(Bellamy POV)
As it turned out, Gasparde's fruit did not reincarnate in my hold, proving without a doubt that we had gotten extremely lucky with Enel. Doesn't mean I wasn't going to always keep a supply of fruit on hand though. Who knows what the future will bring?

What we did get, was the prize money for winning the race as we didn't get spotted by the marines, and thus they didn't hunt us down like they did the Strawhats. This had the additional benefit of making Lily a very happy woman with how full our treasury was again, which had been running rather low after Doffy drained it on Water Seven.

All in all, I put the episode down as a half success as we made our way to the next island.

Not sure which one that is, but surely we had to be close to the end of the first half of the grandline. The Strawhats went to the Florian Triangle after Water Seven then a resort and then the Redline.

I went to Water Seven, Hannabal and Partia in order, the latter two not being where I had expected them to be, meaning that they were not located in an earlier part of the grandline. If I had to make an educated guess, the Strawhats took a rather large detour from the usual routes through Paradise by going to Navarone first before arriving at Water Seven.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of pained grunting and groaning. Looking up from my own dumbbell curls, I look over to where Nero is overseeing the training for the boys. Sweat is flowing like rivulets, teeth gritted and eyes bulging out, as my crewmates are locked in an improvised version of the tug-of-war. No hands, the rope attached to harnesses around their waists as they try to pull the other team over the line. Nero assured me that this exercise was a staple during his own education so I left him to it.

On the other side of the gym with the girls, things are calmer, but arguably no less painful as Shura does his best to hammer in haki into their brains with a rod. So far, most of them aren't doing that well and hence, covered in some painful welts and bruises. However, progress is being made. Whereas before they couldn't react, now all of them are twitching and trying to move out of the way, though it is almost always too late…

…wait. Almost always?

There it is again. Shura is swinging, Mani is dodging once, twice and sadly not thrice. I shoot Shura a questioning look and he shrugs before flicking his rod in her direction without warning. This time, Mani stays absolutely still as the rod comes to rest millimeters from her head. So not just hearing the rod swishing through the air.

"Mani, how are you feeling?" I call out, genuinely curious. She is obviously not reacting like Coby did when he unlocked his own haki. Admittedly that had been under very stressful circumstances, so this has to be the standard variant.

"Like, really odd. I still can't see but…I can…hear colors? No, that's not right." Mani replies. "It's really difficult to describe but if I had to give it a shot, it would be that I can hear colors giving off smells as they sing, but I can't smell anything out of the ordinary."

Apart from Shura & Aisa, everyone looks about as confused as I am by that explanation. "So, like the sum of your senses but more?"

"You could put it like that, yeah." Mani nods after thinking about it for a moment.

"Shura, what's the verdict?"

"I do believe she unlocked her mantra." he admits and with that it's official. He does look slightly miffed, but whether that is due to how quickly Mani unlocked it or its because I'm still keeping him in chains is anyone's guess, but he looks the tiniest bit proud.

As a reward, I'm also going to loosen his restrictions somewhat. The teensy tiniest amount but enough to give him hope for eventual freedom.

Shura's presence had probably been the biggest shock for Nero when he joined up. Having been a (provisionary) member of the government's top intelligence agency, he was well aware of the haki's existence. But haki is one of those things that are practically unknown on this side of the grandline, much like how devil fruits are deemed legends and myths by the four blues. Hence, when I offered to let Shura teach him as well, it provided much greater incentive for him to stick around beyond merely seeking a safe spot to hide from the government.

Speaking of Shura, the man had also calmed down significantly. He still flinched whenever Eddy got too close but he no longer got panic attacks.

Our haki training benefit greatly as a result, because if your instructor in all things willpower has no willpower of his own, he can only poorly instruct the willing in empowering one's will to manifest willpower in a tangible demonstration of willpower. Capiche?

Anyway…

"This calls for a celebration!" And celebrate we did.

Now, I would like to say that once the floodgates were open, we started unlocking haki one after the other like dominoes. That did not happen. Instead, we continued to take our lumps with Shura, continued to tear our muscles apart with Nero only to have Muret patch us up later.

When I first ordered a state of the art exercise facility from Iceburg, I hadn't been expecting to have it be the most hated and still most used room on the Black Pearl. So far, I've managed to convince my crew that the gym was a voluntary gift from the mayor of Water Seven and not a custom order. I'm only half joking when I say I'm worried they might mutiny if they discover the truth.

