Upon reaching the shores, the Vice-Admiral, Rear-Admirals, Commodores, and Captains alongside dozens of marine soldiers jumped down from the ship. When all of them appeared on the ground, everyone stared at Straw Hat Crew.
There were only eight people in front of them. Among them, Usopp was absent. Unlike others, Usopp was more of a sniper so Zack asked him to take the ship away and then come to help them.
Of course, since he was a sniper, he didn't need to join from the front. He could help them from the back.
"Monkey D. Luffy, for your grandfather's sake, I won't kill you but I will definitely send your crew to the Impel Down." Yamakaji stared at Luffy and clenched his fist.
Although he had a sword in his waist, he didn't plan to use it.
"Luffy, there are too many people here. How about a greeting gift?" Zack turned around and smiled at Luffy, giving him the signal.
Luffy nodded his head and closed his eyes for a moment. For these two days, he had been learning to use his Conqueror Haki constantly. Although this led to his crew fainting many times, it also gave them enough training to standing whenever he uses it the next time.
Obviously, it's also because his Conqueror Haki at this moment wasn't that strong. More importantly, he was only learning to release it at Will, not to control it.
When Luffy closed his eyes, Yamakaji sensed something. He tried to say something but before he could, Luffy opened his eyes and a powerful aura burst out of him.
This aura swept out like a storm, hitting everyone around him including his crew. But his crew didn't fall down. Instead many of those marine sailors started to fall down.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
"You….. have Conqueror Haki?" Yamakaji's eyes widened. He was extremely shocked by Luffy's Conqueror Haki. Not only he had this, he also managed to release it.
He wouldn't be surprised if Luffy had Conqueror Haki. After all, this was a grandson of Garp and son of Dragon. But, to release it was extremely shocking.
Because Luffy had gone out into the sea for a nearly three months. It hasn't even been more than three months. So, for him to awaken Conqueror Haki and release it at Will in just three months was extremely shocking.
"Tch! I underestimated you. It seems like this isn't going to be an easy battle as I thought." Yamakaji gritted his teeth and took out his sword. This time, he didn't dare to underestimate Luffy.
"Alright then, let's fight"
Luffy thrusts his fist forward, stretching it toward Yamakaji, and trying to hit him. But, Yamakaji was extremely fast. He quickly swung his blade and released a flying slash toward Luffy.
[Armament Haki- Release]
Although it wasn't hardened, Luffy knew that releasing Armament Haki would strengthen his physical defense. Merging the Armament Haki in his hand, he collided his fist against the flying slash.
Bang!
His fist tore the flying slash and blasted it into pieces. His fist lost its momentum and landed on the ground.
"Armament Haki?" Yamakaji's jaw almost dropped to the ground. Up until now, he believed that Luffy used Crocodile's weakness against him. But, he never expected Luffy to use Armament Haki.
Even though it wasn't Hardened, it was still Armament Haki. This alone boosts his physical defenses, making his slash's effect weak against him.
"It seems like I might not be able to fulfill my promise to Vice Admiral Garp." Yamakaji sighed with pity in his eyes and the next moment, he covered his sword with a black luster.
This time, he was being serious about this battle.
"What? Vice-Admiral is using Armament Haki against this kid?" Hina saw Yamakaji using Armament Haki and instantly shouted in shock. Her shock brought the attention of others to Luffy's battle.
"Miss Hina, don't you think this is not a time to talk?" Suddenly, a voice rang near her and she quickly used Shave to back away. But, in a flash, a figure appeared in front of her.
[Demon Hammer Punch]
Zack carried an immense force into his fist as he thrust it forward. Hina quickly used her hands to create large blocks of iron cages around her.
Bang!
His fist collided against the iron cage but didn't manage to break it. Even so, the collision impact of his strike created a ripple in that cage that traveled into her hands.
"Ahh!"
Hina found her hand's muscles tearing apart. She couldn't help but scream in pain. This made her release her ability.
