Chapter 67: Axel's Pseudo Six Powers
"The last lesson?"
Axel stared at Zephyr, caught completely off guard.
"Yes. Your last lesson." Zephyr gave a short nod, making it clear he was not joking.
That only made Axel more confused.
By normal standards, finishing Zephyr's recruit training camp was no simple matter. Strength alone was never enough. A recruit had to prove their discipline, judgment, endurance, and mentality over a long period of time. Some stayed for years. Some were forced out halfway through. Some never made it to the end at all.
And yet he had only been here for less than two months.
Now Zephyr was suddenly telling him this was the end?
Axel lowered his head, sorting through the possibilities as fast as he could.
Seeing his expression, Zephyr spoke first.
"Normally, you would not be leaving this soon. But someone made a special request and asked for you to join the warship training early."
A special request?
Axel's first thought was Garp.
Other than that old man, who else would bother meddling in his future like this?
Zephyr did not explain any further. He simply moved on.
"The final thing I will teach you is the Navy's ultimate combat art. The Six Powers."
His voice grew steadier as he spoke, slipping back into that familiar instructor's tone.
"These techniques are considered top level skills within the Navy. With your current body, you are still far from the ideal standard for mastering them. If you force yourself too recklessly, you could end up injuring yourself instead. So listen carefully, and after you learn them, do not practice like an idiot."
Axel was still half distracted.
Zephyr's brow twitched.
"You brat. Are you even listening?"
Axel snapped back at once.
"Sorry. Go on."
Zephyr let out a slow breath and continued.
"The Six Powers are Finger Pistol, Iron Body, Shave, Moon Walk, Tempest Kick, and Paper Arts."
As he spoke, he walked over to a sandbag in the room and raised one finger.
"This is Finger Pistol."
His finger shot forward.
The motion was so fast it barely registered, but the result was immediate. His fingertip punched clean through the sandbag as if the thick material were paper.
"Finger Pistol is a technique that condenses strength into a single point. At high levels, the fingers strike with power comparable to bullets. It demands precise control and a strong body. Otherwise, you will damage your own hand before you hurt your enemy."
He withdrew his finger and added flatly, "For most people, it takes years of training before they can properly use it."
Axel looked at the sandbag, then at his own hand.
"Like this?"
He casually lifted one finger and pushed it into the bag.
His finger sank through the heavy material with absurd ease.
Silence.
Zephyr stared at him.
Then his face stiffened a little.
"That is your ability," he said at last. "I am talking about doing it with your own body."
Axel knew he was right.
What he had just done was not a real Finger Pistol. He had simply used vector control to gather force at his fingertip while using reflection to protect the finger itself from the strain. It was efficient, but it was a shortcut.
Still, it was clearly a shortcut that made Zephyr uncomfortable.
Zephyr coughed once, as if erasing the awkwardness by force, and moved on.
"Iron Body is similar in principle, but instead of condensing strength into one point, it spreads that hardness through the body. At high levels, the body becomes like steel."
He paused, then glanced at Axel.
"Of course, with your reflection, you already have something far more troublesome than ordinary Iron Body. Even so, do not become too dependent on it."
Then Axel asked the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind ever since he heard the names.
"Are Finger Pistol and Iron Body related to Armament Haki?"
Zephyr gave him a strange look, clearly surprised he had asked that.
Then he nodded.
"They are related, but not the same thing."
He folded his arms and explained more carefully.
"Finger Pistol and Iron Body are techniques developed by using the body to imitate some of the effects of Armament Haki. But imitation is still imitation. They do not have the ability to touch a Devil Fruit user's true body the way Armament Haki does."
He tapped his temple.
"And Paper Art is the same. It has similarities to Observation Haki, but it is not Observation Haki. It does not read intent, and it does not sense the future. It only allows the body to move with the flow of an incoming attack, like paper caught in the wind."
Axel understood immediately.
So the Six Powers were, in a sense, combat techniques created by tracing the outlines of Haki.
A way to approach that realm through body control before actually reaching it.
Zephyr then took a stance.
"Watch."
Axel stepped forward, a little curious now.