Then again, none of them are shirking their training, turning up day after day to give it their all, despite our rather nice winning streak. I think for many, it was the realization that despite the dials, devil fruit and greater physical ability, there were still so many enemies out there they couldn't match on their own, enemies of whom they had never even heard of, like Gasparde.

Thing is though, if you were going to be objective about it, they've all made incredible progress. It's only a few months ago that my crew would have had trouble against likes of the Maruyama Alliance under Montblanc Cricket. Now, they are able to take down a veteran pirate worth 95 million belli, even if the deck had been stacked heavily in their favor and the guy had let down his guard despite said stacked deck.

If anything, I think the world government is still severely underestimating my crew. Not sure they'd be able to beat the Strawhats, but they'll be able to give the weaker members at least a good run for their money. Maybe even win if those kids didn't have plot armor thicker than the red line.

Sigh…one of these days my crew is going to be on the same level as Zoro or Sanji. One of these days...or I'm liable to end up like Trafalgar Law who got wrecked by Blackbeard because his crew couldn't keep up. But then again, I don't think the rank-and-file members of Trafalgar's crew had haki.

Watching Lily cuss up a storm after her tenth leg cramp of the morning, I send over some words of encouragement and get profanities in return. Though, if they keep working this hard, I'm certain we'll reach my target much faster than it should be reasonable. As I like to say, One Piece physiology is broken that way.

(Rivers POV)
He was a sniper. In fact, he was not just any sniper, but the Sentinel of the Sky, the man who rode on a fucking big bird to rain death down from above. So why was he in the water, being dragged along behind the ship with a rope tied to his waist?

"You there, stop being a limpet and start swimming!" Right, how could he forget? It's because Weasel-face said so. According to him, there is no better way to exercise one's whole body with the least strain than swimming. And because normal swimming is boring, he is thrown into shark infested waters without a weapon and told to keep up. At least nobody is telling him to get ahead of the ship and pull. "You're supposed to get ahead of the ship and pull, you lazy ass!"

Rivers is going to apologize to the captain for calling him a sadist. The captain is a saint when compared to the devil's spawn that is Weasel-face.

He'd once asked Weasel-face whether or not he had trained this way. He had looked at Rivers before smirking and chittering. "Of course not. We just swam regular laps in a swimming pool. We're not crazy."

But the Crew was different, Nero had said. Unlike the CP9 recruits, the Crew didn't have the luxury of a decade of training and had to be ready within two years as per their captain's demand. Thus, the intensity of the exercises got upped by several orders of magnitude.

The guy had also muttered something along the lines of "Having the most fun of his life." But at the time Rivers had chosen to ignore it. Now? He dearly regrets not punching the Weasel-face in the face.

"Put some effort into it! You call that swimming?" It wouldn't be that bad if this were some regular ship. But no, Rivers had to be sailing on the only ship in the world which had jet dials installed for extra speed.

The only solace Rivers has, is that he's not the only one suffering. Apart from those who physically can't swim, all of the Crew is in the water alongside Rivers. The lucky bastards who can't swim are on the ship keeping her on course.

"I've seen children who were better at swimming than you lot!"

Rivers would have scoffed if it hadn't meant getting a mouthful of seawater. What kind of child could handle such torture? Likely the same kid who took out a rebel organisation before puberty but that had to be an exaggeration. There should be limits to how tall one's tales could get.

But for now, he can't do anything but grit his teeth and swim. And as he begins to pull ahead of the Black Pearl, Rivers takes heart in the fact that at least he's not the captain.

(Sarquiss POV)
Training was meant to be painful. The old adage "No pain, no gain" wouldn't be so widespread if it weren't true. Even then, there was a differentiation between training despite the pain and training to build a tolerance for pain.

What Bellamy was doing was neither.

"Aisa, again."

"Ok."

Being voluntarily zapped by lightning was Bellamy's newest brainchild and the reason why their stock of burn salve was depleting at an alarming rate.

The purported purpose of the continued attempts of self-immolation via chibi was to harness the power of electromagnetism for unlimited power. Well, there had been a lot more words and explanations attached but most of it went over Sarquiss' head.

"Again."

Every time Bellamy got his dose of lightning, Aisa would blur. It had been alarming at first, then interesting. Now it was just another part of life after who knows how many repeats. At least, Aisa was buzzing out a lot less than at the beginning, no longer needing minutes to literally regather herself. Now she barely broke a sweat, so long as the voltage was low.

"A little more juice, Aisa."

Maybe that's also how Bellamy isn't frying his own brain from the constant electrical shocks he's receiving. Humans conduct electricity, don't they? Muret did call them all 'useless bags of meat and water' when they first met.