[White Tiger]
Suddenly, the smoke burst toward him. It changed its shape into a tiger and struck Zack. Although Smoke seemed light, when it was condensed into a tiger, it was extremely sturdy, throwing Zack on the ground. While few white smoke covered her hand, wounds instantly recovering.
Bang!
Zack fell to the ground but he used his forearms to block the impact of the White Tiger. He found his arms shaking a bit. As the smoke cleared, a voice rang behind Hina.
"Didn't I tell you before? Don't underestimate them, especially this guy."
Smoker slowly walked in front of Hina and stared at Zack.
"Let's continue our battle."
This time, he wasn't holding his checkmark weapon.
Zack stared at him with surprise in his eyes and smiled.
"It seems like our previous battle and the note I left gave you a lot of inspiration for you. By the way congratulations for your promotion to Rear admiral. After all with the injuries you received, I thought you won't come .But, I am surprised that you came here. Last time, you almost died. Do you think you can fight me this time?"
"No way, Hina is just a Captain. your strength isn't something that she can compete with. And, since I learned that, I also wanted to test my new strength."
Smoke spoke with a trace of gratitude and irritation in his eyes.
The last time before Zack left, he gave him a lot of different ideas to develop his fruit and asked him a favor to use his smoke to gather clouds for rain which even without any deal he would have done to help the country. You know, he had this fruit for a long time but he never thought it could be utilized like that.
Flash back
"I just wish the rest of you at the same
kind of guts that she does" said Smoker refering to Vivi.
"All right , even if I am injured it's time to work."
"Hey, get those prisoners especially Crocodile loaded on this ship." Barking his orders.
"yes" coarse through the ship.
"Captain , there is a call from HQ for you on the transponder snail."
" This is marine headquarters called could I
speak with Captain smoker." said from the other side.
"Whom am i speaking with."
" Fleet admiral, Sengoku here"
"Congratulations, on defeating Sir crocodile as a result the top officials of the world government have ordered that both you and Sergeant Major Tashiki be given medals for your efforts of subduing ."
"Congratulations Smoker, you have been promoted to rear admiral." said Sengoku over the snail.
"No wait hold on a minute, Sir we aren't the ones who took down crocodile it was the straw hats. Did anyone even bother to read the reports furthermore why the heck am I been promoted."
" Thanks for gallantry , through it's
also been decided that each of you will
be promoted by the order of five elder."
"Sir I told you but for the umpteenth time it wasn't us. We weren't the ones who stopped
crocodile and baroque works, it was those
damn straw hat pirates ."
"Stop smoker it's no use it's obvious at this point that the government's going to cover up this entire incident . Think of the scandal , if word of what really happened got out , Alabasta was almost robbed and it wasn't saved by the government but by a group of wanted pirates ."
"Smoker don't be dumb reject it, if
you disobey the order you could get
court-martialed thats well worse better than then live a lie ."
"We didn't take crocodile down . My subordinates and peers were unable because we couldn't ....Hey you could you pass on a personal message from me to the old geezers at HQ ."
"don't do it smoker." warned Sengoku .
"Tell them to go f**k them self in a gay fivesome."
Beep beep beep
" Looks like your works came true ." said Smoker holding the letters in his hands tightly.
The Letter in his hand firstly congratulates him on his promotion and secondly specific the ways he could use his devil fruit. The message read as following " Well congratulations on your promotion. Yes your promotion, as if my instincts are correct soon the fleet admiral will promote your on the orders of higher ups to cover up our involvement in Alabasta and Crocodile incident. You may be stubborn to accept it but if waant my advice, I say you accept it as sure you want to implement proper and fair justice but as a person holding your rank it will be hard or nearly impossible. If your truly want to change the system, you do need to get a proper foothold or position before you implement it.
