Luffy was gatling gunning Kuro who took it with no sign of pain.
Feeling frustrated, Luffy ushered more willpower into his attacks.
Zoro, Kuina, and Kuro eye's widened.
With a grin, Kuro felt Luffy's attacks pass through his haki defense.
"No way!" Kuina uttered and went towards them.
Zoro stood up with surprise still on his face and went towards them.
The crew wondered why Kuina and Zoro's expressions were so surprised.
They followed after the two.
Looking at his arms, Luffy could see ink covering them.
He felt it made his attacks stronger.
Seeing he had succeeded, Luffy stopped attacking Kuro and cheered.
Kuro smiled, "Congratulations Cap, you got armament haki now."
"How!" Kuina awed, "It took me and Zoro months."
Kuro elaborated, "The more stress you're under, the quicker you learn. It seems the admiral that's coming is giving Cap a lot of pressure."
"Does this mean Luffy is third commander now?" questioned Zoro.
Kuro held a thumbs up, "Yep."
"Does this mean I can fight Zoro and Kuina!?" Luffy grinned excitedly.
Kuro frowned, "You can, but because they have observation haki and swords, they have two huge advantages over you. If you want to fight on equal footing with them, you'd need observation haki and steel gloves."
"What about second gear?" Luffy tilted his head.
Kuro smiled as he remembered, "Forgot about that, with second gear, you'd be able to easily beat them. But only if you manage to land a hit, and that's going to be hard with their observation haki."
Luffy nodded happily, "How do I get observation haki?"
Kuro looked at Sanji who looked back.
The two stared at each other.
"What's going on Usopp?" Chopper whispered.
"I don't know, but it seems Luffy got that armament haki thing now," Usopp whispered nack.
Sanji took out his smoke, "Does Captain getting observation haki have anything to do with me?"
Kuro smiled and nodded, "I was thinking of giving you a power boost and having you attack Cap who'll have to dodge. If Cap can't dodge, he can simply use armament haki to resist it."
"Why? I'm rubber," Luffy tilted his head.
"Using armament haki will slowly increase the amount you have over time. You can feel you have a finite amount of it and it needs to be replenished right?" Kuro elaborated.
"Finite?" Luffy tilted his head.
Kuro realized his mistake with an O, "You have small haki, you make haki bigger the more you use it."
"O!" Luffy fisted his palm.
Everyone's sweat dropped.
"Alright, let's do this," Sanji stubbed his smoke.
Kuro went up to Sanji and disappeared.
Everyone's eyes widened wondering what happened.
Kuina and Zoro were the most surprised, they had never seen Kuro do anything like that.
Suddenly, Kuina and Zoro detected Sanji getting extremely strong.
Sanji himself felt explosive power within him, "I see."
Sanji turned to Luffy and grinned with his leg brought up, "Ready Cap?"
Luffy took a stance, "Ready Sanji."
Sanji disappeared, and Kuina and Zoro's eyes widened along with everyone else.
Attacking Luffy with his leg, Sanji suddenly realized he couldn't control the explosive power he wielded very well since he'd never practiced with it.
Sanji gritted his teeth, "Shit!"
With the amount of power in his kick, Sanji knew Luffy would be sent to the horizon and the deck of Merry would shatter.
Suddenly, he felt great control over his leg and he managed to safely deliver a kick into Luffy's face.
Luffy breathed a sigh of relief since he managed to activate his armament in time, he had felt Sanji's kick was very powerful and that Sanji couldn't control it very well.
Sanji sweated and breathed heavily, Zoro and Kuina understood why.
"What just happened?" Nami questioned.
Robin studied Sanji intently, "It seems Mister Cook had trouble controlling his new power-up."
"Did you help him stop it in time Kuro?" Kuina questioned.
"Yeah," They heard Kuro's voice from Sanji's body.
"Sorry Sanji, I forgot about power control," Kuro apologized.
"It's okay," Sanji smiled.
Suddenly, Sanji felt Kuro was about to leave his body, "Wait, stay."
"Huh?" Everyone voiced with Kuro.
Sanji smiled, "Let me get used to it so I can help Captain Train."
Sanji felt Kuro seem to smile, "Alright Sanji."
At the dinner table, Robin suddenly had a question for Kuro, "On the power scaling, what would you rank Crocodile and powered up Sanji?"
Kuro suddenly felt Robin questioning him at the dinner table was going to become a thing.
Everyone around seemed interested though.
"Crocodile was second commander, and powered up Sanji was second commander also. However, I didn't really give Sanji the full maximum powerup I could have given him or he might have become a false admiral," Kuro elaborated.
Everyone seemed shocked.
Sanji was the most shocked as he felt the power-up Kuro had given him and Kuro was saying that wasn't even the full power-up.
"What do you mean by false admiral?" questioned Nami.
"An admiral can emit haki," Kuro pointed at Nami's cup and shot it off her hand.
Everyone's eyes widened.
The cup landed safely without breaking.
"An admiral should be able to stop an island from sinking with the immense amount of haki they have. Sanji doesn't have the ability to emit haki but because he'd be able to fight on par with an admiral at full powered up, he'd be a false admiral," Kuro elaborated.
