Chapter 66 The Players of the Pirate World
Rayleigh sat on the floor of the ship's guest room doing a variety of long and painful stretches. Due to the continuous development of his capabilities, his body training regimen went through several advances throughout the years. The current method was to wear Divine-Script Enhanced Weights while using Overdrive to overclock his body and move faster than his weighted body could withstand, causing all manner of wear and tear until right before he completely broke down. Then he'd spend the night using 2nd Level Zetsu while meditating. This completely sealed all the Force and Aura in his body, enhancing his recovery abilities to their absolute peak. After a night of this, he would no longer be broken, just really, really sore.
The problem was that although he could use this method to somewhat cheat in the gaining of muscles, he could not cheat in the toning and development of those muscles. In order to prevent himself from swelling up into a bodybuilder-looking brute, he had to spend a full week after each session stretching everything out until the soreness naturally healed. This forced the recovering muscles to heal and grow into tight cords rather than bloated balloons. He could not speed it up either or he'd end up building inefficient muscles that would get in his way in the future. Because of this, Rayleigh was always sore and needed three lengthy and painful sessions of stretching a day.
The only reason this type of training even worked was because Rayleigh had complete control over his body. A mastery of the Marine's Six powers also granted a complete mastery over the body's internal functions, something Rayleigh already somewhat had thanks to a creative use of the Force. By combining the two, he could literally forge his body into exactly what he wanted as long as he followed the precise forging process.
His mental training was even crazier. Most skills gained proficiency through continued usage, so Rayleigh's Wills often spent every second of every day practicing the skills that did not require physical movement.
Since Rayleigh could use In to hide the pressure of his Ren, he was able to practice Kō and Ryū even while performing daily tasks, rapidly shifting the concentration of his aura to various parts of his body as systematically as possible. He would use Shū on his clothes or shoes to practice strengthening them without being noticed while using En for as long as possible to practice extending its range.
He always had at least one Will maintain a constant state of meditation to further enhance his connection to the Force, and he had other wills practice skills like Gyō, Clairvoyance, Shatterpoint, and Precognition to grind their proficiency and strengthen the effects of the skills.
The rest of his Wills usually visualized combat with each other using different variations of his swordsmanship to see what was effective and what was not while gaining experience. His swordsmanship was constantly being analyzed, refined, and upgraded.
At the moment Rayleigh was on a Marine ship sailing on an enormous whirlpool. The giant hole beneath Enies Lobby is what fueled this massive whirlpool known as the Tarai Current. The Marines built their three most important bases on the edges of this current so that they could use the current to quickly sail from one to another. The distance between each of these bases was vast, but on the Tarai Current, the journey only took a few hours. If you tried sailing these distances on the Grand Line, the same journey would take days if not weeks.
Soon the ship would dock at the second of the three most important structures the Marines owned, Impel Down, the Great Prison. On the journey to Marineford, the Marine HQ from Enies Lobby always passed Impel down so they usually took the chance to drop off supplies and more newly caught inmates. That meant that this journey was not even halfway over. Since he had time to kill, he decided to do what he had been avoiding since coming to this world and opened up the Pirate World Chatroom.
[Swordsman has signed in]
[Dragon Chef: I wondered when you would pop in. Wild King has been b*tching about you all day.]
[Swordsman: Oh? Does his mother want to speak with me about making her precious little baby cry?]
[Lightning Lord: Hey Swordsman, you're not gonna join the Marines are you?]
[Justice: Wild King said you came to kill or extort everyone you taught.]
[Dyna Might: Hey Swordsman! I got a bone to pick with you! Why didn't you say anything during that Hunter Exam! You made me look like an idiot.]
[Immortal Beauty: Are you here to learn proper swordsmanship?]
[Dragon Chef: I got plenty of Swordsman skilled in Haki on my crew. I have the largest crew of any Player in the sea. You should definitely join. We throw the best parties, WITH THE BEST FOOD!]
