The aftermath of the first fight

A.N: Once you start reading this chapter, you might find something which you guys will probably not like a lot. But I suggest that you read the complete chapter and read the last A.N.

I kinda took a risk writing this, so not sure how it will go with you guys.

So enjoy (hopefully)

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Like any regular day, the children were doing their thing. Santiago was helping us in cooking lunch and I must say, he is growing up to be a good cook. Emma as always was helping in taking care of other children. Jai, Thor, and Hodur are outside playing on the field.

But suddenly I felt something very familiar and nostalgic coming from the field's direction. And it was not just one but there were 3 waves. They were not very strong or controlled, but rather weak and raw, at least by our standards. The sources were far away so the children were not affected, but we could clearly feel it.

Without wasting any time, I used my haki to sense everything in that direction and the presence I found surprised me. I looked towards nee-chan and she too gave me a nod.

Without wasting any time, we both used soru to vanish from the place, and once we were outside, we transformed and started flying and using geppo with our feet at the same time.

It was our movement technique that we developed with our devil fruits and geppo.

Arriving at the location, we saw Jai, supporting Thor and Hodur trying to get up.

When Jai saw us he smiled and started losing consciousness. Thor too fell unconscious while looking at us with a smile.

We picked up the children and quickly soru-ed them to the only clinic in the town.

The doctor quickly admitted them and patched them up, getting their blood donors was not difficult since the people were helpful and none of their blood types was rare.

Since the children got proper medical attention very quickly, they are out of danger,

It was night now.

Nee-chan came to the clinic to switch our roles. I will go to the orphanage now, and nee-chan will stay here for the night. But, I could not help but ask her

"Nee-chan, did you also feel 3 different haki waves today?"

"Yes, I did. It seems 3 of them are kings"

"But unlocking king's haki like this in a row is unheard of"

"It was probably that Jai unlocked his haki first. Since it was uncontrolled and targeted everyone indiscriminately, including the other two, Thor felt more pressure and thus unlocking it. Both of their haki combined and worked the same way to awaken Hodur's haki"

"This chain reaction is the only reason I can think of."

Bidding goodbye to nee-chan, I left for the orphanage.

Once I reached there the children jumped on me with their questions.

"How are Jai, Thor, and Hodur?"

"The doctor said they are out of danger, and they will gain their consciousness tomorrow"

Everyone calmed down and smiled. The discussion went on for a couple of minutes about the incident. Until Emma asked

"Grandma, how did both of you vanish suddenly?"

Well, I must say we messed up a bit. But what to do, we needed to be there, as fast as possible, especially after sensing their presence.

But I made up something

"Our devil fruits make us very strong physically, so we moved very fast"

The children were in awe again.

"Whoa... I wish I could get a devil fruit, it will be so cool"

I obviously gave him a fist of love. I must say Garp can be very dense but at least he made one useful thing.

"You will not be able to swim if you get a devil fruit, it is very risky, and a lot of bad people will come after you"

It seemed that the child still wanted a devil fruit. Can't help it. Who doesn't want power without putting in the effort?

"And remember as always, never reveal this to anyone that we have devil fruits. It will invite a lot of bad people"

"Now kids got back to your sleep quickly"

The children hurried back to their beds,

'Thanks to Garp-san as always for inventing such a parenting method.'

"Ughhh... Where am I?"

I was lying on a bed. Looking around I saw, Thor and Hodur on my left and right side on their beds still sleeping. It all came back to me.

All sorts of thoughts were going in my head.

'Are they ok?'

'They seem to be alive'

'Are they out of danger?'

'Are they in a coma?'

'Do they have any permanent injury?'

Dorothea-baa-san saw me getting up, and quickly hugged me.

My first question was obviously

"Are Thor and Hodur alright?"

"Yes they are, they will gain consciousness soon"

I had no words to express my emotions. Emotions flowed out of me in the form of tears. I never cried at every single thing, neither in this life nor in my previous one. But, the incident was something that I encountered neither in this life nor the previous one.

I felt responsible for them. I was not at fault, I knew because we always visited the field, and we didn't provoke the wolves either. But, I was the eldest, at least in terms of mental age. I even acted as the leader.