Everyone became awed.
Robin and Sanji suddenly both had a question.
"Why didn't you reveal that we could fight off an admiral till now?" Robin questioned with confusion.
Kuro smiled, "It's to help Cap get armament haki, also none of you asked."
Zoro suddenly had a thought, "Wait a minute, if Mihawk was a false emperor and you managed to fight him decently, doesn't that means we always had a chance against admirals?"
Kuro grinned at Zoro.
Kuina sighed, "Can't believe you tricked us."
Kuro smiled sheepishly, "Sorry but power scaling is weird. If I must remind you, super rookie Cap could have beaten Crocodile so that's why."
Usopp eye's widened, "Is that why you're not confident in fighting against an admiral even though you know you can?"
Kuro nodded with a smile, "Yep, power scaling is weird right?"
Usopp sighed, "Yeah, I can see."
"Kuro, what kind of power-up would you have given me at full power-up?" Sanji questioned curiously.
Everyone suddenly became curious about Sanji's question and looked at Kuro excitedly.
"Tell us, tell us," Chopper yelled excitedly.
Kuro fell into thought with a smile, "Hmmmmmm, let's see, I would have given you a hot hyper-flexible liquid alloy body. You would have been immune to all attacks besides haki. Your perception of time could decrease to the millisecond. Your speed would have increased incredibly and I mean incredibly. I would have created a bunch of lightning bugs to help you fight. Your prowess would have reached giants. There's a bunch more that I don't feel like listing out."
Everyone's mouths hung open.
"All of that sounds like it's enough to fight an emperor," Kuina stated.
Kuro shook his head, "Haki is king, one attack infused with internal destruction haki and conqueror haki from an emperor is all it takes to kill both me and Sanji."
Everyone became silent at that.
Arriving at an island, Kuro quickly got off and went towards a tree.
He took out a piece of paper and started drawing on it.
Pulling out a bottle and a cork, he placed the paper in it and closed it.
Looking towards the ocean, he yeeted the bottle towards the ocean.
Unfortunately, Luffy caught the bottle.
"What are you doing Kuro!?" Luffy smiled.
"I'm going to dig a hole to place a treasure inside and that paper in the bottle is the location to it," Kuro explained.
"Why?" Luffy questioned with confusion.
Kuro gasped, "Cap, we're pirates, it's pirate's code to bury treasure."
Luffy's eyes shined, "It is!?"
"No it isn't!" Nami shark teethed.
Luffy became confused, "It isn't?"
Kuro turned Luffy to him, "Cap look at me, how do you think treasure mals are made?"
Luffy eyes widened, "You're right."
Kuro grinned, "Now throw that bottle in the ocean and lets start digging."
Luffy stretched back his arm and yeeted it towards the ocean.
Everyone watched as Kuro and Luffy dug a small hole.
Kuro took out a large treasure chest and placed it in.
"What's in there?" Chopper eyes shined.
Kuro smiled, "A piece of paper that says you've just been pranked bro."
"That's not nice," Usopp stared.
Kuro shrugged, "Most treasure map are dunce anyway."
Luffy seemed disappointed, "Kuro, let's put real treasure in there."
Kuro sighed with a smile, "Alright."
Taking out a lighter, tape, knife, axe, bucket, berri, and some food.
He placed them in there and closed the chest.
"How are those treasure?" Kuina tilted her head.
"It should be treasure for anyone stranded on this island with certain death," Robin smiled.
Kuro looked blankly at Robin, there's no way she was starting to read his mind.
"Looks like I'm right," Robin smugged.
Kuro sighed, "The real treasure were the friends we made along the way."
"How does this fit into the conversation?" Nami wondered.
Kuro turned to Luffy, "Don't you agree Cap?"
"Yeah!" Luffy grinned.
In a marine courtyard, Tashigi was swinging her sword as she tried to get her mind off the strawhats.
Throughout her life, many had said she looked like Killer Kuina.
From what she learned about Kuina, the woman was one of the greatest bounty hunter in the East Blue.
Everywhere Kuina, Kuro, and Zoro went, pirates fled by the drove.
The three demons had hunted so many pirates that the East Blue became extremely peaceful.
When she heard they were going to the Grand Line, she thought they were going to clean up the sea but no they just went there to be pirates.
Least to say, Tashigi was hurt.
Although she became friendly with them, she wonderd just why did they become pirates, just why?
She wished she had asked them those questions.
Tashigi swung her sword harder for their next meeting.
Admiral Kuzan stared at Kuro's wanted poster.
A terrible veteran was all he could think.
The man had shown up with his friend and sister and caused so much havoc all over the East Blue that they became famous all around the world.
From the intelligence they collected, the three seemed to know haki.
Random people from the East Blue just didn't know haki for no reason.
Their origin was definitely suspicious.
Perhaps they had powerful backing behind them.
Maybe a family or clan of strong swordsmans that sent out their children to train their swordsmanship.
Whatever they were, he had to check up on them.
So far they hadn't done anything too bad.
But if he deemed them a threat, especially with Nico Robin, it might be best to end them all.
