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[Sugar Rush]
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…
"This looks like a good place." Dan muttered, glancing around as he stood in the middle of the forest, then looking down at himself and scratching the back of his head. "Now then, how do I try this?"
Sugar Rush. It was time to activate it for the first time.
Sure, he just wanted to get a taste of it, so it didn't need to be anything complicated—but he wanted to do it right. Given the hack's effects, he wanted to actually test its limits while it ran, not just stand here looking around like an idiot.
The hack was also only supposed to last five minutes, which was a fairly limited window. Whatever he wanted to try, he had to move fast.
"Let's see..."
Looking around the forest, he mapped out a path. The most uneven and difficult stretch he could find—surfacing roots, low branches, dense bushes, and all kinds of obstacles that would normally force him to slow down significantly.
A path he'd actively avoid even during regular training runs.
Now? It looked like the perfect course to get a proper feel for what this Sugar Rush actually did.
"Phew..."
Dan let out a breath, smiling with a mix of nerves and excitement. At last, there was a new hack to try out.
"Took me a while, but the time has come."
He began stretching, working through the burn in his muscles while he thought over what else to add to the session.
"Whatever, I'm sure I'll come up with something on the spot."
The hack did say creative thinking got a boost too—whatever that meant in practice.
Warm-up done, he took a deep breath and straightened up, opening the system window.
"Alright then."
And so—
He activated it.
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[Sugar Rush Hack Activated!—Time left: 5 minutes, 0 seconds.]
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"...!"
The instant the hack went off, it was like a switch clicked inside his head.
The world around him stretched like rubber—like cranking a game's FOV to a thousand percent.
He couldn't see himself, but he was pretty sure his pupils had just blown wide open.
It was like getting hyper high—only with superpowers instead of lightheadedness.
Though, unlike what the hack's description had implied, the world hadn't slowed down.
No.
Instead, it was he who had become faster. His thoughts, his reflexes, his processing of visual information.
His perception of time was still normal—he didn't suddenly mistake a second for three, or an instant for a whole minute. A second was still a second. But in that single second, he could cram twice as many thoughts, notice twice as many things, and make twice as many decisions as he could before the hack's activation.
His body was still running the same. He wasn't stronger, more flexible, or physically faster.
In terms of physique, he was exactly the same.
But his mind wasn't.
"This feels weird." Was the only way he could put it.
But that was enough of being surprised.
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[Sugar Rush Hack—Time left: 4 minutes, 57 seconds.]
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The clock was ticking.
"Phew..."
He didn't waste another second and dropped into a running position.
The instant his eyes locked onto the path he'd chosen—
—BAM!—
—he felt his muscles pull and push, compressing into pure explosive power that transferred directly to the toes of his feet, digging into the earth and converting all that force into kinetic energy.
In an instant, he shot forward, the world stretching even further as he did.
The next few seconds were filled with amazement and invigorating hype.
As he tore through the natural course—packed with every kind of obstacle that would normally force him to slow down just to keep his brain from falling behind—now it was completely different.
He could see all of it, register everything with ease, and command his body to react accordingly.
Several tree branches and a bush blocking his path? His mind snapped to a small gap between them before he'd even consciously registered the problem, and his body was already threading through it.
Uneven terrain that would make anyone stumble? Every time his foot came down, he had already calculated the landing—the fraction of a second between seeing the ground and hitting it was more than enough for his mind to run all the math on its own.
The same went for everything else.
At some point he started parkouring—grabbing tree trunks, swinging off branches like a monkey.
Normally he'd manage it for a stretch before missing a grab and eating dirt.
Now he didn't. Every branch caught perfectly, every swing releasing at exactly the right angle and force to carry him cleanly to the next one or the best landing spot to keep his momentum going.
If there was any way to describe this state in a single phrase, it was locking in.
That moment when everything clicks and you start doing things perfectly, one after another, and the brain and your body feel like they're running at 100% capacity in sync.
Only this was even more absurd than those moments.
He even let out a laugh as he pulled something he'd normally be incapable of.
He had no idea how unhinged that laugh sounded right now. Probably pretty maniacal.
But he couldn't care less.
Every time he dodged a branch by a hair's breadth—not out of a near miss but because he simply didn't feel like dodging further. Every time he contorted his body into a perfect form on the move, his instincts barely keeping up with themselves. Every time he kicked off the ground and launched overhead to clear an obstacle too big to avoid any other way.
Every time he did any of those things, he felt more and more invigorated. Having the belief that whatever he willed, his body and brain would follow to accomplish it perfectly.
So invigorated, in fact, that before he realized it—he reached the end of the path he'd chosen, arriving at a small clearing.
