Chapter 6

Story Start: Baratie

After our rather fabulous tasting lunch, while the others headed back to the Going Merry I asked the Popeye wannabe waiter Patty if it was possible to talk with Zeff again. The waiter had eyed me suspiciously for a few moments before he had shrugged and led me back up the stairs to the kitchen.

When we got there Zeff was chopping a large variety of vegetables at a speed that left his hand a blur, easily sending the chopped plants into their necessary areas with a careless flick of the knife that he slid under them. Not looking up from his work, he asked "What is it Carpenter, can't you see we're busy?"

"I wanted to ask for permission to use my Devil Fruit to create a large cloth construct near the Baratie. Since our Captain will be here for a month working under you I figured it would be better for our crew to have a large area to train on that ISN'T a floating restaurant filled with customers." I said, ignoring the fact that Manga/Anime logic made it very unlikely that we would be staying that entire month, especially with a Krieg pirate of all people having shown up then left the area. (Luffy had told us about how he had seen Sanji feed Gin then send him on his way)

Zeff grunted and said "Do as you want, but keep this 'construct' of yours at least a hundred feet away from the restaurant. We have fins underneath the ship that come upwards and I'd rather not damage them if we raised them for any reason."

"Thank you, Head Chef." I said with a quick bow of thanks.

"Whatever, now get out of my kitchen brat." Zeff said gruffly, still chopping vegetables without once looking at me.

As Patty and I left the kitchen, the chef with multiple plates to bring downstairs, I snorted and said "Your boss really does have giving the people the warm and fuzzies down to an art form doesn't he?"

Patty snorted as well at my sarcasm and said "You get used to him fairly quickly." Patty then turned serious and said "Besides, for us chefs who were thrown out everywhere else, the Baratie is our home, it doesn't matter how abrasive the Boss' personality is, we will be forever grateful for him accepting us here."

"I hear ya." I said with a nod then separated from him at the base of the stairs. Heading outside, I walked around the deck until I reached a spot that didn't have any nearby water craft. Once there, I attached a six foot wide strip of duck tape to the deck, starting from the wall to the edge, along with two pillars of the sticky stuff on either side. Then, feeling like Magneto walking across the chasm in the first X Men movie, I purposefully strode off the deck, the large strip of duck tape extending in front of me as I walked, instantly becoming two feet thick underneath and angled five degrees so that every twelve feet I took I went up a foot. Three hundred feet out from the Baratie's deck I was twenty five feet above the waves and SOOO breaking the ADA's wheelchair ramp rule of no stretches of more than thirty feet without a rest or turn in the platform. But hey, what did I care, Pirate, remember?

Once I was both sufficiently far enough from the ship and high enough over the waves, my ramp turned into a ten foot wide pillar that sunk down to and then beneath the waves until I felt the pointed tip hit the ocean floor then made it grow three feet deeper. Once the pillar was secured, I made a couple of duck tape posts on either side of the ramp then connected two tape ropes to them, sending the rope down the large ramp to connect with the other two pillars, the space between the railings and the bridge floor filling in with two layers of tape. That should keep us from falling off if the waves got too bad.

With the way over made, I made twelve miniature pillars and tossed them in a circle formation around the first pillar, growing them into a proper size once they were each fifty feet from the central pillar, and reaching thirty feet over head, making them fifty five feet above the waves. A web of tape that was loose enough to have the bottom five feet below the top of the pillars was made next, with a circular hole in the middle. I made a curving ramp of tape up to that hole, secured to tightly rolled cloth with tape lining pillars along with thin but equally tightly rolled logs of cloth attached to the ramp in one foot intervals and thin railings to aid in traversing the ramp. Once up top of the ramp, I filled in the bowl with a solid foot of tape before I made another floor, this one level with the pillar tops. The floor had gaps along the rim allowing for people to easily get up from the sloped floor, though I put in a trap door like flap over the ramp entrance so that way the projectiles Usopp would be no doubt firing would not drop down to the first pillar and likely into the sea. I also made sure that there were plenty of support pillars between the two floors.

