Since his first arrial to Karate island, Isaac has felt only one thing: boredom. Here he is, a winged man from Skypiea, capable of flying around, and he's found himself on the only flat island in the entire ocean, where you can basically see on end of the island from the other. It was so dull, and that was before he got into the people. They were either martial artists or farmers, most were probably both to be honest, and they spent basically all their time training to be stronger or farming for food. There was no adventure on this island, and everyone knew who you were, or who you weren't. Isaac was in the northern village of this T-shaped island, and there must have only been around 100 inhabitants, maybe more from general tourists, but there weren't many tourists. Not many people came to this island for a vacation. As such, no one in the entire village once took their eyes off of Isaac, which was ironic if nothing else. The blue shirt he was currently wearing, he had bought that for the specific reason of not wanting anyone to stare at him for his wings, which were hidden beneath. And now, simply because he was there, having nothing to do with his wings, these men, women and children, all trained to fight and, most likely, kill, were staring at him with so much intensity, it felt like if he made even a slight wrong move, they would all pounce like predators to their prey. The entire village felt deathly quiet, despite the fact that many people were still going about their daily business, simply because, whenever anyone did speak, it was in hushed tones, like they did not want anyone to really know that they were speaking. It made Isaac feel a little uncomfortable honestly, but if any one of them tried to hurt him, then they would be in for a rude awakening. Slung across his back, that everyone could see, was Tweedledum, his long ranged rifle, and holstered across his belt was dum's brother Tweedledee: his dual shot flintlock pistol. Both weapons he had acquired from Orange Island shortly after destroying a band of pirates that, in a manner of speaking, he owed for bringing him down to the Blue Sea. But he also owed them for burning down his entire village, killing all his friends, making him watch his mother and father die, and also turning him into their slave and transporting him down to the Blue Sea. Although, to be fair to the now dead pirates, he had offered to be their slave so that they would stop the violence and spare any other village in the land. but regardless, the weapons had both been used by officers, the pistol actually used by the captain himself: Grundy, and they were both impressive looking, despite being generally rather fragile in terms of the materials used to create them: mostly wood with some iron for the barrels. And, the worst part was, neither one of them were armed. Obviously Isaac wasn't very well going to advertise that fact, and instead trying to make everyone believe that they were in fact loaded and ready to kill, but the truth was, after having killed the officer and the Captain, they had both completely emptied the guns of all ammo, and Isaac hadn't had enough time to look through their corpses for any more. As such, his two weapons were, right now, simply a means of intimidation, because otherwise the martials artists of Karate Island no doubt would descend on him. His facade was the only thing keeping them at bay, but all it needed was for one of them to initiate it and then they'd all discover, which Isaac was constantly praying would not happen.

Hoping to get away from the stares of the inhabitants, many younger children only copying their parents', Isaac decided his best bet for finding a place to stay currently, as he had only arrived on the island earlier that same day, was to check out the inn, and so he did just that, walking through the doors, renting a room for the next few nights, and then bought himself a drink to sit down at a table tucked neatly away from prying eyes. Not that he had anything to hide, but they were really starting to annoy him, and he just wanted to be alone for a few minutes. Clearly that didn't work out well for him as a large man, large even by Karate Island's standards, walked into the inn, grabbed a drink and sat directly across from Isaac, clearly wanting to start something. Reaching for his gun at his side caused the man to speak, in a hushed voice much like the one's used by the people outside when they spoke, evidently not wanting to get shot by imaginary bullets,

"Wait wait wait, don't shoot. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to hire you for something."

That caused Isaac to pause for a moment and think. Hire me? What the hell does this guy want me to do? Please Lord, don't make him ask me to kill anyone, I can't be dealing with that right now. While he had been thinking, he had not noticed that he had sat his gun down on the table, pointing it at the man, and gesturing for him to continue.

"Good good, thank you. Now, listen to what I'm about to say. My name is Wan, I am the sensei -what you'd call the master- of the Wan Dojo and I need your help. My biggest rival right now is the Wu dojo, and I am running out of Beli to pay the upkeep for my dojo. Wu, on the other hand, is thriving, because he has something I don't: a ruby the size of your head. I don't know where or how he came by it, but all he does is chip away at it and use it as his currency. It is enough to last the dojo more than one lifetime, and that's what I need. I've seen you walking through our village, I know what you've been thinking, and you're right. No one here likes you or trusts you, you have no allies here, and I'm not suggesting we become allies either, but you have nothing to lose, and quite a lot to gain. Our nation is independent, the marines won't take you if your caught, you'll just rest in our jail cell for a few days. But that is my job for you. Steal that ruby from Wu, and I'll make it worth your while. Steal that ruby, and we can both be happy."

