The wind carried a distant salt tang that morning, sharp and invigorating, as if the sea itself was calling. Gildarts stood barefoot on the crest of a low hill, looking out toward the shimmering waters that ringed the elongated island. The view was beautiful, serene even—but after weeks of surviving in this strange world with little to no direction, he couldn't help but feel it as a barrier. That endless blue was no friend. It was a test, a gauntlet he had yet to pass.
And he was ready to move on.
The plan had taken root over several days. It wasn't much of a plan, truth be told—just a growing urgency that told him staying in one place too long was dangerous. Long Ring Long Land had taught him how little he knew. It gave him the space to survive, to build his body and sharpen his instincts, but it wasn't a sanctuary. He could feel it, just beyond the edges of comfort, like a predator circling a campfire. There were larger things at play, things he wasn't yet ready to meet head-on. And staying here any longer meant inviting them.
The first step was supply. Gildarts scoured the forest for anything that could be useful, building crude bundles of animal hides and dried meat. The long fox—Pork—shadowed him as usual, sniffing and snorting through underbrush, occasionally darting off and returning with random trinkets. Gildarts wasn't sure if the creature understood what he was doing, but it seemed to grasp the concept of gathering. He didn't argue with the help.
One of Pork's more miraculous contributions came in the form of a half-rotted log, crusted with barnacles and seaweed. At first glance, it was just another piece of driftwood—but wedged into its splintered heart was a glimmer of something metallic. Gildarts cracked it open with a rock and stared down at the lump inside. Gold. Actual, raw gold.
He'd stumbled upon small bits of ore before, usually mistaken for dull stones until the sun hit them just right. But this was different. This was unmistakable. Gildarts didn't know the value system in this world—Berries, he recalled from the manga—but gold was gold. A universal constant. He packed it away in a satchel of braided hide, along with odd shells and fruit he hadn't dared eat.
A small pile of strange, spiky fruits sat on a flat rock near his camp, each with a different texture and smell. He didn't trust any of them. Not after the stories he'd read about Devil Fruits. One of them might grant him power—but they also came with the curse of the sea. And until he had a boat strong enough to carry him far, he wasn't willing to gamble.
The raft had become his obsession. It was crude—an ugly thing of lashed wood and sealed bark—but it floated, and that was enough for now. Gildarts had begun reinforcing it with additional logs, learning from his first miserable attempts. At one point, a whole section had collapsed into the water just from his weight. He'd salvaged what he could and started over, binding the framework with strips of hide soaked until pliable.
He wasn't a carpenter. He had no idea what he was doing. But he'd watched a lot of videos online—some survival channels, some anime filler arcs where people built ships with nothing but hope and plot armor. Now he was doing it for real, without any of the shortcuts.
Progress came slowly, measured in scrapes, bruises, and splinters. Still, there was satisfaction in it. Honest labor. Each knot tied and plank balanced gave him a fragile sense of control. This wasn't magic, it wasn't Haki—it was the raw, stubborn will to keep going.
By midweek, he had a second deck in place. Not a real one—just a raised platform where he could secure his supplies and avoid standing in water during rough waves. He found ways to lash bones to the sides as crude supports and even shaped a pole out of a straight trunk, hoping he could fashion some kind of sail later. Pork didn't seem impressed. The fox preferred sleeping inside a hollow log near camp and avoided the raft entirely.
Gildarts grunted as he heaved another bundle of dried meat aboard. His muscles ached, but he relished the feeling. The work had changed him. He was leaner now—still broad, still strong—but carved down by the daily grind of labor, training, and hunger. His prosthetic limbs no longer felt like dead weights. They were tools now, extensions of his will. Every day brought better balance, more coordination. He still limped, especially after long walks, but he no longer stumbled over roots or bark.
By evening, he lit a small fire and watched it crackle under the stars. The sea was calm tonight. Quiet, too quiet.
He looked up at the moon, half-shrouded by drifting clouds, and felt the strange weight of anticipation settle over him. The raft was nearly ready. The food was packed. He'd fashioned crude waterproof sacks out of cured hide and tree resin to keep his rations dry. The gold and other valuables were hidden in a hollow compartment beneath the deck. It was all coming together, slowly, imperfectly—but it was coming together.
Still, a quiet dread twisted in his gut. This wasn't a game. He couldn't reload a save file. If the raft failed… if a storm hit… or if the Sea King came again…
He shuddered and pushed the thought aside.
He wasn't leaving yet. Not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But the moment was coming. He would launch, ready or not. And once he did, there was no turning back.
Pork pawed at the edge of the firelight, nose twitching. Gildarts tossed the long fox a scrap of cooked meat, and it caught it midair with a satisfied snap. The fox had been with him for weeks now, growing bolder and more comfortable by the day. Gildarts appreciated the company, even if he wasn't sure what to call the relationship. A companion? A pet? A fellow survivor?
He leaned back on a pile of hides and watched the fire burn down. The silence of the island stretched wide around him, interrupted only by the gentle lapping of waves and the soft wind rustling the trees. It was peaceful.
But peace, he knew, never lasted long in this world.
— — —
The fruit sat in the center of his palm, radiating an unnatural weight that had nothing to do with mass. Its brick-red skin shimmered in the sunlight, almost too vivid against the muted tones of the forest clearing. It was cube-shaped, almost absurdly so, like something that had been rendered by mistake in a half-finished game. A square spiral pattern danced across its surface, twisting like a puzzle with no end. The stem twitched in the breeze, squiggly and almost playful, a strange contrast to the oppressive aura that hung around it.
