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Breakfast was over. The sun was still low, painting the calm sea in hues of soft orange and pink. The morning was quiet, but it was a new kind of quiet. The one filled with anticipation.
Aster, his small face set in its usual serious expression, stood on the white sand before his parents. He had eaten a massive breakfast, his mother's ironclad rule having been satisfied. Now, training could begin.
He looked past his parents, toward the cottage. On the small wooden table inside, the dark, cracked fruit sat. It was quiet, as if it knew it had lost the first battle.
Was I too mean to it? I guess so, I will say sorry later.
Aster thought in his mind. Then he turned to his father.
"Dad," Aster said, his soft voice cutting the silence. "When should I eat it?"
Rocks D. Xebec looked down at his son. The manic energy of yesterday was gone, replaced by the sharp, focused intensity of a captain. "Not yet."
Aster's golden eyes narrowed slightly. "Why? You said it was my power."
"It is a tool, Aster," Xebec corrected, his voice a low rumble. "It is not the power. It is a tool. A monstrous, powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. And you don't give a master weapon to someone who doesn't know how to hold it."
He crouched, bringing his face level with his son's. "For this week, while I am here, we focus on the foundation. We focus on the one thing you will have even if you are naked and drowning at the bottom of the sea. We focus on Haki."
"Haki?" Aster tilted his head. The word was new, but the feeling of it was not. He remembered the crushing pressure that had saved his father from the Sea King.
"Yes. Haki." Xebec's grin returned, a flash of wild pride. He stood, turning to face the vast, open ocean.
"The world is full of liars, kid," Xebec began, his voice booming across the cove. "They will tell you that power comes from a Devil Fruit, or from a title, or from a bloodline. They are all wrong. Those things are just... amplifiers. Decorations. True power, the only power that matters in this world, is Will."
He slammed his own massive, scarred fist into his open palm, and the air cracked. A small shockwave of invisible force blasted past Aster, kicking up the sand and making his black-and-white hair whip across his face.
"That," Xebec said, "is Haki. It is the ability to take your own spirit, your own will to live, to fight, and to conquer, and impose it on the world around you. It is the strongest power on these seas. If you master it, you can stand at the very top. Even gods will bow to your will."
He turned back, his gaze fiery. "There are three forms. The first is Kenbunshoku. Observation." He tapped his temple. "It is the power to sense. To hear the voices of others, to feel their intent, to see the future itself, and dodge the attacks that would kill you. Your mother is a master of this. It's how she always knows you're awake, even when you're pretending."
Aster's eyes widened slightly. He'd always wondered about that.
"The second," Xebec continued, holding up his fist, which was now slowly, impossibly, turning a glossy, metallic black, "is Busoshoku. Armament. It is the will to defend and to attack. It is an invisible armor that can block any blade. It is the only weapon that can strike the 'invincible' fools who have eaten a Logia-type fruit. It is the power to hit what cannot be hit."
Aster stared at the black, armor-plated fist, his mind connecting it to the heavy, wooden axe he trained with. Armor. A weapon.
"And the third..." Xebec's voice dropped, and the air itself seemed to grow heavy. The manic grin vanished, replaced by a look of pure, predatory kingship. "The third is the rarest. It is the power of the few, the 'Supreme King.' Haoshoku."
The crushing pressure from yesterday slammed down on the beach, a hundred times stronger. It wasn't aimed at Aster, but it enveloped him, a tangible, suffocating cloak of pure, absolute dominance. It was the color of a thunderstorm. It was the will of a conqueror, and it screamed one simple command: Kneel.
Aster's legs trembled violently. His head spun. But he did not fall. He braced his wide little legs in the sand, just as he did when he lifted the heavy axe, and he glared up at his father, his own small, unformed will pushing back against the tide.
As quickly as it came, the pressure vanished. Xebec was breathing hard, a massive grin splitting his face.
"Zehahahaha! Yes! That's it!" he roared. "You felt it, didn't you? The power to overwhelm the weak, to tame beasts, to bend the world to your will without ever lifting a finger. That is the power we share, Aster. It is the mark of a true king."
He crouched again, his expression becoming deadly serious. The shift was jarring.
"Now, you promise me something," Xebec said, his voice low and firm.
Aster, still breathing hard, just nodded. His father's presence was overwhelming.
"You have that fruit," Xebec said, gesturing toward the cottage. "It will make you strong. Terrifyingly strong. And your mother... she knows more about that... thing... than anyone alive. She will guide you when I am gone. You will gain power faster than anyone in history. But power that comes easily is a trap. It makes you lazy. It makes you weak in your core."
He held up his Haki-coated finger. "You promise me. I don't care if you become a god. I don't care if you can shatter mountains with a whisper. You will never stop training your Haki. You will train it every single day. You will push it until you bleed. Because the moment you stop, the moment you rely only on that fruit, you will find a stronger fish in the sea. And they will eat you alive. Can you promise me that, Aster?"
Aster looked into his father's intense, fiery eyes. He saw the truth there. He saw the path. This was the first, and most important, law.
