Garp stayed for two weeks.
In those two weeks Ronald learned something important about the man — he never did the same thing twice. Every morning was a different kind of suffering. Not random suffering. Calculated suffering. The kind that found exactly where your body was comfortable and then pushed past that point until comfortable didn't exist anymore.
The first week had been running and bodyweight work. The second week got worse.
"Pick it up," Garp said.
Ronald looked at the boulder in front of him. It was not a small boulder. It was the kind of rock that had probably been sitting in that spot for a hundred years and had no interest in moving.
"That's not a training rock," Ronald said. "That's just a rock."
"Everything is a training rock if you're strong enough," Garp said. He was eating a rice cracker and watching Ronald with the energy of someone at a picnic. "Pick it up."
Ronald looked at it for another second. Then he bent down, got his arms around it as best he could, and lifted.
It moved about two inches off the ground before his legs started shaking. He held it there for a moment — arms burning, teeth pressed together — then set it back down.
He stood up straight and looked at Garp.
"Good," Garp said.
"I barely moved it," Ronald said.
"You moved it," Garp said. "Three months ago you couldn't have moved it at all. Next month you'll move it further. That's how it works." He finished the rice cracker and brushed his hands together. "People want strength to arrive like weather. It doesn't. It accumulates. Like debt."
Ronald looked at the boulder. Then back at Garp. "Like debt."
"The work you do today is a loan. Your future body pays it back with interest." Garp shrugged. "I didn't come up with it. An old man told me that when I was young. Took me years to understand what he meant."
Ronald crouched down and wrapped his arms around the boulder again.
He lifted.
Three inches this time.
---
Luffy was having his own problems nearby.
Garp had tied a rope around Luffy's waist and attached the other end to a tree at the top of a slope. The idea was apparently that Luffy had to run down the slope while Garp held the rope from behind, creating resistance. In theory it was a reasonable training method. In practice Luffy kept tripping over his own feet and rolling down the hill like a wheel.
"Get up," Garp said from the top of the slope.
"I'm up," Luffy said from the bottom, already standing, covered in dirt, grinning.
He ran up the slope again. Got halfway. Tripped. Rolled down.
"Get up."
"I'm up."
Ronald watched this cycle repeat itself four times while he worked on the boulder. On the fifth attempt Luffy made it three quarters of the way before tripping. On the sixth he made it to the top.
He stood there at the top of the slope breathing hard with his hands on his knees and looked at Garp.
Garp looked back at him.
"Again," Garp said.
Luffy groaned so loudly a bird flew out of a nearby tree.
Ronald turned back to his boulder.
---
In the evenings things were quieter.
Garp would sit outside Makino's bar on the bench with a drink and sometimes Ronald would sit nearby. Not always talking. Sometimes just existing in the same space while the village wound down around them.
One evening Garp spoke without any preamble.
"You know what Haki is?" he asked.
Ronald kept his expression neutral. "I've heard the word."
"From where."
"Around. People talk."
Garp looked at him sideways. It was the same look he'd been giving Ronald on and off for the past week. Like he was trying to solve a puzzle that kept rearranging itself.
"Haki is will," Garp said finally. "That's the simplest way to put it. It's not a Devil Fruit power. It's not something you're born with in the way people think. Everyone has it sleeping inside them. Most people go their whole lives without waking it up."
"What wakes it up," Ronald said.
"Different things for different people." Garp looked at the road. "Extreme emotion sometimes. A moment where your will refuses to bend no matter what's in front of it. A near death experience. A decision that costs you something real." He took a sip from his cup. "You can train it once it's awake. But waking it up — that part can't be forced. It happens when it happens."
Ronald was quiet for a moment. "Have you seen it wake up in someone young before?"
"Once or twice," Garp said. "It's rare. When it happens it's — obvious. Like a lamp being turned on in a dark room. You can't miss it." He looked at Ronald directly. "Why?"
"Just understanding the mechanics," Ronald said.
Garp held his gaze. "You think about things in a very structured way for a seven year old."
"Is that a problem?"
"No," Garp said. "It's just unusual." He looked back at the road. "Most kids your age think about food and games. You think about Haki mechanics and navigation rules and training methodology."
Ronald didn't say anything to that.
"I'm not complaining," Garp said. "I'm observing." He finished his drink. "The D. in your name. You know what it means?"
"No," Ronald said. Which was half true. He knew what he'd read. But he didn't know — not the way someone who'd lived in this world their whole life would know.
Garp was quiet for a long moment. The night moved around them. Somewhere down the road a cat knocked something over and ran.
"It's a name that carries weight," Garp said finally. "People who carry it — they tend to walk toward the center of things. Whether they want to or not." He stood up from the bench slowly. "Just something to be aware of."
He went inside.
Ronald sat on the bench alone and looked at the dark road.
*Toward the center of things,* he thought.
He already knew that. But hearing it said out loud by Garp — by a man who'd watched it happen with his own eyes more than once — made it feel less like information and more like a fact of gravity.
He sat there for a while longer. Then he went home.
---
The last day of Garp's visit arrived without announcement.
Ronald found out the same way he found out most things in the village — by noticing the shift in atmosphere before anyone said anything. The Marine ship was being prepared at the dock. A couple of Garp's men were moving supplies back on board.
He went to find Luffy and found him already sitting on the hill above the dock, watching the ship with his knees pulled up to his chest and his straw hat pulled down slightly over his eyes.
Ronald sat beside him.
They were quiet for a while.
"He does this every time," Luffy said eventually. "Comes and goes. Comes and goes." He wasn't complaining. Just stating it. "I used to cry when I was really little. When he left."
"Not anymore?" Ronald said.
"Nah." Luffy pushed his hat back up. "I figured out that missing people is just proof you were glad they were there. So I just try to be glad instead."
Ronald looked at him.
Sometimes Luffy said things that sounded simple and turned out to be the most reasonable thing Ronald had heard all week.
"That's a good way to think about it," Ronald said.
Luffy shrugged like it was nothing. "Grandpa taught me that actually. Which is funny because he's the one who keeps leaving."
Ronald looked back at the ship. "He'll come back."
"Yeah." Luffy nodded. "He always does."
---
Garp found them on the hill before he left.
He climbed up with the ease of someone for whom hills were a mild suggestion rather than a physical obstacle and stood behind them looking out at the water.
"I'm heading out," he said.
Luffy jumped up and hugged him around the middle without saying anything. Garp put one big hand on top of Luffy's head briefly. Then Luffy let go and stepped back and put his hat back on straight.
Garp looked at Ronald who had stood up.
"Keep at it," Garp said. "The foundation you're building now — it'll matter later. More than you probably realize."
"I realize," Ronald said.
Garp looked at him for a moment. Then he did something Ronald hadn't expected — he reached out and put his hand on Ronald's shoulder the same way he'd done to Luffy. Brief. Solid.
"I know you do," he said quietly.
Then he turned and walked back down the hill toward the dock.
Ronald and Luffy watched him go. Watched the ship pull away from the dock slowly, turning out toward open water. Getting smaller. The Marine emblem on its side catching the morning light until it was too far away to see clearly.
Luffy watched until the ship was completely gone from view.
Then he turned to Ronald with his regular grin back in place like someone had switched it on.
"Want to race back to the village?" he said.
Ronald looked at him. "You'll lose."
"Probably," Luffy agreed. "Ready? Go!"
He sprinted off before Ronald could respond.
Ronald watched him for a half second — already twenty feet down the hill, arms flailing, hat nearly flying off — and then ran after him.
He didn't catch up on purpose.
He told himself it was because the terrain was uneven.
It wasn't because of that.
---
*End of Chapter 5*