To further prevent that from happening, a wall of net shaped cloth surrounded the arena like the netting you would see around some trampolines, attached to pillars that were thinner than the support ones but no less durable, made that way to allow us a better view of our surroundings while we trained. The netting reached an additional hundred feet high, before coming together over the top in a solid mass that would keep us from getting TOO wet if a storm came along.

The shell of our training area complete, I started working on the innards. Even more pillars were erected over the main floor, connected by more bridges and ramps making a large but compact multilevel complex. There were even a few hanging platforms hanging over solid air without a pillar holding them up, relying instead on the 'cables' attached to other surfaces to stay in place, and ropes of duck tape were also scattered all over the structure. When I was done the area looked like what one of the good paintball or laser tag arenas should be in all honesty and I nodded in satisfaction when I was done.

Going down to the entrance pillar, I was unsurprised to see the rest of the crew sans Luffy looking at what I did with various levels of appreciation. Johnny and Yosaku were also there, the two of them as excited as Usopp was. They weren't the only ones looking at the training area of course, several of the restaurant customers had also come out to get a better look of what I had made then they could through the restaurant windows.

Reaching the deck of the Baratie, I grinned as I asked "So what do you guys think? Think that'll serve for a good training area while we're here?"

Zoro nodded and said "This should be acceptable."

"Acceptable?! This thing is AWESOME!" Usopp said, shouting the last part with both hands raised to the sky. Continuing eagerly, he said "I can shoot as much as I want without having to worry about losing it all to the ocean, and all of those different areas at variable heights gives me so many options to work with, this is GREAT!"

"Well, I guess if we're going to be here for a month then this was a good idea. It's just a shame we won't be able to take it with us when we leave." Nami said with a slight shrug.

"Actually, now that everything is made, I can shrink it down to pocket size of even smaller if I want." I said.

"REALLY?!" Usopp asked excited.

"That's handy." Zoro said with an appreciative grin.

"Yeah, handy." Nami echoed before she shook her head and said "Well, you guys have fun, I'm heading back to the ship."

"What? After all the work Matt put into this you're not even going to try it out?!" Usopp asked indignantly.

"I have things to do." Nami said with a wave of her hand as she walked away only to yelp when she was suddenly lifted up into the air by my threads attached to her clothes.

"Nope." I said walking up the ramp again.

"MATT, PUT ME DOWN!" Nami yelled as she struggled ineffectively in the air.

"Nope." I repeated with a grin and continued "According to the others you've always done your best to stay OUT of fights, which tells me you need the training even more than we do."

As Nami continued trying to get free, I heard Usopp laugh nervously and said "Nothing to see here folks, just helping one of our crewmates out."

As I reached the entrance pillar I saw that Johnny and Yosaku were following after Zoro as he purposefully strode across the ramp, Usopp taking up the rear with an eagerness that for some reason I hadn't expected from him. Then again, the training area was practically a sniper's paradise of variable heights and angles he could take full advantage of so long as he was fast enough to keep away from the others' close range abilities. Shrugging, I made my way up the entrance ramp and set Nami near one of the holes by the rim while keeping the trap door open.

Nami crossed her arms when she was set down and glowered at me as she said "You suck, you know that?"

"Yeah? Well what if you got in a fight that you couldn't run with none of us to help you? Would you rather be a helpless damsel or able to at least hold your own?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

Nami hmmphed to herself before she climbed up into the training tower proper ahead of us. A few minutes later the rest of us had joined her and Usopp asked "So how are we doing this, team battle or free for all?"

"There's six people, so I suggest two teams of three at first then a free for all after that." I said.

Zoro nodded and said "How should the teams be divided?"

"We could leave it up to chance, roll a dice. If it lands on one to three that person is on one team, four to six they're on the other, roll until one team is filled." I offered.

The others thought about it for a minute before they nodded, some more confidently then the others. With a nod, I said "Everyone form a circle, I'll roll for me first then go clockwise."

Once everyone was in place, I opened the app on my phone, selected one dice, and hit the roll button.

