Chapter 73: The Fierce Female Marine
After that conversation, Tsuru did not summon Axel again.
For the next three days, his life aboard the ship settled into a strangely peaceful rhythm. He ate, trained, bothered Barkley whenever he got hungry, then trained some more. No lectures. No probing questions. No unexpected washing line punishments.
He was beginning to think life on Tsuru's ship might actually be bearable.
Then the ship prepared to depart.
Early that morning, Axel followed Tsuru to the deck.
The entire crew had already assembled there in neat rows, every movement crisp, every posture disciplined. The deck was filled with female Marines, and not one of them looked lax despite the early hour. There was no masculine aggression in their bearing, yet under Tsuru's command, they radiated a pressure no weaker than any male unit Axel had seen.
Their presence was sharp. Clean. Efficient.
This was not a decorative fleet.
This was Tsuru's fleet.
Axel had barely taken it in when Tsuru's voice landed beside him.
"What are you standing there for? Go stand at the far right."
Axel blinked. "Me?"
He pointed at himself, looking faintly suspicious.
Tsuru turned her head slightly and frowned. "Do you see anyone else here?"
That answer left him with no room to struggle.
With all the enthusiasm of a man marching toward his own execution, Axel walked over and took his place at the far right of the formation.
The moment he did, he felt it.
Eyes.
A lot of eyes.
Curious. Appraising. Unblinking.
The women around him did not say anything at first. They simply looked.
It was not hard to guess what they were thinking.
A child had joined Vice Admiral Tsuru's ship.
A boy, apparently.
A very strange looking one at that.
His age alone was enough to draw attention, but his appearance made things worse. His pale skin, silver white hair, and unnervingly clear red eyes were already striking enough. Once he stood inside a formation full of women, the contrast only became more absurd.
Some of the female Marines were curious because he was young.
Some were curious because Tsuru had clearly made an exception for him.
Some, judging by the way their eyes lingered on his face, were probably offended that a little brat somehow had better skin than they did.
Axel was beginning to understand that he might have preferred a pirate ambush.
Tsuru, of course, did not care in the slightest.
Her calm gaze swept over the formation before she said, "His name is Axel. He will be serving aboard this ship for some time and will join us in future anti pirate operations."
A brief pause.
Then, in the same flat tone, she added, "He is a boy. You may treat him however you like."
Axel's eyes widened.
What kind of introduction was that?
Before he could protest, Tsuru gave the order to prepare for departure and turned around, leaving the deck as calmly as she had come. She disappeared below without even glancing back, leaving Axel alone in the middle of a storm that had only just begun to gather.
The moment Tsuru was gone and the crew began moving to their stations, the atmosphere shifted.
Not all of the women were needed for departure.
And the ones who were not busy rapidly found something far more interesting to do.
They gathered around Axel.
At first it was only a few.
Then more.
Then even more.
In the blink of an eye, the space around him vanished. He was boxed in on every side, shoulder to shoulder with a wall of curious female Marines.
Axel stiffened.
The women looked at him the way people looked at some rare animal they had only heard rumors about. There was no malice in it, which somehow made it worse.
He could handle hostility.
He could handle killing intent.
He had absolutely no training for this.
One woman leaned in and squinted at his face.
Another crouched slightly to study his skin.
A third tilted her head and murmured, "He really is a boy?"
That immediately started a round of quiet discussion.
"No way."
"Vice Admiral Tsuru said so."
"But look at him."
"I am looking at him. That is the problem."
Axel felt a drop of cold sweat run down his temple.
Instinctively, he leaned back, but there was nowhere to retreat. He had been surrounded so thoroughly that he could not even shift his footing without brushing against someone.
Their gazes grew hotter.
A few low laughs rose from the crowd.
Then one of the bolder Marines reached out and rubbed the back of her hand against Axel's arm.
She froze.
Her eyes widened.
"This brat's skin is ridiculously smooth!"
That one sentence was like tossing raw meat into a pack of hungry beasts.
Another woman immediately pushed forward. "Let me try."
Then another.
"And me."
"Move aside, I want to check too."
"No fair, you touched him already!"
In the next moment, several hands reached toward Axel at once.
His body jolted.
There was no hostility, so his automatic reflection did not react. The result was that Axel, who could calmly face blades and bullets, was reduced to standing there in stunned disbelief while a crowd of women enthusiastically rubbed his arms, shoulders, face, and hands like they had discovered some miracle beauty product.
His scalp went numb.
It was so weird that his brain briefly stopped working.
The women's reactions only got more dramatic the more they touched him.
"This is absurd."
"My skin care routine is a scam."
"How does a child look like this?"
"Axel, what do you use on your face?"
"Tell me right now."
"Are you secretly a noble?"
"I hate him."
"I also hate him. Move, it is my turn."
Axel's mouth twitched.
He had fought Alvis. He had bluffed Vergo. He had survived Garp's fist and Tsuru's Devil Fruit.
But this?
This was hell.
His entire body broke out in goosebumps. The itching sensation from all those hands touching him nearly made him lose his mind.
Then, at last, instinct returned.
He stomped lightly off the deck.
Moonwalk.
His body shot upward into the air.
He escaped the encirclement in one clean motion.
The sudden shift stunned the women below.
Their hands hung uselessly in empty air as they stared up at the small figure now hanging in the sky above the ship.
For a moment, the deck fell silent.
Moonwalk?
A child this age using Moonwalk?
That was not something anyone could brush off with a laugh. Even among trained Marines, mastering one of the Six Powers was no simple feat. And Moonwalk, in particular, demanded enough control and leg strength to make most ordinary soldiers give up before they ever learned it.
Yet Axel had just done it casually, as if escaping a swarm of terrifying aunties in the sky was the most natural thing in the world.
Their surprise lasted only a second.
Then several figures leaped up after him.
Axel's expression changed. "You have got to be kidding me."
The ones chasing him were clearly skilled. One after another, they stepped through the air with practiced ease, forming a loose arc as they cut off his possible routes.
This was not a recruit camp.
This was Tsuru's ship.
The Marines serving under her were veterans. Some of them could use the Six Powers. Some had already awakened Haki. These were not women who would be shaken just because he showed off one trick.
One of them, a blonde woman who seemed to carry some authority among the others, kicked off the air and came straight for him.
Fast.
Very fast.
Axel read the line of her movement and dodged along the angle his calculations gave him.
But the moment he shifted, her arm changed course.
Not by guesswork.
Not by luck.
It adjusted precisely into the path of his evasion.
Observation Haki.
Axel's eyes narrowed.
He could not avoid her in time. Her hand closed toward his shoulder.
At the last instant, Axel triggered reflection himself. A subtle force shoved her hand aside before it could grab him.
The blonde landed neatly back on the deck. Her expression sharpened.
The others also realized it immediately.
"He is an ability user!"
That cry changed the mood all over again.
The blonde woman raised her voice and barked out orders without hesitation. "Those who can use Haki, with me! Everyone else, bring the Seastone restraints!"
Axel nearly choked.
"These women are insane," he thought.
He had not even done anything and they were already escalating straight to Seastone.
.....
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