Luffy stormed off through his Mirror World, ignoring the voice in his head asking if he was okay, if he was upset. Yes, he was upset. He hadn't been this angry in a long time. He shouldn't have said all of that stuff about it being Katakuri's job. But it was true. Their relationship was based on a deal that Luffy would cooperate in return for benefits from learning his fruit.
It was different now, though. Things had changed and he felt he had changed, even if he was still empty a lot. Even if he still didn't know who he was really, and that he didn't fit into this "family". But, after being taken care of, he had started to want to be more than just the new powerhouse. He hated that term so much but it was the best one to use.
He wandered through the Mirror World for hours, though he left a slime track to find his way back to the original mirror. His Mirror World was blue, not purple like Brulee's. It was bigger, but not taller. When he thought about the differences between the Mirror World between the two of the users, he wondered if any of his other powers differed from those who had the original. He hadn't even met all of the devil fruit users in Totto Land due to his importance and not really wanting to meet the ones who didn't accept him anyways.
Why would he want to be rejected face to face? Luffy wondered how much Katakuri was paid to house him. He didn't know when he wanted to go back home and face the man he was angry at insinuating that Luffy would ever lose control and kill everyone. The only one that could do that would be the quake-quake fruit, which Luffy thought his body couldn't even handle yet. He was still small and had heard that it even made Whitebeard a bit sore. And Whitebeard was bigger than Katakuri was.
Luffy explored deeply into the Mirror World before the boredom came full force, and he just sat down against the wall. If he wanted, he could probably live in there, but he couldn't create things like beds or blankets or anything comfortable. At least it was a good place to be alone.
"Let's find Ace and Sabo."
Well, at least alone outwardly. "Go away," Luffy mumbled.
"I wonder where grampa is, too."
"I said go away," Luffy grumbled, becoming irritated. The voice in his head was quiet for a few minutes. Then, it popped back.
"Don't you miss them?"
"I have no idea who they are. They were probably before I lost my memory. I don't feel like looking back. There's no point, they haven't come to find me even if I've ever met them before. You should give up on ever seeing them again," Luffy said in his monotone voice.
"I'll see them again. I know it."
"Good luck with that." The voice stayed quiet a bit, and Luffy decided he didn't need Katakuri to teach him lethals. He could learn by himself. Just take trips into the Mirror World and enter uninhabited areas or islands not under Mama's care. No one would care about Luffy trashing other islands because no one knew about him yet. He wasn't in the papers at all, and didn't have a bounty.
Luffy wore a smirk, wondering if Katakuri would be mad about him learning on his own. But, then he wouldn't risk hurting them by losing control. If he wanted Luffy to not risk their safety, fine. But they'd be doing this Luffy's way. He wished he was taught to read already.
Luffy knew about three of the most lethal powers, but there was only one of them that he was excited to learn. The paw-paw fruit, which makes shock bombs, the quake-quake fruit that causes earthquakes and tsunamis, and the thud-thud fruit, where he can control gravity. That one sounded the coolest. This was a test now, of Luffy figuring out how to use the power without explicit instruction from Katakuri. But he could do it. If Katakuri didn't trust him to be able to do it under supervision, then Luffy would just have to do it by himself.
He didn't want to ruin the Mirror World, so he asked the mirrors for some place where no one lived. It was hard to find a mirror in an abandoned place, but he did find one. The mirror was dirty, and in a rotting house on a small island that no one lived on. He cautiously left the mirror out of the dilapidated house, making sure to take it off the wall and carry with him.
He hadn't been on an island that wasn't themed after food in a long time. He walked out onto the beach and sat down, laying the mirror on the ground on the sand out of reach for the water sloshing back and forth on the beach.
Luffy wanted to work on his gravity powers. Katakuri had briefly described gravity before, but Luffy had been younger and it was clear Katakuri hadn't been an expert on it. "Gravity is the natural force that causes things to fall to the earth." Luffy had not been interested in it at the time, so he hadn't asked for any more specifics. Before Katakuri told him he couldn't control his powers, the six year old was going to ask him about it.
He constantly observed dropping things, imagining slowing them down, but it didn't work. He couldn't get anything to float or stay up, making it so something didn't fall to the earth. Around two hours of no success, he took a break, though he was irritated and angry. He tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths and making himself some water out of sand.
"What if you made things blow away?" the voice in his head said.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know."
Luffy sighed. Blow things away, huh? He looked to the side and imagined moving the sand to the side like a breeze. Nothing happened while not looking at it, but when he put a hand out, a small amount of sand flew up into the air. Happy to see some results, Luffy continued to direct his hands in one direction, imagining some sort of strong force coming out of his hands.