Me: 6

Zoro: 3

Johnny: 3

Yosaku: 5

Nami: 4

"And that leaves Usopp on Zoro and Johnny's team." I said.

"Whew, I get the monster on my side, what a relief!" Usopp said with a smile.

"Aw man, this is going to SUCK!" Nami said morosely.

"Well, I guess this is good practice for if Yosaku and I get split up during a fight." Johnny said slightly disappointed.

"Alright, we have our teams, let's set some ground rules. We start twenty feet away from each other, no purposeful maiming, no attempting to leave the arena, anything else goes, and, just to make things interesting, if a team steals one of these, without damaging it, they automatically win the match." I said, forming a pair of bandannas, one green and one red. I tied the red bandanna around my neck and handed the other one to Zoro, who would OBVIOUSLY be that team's leader, who eyed it for a moment before shrugging and tied it to his right wrist.

"Capture the flag, sounds fun." Usopp said with an eager grin.

"Only because you have Zoro as your flag bearer." Nami grumbled.

"Ten minute time limit sound good to you?" I asked Zoro. At his nod, I set the timer on my phone and we separated to form opposing lines twenty feet apart. Once we were ready, I made a duck tape pillar to set the phone in it and said "Alright, match start in three, two, one."

As soon as I pushed the start button, my entire demeanor changed, an evil grin appearing over my face. Its appearance startled all but Zoro who merely raised an eye brow as he drew two of his blades. I took that moment of drawing his blades to connect my threads to his clothes, his shirt's short sleeves quickly growing down to his wrist.

"Eh?" Zoro asked, looking down at his arms in confusion before he suddenly grunted as his arms snapped into a crossed position in front of his chest. My grin grew as I cackled and said "Mwahaha, Dance to the whims of my strings puppet boy!"

Twitching my fingers made Zoro's legs start doing the Kazotsky Kick and he growled out "What the hell Matt?!"

"Would you rather I stuck you to the roof to keep you from fighting?" I asked with a snicker.

Snickering himself now, Usopp said "He's got you there Zoro." He then quelled at the glare Zoro sent him.

Johnny though had a much more indignant reaction, running towards me as he said "How dare you make fun of Zoro bro like that?!"

He was intercepted by Yosaku who at his partner's incredulous look shrugged and said "Sorry, Johnny, but Matt kind of has a point. After all, he said anything goes."

"YOU TRAITOR!" Johnny yelled as the pair started fighting each other.

Zoro rolled his eyes before he said "Usopp, are you just going to stand there or are you going to stop him?"

"Oh right, sorry!" Usopp said, quickly pulling back on his sling shot and aiming at me only to yelp as Nami ran at him and said "I don't think so!" Usopp hastily back stepped away from Nami as she said "I may think that Matt is being a complete idiot, but he IS keeping Zoro busy, and I like not having to deal with him!"

As Nami pushed Usopp away from the STILL kicking Zoro, a vein began pulsing on his forehead before he let out a roar and managed to force his arms apart, slicing the threads that held him hostage. Snarling at me, he pulled Wado Ichimonji out and slid it into his mouth as he said "I was going to go easy on you Tac, but you just had to go and piss me off!"

Zoro launched himself across the twenty feet seperating us and slashed at me. Using Observation Haki, I was able to put an Armament Hakid strip of cloth in a position to catch all three blades and I grinned as I said "Well, if you're stepping things up then I guess I shouldn't play around either. Shame, I personally would have taken the embarrassment over the ass whooping."

Zoro scoffed as he continued pushing against the cloth strip and said "Please, you may have been able to handle a small crew of pirates on your own, but you said that was using preset traps, and there ain't nothing like that here."

"Oh, it's not me that's going to be doing the ass kicking, allow me to introduce you to the fine art of puppetry." I said, my grin turning from plain evil to malevolently wicked as the strip of cloth holding Zoro's swords began bulging outwards. Zoro was quick to disengage and stared warily as the cloth turned into a seven foot tall bipedal creature that had a balancing tail, long snake like neck with a beak for a mouth, tyrannosaurus like feet, three claw tipped fingers and a thumb on each hand, and most importantly blades. Easily reaching a foot long, these blades came out of its elbows, wrists, feet, legs, head, and end of its tail, and they were all Armament black.

