The training ground was utterly silent.
Hundreds of recruits still held their horse stances beneath the blazing sun, but their minds had abandoned their aching legs.
Their eyes kept drifting toward Tashigi's sword. The black coating had already vanished from Shigure, but the shock it left behind lingered.
It felt as if soone had opened a door, allowed them a glimpse of the mountain beyond, and slamd it shut before they could step through.
Zephyr understood that look too well.
It wasn't laziness or rebellion.
It was hunger.
It was the sa desperate hunger he saw in soldiers returning from the Grand Line after watching their friends slaughtered by Logia users they couldn't touch.
Zephyr had spent decades trying to cultivate that hunger through discipline, hardship, and endless repetition.
But now, that hunger had a new direction.
Zaraki.
That brat's na had beco a crack in the wall.
"What are you all staring at?!"
Zephyr stomped forward, sending spiderweb cracks through the concrete.
The resulting shockwave forced the front row to squeeze their eyes shut.
He turned on Tashigi, the massive Battle Smasher letting out a teeth-grinding hydraulic hiss as it halted inches from her face.
"Explain. What exactly happened? What do you an it 'dragged out what was already there'? If you tell that boy perford so kind of voodoo ritual, I will personally drag him back from the sea and twist his head off."
Tashigi stiffened.
With a sharp clang, she sheathed Shigure, and the final trace of Armant Haki vanished entirely.
"It wasn't a ritual!" she squeaked, hurriedly pushing up her slipping glasses.
Her voice trembled, but excitent rapidly overtook her fear. "It was pressure. Gravity and... sothing else. It felt like my mind was forced against a wall. I couldn't run, couldn't think, couldn't even breathe. But right when I thought I was going to collapse, the feeling I've been chasing during sword practice suddenly appeared."
She pressed a hand to her chest.
"It was still mine. I know it was mine. Zaraki-san didn't give it to . The room just forced to hear it."
The recruits stirred.
Zephyr's face remained hard, but behind his sunglasses, his eyes shifted.
That explanation was far more troubleso than blind worship.
If Tashigi claid the machine simply handed her Haki, he could dismiss it as nonsense.
But if the machine used extre pressure to force existing accumulation to erupt... then it wasn't an insult to effort.
It was a brutal acceleration of effort's result.
And that was exactly why it was terrifying.
"How many?" Zephyr demanded.
Tashigi blinked. "Eh?"
"How many people showed signs?"
Tashigi swallowed hard. "I don't know the exact number. The rumors say dozens or even a hundred, but that's exaggerated. I only know what I saw near the lower armory. Several people produced sparks. So showed Armant, so showed sothing closer to Observation. Most couldn't hold it for more than a breath."
She hesitated before adding honestly, "But the officers counting outside seed shaken. Really shaken."
The whispers returned to the training field.
"Several people?" "Even a spark is enough..." "If Tashigi can do it, maybe I..."
Zephyr's fist clenched, the concrete beneath his boots groaning under the pressure.
He didn't despise Tashigi; quite the opposite.
He knew exactly how hard she worked, and that was why the result shook him so deeply.
A child he had judged as diligent but ordinary had touched Armant Haki because of a single external stimulus.
What about the recruits he had watched hit walls ti and ti again?
What about the ones with the body, courage, and discipline who rely lacked that final spark?
Could that room push them across?
Or would it destroy them?
Zephyr opened his mouth to roar for silence, but a calm voice drifted from the entrance.
"There is no need to keep interrogating her, Zephyr."
The old instructor snapped his head around.
Vice Admiral Tsuru stood at the iron gate.
No one knew when she had arrived. With her hands tucked into her sleeves and the sea breeze stirring her silver-gray hair, she brought no guards.
She didn't need them.
Her re presence forced the restless field into total silence.
"Sengoku is busy dealing with furious questions from the Holy Land," Tsuru said, walking forward.
"He does not have ti to argue with you over the Den Den Mushi."
Zephyr's expression darkened. "So it's true."
"So of it." Tsuru stopped in front of him, glancing briefly at Tashigi's dusty uniform and the dazed joy still lingering in the girl's eyes.
"The rumors are inflated. No one mastered Haki in a single session. No one beca a New World veteran after five minutes inside a tal box. But the core truth remains." She turned back to Zephyr.
"The training room stimulates people already hovering near the threshold. It doesn't create will from nothing; it presses on what already exists. If there is no foundation, it produces only fear. But if there is a foundation..." Her gaze shifted back to Tashigi. "...it may force the door open a crack."
Zephyr fell silent while the recruits held their breath.
Tsuru drew a docunt from her sleeve and pressed it directly against Zephyr's chanical arm.
"Sengoku signed this before Zaraki's ship left port. Special top-priority order."
