Heaven Has No Limit Chapter 3 - Name Drop

They had no names.

Names were things that belonged to the living man, the free man, the man not condemned to servitude, the man not whipped in the morning and shoved into a crammed room with two hundred others at night. Names were things that belonged to men who did not reside in rooms so small that there was barely enough space to squat, to extend one’s legs, let alone to lie down and have blissful sleep. Names were things belonging to men who did not occupy rooms where the breath of others stank and reeked, as did the excrement of others, as did the sickness of others.

Names were things that belonged to men who did not have but a single five-ounce piece of bread as their sole meal in three days, men whose necks were not attached with collars primed to explode at the hint of tampering, and men who had not, and would not foam at the mouth as they feasted on grass and trees to calm their gnawing hunger.

Names were not a thing slaves had, for neither their Masters nor Jailers cared to or had interest in recollecting the names of every slave, every captured individual brought before them in chains, every pitiable soul whose fate would be deemed worse than beasts of burden.

“829234, do you know anyone called Fisher Tiger?”

“931301, how about you?”

“I’ve never heard of anyone like that. Ask 777829. The old man. He must know.”

“892202, that old witch, says it's either a Merman or a Fishman.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One’s got fins for legs. The other’s got legs for legs.”

Names were not things shared, nor given, nor asked. Amidst the slaves of Mariejois, asking for a name was tantamount to asking permission to unearth one’s dead wife for masturbatory assistance. Names were connected to pasts, and pasts were connected to histories, to families, to legacies, to times when they dreamed and hoped, to moments when they were men, true, living, breathing men, moments when they were human beings, moments when they had dignity, they had pride, they had agency, they had choice.

Moments when they had freedom.

For many, to use one’s name in subjugation was to defile that name with the stench of subjugation. Even as they doubted that salvation would ever be attained in their lifetimes, it was easier, more palatable, to relinquish names and relinquish identities when in bondage. They did so for the ever-slim hope that if liberation did knock on their door, they would shed the identity of a slave as though it were a winter coat now unneeded in the scorching heat of summer; they would adopt once more their name, their dignity, their lives, like putting on home slippers after returning from a wearisome voyage.

Not a single one of them understood why Saint Noah had given them such a task as part of his Games, to find a man with a name. Perhaps there lay the true challenge: finding a man with a name who was willing to give it. 

As a child and as a Celestial Dragon, perhaps the Saint did not understand that no one cared to remember the names of slaves, and slaves did not freely share that information. Indeed, not even the Celestial Dragons knew the names of their slaves, as plentiful as they were. There were those amongst them, female slaves, who had been taken as wives by his kind, and even then, that privilege was not afforded.

“Wife One, Wife Three, Wife Five.”

“Fifteenth Wife, Seventy-Seventh Wife, Ninety-Fourth Wife.”

“Wife A, Wife B, Wife B-Two.”

Not even the women who whimpered underneath their flaccid cocks were deemed worthy of names worth remembering, let alone the average slave, thus making it an even more difficult task of finding one individual. Worse still, some slaves were renamed entirely upon being purchased, with no care for appropriateness and with no care for their opinions. 

Once fearsome pirates, once dangerous and loathsome figures whose names invoked fear and awe and disgust, would be pointed at by a child and called “Tiffany.” 

And they would have no choice but to answer.

Indeed, finding a man named “Fisher Tiger” was the most difficult, if not, the most impossible game Saint Noah had ever put out. For slaves rarely shared their names, masters and jailers did not care for their names and regarded them by their numbers, and slaves could have long had their names changed or replaced by the whims of their masters.

However, the allure of Saint Noah’s reward was simply too grand to be ignored. Thus, efforts continued. Efforts intensified.

“Today, I’ll definitely find him!”

“No, I will!”

A week.

“Any luck?”

“Maybe we should just round up all the Fishmen!”

Two weeks.

“It's definitely a Fishman! Saint Noah said the last batch of Fishmen weren’t the right ones, but it's definitely a Fishman! Pay attention to all the Fishmen you find!”

