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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #24
🕑 Added 2025-04-18 00:01:04 +0000 UTCThe sun hung lazily above the horizon, casting a golden shimmer over the sea like someone had spilled a bottle of glitter into the ocean. Gale and Boqin sat side by side on a weathered bench overlooking the water, a plate stacked high with meat skewers balanced between them like some sacred offering to the gods of questionable dietary choices.
Each of them had a bottle of cheap local booze in one hand, the kind that tasted like fermented regret but got the job done, and a skewer in the other, chewing like kings without a care in the world.
“This,” Gale said, mouth full, “is probably the best decision I’ve made since… I don’t know, not eating that Devil Fruit whole.”
Boqin smirked. “Told you the skewers slap.”
“Slap? These skewers committed arson on my taste buds.”
Boqin chuckled, taking a sip from his bottle. “Alright, alright. You wanna hear a joke?”
Gale leaned back, resting the bottle on his knee. “Lay it on me.”
Boqin cleared his throat theatrically. “So. A monk, a pirate, and a nun walk into a bar—”
“Oh god.”
“—The bartender looks up and says, ‘What is this, some kind of joke?’”
Gale snorted.
“Wait, that’s not the one.” Boqin held up a finger, taking another swig. “Okay, real one this time. So, this woman walks up to a monk and says, ‘Can you teach me the way to inner peace?’ And the monk says—”
“Let me guess, ‘It’s inside your heart all along’?”
“Nope.” Boqin grinned. “He says, ‘Lady, I haven’t felt inner peace since I gave up meat, alcohol, and women. Now leave me alone before I break my vow of nonviolence.’”
There was a pause. Then Gale began to chuckle. “Okay! Okay, you got me there. That was awful. But, like, in a good way.”
Boqin gave a smug little bow from his seat.
Once Gale had wiped the tears from his eyes, he pointed at Boqin with a greasy skewer. “You know, you’re nothing like a monk.”
Boqin raised a brow. “Oh? Because I enjoy life?”
“No, because you look like a monk but act like you moonlight as a con artist. That outfit—don’t lie, you wear it to scam old people out of donations, don’t you?”
Boqin looked deeply offended. “I’ll have you know I’m a proper monk. Well—technically. I’m a monk in training.”
Gale blinked. “Training? On an island full of martial arts lunatics?”
“Exactly. I’m training.”
“Training what? Your alchohol tolerance?” Gale teased, taking another swig.
Boqin jabbed his skewer in his direction. “My master says I’m ‘developing spiritual tolerance.’”
Gale snorted. “Sounds like your master just doesn’t want to admit he raised a booze-guzzling stray cat.”
Boqin leaned back on the bench, eyes squinting at the horizon. “He’s just strict. Likes discipline. Loves punching it into people. Literally. He runs our dojo like a boot camp.”
“Lemme guess,” Gale said, arching an eyebrow. “Your master’s some kinda warrior monk?”
Boqin nodded. “Yeah. Been in, like, twelve duels, never lost a single one. They say he once kicked a guy so hard, his bloodline changed.”
“…What does that even mean?”
“No one knows. But it sounds terrifying, right?”
Gale let out a low whistle, chewing on another skewer. “Damn. And here I thought monks were all about peace and inner balance.”
Boqin shrugged. “Peace is easier when you’ve punched your problems unconscious.”
“Fair,” Gale said, nodding solemnly.
A few moments passed, filled only by the sound of waves, the occasional squawk of a gull, and the crunch of grilled meat.
“So,” Gale asked between bites, “are the other dojos on the island as… unique as yours?”
Boqin wiped his greasy fingers on the hem of his robe (which, frankly, had seen better days—and better hygiene) and leaned back with a satisfied sigh.
“Y’know,” he said, tapping his bottle against his thigh, “dojos here are just dojos. You go in, they teach you how to punch a guy in the kidney, maybe throw someone over your shoulder, and then they kick you out when your wallet’s empty or your legs stop working.”
Gale smirked, chewing the last bit of his skewer. “Sounds like every self-help seminar I’ve ever attended.”