"Point!" the voice said, actually being helpful for once. Luffy pointed one finger in the direction and blew trees out of the ground and into the air, crashing and making a sizable hole through the foliage.
"You're actually helpful for once!" Luffy shouted, jumping up and down, happier than he'd been in awhile. He accomplished something completely on his own! If only he could read! Now that was an ability he wished he could learn on his own.
He practiced more and more until he could blow tunnels through the ocean water and expose crabs under the water before it came sloshing back into place. After he was satisfied with his progress, he went back into the mirror and made sure he left that next to the mirror that lead to his new practice island.
Katakuri was waiting at the bathroom mirror when Luffy appeared again, face blank but cold. He walked straight past Katakuri and into his room. But, he wasn't left alone and the man followed him. "What?" Luffy asked flatly.
"Where did you go?" Katakuri asked in an angry voice.
"I explored." And it was the truth, just not the whole truth. "I wanted to get away from you." The man winced but not enough for Luffy to notice.
"I'm only concerned about yours and others' safety by not helping you with lethals yet," Katakuri tried to explain.
"Okay. I'm tired and going to bed," he said, not sincerely. He wasn't okay with it, but it was is go-to answer whenever he didn't want to talk. Katakuri sighed, but didn't want to make the argument worse, no matter how snotty Luffy was being. But, the man did feel bad for not noticing his true feelings. It was his fault after all, that Luffy didn't share anything about what was happening with him internally. Because of the second mind-wipe he'd ordered.
If Luffy ever found out, Katakuri really didn't know what the boy would do, or what he would do.
-x-
Luffy practiced at his mystery island at every chance he had to not get caught, which wasn't much. Katakuri was training him on enhancing his sneaky abilities for his first mission, which Luffy was getting excited about for once. He got to leave Totto Land and use his powers for something practical. He wasn't going to be successful for his family, he was going to prove himself to himself and Katakuri.
He didn't really care what the others thought. The train of wanting to be close to them had long since departed. He had a feeling they would never accept him no matter what he did. He pretended not to care. Well, he didn't care about them in particular since they were all assholes, but he wished he was accepted at least somewhere.
During his training alone, he listened to the random suggestions that the voice in his head would say. They were always followed up with, "After this, can we go see Ace and Sabo?" Of course, Luffy still had no idea who they were or if they even existed, but he didn't lie to the voice and said "no" every time.
By a month of practicing alone late at night or when Katakuri was sometimes on a mission, he was able to control the gravity fruit to his liking, though he wouldn't use it around other people yet because he often went too hard and the island was partly destroyed already.
When Luffy had told Katakuri he'd learned enough about the clear-clear and calm-calm, he asked to learn the glare-glare to help him with his mission. Unlike most of his powers that caused something physical, changing some part of his body or creating something, this fruit all had to do with his mind.
For some reason, Katakuri was hesitant to teach him this fruit, but it would be essentially helpful for a stealth mission. So, they practiced it even while Luffy slept. Which was difficult. Very. But, it helped, and he had dreams of what was happening in his room. At night, it was limited to his bedroom and the hallway, but during the day, he could see all of their island. The problem was that it gave him a headache afterwards, so he wouldn't be able to use it much on the mission that was creeping ever closer.
Katakuri would be taking Luffy to the island the target was known to have escaped to after defeating their big brother.
-x-
The day before his mission's started, Luffy was nervous. He hated seeing Big Mom. She was rude and annoying. Always stuffing her face while talking with her mouth open. Or ordering her spineless children around, and them doing nothing to protest even if they were ordered to do things they didn't want to. Luffy couldn't wait to surpass the woman.
Though, he'd never shown disrespect to her. He didn't want her trying to take his lifespan, if it would even work with him. He was wearing nice clothes. Meaning, not ones that had any sort of stain on them or were stretched from Luffy's fruit. Katakuri lead him to Whole Cake island through the Mirror World, Brulee's, since Luffy's was only for him. Luffy hadn't been to the Chateau in awhile.
When he and Katakuri entered the room Big Mom spent most of her time, she gave the creepy smile to the boy, who kept a blank face on, already wishing the briefing was over. "Hello, Luffy," Big Mom said sweetly. So sweet it grossed Luffy out.
He just nodded his head in response. "Did Katakuri tell you at all about your mission?" Luffy nodded, and explained what Katakuri had told him.
"I still don't know who to kill, though," Luffy admitted. Big Mom grinned, clearly wanting to be the one to tell him.