"Throw a punch at me. Do not hold back."
Axel did exactly that. His fist cut straight toward Zephyr's chest.
The instant the punch arrived, Zephyr's large body seemed to lose all weight. He shifted aside with a strange fluidity, the attack grazing past him by the narrowest possible margin.
It was not fast in the same way Shave was fast. It was subtle. Soft. Deceptive.
"That," Zephyr said, "is Paper Art."
Axel's eyes narrowed.
In that moment, he understood the basic principle.
Zephyr was not predicting the punch with some supernatural power. He was reading the air movement, the pressure, the attack path, and letting his body flow with it.
And for Axel, that was even simpler.
He did not need airflow alone. He could sense the direction of force itself. The movement of energy. The pressure building inside the attack before it fully formed.
If Paper Art relied on reading motion, then he could reproduce it through vector perception.
Not the real thing.
But close enough.
A pseudo Paper Art.
Zephyr did not know what Axel was thinking. He simply continued.
"Next comes the most practical move among the Six Powers."
He walked to one end of the room.
"Shave."
His legs bent slightly.
Then came a rapid series of impacts against the ground, so fast they blurred together.
A metallic clanging rang through the room.
In the next instant, Zephyr vanished from one side of the room and reappeared on the other.
Axel's eyes sharpened.
"How many stomps did i make?" Zephyr asked.
"More than ten," Axel replied. "Probably a lot more."
"Eighteen," Zephyr said.
He turned slightly and explained, "Shave is created by stamping the ground at extreme speed, generating explosive reaction force, then converting that into instantaneous movement. Moon Walk follows the same principle, except the force is directed upward instead of across the ground."
Before he could finish, Axel had already moved.
He stamped once.
Then once more.
His body blurred.
A second later, he was already at the other side of the room. Then, using another shift in force, he stepped into empty air and crossed a short distance above the floor before landing again.
Zephyr stopped mid sentence.
For the first time in a while, his stern expression cracked open in genuine disbelief.
"You..."
Axel looked back.
"What were you saying?"
Zephyr stared at him for a long moment, then forcibly rearranged his face into something dignified.
"I was saying," he replied in a measured tone, "that Shave is actually quite simple to understand in theory. For ordinary people, it is... relatively straightforward to learn."
Axel almost laughed.
Zephyr had clearly just changed his words on the spot.
But he was wise enough not to expose him.
What Axel had used was, again, not the genuine article. He did not need eighteen rapid stomps. He only needed to replicate the reaction force through his ability and add enough driving force to match the effect.
It was another imitation.
A pseudo Shave.
And Moon Walk was the same.
Zephyr clearly knew this. He just refused to lose face over it.
He turned away and went on as if nothing unusual had happened.
"The final offensive technique is Tempest Kick."
This time he raised one leg slightly.
"It uses a high speed kicking motion to generate a cutting vacuum slash. Though it is called a leg technique, in theory the same principle can be applied elsewhere. But the legs produce more power, which is why the result is far better."
Then he moved.
His leg swept through the air like a blade.
A sharp slash burst outward and struck the steel wall of the room, carving a deep cut through it with a shrill tearing sound.
The steel split open.
Axel's eyes flickered.
This one was especially familiar.
It was not identical to his Wind Blade, but the core logic overlapped. Both turned motion and force into a ranged cutting attack. One did it through pure bodily technique. The other did it through directed energy and air flow.
Zephyr lowered his leg and looked back at him.
"To use Tempest Kick, the most important thing is power. Enough speed, enough force, and a body that can withstand the strain."
Axel nodded slowly.
By the time Zephyr finished, the conclusion had already taken shape in his mind.
Finger Pistol.
Iron Body.
Paper Art.
Shave.
Moon Walk.
Tempest Kick.
He could imitate every one of them.
Not through pure physical mastery, not yet. His body was still too weak for that.
But through vector manipulation, he could reconstruct their results.
A corner of Axel's mouth lifted.
So this was what it meant.
His own version.
A counterfeit set of the Navy's ultimate arts.
Axel's pseudo Six Powers.
.....
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