[Swordsman: I paid for an Identity that Mihawk will agree to teach swordsmanship to, but only if I get a front-page story about my swordsmanship in the Grand Line News. That's also why I messed with Wild King. It wasn't personal.]
[Glitter: Bomb-boy, you don't need anyone to make you look like an idiot. You accomplish that every day all on your own.]
[Wild King: Don't believe that lying F*cker! He killed my favorite Sea King!]
[Fire Queen: Boo hoo. You think any of us would have cried if you died? Instead of wasting time talking to fish, maybe you should actually try working out.]
[Invisible Man: Wild King needs to change his name to Wild Kitten.]
[Mimic: He can't. Everyone gets a default name and can change it once. His name used to be Aquaman.]
[Gravity King: Wild Bro doesn't even lift.]
[Immortal Beauty: I think you can change your name a third time if you pay Mission Points at the Tavern.]
[Swordsman: What's with all the King and Queen names?]
[Fire Queen: It shows that we are competing with each other to become the King or Queen of the Pirates.]
[Dragon Chef: So what are your plans, Swordsman? Need some help?]
[Dyna Might: Where are you Glitter?! I'm gonna shove my fist down your throat and see if your Diamond Fruit protects your insides!]
[Swordsman: I'm heading to Marineford to spar with a Vice-Admiral who knows how to use a sword.]
[Captain Jack: Are there any Vice-Admirals that specialize in the sword?]
[Justice: Wait, you're coming to Marineford? I'm there now! Let's meet up later.]
[Mimic: Momonga and Strawberry are the only ones that specialize in using swords and don't have a Devil-Fruit. But Although Strawberry is likely going to be promoted to Vice-Admiral soon, he is still a Rear-Admiral, so that leaves Vice-Admiral Momonga.]
[Lightning Lord: I remember Strawberry. That guy has Marge Simpson's hairstyle. He even has a really tall hat to cover the entire thing.]
[Mimic: That's not his hair. His head is actually very, very tall.]
[Lightning Lord: Wait, seriously?!]
[Captain Jack: Even after so many years, I still can't get used to the body proportions of some of these guys.]
[Wild King: I still don't think we should trust Swordsman. He's been here for a while but only joined the Chat recently. I bet he's up to something.]
[Titan: If he was up to something sneaky, wouldn't he have already done something when opening our Aura Nodes?]
[Justice: Yeah, remember when Shadowcat learned in the Hunter World how dangerous it was to manually open aura nodes? She even accused Swordsman of crippling everyone secretly since he could have done that if he wanted to.]
[Gravity King: I wish I could have gone and awaken mine with you guys. Wonder Woman tried opening mine and killed me.]
[Wonder Woman: Hey, that was an accident! I said I was sorry, so stop bringing that up!]
[Immortal Beauty: I did explore the Hunter World and independently confirmed that everything he taught us was real. He even gave better explanations and more detail than any of the Nen Masters I found on my own. If he is trying to Con everyone, he must be going for the really Long Con.]
[Dragon Chef: I have never had a single problem with my body or abilities after Swordsman awakened my Nen. If he wants to beat you, he'll do it when you are at your best and even help you get there. Hey Wild King. You made it sound like he snuck up from behind and stabbed you in the back, but I'd bet my entire treasure room that Swordsman gave you a fighting chance before taking you out, right?]
[Swordsman: How strong is Wild King compared to everyone here?]
[Titan: Pretty much the bottom, not counting those who don't fight. Fire Queen, Gravity King, and Sandman have all died once but after making a new character they are still stronger than Wild King.]
[Dragon Chef: I'm the strongest of course, with Titan being number two.]
[Titan: For now. Our record in the Tavern's Arena is still 40:42. Three more victories to me and you won't be calling yourself the strongest anymore.]
[Gravity King: It's easy to get stronger like me when you can use mountains and islands as dumbbells.]
[Justice: Hey Swordsman, do you think you can beat Vice-Admiral Momonga?]
[Captain Jack: If he can't then he should change his name to something else.]