Boqin chuckled. “Some styles are more practical than others. Some are all about inner strength, others about outer flash. But as for uniqueness...” He trailed off, his grin turning secretive. “There’s only one dojo that really stands out. Though… it’s not technically a dojo.”
Gale cocked an eyebrow. “Not a dojo? What is it, then?”
Boqin scratched the back of his head, frowning in deep thought like a student trying to remember if 'mitochondria' was the powerhouse of the cell or a Pokémon move.
“It’s a sala de... uh… sala de... something. Sala de confusing foreign words I can’t remember. Ancient language? Maybe Fishman? Dunno. It’s some fancy name. All I know is, it’s run by this old man who, according to my master, is a sword master.”
Now that got Gale’s attention.
Boqin jabbed a thumb toward Gale’s side. “Weird coincidence, but apparently, the old guy carries a sword that looks a lot like yours.”
Gale’s gaze shifted toward his sheathed rapier, propped against the bench. His interest, already simmering, kicked into high flame.
Because, truth be told, he didn’t come to Karate Island just to see the sights, sample the meat skewers, or avoid helping the Jackdaw crew haul cargo. Well… okay, he did come for the skewers.
But mostly, he came because of that guy—the cocky, jittery one he fought during the Centaurea Tournament. The guy hadn’t been particularly strong, but his footwork had been annoyingly slippery, like trying to punch fog.
The way he moved reminded Gale of that guy—Captain Kuro, the one with the claws and the dramatic glasses adjustment habit. Kuro’s technique had a name so ridiculous Gale had mentally renamed it “pussyfoot shuffle” and left it at that.
But it worked. Elusive, evasive—annoying as hell. Gale Had been immensely frustrated at how easily the man could evade him without decreasing his desnity to keep up thanks to his weird foot mojo.
So here he was, hoping to learn something similar.
And now Boqin was telling him there was a sword master here who might actually be using a rapier?
“Well, damn,” Gale muttered, sitting up straighter. “That’s... suspiciously relevant.”
Boqin blinked. “What?”
“Nothing. Just karma finally doing something useful for once.”
Gale took another long sip from his bottle, letting the burn of the liquor warm his throat before speaking. “So... how strong is this old guy supposed to be?”
Boqin hummed thoughtfully, swishing the bottle in his hand like it might contain the answer. “No idea.”
Gale blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yep. Never seen him fight. But according to my master, he’s very strong.”
Gale’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, like a man sniffing out a scam in progress. “Right. And how many students does this mysterious sword master have?”
Boqin grinned and held up a dramatic zero with his chopstick-free hand. “That’d be none. Zilch. Zero. Nada.”
Gale raised a brow. “A sword master with no students?”
Boqin shrugged, clearly unbothered. “I dunno, maybe he’s picky. Or maybe people keep calling his style silly names and he’s just tired of correcting them. You’d be surprised how far stubbornness goes in the martial arts world.”
“Yeah, that tracks,” Gale muttered, thinking of all the self-important weirdos he’d met so far. “Alright then. Coincidentally, how many students does your master have?”
Boqin beamed, puffing his chest with the kind of pride normally reserved for medal ceremonies or successful bathroom breaks after spicy food. He jabbed a thumb at himself. “Just the one. Yours truly.”
Gale stared at him for a long moment. The kind of long moment usually followed by either a very deep sigh or someone walking away in silence.
This was either a case of one very mediocre martial artist hyping up another equally mediocre martial artist… or—and it was a distant second, but still possible—maybe they were actually worth learning from.
Either way, it wasn’t like Gale had anything better to do. No immediate bounties to chase, no maps to decipher, and the Jackdaw crew was off bartering for pickled squid or whatever passed for currency on this island.
A strange old sword master? That sounded way more productive than sitting around trying to outdrink a faux monk with questionable laundry habits.
He leaned back, staring at the sky. “Alright,” he said to no one in particular. “Guess I’ll go check out this... sala de mystery or whatever it is tomorrow. Can’t hurt.”
Boqin nodded sagely. “Unless he hurts you. Then it’ll hurt.”
“Thanks for the optimism.”
