99 Chapter 12

The silence lasted for a while as Rei seemed to have an internal debate. After some time, she shows a determined look and nods toward Markus. He sighs and nods back, giving her permission to come aboard. As she steps onto the boat, he speaks up, "Ah, one thing to note. There are only two beds in the cabin. You might be a bit uncomfortable until we can get a bigger ship and some people to crew it."

Rei didn't seem bothered in the least and joined Bonney in the cabin of the ship. Judging by how Bonney didn't immediately start yelling at him, she likely figured it out before he did. Well, they did arrive together.

With Rei on board, Markus turned back to Jacob, "I'm sure you feel a little confused about me being a pirate. You should understand from the last few days that I don't attack innocent people. I promised to protect your village and I meant it."

Jacob had a complicated look for a bit but as he reflected on the last few days, he nodded, "I can see that. If there's any trouble, we'll request your help."

His face became stern before he continued, "But, no matter how strong you are, no matter how unlikely it is, if you do anything to hurt Rei our whole village will hunt you down!"

Markus did his best not to laugh at what Jacob said, it would be rude given how much courage it would take to talk to him like that. Markus slowly nodded, "Don't worry, I will take care of her. You have my word."

Jacob looked relieved and smiled bright, "Good luck on your journey, Markus."

Markus nodded and untied his boat from the dock. After taking his seat he used the electric motors to slowly back away from the dock. Once he was clear, he checked the Eternal Pose for Water 7, oriented his boat, and slowly began to accelerate. He was considerate of Bonney and Rei in the cabin, otherwise, he would have gunned it to give the onlookers a show.

Rei came out of the cabin and looked at the people on the dock, she emotionally waved goodbye with tears in the corners of her eyes. Shouts of 'goodbye,' 'good luck,' and 'come visit' came from the dock. Markus watched the scene unfold with a small smile. Rei continued to watch as her home island slowly dropped out of sight. Only when it completely vanished did she let the tears in her eyes fall.

As she silently cried, Bonney came out of the cabin. Spotting Rei, she quickly moved over to her and gave her a hug. Watching them, Markus couldn't help wondering 'when did those two become so close?'

Both women quietly returned to the cabin and left Markus to drive the ship. There wasn't much time left to the day but with how fast his ship moved, they could cover more distance in half a day than most ships could cover in a full day. He pushed the boat to a speed just below jumping from swell to swell. Anyone seeing his boat for the first time would be shocked at the speed it was going.

Time went by with only the sound of the boat moving through the ocean. After a few hours, Bonney came out of the cabin and sat down in a relaxed pose. Markus looked over at Bonney, "How is she?"

Bonney shrugged, "A little sad at leaving her home but still determined. Do you have any idea why she wants to come with us?"

Markus thought for a bit before giving his answer, "I think she wants to get stronger. I helped her learn more about Armament Haki. My guess is, she thinks that by coming with us she can learn more and become even stronger. Other than that, I can't really think of another reason that she might want to come with us. She's obviously not a fan of pirates."

Bonney listened and nodded along with his thoughts, "I think you're right." She focused on him, "So, are you going to train her?"

He smiled and nodded, "I'm going to train all three of you at the same time, once we get a bigger boat with enough space."

"Wait, 'all three?' There's only two of us. And why are you including me in this?"

"It's simple. You're weak. Rei is weak. And our third crew member, the one I want you to de-age, is weak. I don't expect you three to be as strong as me but I do expect you to reach a certain level of strength. There are many techniques I can teach you all to make you stronger."

Before he continued, he switched the boat to Jet Dial propulsion and maintained their current speed, "For example..."

He stood up and started jumping through the air using Geppo. Bonney watched him in surprise before shouting, "How are you doing that?! That's not the way you made us fly before!"

Markus dropped back onto the boat to explain, "It's a Marine technique called 'Geppo.' It can be learned by anyone who is strong enough to perform it. It allows the user to kick on the very air itself to jump around. It's an excellent technique for someone with a Devil Fruit to know. It can save your life by preventing you from falling into the ocean. You can also use it to traverse to places that would normally be much harder to reach. It's not true flight but it's the closest you can get without a Devil Fruit."

Bonney looked interested, why wouldn't she be? She could instantly see the usefulness of the technique. Markus continued to explain, "This isn't the only technique I can teach you. I've got another that lets you move at super-speed between two points. It would combine wonderfully with your Devil Fruit. You could close in on your enemy before they know what's going on and slap them into a toddler with ease."