As for secondly, I noticed your devil fruit previously and had been wondering for some time. You don't know how implement your devil fruit, if you did you would have already been on admiral level sheerly due to your devil fruit. It has so much potential and if used smartly is not any inferior to devil fruit of admiral but due to versitality it is superior in some aspects. If it has been others excluding my crew , I may have not help them but I am kinda in a favour of your for helping me against CP member. Read carefully, firstly Smoke is essentially mixture of different types of gas that are produced by incomplete combustion of these gases. When heat is supplied to smokes it goes spontaneous combustion leading to fire. The smokes basically contains mixture of gas such as oxygen, carbon compounds, sulphur compounds, nitrogen compounds and hydrogen. Colour of smoke depend upon concentration of the these components or mixtures of other different compounds such as boron, potassium,etc. Function of smoke to depend on them. Such as increasing the hydrogen and oxygen concentration leads to water vapour which are themselves smoke too and I guess you smart enough to understand the directions I am going with it if you decide to use vaporized sea water. By increasing carbon and oxygen concentration, smoke produced if given external heat or by rubbing carbon in smoke can lead to fire but also by depositing high amount of carbon and transform it into compounds of carbon such as diamond to make a shield. By decreasing the concentration of oxygen can lead to suffocation and increasing the content of sulphur can lead to air poisoning leading death. Increasing the content of nitrogen compounds in right amount can help to provide nutrition to both soil and person leading to land gaining fertility and healing wounds by accelerating regeneration ability. The smoke can also help in fixing wheather cycle or control climate. Cloud are also smoke so by controlling cloud can help create rain or disperse rain clouds. And finally smoke can help travel someone fast not in speed of light but relatively fast. I suggest you to go Marinefort and master all the Marine six styles with haki under someone experienced like Garp or Zephyr. After reading the letter, please burn this letter to ashes as if its discovered, it will create problem for you.
Zack
(Vice captain)
Flash back ends
For example, White Tiger that he just used was simply the condensation of smoke that consist of evaporated sea water. He released a massive amount of smoke enough to cover the entire island and compressed it into a shape of a tiger, and launches it.
This attack causes quite a damage to some one like a devil fruit user. If it wasn't for Zack blocking this attack with his forearms, his chest or inner organs would've been damaged from the shock.
"Smoker, Hina said don't underestimate me. Hina can still fight." Hina stood up and scolded Smoker fiercely.
Smoker turned around and shouted.
"You idiot, this isn't a simple battle with him alone. Look around."
Only after she heard his words, she turned around and the scene in front shocked her.
Yamakaji wasn't able to win against Luffy in an instant. At the same time, Zoro was able to block and fight against T-bone. Sanji was easily handling more than one Commodore with his strength alone.
Then, there were Robin, Nami, Chopper, and Vivi fighting several captains. Although all of them were Captains, their strengths were much lower than Hina and Smoker.
"Since that's the case, let's fight." Zack also saw Smoker's intention and nodded his head. But, he quickly turned around and shouted.
"Nami, give those Captains to others and Usopp. Use your weapon to fight against Hina. Sanji is useless against her."
Hearing his words, Sanji who was in the middle of a battle wanted to rebuke especially when Zack called him useless. But, when he saw Hina, he swallowed his words and continued fighting those commodores.
But, his battle was quite interesting. He wasn't simply attacking them. He was trying to use their attacks to sharpen his Observation Haki. Among the entire Straw Hat Crew, his Observation Haki was the strongest.
And, this battle makes it even stronger. Now, he could easily use his Observation Haki. Of course, there is another reason why he wasn't attacking them right now and the reason was Zack's plan.
Nami was also surprised by his words. She quickly unlocked her weapon and released several hot and cold clouds at the tip of her weapon. When Hina rushed toward her, Nami quickly swung her weapon and released a bolt of lightning.
"Thunder Strike"
"Damn"
Hina quickly used Shave to dodge the bolt of lightning but it was a bolt of lightning. It was extremely fast, making her unable to dodge it completely. But she was after all a powerful marine.
She quickly released her Iron Cage to cover her body. Although the lightning bolt still reached her, it only reached as an electric shock rather than a bolt of lightning.
