From The Ashes - 007

Chapter 007 – Sky

[2012]

I owed it to years of combat experience that I gained in the Army and the transferred yet blurry memories of the First Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates that I was still calm even in this highly intense situation.

I nevertheless acted fast as I approached and grabbed the Tesseract but I did it in a steadfast and precise manner without losing my focus, despite knowing that I only had a tiny window to escape without any major conflict.

The moment that my Haki-coated hand came into contact with the Tesseract though, I knew that I had made a mistake as the cube's presence in my perception changed instantly.

It didn't feel as if I had touched a lifeless object.

Instead, it felt as if I held something in my hand that was alive in a way that I couldn't explain, but the rather ethereal foreign memories in my mind told me that Marco had experienced something similar when coming across a katana with a black blade.

I had no clear image in my mind as to what the weapon had looked like but its presence under Observation Haki seemed incredibly similar to the cube as far as I could tell, even though it was much weaker.

Sentience, that was what it felt like. Like an object with sentience. And therein laid the problem.

Haki was the ability to consciously utilize one's spiritual energy for various purposes, those purposes though didn't always have to be connected to combat.

This was especially true for swordsmen who truly understood the purpose of Haki and the potential of spiritual energy as they would use it to nurture their blades into a 'Black Blade'.

The result though wasn't just an increase in durability or heightened sharpness but the creation of a truly sentient blade. Naturally, that didn't mean that such a blade knew how to communicate or that it had intelligence, but it would have a will of its own.

That didn't mean that other weapons couldn't have a will of their own, it was just that all 'Black Blades' had a will while the same was not true for other blades.

During that same process, most swordsmen would also connect on a deeper level with their blades, forming a bond that went beyond the need for words, which was an effect achieved through the usage of spiritual energy.

I understood all this from Marco's memories as he himself was a sword wielder, even though he didn't pursue the path of the sword with any real fervor.

As such, I realized that by coating my hand in Haki when touching the cube, I had basically opened myself to this sentient 'weapon', which naturally didn't come without consequences.

I tried to withdraw my spiritual energy immediately but the Infinity Stone inside the Tesseract had already been roused into action, and when the first blue arc hit my chest and rushed into my body, I couldn't stop myself from crying out in agony.

“ARGH-!”

A storm of cosmic energy erupted from the cube almost instantly with me as the center, charring my flesh and burning my bones, causing the blue flames that lived within my blood and soul to burst forth and heal my wounds within instants.

The sudden excruciating pain in my chest though caused me to fall to my knees as my consciousness blurred for a moment, and I hazily relived some memories that I had tried to bury in the depths of my heart.

…

A high-pitched buzzing sound in my ears, a suffocating pain in my chest, I looked up at the clear blue sky while slowly bleeding to death.

I knew that I had just been shot in the chest after pushing one of my subordinates out of harm's way.

The shot was fired from a high-caliber sniper rifle, so my vest was useless in offering any form of protection.

I wasn't sure where I had been hit as the pain was just too great for me to identify from where exactly it came. It was as if had been paralyzed as my body was in a state of shock, unable to save itself from such destructive wounds.

My mind though seemed strangely disconnected from the suffering of my body and I couldn't help but admire the beauty of the open sky.

If that was the last thing that I would see before dying, I strangely didn't mind as I had no one that waited for me to return from my service anyway. My parents had died in a car crash a few years back and I had been alone ever since.

Some would say that the Army had become my home but that wasn't true. It was just the only place where I didn't have to search for a sense of belonging or a reason for my existence.

Here, I just did what I had to do, first as a member of the squad, and now as its leader.

I could feel myself being dragged somewhere else as my thoughts became more and more muddled while my eyes never stopped looking at the clear sky.

But the sky vanished suddenly as I was carried into a building or loaded into a car, I didn't really know as I wasn't in the state of mind to care about those things.

I just knew that something blocked my gaze while black spots began to appear in my vision, I started to lose consciousness when suddenly 'she' appeared.

The helmet hid her beautiful blonde hair that would feel like silk when brushing over my skin while her protective gear concealed her slim curves and graceful figure. Even her face was only partly visible, her small nose and full lips covered by a piece of cloth.

And while I could vaguely hear her call out to me while she performed some emergency treatment, I didn't really care for any of that as I just looked into her eyes, their bright blue colour bringing back the sky.

…

Abruptly opening my eyes, my gaze fell on the pulsing blue cube which constantly struck my body with a burst of cosmic energy, the look in my eyes one of pure desolate rage as I gritted my teeth and suppressed my screams.

Instantly, I stopped passively enduring the deadly barrage as I opened the gates to my soul, spiritual energy gushing out like a world-ending tide and filling my body with truly monstrous strength.

I brought my other hand forward to the cube, fighting off the raging cosmic storm around me as I laid both my hands on the sentient object.

I roared in anger as I stopped restraining the mystical fire within myself, letting in burn as it pleased while cursing the Infinity Stone for causing me to remember the day of our meeting. Forcing me to remember that she was my sky and my hope, her loss leaving my heart bleeding and incomplete.

And then I crushed the cube with one wrathful burst of Haki.