Three weeks.

“When I find Fisher Tiger… I’ll remember you all once I’m eating good meals! Hahahaha!”

One month.

“Remember, all Fishmen are to be given to Saint Noah!”

The Quest for Fisher Tiger became a hunt for Fishmen.

Fishmen slaves were turned against by their fellow slaves, captured in the dead of night, ganged upon, beaten, and dragged, for the thin, slim chance that they were ‘Fisher Tiger.’

In this manner, Fishmen vanished, one after the other. All Fishmen given to Saint Noah, though they were not the ones he sought, never returned.

This continued until, finally, one month and one week after Saint Noah’s command—

One man, one Fishman, could not endure the disappearance of his people, their persecution, any longer. Running away from his masters, his collar still attached, knowing that doing so could mean death, he arrived at the opulent gates of the mansion known to belong to Saint Jaygarcia Noah, trembling, before he screamed at the top of his lungs.

“MY NAME—”

He had roared.

“IS FISHER TIGER!”

The guards had rushed forward, wishing to seek the source of the disturbance. They had gathered him, pinned him to the ground, and beaten him, but he had not been dissuaded. He had screamed his purpose; he had made it clear, as loud as he could.

“I AM HERE TO SEE THE SAINT!”

The reward was ten years of freedom. Ten years of freedom, that was what Saint Noah had said, that was what he had promised, what he insisted would be the reward to the slave that found Fisher Tiger. Saint Noah had, without fail, kept his word for all his games, and without fail, Saint Noah, this child, was undoubtedly the Saint of Liberation.

“Shut up!”

“This damned fish—”

“You think you can come here and make a ruckus! Kill him!”

“SAINT NOAH!”

Noah was the name of a promised ship, a ship constructed with a promise made ages and ages ago. A great ship said that in the future, it would have a grand purpose. Few were aware of this unless they were Fishmen or Mermen. Was it perhaps fate, then, that a child bearing that name had been searching for him? Was it fate that a person bearing that name was the ideal of liberation in the hearts of slaves? The hope for freedom?

“SAINT NOAH!”

Finally, after his cries came, his voice reached the high heavens, and his hopes were answered. A young Celestial Dragon, with hair the color of the sun, bright, yellow, golden, as bright as could be, and eyes the color of the sea, blue, clear, pristine, stepped forward, clad in a smooth, spotless, elegant white suit and tie, as Fisher Tiger was pinned down. 

He walked forward towards him and smiled.

“Fisher Tiger.”

“Saint…Noah…”

A crack echoed. 

In his blind hope, his desperation for liberation—

Fisher Tiger never saw the gun in the boy’s hands.

=====)+(=====

This is unusual.

At twenty-five years old, Guernika was already one of the youngest members of CP0. His skills had brought him here, and he understood his allegiances were to the World Nobles, just as he understood he was to serve the Celestial Dragons in whatever tasks they needed solved.

Being called upon by a Celestial Dragon child, however, by name was not something that happened often. The question of how his name was known was a mystery, one which he partially dreaded knowing the answer. Doubly so, because his information told him this child in particular belonged to the Jaygarcia Family. He was, in fact, a direct descendant of one of the Five Elders.

To say Guernika was tense would be an understatement.

“Saint Noah is in there.”

Arriving at the opulent mansion, the CP0 Agent, clad in his mask, took several deep breaths as he stared at the giant steel doors before him. Above it were the words enameled, Limit Breaking Room. Guernika did not understand what the words meant, or what limits exactly were meant to be broken. He had been told, already, and had gathered information that Saint Jaygarcia Noah was an oddity even amongst his kind. Word of his various ‘challenges’ was quite known, but, in truth, they were, all things considered, mild. Compared to the Native Hunting Competition to which, as a CP0 Agent, Guernika was well aware of, Saint Noah’s little ‘games’ were, quite literally, harmless games.