As his feet landed on stable ground and his run slowed, his mind finally caught up, making him blink with a start as the growing hype began to descend now that the rush was behind him.
"Where am I?" He looked around, realizing he must have moved on pure instinct at some point and drifted off the circuit he'd planned for himself.
A small clearing. A pond nearby. Some trees with budding pears.
Quite the little paradise he'd stumbled into.
He let out a curious hum, then shrugged, jumped up toward one of the pears, grabbed it on the way down, and took a bite as he landed and began walking the perimeter of the clearing, taking in the small find.
-Thud!-
Just as he was looking around, however, the sound of something heavy landing behind him pulled his attention back.
"Hmm?"
He turned—and found a figure bigger than him casting a shadow over him and glaring directly into his eyes.
"A monkey?"
"Uh-uh-oooh!"
Brown fur. Dumb-looking face.
Dan nodded.
A monkey for sure.
He hadn't known they lived on these islands—not that he ventured this deep into the forest unless he was training or heading to his boat.
What kind of monkey, exactly? He had no idea. He wasn't an expert. If anything, it looked like a cross between a chimp and one of those long curly-tailed ones—basically the vivid image of what a cartoon monkey would look like if you made it real.
"Oooh, ooooh!"
It made a series of sounds and smacked a fist into its palm, glaring at him.
'The hell?'
Dan flinched. Somehow, it looked like he had angered it. He had no idea why—until it clicked. His eyes dropped to the pear in his hand.
'Oh. I barged into its home and ate its lunch. Yeah, I'd be angry too.'
He laughed wryly, tossing the pear aside and taking a few steps back as the monkey's aggression visibly climbed.
'Well, a fight looks unavoidable—hmm?'
Just then, something else caught his attention.
Something familiar about this whole scene.
'This... is this the cliché fight against an animal?'
Plenty of fanfic authors threw one in when their character was training—and even Luffy himself had done it in canon.
Was it really happening to him now?
"Heh." He let out a short laugh, planting his feet and raising his fists into a proper guard instead of retreating further. "Well, bring it on. A bit late for this kind of thing given how strong I've gotten, but fine—sword or no sword, you won't be much of a problem."
-Thud!-
-Thud!-
-Thud!-
-Thud!-
-Thud!-
Following his words, several more figures dropped down from the trees above, landing behind the first monkey.
At least five more of them. All glaring at him with the same hostile energy.
Dan's confident look dropped into a flat stare, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple.
"Hey, hey. That's not how this is supposed to go. This is meant to be one-on-one."
"Eeh eeh eeh."
They showed their teeth in wide grins. He didn't know whether that was an aggression display or whether in this world those were actual grins.
Either way, they clearly didn't care about fairness.
He was getting ganged up on. Without his sword, no less.
Staring in silence as the monkeys began closing in slowly, looking like thugs savoring the moment before the beat-down, Dan let out a sigh.
'No matter.' He thought, smirking and taking a step forward instead of back.
Normally he'd avoid this kind of outnumbered brawl without his sword—even if he could probably handle all of them easily, there was always the chance of a mistake, and getting bitten out here without proper medicine was not a complication he needed.
Unluckily for them, though, they'd picked exactly the day that couldn't happen.
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[Sugar Rush Hack—Time left: 2 minutes, 52 seconds.]
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"Good. Just running around wasn't all that fun anyway. Bring it on!"
...
°
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°
| Minutes later... |
...
Dan, now walking back through the forest with a satisfied look and a relaxed step, tossing one pear up and down, taking a bite every now and then, while on the other hand he carried a bag of more pears.
As you might expect, the fight with the monkeys was nothing complex. Yonko level the monkeys were not—and with the hack still running in the background, whatever chance they might have had at any other time was completely gone.
All of them ended up beaten, crying loudly, and swinging away through the trees without having landed a single hit on Dan.
There didn't need to be much more detail than that—except to note that with the hack active, five attackers coming from all directions simultaneously became something not just manageable but genuinely fun.
Not because their attacks were slow, the way action scenes get portrayed in a lot of shows.
But simply because he could react fast enough, and dodge well enough, that it stopped being threatening.
'I wonder if that's what Observation Haki feels like.'
He thought with a smile, taking another bite, feeling the sweet juices flood his mouth.
After a moment, he shook his head.
'Nah. This is enhancing the processing speed of my brain. Observation Haki should be about sensing intent, and later on even glimpsing the future. They sound completely different at a fundamental level, even if they seem similar at this level.'
…
'Well, it's not like I'll know firsthand for a while,' he thought, a snort escaping through his nose.
