One evening, after a long day of training, Arima was in the captain's quarters, cleaning 'Whisperwind' with a quiet, focused intensity. The cat, Kuro, was asleep on the table, a small, black ball of fur. He opened the system's shop, a habit he had developed. He was no longer just window shopping. He was looking for tools. For the next step.
He scrolled past the weapons, past the information. He went to the section for 'Personal Enhancements'. It was a list of strange, expensive items that promised to unlock the body's potential. He saw things like 'Dragon's Blood Tincture' and 'Giant's Bone Marrow'. They were all expensive, but they all promised temporary boosts.
And then he saw it. It was not a potion or a serum. It was a service.
"Advanced Haki Infusion."
He opened the description.
Four hundred million. The last of the gold from the Serpent's Maw. A fortune for a chance. A gamble with his own life, his own sanity.
He thought of Mihawk. Of the lazy, contemptuous way he had moved. Of the single, perfect cut that had appeared on Takeshi's chest. That wasn't just skill. That was something more. That was Haki.
He thought of Borin's shot. The half-second warning. With Observation Haki, he would have seen the intention before the finger even tightened.
He had spent half a fortune to learn how weak he was. Now he would spend the rest of it to get stronger. It was not a choice. It was the only path forward.
He hit 'Purchase'.
The screen flashed. 'Transaction Complete. A mobile facility will be dispatched to your location. Please provide a secure anchorage. The procedure will begin upon arrival.'
He closed the system. The cat, Kuro, woke up, stretched, and looked at him with her deep, knowing eyes.
"I know," Arima grunted, a low, rumbling sound. "That's why I paid so much."
The next morning, he called a meeting on the quarterdeck. His core command staff was there: Lefty, Shiv, Takeshi, Borin, and Rizzo. They stood before him, a wall of hard, capable violence.
"We're not moving for a while," he said, his flat, unemotional tone giving nothing away. "Find us a hiding spot. An abandoned island, a hidden cove. Somewhere no one goes. I don't want to be disturbed."
Rizzo nodded. "There's an island chain on the charts. The 'Whispering Isles.' They're un navigable. A maze of rock and reefs with strange magnetic currents. No one sails there. A perfect place to disappear."
"Good. Take us there," Arima commanded.
The Queen Anne's Revenge turned, a silent, fluid motion, and sailed away from the main shipping lanes. For three days, they sailed into the unknown. The islands appeared on the horizon as jagged, black teeth jutting from a turbulent, grey sea. The air was heavy, and a strange, low moaning sound seemed to come from the rocks themselves, the wind whistling through a thousand natural caves.
Rizzo navigated the maze with a tense, focused intensity, his hands never leaving the ship's wheel. The Queen Anne's Revenge, a ship that could sail without a crew, was almost useless here. The currents were too chaotic, the magnetic fields too strong. They had to do it the old way: with skill, guts, and a lot of luck.
They found a sheltered cove, a deep pool of calm water surrounded by towering cliffs that blocked out the wind and the sea. It was a perfect hiding spot, a fortress of nature.
Two days later, it arrived. It did not sail. It rose from the depths of the cove, a massive, dark shape that broke the surface with a slow, deliberate motion. It was not a ship. It was a mobile facility, a floating factory of steel and glass, covered in strange, humming pipes and glowing gauges. It looked like something that had been built in a nightmare. A long, metallic bridge extended from the facility and locked onto the Queen Anne's Revenge with a loud, metallic clang.
A small group of figures in white, sterile-looking suits walked across the bridge. They were not people. They were drones. Their movements were smooth, silent, and identical. They had no faces, just smooth, blank white masks with a single, glowing blue optic.
One of the drones stepped forward, its voice a flat, synthesised monotone that was colder than the sea. "Arima Koujiro. The procedure is ready. Please follow us."
Arima looked at his crew. Lefty stood like a statue, his jaw tight with worry. Shiv's pale grey eyes were narrowed, her analytical mind trying to process the impossibility of what she was seeing. Takeshi was calm, but his hand was resting on the hilt of his sword. Borin just watched, his face a hard, unreadable mask.
"I'll be back," Arima grunted. He wasn't sure if he was saying it to them or to himself.
He followed the drones across the bridge and into the floating facility. The inside was a maze of white corridors and humming machinery. It was clean, silent, and utterly lifeless. The drones led him to a large, circular room. In the centre of the room was a capsule. It was made of a thick, dark glass, and it was bristling with hoses, pipes, and glowing electrodes. It looked like a coffin.
"Disrobe," the drone commanded. "Enter the chamber."
Arima stripped off his clothes, the Yakuza tattoos a chaotic map of his life on his muscular, scarred skin. He stepped into the capsule. The inside was cold. The glass door slid shut with a soft, final hiss.
A viscous, slimy liquid began to fill the capsule. It was thick and smelled of chemicals and something else... something like ozone. It rose up past his ankles, his knees, his waist. It was cold, but it was also heavy, a physical pressure that pressed in on him from all sides.
"Procedure initiated," the drone's flat voice said, its words echoing through the liquid. "Phase one: Deep-sea pressure simulation."
The pressure increased. It was like being at the bottom of the ocean. The liquid became a solid wall of force, crushing him. His bones groaned. His lungs felt like they were being squeezed flat. His regeneration kicked in, a warm, tingling sensation that fought against the crushing force, a desperate battle inside his own body.
"Phase two: Alchemical catalyst infusion."