The doors swung open silently. The first thing that drew his attention was that the walls of the room were lined with seastone, as if this entire place was meant to hold or stop Devil Fruit Users. There was a grandiose swimming pool that stretched thrice the size of a galleon, and similarly, an incredibly large circular track, one clearly meant to be used for running. There was gym equipment, dumbbells, barbells, and other such items, in varying sizes, starting from the smallest of around twenty kilograms to the largest, which was in the tens of thousands of kilograms.

There, he saw him.

Saint Jaygarcia Noah.

Blond hair and striking blue eyes. The child, a child whom he was told was only about five years old, clad in a white shirt, was sprinting about on the track at full speed. At a speed that gave Guernika pause. 

Is that—

The thought was almost hard to consider, but his eyes certainly were not deceiving him. 

The boy, the young Dragon, stopped mid-sprint and turned to him. For a moment, the boy vanished from sight. Guernika’s instincts flared. He, too, vanished. The next moment, he appeared, stopping the boy from slamming head-first into the seastone-coated wall.

“Saint!”

“Saint Noah!”

“You! What do you think you’re pulling! Putting your hands on the Saint?!”

The guards all barked as one, grabbing their weapons. Guernika took a deep breath. Granted, he had acted to save the boy from injury, but he still touched a Celestial Dragon without permission.

“Quiet!”

Saint Noah lifted his hand. The boy was slightly disoriented. He looked to his guards and then waved them off.

“All of you, out!”

“Saint?”

Crack!

The guards rushed out of the room faster than Guernika could have imagined possible.

“What’s the secret?”

“I… beg your pardon, Saint?”

“How do you stop the tunnel vision of the Soru?”

That threw Guernika for a loop. A complete loop. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened and closed again. Indeed, Saint Noah had just displayed his usage of Soru, however slightly flawed it was.

Did he… Summon me here, just for an explanation on… Rokushiki…?

No, before that… how is a five-year-old child capable of using—

The level of leg strength required shouldn’t be possible unless…

“Saint Noah, first, may I ask… what sort of training you have been doing?”

“One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats. Ten kilometres run every weekday.”

W…what? 

“One hundred bicep curls. One hundred pullups. One hundred laps, backstrokes. One hundred laps, breaststrokes. That's on the weekends—”

Saint Noah continued.

“One hundred leg raises, One hundred crunches, one hundred underwater jumping jacks—”

There’s more…?!

“Saint— you—” 

You’re far too young to be doing all that…. Your body hasn’t even fully grown.

That was even more excessive than the amount of training he had done as an operative, and he had started at a much older age than the boy in front of him.

I don’t know of any Marines who train that much.

The vast majority of Marines used firearms and cutlasses and did the bare minimum. Those that did not simply relied on the power granted to them by their Devil Fruits. What was hard work and effort compared to ingesting a simple fruit and being able to wave your hands and bring hundreds of men to heel?

What could you possibly be training for?

As a Celestial Dragon, he had it all. Wealth, power, prestige, authority. There was nothing he could not have if he wished for it, so for what potential reason would he be training to such extremes?

The vast majority of Celestial Dragons were content to live entirely hedonistic, blissful lives, enjoying their slaves, their women, their fine meals, and varying sources of entertainment. Yet there was this one, this child, this boy, doing the opposite, pushing his body to its extreme?

“You want to know why I’m doing all this?”

As if the boy could somehow read his mind, he looked at him and smiled.

“One reason.”

A shockwave of pressure pounded Guernika’s skull and rattled him. His entire body shook. He backed away, almost rumbling into a hapless mess. He gasped and coughed, his eyes opening to the fullest that they had ever opened, and that Guernika believed they would ever open.

That… that was—

Haki!

Conqueror’s Haki!

Guernika, on his knees, looked up in disbelief. There was no mistaking it. There was no doubting it. This child, this Saint, had awakened the Haki of the Supreme King. The Haki that only one in millions could ever have, the Haki said to only belong to the chosen ones, to those deserving of being worshipped as Supreme Rulers.

This child… this child—

Will become a King!

There was no doubting it. Not a single individual with such Haki was ever a normal person, ever a person that could be understood by normal standards.

“Do you understand?”