Bonney practically had stars in her eyes at the thought of being able to move so fast and disable her targets with relative ease. She wasn't slow or weak by civilian standards but by New World standards, she was a weakling and easy pickings. Her encounter with Blackbeard and his crew showed her that. If Markus was willing to make her stronger, she wasn't going to complain. At least, not until the training started.

Curious, Bonney asked, "So what other techniques can you teach?"

"Well, for example..."

He turned and aimed his finger at the ocean. His arm moved in a blur as he used Tobu Shigan to fire a compressed bullet of air. It pierced into the water and sent up a small splash. Bonney's eyes widened when she saw that. Before she could ask, Markus explained, "It's an advanced form of a technique known as Shigan. The basic form is a close combat technique that lets your stab a finger into someone and leaves a wound similar to a bullet. After mastering it to a higher degree it can be used to fire off a compressed air bullet at a short range."

From there, Markus talked to her about the rest of the Rokushiki. He still hadn't mastered all of them so the planned to put a little effort into doing that later. She seemed interested in several of the techniques but not all of them. She was more interested in the leg based techniques, Geppo, Soru, and Rankyaku along with Kami-e for her chosen defense. She wasn't the least bit interested in Tekkai. According to her it 'wasn't fit for a woman.' He didn't argue with her but knew women could use it too without issue.

Their conversation continued until the night sky started to darken. Bonney put their conversation to an end in a very subtle fashion, "I'm hungry! Make dinner already!"

Markus gave Bonney a deadpan look, "Now, is that any way to ask for something you want?"

He didn't mind her brash attitude but he wasn't going to be her little bitch boy either and do whatever she said when she said it. He patiently continued to stare at her waiting for her response. Bonney looked back at Markus for a while. Slowly she began to squirm as her face slowly gained a tinge of pink. Time passed silently until Bonney couldn't take it anymore, "M-Markus... I would appreciate it if we could have dinner soon."

Markus smiled brightly and nodded, "No problem!"

He stood up and gestured to the captain's chair, "Keep it steady while I cook."

She nodded and took the chair while he moved down into the cabin. As he stepped inside he spotted Rei sitting on his bed with her knees pulled up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. When he walked in, her eyes looked in his direction before looking away again. She seemed sad and there wasn't really anything he could do to help her through it. Only time would help her.

He turned away from her and started pulling items out of his inventory, food mostly. Rei silently watched him as he went through the process of cooking dinner for her and himself. Bonney's food would continue to come from his shop and inventory until he could cook food that was just as filling. Going by his Analysis of his food so far, it might be a while longer. It didn't matter though. He was pretty happy and enjoyed the process of cooking. The higher his skill leveled, the smother, and more knowledgable he became about what he was cooking.

As far as recipes go, he didn't have a cookbook but he could remember recipes from his past life and modify them to use unusual ingredients like Sea King meat. Speaking of Sea King meat, it was pretty interesting stuff. The flavor of the meat changed based on how the sea king looked. For example, a Sea King that looked like a cow tasted like beef. It was fun stuff to work with even if his repertoire wasn't massive but he could cook a few tasty dishes and came up with new ideas as he went.

Soon the delicious smell of cooking meat and vegetables permeated the cabin and began to leak out. Outside, Bonney could smell the cooking food and rubbed her rumbling stomach. Was it just her imagination, or did his food smell even better than the last time he cooked? Maybe she was just so hungry that her mind was playing tricks on her.

Markus worked until he had plenty of plates of food for himself and Rei. He wasn't sure how much she could eat but he figured a couple of plates full of food should be more than enough. She didn't seem like a very heavy eater... Then again a certain part of her was rather 'heavy' so maybe she did...

When he finished the last plate of food, he shouted, "Bonney! Bring us to a stop! Food's done!"

While Bonney brought the boat to a gentle stop, he set up the collapsing table between the two beds. Rei watched, curious, as he pulled a table out of 'nowhere.' As the ship came to a stop, Bonney came charging down into the cabin looking like a ravenous beast. As she sat down, he started setting out the plates of system food in front of her. Rei's mouth dropped open when she saw how much food Markus was piling in front of Bonney. Markus grinned at Rei, "She eats this much at every meal and still looks like that. How unfair is that?"

