Chapter 139: Legends, Memories and Old Friends.

Chapter 139: Legends, Memories and Old Friends.

__________ POV Narration__________

"Would your father happen to be named Francisco D. Guzman perchance?"

Francisco looked at Shiki with a raised eyebrow as he sheathed his blunt cutlass.

'I guess that's a fair assumption to make...' The old, and likely current, strongest swordsman thought to himself as the guard of his cutlass touched its sheath, making a small metallic clang.

Shiki noticed that, and also somewhat relaxed, his blades returning to their usual colour as he stroked his beard.

He was quite sure of his guess, so he somewhat dropped his guard a bit. Something that somewhat surprised Francisco.

'I remember him being a bit more careful than this... But, I guess age does tend to mellow out people... Hell, a younger Garp would have already started trying to kill me.'

Francisco sighed a bit as he started getting closer to his old friend.

Shiki was going to try and keep his distance, but he decided against it in the end.

'Francisco was always a good friend, I doubt his son would try to kill me... Though he sure is just as talented as his old man...'

"Quite sure my father's name wasn't that... Shiki, did you grow senile by chance?" Francisco said with a small frown on his face, as he noticed that Shiki's mannerisms were somewhat odd.

"Hmm!? Watch your mouth you brat! I'll have you know that I was quite good friends with your da- Wait, did you say that wasn't his name?"

Shiki went through a few emotions, from angry to melancholic to confused, all in the space of a few seconds.

This made the old sword master sweat a bit as he tried to remember if Shiki was really that light-headed in the past.

'No... I guess he was always somewhat fleeting in thought... We did use to joke around that it might be a side-effect of his devil fruit, that it also makes his brain float away at times...'

Francisco couldn't help but chuckle at that thought. As Shiki was becoming more and more confused.

"Shiki, though I feel sad that you failed to recognize me instantly, I can assure you that I am Francisco."

At that point, Shiki froze entirely, his mouth and hands trembled a bit as he tried to stroke his beard once more.

"... No, that's quite difficult to believe..."

"Is it though?

Kaido was able to recognize me just by my willpower, I'm sure you are also able to make that distinction.

Especially since you started thinking that I am my own son." Francisco couldn't help but laugh a bit at his old friend's disbelief.

"You really are... You look so young... What the fuck happened? Wait?! You already met with that little shit!?"

"Oh, it's a long story. Also, calm down. He used to be a nice kid!"

Francisco rolled his eyes a bit at his old friend, Shiki at that point also decided to touch some of the old sword master's clothes, helping him float in the air as they continued to speak.

"Nice kid my golden ass! He was always looking for fights and gunning for your position!" The Golden Lion scowled a bit as he remembered a few embarrassing moments from Kaido's youth.

"I guess he was always a tad ambitious... But to get to my position he would've still had to go through you and Whitebeard, which he wasn't quite capable of at the time."

"Well, he fucking tried! Remember his constant sparring requests? Also, it's because of his stupid bullshit that I wasn't there to help you at God Valley..."

As the conversation continued, Francsico managed to remember a few more details about the God Valley incident as well.

More specifically, about how Shiki was somewhat forced by Xebec to go out and look for some strange legendary 'devil fruits'.

Kaido was the one to fill Xebec's head with some bullshit about some 'God Fruits', saying he remembered reading something about them in a book.

Xebec, not having eaten a devil fruit at the time, was also interested in gaining more power. Hence him sending one of his most capable men away.

Sadly, by the time Shiki decided to give up on finding the fruits and check back in with the crew, God Valley had already vanished.

Having been somewhat deep in random research, he only floated towards the island, only to be unable to find anything whatsoever.

The Government had already ereased it. And Shiki was pissed, making it his mission to demolish the government.

Unlike his former captain, he really didn't care much about becoming the king of the world. He only wanted the current government to be brought down.

"Fighting and losing isn't even the issue here." Francisco said as he shook his head.

"A fight between us will definitely cause a lot of collateral damage. You'll be actively harming the people you think you are trying to protect from us." The old sword master said with a scowl.

Garp froze when hearing that, admittedly, he was a bit on edge lately. Which had caused him to act a bit rashly.

'Shit... This is bad... Where's Sengoku when you need him? He always has plans for situations like this...'

By looking at Garp's reaction. Francisco realised that the confrontation was completely avoided. Shiki was also pleased to see that.

'He's just as good at pacifying others as he was in the past...'

The Golden Lion remembered how well Francisco was able to babysit the entire crew, which was filled with explosive personalities always itching to show what they were capable of.

'He really is the best right hand one can ask for... Maybe I can convince him to join me?'

"Still... I don't like you bringing in more and more of your pirate friends on this island. Keeping Kaido in chains is already enough."

"WAIT! Dragon Dung is imprisoned here?! That's amazing! Jihahahaha!" The Golden Lion burst out laughing when he heard that.

Francisco shut him up with a glare, before turning back to Garp.

"I understand your concerns, Garp. Don't think I can't see where you're coming from. But I assure you, I don't plan on doing anything shady.

For now, whatever greivances we have, I say we wait for Enel's arrival, he will help sort things out since he's the captain.

Besides, don't act lie Shiki's appearance wasn't a surprise even for me..."

'Captain!? Francisco sure brings a lot of surprises... I wonder who this Enel figure is... I might've been in isolation for too long...'

"Bah! He may be your captain, but I'm not part of his crew! Never agreed to join it!" Garp crossed his arms.

"Still... I guess he can help mediate things between us. I will be walking with the two of you from now on, to keep an eye on you."

"Whatever suits your fancy, Marine Hero." Shiki said as he looked a bit at the ground, then at his own Islands nearby.

"Say, I don't really want us drifting too far from this location, it's pretty well hidden. Clouds underneath us make things hard to notice for the people below.

Would you two give me permission to stop your islands from drifting?"

Garp and Francsico both looked at each other.

The island randomly drifting through the world was one of their biggest concerns. Althoguh Garp was a bit reluctant, they decided that it was a better idea to allow Shiki to help them.

'He would've controlled it if a fight broke out anyway...'

Shiki was an extremely annoying enemy to fight. Any island he was on became his territory, and being on the ground was just as difficult as fighting him in the air.

Garp also wasn't against the idea of not drifting randomly above the oceans.

Shiki simply tapped the ground with his palm, and the island instantly started shifting, rotating around the other islands at a slow pace as the Godlen Lion exerted his control over it.

And just like that, the Sky Islands settled, constantly orbiting around Shiki's base at a safe distance.

The three old men then got to chatting, well, two fo them anyway. Mostly just laughing at the memory of the antics they used to have back in the day.

Garp didn't engage much besides the occasional snort whenever Francsico tried to include him in the conversation.

In the morning of the next day, things continued as usual for the Sky People.

And in that same morning, Enel also started heading for Big Mom's castle.

'Might as well get this over with and try to learn more about myself... It's pretty clear that staying like this won't cut it.'

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Hope you liked the chapter, and again, sorry for the delays lately.

Bit of a change, lately I've only been writing longer chapters on Patreon, and I actually seem to like it a bit more, so you will likely see longer chapters, some even longer than this one.

If u want to support me look up VeganMaster(Vegan Cult) on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)