There was a huge difference. The iron cage that blocked the lightning almost melted due to the heat of the lightning bolt but she was only electrocuted for a second.
She kept her distance from Nami and finally realized the true threat of Straw Hat Pirates. She took a deep breath and extended her arms.
"It seems like we must take this crew seriously otherwise we will definitely suffer."
She dropped the cigarette on the ground and rushed toward Nami.
Puff!
A massive amount of smoke burst out and covered Zack and himself. Under this smoke, Zack and Smoker quickly ran away together. After they reached quite far away, Smoker finally walked closer to Zack and asked.
"So, what's the reason?"
He didn't like beating around the bushes. The only reason why he came this far was that he was curious about Zack's idea.
"You know me quite well, Smoker." Zack smiled and then continued.
"Actually, I don't want to fight Marines. But this time, I have a reason. You see, I planned to train with our crew on this island for a while. But since the marines have already arrived, we can't simply leave, can we?"
"My goal was to train our crew. Now, the opportunity was presented in front of us. So, how could we simply give up? But, don't worry, we won't kill these marines. By the way, I want to ask something as well."
"Did those guys contact you about the disappearance of those agents?"
Smoker immediately understood his intention and he was quite angry about this. Although he didn't hate Straw Hat Pirates, it didn't mean he won't try to catch them.
Not to mention, he would hate them even more if they attack the Marines. But, he was also helpless about this. After all, Zack wasn't someone who would easily compromise.
Since they were planning on training, they had a reason to stay behind and fight the marines. And, from Zack's tone, he knew that if they are successful, they will definitely get stronger.
He didn't want his marines to become pirates' whetstone. But, he couldn't do anything about it.
Finally, he shook his head.
"For the sake of those notes, I don't care about this. As for your previous question, no, they didn't. It seems like it was extremely secretive or maybe it was simply a coincidence that those CP agents were present there and the reason why they made a move was that I cooperated with you."
Hearing his words, Zack felt something amiss but he didn't know what exactly. He shrugged his shoulders and said.
"Alright then, let's have a small battle."
He clenched his fist and thrust it forward. But, his fist pierced through Smoker's body and Smoker quickly tried to reorganize his body to capture Zack's hand.
"Tch! Don't underestimate me." Zack quickly used Shave and backed away.
"Aren't you going to use that trick?" Smoker was surprised by his approach. The only reason why he didn't want to fight Zack was because of his ability. This ability instantly increases his strength, allowing him to use Armament Haki.
But seeing that Zack wasn't using his ability, he was quite confused.
"Do I need to use it against you? I just want to train without it. Also it is a good opportunity for you to practice, putting the theory to the test. Do hold back or you would be beaten by me."
Zack smirked and started ridiculing Smoker.
Hearing his words, Smoker's face turned blue in anger.
"Bastard, don't underestimate me."
[White Wave]
Smoker turned his hand into smoke and thrust it toward Zack but Zack was quite fast with Shave as he quickly dodged it.
On the other side,
Zoro's fight with T-bone was also getting intense. As a swordsman, T-bone was quite strong for Zoro. Even though Zoro had realized how to cut Steel, he wasn't strong enough to cut T-bone's flying slashes.
Zoro's flying slashes were rather simple. Even though he comprehended it during Little Garden, he couldn't use it properly. So, while facing T-bone's attack, he was forced to assume a defensive position.
"Phoenix Slash"
T-bone gathered a lot of his strength into his hand and compressed it into his sword. When he swung his sword, a massive slash burst out of the edge of the sword.
This slash was the compressed wind that was so sharp that it could tear the wind itself. When it moved, it took the shape of a phoenix and rushed toward Zoro.
Seeing this slash, Zoro's expression changed. Although he was strong enough to block this slash, he had some other kind of idea.
He closed his eyes and tried to feel the energy inside his body. This energy was the spirit that flows through him.
According to Luffy, this kind of energy can be controlled with an enormous Will. Knowing that the slash was about to reach him, Zoro forced his Will to trace the spirit energy and merge it with his cells.
