Training began the very next morning, though neither Yuta nor Maki looked ready for it. Both were slumped on the floor of Hyogoro's training ground, still digesting the mountain of food they had eaten for breakfast.
Their appetites had skyrocketed after coming to this world. Maybe it was something in the very air, but just by staying here, they found their bodies getting stronger. The air itself seemed to contain strength, and the food carried far more nutrients.
And with their line of work taking so much energy, eating more was just normal.
"Oi!" Hyogoro barked, smacking Yuta on the head with a bamboo stick. "You wanted to learn Ryou, didn't you? Then stand up straight! This isn't nap time!"
Old man Hyodoro or what the nick name Yuta gave him, Grandpa Flower, was astonished when Yuta really beat him.
He could tell that he was neither Haki nor a Devil Fruit power the boy used, however, it matter little since he have given his word, meaning he suppose to teach them now.
He didn't had anything else to do nowadays anyways, his lord refuses to act against Orochi or Kaido, dancing away all day long.
Hyogoro knew there was a reason, a reason which he knew not of however he knew there has to be one unless Kozuki Oden wasn't a man who will stand back and let the country burn the way been going.
So until then, he decided to teach these upstart.
Yuta rubbed his head and groaned. "Geez, old man, I just ate… internal destruction can wait till my digestion does its destruction, right?"
Maki snorted. "Why you even bother, I'm gonna get the technique before you anyway. Just relax, I'll teach you once I master it. I advice to and get a good nap."
"Oh please," Yuta shot back with a smirk, "part of the reason I couldn't catch up with you is because I was learning the shock power with the old man back then. You don't know who'll learn this technique first." Yuta grinned, though he himself didn't believe his words.
His talent in Haki was pretty bad. Maki, on the other hand, was almost a natural at it. He doubted he could beat her. Not to mention, he was already behind—her Armament Haki was actually better than his, and Ryou, or Internal Destruction, was an application of Armament Haki.
"Really?" Maki rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched like she wanted to laugh. She didn't expose him, though.
Hyogoro sighed loudly. "Kids these days… do you think conquering Ryou will come through sweet talk? No! You need discipline and hard work." He jabbed both of them with the bamboo stick again, making them yelp.
The first lesson was understanding flow. Hyogoro explained that Ryou wasn't just coating the surface with Haki, but letting it seep out and penetrate the target. To demonstrate, he gently tapped a large boulder with his palm. The rock split in half, smooth as tofu.
"See? You don't need brute force. You need to let your Haki flow inside."
Yuta's eyes sparkled. "So basically… explode things from the inside?"
"No…"
"No?"
"No. Don't think about destruction or fighting. Just let it flow. Your Haki will do the rest—just let it flow."
"Sure sounds complicated…"
"Sounds a bit like Black Flash. Just not as picky with timing." Yuta shrugged.
When Yuta tried, however, he only managed to slap the rock repeatedly, shouting, "Flow! Flow, damn it!" until his hand turned red.
Maki, meanwhile, focused silently. She placed her palm on the rock, not even punch or a slap just slowly place it on the the rock, narrowed her eyes… and the boulder only got a faint crack.
Hyogoro stroked his chin. "Hmm. She's got the idea. You—" he pointed at Yuta, "—look like you're trying to wash laundry, not use Ryou."
"Fuck you… give me some time, okay." Yuta protested.
Maki crossed her arms, smirking. "Sure, sure. Take your time."
His cheeks flushed slightly. While he knew that learning this was important to beat Kaido, he honestly doubted he could learn it anytime soon. His talent in Haki was really abysmal. Sigh…
"Focus on training before I knock you out." Hyogoro groaned, facepalming.
"Hai!" Yuta and Maki said at the same time, then glared at each other for stealing the line.
A couple they might be in their free time, here they were rivals.
The training stretched on for hours. Hyogoro made them practice until sweat poured like rain. Maki progressed steadily, slowly making the cracks in the stone deeper with every attempt. Yuta, though clumsy at first, started to catch the rhythm.
While his talent was worse, he had cheats. Sharingan alone let him copy the flow of the Haki from Hyogoro and Maki. It wasn't easy, but unlike others, he could immediately see what he was doing wrong and try to fix it.
When he finally managed to make a boulder burst apart, he shouted so loudly that the birds flew away.