"Yes," Aster replied, his small voice firm, absolute.
"Good." Xebec stood, his wild grin returning. "Then the training begins."
The week that followed was not training. It was hell.
Xebec was not a teacher in any traditional sense. He was a force of nature, and his only method was "survival." He was a pirate captain who ruled the strongest and most volatile crew in the world; he did not have the patience for gentle instruction.
It began with Observation.
"You can already feel emotions," Xebec grunted, standing on the beach. "That's a parlor trick. Useless in a real fight. You need to feel intent."
Aster stood in the middle of the cove, his small legs braced. "How?"
"Like this."
Xebec, from thirty yards away, flicked his wrist. A small, black pebble, coated in a faint shimmer of Haki, shot through the air. Aster didn't even see it. It thwacked hard against his forehead, right on his white streak. It didn't break the skin, but it hurt. It felt like being hit with a small iron hammer.
Aster stumbled back, his eyes watering, a cry of shock and pain catching in his throat. He looked at his father, betrayed.
Xebec's face was impassive. "Get up. Dodge the next one."
"I... I can't see it!" Aster protested, his voice high.
"Don't look for it!" Xebec yelled back, his voice a drill sergeant's bark. "Stop using your eyes! Your eyes are worthless! Feel me! Feel my intent to hit you!"
He flicked his wrist again. Thwack. This time, it hit Aster's shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him flat.
"Again!"
Thwack. In the chest.
"Again!"
Thwack. The same spot on his shoulder.
Eris watched from the cottage porch, her face pale, her hands clenched so tightly around the wooden railing that it creaked. This was brutal. This was a nightmare. But she knew, with a painful certainty, that it was necessary. Her son's future would be far more brutal than a week of his father's training.
For three days, this was the routine. From sunup to sundown. Aster was a canvas of purple and blue bruises. He was frustrated. He was angry. He was deeply, fundamentally annoyed. But he never once stayed down. He would get hit, topple over, his chest heaving, and then he would push himself back up, his golden eyes blazing with defiant fury, his small fists clenched.
"Again!" he would squeak, his voice hoarse.
"ZEHAHAHA! That's the spirit, boy!" Xebec would roar and fire another pebble.
On the fourth day, something changed. Aster stood there, his body a map of pain. He was exhausted. He closed his eyes, just as Xebec had told him to. He stopped thinking. He stopped trying. He just... listened.
He felt the sun on his skin. He felt his mother's worried aura from the porch. He felt his father's wild, proud, chaotic energy. And then, he felt it. A tiny, sharp pinprick in his father's aura. It was a spike of pure, directed malice. It was intent. It wasn't aimed at his head or his chest. It was aimed at his... left knee.
Without thinking, Aster's body moved. It was a clumsy, desperate lurch to the right. He fell over, landing in a heap.
A small hiss of displaced air passed exactly where his knee had been, and the black pebble zipped past, skipping twice on the calm water before vanishing.
There was a long, deep silence.
Aster pushed himself up, his eyes wide. He... did it.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Xebec's roar of laughter was a physical force. "GOOD! AGAIN!"
The next lesson was Armament.
"Observation is for not getting hit," Xebec grunted, looming over Aster. "Armament is for hitting back. And for when you're not fast enough to dodge."
He pointed to a large, gnarled piece of ironwood that had washed ashore. "Break it."
Aster looked at the wood. He looked at his small, soft hands. "With... with my axe?"
"With your fist."
Aster blinked. But it was an order. He braced himself, drew back his tiny fist, and punched the wood as hard as he could.
He let out a high-pitched shriek of pain. It felt like punching a rock. His knuckles were scraped and raw, and a jolt of pain shot all the way up to his shoulder.
"You're hitting it with your hand," Xebec said, unimpressed. "Your hand is flesh and bone. The wood is stronger. Of course, you'll break. You have to hit it with your will. Push your spirit through your knuckles. Command your fist to be harder than the wood. Command the wood to break."
Aster stared at his red, smarting hand. He was angry. This was stupid.
"I can't," he said, his voice trembling.
"You can't?" Xebec's voice was suddenly cold, all humor gone. "Then you'll die. Is that what you want? To be weak? To fail? To be beaten?"
"No!" Aster shouted, the word raw and angry.
"Then do it!" Xebec roared. "Stop trying and DO IT! Hit it! Again!"
Aster, his face streaked with tears of pure, hot frustration, drew back his fist and punched the wood again. Smack. Pain.
"Again!" Smack.
"AGAIN!" Smack.
His knuckles were bleeding now. His small hand was a swollen, pulpy mess. He was sobbing, not from sadness, but from a deep, profound rage at his own powerlessness.
"It... won't... BREAK!" he screamed, and drew his fist back one last time.
He didn't aim. He didn't think about his hand. He just poured all of his rage, all of his annoyance, all of his desperate will to be strong, into one single point. He wasn't trying to break the wood. He was trying to annihilate it.
He punched.
There was no smack. There was a sharp, clear CRACK.