"Zoro, say hello to the Hork-Bajir, an alien species from the Animorph series." I said with an eager grin even as I took five steps to the side to properly see and then made my cloth puppet take a combat ready stance. It was a little tricky keeping the cloth blades stiff while the rest of the body moved, but being able to outnumber Zoro in the 'sharp things to cut people with' department would make that bit of strain worth it. A moment later, my deadly creation leaped forward, lashing out with its arms in a flurry of swings that probably would have been a bit awkward if it had had actual bone and muscle under its cloth skin.

As Zoro gamely took on the Hork-Bajir head on, I noticed from the side Johnny and Yosaku staring in awe, their own clash forgotten with blades held limply at their sides. I was only able to get a glance though before I had to put my full focus on my fight with Zoro again. Greatly outnumbered in the blade department or not, Zoro was a Davey Jones damned beast to fight against. Even as I managed to get small nicks and scratches over his body he periodically cut large slices into the puppet. I didn't even bother trying to repair those 'wounds' after the first time, it took needed focus off the fight and he just wound up making a just as bad cut an inch above the first one. Thankfully, I had ten digits to work with, and thus ten reinforced threads connected to the construct allowing it to retain its form even as it became rather easy to see through it.

The timer ringing knocked me out of the tunnel vision keeping Zoro occupied had put me into. Blinking away from the wisps of cloth connected to the cloth blades, I saw Johnny and Yosaku guiltily glance at their blades then each other. Nami and Usopp were up on one of the highest sections. It looked like our Sniper had understandably been playing keep away with our Navigator. I made them a cloth slide that had a few speed decreasing turns from their position down to the floor and once they were on the ground, I took away the slide and said "Alright, free for all's up next."

"Hang on, I need to collect my ammo!" Usopp said with waving arms.

"Consider this practice for long duration combat." I said with a snort. Flicking the timer settings to a new time then putting my phone back into its holding pillar, I said "That said, I'm upping the time to twenty minutes. Starting...Now!"

"Everyone get Matt!" Nami shouted, and everyone, including Zoro, called out their agreement as they started rushing me.

"Well that's not very sporting of you." I said as I quickly shot a cloth rope to the edge of the arena and pulled myself back to get some distance. Landing on my back and rolling to my feet ten feet from the wall, I rolled my neck cracking it before I grinned at the still charging fighters and called out in my best TF2 Engineer voice "COWBOY UP!"

The cloth of my jeans bulged outwards, rapidly pushing my legs apart and lifting me up off the ground as it formed a large stallion under me. At the same time, the cloth of my Carhartt jacket shot off a long thin strand, curling as it went to form a lasso. The others came to a sudden stop as I reared my ride, taking my duck tape Stetson hat off and swinging it around, I let out a loud "Yee Haw!" My horse quickly came back on all fours and I gave it a theatrical kick and a loud "Yaw!" before making it charge the other five. They instinctively ducked as my horse jumped over their heads, sending the lasso to catch Usopp as I did so, pinning his arms to his body just over the elbows.

Usopp's eyes widened and he whimpered out "Oh No." The next instant, my horse landed behind them, the lasso went taunt, and Usopp let out a loud scream as he was yanked off his feet and dragged on his back behind my horse as I made my way to the nearest ramp. As I went up the ramp, the lasso end turned into a cocoon, covering everything from the elbows down. Reaching the top of the ramp, my horse charged down the first connected bridge before going over the side. As I fell back to the ground, the trailing cloth connected to the bridge and Usopp was left hanging, his body swinging as he struggled to get free.

If I had been on a real horse then landing after falling for fifteen feet would have been rough. Thankfully, I was using a cloth construct so the landing was MUCH smoother. Chuckling as I had my construct begin to trot in a circle around the others, I said "Combat Tactics 101, if you can remove a long range fighter from the fight before they can get set up, do so."

