The next morning began with laughter.
The laughter was a bit heavier than the idle chatter you would expect from a buzzing tavern though.
It was Garp's laughter, loud enough to rattle rigging, scatter gulls, and make the sea itself seem to recoil in annoyance.
"BWHAHAHAHA! COME ON, YOU MAGGOTS! IF YOU CAN STILL BREATHE, YOU CAN STILL RUN!"
His voice carried clean across the harbor as his warship pulled away from Shells Town, sails swelling in the morning wind. Marines moved across the deck with practiced precision, but all eyes kept drifting back toward the source of the chaos near the center of the deck.
Koby was sprinting.
Or at least, he was trying to.
His legs were pumping with all the desperation of a man fleeing death itself, face drenched in sweat, posture already slipping after what had to be far too many laps. But his eyes burned with determination, and every time he staggered, he forced himself upright again.
Right behind him, Helmeppo looked like he was having a spiritual crisis.
"This isn't training!" he wailed, hair coming loose in places despite his best efforts. "This is attempted murder! There have to be some kind of laws against this!"
"There were," Morgan muttered darkly as he ran beside him, somehow maintaining better form despite his heavier frame and the awkward balance of his axe-hand. "Then you got assigned to Vice Admiral Garp."
Helmeppo looked one breath away from tears. "Why are you so calm?!"
Morgan's metal jaw plate caught the morning light as his eyes narrowed ahead. "Because if I stop moving, he'll hit me."
As if summoned by the thought, Garp blurred.
One second he was leaning against the mast, grinning.
The next, he was beside Morgan, fist raised.
Morgan's eyes widened.
The punch never fully landed. Garp didn't need it to. He just drove a knuckle into Morgan's shoulder hard enough to send him stumbling three steps forward.
"POSTURE!" Garp barked. "YOU WANNA GET STRONG? THEN RUN LIKE YOU MEAN IT!"
Morgan caught himself, teeth grinding.
"…Yes, Vice Admiral."
Koby, somehow hearing that and becoming more inspired, pushed himself harder.
Helmeppo made a noise that sounded like a dying instrument.
Bogard stood near the stern, arms folded, watching the disaster with his usual unreadable expression. Only the slightest downturn of his mouth suggested he felt any sympathy at all.
He didn't.
Not really.
They'd survive.
Probably.
On the dock below, Luffy stood with Nami and Zoro, watching the ship pull farther out.
Luffy waved both arms over his head.
"BYE KOBY!"
Koby somehow found enough energy to wave back mid-run, nearly tripped over his own feet, recovered, and looked even more determined for having survived the near-fall.
Helmeppo tried to wave too, but Garp shouted something incoherent about "wasted motion" and he immediately panicked back into a miserable jog.
Morgan didn't wave.
But he did glance back toward Shells Town one last time.
Luffy caught the look and smiled faintly.
Then the ship turned, the hound-headed prow cutting cleanly through the morning sea, and the laughter faded with distance.
For a moment, the harbor felt strangely quiet.
Nami was the first to break it.
"…Well," she said, folding her arms. "That looked awful."
Zoro smirked. "For Helmeppo, definitely."
Luffy stretched his arms behind his head and grinned. "Koby looked happy."
Nami turned to stare at him. "You two have a terrifying definition of happy."
"Optimistic," Luffy corrected.
"Delusional," Zoro offered.
"Same thing," Luffy replied.
Nami rolled her eyes, then turned to head back toward the market road, only to stop abruptly.
"…Huh."
Luffy and Zoro looked past her.
There, moored just off the main dock, sat a small boat.
It wasn't much.
A clean little vessel, just large enough for a few people and some supplies, with a single modest sail and a sturdy frame built more for reliability than speed. The wood was plain but solid, freshly maintained, and on the side of the hull someone had painted a small Marine insignia with a neat line drawn through it, as if the painter had thought better of labeling it outright government property.
Tied to the mast was a note.
Nami was there in an instant, hopping lightly aboard and snatching it free.
Luffy leaned over the side curiously. "What's it say?"
Her eyes loved across the page.
Then she blinked.
"…It says the Shells Town branch is offering this vessel in gratitude for services rendered."
Zoro snorted. "So they paid us off with a boat?"
Nami folded the note carefully, expression neutral except for the tiny upward pull at one corner of her mouth.
"Well, I don't usually like taking rewards for my help, but something this small shouldn't be a problem."
Nami scowled at this, "What do you mean you don't accept rewards?"
She was met with the target of her ire casually scratching his head, which did nothing for her temper.
"Well, it's not really heroic is it?"
Nami stared at him.
For a long moment.
"…You're joking."
Luffy blinked. "About what?"
"About not taking rewards!" she snapped, waving the note like it had personally offended her. "Do you know how the world works?! People pay for services!"
Zoro leaned against a crate nearby, arms crossed. "Pretty sure pirates usually just steal it."
"That's not helping!" Nami shot back.
Luffy scratched his cheek again, thinking.