Zephyr looked down at the Fleet Admiral's red seal.
"Imdiately screen every recruit whose physical ability ets the standard but who has failed to awaken Haki despite long-term training," Tsuru recited calmly.
"First-years, seniors, repeaters—it doesn't matter. As long as their files show sufficient discipline, willpower, and bottleneck symptoms, put them on the list. The facility will not be opened freely. It will be supervised by Headquarters. dical screening first. Psychological assessnt second. Instructor recomndation third. No one enters simply because of rumors."
Zephyr's fingers tightened on the docunt, the tal joints of the Battle Smasher creaking faintly.
"You want to hand over my recruits to that wild brat?"
"I want you to test whether your recruits can beco stronger." The answer was soft, but it landed like a blade.
Zephyr's jaw tightened.
For decades, he had trained Marines with sweat, blood, repetition, pain, and discipline.
He believed there were no shortcuts. Tsuru's words didn't deny his beliefs; they pointed to a much more uncomfortable truth.
What if the foundation he built could be pushed further by a tool he didn't understand?
What if his students hadn't failed due to a lack of will, but because they lacked the sheer, life-or-death pressure needed to make that will take shape?
Zephyr slowly removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes that were sharp, old, and furious—yet thoughtful.
"If this thing ruins them," he said coldly, "I will smash it apart with my own hands."
Tsuru nodded. "If it ruins them, I will help you."
The recruits swallowed hard.
The absolute calm in her statent was sohow more frightening than Zephyr's roaring anger.
"But if it works," Tsuru continued, "then you will have to admit that this era has produced a tool worth studying."
Zephyr's mouth twisted. "A tool in the hands of a brat who nearly pressed maximum output."
Tsuru sighed. "Yes. That is exactly why you are needed."
For a mont, Zephyr said nothing.
Then, he whirled on his subordinate instructors. "Pull every file!" His roar returned, carrying a new, terrifying weight.
"Every recruit stuck at a Haki bottleneck! Every swordsman who can't cross the final line! Every physical monster with no sense for willpower! Every stubborn idiot I marked 'too hard-headed to guide'!"
The instructors stiffened.
"NOW!"
"Yes, sir!"
The training field exploded into frantic motion. Once the instructors scattered, Tsuru spoke again.
"There is one more thing."
Zephyr looked at her. "What?"
Tsuru's gaze drifted toward the distant harbor, where Zaraki's warship had already vanished beyond the horizon.
"The first trial group around Zaraki was interesting. Not because they awakened both colors of Haki but because each reacted differently."
Tsuru paused, letting the weight of the nas settle. "Even Smoker was visibly shaken."
Zephyr's expression shifted.
A Logia user being rattled by Haki training was no small matter.
"That isn't mass production," Tsuru noted. "But it is guidance. Brutal, dangerous, unstable guidance."
Zephyr's grip tightened on the order. "And Zaraki?"
"He left for Alabasta before you could catch him."
Crack. The concrete beneath Zephyr's foot split again.
All his anger suddenly lost its target and turned inward. "He ran?"
"He was assigned a mission."
"He ran."
Tsuru didn't argue.
Zephyr stared toward the harbor as the sea wind swept across the field.
For the first ti in many years, the old instructor felt the era beneath his feet shift. It hadn't collapsed yet, but it had shifted.
A wild brat had appeared with a sword in one hand and a dangerous machine in the other, and sohow managed to force the entire Marine training system to look at itself in the mirror.
Zephyr slowly put his sunglasses back on.
The confusion vanished, replaced by a fierce, burning resolve.
"Fine." He looked over his remaining recruits, whose eyes burned with sothing far stronger than exhaustion.
"If that brat wants to shake my training camp, I'll let him shake it properly." His voice rose, harder than iron.
"But listen carefully! No machine replaces effort! No shortcut replaces blood! Anyone who thinks stepping into that room ans instant strength can get out of my camp right now!"
No one moved.
Zephyr offered a terrifying grin. "Good. Then from today onward, your training doubles."
The recruits' faces drained of color. Tashigi's smile froze.
Ain closed her eyes in pure despair.
Zephyr raised the Battle Smasher toward the sky. "When Zaraki returns from Alabasta, I will personally drag him into the training ground! If his thod is real, I'll make him teach it properly! And if it's fake..." His grin widened into sothing demonic.
"...I'll beat him until even Garp won't recognize him!"
...
Far away, on a warship sailing toward the first half of the Grand Line, Zaraki suddenly sneezed.
He rubbed his nose and squinted suspiciously at the horizon.
"Who's cursing ?"
Sitting nearby, calculating the latest extortion fees for emotional damages, Nami didn't even bother looking up.
"Probably everyone."
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