The Marine

After Shiki had begun to use the Awakened form of his Devil Fruit, Bill had constantly found himself pushed on his back legs.

Like many Devil Fruits, the range of powers held within were wide and the Awakened ‘Float Float’ Fruit seemed to detach everything near the user from the natural force of gravity and even replace gravity itself with the user’s will.

Shiki called the area under his control the ‘Lion Palace’ and if not for his mastery of [Moon Step], Bill would have been unable to move as unseen forces pushed him in all directions.

Defying Shiki’s power with brute strength had been hard, and for the first time Bill even chastised himself for not bringing any seastone with him.

Using his arms to bounce off the air, Bill looked strange as he resisted random pulls and closed on Shiki delivering a hard blow across the pirate’s jaw.

Hit hard enough for greenish red blood to spew out of his mouth, Shiki responded with two quick slashes and flew away.

The same as Bill, Shiki had also adapted to his opponent, and realizing that his foe had no long-range attack determined to make close combat as hard as possible for the young Marine in front of him.

Even in his maddened state, Shiki could tell that young man in front of him had mastered Life Return to an unheard-of level, but with the savage grin he knew even that mystical technique would eventually run out when the body had spent all of its power.

With this thought in mind, Shiki had made sure that the entire landscape was turned into nothing but slag – lest his foe resort to eating the grass to replace some modicum of power.

Seeing Shiki put distance between them again, Bill weathered the flying slashes and rushed at the pirate again.

He had been too proud, he thought, but even at a time like this he was unwilling to stop suppressing Yoko’s Devil Fruit in order to Nullify the Golden Lion’s powers.

The reason for this unwillingness wasn’t that he was too proud or anything so mundane. The fact was that Bill wasn’t sure that he could catch her empowered soul again if he let it up.

After all, Chaos was a realm where everything was upside down and nothing made logical sense. There were no rules of distance that said that the [Soul] must be ‘near’ the [Logos] since in [Chaos] there was no logical sense of distance, time, scale, or any other quantifiable measurement.

Without any type of set beacon or marker to use as a guide, there was a real chance that Bill would never come face to face with Yoko’s soul again and would stumble around blindly for an eternity and not.

This was even more so the case if she regained her powers and subconsciously wanted to hide from him.

Thinking all this through in the midst of combat got him mad. Not at her, but at himself for believing his strength to be unassailable.

Before, he had easily dispatched Shiki and even though he told the others that he believed this ‘Legend’ to have been overstated. In his heart, he was naturally proud of himself, and that pride had naturally turned into an ill-advised confidence.

Reaching Shiki again, Bill grabbed the Golden Lion’s long mane of hair and pulled sideways with his left hand, before shouting in frustration:

[Seismic Punch!]

Feeling Shiki’s left eye ridge be crushed under his fist did not make him feel better, because throughout this fight Bill had crushed Shiki’s bones several times!

Like several times before, Shiki freed himself with reckless abandon – this time directly allowing his hair to be torn out – and flying back he created space, now roaring his own attack:

[Lion Menace: Firmament Sword!]

Pushed back hard by Shiki’s ability, Bill was momentarily still as the pirate roared and the air itself turned hazy and everything around him began to clump together forming into swords.

It was the muddy ground, crushed stones, splinters of once-mighty trees, and even the clouds themselves, in just a few heartbeats Bill found himself surrounded on all sides by thousands upon thousands of swords!

“You’ve fought well!” the Golden Lion continued, and then added: “But now it’s time that you die!”

With a hard wave of his hands, an avalanche of swords barreled down towards Bill who was shocked that Shiki still had it in him to launch such a major attack.

‘If this is the case, then?!’ he thought, and for the first time felt worried. After all, Bill knew how much energy he had already used better than anyone. Counteracting Shiki’s Awakened Devil Fruit with muscle power alone was no easy feat.

Thinking that he just needed time to think, an idea popped into Bills head and instead of looking forward, he closed his eyes and for the first time in years reentered that realm called [Chaos].

Time was relative, and once his Logos was in Chaos, he was temporarily freed from the rules set by reality.

In real-world terms, had been years since the last time he had consciously been in Chaos but looking around him it seemed like millions of years must have gone by.

‘If time even exists in this place.’ He thought with irritation.

Bill had no solid information on how this [Sea of Dreams] actually worked. He knew some things, such as this was where Devil Fruit entities were spawned, and this was where souls resided.

He wondered if the only reason he saw anything at all was due to his own subconscious creating an unreal order in an otherwise chaotic realm.

The implications of this hadn’t been lost on him, if it was true then [Chaos] held unimaginable danger since he could inadvertently conjure up the worst nightmares anyone had ever dreamed up – and it was even likely that he would do so!