[Immortal Beauty: Isn't Little Ms. Freeze a sword user too?]
[Justice: Yes, Goddess of Ice is training her sword skills under Officer Bogard when Vice-Admiral Garp stays at Marineford. I think she's been lurking in the General Chat to avoid Wonder Woman after their last argument in the Chat caused her to turn the mess hall into an iceberg. I'll ask her if she wants to spar with Swordsman.]
[Swordsman: Is she the best sword user among the Pirate Players?]
[Captain Jack: Probably. She and I are the only ones that really devote time to sword training. Everyone else either uses a gimmick or devil fruit.]
[Dragon Chef: She's out of luck then since her Ice Sword would melt the moment it touches a Lightsaber.]
Rayleigh spent the rest of the journey chatting and fishing for information. They knew what he was doing, but he was being direct with it and the information he got was what everyone already knew in the first place.
For some reason, even though just about every Marine was issued a sword, they sucked at using them. At least according to the Players. There were a dozen times more Devil Fruit users among the Marines than there were skilled swordsmen and no sword masters to speak of.
Mimic, the one who seemed to work for some Government Spy Agency, seemed to imply that all the Sword Masters were reassigned from the Marines to other places, though he would not speak of where. From what Rayleigh noticed, Mimic was the Go-To insider for all secret information on the World Government.
As for the Players, the Pirates that did not fight with Devil Fruits either used Fishman Karate or some kind of Vibration Based Martial Art. The Marine Players used the Six Powers, turning their bodies into weapons. Rayleigh suspected that some of them actually fought using a Hatsu, but no one said anything and no one asked.
He also learned who had been active and who had been messing around. Dyna Might talked a big game, but due to all the collateral damage his temper tantrums had caused, his Bounty was high enough to keep a small fleet led by a Rear-Admiral on his tail at all times. They didn't even try boarding him, they just kept trying to sink his ship from a distance using cannonballs or giant harpoons.
Wonder Woman had been the most active. She always knew when something valuable was being moved secretly, so she was usually there to intercept it and had been successful enough to have the 3rd Highest Bounty on this half of the Grand Line, behind Dyna Might and Lightning Lord. Of the three, she was the most successful, since Lightning Lord's bounty mainly came from the power of his Devil Fruit. Since running from the second-half of the Grand Line, also known as the New World, back to the first-half, also known as Paradise, Lightning Lord had been laying low and training in secret to avenge the comrades he lost when he had to run.
Rayleigh wondered how Wonder Woman kept finding good places to rob. Captain Jack only knew about her next target because she bragged about it in the Chat, but how did she find it in the first place? Maybe she had been interrogating merchants with a Lasso of Truth Hatsu?
[Dragon Chef: Hey Swordsman, have you learned Haki yet?]
[Swordsman: I want to learn it from Mihawk.]
[Lightning Lord: Haki is Haki, it doesn't matter where you learn it. Even if you have the lowest talent for Haki, you'll still awaken it if someone beats you up using Haki for a couple of weeks.]
[Fire Queen: Don't all Vice-Admirals know Haki? Can you beat one without it?]
[Mimic: Although a sufficient level of Haki is required for a promotion from Rear-Admiral to Vice-Admiral, you don't need to master both kinds unless you are aiming to become an Admiral. In fact, you only need to show enough proficiency in Armament Haki to fight Logias, with only a few Vice Admirals being highly skilled in Observation Haki as well. As for Momonga, I don't think I've seen evidence that he has any talent in Observation Haki.]
[Captain Jack: Well, then I can guess the winner of that match. Although Armament Haki is important, I think that for a swordsman, Observation Haki is more important. Knowing how to cut matters more at the high level than how hard you cut. Observation Haki tells you the how.]
[Immortal Beauty: Can Nen break through the defense of Armament Haki though?]
[Titan: It can't. I've tested this a few times. A Fist full of Nen can't break through an Armament Haki Guard without a lot of power behind it. And an Aura-fueled defense can't completely stop an Armament Haki enhanced punch.]
