"Nani?"
"You awaken Haki by getting hit?"
The yard buzzed with doubt. No one questioned Ozz's power, but the method sounded outrageous.
"So," Ozz said, eyes sweeping the ranks, "who is first."
Silence. Doll's eyes flashed as she weighed stepping out, when a broad-shouldered figure moved ahead.
"Instructor Ozz, I volunteer."
Black bowl cut, dark shades, Marine uniform pressed razor sharp. Just standing there, he radiated steadiness.
"He is really going up there?"
"That is Vergo, right? I have seen his name."
"He will not die, will he…"
Ozz did not expect it to be him. Doflamingo's man inside the Navy, a mirror to Sengoku's Rosinante inside the Family. Two spymasters playing the same game.
Still, if Vergo had stepped forward, it likely carried a hint from Doflamingo. Ozz neither exposed nor favored him. He treated Vergo like any officer.
"Then come at me with everything you have."
Hands clasped behind his back, hair lifting in air with no wind, Ozz looked casually unguarded.
Vergo stiffened. He had braced himself to be beaten to a pulp, not to strike his boss's boss. As the Donquixote Family's most obedient heavy, attacking Ozz felt like treason.
Seeing him freeze, Ozz arched a brow, then seemed to recall the complication and clicked his tongue.
"Move, Vergo. That is an order."
The word order landed, and Vergo stepped in without another sound. He dipped, coiled, and drove a clean straight to Ozz's midsection.
Good mechanics. Clearly drilled. Family polish, for sure.
It did not matter. The gap was a chasm.
Under a hundred watching eyes and one very alert seagull, Ozz still did not bother with a guard. Only when the fist was about to land did he let out a soft chime.
Armament flared, red-black and dense, and a single dark forearm slid into the path.
"Solid fundamentals. You have the body for Armament. You lack a trigger."
With a strong enough frame, Haki is there to be drawn out. You can grind for months, as poor teachers do, or you can find a cleaner key.
A brush with death.
"Use everything you have, Vergo, or in the next exchange I will kill you."
He had no intention of killing him. He needed the pressure. He had to say it.
A ripple of shock ran through the class. A few wobbly ones nearly toppled. Vergo did not flinch. He obeyed.
"I understand."
His feet flickered, dust ringed his ankles, and he vanished from sight, reappearing behind Ozz in a blink.
Soru. Ozz had copied it with Observation when he was a kid. Watching Vergo use it now felt like a senior solving a grade-school sum.
Useless.
Ozz's hand brushed the hilt of Ace at his waist. The scabbard tipped up and perfectly intercepted the strike.
"Too slow. To draw out your potential, feel it, then pour that feeling into the body."
Another chime. Armament wrapped his foot. Ozz turned and let a clean roundhouse arc for Vergo's head.
He was holding back. If he unleashed his full raw strength, there would only be red on stone.
Even so, the kick was monstrous. Instinct hauled Vergo's forearms up to block. Bone clicked like a snapped rod, and his body scythed through the air.
Stone coughed dust. A fresh hole opened in the wall.
"Tekkai, is it."
Rarely did that concept-technique keep anyone conscious under Ozz's boot. Vergo wiped blood from his lip, still stone-calm and on his feet.
Ozz's eyes warmed. This was the kind of subordinate he liked. Loyal, hungry, gifted. The sort who would one day make even a Straw Hat chef's shin crack under a clash. A young vice admiral's frame with a vice admiral's future.
"Good spirit. Now try not to die."
He flashed and was in Vergo's face again.
Another kick blasted through the wall-line. Vergo slammed Tekkai in desperation and spat blood, forcing his stance to hold.
He was not afraid, so he did not panic. He replayed Ozz's words in his head.
Feel it. Rouse the body's power.
Ozz's foot came again, Armament biting along the edge. Vergo tried to slip, but under that faint crimson glint in Ozz's eyes there was nowhere to go.
Feel it. Draw it up.
Is this it.
A strange current stirred from deep inside. It climbed his ribs, filled his arms, thickened his skin.
A hard metallic ring.
"Armament Tekkai."
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