Needles, thin as hairs, shot out from the walls of the capsule and sank into his skin. A fire, a liquid agony, spread through his veins. It was not a normal pain. It was a pain that attacked the soul. His entire life flashed before his eyes, not as a memory, but as a series of failures. The men he had failed. The battles he had lost. The look on Mihawk's bored, contemptuous face.
"Phase three: Willpower manifestation test."
The world dissolved. He was no longer in the capsule. He was standing on a plain of black glass under a black sky. And in front of him were monsters. Dozens of them. The sky-serpent from the island, its fangs dripping with acid. The Sea Kings he had seen in the deep, their eyes like pools of death. And in the middle of them all was a figure. It was him. But it was a him made of shadows, with cold, empty eyes. It was Mihawk. It was every enemy he had ever faced.
The shadow him raised a sword. It was 'Whisperwind'. But it was black, like Mihawk's blade.
"Fight," the drone's flat voice commanded in his head. "Survive."
Arima roared, a pure, animalistic sound of defiance, and charged. He swung his fist, not a sword, a raw, brutal punch fueled by pure rage.
His fist passed right through the shadow him. The monster didn't even flinch.
The other monsters, the sky-serpent, the Sea Kings, they all lunged at him. He fought them with everything he had. He punched, he kicked, he tore at them with his bare hands. But they were ghosts. His attacks passed through them. But their attacks were real. The serpent's fangs sank into his arm, and he felt the acid burning him to the bone. A Sea King's tail smashed into his back, and he felt his spine shatter.
He fell to the black glass, a broken, bleeding mess. His regeneration worked overtime, healing the wounds as fast as they were made, but the pain was constant, an unending cycle of death and rebirth. He was a toy for the ghosts of his own fears.
He looked up. The shadow him was standing over him, the black 'Whisperwind' raised for the final strike.
This was the test. Not to beat the monsters. They were just reflections. The real enemy was the fear. The humiliation. The weakness. He had been a Yakuza, a king in a small world. Then he had come to this new world, and he had been made a fool.
He had been strong, but he was not skilled.
He had been angry, but he was not focused.
He was a meathead. He knew it. Takeshi knew it. Mihawk knew it.
But a meathead could learn.
He stopped fighting. He lay on the black glass, letting the pain wash over him. He didn't think about the pain. He didn't think about the monsters. He focused on a single, simple thing.
The space between him and the shadow.
He felt the air, the tension, the path. He saw the shadow's sword begin its descent. He saw the path it would take.
And he moved.
He didn't jump up. He didn't dodge. He just rolled. A simple, fluid movement, to the left. The black blade slashed down, missing him by an inch, striking the black glass with a sharp tink.
The shadow him looked surprised.
Arima smiled. It was a bloody, broken, but genuine smile. He had found it. The space. The path.
He stood up. He was still naked, still bleeding from a dozen ghostly wounds, but he was different. His posture was not a tense knot of rage, but a coiled spring of focused will.
"I am a slow learner," he growled, his voice a raw echo in the black void. "But I learn."
The monsters lunged again. The serpent, the Sea Kings. He didn't fight them. He moved through them. He saw their paths, their intentions. He stepped inside a claw swipe, slipped under a lunging fang. He was not faster, he was just... more efficient. He was using the space, not fighting it.
He walked through the storm of violence, a calm eye in the hurricane, until he was standing in front of the shadow him again.
"Again," he said.
The shadow him raised the sword. But this time, it wasn't a smirk of contempt on its face. It was a look of focused challenge. The fight began again, but it was different. It was a dance. A lesson in steel and will.
In the real world, in the steel capsule, the drones watched the gauges. The subject's brain activity was off the charts. His heart was beating a hundred times a minute. But he was not screaming. He was not thrashing. He was… meditating. His regeneration factor was working at a level they had never recorded, healing the cellular damage from the pressure and the chemicals as fast as it was being inflicted. He was not just surviving the test. He was mastering it.
The training in the black void continued for what felt like an eternity. When it was over, the shadow him lowered the black sword. The monsters faded away.
"You have learned the basics," the drone's flat voice said in his head. "The rest is up to you."
The world dissolved again. He was back in the capsule. The liquid drained away. The glass door slid open with a hiss. He was standing, naked, covered in the slimy residue. He looked down at his body. The Yakuza tattoos seemed darker, sharper against his skin. And as he watched, a faint, black, metallic sheen, like a thin coat of oil, seemed to coat his right arm. He focused on it, and the sheen intensified, solidifying into a hard, black shell that covered his fist.
Armament Haki.
He looked at a metal wall of the room. He could see the tiny scratches, the microscopic flaws in the steel. He could feel the vibrations of the humming machinery through the soles of his feet. He could feel the presence of the two drones standing outside the room, not as visual information, but as a faint, fuzzy pressure in the back of his mind.
Observation Haki.
He had paid for a shortcut. And it had worked.
He walked out of the room, back into the white corridor. The drones handed him a set of simple, black clothes. He dressed. He felt different. Calmer. More focused. The rage was still there, but it was no longer a wild fire. It was a contained, controlled forge.
He walked back across the bridge to the Queen Anne's Revenge. His crew was waiting for him. Lefty, Shiv, Takeshi, Borin. They looked at him, their faces a mixture of relief and apprehension. He looked the same, but he felt different. There was a new stillness about him, a quiet confidence that was more intimidating than the raw anger he had had before.
"It's done," he said, his voice a low, calm growl.
Without another word, he walked past them, to the main mast. The ship was his. The crew was his. And now, his own body was finally becoming the weapon it needed to be.