Chapter 144: Chapter 144: Goal, Troubled Sea and Vastness

__________ POV Narration__________

Both Enel and Oven were sprawled on the deck of the flying aluminium ship.

They hadn't bothered to tone down the intensity of their training just because the ship's stability was a bit weaker than before.

Enel could quickly repair the ship each time it threatened to fall from the sky. So they were fighting with great intensity, and not bothering to hold back at all.

'... This is a lot more tiring than expected...' Oven couldn't help but ponder on that as he whizzed some air into his lungs.

Training with Enel was just as tiring as before, as the Emperor seemingly decided to no longer hold back on him.

Still, Oven realised quickly that Enel now wasn't actually that much stronger than him physically.

'I guess his speed is still much better due to his devil fruit, and his Observation Haki is leagues above mine, but in physical strength and Armament Haki, he isn't that much better, I can still catch up to him...'

Sure, if the two of them were to fight Oven would likely die in less than half a second, but that didn't discourage the Sweet Commander one bit!

He was actually excited at the prospect of one-upping Enel in a few aspects. Of being able to say that he could actually be of help, contributing to whatever his friend's quest was...

'Wait a minute!?' Oven immediately shot up and looked at Enel with a confused look.

'I've been following him, but what does he even want to accomplish? I thought he was a marine initially, with his own sense of justice and whatnot.

But now he's an emperor of the seas, one that has specifically gone against the world government constantly...

Well, he was fighting agents while in the Marines as well... But what exactly does he wish to accomplish?'

Oven did put some pieces of the puzzle together in his spare time. He somewhat realized that Enel was going against the world government, that much had been obvious for a while.

'But why is he going against them? He is my friend, so I'd support him regardless... Still, I can't help but wonder...

I guess he will tell me when he feels like it. Knowing him, it's likely not even an issue of trust, and he just forgot...'

"Say, Enel... What do you plan to do now exactly?" Oven asked as he finally recovered his breath and looked at the sky above, which was slowly darkening as the sun finally decided to start setting.

"Well, the Revolutionary Dragon had built a secret base underneath Dressrosa at some point, and they know that I am in good graces with the Riku family, so the most likely place where I am going to find them is there."

"So we are just meeting the revolutionary army?"

"... Well, that and a few former marines..." Enel said as he tried to think of a good way of telling Oven that they would meet the man who had dismembered him in the past.

"Marines joining the Revolutionaries? I guess it's not that surprising with the government's recent actions..."

"Well, I am not sure if they've joined up per se. But they are travelling together from what I know."

"... No offence, but I find it hard to believe that Dragon would just be travelling with marines after the recent disaster at Baltigo. The risk of them being government agents would be too high."

Enel sighed when he heard that. It was a bit amusing, thinking of Akainu and the rest as Government spies, but the amusement didn't last long, as Enel still wondered how to inform Oven of Akainu and the rest.

In the end, after a few more seconds of staring at the slowly appearing stars, Enel decided to stop trying to drift around the issue and just crashed into it directly.

"I'll just be honest with you. The people we're about to meet are the marines that were dubbed as dead on Baltigo. Former Admirals and Fleet Admiral specifically."

'Can't exactly avoid this meeting, and Oven is a friend of mine and an ally.

He will be there when we eventually wage war on the World Government, so he needs to also be present in the meetings that lead up to that...'

Oven leaned on the railing of the ship when he heard that, his eyes widened in confusion.

'So they aren't actually dead? What the hell happened at Baltigo then?!'

"I can tell you are quite confused. I will give you a brief rundown of the way things unfolded..."

Enel then also stood up, supporting himself on his cane as he started talking a bit more about the incident at Baltigo.

He didn't go into many details about the war itself, as it had just been him fighting the marines for a while before the giant eye appeared in the sky.

Enel stopped at that point, as he could tell that he had lost Oven somewhat. 

"So a giant red eye appears in the sky, and you can't use future sight on it... And you didn't flee?" Oven said as he looked at Enel's missing limb and shortened earlobe.

"Well, the thought certainly crossed my mind... But I couldn't exactly abandon Sengoku and the rest...