"Steal that ruby from Wu, and I'll make it worth your while. Steal that ruby, and we can both be happy."

Those words had echoed through Isaac's head from the moment Wan had spoken them, up until this moment now, as the Winged Marksman stood outside the grandly designed and very impressive looking Wu Dojo, even had its own sign with a red dragon snaking its way through every letter. It almost felt like an omen, considering Isaac would have to be the dragon, and make his way through guards and students alike to get to his prize, without raising an alarm or anythign of the sort. Despite the fact that this was the easiest way for him to make some money, he couldn't help but really not want to be here. He had already created a plan to successfully infiltrate the dojo, a very roughly thought up plan in all fairness, but it was something at least, and so he decided now would be the best time to get started. Otherwise he'd end up just walking back to the inn, as this was something he really did not want to do. the plan was simple enough, but it required him to leave his pistol and rifle in his room at the inn. Sure they didn't have any ammo, but they had been the only thing keeping him alive, and now he was about to walk into a place where people trained to become capable of killing someone easily, someone just like Isaac. But it had to be done, so he walked in through the great iron doors which, if the sign hadn't been intimidating enough, they pushed it just over the edge, and into the main building. He walked up the reception, looked at the receptionist, a man that looked more like a bouncer capable of crushing Isaac with one hand than a receptionist handling administrative tasks. Taking one deep breath as the man looked at him, Isaac spoke the ten words he'd never want to hear himself say again.

"I'd like to sign up for Martial Arts training please."

The next few minutes were all a blur of people asking him multiple questions about his past, all of which he made up answers to, as he had already created a false persona for himself earlier for this moment. Currently his this man, while still being Isaac Taylor, was originally from East Blue, and had travelled here after his village had been attacked by pirates. He now wanted to get stronger to protect those he loved which, to be honest, wasn't entirely false, except for the whole being enthusiastic about martial arts training. That was probably the hardest part of this mission, but it had to be done if Isaac wanted paid for his deeds. He was quickly told to change into a new outfit: a disgustingly clean white gi with a perfectly white belt to show that he was a complete novice, which was a shame, because he bet he could outsmart and defeat most of the trainees here that were higher belts than him. Probably not the highest ranked fighters due to him having left his guns back at the inn, but the other novices, definitely. They were basically nothing to him.

Isaac had to trudge through an entire day of practice before he could get down to business. The first few hours had been 'theory' martial arts, which had basically consisted of an old man standing in front of the class and speaking about how the true 'essence' of the arts came from the 'spirit', and that a true warrior could crush a skull with one hand, and yet hold a butterfly in the other. It was very graphic, and the pictures did not help at all, but after hearing the old man say that 'martial arts was not for killing, and was a way of life' at least a good twenty times, Isaac then had to move onto practical which, despite being infinitely more fun and entertaining than the theory, was still a bore for the Skypiean. He was basically given a block of wood and told to break it within the day. If he did, he would be able to meet Grandmaster Wu personally and train directly under him, skipping the belt system entirely and progressing all the way to Expert already. Out of interest, Isaac did try to break it, but when he saw the wood begin to crack, he decided what the hell, took a deep breath, bringing his hands from his side up to form a prayer motion above him, then bringing both hands to his mouth, and slicing the wooden beam with all his might. he had taken a few steps back, giving himself a run up where he made an extremely overexaggerated jump due to his wings giving him a little more propulsion and, of course, the beam shattered. It had already been weakened, but they didn't know that, and so they took him to see the Grandmaster which, despite all assumptions, was not the old man from the theory test, which was a little disappointing. No, Grandmaster Wu was large, larger than Wan had been, and knotted with muscle all over. His arms alone were larger than Isaac's entire body, which was impressive. Wu looked at Isaac, and beckoned for everyone else in the room (a few masters and some guards) to leave. After that, he brought out the prize itself, the grand ruby. The Dragon's Eye he called it, and he explained it was where he had learned how to truly focus on his martial arts. It was all rather dull, and so the moment he was finished, Isaac requested to leave and sleep, as he was 'getting tired after a long hard day of training'. Luckily he was given leave, and he went to his room, where he sat on his bed for a few hours, memerising the way back from where he was. he took off his gi, put his trousers back on, but not his shirt. He flexed his wings, something he hadn't done for a while, and flew up into the rafters of the dojo, which luckily were hidden in the darkness and all connected with every room, much like a ventilation shaft. All he had to do was follow it along where he had been, staying quiet when the guards approached, and eventually he made it to Wu's chambers, where the ruby was resting right next to a sleeping Wu. Being as silent as he could, Isaac descended onto the floor, trying not to make a sound. He saw the ruby, and grabbed it with both hands, expecting an alarm to go off, but there was nothing. Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked down at the ruby in his hands, and saw somethign past it that made his heart sink in an instant...