There was a lull in the conversation, punctuated only by the soft breeze and the gentle clink of their bottles. Gale figured he’d change the subject before Boqin started talking about his master's spiritual philosophy on toilet posture or something.
“So,” Gale said, stretching his arms behind the bench. “Wanna hear a joke?”
Boqin perked up. “Always.”
Gale grinned. “Alright, so there’s this pirate who walks into a bar with a ship's helm sticking out of his pants. Bartender says, ‘Hey, you know you’ve got a helm in your pants?’ Pirate goes, ‘Aye... it’s drivin’ me nuts.’”
Boqin snorted mid-sip and nearly choked on his drink. “Pffft— That’s terrible!”
“That’s what makes it good,” Gale said, grinning like a cat who just knocked something expensive off a shelf.
The two of them chuckled, bottles clinking together in a lazy toast to bad jokes, salty meat, and the possibility that tomorrow might bring something actually useful for once.
Probably not, but hey—at least the booze was decent.
...
The sala de armas was nothing like the other training halls Gale had seen on Karate Island. No blaring gongs, no shirtless fighters breaking bricks with their foreheads, no shouting senseis throwing students into walls while screaming about inner peace.
Instead, this place was… beautiful.
An open-air courtyard stretched before him, framed by age-worn terracotta tiles and hemmed in by walls of creeping bougainvillea vines. The vibrant purple blossoms tangled lazily around iron railings and arched windows, as if they’d grown bored of gravity and decided to lounge wherever they pleased.
There was a stillness here—like even time held its breath out of respect. A soft breeze carried the mingled scent of jasmine and citrus, and in the distance, wind chimes whispered secrets to each other in a language Gale didn’t speak.
This wasn’t a dojo. This was a garden for duels.
Stone pillars lined the walkway, each etched with fading inscriptions, and further inside, candle-lit corridors connected quiet alcoves. One corner, dim and solemn, held an altar surrounded by swords stuck into the ground like grave markers—some fresh, others rusted over.
A memorial. Gale didn’t need anyone to tell him that. It practically hummed with memory.
And there, seated alone on a marble bench beneath the shade of a lemon tree, was the man himself.
Don Florencio de la Rosa.
He was everything Boqin had promised—and then some. Dressed in an embroidered matador jacket that clung to him like a second skin, his trousers pressed sharp enough to cut air, and a crimson sash wrapped tightly around his waist.
A single rose was tucked behind one ear, and he lounged with a kind of practiced elegance, as though he'd been sculpted by a particularly dramatic artist with a flair for the tragic.
Gale spotted a small silver locket resting in his gloved hand. The old man’s thumb gently stroked it open, revealing a picture inside—but the image was angled just out of sight.
Whatever it was, Florencio stared at it with the haunted expression of someone who'd memorized the details long ago and still wasn't ready to forget.
Before Gale could clear his throat, Florencio spoke, his voice soft but precise—like a knife cutting silk.
“What is your business here, niño?”
Gale blinked. “Uh… someone told me this was the place to go if you wanted to learn swordsmanship on Karate Island.”
Florencio shut the locket with a click and finally looked up. His eyes were sharp. Not piercing in the cool, intimidating way—no, these eyes saw everything and judged it poetically.
“Then the one who sent you has either your best interests at heart... or a deeply malicious sense of humor.”
Gale scratched the back of his neck. “You’ll have to be more specific. That could honestly be Boqin either way.”
Florencio chuckled faintly—just a breath of sound—but it was there.
“So it was the baby monk, eh? No matter. I do not take just anyone. I am... picky. If you wish to study under me, you must pass a test.”
“Test of what?” Gale asked, already sensing the incoming absurdity.
Florencio stood with theatrical grace, the rose behind his ear wobbling slightly as he rose to his full height. He paced toward a nearby tree where a long branch had fallen into the shade and plucked it up like it was a finely forged blade.
“A test of aptitude, of course,” he said, twirling the branch effortlessly. “Show me your soul, boy. Draw your sword.”
Gale blinked. "Wait, you actually want to fight me with a stick?"
“I fight with many things, niño,” Florencio said, testing the weight of the branch with a few flourishes. “But this? This is not a stick. It is clarity. And right now, it is your opponent.”
