Fred had finally finished the physical training N1 of the morning!
And as he had always do after surviving that torture session, drink his invigorating shake and rest briefly to, among other things, recover the sensitivity of his limbs and regain energy to resume your self-torture session
This time training a little calmer than the previous one... although by allusions nothing was calmer than that... which consisted of training one of the mystical powers that in principle everyone was capable of using in the world of One Piece ...
THE HAKI!
"Well... I can move now, more or less...
As always, after a bit of running, it's time for Kenbunshoku Haki training...
You know, I'll cover my eyes, you'll throw balls at me and I'll have to dodge them" Fred said as he covered his eyes with a blindfold and did warm-up exercises to prepare for his next daily activity.
"And remember not to use stones or other blunt items
I'm saying this for you Edu..." Said Stephen, who acted as the security controller to make sure this other suicidal training of his friend didn't have unexpected repercussions
"I only did it once…" Edu answered, a little blushing as he dropped the stones from his pockets to the ground.
"Yes, no stones... only the approved material" Said Fred, somewhat disappointed with his own phrase, but inspired to give a counterproposal "Although thinking about it...
Perhaps the danger of receiving a stone in the head can help me to..."
"NOOOOO!!!" Shouted Stephen, Sara, Tania and the adults around them, who were already being too tolerant with Fred's suicidal trainings. However, this temerity was one they weren't going to tolerate.
"Okay... okay...
Just balls of sand...
More or less soft and more or less safe..." Fred replied with disappointment, being forced to scrap his idea by popular demand, something that his contract more or less allowed as long as he was a child and there would really be danger of death.
And so began the practice of dodging the ball with the eyes closed.
A practice where Fred would stand inside a circle of two meters in diameter and the other kids outside that circle would throw balls at him, which he had to dodge. A training that lasted about 30 minutes, the exact time in which Edu, Tania and Sara were out of breath and with their arm numb from throwing balls at the oldest boy in the village.
"Okay...
It's enough, you can rest...
If you want I can give you one of my shake's, you will recover almost immediately" Said Fred, as he took off his blindfold and walked towards his bag, where there were more than a dozen shakes waiting to be consumed
"No, thanks...
We prefer to recover by normal means at home!" The three normal children answered, who ran terrified to their house despite being extremely tired
"Ok... I get the hint...
See you later!
Thank you very much for helping me one more day!
I'll wait for you tomorrow at the same hour!" Said Fred, somewhat emotionally hurt 'Why doesn't anyone like my shakes?
They are very effective...'
"Not bad today, you dodged 8 balls out of 10, pretty impressive
You're getting better" Stephen said, who was still with Fred, mainly giving him encouragement and taking the statistics.
"Nope...
I'm not improving as I would like...
The reason why I am able to dodge the balls thanks to my sense of smell, touch and especially hearing...
I can smell where you are mainly thanks to the sweat you give off, feel the very slight vibrations from the sand when you move and above all listen to the sound of the joints that you are going to use to throw the balls... and of course also the ball coming towards me
Thanks to that I am more or less able to intuit the trajectory of the ball even if it comes from behind me...
However, this is not Kenbunshoku haki, as I cannot sense your presence, your power, your emotions, your intentions, much less see briefly into the future...
I'm not dodging thanks to a sixth sense but to have hyper developed my other senses... not bat, but not what I want..." Fred answered, disappointed with himself for not having developed Haki yet despite putting so much time, effort and ball hits in the groin to achieve it.
He had tried everything he could for years, but had been unsuccessful in awakening any kind of Haki until now and was desperate to awaken the true power system of this world, to the point of asking children to throw stones at his head 'This is much more complicated than I thought...
Why can't I become one of those fanfiction protagonists that without the help of an experienced teacher, without having read a manual on how to do it or without having woken it up in a near-death situation are able to learn Haki, Rokushiki or any other advanced skill?
WHY MUST I BE THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS TO SUFFER FOR NOTHING!?'
"Um... Fred, I don't want to distrust you or call you crazy...
But...
Are you sure that mystical power called Haki really exists?
Sounds like something out of a fantasy story..." Said Stephen, that despite having spent so many years helping him in this training, such as creating sand balls with him, he was still skeptical about these super powers
However, it wasn't the first time that Fred had to answer him exactly the same thing, so while he was exercising with a 300 Kg Katana made up of many weights, he answered with the usual answer "Of course superpowers exist, especially Haki...
How do you explain my ability to see the future?
How do you explain that I knew about the execution of Gold .D Roger or Ohara before it happened and with complete accuracy if it wasn't for strange powers capable of seeing into the future?
One of the skills I'm trying to get is similar...
With a shorter range, but more controllable"
"This...
I'm still looking for a logical explanation...
However, there isn't yet...
At the moment the only theory I have formulated is that your prophetic dreams are the cause of the hellish snoring and extremely deep sleep...
All this has to be related, otherwise I can't explain those superhuman snoring..." Stephen replied, that after years of research using the scientific method, he still hadn't found a conclusive answer to this strange phenomenon.
Although it was hard for him to believe and accept it, he had no alternative but to accept that this strange ability of Fred's could be a super power… at least for now…
"You'll keep saying the same thing when you see in the newspaper this year that Whitebeard Pirates has stated that the Gyojin Island is now his territory and that he will destroy anyone who attacks it?
Accept it Stephen!
What else do I have to do to prove that I am telling the truth?
I have strange powers and there are still many out there" Fred said, brandishing the heavy metal bar in his hands with great difficulty, so much so that his arms seemed about to explode.
Since Fred and Stephen were born they had been together all the time... and Stephen, despite being a cheerful, innocent and friendly boy, was very intelligent and observant. At least enough to realize after a while that there was something extremely unusual about Fred… well, not just one thing, but several...