"We're screwed." Johnny muttered, Yosaku nodding emphatically next to him.

"Yes, yes you are." I said with a grin, more cloth coming out of my jacket, tightly wrapping itself into a long rod that I held in my right hand. Instead of a spear point at the end, I decided to go the Green Arrow route and made a boxing glove shape instead.

Both Zoro and Nami's expressions went flat at the sight of the glove and Nami asked "Are you serious?"

"Yep." I said with a grin before I charged the group.

Scene Change: Half An Hour Later

Nami, Johnny, and Yosaku were lying on the deck of the Merry covered in bruises. Groaning, Nami asked "How can a guy who's only had his Devil Fruit for six months be so good at fighting with it?"

"He's creative with it, I'll give him that much." Zoro said as he performed maintenance of his swords, ignoring all of the minor scrapes and bruises he had acquired.

"I still can't believe he left me hanging in the air during that entire second fight." Usopp grumbled.

"Lucky you." Johnny and Yosaku groaned out.

I let a snort out at that while I was treating my own minor injuries, all of them caused by Zoro who was way above my level when it came to close combat, even with me on a horse construct for mobility and using a blunt spear for extended reach. Tying the last bandage around my right bicep, I stood up and slid my repaired coat on and said "Alright guys, I'm heading back to the arena to work on my mobility, I'll start you guys on Haki training after dinner."

"Mind if I join you?" Usopp asked, standing up.

I raised an eyebrow and asked "What, you want a round three?"

Usopp snorted and said "One on one against you? Hell no, but if you're willing to make targets around the training area I could work on shooting on the move."

"Fair enough." I said with a shrug as we began making our way off the Merry and back to the training area.

Time Skip: That Night

Once again, everyone was on the deck of the Merry, though this time Luffy was with us as well. They were sitting on a row of barrels while I stood in front them and said "Alright guys, I told you before that I would teach you about Haki. Haki is...well, the best words I can use to describe it are 'Applied Bullshit'. It let's you detect what a person attacking you will do, increase the impact of your own attacks while at the same time allowing you to hit the intangible, and for the rare few, exert your dominance over others, usually by knocking them out."

"Uh, what's dominance mean?" Luffy asked.

"Power and influence over others." I explained. At Luffy's quiet 'ah' I continued my explanation and said "Haki is split apart into three main categories: Observation, Armament, and Conqueror's. The first two anyone can learn but the third you have to be born with to use it." Nodding at Luffy, I said "I think Luffy might have that last one, I certainly felt something when I first met him with my Observation Haki and he made his claim to become the Pirate King, and it would make sense that someone with that kind of ambition would have it."

"Shishishi." Luffy laughed with a grin as the others glanced at him considering.

Gathering everyone's attention again, I said "I'll go over Conqueror's a little more with you at a later time Luffy, but for now I'll focus on the other two. Observation is first and its uses are many. You can use it to sense others if they are hidden from your other senses or too far away to detect normally, sense a person's emotional state, predict an opponent's moves shortly before they make them, and true masters can see up to a full minute into the future, though only in snippets for that. It's also possible for two Observation users to communicate semi telepathically thanks to the emotion sensing, kind of like how people who have worked together for a long time don't need to actually speak to have a conversation with each other."

"On the flip side of the Haki coin we have Armament Haki. As the name suggests, its primary purpose is to defend the user. There are two stages, the first forms an invisible shield around what's being protected while the second, stronger form turns the effected object black." I held up my right fist in demonstration and a moment later it was gleaming black. Dropping both the technique and my fist, I continued "Armament Haki is more than a shield though, it's also a weapon. For starters, Armament Haki negates Devil Fruit abilities if those abilities alters the user's body. For instance, say you're fighting a guy that can turn into, oh I don't know, let's go with gelatin. A normal hit wouldn't affect the guy because his body would just turn into gelatin when hit. However, use Armament in your strikes and it would be just like hitting a normal person. And it doesn't have to be a body part doing the striking either, if you're using a weapon like a sword you can imbue your Haki into it. Most higher class swordsmen do so as a matter of course in order to prevent chip damage or outright shattering of their blades in combat."