"I mean… if someone's just giving it because they're grateful, that's nice and all," he said. "But if you start helping people because you expect something back, that's kinda… wrong."
Nami's eye twitched.
"That's not wrong," she said slowly. "That's called survival."
Luffy shrugged.
"Maybe."
He hopped onto the small boat, testing the deck with a few light steps.
"But think about it," he continued. "If someone's village is wrecked, or pirates steal all their stuff, and we help them…"
He spread his arms.
"…why would we take what little they have left?"
Nami hesitated.
That part… she couldn't argue with.
Zoro nodded once.
"…Fair."
Luffy pointed at him. "Right? See, Zoro gets it!"
Then he looked back at Nami.
"But stuff like this?" he added, kicking the side of the boat lightly. "It's from the Marines."
Nami folded her arms.
"And?"
"And they've got tons of ships," Luffy said simply. "If they wanna give us a small one as a thank-you, that's fine."
He grinned.
"Especially if it helps us get somewhere we can help more people."
Nami's scowl softened slightly.
"…Alright," she admitted. "That part I can live with."
Zoro smirked. "What about pirate treasure?"
That got Luffy thinking again.
"Well," he said slowly, "if we take down someone occupying an island…"
Nami perked up immediately.
"…and they stole money from a town or a kingdom," Luffy continued, "we give that back."
Nami's shoulders slumped.
"Of course you'd say that…"
"But," Luffy added, raising a finger, "if it's stuff they stole from other pirates out at sea?"
Nami leaned forward slightly.
"…Yes?"
Luffy grinned.
"That's ours."
Nami blinked.
Then a slow smile spread across her face.
"…I can work with that."
Zoro chuckled.
"So our rule is: help people first, keep pirate treasure second."
"Yep," Luffy said.
Nami tucked the note away and patted the side of the boat again, much more approvingly now.
"…You know," she said, "for someone who doesn't care about money, you have a surprisingly reasonable treasure policy."
Luffy grinned.
"I just wanna make sure we don't become the kind of people we're punching."
Zoro pushed himself off the crate and stepped onto the boat.
"…Fair enough."
Nami untied the mooring rope.
"Alright then," she said, glancing back toward the town one last time.
"Let's see if this thing actually floats."
Luffy spread his arms wide as the small boat rocked gently beneath them.
"We've got a ship!"
Nami sighed.
"It's a boat, actually."
"Still counts!"
"…Yeah," she said. "It'll float. It's got enough space for the three of us. Supplies will be tight, but for East Blue travel?"
She patted the railing once.
"It'll do just fine."
Luffy's face lit up.
"This is great!" he laughed. "We've got a boat!"
"It's small," Zoro commented, already settling in for a nap in the sun.
"So are we," Nami replied, already mentally organizing supplies, route distances, and weight balance. "For now."
Luffy tilted his head.
"For now?"
Nami gave him a look.
"You think I'm going to map the whole world from something this size?"
Luffy grinned. "Nope."
Zoro cracked one eye lid open, one hand resting with a subtle affection on the hilt of Wado Ichimonji. "Good. Because I'd rather not drown before I get stronger."
The morning passed quickly after that.
Nami checked the rigging, measured the storage space, and made a short list of essentials with the haunted focus of someone who knew exactly how little margin there was between "prepared" and "dead at sea."
Zoro sat where he was told and promptly fell asleep.
Luffy… tried to help.
That lasted six minutes.
After being banned from "improvising" with the sail rope and nearly tipping over a crate of supplies, he was told, in no uncertain terms, to sit down and stay out of the way until they cleared the harbor.
Apparently, the fusion with Midoriya had done little for his sailing skills.
So naturally, he sat cross-legged near the bow and started rifling through the packet Garp had given him.
At first glance it looked like standard Marine paperwork: dense notes, diagrams, training schedules, and enough small-font commentary to make his eyes cross if he stared too long.
But once he actually started reading, Luffy's posture straightened.
"Oh," he murmured.
Nami looked up from adjusting the tiller. "What?"
Luffy held up one of the pages.
"It's training stuff."
Zoro was suddenly wide awake.
Luffy flipped to the top sheet again, scanning.
The heading was plain and to the point:
Rokushiki Foundational Conditioning.
Below it, handwritten notes in Garp's much messier scrawl were jammed into the margins over what was clearly an official Marine training outline.
Luffy read aloud.
"'The Six Powers are the methods used to push qualified Marines beyond ordinary human limitations and into true superhuman combat capability.'"
He blinked at the use of the word "superhuman," and continued reading.
"'Mastery requires repeated physical tempering, brutal control training, and refined bodily awareness. Secondary effect: lays the groundwork for Haki awakening by forging will and body in tandem.'"
Nami paused.
Zoro sat up a little straighter.
Luffy lowered the page slowly.
"…Huh."
The sea breeze tugged at the corners of the papers as he looked back down at them.
There were diagrams of foot placement. Breath timing. Muscle tension. Body conditioning cycles. Notes on striking surfaces hard enough to warp and break bones, then rebuild them even stronger. There were training methods for movement, balance, and explosive force control.