Although we were just fighting, my relationship with the marines is a bit complex... We aren't exactly enemies, or it's more accurate to say we aren't enemies at all."

"... So your relationship with them is good enough to risk your life for them?" Oven said as he crossed his arms.

'If an attack took off his arm, then it could just as easily have killed him on the spot. He basically just got lucky...'

"Well, honestly, I didn't think we'd fail to block whatever was coming our way...

Sengoku and the rest are strong, and I always trust my Devil Fruit when it comes to firepower... It just happened to not be enough this time around."

Oven asked a few more questions about the situation, his reaction was already quite a bit better than Enel had expected.

If anything, Oven didn't seem to care much about Akainu, not even bringing him up in the discussion.

Now, Enel wasn't daft. That certainly didn't mean Oven was now 100% prepared to work together with Akainu.

But at the very least the two could be in the same room without trying to kill each other...

'Wait a minute! What if Akainu just attacks Oven? I mean, I'll obviously just stop him. But that would be stirring the pot in a really bad direction...

Well, me being there should be enough to prevent him from just acting up and baring his teeth at my associates.'

Their conversation continued for a while after that.

Enel told Oven as much as he could about the situation, including news of Sengoku's state, the fact that devil fruits didn't seem effective against that island-erasing attack, and the fact that they were rescued by Shanks of all people.

Well, they were actually saved by Shanks and Dragon, but if Shanks didn't halt the attack, Dragon wouldn't have been able to pull them all away in time. 

Sure, that argument went both ways, but Shanks did get there faster as well. So that certainly gave him extra marks.

Eventually, the conversation died down, and Oven decided to rest his eyes for a bit.

Enel couldn't exactly sleep, as he needed to keep the ship moving, so he was left alone with his thoughts.

From time to time, he would flare up his Observation Haki and radar, scouting the area ahead of him and even the seas below.

He still couldn't quite keep his radar on at all times, much like he couldn't keep his observation on at all times, but at least he could use it when it mattered.

Enel actually felt as if his Observation Haki was a bit different as well after the green fog was lifted.

It was as if the world was a bit clearer. He still couldn't see images with Observation Haki alone, but he felt as if his will extended farther, somehow.

At that moment, Enel realised that there was likely no one in the world that could see as far as he could.

That even the most skilled Observation Haki users were unable to sense the world around them as clearly as he could for such great distances.

Eventually, Enel felt some movement, but it wasn't from the sides or from in front of him. It wasn't a ship nor was it a human for that matter.

It was instead the gigantic figure of a snake, following his flying ship at a great pace. Enel blinked a few times as he noticed it, because something else was strange about it...

Enel simply couldn't sense the end of the Sea King.

'How big is this fucking thing?'

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Now, the Lightning Emperor wasn't scared, he had killed large things in the past, and he knew that sometimes size was a detriment more so than anything.

But the sheer size of that snake dwarfed any Sea King that he had seen before... It was nothing less than astonishing.

Enel could sense upon searching further that other Sea Kings seemed to be either hiding or running away from the gigantic water snake.

He thought about trying to speed up and lose it for a few seconds, but the snake seemed to be able to easily keep up with him regardless of what he did.

'No way in hell I can make this ship move faster than this Sea King, huh?'

Eventually, Enel stopped, circling around in one place, as Enel stood on one of the railings of his ship and stared at the large shadow that seemed to cover the entire sea underneath him.

Had it not been for the moonlight, then Enel wouldn't even have been able to notice it at all.

The water shifted, as a gigantic head rose from the waters at a slow speed. Enel could see tsunamis forming just from the smallest movements of the Sea King.

'What is this...?' Enel had truly never seen such a being in his life. It looked distinctly different from other Sea Kings he had seen as well.

It did look quite a lot like a snake, but it seemed to have two sets of eyes instead of one, and its teeth seemed to be more similar to those of a shark.

Its scales seemed to be much thicker than anything he had seen before. It didn't have any gills, but its body did seem to be filled with scars...

One thing was for sure though... Its size was certainly not there for show.

'Hell... This thing looks like it could easily crush an island by coiling around it...'

"I am glad to finally have reached you, Descendant of the Sky King..."