Zoro's hand drifted over his sword hilts at that and his gaze turned more intent. Nodding my head to Zoro, I said "In fact, there's something called a Black Sword/Blade. It's where a person has used Haki so often with their weapon that it has become permanently black. If you guys see someone with one of these swords before you hit the second half of the Grand Line my advice is to run like hell away from the user if they're not focused on you."

"A-and if they ARE focused on us?" Usopp asked, shakily raising his hand like a student in class.

I gave him a grim smile and said "Then you should promptly bend over and kiss your ass goodbye, though chances are that if you wait a moment you won't actually have to bend over to do so."

Usopp turned a pasty white and let out a terrified wheeze. Johnny and Yosaku both let out loud gulps while Nami had sweat start to form on their brow. Meanwhile Zoro was contemplative while Luffy simply gave a single nod to show that he understood.

"One last thing, actually make that two. First, an advanced user of Armament Haki can create a shield of the stuff a short distance away from the user's body without a medium. Second, there is another, much harder technique, where you can push your Haki into another object and destroy it from the inside."

"COOL!" Usopp and Luffy shouted, stars in their eyes.

"That depends entirely on what you use that trick on. I've seen what a human body exploding looks like, and you're going to need more than a mop to clean THAT mess up." I said with a dark smirk.

Four out of the five people in front of me turned a decidedly unhealthy green at the mental image I just gave them and even Zoro looked slightly disturbed. Shaking his head to clear that image, the Santoryu user said "So what do we need to do to learn these techniques?"

"Well I'm going to get you started on Observation Haki first. The ability to detect an attack means that you have a greater chance to avoid it. After all, the saying's never block an attack if you can dodge it. That and I think I can give you guys a head start on learning Observation if you're willing to trust me a little."

"Why would we need to trust you?" Nami asked suddenly suspicious.

I let out a shrug and said "I couldn't really do this for myself because I'd have no way to end it but I think that if I put you all into a light hypnotic trance then I can make it easier for you guys to use Observation Haki the first time. After that it'd just be a matter of practice."

Nami crossed her arms with a frown and said "You don't actually expect me to allow you to hypnotize me do you? Who knows what you'd do with a beautiful girl like me under your control?"

I shrugged again and said "Then I guess you don't mind spending a few months sitting still meditating or trying to dodge someone attacking you with a blindfold on."

"Er, well..." Nami said, eyes shifting side to side before she sighed and said "Fine. BUT! I want you to record this so that way I know that nothing fishy happened!"

"Fine by me." I said with a shrug as I pulled out my phone and started recording before I put it on a cloth tripod. A minute later, a large piece of cloth shot out of my back and hovered over my head as I continued "Now then, if there aren't any other nay sayers, let's begin."

None of the others spoke up so a spiral of black and white formed on the cloth and began spinning as I said "Focus on the spiral and clear your minds. With every turn of the spiral, feel your thoughts move away, like passing you down a stream that you are standing on the bank of. As your mind clears, begin to allow your senses to fade, until the only thing you can hear is the sound of my voice. First is touch, allow the sensations of the wood you are sitting on and the wind around us to fade away...Next, allow the smell of the ocean and the ships that we are on and around to fade...Right on the heels of smell is taste, note the salt in the air then let it go...Fourth is sight, close your eyes, they are unimportant at this moment...Finally, we have hearing. Hear the waves surrounding you, the creak of the wood beneath us and the flapping of the sails above you, allow it all to fade away, hearing nothing but the sound of my voice..."

As I spoke, I watched how everyone reacted. A bit worryingly, Luffy went into a trance almost instantly. Zoro was surprisingly next, almost immediately after actually, though his seemed less spiral aided, more internally initiated, maybe he actually meditated during some of those naps of his? Johnny, Yosaku, and Usopp all allowed themselves to slip into the 'mellow' of a voluntary trance about a minute in. As expected, Nami was the last one to enter her trance, the girl seeming to have trouble to just let go. Still, once she was under, I had them release their grips on their senses one by one, giving them fifteen seconds between each one.