[Immortal Beauty: That's the first I've heard of this. So Haki is stronger than Nen?]
[Dragon Chef: I know what he's talking about, and that's not completely true. On its own, Haki can beat Nen in pure strength, the same way that a Warrior can beat a Ninja in pure strength. But it depends on how you use it. If pure strength was all that mattered, Titan would not be losing to me 42:40. I'll admit that he is physically stronger than I am, but strength is not the only factor.]
[Justice: I think you two might have the wrong impression on Haki. On your half of the Grand Line, everyone's Haki is pretty high level, but on this half, it isn't as impressive. If Momonga's Haki was as good as you two seem to think it should be, he'd be assigned to that side of the Grand Line, not this side.]
[Titan: Ah, that's right. I'm so used to fighting veteran crews under Big Mom that I forgot what the standard over there was. Yeah, Swordsman's Nen should be enough to break through Armament Haki of that level.]
[Swordsman: But if I were to spar with you, it wouldn't?]
[Dragon Chef: Nothing personal Swordsman. Both Titan and I are Enhancers and we haven't held back in the slightest during our training. You started training your Nen a year before we did, but I doubt you had a rival to push you like we did and the both of us have had a lot of life and death fights. Without using Haki, my strongest pure Nen attack can't break through Titan's Haki defense, and the same is true for his strongest pure Nen attack and my Haki defense. At the higher levels of mastery, Haki is ridiculous.]
[Titan: Though that changes once they are mixed together. Using attacks that combine Haki and Nen is how I've been able to kick the *sses of the Veterans of the New World. If I take the form of a Giant Golden Buddha and punch out with all my aura and Haki, I can shatter the side of a mountain. Give me a few more years and I'll be able to do even more.]
Ray had a thoughtful expression as he re-read the messages. He remembered that Dragon Chef said that most people had a predisposition toward Observation Haki or Armament Haki and it was difficult to normally be good at both. All Pirate Players were talented in both, but they were the exceptions, not the rules.
From what Rayleigh guessed, just getting beaten up by someone using Haki would cause the body to understand how to use it in response. This awakening method is similar to how someone could awaken their aura from receiving and surviving a strong aura attack.
However, just because that was what everyone knew, did not mean it was correct. There was a chance that how one awoke their Haki would affect how they used it in the future. Could he be wrong? Yes. Would he risk his future over it? Nope.
It was just like how Rayleigh decided to open his aura nodes in a manner unique to himself rather than use what everyone else did. By awakening his aura nodes using a unique route, the Force within his body combined seamlessly with the aura. Rayleigh had confirmed through personal observations that other Players could not use Force Skills through their aura like he could. They might figure it out at some point, but perhaps not.
To Rayleigh, the swordsmanship of the Pirate World that ignored physics looked more like the attacks that Cultivators in Light Novels used rather than normal swordsmanship. If his theory was correct, then each style of swordsmanship would equate to a different cultivation scripture, and there was a chance that not all scriptures were compatible with each other. In the case he could only learn one, he wanted it to be the best one. It was fine if he was wrong, but he was aiming for the top.
If he really just wanted to steal their sword skills, he would just use psychometry on their swords. He still might do that later, but only after creating what he felt would be the strongest foundation for himself.
Besides, there was always the chance that everyone in the Chat was lying to him in order to trick or cripple him. It would be really stupid to follow their advice when he already had a true master arranged by the Tavern lined up and ready to teach him.
As for the match against the Vice Admiral, he wasn't too worried. Rayleigh's strongest abilities were not granted by his aura, but the Force. Shatterpoint could break diamonds. Rayleigh's only concern was that he was unable to see Shatterpoints on Nen Users without using Gyō, so there was a chance he might not be able to see the Shatterpoints in someone's Armament Haki without using Observation Haki. That was not too likely though, since the stacked effect of Gyō and Shatterpoint should be able to see through the singular effect of Armament Haki.