"I did it! Ha! Old man, did you see that?!"
Hyogoro grinned, shaking his head. "Not bad, brat. You've got potential, but don't let your head swell too much."
Maki smirked. "Ah… took you long enough."
Yuta leaned closer with a grin. "Tch, what you know. There are things where I like to take my time…?"
Maki rolled her eyes, but her faint smile betrayed her.
Hyogoro muttered, "Young people these days…"
"Back to work."
…
Training with Hyogoro was brutal. Every day, Yuta and Maki ended up sprawled on the floor, sweating buckets, their hands throbbing from smashing rocks.
It might look easy when seeing Luffy effortlessly learning the technique in just a few days of hard work, but it was extremely difficult. Luffy did it because he was the protagonist.
His talent was terrifying.
Yuta didn't have that kind of talent in Haki. In fact, due to his comparatively weaker body than most of the One Piece characters, he always had a hard time learning this brutal power from the ground up.
His own Haki was pretty weak. He mostly used it to enhance himself in order to push out more of his ROFA power.
And though Yuta was making progress with Ryou through sheer willpower and hard work, he couldn't ignore one very big, dragon-shaped problem.
"Even if I master this… Kaido's still built like a tank wrapped in dragon scales," Yuta muttered, lying flat on the ground.
Maki wiped sweat from her forehead and raised a brow. "You mean, like you but uglier?"
"Oi, don't compare me to a drunk lizard!" Yuta shot back. "Have you seen me drunk before? Last time I did, those three Admirals were beaten half to death."
Hyogoro smacked him with the bamboo stick again. "Focus! Especially you, boy. Your Armament's application is abysmal. If you wish to learn Ryou, then you have to give ten times more effort."
Yuta grumbled to himself, grudgingly going back to training. However, he wasn't joking this time. He knew Ryou was powerful, yet he remembered how even Luffy needed something more to really go toe-to-toe with Kaido.
Internal Destruction didn't work. Even Conqueror's Infusion alone didn't work. It took Nika himself to awaken to finally bring that dragon down.
Yuta wasn't Nika, nor could he make the drums of liberation play at will. When they did, miracles happened, but he couldn't summon them on his own.
So, Yuta had to focus on Conqueror's Infusion besides Ryou. The problem? Yuta's Conqueror's Haki was a disaster.
Most of the time, when he tried using it, he either knocked out all the chickens in the village or made Maki's hair stand up like she had stuck her finger in a socket.
And that was when he was holding back the explosive power of the Colour of the Supreme King.
When he went all out—well, ask the Big Mom Pirates, they could explain better.
"Honestly," Maki sighed. By now, she knew that Yuta was already thinking of something else, surely another way to get stronger. He seemed to have limitless ways to gain power.
She sometimes didn't understand how a boy like him could even exist. She could only shake her head.
Yuta didn't care about what Maki was thinking. Just as she guessed, he was planning—planning to gain the strength he needed to really take down someone like Kaido and Big Mom without resorting to his Prime Time.
He could fight them one-on-one easily, even suppress them while his Hero Time lasted. However, fights between Emperor-level opponents in the One Piece world could last for days.
Because all of them were absolute tanks. Taking them out quickly would take extremely high attack power.
Yuta already had that kind of attack power, but it wasn't enough. And the edge he needed, he could get with Ryou and Conqueror's Haki.
The normal Conqueror's burst—knocking out weaklings—was flashy but useless against monsters like Kaido. What he needed was Infusion, the advanced form. Conqueror's Entanglement, the thing only the strongest fighters in history had mastered. The kind of power that turned sticks into divine weapons.
But who could teach him? Hyogoro was amazing with Ryou, but even he shook his head. "That's beyond me. Only those born kings can wield such a flame."
Maki tilted her head. "Infusion? What's that?"
Yuta puffed his chest. "A power which puts someone at the top of this world's power scale. Only the strongest across the sea could learn Conqueror's Infusion."
"Isn't it the same pressure you used to knock out everyone back in Cake Island?" Maki muttered.
Yuta nodded.
"So, which old man do you wish to ask for help this time?" Maki asked, internally wondering why she wasn't taught Conqueror's Haki while learning under Whitebeard's crew.
"Oh, I have an old man in mind, alright. A dancing old man…" Yuta grinned.
xxx
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