Once they could only hear my voice, I said "Observational Haki transcends the normal senses, and everyone experiences it just that little bit differently. For some, it is sight beyond sight, for others, hearing beyond hearing. Your five senses have been muted, casting a veil around you, but that does not mean that the world outside of it has ceased to exist. Push through the veil until you can once more detect things around you. When you do, make two thumbs up."

All of their brows furrowed to varying degrees as they did as told. Unsurprisingly given how good she was at detecting changes in weather patterns, Nami was the first to move her hands into the gesture, taking only thirty seconds to do so. Usopp was next, the Sniper's scrunched up face relaxing around fifty seconds in as he fisted his hands with raised thumbs. Zoro and Luffy were both within a minute of the Long Nose. Finally, Johnny and Yosaku made the gesture at around the three minute mark.

Nodding to myself, I said "Alright guys we've got the hardest part done, you've broken the barrier to Observe the world. When you wake up, I want you to remember the feeling you got when you did so. But for now, it's time to return your senses to you. First, allow the rest of your hearing to come into use again...Next, allow your eyes to work again, but make sure you take the time to let them focus properly...Third, allow yourself to taste the air around you again...followed by smelling the area...and finally, allow yourself to feel your surroundings again...Now that your senses have returned to you, I want you to once more try and use Observation Haki, give me a single thumb's up when you do so."

Nami and Usopp immediately gave a thumb's up, rapidly followed by Zoro and Luffy a few seconds in. It took Johnny and Yosaku about six seconds but they too soon had their thumbs up. Nodding, I said "Alright guys, remember to keep how you broke the barrier in mind, able to recall perfectly how you did so as you come out of your trance, which will happen when I snap my fingers in three, two, one." SNAP!

As one, the five all twitched back to awareness and began blinking their eyes a few times. Shaking his head, Usopp said "Man, that felt weird."

"You were aware during it?" I asked mildly curious.

"Vaguely." Usopp said, making a wiggling so-so motion with his hand.

I hummed then shrugged and said "Probably because I didn't specify whether to forget or remember the session I guess."

"I still want to see that recording." Nami said as she got off of her barrel and walked over.

"Yeah, yeah." I said with a wave of my right hand while my left grabbed my phone and stopped the recording. Handing the phone over, I said "Geeze, it's like you don't trust me."

"Don't take it personally, I don't think she actually trusts anyone." Usopp said.

Nami snorted and said "I do too trust people, just not you guys THAT much."

"Fair enough." Usopp said before he seemed to turn his focus inwards. A moment later, he let out a startled "WHOA!" and fell back off of his barrel.

"Usopp! Are you alright?! What happened?!" Luffy asked in concern.

"Ah, yeah, I'm fine. I just tried using Observation Haki on the surrounding area and was surprised by what I sensed." Usopp said as he quickly got up and ran to look over the Merry's railing.

Seeing his actions, I smirked and said "Picked up on the literal ocean's worth of microscopic life forms in the water underneath us didn't you?"

Usopp nodded strongly and said in an awed voice "I had no idea there was so many tiny things hanging around that we couldn't see!"

"Yeah, it can be a bit overwhelming at first I'll admit, but training will allow you to ignore all of those signals you're receiving in favor of all of the ones that matter on the human scale of things." I said with a nod. It really had been quite overwhelming that first time I got Haki working and was swarmed by thousands of soft voices that gathered together to make it seem like I was in a rock concert.

Nami frowned for a moment before she paused the recording and closed her eyes as she focused. A moment later, she gasped and said "Oh, that's beautiful!"

The others soon followed the two's examples and various exclamations were given, from Zoro's grunt of vague interest to Luffy's excited chattering with Johnny and Yosaku in the middle. Once they had gotten over their excitement, Zoro grunted again and asked "So now what?"

"Now?" I asked with an evil smirk that made the smarter members of the group a bit nervous as I continued "One of you comes with me back to the arena and we practice."