"A fool from the Worst Generation defeated one of your older brothers, one of the strongest, and escaped. I want you to find and kill him using the powers you have right now. This is very important," Mama stressed.
"Okay." Big Mom didn't notice Luffy's change, but after being given this response many times, Katakuri saw it. That luffy was becoming uncomfortable and wanted to leave. "I'll do the best I can to make everyone happy."
He'd rather just make everyone surprised and impressed than happy, but Luffy knew Big Mom wouldn't want a reply like that. It would seem as if he put himself and his feelings before the family that he worked for. Soon, officially worked for. He was told the powers of this person, Urouge. Luffy wondered how he would do this with the fruits he had if he couldn't use lethals on him.
Clear-clear, calm-calm, flower-flower, rudimentary glare-glare, stick-stick, mirror-mirror, bubble-bubble, hollow-hollow, cook-cook, heal-heal, thud-thud. Including his body always being made of rubber though he hadn't specialized that ability to use for attacks. Eleven mostly mastered devil fruits. Not completely mastered as some didn't have many attacks, including the hollow-hollow fruit which only allowed him to control the annoying ghosts.
Urouge was a pirate, meaning he had a crew that might be strong. Luffy thought he could take normal ones, but he hadn't really fought another devil fruit user, especially one that wasn't vulnerable to many attacks. But, he tried not to think about it too much.
After the meeting, Luffy headed home to get some sleep. The attack had only happened a month ago, and the island wasn't too far from here. The Charlottes had been given updates from their protected island that Urouge had landed on to heal from the tough fight. He could turn attacks on him into strength, but that didn't mean he was able to heal himself easily. The fight had been close, so he was still healing.
But, he had to be back on his feet by now. Luffy would pull it off though. He knew that the Big Mom pirates were cruel, but not that they were liars. Katakuri told him that the captain had given the boy permission to destroy her protected island for one guy. Luffy would do it, not that he agreed with it, if he had to.
He didn't want to resort to that though, because everyone would die if he used his thud-thud fruit.
-x-
"Are we going on a trip?" the voice in his head asked the next day when the mission started and Luffy was in his Mirror World. The plan had changed last night so it didn't take so long. Since Luffy's pocket dimension was bigger and stretched out farther than Totto Land, instead of Katakuri bringing him to the destination on a boat, Luffy would find a mirror onto that island and just go through there.
Now he was truly alone in this, besides with the voice in his head.
"Yeah. But it's not gonna be super fun," Luffy replied. "And no, it's not to go see Ace and Sabo. I gotta kill some people."
"Killing is bad."
"That is debatable."
"What's debatable?"
"Nevermind..." Luffy sighed. He swore that the voice in his head was four years old or something.
"Find me a mirror to Akamari island!" Luffy shouted. His voice echoed down the hall until he heard a shout of, "Me! Pick me!" Luffy hurried towards the mirror calling to him and looked into it to see it lead into someone's bathroom. He slowly went through the mirror, invisible but not sound proof and went through the house. It was night time, and he was unused to a house sized for someone normal.
The residents were all asleep, thankfully, and Luffy easily left the house and out into town. He was told to assume Urouge was on his ship, so Luffy walked to the coast of the small and forested island. Not finding the ship at the port, Luffy walked the circumference of the island until he came across it. He was wearing a black, tight outfit with soft shoes instead of barefoot or boots he usually wore to places.
The long sleeve shirt and pants didn't really help with the cold of the night on the fall island. But luckily it wasn't snowing. If it were, his invisibility would be for nothing as someone could see his footprints as they were made.
The ship was fairly large, but nothing interesting. Quite boring. He hid behind a tree near the shore and closed his eyes, projecting his sight to the ship and what he would call zooming in so he could see inside. Many people were asleep in shared rooms, while there were three lookouts on the ship.
Everyone were correct that Urouge wasn't back to full power and still had some bandages on. Luffy wasn't surprised since he had fought one of the four strongest Charlottes there were, up there with Katakuri and Smoothie.
He did his best to memorize the ship's interior before stopping before he got a headache. The boy turned invisible and ran at the ship, turning off all sound as he climbed up the side with a ladder of arms.
He ignored the pirates on lookout and headed straight inside, bypassing rooms he knew were full of sleeping pirates. Luffy knew of haki, and couldn't use it so he felt he was on a time limit before someone found him on the ship, even if they couldn't see or hear him. These were New World pirates, so it was assumed they knew haki.
