Chapter 50: Roy vs. Chinjao
In Kano Country, Roy had barely set foot past the port before he let Chinjao lead him out to an open stretch beyond town, a good place to settle a match between a cone hard as iron and a body famed for steel defense.
Amatsuki Toki sat on a sun-warmed stone a little ways off. The morning breeze lifted strands of her green hair as she smiled at Roy and pursed her lips. "Go on," she said softly. "Beat him."
"Yeah." Roy nodded to her, then faced Chinjao across the packed earth.
Chinjao was sixteen, a long way from mastering Armament Haki. Even the Hasshoken that the Happo Navy had passed down for generations was not yet complete in his hands. But he felt no panic. Pandora had bragged that the boy opposite him had steel for skin, and Chinjao had just lost a test of grip strength to him, but the kid was far too young. In Chinjao's mind, aside from raw power most of the rest had to be bluster.
He had come to spar, to gauge this promising stranger for himself.
"Hi ya-ho-ho, let's start!" Chinjao called.
Roy drew in one smooth motion, short legs flashing as he bounded forward.
Chinjao grinned when the boy brought his blade down. He did not even bother with a full Hasshoken form. He dropped his weight and drove straight in, forehead first. That spear of bone was his truest weapon.
Steel sang against stone.
Sword met cone with a sharp crack that rang across the field. Both fighters startled at the feel of it. Then a heavy thud. Chinjao shot backward like a loosed bolt and slammed a shoulder into a boulder. The rock webbed with cracks. He shook his head, vision swimming, and stared at the little figure in the distance.
Felled by a single swing. Was that real?
Is his strength really that ridiculous? he thought.
"What a hard forehead," Roy murmured, eyeing the teen as he sat beside shattered stone, rubbing at his skull.
His blade had not even cut the cone. He had felt the edge skid.
The Chinjao family lived upon a frozen continent, at a place called the Kano, a vault of their clan's wealth hoarded for centuries. The ice there was legendarily hard. Steel could not score it, and flames would not melt it. Each Don of the Happo Navy inherited only after proving he could shatter that ice with his own power. The condition was simple and brutal: break the Treasure Jade Ice Bed and you are worthy to lead.
In the future, Chinjao would use Hasshoken with Armament Haki and smash those layers with his brow alone. Even now, as a boy, his cone was nothing to scoff at.
"Hi ya-ho-ho, again!" Chinjao barked, surging to his feet and charging with a rolling laugh, spearpoint aimed squarely at Roy.
The first clash had been a probe. Being blasted away only set his blood alight. Meeting a foe this strong was exciting. Chinjao lived for it.
"Try my Hasshoken!"
His cone crashed forward as he invoked the art. The pointed brow did not simply stab; it shed a rippling shockwave that smacked outward in rings, the air itself shivering with force. Roy raised his blade and chopped in reply.
Boom.
Chinjao whistled through the air and skidded on his back a moment later, frustration mixing with awe. Over five meters of youth and muscle, and a child kept batting him out of the ring. Ridiculous.
"What a punch," Roy said, surprised despite himself. He had felt the impact that time. It was not nothing.
It just was not much to him.
"Really? Then again!" Chinjao beamed.
Roy had meant it politely, but the younger Chinjao heard only praise. He loved the sound of it. He sprang up and hurled himself forward for another headlong crash.
The sight turned comic in its rhythm. A mountain of a teen and a small boy. One stood steady, blade rising and falling with metronome calm. The other pinwheeled away, stood, shook himself, and charged with even more spirit every time Roy tiptoed around the angle and knocked him off balance. Compliment received, Chinjao came back brighter.
Roy finally understood the phrase hot-blooded youth in his bones.
"Wait," Chinjao groaned a short while later, palms cupped over his cone. "Slow down. My head is ringing."
He squinted. There were two Roys now, both with green blades and the same flat look.
"How about we stop here?" Roy said, lowering his sword. He stepped in close enough to speak without shouting. "Your head is plenty strong. This is already impressive."
He had not even hardened his skin to meet the cone. Not once.
"How can we stop? I have not fought enough!" Chinjao protested, dizzy and stubborn.
In truth, he had not connected cleanly a single time. The ringing was not from successful strikes. It was from being sent tumbling by a child's cuts over and over again. He would not admit that part.
They stared each other down. Chinjao wanted another go. Roy had already decided there was no sense pounding the boy any further. He had not grown into himself, and his Hasshoken was unripe.
A stern voice cut through the morning.
"Chinjao, are you bullying a child?"
Both heads snapped toward town.
A bearded man in a green coat and blue shirt strode over with several men carrying axes and short swords. He stopped before Chinjao and fixed him with a glare that could have shaved bark.
"Father, we were just sparring," Chinjao said quickly. He was the one getting beaten, but he did not dare add that part. Why invite a lecture on top of a headache?
"Oh?"
The Eleventh Don of the Happo Navy looked Roy up and down, then let his gaze travel to the boulders pitted and split with impressions very much like his son's body shape.
He stared at his boy. For a moment he simply blinked. Then he exhaled through his nose. It seemed he would need to correct a few things at home. Losing to a child, and this badly?
"And you," he said, turning back to Roy, "who is your master?"
He did not recognize the boy at all. Kano Country had several fighting clans and lesser navies besides the Happo Navy. The Eleventh Don kept tabs on promising heirs and notable disciples. This child was not one of them. That meant he had come from overseas.
"My master?" Roy said. "Redding of Elbaf."
One eyebrow lifted high. The Don's mouth flattened. It sounded like a joke. Why would a giant take a human child as a disciple?
"I see. You little one is strong," he said at last. He glanced once at Toki, who watched quietly from her stone, then back to the boy. "Chinjao, if you have the chance, compete with him again. Learn from each other."
He left it there. Whether the name was truth or bravado mattered little. The child had drubbed his son. That made him a junior to respect. If the boy preferred not to offer a real name, fine. It did not change whether Chinjao should build this kind of friendship.
"Hey, hey, next time we meet, let's keep sparring," Chinjao called as his father reached out, caught him by the forehead spike, and towed him away with the long practice of a man who had been handling this exact skull since the day it sprouted.
"I am looking forward to it," Roy called back, raising a hand.
Toki slipped down from her perch and crossed to him, dress brushing the tops of her calves. She took his hand and chuckled. "Let's go. The capital is waiting."
"Mm."
<><><><><>
[Check Out My Patreon For +40 Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[Every 100 Power Stones = +1 Bonus Chapter]
[Join Our Discord Community For Updates & Events]
[https://discord.gg/MntqcdpRZ9]