[Kaienreki Calendar 1501, Mid February]
Several weeks had passed since Lupin had managed to gain direct control over his spiritual energy and a lot had changed since then.
He had kept training his body very hard over this period of time, getting stronger each day, while the same went for his Haki.
He had made massive progress with his Observation Haki, doubling his range and figuring out the theory behind the technique.
While the name spiritual energy sounded as if it was something with a physical form, something substantial, that wasn't entirely true.
To Lupin it felt more like this spiritual energy existed in different states and when he used Observation Haki, it changed from something with form into a formless field covering his surroundings.
That wasn't all though, as at the same time the ability to predict an opponents move came from focusing ones attention on the created field, while simultaneously boosting ones mental capabilities with spiritual energy by gathering it around ones head, specifically the brain.
Similar to how his superhuman senses gave him a form of basic precognition, Haki could enable one to do the same and even more. His physical senses seemed to have a certain limit, but spiritual energy didn't.
Lupin felt that he wasn't too far off from achieving true future sight with Observation Haki.
As his control over his spirit got better, so did his Armament Haki. Even though he still could not use a stable Hardening for a long time, he had no problem in keeping up a stable invisible coating around his limbs, increasing his offensive and defensive capabilities greatly.
As for his Haoshoku Haki or Conqueror's Haki, his success in gaining more control over the technique was – mildly put – disappointing.
Even though not without clear improvements, which he had tested while hunting in his wolf form, they were minimal at best.
He now understood why Rayleigh had told Luffy, that everyone had to learn this type of Haki by themselves and that it couldn't be taught. This technique had basically nothing to do with the control one had over their spiritual energy, but was all about willpower and intent.
It would probably take Lupin a lot of time and training to get a good handle on that one.
Still, Lupin was the most happy about his surprising success in another technique – namely Seimei Kikan.
A few days after he had gained control over his spiritual energy, this particular skill had shown a massive leap in proficiency. Nowadays he was even able to control his own hair like his limbs.
He figured, that the saying 'mind over matter' did have some truth to it.
It seemed that as his mental strength had advanced to being able to take control over his spiritual energy, his control over his body had grown with it.
Now Lupin was finally also ready to start learning the Rokushiki, as he had set as his goal to first master Seimei Kikan before attempting to learn them.
Still, his top priority for the moment was his swordsmanship. The last few weeks he had focused most of his time on it. Becoming one with his sword completely, and being able to control it like his limbs and sharing the tactile sensations transmitted through the blade, as well as gaining a new-found sense for its movements.
And so it happened that he found himself standing at a mountainside in the woods, as practicing his swordsmanship would be too dangerous around other people, since he planned to train using flying wind slashes from now on.
He also planned to practice a more elementary form of Haki, which allowed one to cut even steel with an ordinary sword. Theoretically it should also allow one to leave a piece of paper wholly intact even if cut with the sword.
The essence of that technique was to only cut what one intended to and leave everything else completely unharmed.
Lupin's surroundings were devoid of trees and instead were filled with rocks, with made for perfect targets.
It was a rather cold winter day, but Lupin still only wore a pair of shorts, with a long hoodie and sandals. Taking off the sandals to have more direct contact with the ground, he stepped on the cold winter grass.
His shoulder-length black hair pulled into a loose horse tail and his crystal blue eyes brimming with vitality.
Taking a basic stance he swung his sword with as much power and speed as he could muster while still keeping complete control over its trajectory.
*FWOOOSH*
A Failure.
Even though Lupin could perfectly feel the air resistance and the blade pushing against the air, he couldn't adjust fast enough to keep the pressure from the blade focused and stable.
So he continued to swing his sword. Again and again.
Thanks to his advanced senses and his unity with the blade, he was able to feel himself getting closer to achieving success.
Hundreds of swings later, as Lupin was swinging his sword and adjusted the force he used to keep up the pressure perfectly, he finally succeeded.
*SWOOSH* *CRASH*
An blade made out of pure air pressure had been released from his blade, crashed into a nearby boulder and left a shallow grove in it.
"Sigh, finally succeeded... Damn that took quite a toll on my blade. It will probably break with a few more of those flying slashes. Good thing I used one of my spares for this practice... Well, no time to waste, let's see how many it can take.", he murmured to himself, as he sighed in content.