The ship was about as boring on the inside as it was outside. It was easy to make sense of the inside and use the information he already had from his glare-glare fruit. The infirmary's door was open, and Luffy found the captain having a check up, saying his arm hurt. Luffy let go of the silence and punched the door lightly, before bringing the silence back.
"What was that?" the doctor asked. Luffy heard him coming towards the door, and the moment he came into view, Luffy silenced him, too, and formed arms on both shoulders, snapping his neck easily and catching his dead body before it fell, even if it wouldn't have made sound.
"Who's there?" Urouge asked in a dark voice, clearly having noticed Luffy's presence and the doctor's disappearing. Luffy walked into the room slowly, closing the door behind him and revealing himself. No longer invisible.
"Who the fuck are you?" Urouge asked, standing up. He was quite large, though not as big as Luffy's older siblings. If he hadn't been exposed to people five times his height, then he might have been intimidated by this guy's size.
"I'm here to kill you," Luffy said bluntly. He had snuck on the ship without getting caught. There was nothing anyone said about being sneaky with the killing. Besides, Luffy would rather go all out and actually get good practice on his fruits, and maybe even having some appear while under stress and pressure to stay alive and not waste the revive-revive fruit.
"Oh? A little runt like you? Yeah right," the man with wings said. Luffy just looked unimpressed.
"He seems like a mean guy, I don't like him." Luffy had to agree with the voice in his head.
Luffy wasn't physically strong enough to stop or injure this guy, but he had eleven devil fruits. A couple were useless and none were very good for fighting, but he had to do it. He put a finger out and pointed it at his target and slammed him down to the wooden floor, increasing the weight of gravity until he couldn't breathe.
Luffy walked forward and bloomed arms and hands out of the ground to lock around him like ropes. He also covered him in stick so there was no way he could get out. "I've been sent here from Big Mom to avenge the son of hers you defeated."
The man looked angry at this. "That bitch sent a child after me?!" He was offended by this, that someone would send a child after him. But then it clicked, and he remembered what had happened two years ago. "You're the kid that ate the all-all fruit!"
Luffy didn't respond only to increase the gravity. He had ten minutes left before the room was no longer silent. But, the man was strong, even if he was injured, and broke through Luffy's restraints. The boy was shocked for a moment and that was what Urouge needed to get up and out of range of Luffy's finger just for a second. He was fast, and Luffy didn't know haki. But, when he was punched in the gut very hard with the man's uninjured arm, he didn't feel it thanks to being rubber. Instead of being hurt, he got slightly taller. Both of them looked a bit surprised at this. Then Urouge turned angry and Luffy realized that he'd never been told about this fruit, meaning it hadn't been in the encyclopedia.
Luffy grinned at him, and pointed at him again, shooting a harder beam of gravity. It was stronger than the last and Luffy assumed that his version worked differently than Urouge. It wasn't physical strength that got stronger, but his devil fruit powers.
Urouge slammed into the wall, making it crack and burst open into another room. Since that wall had been part of the room, it's destruction hadn't made a sound. The enemy was bleeding from the mouth as he was coughing blood from a punch nobody could handle. Luffy shot stick at him from open palms while he was stunned and trapped him against the floor he was laying on.
The stick hardened more and he couldn't get it off. Luffy felt that his extra arms couldn't twist a neck that damn thick, so he wandered around the room, keeping an eye on his prisoner, for something sharp. He didn't find anything helpful, which he was a bit bummed about, until his arm suddenly turned into a blade, each finger into small razors. Urouge's eyes widened as Luffy approached.
"How embarrassing," he taunted, enjoying the feeling of overpowering someone very much. "You'll die all alone, no one seeing how you go out. And you had just beat a Charlotte sweet commander, to be defeated by a little boy." The man's eyes grew in fear, and Luffy slammed his whole arm down and blood splattered everywhere.
Luffy washed his body off with the bubble-bubble fruit and got off of the ship, leaving his dead body on the floor. Still, none of his crew knew about what had happened, all asleep. Luffy used his stealth tactics again, since that was technically the point of the mission, and got off the ship.
Standing at the shore, he pointed both palms towards the ship and let loose the strongest burst of gravity and tore the ship into pieces, endless pieces of wood flying up and into the air, until all that was left was broken chips and huge pieces of wood. And a few bodies.
On his way back to the mirror he'd come from, Luffy decided to tell Katakuri about the power he'd shared with Urouge, but not the blade one or still the gravity power. He was going to hide the fact he was practicing lethals without permission, which would just anger his caretaker. Plus, he wanted to show that he could learn on his own. He would let Katakuri know about them once they were all completely mastered.