The truth was that over the past year—yes, a full year—he had tried to train for Haki.
After all, it was essentially the core of the power system in this world. If there was anything to develop as early as possible after arriving here, it was Haki.
Sadly, either his natural aptitude for it was poor enough that even SpeedyGains wasn't making a dent—which he hoped wasn't the case—or he was missing something fundamental about how to actually develop it.
Which, honestly, was very likely. Oda had been fairly ambiguous about the process, beyond showing Luffy's observation training consisting of being hit while blindfolded... And even that probably left out details.
Haki was described as something born from will. Maybe there was a spiritual side to it he had no access to yet.
Regardless, it all pointed to the same conclusion: he probably wasn't getting Haki until he found someone who actually understood how to develop it—which was easier said than done in this part of the sea.
While he looked dismayed at the fact that he wouldn't get access to that power any time soon, the sound of crunching came from beneath his shoes as he, at last, stepped into the sand of the beach.
The boat wasn't too far, even from here he could see it. So without much thought, he made his way toward it.
All while his mind remained elsewhere.
"That's a thought for future me, though." Dan thought, still on the Haki thing. "...For now I guess I'll have to make the most of what I have."
He took the last bite of the pear and tossed the core aside.
And by "making the most of it," he meant earning more NP, buying everything he could, and preparing as thoroughly as possible for what might be his first—and very possibly last—battle to the death.
'Strangely, I don't feel scared.'
He held up one hand, noting the lack of trembling. Of course, the fishman wasn't here yet, so there was nothing concrete to be scared of—but he didn't feel nervous either. No sense of impending doom.
Was it because part of him had already died once? Maybe that part no longer feared death the way it should.
Though the other part was still a young kid's. If anything, that should cancel it out.
'Well, I'm no expert on soul or memory fusion. For all I know, maybe I've always been a little wrong in the head and just didn't realize it.'
He let out a low chuckle.
"What are you laughing at?"
Dan's amused expression froze.
He was approaching the boat, a few meters from it, when he noticed someone was sitting on it.
With the orange hair shining so blatantly, the intruder's identity was unmistakable.
"Nami... why are you here?" He asked.
To his question, she jumped down to the sand, before patting off her clothes and giving him a slightly sour look.
"Bell-mère said dinner's almost ready. She sent me to come get you."
'Again with that?' Dan stared at her with a flat look.
He'd had dinner with them once, and since then Bell-mère had been including him every single time.
He appreciated it. But it also annoyed him.
After a moment of massaging his temple, he looked back at Nami.
"Forget that for a second—how did you know where my boat was?"
Their conversations so far hadn't been many, or particularly friendly, so he genuinely couldn't figure out how she'd found it. It wasn't close to the house—not a ridiculous distance, but far enough that most people wouldn't wander out there without a reason or a direction.
"Bell-mère told me the general direction," she said.
"Of course she did." Dan grumbled.
Then Nami started digging through her pockets. "The rest I figured out myself—with this!"
She pulled out a folded piece of paper and spread it open for him to see.
A map. Hand-drawn, of the island.
She held it up with a certain grandeur—turning her face away as if she were completely indifferent to his opinion—but the pride was obvious in how close she was to shoving it into his face.
He pushed it back a few centimeters and looked at her flatly. "I see. You made this, right?"
"Hm, yes."
"You must be a genius, huh?"
She smiled, clearly satisfied by the dishonest praise.
While she was distracted by that, Dan moved to inspect the boat.
"You didn't go through my things, did you?"
"Hmm?" She perked up at that. "Why? You have some kind of treasure?"
Dan's mouth twitched slightly at the glimpse of her usual trait from the show. Luckily he wasn't facing her, so she didn't see his expression.
"If you consider my underwear treasure... then yeah. Quite the haul in there."
"WHO WOULD CONSIDER THAT TREASURE?!"
Dan sneered at her outburst.
'A very old skeleton might—although I'm a man, so probably not.'
Smirking, he jumped onto the boat, stowed away the bag of pears he'd gathered from the clearing, and grabbed one to give to Nami on the way back down—tossing it without warning, which left her barely catching it with wide eyes—then landed back on the sand.
"Alright, let's go."
"Hmph."
'Did she really just hmph me?'
He gave her a flat look, and the two started making their way back through the treeline.
As they walked away, Nami gave the boat one last glance—eyes lingering just a moment longer than they needed to—before the forest swallowed them both.
Dinner was on.
...
°
°
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| Somewhere else in the East Blue... |
...
"HAHAHA, COME ON, BRING MORE BEER! YOU THINK YOU CAN SATE ME WITH JUST A FEW GLASSES?!"