It wasn't the wood. It was the air. An invisible, tiny shockwave, no bigger than a coin, erupted from his fist. The wood itself was unharmed, save for a small, dark scorch mark.
Aster stared, his breath catching in his throat. His hand didn't even hurt this time.
Xebec's massive grin returned, slow and proud. "There it is. The first layer. The invisible armor. Good, boy. Now do it again. With the other hand."
The last part of the training was the axe.
Xebec picked up Aster's old, heavy wooden battleaxe and snapped it over his knee like a twig.
"Garbage," he said. He then took a new axe out of his coat. It was still made of wood, but it was a dark, dense ironwood. The handle was thinner, wrapped in cured hide, and the head was weighted and balanced. It was still far too big for Aster, but it was a real weapon, not a salvaged log.
"Your mother taught you form," Xebec said, dropping it at Aster's feet. "Form is a good cage. Now, I'll teach you power. Swing it."
Aster picked it up. The balance was better. He gripped it, used the twisting motion Eris had taught him, and swung. The heavy head thudded into the sand.
"Weak," Xebec scoffed. "You're asking it to move. You are its master! Command it! You want that driftwood to split? Then split it! Pour your will into the edge! Put your Haki into it! Swing through it, not at it!"
For the rest of the week, Aster swung the axe. He swung until his arms felt like they would fall off. He swung until his small body collapsed, and Xebec would stand over him. "Get up. A king doesn't sleep on the sand." And Aster would get up and swing again.
He was in the middle of this grueling, repetitive practice on the sixth day, his parents inside the cottage, when the voice returned.
He was alone, grunting as he tried to chop a coconut. The voice in his head was quiet, almost... hesitant.
...This is inefficient...
Aster stopped, mid-swing, annoyed. He looked around, but he knew the voice was coming from the cottage, where the black fruit sat on the table, "watching" him.
"What?" Aster mumbled, wiping sweat from his brow.
...That weapon, the voice whispered in his mind. It is clumsy. Brutish. All weight. No... finesse. You lack elegance.
"It's an axe," Aster said, as if this explained everything.
...A sword, the voice proposed, a hint of seductive power in its tone. A blade. That is true power. A sword is swift. It is precise. It is... destined... for a wielder like you.
Aster stared at the coconut. He thought about this for a full second. Then he readjusted his grip on the axe handle.
"Nope."
The mental voice fell completely silent. ...What?
"Axe is cooler," Aster said. He braced his legs, roared with all his might, and swung. The ironwood axe head cracked the coconut clean in two.
He was panting, but he felt good.
...Cooler? The voice stammered, its ancient, dark confidence completely shattered. ...Destiny... eternal power... the will of the void... and you... you choose... 'cooler'?
The voice sounded genuinely, existentially horrified.
...What... WHAT ARE YOU?
That night, at dinner, the family was quiet. Aster was covered in bruises, his knuckles were bandaged by Eris, and he was so tired that he was almost falling asleep in his soup. But he was happy. He felt... strong.
He casually brought up the conversation, his voice mumbled through a mouthful of fish. "The fruit talked again."
Eris froze, her spoon halfway to her mouth. Xebec looked up from his plate, his eyes sharp and filled with amusement. "Oh? What did the great 'destiny' have to say this time?"
"It said I should use a sword," Aster said, reaching for more bread. "It said axes are clumsy."
Xebec's shoulders began to shake.
"What did you tell it, Aster?" Eris asked, though a small smile was already playing on her lips.
"I said no," Aster replied, taking a big bite. "Axe is cooler."
The explosion of laughter from Xebec was so sudden and so violent that it rattled the dishes on the table.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! A SWORD! IT'S TRYING TO NEGOTIATE! IT'S HAGGLING! AND HE TOLD IT NO! 'AXE IS COOLER'! ZEHAHAHAHA!"
Xebec slammed his fist on the table, roaring with pure, unadulterated joy. Eris, seeing the absolute bafflement on Aster's face and the pure pride on Xebec's, couldn't hold it in. She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she was overcome with relieved, happy giggles.
All the fear she had, all the lingering dread of the prophecy, of the dark destiny, all evaporated in that moment. Her son, her serious, stubborn, almost 2-year-old warrior, had just told an ancient, power no... because of style.
She looked at Aster, who was just looking back and forth between his laughing parents, confused as to what was so funny. Her eyes shone with tears of pure pride.
"I have no worries," she said softly, reaching out to wipe a smear of soup off his cheek. "Not one. You were right, Xebec. He'll be the greatest. He's our son. He will be the strongest man in the world."
The week came to an end. Aster's dodges were no longer stumbles; they were small, sharp movements. His knuckles were calloused, and he could punch the ironwood log and feel his invisible Haki stopping the impact. His axe swings were no longer clumsy heaves; they were controlled, powerful strikes that sent chips of wood flying.
He was still a child. But he was a child who had just survived a week of training with Rocks D. Xebec.
On the morning of the eighth day, his father stood on the beach, his black coat repaired and clean, his wild hair tied back. The sun was just rising. It was time.
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