the sudden shaking of the yard." Tsuru explained the future she has denied.
"Wow~ how many people can do something like that?"
"The basic version of it, too many to count. What I did, a couple hundred" Tsuru replied honestly.
Green was surprised by her telling the truth. "What is it actually called then?"
"Haki", Tsuru replied. Green already knew this but with him living in this world and using the language as his now mother language it was weird to hear her callit just spirit or ambition.
"So when I read that somebody had great fighting spirit it meant he just had strong Haki?" Green tried to reason.
Tsuru actually gigeled from that question."Oh, what an interesting question~… not the one I was expecting. You are way too smart for your age. But back to your question, probably yes."
While Green was thinking about this Tsuru continued to talk.
"Normally people would ask what Haki is or what you can do with it… Gion really grilled me about it when I told her last year when I took over her training after she finished the marine academy."
"Would you even explain these things to just a civilian?" Green asked.
"No, what I told you about it is already borderlining what I am allowed to tell none-marines"
'Of course the marines have rules like that' Green thought to himself.
Tsuru saw that he was dissatisfied with that and tried to throw him a bone.
"You can join the marines as soon as you are 12 as a cabin boy. When you are as fast as Gion you could become an apprentice to a Vice-Admiral or higher when you are 15. Someone with a mind sharp as you should be able to do it and I can recommend you if you want to go this route, I might even take you despite normally only picking women. Then you can learn about all this stuff if you want." Green understood that this was the sales pitch.
"I do not think the marines are for me and there is always a place for me ready for me coming back. But why are you only picking women? There are also other men on this ship."
"'The men on this ship are to fill the positons I have yet to find a women for it. I pick only women because they normally have a lower chance of climbing the ranks as they would be too far behind on the physical tests than men. Haki and other training specially designed for women which can equal this out is only taught to higher ranked marines as such the overall rate of women in commander or higher position is less than 5%.
I am currently the highest ranked women in the marines and all other active combat positions from the world government."
The reincarnated nine year old knew this already but hearing it from the women surprised him. And then he realised the implication of her words.
"So~ you are one of the strongest women in the world?" Green asked the question which he came up with from her explanation.
For a moment the Vice-Admiral just stared at Green with wide eyes, then Tsuru burst out laughing again. Finished with her meal she leaned back into her chair and thought for a moment.
"Mmmmmm… I guess I came a long way from the little girl from the North Blue. One of the strongest women alive… I definitely know who the strongest is(A.C Big Mom)…. I did not ever think about that in such a way." Tsuru seemed to be really surprised by Green's question to not be able to form full sentences while being still in deep thought.
'She is definitely going over all the strong women that she knows and is comparing herself to them' Green reasoned in his mind.
"Kid, I thought this journey was going to be a stupid assiment Sengoku just pushed onto me but I really started to enjoy it now." Tsuru told him with a big smile on her face.
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