The swords quality was simply too low and couldn't endure the force with which Lupin swung it around, combined with the pressure from the wind slashes, it had gained a few cracks.
It seemed that Lupin had to hurry up and learn how to channel his Haki into his blades or they would all break sooner or later.
At least until he could find one that was durable enough to withstand his strength. Sadly, he only knew of a few swords that were found in the show and all of them were katanas, while he used long swords.
Well, if money couldn't buy him a weapon with a well-enough quality, he could always grab the Shisui blade from the Thriller Bark later on and go to the Wano Country. He was sure there was at least one blacksmith who could make him a decent sword in exchange for the katana. It was a national treasure after all.
There were also a few other Meito, like the one from Logue Town, which he could use to try and ask a skillful smith to make him a good blade in exchange for. Maybe there even existed a longsword among the Meito, which he could buy or at least search for. He wouldn't mind stealing a good blade either.
Still, he could have learned to coat his sword in Haki first to avoid damaging it, but he had simply wanted to learn the flying wind slash using pure strength and technique. Putting Haki into that mix, would not serve this purpose.
*SWOOSH* *CRASH*
*SWOOSH* *CRASH*
...
*SWOOSH* *CRASH*
*SWOOSH* *CRASH*
*CRACK* *SPLINTER*
After using the flying wind slash a few more times, and getting used to the technique, the sword had finally given out on him and broke.
Luckily he had brought more spare swords, which were his spoils from the two pirate raids in the last three month. The enemies had been a lot weaker then in the first two raids, so the spoils hadn't been that great.
Still, it had helped him in getting half a dozen spare swords and some money. He had also been able to get more battle experience and tested the devastating effects of Armament Haki in battle, as he had fought only using his hands.
It had been a rough experience, feeling someone's skull crack under his fist and flesh tearing from a kick.
Nevertheless it had helped him strengthen his mindset quite a bit. And even though he still felt a bit nauseous, he had not hurled again after the first time.
It had been like an old acquaintance had once told him in his past life.
The man had studied medicine and the first time he had seen a human cadaver, he had thrown up. Later on he had told Lupin, that his professor had said it was the same for everyone and once they got used to it, they would stop feeling nausea. The human mind was very adaptable and could get used to basically anything, the same applied to gore, blood and death.
Taking a sword from the two he had brought with him, he continued with his training. It took a few swings to get used to the changed weight and balance of the new blade, but soon enough he also sent slashes of wind pressure flying from the blade.
Though he stopped after he succeeded a few times, noticing the minuscule cracks on the blade.
Sighing, he decided that without Haki or a higher quality sword, he would probably destroy all his swords in a day of practice.
So having no other choice, he channeled his spiritual energy into the blade with the pure intent to shield it from harm. As it was his first time doing so, it took him a bit to coat it in an even and invisible layer of Haki.
It seems he would need to speed up his training of the Hardening technique, solely to keep his blades protected.
Nevertheless, this amount of Armament would be enough to keep the blade protected from his current strength. Of course this would change with his growing physical strength and also with increased proficiency in the flying wind slash technique.
The greater the pressure the more Haki he would have to use to protect his blades. Still, this could prove to be a great training exercise for both his swordsmanship and Haki training combined.
Swinging his sword again at the same massive boulder, he produced another wind blade. This time though it was easily several times stronger, almost tearing completely through the whole boulder.
*SWWWOOOSSSSHHH* *CCRRAAAASSHHH*
Continuing in his practice, while trying to perfect his movements and strength output, he also tried to keep his Haki coating stable to minimize any influence on the variation of the resulting attack.
Lupin solely tried to perfect the technique using skill and his superb muscle control.
An hour later he felt himself almost drained of his spiritual energy, so he sat down between the destroyed boulders to meditate.
Luckily for him his monstrous regeneration held true even for recovering his spiritual energy and only a few minutes later he was good to go and started training flying slashes again.
For the rest of the day he did this repeatedly, until the sky was starting to darken and he went home to eat dinner with Kindred and Ina.
In the past Ina hadn't eaten dinner with them, but three weeks ago when the Doc had decided that she was healthy enough and had to look for a new home to live in, Kindred had decided to take her in.