Guernika did not understand, but he did not need to understand. The thoughts of a person with the Color of the Supreme King could not be understood by someone like himself. Much less one already born as a Celestial Dragon. Perhaps that was where it lay. He had everything, all of it; he had reached the peak of existence just by virtue of being born, yet he sought more, he still wanted to be a King, when he was already considered a God.

Perhaps, he sought to be a King of Gods? A God King?

To reign supreme above all of his kind? To reign supreme even here, in heaven?

Who was he to understand such a person?

Guernika would not dare. He did not dare. Yet, there was no doubt in his mind that this was an opportunity. An opportunity unlike any other that had been given. Called by name, brought here, by name, he had been chosen, been chosen by this child; he would be here to witness this child’s ascent! He would be here!

CP0 were loyal to the Celestial Dragons, but on this day, Guernika’s loyalties changed. From all Celestial Dragons to one Celestial Dragon!

“This Era…”

Saint Noah rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Will be my Era.”

=====)+(=====

“I’m supposed to do… what?”

“The order… came directly from a correspondent in CP0, ma’am. You were mentioned by name.”

Tsuru almost crushed the receiver of the Den Den Mushi, taking a deep breath instead. Thirty-six years. She had spent thirty-six years working for the Marines. At fifty-four years old, she had lived her entire life in dedication to her brand of Cleansing Justice. She had always known that the World Government had its faults; she had known, when she had joined thirty-six years ago, alongside Garp and Sengoku. The World Government was not perfect, she had known this, but she had believed it to be the lesser of two evils.

Until she learnt of how truly evil this lesser evil was. The dark side of the Celestial Dragons, of the slaves they kept, the horrors they inflicted, the genocides they gleefully relished in. Ever since then, Tsuru believed in her brand of justice, not the Absolute Justice of the Marines, which was one of the reasons she remained a Vice Admiral. It was also a way to avoid being directly at the beck and call and whim of those Celestial Dragons.

“I have no interest in running errands. I answer to the Fleet Admiral, not the Celestial Dragons. Make that clear.”

“Ma’am, there was an addendum. A message to be given, if you refused.”

“What message?”

“It said if you refused to perform this task, the Saint would personally pay a visit to someone called Kujaku.”

Tsuru went white.

How did… How did a Celestial Dragon know her granddaughter's name? How did they know of the existence of her family? Those Celestial Dragons barely cared to know the names of their own wives, yet there was one who had gone to such extremes to learn about her granddaughter? Her young, innocent, granddaughter?

Just the image of the things that could possibly be done if the girl got into the hands of a Celestial Dragon made Tsuru almost vomit in her mouth. The fate of the female slaves of those beings was a fate worse than death. Tsuru was well aware. She was horribly, bitterly aware.

Yet, it had always seemed so distant. So far away. Something that happened to others, not to people she knew, people she cared for. The possibility that such horrors would no longer be a distant thing done to strangers, but her own flesh and blood made the old woman's entire body tremble.

It made her question, for the first time, whether, at all, she had ever been on the side of justice.

“Ma’am? Are you there?”

Tsuru closed her eyes. She fell silent. There was silence on the other end of the Den Den Mushi.

“...Who am I to deliver the package to?”

“The King of the Germa Kingdom. Vinsmoke Judge.”

=====)+(=====

Word had travelled amongst the slaves. 

Fisher Tiger had been found. 

The winner of that Game had been uplifted. A young girl, a slave, had been taken away from them and had won ten years of freedom. Many envied her, many loathed her, many wished to be her. Many asked how she had found the famed Fishman, but the girl, sadly, was mute, and her hands, too, had long been amputated, which meant she could not write the answers. Thus, no one would ever know how she did it. No one would ever know how she did it, until perhaps, when she returned to them, ten years in the future, as a slave once again.

Alas, the search for Fisher Tiger was over.

All awaited, eagerly, for Saint Noah’s next game.

Indeed, Saint Noah did announce a new game.

The Isle of Women.

Amazon Lily.

Any person who brought him girls and women from such a place…

Would be made into royalty.