Chapter 53

Grandline, Paradise, Skypea

After the defeat of god Enel a giant party was held in honor of the one who slayed the hated god. And yet said man didn't really attend his own party all that much. Instead he had chosen to venture through the old ruins of Shandora, contemplating the weird feeling in the back of his mind that he had experienced the first time he entered the city and did now once again.

So absorbed had he been that he didn't even realise where his feet had been carrying him until he stood at the foot of the giant vine that pierced the sky from the middle of the island. After realising where he was Azuls curiousity had been picked on how far up the vine reached and so decided in a slightly drunken state to walk up the thing, just for the hell of it.

He walked and walked and soon he had completely sobered from his earlier drinking, now able to take in the unbelivable view he had from up there. As if in trance, not knowing what drove him to keep going, Azul kept on walking further upwards, until after what felt like hours he came about a solitary patch of cloud to the side of the vine. At first he was confused when he came upon said cloud, not really understanding what a single patch of the cloud was doing so far up here when the rest didn't even travel up halfway as far as this one did. But that confusing soon turned into stunned wonder as he took in the giant golden bell that sat, as if on a pedestal, at the top of the vine as if it was the highest good to perceive in all the heavens.

With a jump Azul landed on the patch of clouds and walked up to the giant golden bell. It shimmered slightly in the rising sun that had began to come on up on the horizon, illuminating him in a golden shimmer. With a grin on his face Azul decided to wake his party companions from their drunken slumber with a melody that hadn't been heard for a very long time indeed.

Walking up to the giant bell, Azul pulled on the chain that made the giant bell ring and with a resounding 'gong' rang the giant bell, echoing all over the skies and possibly even down to the grandline itself, bringing with it a beautiful melody rarely heard, if ever.

All over the land down below and even further down on the grandline, people heard the emenating sounds of a bell tolling, marveling and in some cases weaping at finally hearing the bell ring for the first time in centuries.

The Shandia that had been woken up by the sound were gobsmacked from the sound of their beloved bell that had gone missing. They had thought they lost the precious bell for forever, and yet here it sounded. A few rushed up into the old city of Shandora to look for the origin of the bells ringing but couldn't find it anywhere, until a few with a bit more sensible ears decided to follow the ringing and soon stood before the giant vine, and soon came upon the understanding that the only place they hadn't yet looked for was at the top of the vine and so they rushed up, huffing and puffing at the speeds they were running up the vine, but still they persisted.

Soon they reached a height from which they could see the solitary cloud far up in the sky and could still hear the fading sounds of the bell originating from said cloud.

With tears running down some of the mens and womens faces the warriors of Shandora finally had found their precious bell again.

But what surprised them even more than finally finding it was the one that sat leaning against one of the beams that held the bell up, listening to the bell, obviously being the one that had rang it.

Azul, after spotting the warriors waved over to them with a smile, until they waved back, jumped on the cloud and started to prepare the cloud for the journey down into the city it belonged to.

Luckily the bell was on top of a cloud which was easily movable, which made the transportation issues that much easier for them. And so after centuries of absence the bell was brought back into Shandora, sparking another party. Though some still slightly drunk from the last one instead chose to sleep through it, not being able to stand the sight of alcohol so soon afterwards. Azul being one of them.

Waking up the following morning, Azul stood up feeling refreshed from a night without drinking and decided to once more take a walk through the old city of Shandora, not being able to forget the feeling in the back of his mind. On top of that he had grown fond of the city if he was being honest with himself.

Wandering through the ruins, surprisingly or maybe not, Azul came upon Robin that was standing at the side of the giant bell, reading something that seemed to be written there.

Facing him were old runes or a language that was simply written in that style, completely different from the modern ones of today. As his eyes drifted over the writings the murmuring in the back of his mind grew in volume, increasing into a melody he had heard before, he had the feeling. And yet he couldn't remember where he had heard the whispers...

With a frown on his face Azul turned to Robin not being able to shove the questions to the back of his mind any longer.

"Can you read this?" he asked her, waking her from her own musings, to which she nodded.

"This, Azul, is one of the poneglyphs that I have been looking for to study and learn the history of the ancient past." Robin said, brushing her fingers over the elegant writings of the poneglyph.

"The ancient times? You mean before the world government?" Azul asked with slowly dawning understanding, connecting the dots that had remained under a kind of fog in his mind.

He remembered now! The whispers, he had heard them before. Once. It was the time when he had undertaken the ceremony to become a journeyman, on top of the mountain in Ishiria. Back then he had perceived only shreds of what was surrounding him as he had been so strongly immersed in his task at hand. But now that he stood here, and the whispers grew in intensity, pounding in his head, as if striking with a metal pole against some kind of invisible barrier that made his head hurt the longer he focused on it, he finally remembered.

Faintly he registered in his periphery that Robin was telling him something but he couldn't understand her as the noise in his head had increased in volume.

With a groan that made Robin turn towards him with a frown on her face, Azul grabbed his head and stumbled away from the poneglyph, trying to escape the noise that was crushing his mind, a kind of pain he had never experienced before. Gazing into himself Azul spotted his soul pulsing with a growing intensity and so while stumbling backwards, Azul dropped against a wall behind him, while Robins face had slight panic written upon it, not sure what was happening to Azul.

"Please, leave me... I... need... to focus..." Azul g.r.o.a.n.e.d out through grit teeth at Robin who after thinking about her possibilities to help him came to the conclusion that she couldn't really do much anyways, and so left him to his own devices, rushing down the steps to search for Chopper. Maybe he knew what to do.

Steam started to rise from Azuls body and the earth beneath him began to slightly crack as he tried to contain the shaking of his soul, but with lesser and lesser sucess, while the whispering and murmuring growing stronger and stronger all the while.

Soon he couldn't surpress his spiritual pressure anymore and with a satisfying outcry of the voices in his head, a resounding boom shook the very foundations of the city of Shandora, quaking the land and sending the birds up in the trees flying away in fear and crumbling the nearest stonewalls into dust, as the pressure kept increasing. Until at one point in time Azul couldn't contain himself anymore and let out a roar in pain and with a thud fell over, succ.u.mbing to unconciousness while the pressure around him increased once more until it faded along with the whispers that had began to fill the air, leaving peaceful silence behind in the deserted city of Shandora...