The hours passed and the ship finally docked at Marineford. Rayleigh elected to stand on the deck when they came and left the islands since the Tarai Current could only be accessed from those islands through a giant gate hundreds of times bigger than the one that barred entrance to the Zoldyck Family residence. Just watching it open and close was a sight all its own.
The three islands of Enies Lobby, Impel Down, and Marineford represented the three stages of Justice most criminals faced.
Enies Lobby held the courts. This was where the World Government made the crimes of those they accused known. Rayleigh doubted anyone sent there was ever declared Not Guilty. From there, criminals were sent to the next stage, Impel Down, where they stayed until their sentence was up, they died of natural causes, or they faced the last stage of Marine Justice, Execution. For the case of executions, criminals were usually brought from Impel Down to Marineford, especially when they wanted to make a show of it.
However that still brought up the question of why Gold Roger was executed in his hometown instead. Rayleigh guessed he must've cut some sort of deal with the Marines.
Marineford was where many Marines called home. The families of the stronger Marines and those with potential stayed there and were protected by the strongest Marines who remained stationed there until they were needed. Even if things were busy and all three Admirals were called away on duty, the Fleet Admiral was always present. Marineford was also where the promising Marines were sent to be trained. Many retired veterans still lived on the island where they spent their days training the next generation.
After passing through the gate, Rayleigh's perception of danger through the Force started acting up. Only when he retracted his En and Clairvoyance did it return to normal. It seemed that any form of spying from him could be perceived here and it wasn't safe to snoop so casually.
The details of the bet he made with Captain T-Bone and his merits on Gilliad island had been passed up the chain via snail after Dauntless was defeated. The News Reporters even made an agreement with the Marines that they would downplay Rayleigh's accomplishments in the fight in exchange for allowing them to do a story on the bet and match that would occur today. A deal was struck, so the hype Rayleigh should have earned from saving Gilliad was being delayed until after the match. The Marines believed he would be a Marine by then, so praising him would still be praising the Marines at that time.
Up until this point, Dragon Chef, Titan, Lightning Lord, Fire Queen, and Wonder Woman were the only Pirate Players to face and defeat a Vice Admiral. This was partially due to their strength, but also partially due to luck. There was a vast difference in strength between some Vice-Admirals, and many of the encounters Players had with them were against the strong ones while others got lucky.
From the discussions of the Players, Momonga seemed to be about middle tier for a Vice Admiral. Not weak, but not unbeatable. The only real noteworthy thing about him was that he was the best sword user among the Vice-Admirals, fully capable of cutting down Sea Kings ten times bigger than a Marine Warship.
After arriving at Marineford, a pair of Marines in crisp suits escorted him to a table where they asked some questions about his background. Thankfully Rayleigh wasn't a drop-in, so he had no problems telling them of Karate Island, his decision to leave and pursue swordsmanship, and how he got there. It was a short story and easy to confirm.
Since Justice had awakened his Jedi class, Rayleigh easily felt his presence in the Force. A quick turn to the approaching footsteps confirmed his senses. Justice had platinum blonde hair cut in the way of an enlisted officer, a slender frame, a tanned complexion, and no shirt. Yes, for some reason, he was running around Marineford without a shirt.
Without waiting for an introduction, he shouted, "You're the new guy, right?"
Rayleigh answered, "If I have something to learn here, then yes."
Justice looked over to the pair of Marines taking Rayleigh's information and said, "I'll take him over to the training hall, alright?"
One replied, "If you're willing to take responsibility, then fine. Just try to keep out of trouble. The match starts in an hour, so don't be late."
Justice smiled brightly and grabbed Rayleigh before running off.
After getting some distance, Rayleigh asked, "Why are you not wearing a shirt? Did the craziness of this world infect you? Should I be worried?" He even took a step back from Justice in jest.
Justice rolled his eyes, "Technically this is your fault."
"How is you running around shirtless in the Marine HQ my fault?"
The bare-chested Marine answered, "Remember that Superman Hatsu you talked about? Guess what I made?"
"Wait, you really made the Superman Hatsu?"