After all, reality fought back against incursions from Chaos entities and unnaturally empowered souls, so Chaos may return the favor by destroying any Logos which got too greedy.

This was one major reason as to why he hadn’t returned since he first suppressed Yoko’s enhanced spirit!

‘Some things just aren’t meant to be known by the living’ was what he had concluded, and that single revelation had made Bill, who had been a heaven-seeking Christian for two lifetimes, strive for utopia on Earth and not heaven after death.

 Looking around him, he no longer stood on a stone slab that hovered underneath a vast desert and overtop of a sea of crystals. Now the desert had turned into an ocean and the crystals had formed a bed of ice that stretched into eternity.

With clouds that glinted with a white light hanging all around, Bill easily found his two souls – when he saw them through his Logos their sights combined – and seeing that they looked unmoved he plopped down, sitting cross legged.

But even though he wished to relax, he could not do so.

His body was still out in reality, and though he bought his physical self some extra time to think, it came at the cost of his mental capacity.

It didn’t help that even with one pair of eyes closed, he could still see through dozens of others via his soul that seemed to be tilted to Observation.

Sitting there, he suddenly breathed in deeply – or at least took the action of breathing deeply – and standing up he walked towards his humanoid soul that had three heads.

Looking down at the golden monkey-like entity, he finally spoke: “If I let you up, will you behave yourself?”

His voice, though spoken soft, caused an echo that could be heard in all directions, and even though he felt that he shouldn’t have done so, he couldn’t help it now and so pressed forward.

Bill didn’t know if Yoko would be feeling anything now, but her spirit answered his question with a pitiful look and a profuse series of nods.

Seeing it do this, Bill did not feel better. Devil Fruit entities had their own egos and it seemed to him that the more powerful the spirit the smarter it would be.

His own souls, as powerful as they seemed to be, had not even looked so ‘real’ in his first dealings with them.

But at this juncture he had no choice. Telling the golden-tinged soul of Yoko that he would find her if she didn’t behave, his humanoid soul started to move its knee off the other, only to be frantically stopped by him before it completely freed the golden spirit.

Looking up, Bill didn’t have to ask what was happening, it only took him a moment to comprehend it.

His soul of many eyes had gone in to ‘eat’ his humanoid soul in one go!

‘Eat or absorb… but why?’ he asked himself but was naturally not answered. But whatever the case the feeling of dread that he had just nearly made him a nervous wreck.

Looking up, strangely for the first time Bill noticed that his soul of many eyes had grown larger, much larger!

It was at least ten times bigger than he remembered!

And suddenly, looking at the spinning wheels and the central eye, it all made sense!

Bill had for years now been actively using his Observation Haki, and undoubtedly it had grown strong because of it.

It was so strong that he could hide his own presence from others in broad daylight and even slow down time!

Speaking to Masterson about, as far as the man knew, no one could do such things without Devil Fruits, and neither had Bill heard of similar abilities.

Looking between the humanoid and many eyes, Bill was struck by a sense of imbalance and a hard thought crossed his mind.

‘Armament…’

In his life, Bill had never used [Armament Haki]. Before, when his souls were more balanced all of his Haki was either tilted towards Observation or direct Nullification.

Nullification was a part of Armament Haki, but it was an advanced method that very few people could use.

Standing in that realm of Chaos, now Bill wondered why he had never questioned the fact that although his Haki could be used outwardly, he had never been able to use it internally.

‘Unless…’ he thought to himself, and surrounded by himself, the answer formed immediately.

‘There was always an imbalance, just not as much as there is now… if this is my [Soul from Earth], then how…’

Shaking his head, Bill directly stopped that line of thought. It didn’t matter how or why he had two souls, or what it meant that his Soul from Earth had not ascended to heaven after his death.

Dealing with the here and now, for whatever reason, with part of his soul occupied the other part couldn’t devour it.

Despite its awesome power, Bill knew that defeating Shiki with his Observation Haki was impossible. He needed a way to neutralize the pirate’s fruit.

And now, looking at the much smaller three-headed humanoid soul in front of him, Bill knew what he had to do.

He didn’t know if it worked the same way – for him, his Observation abilities were used like extensions of his body. But that didn’t matter, he would find a way, he had to do so.

Willing his Souls to swap places, Bill looked at the pleading golden-tinged spirit and said, ‘maybe next time’.

Then looking directly at the three-headed spirit in front of him; the head of the bull snorted, the head of the dragon roared, and the head of the human gave an all-too-real smile.

When Bill opened his eyes again, he was still facing thousands of swords.

But now, the whites of his eyes had turned pitch black.