Ina was the only friend Lupin had ever made and the only person besides himself who he even talked to in the village, so Kindred himself was very fond of Ina. Thinking that she had managed to connect with Lupin where everyone else had failed.
Money also was no issue with him and Lupin getting a major part from the spoils everytime a raid happened, in addition to his savings.
Many old comrades, who had no family, had also left him with their belongings after their death. That had also been the reason he only tended to a small garden in his free time and hadn't had to worry too much about money, while he was raising Lupin.
He had simply paid a few villagers for the work and had them add an extra room for Ina to stay in.
Ina had been more than happy to move in with the two.
The only person she really trusted and felt safe around was Lupin himself and the old man had also only ever been kind to her. With Lupin's presence it made it easy for her to relax and get used to Kindred being around.
The new living conditions had also been a boon to her training, as she could now use Lupin's training area to train by herself anytime of the day.
Lupin had simply taught her a bit of close quarters combat and swordsmanship, but he had realized relatively fast that she wasn't suited for the sword. That wasn't really a problem though, as for now he just told her to train her body into top shape and keep up the CQC practice.
Later on he planned to teach her some of the Rokushiki, if she reached a satisfactory level of body strength. Otherwise he did not bother all that much about her training, being too preoccupied with his own to give her his whole focus.
Fortunately Kindred had a lot of free time and had decided to spar with Ina regularly to teach her some tricks.
Ina herself understood that Lupin took his own training very seriously and that he would not be able to guide her as a teacher everyday, so she gladly took on Kindred's guidance. He was more than qualified to train her in the basics afterall.
Still, Ina had asked Lupin if he would teach her Haki, but he had directly declined and reasoning that it would be better for her to simply focus on basic training and fighting techniques for now.
It would take up a lot of his time to train her like Rayleigh had Luffy, time he did not want to spend at the moment. He still had so much to learn himself afterall.
It also wasn't needed for her to know Haki for the moment. She could get plenty strong without it first. Kindred had at one point also introduced her to some basic staff-fighting techniques he had picked up from a colleague in his youth, to which Ina had taken like a fish to water. Weapon mastery, body training and sparring matches with Kindred were more than enough for now to help her improve her strength.
So as Lupin reached the house, he saw Ina still outside training some moves with the staff on her own. Sneaking up to her unintentionally, as he was used to moving quietly when hunting in his wolf form, Lupin scared Ina quite a bit when he just started speaking to her: "Come, let's go wash up. It's time for dinner."
"Eiihh!"
Jumping forward and turning around staff in hand, Ina looked a Lupin with a embarrassed frown on her face.
"Don't sneak up on my like that, Lupin!"
"Force of habit.", the boy answered nonchalantly.
"That's no apology."
"I wasn't apologizing. It's your own fault for not being able to notice me. You should probably train your senses some more.", Lupin reasoned.
Knowing that what Lupin said made perfect sense, Ina was left at a loss for words and unable to reply, while Lupin simply turned around and walked to the backdoor of the house.
Still frowning little, Ina followed him after a short moment, while she was lost in her own thoughts on how to improve her ability to be more aware of her surroundings.
They then went to the bathroom and took a short bath together, as they always did. There wasn't anything sexual about it, not only because Lupin was only six at this point. But simply because the bond they shared was special in a way where they didn't mind the other's presence even when vulnerable like this. What this bond would turn into once they got older, even they did not know.
Lupin's sixth birthday had been a few days prior, which the three of them had celebrated together with a small cake that Kindred and Ina had baked together.
As a present Kindred had just bought some more clothes for the boy and a whole barrel of sea king meat. The barrel had costed more than two million berries, but with the spoils from the pirate raids and as a special occasion, Kindred thought that it was okay to order some from the Grand Line.
The meat was very nutritious and had helped improve his body's physical condition even faster over the last few days. He could now lift roughly 3.5 tons of weight, which was a considerable improvement to half a year ago. Of course he had not neglected his dexterity and flexibility, making sure to keep a good balance between his physical attributes.
Shortly after, they were dressed in a set of new clothes Ina had picked out, as he honestly could not care less about that. They sat down at the dining table with Kindred having already prepared the meal, making small talk and enjoying each others company.