"Actually, while human bodies do conduct electricity, I have figured out how to change the material my springs change into." Bellamy explains after Sarquiss expresses his curiosity. "It's been something I've been toying with ever since Skypiea and I've recently managed to make a breakthrough. It's all in the visualization, you see?"

"No, but let's pretend I do and keep going."

"The thing about devil fruit abilities, especially paramecia like mine, is that they are based very much around a concept and not a strictly defined set of rules. While I'm sure there are limits, those limits are rather generous. Think of Doflamingo's fruit for example."

What about his fruit? It was the ability to make strings, was it not?

"It's a lot more than that. Strings are used to make puppets move making them a key component in the art of puppetry. A person pulling metaphorical strings to make people act according to their wishes is called a puppetmaster. See where I'm going with this?"

"Almost. Feel like a lightbulb is going to light somewhere in my noggin."

"Doffy took an average fruit that could only produce strings for sewing needles and turned it into a monstrosity that allows him to attach his night indestructible strings to people and literally control their bodies. All because that ability is tangentially related to the concept of a string."

"…I'm not sure I want to stab him anymore."

"The point is, my conceptual ability is a 'spring'. Nothing says what shape or size my springs have to be or what their material composition is supposed to be. I've just been making steel springs because it's the metal I'm most familiar with."

"And now you've made…copper?"

"Exactly. Copper to increase the conductivity and energy efficiency of turning my arms and my torso into a giant LC-circuit." Bellamy says, waving his two 'hands' around. Well, the two conical springs compressed into circular plates he turned his hands into. "The difficult part right now is building up a tolerance to electricity so I can have Aisa charge me up when it counts. I'm just glad that copper seems to be more conductive than my body so most of the electricity stays in the spring-wires."

Makes sense, though there is one thing Sarquiss wasn't quite getting.

"Why don't you turn those little springs connecting your neck and waist to your torso into rubber? You said rubber stopped Enel's lightning, didn't you?"

"…"

"…" Surely not. There's no way Bellamy is this stupid.

"…are you a genius?"

It's probably too late to jump ship, isn't it?

(Eddy POV)
All the aches, the leaden limbs…the pain, so much excruciating pain. But if anyone asked him now if all of that had been worth it, Eddy would say yes in a heartbeat. And to think that a simple son of a small town fisherman could go on to achieve something like this.

"I…I cut steel…" It's nary but a whisper, nearly inaudible, Eddy fearful that anything could break the sanctity of this moment. However, it had to be said. "I cut steel."

Nobody back home could do it. Not the local swordsmanship instructor, not the marine captain…nobody until Roronoa. And now Eddy himself.

The cut isn't completely clean, the path of the blade having been disturbed just before the end, but he'd done it. And better yet, his own sword is undamaged, the mark of a proficient swordsman.

"I CUT STEEL!" he shouts for all the heavens to hear, for the world to acknowledge that Eddy is now someone of note, a swordsman in his own right.

He's so exuberant at this moment, that he forgets the other occupants of the room until they remind him of their presence.

Funkfreed trumpets his approval and congratulations, adding to the general cacophony of Eddy screaming and tumbling around the gym.

And his new owner, Muret is clapping enthusiastically from the sidelines before Eddy runs over to her and engulfs her in a big hug. He wouldn't normally dare to do this, but he's drunk on his victory and arguably not quite sane right now. But Muret doesn't stop him so he twirls them around the gym a few times before setting her down.

Of course, his rationality and that pesky emotion called self-consciousness choose that moment to come back, turning the mood awkward in an instant.

"Uuhh…"

"Congratulations, Eddy. That was really impressive."

"…thank you. I gotta check up onthecourseheadingseeyoulaterbye!"

And then he's out, the door slamming shut behind him. Why did he just do that? And why did he just leave like that? Stupid Eddy. Stupid, stupid, stupid…did he mention stupid?

Sighing, Eddy trudges up to his post, checking the heading and the arrangement of the sail and the rudder to make sure that they are still on course. They are, nothing to worry about there.

He kind of wishes there was something to worry about, if only to take his mind of the social catastrophe just prior. He wasn't usually like this, so why now at the moment of his greatest triumph?

Sigh

Why can't he be smooth and suave for once?

"Land ho!"

Why?

Author's note:

Another glimpse at the continued training the Crew is doing behind the scenes with three big breakthroughs.
If it seems too fast, please consider that it's been roughly four months since Skypiea.

Also, poor Eddy.

P.S. comments and discussion make the author write faster.