Enel's eyes widened as he heard that voice, and his Haki flared up as he realised that, for some reason, he could actually understand the gigantic being.

'The voice of all things?! wh-'

"No, I believe you lack that particular ability... Thankfully, I do not."

The ancient voice quickly cleared things up for Enel, as the Snake's head rose and stood directly in front of Enel's ship.

Enel was basically forced to land his ship on the snake's head. Something that it didn't seem to mind or care about.

After all, it was larger than some islands, and the ship was smaller than an ant for the Sea King.

'... Well, I guess I can't just have everything served to me on a platter... What is your name? What do you want, why have you been seeking me and why did you call me a 'Descendant of the Sky King'?'

Enel said to the snake in his mind.

"My name? Well, what you are standing on is merely one of my heads.

Humans had called me Yamata no Orochi at one point... But you may simply call me Orochi."

'Orochi? Wasn't there a devil fruit like that as well? Mythical Zoan as well...'

"That is true... I did give a small part of my power to a certain tree, and it did grow a fruit out of it... But that is not truly important..."

'What the hell's that about?' Enel was even more confused after the answer than before asking the question, but it seemed that Orochi didn't feel the need to explain himself.

"What you hold and what you use is a fragment of the former Sky King's power... Which is why I reached out to you first, the Sun God is still in his infancy, but you seem to be close to awakening..."

Enel managed to understand a few things, but if Orochi wasn't lying to him, then he had just learned a lot more about devil fruits than he had thought he ever could...

'So is this Sky King the reason you are contacting me now?'

"Indeed, the more you hold a lot more power than you are aware of. That fragment may yet evolve into the full power of the Sky King if you train it hard enough.

I was unable to reach you before, as there was something else shrowding any connection I could have made with you..."

'Probably that green fog Big Mom ate... But why exactly are you telling me all of this?!'

"... Things have been moving too fast... Your interference in this world has altered its fate greatly. Now it all hangs in a feeble balance, and that balance is currently reliant on you.

I do not know who you are, or who you were before, but you have long since lost the right to abstain from acting...

I merely wished to inform you of this. For your actions or inactions may either doom this world or make it better..."

Enel simply looked at the night sky, his gaze was still confused, he hadn't quite expected to hear something like that, or to learn so much in one mere night.

It was certainly a lot of information to process.

The snake seemed to understand that as well, as it seemed to sigh, the slight movement of its gigantic body creating immense waves all around it.

"Alas, you seem to already be on the right track... But I urge you to try and awaken your devil fruit faster.

The Sun God must hurry as well, the fate of this world has already become unpredictable...

Without awakening, you stand no chance for any challenges you are to face in the future."

'... I'm guessing you are not going to give me any hints on how to awaken or any further details about this 'fate', right?'

Enel almost scowled as he spoke. He noticed the way the snake was talking in circles, the way it was only implying things and not really saying them directly.

"Getting involved in such things is a danger in itself.

I have already done enough. If you wish for further details, may you find that information yourself...

Fear not, we will meet again, though I can't assure you of when or under what circumstances...

Until then, I bid you the fondest of farewells..."

The polite snake then simply started submerging itself again, forcing Enel to start up the engines of his ship once more and take off.

He tried asking a few more questions as Orochi's head disappeared into the depths, but none of them were answered.

So, Enel was just left there, looking at the sea with raised eyebrows as he scratched the back of his head.

'Well... That was certainly something...' The Lightning Emperor then turned his head to the sky as he tried to process the information a bit more.

Then, Enel heard a large yawn to the side, as Oven rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Hmmm... What's up Enel? Something interesting in the night sky?" The Sweet Commander asked as he stretched his body a bit.

"... Interesting? Maybe... I guess I just realised how vast it truly is..."

Oven raised an eyebrow when hearing that, before simply shrugging and leaning on the railing, looking at the sea below.

"Vast?... Maybe... I guess the more you see of the world the bigger it actually seems." Oven simply smiled as he tapped Enel on the back.

"Right you are..."

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Hope you liked the chapter! More lore eh? :))

Last week was pretty rough on my free time, didn't get to do much, and didn't get to write much either. Will try to write more this week, obviously, I'm now done with uni for this year, so all's good. 

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