Gildarts stared at it for a long while.
He knew—had known for days now—that he would eventually eat it. There had been hesitation, naturally. A Devil Fruit was a sentence. A lifetime of weakness in water, an inability to swim, and a branding by the world as something unnatural. And this particular fruit, with its boxy edges and eerily symmetrical design, practically screamed danger.
But there was no room left for fear.
He was leaving Long Ring Long Land. Soon. He needed strength. If not for survival, then for the journey ahead—wherever that led. Devil Fruits were rare, powerful, and not something you left to rot in a pouch while hunting for bananas.
Gildarts brought it to his lips and took a bite.
The taste was horrific—rotten meat soaked in soap and dipped in oil. His entire body rebelled. His stomach clenched, throat convulsed, and bile surged up behind his teeth. But he forced it down. The second bite was worse. The third nearly broke him. But he kept going until it was gone, cube by cube, each one sliding down like swallowing bricks.
For a long moment, he stood there, panting, waiting for the backlash. But nothing happened. No surge of power. No collapse of reality. No instant mastery. Just a faint tingling in his arm. And then the realization: it's in me now.
And yet… he didn't feel stronger.
That changed an hour later, when he picked up a tree branch—and the branch disintegrated into a perfect stack of floating cubes.
He froze.
The branch wasn't dust, wasn't shattered—it had separated, segmented into evenly-sized cubes, hovering in midair for a breath before collapsing into a scattered pile at his feet. His hand shook.
"Oh," he whispered. "Oh, shit."
— — —
The next day was a disaster.
Every tool he tried to use—gone. Crushed.
His water jug exploded into cubes the moment he gripped it too tightly. The hide he'd been preparing for weatherproofing burst into confetti. A piece of fruit turned into spinning red dice in his hand. His left prosthetic arm—thankfully made of durable alloys—survived, but the fingers dented slightly from an accidental pulse of whatever energy was inside him now.
He couldn't control it.
The worst came when he patted Pork.
It was supposed to be a gesture of affection—gratitude, even. The long fox had just dragged a bundle of edible roots from the nearby brush, wagging his lanky tail in pride. Gildarts knelt down, ruffled the fur behind his large ears—and Pork popped into a dozen miniature versions of himself, all yelping in high-pitched panic.
It had taken him over an hour to reverse it.
It wasn't instinct. It wasn't emotion. It took focus. A grounding of breath, a stilling of mind. When he gathered his concentration, he found he could will the energy backward, reshaping the fragments into a single, confused, and drooling fox. Pork licked his face in forgiveness.
Gildarts hadn't touched him since.
— — —
That night, he sat beside the raft, the skeletal frame of his modified escape plan stretching out into the dark. He'd reinforced the base with flattened bark panels and added an outer rim of buoyant logs bound together with crude sinew rope. His hands trembled every time he worked. He had to wrap his fingers in strips of hide just to stop from obliterating whatever he held.
"Crush," he muttered aloud. "That's what it is."
He had seen the anime. Read the manga. Gildarts Clive, the powerhouse of Fairy Tail, had wielded it like a demigod. Walls shattered. Attacks disintegrated. The very earth crumbled at his feet. But this wasn't fiction anymore.
And he was not Gildarts Clive.
The ability felt too large for his skin. Like carrying a bomb in his chest.
Still, as the stars wheeled overhead and the wind crept across the hills of Long Ring Long Land, he couldn't deny the potential. It wasn't just destructive—it was protective, too. He remembered scenes where Gildarts used Crush to repel attacks, to absorb impacts, to launch enemies away with a simple punch.
If he could just learn how to dial it down…
— — —
The week passed in tension.
Every day he trained—slow, methodical movements with stones, leaves, broken tools. Learning when things crushed. When they didn't. When pressure built behind his palm, and when it didn't. Some days he could only hold a stick for ten seconds before it burst. Others, it stayed whole for minutes. Progress was there, but fragile.
His Observation Haki had improved as well. He could sense things now—Pork, scurrying on the edge of his perception. Birds, fluttering in the trees before they took flight. Once, he felt a predator watching him from beyond the northern woods—something large, slow, and carnivorous. He avoided it.
He also discovered something else.
The fruit's power responded to intention.
It wasn't just touch. It was focus. Sometimes, he brushed against a leaf, and nothing happened. But if he intended to crush it—even faintly—it would fold apart like origami cubes. Control was possible. It just wasn't easy.
He learned to punch without destroying his target—barely. His prosthetic arm began to show minor stress fractures. The thought of using Crush through the arm both terrified and excited him.
— — —
By the tenth day, the raft was nearly complete.
He'd expanded the design—adding a small central compartment with walls woven from reeds and hides to protect supplies from the ocean spray. He'd fortified the joints with plant resin and bone wedges. There was even a rough sail, made from stitched animal hide and a wooden mast. He had no compass, but he charted the stars at night, plotting a general direction using moss growth, sun path, and trial-and-error memory.
He'd stocked the hold with dried fruit, cooked meat, and several sealed skin flasks. In a wrapped pouch at the base of the mast sat the remainder of his precious, rare fruit collection—some of which he suspected had mild medicinal effects.
Tomorrow, he would leave.
That night, the sea howled.
— — —
Update Schedule:
11:00am-12:30am
Sunday: Break Day
Monday: 1 Chapter
Tuesday-Friday: 2 Chapters
Saturday: 1 Chapter