Soru: A rapid movement technique.
Geppo: An evolution of Soru, allowing for a user to "step" on air.
Tekkai: The art of tensing and controlling muscles to exponentially raise defense. As a result, you cannot move when using full body Tekkai. When paired with an equally strong will, Tekkai is useful in training armament Haki.
Beneath the description of Tekkai was a handwritten warning in red ink.
(Note: Tekkai does not make you invincible. This move is to be used when you cannot avoid a blow. If you can avoid or counter an attack that would seriously hurt or incapacitate you, do so. If not, this move is designed to keep you alive.)
"Well yeah…" Zoro added in, voicing the crew's shared confusion. "Why would you take an attack if you don't have to. That's just…"
"Stupid?" Nami finished the thought with a rhetorical question.
"Yeah," Luffy picked up the thread. "Especially with two movement techniques right there. Just like… get out of the way?"
The three of them shook their heads at the fact that someone needed to write that down.
Returning back to the notes, Luffy listed out the rest of the six styles.
Kami-e: The art of relaxing the body to move like paper on the wind. When used correctly, the air currents of incoming attacks alerts the body to move. Similar to Tekkai, when paired with a strong will, Kami-e is useful for training observation Haki.
Rankyaku: A powerful leg technique in which the user's kick generates a flying blade of wind. Use and understanding is helpful for a swordsman in unlocking the ability to perform flying slashes.
Zoro's eyes lit up. He had little interest in kicking attacks, but learning a long ranged sword attack? That he was very interested in.
Shigan: A finger thrust where the user concentrates all the force into the tip of their finger. At the lowest level, this results in a piercing strike as strong as a rifle shot.
Luffy didn't know the techniques yet, not really. But he understood the idea almost instantly.
And the more he read, the more certain he became.
"That makes sense," he said quietly.
Nami finished securing one of the side ropes as she was listening and glanced over. "What does?"
Luffy tapped the packet.
"This."
Zoro frowned. "How?"
Luffy looked down at his own hands.
"When I fought Gramps," he said, "I realized something."
The memory came back clearly, his body buckling under his own force, his power flaring harder than his control could keep up with, the sensation of having enough strength but not enough refinement to direct it properly.
Scenes from Midoriya's battles flashed through his mind. The many times he broke his body due to not being able to channel his power precisely. Even after he learned to control the output, it still took time for his body to reach a level to match it.
"Raw power isn't what I'm missing right now," he said.
He clenched one hand slowly, watching the tendons in his forearm shift under the skin.
"I've got power. A lot of it."
Zoro snorted. "Noticed."
Luffy grinned faintly, then looked back at the pages.
"What I'm missing is control," he said. "I can output a ton of power, but it's still adjusting. When I tried to push further fighting gramps, it was like trying to pour the ocean in a teacup."
He flipped to another page, this one covered in diagrams of stance transitions and motion lines.
"These techniques aren't just attacks," he said. "They're structure."
Nami leaned one elbow on the mast, listening despite herself.
Luffy's voice turned more thoughtful as he spoke, Midoriya's analytic habits bleeding naturally through his usual brightness.
"Gramps said Haki is will made real. And if One For All is multiplying what I already have…" His eyes sharpened. "Then what I need isn't just more strength."
He held up the papers again.
"I need a body that can carry it."
For a moment, only the sound of the waves answered him.
Then Zoro gave a slow nod as he moved his hand to one of his borrowed blades.
"That actually makes sense, it's like what that Marine lady said. Power also tests the tools you rely on. If the tools aren't strong enough they'll break."
Nami looked between them.
"You two are way too calm about words like 'superhuman conditioning.'"
Luffy beamed. "It sounds fun."
"It sounds painful."
"But Nami!" Luffy countered, eyes glittering at the possibilities, "You could run through the sky!"
Despite her better judgement, she did have to admit that sounded pretty cool.
Luffy laughed at Nami's expression and looked back down at the packet, already reading ahead.
There were notes in Garp's margins too, less formal and much more direct:
IF YOUR LEGS FAIL, TRAIN THEM MORE.
IF YOUR BODY BREAKS, GOOD. REBUILD IT BETTER.
DON'T SKIP BREATH CONTROL OR BOGARD WILL YELL.
THESE AREN'T MAGIC TRICKS. THEY'RE DISCIPLINE.
And on the last page of the visible stack, written with more pressure than the rest:
YOU WANT TO STAND AT THE TOP? START BY LEARNING HOW NOT TO FALL APART ON THE WAY UP.
Luffy stared at that line for a long second.
Then smiled.
The boat rocked gently beneath them as Shells Town shrank behind them and the open sea spread ahead, bright and uncertain.
He folded the packet carefully.
"Alright," he said.
Nami sighed. "Why do I feel like that means trouble?"
Luffy's grin turned sharp.
"Because," he said, " now we can start training for real."
Zoro smirked.
Nami groaned.
And the little boat sailed onward into the East Blue, carrying three dreamers toward a horizon that was about to become much more interesting.