However, what caught his attention the most was that he had knowledge of things that it was impossible for a child who lived on an island almost isolated from civilization to know, much less have such an adult mentality
With the insistence that characterized him, Stephen began to ask questions to Fred, questions that became more and more difficult to answer and excuse everyday. Then Fred one day, when was between a rock and a hard place, came up with a perfect excuse to justify his knowledge and unusual behaviour and at the same time as being able to share… more or less… one of his biggest secrets with his friend
He told him that he was capable of having dreams of past, present and future events in the world, but that he had no control over them and therefore he was capable of knowing so many things and having developed such a mature mentality at his age, after all he had seen many things that would change anyone.
Obviously Stephen didn't believe that story at first, however… when Fred was able to predict impossible things to know he no choice but to reluctantly accept it, especially when he was able to explain them in more detail than in the newspapers
Events like Gold D. Roger becoming the Pirate King, that the Government would suddenly erase his [D.] from his last name, that he would be executed in the same place where he was born saying the exact words that would trigger the era of piracy and of course the events of Ohara, where an eight-year-old girl named Niko Robin would get a bounty of 79,000,000 berries for her head
Stephen had no choice but to accept Fred's explanation, there couldn't be so many coincidences in a row... for that reason he also began to consider accepting as valid many other anti-scientific powers that Fred explained to him "I still find it hard to believe that there are such things as reading the future, hardening your body to be immune to weapons, creating invisible armor around your body, destroying objects from inside with a strange aura, hitting things without touching them, jumping into the air continuously, accelerating at absurd speeds, manipulating your body with your mind, launching energy slashes from swords, getting super powers by eating strange fruits…
Seriously, it's extremely unscientific...
And if you have seen all that in your dreams is it not possible for you to learn it easily?
You know, dreaming it several times and learning it
Also... you know... have you been able to find..."
"I wish it were possible...
I have no control over those dreams, they are extremely diffuse, I only see them once and I don't even see what I want to see...
I've seen how many skills are used, but that doesn't give me immediate access to learn them, I don't have that absurd talent...
There are children who are born with Haki, but obviously not me... that's why the only thing I can do to obtain it now is to imitate what I have seen in the absence of innate talent or a teacher...
The same with the Soru, Geppo, Tekkai or Rankyaku … I've become extremely fast, jump very high and my muscles are strong but no matter how hard I try I can't perform those techniques...
It's frustrating..." Fred replied while swinging his heavy metal training bar up and down. Cursing with every swing his bad luck for not having awakened ultimate powers at an early age like other monsters in the One Piece world like Big Mom or Kaido
"Yes, exactly the same with your sword energy slashes…" Stephen answered, still looking skeptically and even ridiculously at Fred's failed attempts to fire long-range slashing beams from a metal item...
"Speaking of which...
Do you want to have a little fight with me?
I'm tired, you might be able to beat me" Said Fred as he tossed the heavy and deadly metal bar he was using for training into the sand on the beach to pick up a slightly less deadly light wooden Katana instead and offered Stephen another.
A Katana that Stephen rejected outright and indignantly "No thanks, I'm not going to fight holding a piece of wood
I am a Steel, not a Wood"
"Aish… you and your familiar nonsense with metal…
So we fight with our fists?" Fred asked as he tossed the katanas onto the beach sand as well.
In the Steel family, using wood was a monumental disgrace, but not using his body, since the blood that makes it work contains iron. Therefore, Stephen agreed "OK! But this time I'm going to win and..."
POOOMMM!!!
However, the fight ended before it could start thanks to a powerful and decisive head rap from Fred, which knocked out Stephen.
"SSHHHH!!!
HURTS!
WE HAVEN'T STARTED YET!!" Stephen shouted, rubbing his head to try to ease the pain, also drying his tears in indignation.
"An enemy never waits for you to be prepared
Do you want another chance cry-baby?" Said Fred as he rubbed his imaginary long beard of a wise millennial Kung Fu master... for immediately afterwards tying a kind of dull knife made of wood in his long and reddish ponytail of a meter in length...
"Not anymore, bully...
Anyway, I was going to lose anyway...
As always…" Stephen said as he got up from the ground with some grudge, a grudge that he would forget in about ten seconds.
"Don't get discouraged Stephen, you're too strong for a nine year old, it's just that you don't train hard enough, that's why you can't beat me" Fred said as he frantically hit a giant sandbag with his fists, palms, elbows, knees , pimple and with his long ponytail as a whip
"Yes Yes, whatever you say...
When you're done practicing this absurdity of using your hair as a whip attached to some disgusting wooden knives, can we practice throwing real knives?
Made with steel obviously" Stephen asked as he took out from his backpack some throwing knives that he himself had created
"I don't like you calling it absurd, as it can become extremely practical... and when I have enough control I'll use metal blades, don't be outraged...
However, your proposal seems fine to me.
As soon as I run out of breath and without strength, we start that easy training
You can prepare my needles, they are perfect for injecting poison" Fred replied as he kept hitting the sandbag with all the parts of his body to strengthen them and improve his close combat while Stephen had started his knife throwing training without him
"It's a shame we can't practice with pistols...
They're too expensive... and ammo would have to be bought..." Stephen said, somewhat disappointed not to be able to use high technology as he threw his first knife of the day against the wooden target that unfortunately he had been forced to create years ago after losing a bet with Fred
"And did you forget to mention that our families are completely against it
Even with Uncle Marlon on our side, the most they've allowed us to do is throw knives and other stuff" Fred answered while hitting another sandbag, since the other one had burst after so many blows and therefore he would have to sew later...
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