Their safety was my responsibility. I was weak. If we have survived, it was thanks to luck. What if my haki did not awaken? Hodur would be missing his head right now.

"It's ok child, it's ok. Everyone is safe and that's what matters"

We stayed like that for some time. After that, the doctor came and did some checks and everything was alright. I just needed some more rest.

In the next 6 hours, both Thor and Hodur woke up. They too had an emotional break-down but Dorothea-baa-san calmed them down.

< Thor POV >

Yesterday, we messed up big time. We were lucky that we survived yesterday. I was the eldest, but, Jai did better than me. I also spaced out seeing Hodur getting attacked, which led to Jai getting more injured. It was my fault. I vow to protect them the next time, and not be a hindrance to Jai.

Fortunately, everything ended well, and I didn't lose Jai or my brother.

< Hodur POV >

Yesterday, I was a big hindrance to both big brothers. I was given one simple task, but I could not complete it. They could have fought off the wolves, but because of me, they got injured. I vow to become stronger and next time, it will be I who will protect them.

< 3rd POV >

The boys got their new motivation, but they could not put it into use till they are discharged from the hospital.

Wolf came to know what had happened, and he came to check upon them.

Jai tried exercising once when no one was looking, and Catherine bonked him.

There were always any of the two grandmas in the clinic to attend to the boys.

Like this 1 week passed and the boys were discharged after making some decent recovery.

The other orphanage children too had gone out to collect donations for hospital fees. The clinic too didn't charge for their service but charged them for the medicines, and other consumable resources.

The boys had rested one week and they were discharged to the orphanage.

They had to rest for 1 month before doing any heavy workout, but Jai recovered in 3 days, Thor in 1 week, and Hodur in 10 days. The sisters made a small exception and hunted at night in the jungle to get them more food. They had seen enough powerhouses to know what will help the children recover the most.

Jai too used his seimei kikan and got the technique to recover after eating a lot on the 2nd day.

Jai, Thor, and Hodur were still not happy about missing their 10, 14, and 17 days of training, respectively. But that could not be helped.

< Catherine POV >

It was their promised day to restart training.

I could see newfound motivation in the boys. They were more motivated than ever. Jai and Thor after recovering seemed to have made a decent breakthrough in their physique. Hodur on the other hand had better control over his observation haki, but he is still far from mastering it.

"Boys, we have decided to up your training, especially you Hodur."

The boys looked very motivated and happy. The life and death situation seemed to have given them this new motivation. I was happy too.

We started training now.

Yesterday was my birthday. It was fun. Santiago-ni and Emma-nee started working too. They are 14 and 13 years old, respectively.

Santiago-ni works in a restaurant as a cook, and he is doing great. Emma-nee is also working in that same restaurant as a manager. Grandmas knew the owner of that restaurant, and he was managing it previously himself. He is also teaching Emma-nee management skills under his guidance. She was soaking up the skill like a sponge.

Obviously, I was the one who recommended her to try management. She had B ranked talent in management and A rank in sales. But the restaurant was one of the most trusted places so the grandmas allowed her to work there. She can even use her sales talent there as well.

So slowly our money-related problems were vanishing. Tsuru-san still gave us donations yearly but our food intake has increased a lot this time. Our excessive training needed huge amounts of food.

We were also not allowed to get bigger creatures from the forest. Our strength was a secret to all the islanders, and we wanted to keep it that way. Cooking in the forest will raise smoke, and bringing those huge corpses will gain unwanted attention.

Speaking of training, we are now the bosses in the forest. We did lots of different pieces of training and increased our training time and intensity. Our bodies are now much stronger.

We had fought the forest boss, which is a huge bear, like the tiger in Luffy's flashback. And together we had defeated it. But we didn't kill it. We kept fighting it, again and again, slowly taking it from 3vs1 to 2vs1 and lastly 1vs1.

I was the strongest obviously, Thor was second and Hodur was the third. But that brat, he managed to gain control over his observation haki. So while sparring he was still troublesome to us. But both of us always win against him nonetheless. But that was due to our difference in physique. If our physique was the same, he would have defeated us because of haki.