Time Skip: The Morning After Our Arrival To The Baratie 7:00

I stood in front of the tape tarp covering the hole to Zeff's room. Said head chef was lounging on a lounge chair on one side of the third story deck while on the other side was a bunch of lumber, nails, hammer, and a saw. Gesturing at the supplies, the Grand Line Veteran said "Alright Carpenter, let's see these Construction Skills you spoke of."

"Right." I said with a nod, putting my hand on the tarp and using my powers to shrink it into nonexistence. Studying the ragged edges of the hole, I said "Hm, need to take off the busted boards first, then replace the brace, oh wait, that's three supports there, that'll be tricky, going to have to pry up some of the floor boards as well to get to those. Shouldn't be too hard if I slip some cloth underneath and slowly make it thicker, would definitely be better than using a crow bar, then I can just tap them back in place with the hammer when I'm done. Everything after that's just cutting the side boards to the right shape and attaching them to the beams."

Turning my head to look at Zeff, I said "Give me an hour, hour and a half tops."

"Hmph, I'll believe it when I see it, and there better not be no tape holding anything up or sealing gaps when you're done. I don't care how impressive that play pen you made yesterday is, I want my wall to actually last longer than a week." Zeff said with crossed arms.

I snorted and said "Please, what do you take me for, a rank amateur?" Not bothering to wait for and answer, I formed a cloth tarp on the floor before I slipped a strand of cloth in between the top broken plank and the support brace it was still attached to, increasing the thickness of the cloth to begin prying the broken board free.

Time Skip: 8:15

I gave the last nail one last tap to make sure it was snug in the wood before I stepped back and said "There we go, just needs a bit of waterproof paint and it'll be good as new." Pulling out my phone to check the time, I smirked at Zeff and said "See, what I tell you? One hour fifteen minutes."

"Hmph, acceptable." Zeff said, eyeing the wall with a critical eye before he said "Follow me and I'll show you where the paint is."

"Righto!" I said, being deliberately chipper to counter his surliness. After all, the hard part was already done.

Time Skip: Three Days After Our Arrival To The Baratie

Fog hung thick in the air, not that me and my training partners could see it. Usopp, Zoro, and I all had blindfolds on as we had a training free for all on the 'ground' floor of the training area. In deference to our blindness Usopp was sticking to pachinko balls as ammunition, Zoro had his swords kept in their sheaths, and I was limiting myself to a tightly wrapped cloth bo staff. I had been fending off Zoro while we did our best to avoid Usopp's fire when the Sniper suddenly called out "Hang on guys, Time Out!"

Zoro and I paused in our weapon swinging to lift our blindfolds up and glanced at Usopp who had his head turned towards the other side of the Baratie, a frown on his lips.

"What is it Usopp?" I asked, a frown also on my lips.

"I'm picking up something large coming towards the restaurant, but the people on it feel really weak, and not in the strength sense, more like on death's doorstep kind of weak." Usopp said. Taking his own blindfold off, he did his best to peer through the thick fog to actually see what he was sensing.

Zoro and I looked in the direction he was and we both focused our own Observation Haki in that area. After about a minute or two we also picked up what our Sniper was sensing and I said "Wow, you weren't kidding about the death's door bit."

Zoro hummed and said "Yeah, but one of those guys seems a bit more well off than the others. It's strange though, that one feels kind of familiar?"

I hummed and said "All in favor of ending training early to go see what's coming?"

"Aye/Sure." The two said and I quickly used my textilekinesis to roll Usopp's used ammo over to him for quicker retrieval before we headed for the exit underneath us. As we walked across the bridge I couldn't help but think that this was the event that magna/anime logic dictated would cut Luffy's servitude short.

END

Whoo, man, I knew that the Haki explanation combined with the fact that its three days would make this long but I didn't expect that much. And I totally added the repair job in last because I almost forgot about it, hence the lack of detail that I had PLANNED to put into it...whoops. Eh, I'll cover it in more detail in Zaboomafoo and/or High Winds. Until next time guys!