Armament Haki creates an invisible armor around the body but it also enhances the physical strength. At first, Zack didn't understand how Haki worked.
But, after brainstorming about it, he slowly got some ideas about it.
Haki flows through one's body. But, most people can't trace it. And, even if you trace it, you can't use Armament Haki or Observation Haki. Because Haki is simply just the Spirit.
So, how does one releases Armament Haki? How does one use Observation Haki? At first, Zack didn't know the answer but after a while, he got some clues.
What exactly is the Sixth Sense? It is said that Observation Haki develops the Sixth Sense. Is it precognition or is it battle instinct? After a while, Zack found that it is a mixture of both.
More importantly, how breathing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feelings are used as battle instincts. And, when Haki merges with them, it enhances all of their abilities, while creating a new ability through the power of Spirit.
This ability can be called Precognition.
Through the enhancement of all five senses, people like Fujitora can easily fight against powerful people while being blind. And through the ability of Precognition and properly training it, one can even Foresee future events.
All of this is called Observation Haki.
So, if Observation Haki was related to senses, what was related to Armament Haki?
It's Physical Energy or simply stamina.
But, this is not a normal stamina that the body uses to function. Rather, it is special energy produced by the body to do some heavy tasks. Why does the punch from a trained bodybuilder feel much stronger than a normal child?
It's because of the energy stored inside one's muscles. But, this kind of energy remains inside muscle forever.
Only when a person drives his Haki into the muscles, it enhances that kind of energy. Once the enhancement reaches a certain extent, it can be brought out of the body which creates the hardening.
This was the explanation that Liam gave to Zoro. So, in order to use Armament Haki, he must force the Haki into his muscles to enhance that energy.
Once it is enhanced, it will boost his physical strength. This is why Luffy was able to ignore the side effects of Gear Second and Third after Haki's training.
And, this is why Haki runs out when it is overused. After all, a person's Spirit shouldn't run out, right?
And, Armament Haki runs out doesn't mean Observation Haki can't be used. Because Haki itself is just the Spirit. When it is merged with either muscles or senses, it can finally change into Armament or Observation Haki.
During this battle, Zoro tried to feel Armament Haki quite a lot. But, it was quite harder for him to do so. Unlike Luffy who had full control over his body due to the development of Gear Second, Zoro had to corner himself to a situation where his body passively forces Haki into his muscles.
That's why he wasn't planning on using his attacks to deflect T-bone's attack.
But when T-bone's attack reached closer to him, Zoro finally moved his sword.
Crash! Bang!
Although his sword was strong enough to break it, the flying slash still managed to move forward and slash his chest.
Splash!
Blood gushed out of his skin and fell to the ground. But, there was no trace of anxiety or pain on his face. Instead, it was filled with excitement.
'I feel it. Yes, that's it. That must be Armament Haki. No, I need to feel it again. I can't lose it.'
Zoro closed his eyes once more and tried to feel that energy once again.
"I don't know what you are planning to do. But if you think you can win against me with your eyes closed, then you are wrong."
Knowing that Zoro wasn't using him to train Observation Haki, T-bone sneered at him and swung his sword once more. But, this time, he gathered even more strength into his swing.
"Great Phoenix Slash"
His slash contained a massive power that could tear up Zoro. Many people saw it even Straw Hats saw this but they didn't shout at Zoro.
At this moment, Zoro was in a strange state. He found his mind so calm that he could feel everything around him. This was the state of feeling Breath of All Things.
Only in this state, Zoro could feel the proper flow of Haki throughout his body. It was like energy flowing through his veins. He realized that Observation Haki was quite similar to Breath of All Things.
It's just that Breath of All Things was quite strong.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes and a strange aura burst out of him. It wasn't Conqueror Haki but rather the breakthrough of his Swordsmanship.
The Armament Haki burst out and strengthened his arm. The grip on his sword hilt only got stronger as he swung his sword at the slash.
Bang!
...