But that also helped me and Thor practice against an opponent who was an observation haki user. It helped improve our own fighting style a lot. It also increased our own reflexes and combat judgments and decision-making capacity.

My physique was very good thanks to grandmas' training. I could now use a 5-step soru which is very stressful, but I can do 3 step soru with lesser consequences. Same with geppo, now I could slow myself down a lot while falling.

I too "invented" a miniature version of tekkai and a decent version of kami-e with grandmas' help. Kami-e came easiest to me, because, since childhood, I trained and maintained my body flexibility.

Copying Hodur's training, both of us too tried to awaken observation haki but we were having very slow progress. So I decided to take a big risk 3 months ago.

I took my brothers back to the forest and I faced the forest boss, this time I blindfolded myself. Like Rayleigh said, "Haki is a flower that blooms only in adversity". They were there only to save my life.

I faced the bear. I was ready with kami-e since that technique comes closest to observation haki. There were even fan theories that rokushiki was the base on top of which haki training was done by marines, to ensure haki awakening faster.

The bear attacked me with its paw. The moment it hit me, I tried to reflexively dodge along with the strike. I used the same theory as to where cricket players pull their hands back to catch a ball.

This softened the blow but I was still in pain, and blood poured out of my mouth.

I did not give up and continued. I used various techniques to counter-attack but eventually when I was tired, and lost some blood, something inside me awakened and I was able to get a feeling.

I did not see any glowing silhouettes like Usopp did while sniping Sugar. What I felt was more like a sound, or a feeling that danger was coming from the left side, aimed at my head.

Listening to that instinct, I dodged and felt a paw wave just above my head.

I did this thing, again and again, sometimes it was successful, sometimes it was a failure.

Once I decided it was enough, I pulled off my blindfold and attacked directly and defeated it.

I visited Wolf and he got me patched up while scolding me. I lost some blood, but it was quickly fixed by some meat and seimei kikan.

After that day, I did Hodur's training and had faster progress in haki. But as of today, I am still having trouble using it. And I try to activate it every time. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

Speaking of haki, during our last 2 years of training, 3 of us were taught how to control our king's haki. They said once we awaken this power, it will trigger more often and might be harmful to others.

I could get that since Luffy once awakened it before the Sabody arc began, and then he used it subconsciously again and again from Amazon Lily, Impel Down to Marineford.

At first, I was shocked that the other two also awakened it. The grandmas told us that they felt 3 different waves of the king's haki. During the fight, I was not in the right mind to realize this, but I trusted the grandmas.

We could also use and control our king's haki now. We can knock out fodder for now, but no one strong. Conqueror's haki increases with the user's strength, and we are nowhere strong enough, probably we are as strong as Ace or Sabo when they were 10 years old.

Anyways from today, I had a thing to do. I still remembered everything ROB had said. He said, that when Law reaches the Swallow Island, I will be 7 years old. Now, it can happen any time from today to the next 364 days.

The deal of Ope-Ope-no-Mi would happen at Rubek Island. It was actually very close to the Swallow Island. Only 1 hour of swimming distance for me.

So I did one thing that I could think of.

I could swim to the island, regularly. Barrels Pirates will occupy the island sometime before the deal happens, so I would get an idea of when the plot will begin.

Because we are strong enough, grandmas give us the freedom to go anywhere. They would not allow me to visit Rubeck Island like that but it will be ok as long as they do not know. Moreover, I take my time swimming.

Water creatures are no longer that dangerous to me since I can use geppo inside water for speed and conqueror's haki to scare off any creatures.

We do not have sea kings near this island.

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A.N: I know most of you will probably not like the idea of 3 people awakening the king's haki like that, but I didn't want to write awakening of conqueror's haki for each of them individually because:

1. I wanted to write this theory of haki creating pressure and awakening the other's haki. I found it first in Paradox's Path to power and wanted to apply the same fan theory but in a slightly different way.

2. They would have to get into such situations again and again, and I felt it would be very repetitive at least doing it 3 times. I also did not want anyone to directly use the conqueror's haki coating like Zoro. I wanted to awaken it normal way.

Sorry if that ruined the plot for you. But hope you still enjoyed it.

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