"Kinda. I used it as a base to make a better one. I can absorb and store sunlight, but the restriction is that I can only absorb it through exposed skin."
"Can the Light Fruit do that?"
Justice shook his head. "Technically it's not the Light Fruit. It is the Glint Glint Fruit, as in the power of the light that is reflected off the surface. With just the power of the Fruit, I can't turn into just any form of light, only visible, polarized white light. Before making this Hatsu, I couldn't do anything with Infrared or Ultraviolet. Now, I can convert the entirety of sunlight into aura and store it in my body."
Rayleigh asked, "But there are restrictions, right?"
"Of course, but I'm not sharing them with you."
"Why tell me about it in the first place then?"
Justice excitedly exclaimed, "Three reasons! First, I wanted to explain why I'm not wearing a shirt without looking like a pervert. I can't explain stuff like Hatsus to the other Marines, so I have a weird reputation already and didn't want you to think I was weird. Second, you are the only one here I can actually brag about this too. Goddess of Ice doesn't have the Hunter Class, so she doesn't have Nen and doesn't understand how cool this is. And finally..."
Justice let waves of strong light rippled over his body for a moment before continuing, "With how strong I am, I don't need to worry about others knowing."
Rayleigh smiled. He had to stop himself from asking for a match right then and there. Maybe later.
Thanks to the warning about Justice's reputation, Rayleigh understood the various stares they received as they closed in on their destination. The main reason that Justice could get away with this was because he was the student of one of the three Admirals, Admiral Kizaru. He was also the Admiral who usually stayed at Marineford and was practically royalty. Due to this, Justice was sometimes called the Prince of Marineford, allowing him to get away with such eccentricities.
As they reached the outdoor arena next to the training hall, the breeze of cold air signified the presence of the one often called the Princess of Marineford, the student of Admiral Aokiji, the Player who called herself the Goddess of Ice.
The teen girl was of average height with shoulder-length brunette hair tied into a ponytail. She had sharp features but still had a baby face that would take a few more years to grow out of.
It was obvious that she noticed their arrival, but she was in the middle of some kind of self-created sword training exercise and was not going to stop for them. She held a thin, glass-like sword of ice, and the training arena was filled with icy pillars of various thicknesses. Her sword dance led her to each pillar to cut through it almost lazily in a way that hid the insane skill required to perform such feats.
Only after each pillar was cut did she turn to the newly arrived pair and give Rayleigh a once over.
Rather than introduce herself, she raised her Ice-Sword and said, "Draw your lightsaber and let me see if you are really a swordsman."
Rayleigh shrugged and said, "How about you make an Ice-Sword for me, that way it stays fair."
The self-styled goddess huffed and declared distastefully, "You think just anyone can use an ice sword?" She felt that such a boast was completely looking down on her.
Rayleigh held out his hand politely and said, "Would you like to see?"
She rolled her eyes and swiped her hand in the air, seemingly collecting the frozen vapor in the air and forming it into a sword, identical to her own an instant later. She then tossed it to Rayleigh who snatched it from the air and tested its balance a bit before walking to the edge of the arena.
On the side of the arena was a massive boulder, placed there for either training purposes or for a sense of aesthetics.
Goddess of Ice looked confused for a moment. Justice had already told her that Swordsman could not use Haki to harden the Ice Sword, so what was he going to do?
Rayleigh could not use Haki, but his Enhancer training had reached the step of using Ice to break stone, so using Shū on the sword and enhancing the durability and sharpness was a simple matter for him.
One swing of the sword cut the stone cleanly. Rayleigh did not use any special technique to lengthen the slash, so the stone that was wider than Rayleigh was tall had not been cut through, but a clean slash mark appeared on the stone while the ice-sword in Rayleigh's hand was undamaged.
Rayleigh asked, "So, what do you think?'
Realizing that she may have underestimated him, the ice user took a stance and readied herself.
Rayleigh unconsciously smiled. The only thing he wondered was whether or not this was the warm-up or the main event.