-Crash!-
Inside a bar, a gigantic, hairy, and foul-smelling man laughed merrily with his feet kicked up as he tossed a glass toward the wall, shattering it in several fragments. Despite his hideous appearance, his long hair shone with a beautiful gleam—clearly maintained with extraordinary care.
Around him, several rough looking men laughed loudly too, lifting their still somewhat full glasses in cheers.
The man grinned, before looking around the place with squinted eyes.
"You've got quite the collection of my bounty posters around this pigsty. So I figured you already knew who I was, and knew my great taste for beer. If so, this pitiful amount of glasses—should I take it as you insulting me?!"
The bar owner, visibly sweating bullets, dropped to his knees.
"No, please. We... we only worried about your health. We didn't want to tempt you into overdrinking."
"Overdrink?! Me?! Manic Mane John?! Do you have any idea who you're talking to?!"
He drew his sword.
"That's enough consideration from my end. I think I'll make the world a better place by getting rid of such a bad bartender!"
"No, please!"
"DIE!"
—BAM!—
The spontaneous execution came to a halt as the doors of the bar were kicked open, sent flying off their hinges and crashing inward, dragging every eye in the room to the entrance.
Manic Mane John turned, looking furious at the interruption. "What bastard—hmm?!"
His eyes went wide as he saw who was standing there.
Then his mouth curled into a mocking sneer.
"What hideous thing crawled in here?! HAHAHA, look at you—are you some kind of freak? Did your momma fuck a fi—?"
—Swoosh!—
Before he could finish, the figure crossed the distance between them in under a second and, without the slightest warning, threw a punch.
—SPLAT!—
The pirate's face ceased to exist. Several chunks of skull, muscle, and other things best left unnamed scattered across the walls and floor of the bar.
"...!"
Then, under the stunned silence of everyone inside, the figure flicked his wrist in disgust, shaking off what remained on his red-stained knuckles.
"Y-you bastard, how dare you?!"
"You think you can kill our captain and walk away scot-free?! You're outnumbered!"
"Fucking freak!"
The pirates around the room rose to their feet, swords drawn.
The figure looked at them.
Then—
"SHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
—let out a maniacal laugh that filled the bar entirely.
Then he fixed his gaze on them, a murderous glint crossing his eyes as a devilish grin spread across his face, and his finger flicked back and forth beckoningly.
"Bring it on, you pests."
The pirates didn't wait another second, roaring in unison as they surged toward the killer of their captain.
...
Minutes later, the bar was stained red and littered with bodies—each having met a different end. Smashed, ripped apart, chest caved in, skull crushed.
The killer had enjoyed himself.
And he was still there, standing with a wide smile as he admired his work.
"T-thank you... without you, I don't know what would have happened!"
A voice approached. The figure's cold eyes shifted to the owner of the bar, who was bowing low in gratitude.
"Lift your head, bartender."
"Y-yes—hmm?"
When he looked up, he found the figure's large, scaly webbed hand extended toward him.
"What is...?"
"Money. Pay me."
"M-money? I see, yes, it's only fair. H-how much—?"
"A million beli. Your worthless life should be worth at least that much, right?"
"I-I'm sorry, I don't have that mu—"
—BAM!—
—CRASH!—
Before he could finish, the figure swung his fist in a clean horizontal arc, connecting perfectly with the bartender's skull and sending his body flying limply into the wall, where it crumpled to the floor.
"Then what use is there in keeping a lowly thing like you alive?" The figure smirked.
"Arlong-san!"
A figure appeared at the entrance. A fishman—one with octopus traits.
"What is it, Hachi?"
"We got some good information from the humans around here. Apparently there's a cluster of islands in this sea that sounds like the perfect place to make our base. It's far from any serious marine presence except for one weak branch, and there's plenty of villages and towns riddled with humans that we can use for both funding and as a labor force."
"Really? And where is this paradise?"
"Up north, pretty close to the border of the sea. It's an Archipelago called the Conami Islands. About a week from here."
"..."
Hachi was met with silence.
"Arlong-san?"
"Shahaha..." A low laugh built from somewhere in the figure's chest—then burst outward. "SHAHAHAHA!"
Arlong turned to Hachi with a wide grin.
"This must be the heavens blessing us, Hachi. For a place like that to exist… then what are we waiting for?! Set sail immediately!"
"Oh!"
As Hachi hurried out to tell the rest of the crew to prepare, Arlong's smirk widened, his sharp teeth showing.
"Time to give these humans a taste of what they deserve."
…
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-To Be Continued...-
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