The opened eyes of a martial arts grandmaster.

There were many reasons why Isaac had never been fond of martial artists. The first and primary reason was that they all thought their art was the strongest, and usually never bothered with any other. Even if they became grandmasters, it was only ever of one art, they never experimented with any others, which the young Skypiean thought was unecessarily impractical. Why should you only focus on one fighting style? That sinmply meant anyone could create a fighting style specifically designed to directly counter your own, which in effect made you useless, weak, and unable to do anything. Also, Isaac was a ranged shooter, a marksman, and it felt to him that, no matter how strong someone was, it meant nothing if you could take them out from range before they had any idea where you were firing from or even who you were. It was quick, painless, and was easy for anyone to master and merge with any other skills one possessed. But there was one reason, one main reason that Isaac hated merial artists more than anyone else, and it was very simple, yet excrutiatingly irritating: their ability to sleep light, and wake up at the slightest movement.

That annoyance was being felt right now, as Isaac stared into the eyes of Grandmaster Wu, holding Wu's giant ruby in his hands, clearly intending to make off with it. There was a moment, a solitary moment where Wu and Isaac simply stared into each others eyes, each willing the other to make the first move, and so Isaac did just that, jumping into the air, using his wings to give him the extra lift to narrowly avoid Wu's hand reach out for him. Wu called out for the guards, all of whom came in and saw Isaac's face, knew who he was, knew they had been betrayed by the new recruit, before Isaac flew through the rafters, out the great iron doors, and back into the wilderness of Karate Island, but he couldn't go back yet, there was no way he could get the ruby to Wan with the entire Wu dojo after him, so he fled into the wilds of the island, where he had heard few people lived. He found a close by village. Well, not a village persé, more so a collection of small huts, a lot smaller than the village he had just escaped from, but it would have to do. He stayed among the people for a few days, until he was sure the dojo had stopped chasing him, before walking, having managed to acquire a shirt from the people that was nothign like the original. The original, a smart looking light blue shirt, had been replaced with a vest top made of, albeit comfortable, smelly brown fabric, but he didn't mind it all that much. So long as his wings were hidden, which they most certainly were under the outfit, but only just. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do for the time being, at least until he found a way to either buy a new shirt or get his old one back. He walked back to the village, posing as a trader from the plains hoping to purchase some food for his village. His new outfit had also come with a large fur coat, which came with a hood to hide his head from any prying eyes, as well as allow him to sneak around where he desired. He knew the inn was a bad place to meet, so he decided to head straight over to the Wan dojo, a much more modest building than the grandios Wu dojo: this building only had three floors at most, compared to the luxurious seven of the Wu. Even the sign, which had been a flamboyant dragon symbol to incite fear in any new recruits over at Wu's, was a simple black painted sign that, for all intents and purposes, looked like it could crumble at any moment. In fact, the same could be said for the entire structure. Wan must've been one hell of a teacher, or sensei as he preferred being called, if he had been able to rival Wu's dojo with this mess. But regardless, Isaac walked in and, having not been met with a receptionist or anyone for that matter, continued walking in towards the centre, where he found Wan alone, watering some plants in a moderately large garden set in the middle of the dojo. Sitting next to the sensei, Isaac spoke, in a hushed tone so as not to startle the man too much.

"I hope you didn't write me off as dead while I was away, did you?"

He didn't need to see it, Isaac heard the man smirk, as he looked up at his thief and congratulated him for all his work in obtaining the ruby, and told him to follow him to his office, where his payment awaited him. Entering the office, Isaac saw a pouch of money, and so he grabbed it and left. But that was not the end of it. Not at all.

Walking past the garden, Isaac had been too preoccupied with the money in his hand that he had missed such an obvious disguise. A man, watering the plants while Wan had been away. Upon further inspection, if Isaac had been smart enough, he would've recognised the man. After all, he had just stolen a ruby from him. Outside the dojo, Isaac was surrounded by martial artists, roughly ten of them, too many to fight without any weaponry, and so the young Skypiean was forced to surrender. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wu give Wan a large pouch of money, as Wan returned the ruby to its original owner. And it was then that Isaac, late as always, noticed that he had seen Wan before today, before his return to the village. He had been masked with powder to hide his face and make him look older than he was, but without a doubt, looking at his posture. The one man that made Isaac more than anything, the old man that had spouted nonsense about the true meaning of martial arts and, as Isaac finally grasped the truth between the dojos, the names, the deals, everything, and it was so simple, but in his haste he had missed it, such a simple deduction.

Wan and Wu, they looked similar, almost identical.