Bonney pouted and kicked his shin under the table. Rei looked confused when she heard the 'thump' of the kick while Markus showed no reaction. He'd silently used Tekkai to keep the kick from hurting the sensitive nerves in that location. Rei dismissed the incident but nodded in reply to Markus at the unfairness of Bonney's ability to eat so much without gaining an ounce of weight.

With the show over, everyone began to dig into their food. The moment Rei took her first bite of food, her eyes widened in surprise. She even held her cheek with her free hand and smiled brightly. Markus took that as a compliment and smiled, proud of his improving cooking skills. After taking his own first bite, he was pretty certain his cooking skill was high enough for the flavor of his food to surpass the systems. Still, it wasn't high enough to provide as much nutrition. He would continue to work on that.

Dinner was mostly silent and only filled with the sounds of people eating their food. Rei ate about as much as Markus which meant there were some leftovers. Markus quickly stored them away before they could cool down much more. Rei watched him and was clearly curious. So, he gave her the same excuse he gave everyone else about his inventory. Though Rei seemed to know a small amount about Devil Fruits, Markus had to add a little something, "Both Bonney and I have a Devil Fruit power. Just to be on the safe side, if you ever see either of us fall into the ocean, please dive in and rescue us or we'll drown."

Rei had a look of surprise on her face for a moment before she began to rapidly shake her head back and forth while waving her hands in the air. It all indicated a negative response. Markus frowned at first but quickly realized something, so he asked, "You can't swim, can you?"

Rei looked down, almost as if she was ashamed. Markus nodded in understanding. It honestly made sense. Rei probably lived her whole life on that winter island. There's no way in hell it ever got warm enough for anyone to want to go swimming. You could also forget about anyone being dumb enough to swim in the ocean around the island. That was just asking for a severe case of hypothermia. Since he understood her issue he comforted her, "It's alright, nothing to be ashamed of. We'll see if Kureha can teach you how to swim after we pick her up. I would teach you but... well... I'd die trying."

Markus laughed at his own terrible joke while earning himself another kick to the shin from Bonney and a somewhat relieved look from Rei. With that, he cleared the remaining empty plates off of the table and began to wash them. To his surprise, Rei came over next to him and silently offered to help with them. While they washed the dishes, Bonney returned the table to the floor before sitting on her bed and bathing in the afterglow of a good meal.

Once everything was cleaned up and stowed away, Markus turned to Rei, "Alright, there's not much space in this little boat so until we get a bigger one, you can use my bunk. I'll sleep on top of the cabin."

Rei tried to shake her head while pointing to the roof and gesturing to herself but Markus ignored her, "I'm the captain, it's my boat, you'll sleep on the bunk."

Bonney chimed in, "Just let him do what he wants. Besides, I'll feel more comfortable sleeping near another woman."

Markus deadpanned at Bonney. She'd had zero issues sleeping near him ever since they met. She nearly instantly fell asleep, drooled, and wound up with her limbs splayed out all over the place. Exactly what part of that was 'uncomfortable?' He didn't want to argue with her though so, he let the comment pass and left the cabin to climb up onto its roof. Aside from giving Rei somewhere comfortable to sleep, he planned to spend some time inside of his Image Training. He wanted to practice the skills he planned to teach some more and see if he could finally push past level 99 on his Armament Haki.

On top of the cabin, Markus pulled out a sleeping bag and a pillow. He didn't use them right away though. Instead, he sat down with his legs crossed, and as he was about to enter his Image Training, he stopped. There was no need to use it for what he planned to do. Markus closed his eyes and activated his Armament Haki to the point that it covered his entire body from head to toe. With his Haki active, he focused on his body, feeling how it felt. He thought he was lacking a certain understanding of the skill to finally master it. Tonight he planned to fully focus on just feeling it to see if he could comprehend something he hadn't before.

For hours he cycled his Armament Haki on and off, feeling how it activated and hardened. Sometimes he left it on and just explored how it felt. He'd honestly never really used his Armament Haki outside of combat and spars. He'd never really just sat still and focused on feeling how it worked. All he'd ever done is activate it with the system's help and used it. But after several hours of just trying to explore it, he could feel a special connection with the Haki coating his body. The more he felt it, the more he could understand it.

He meditated on this feeling for hours, then began experimenting to try and control and move the energy with his own will. It completely ignored him in the beginning but after a couple of hours, he could just barely coax it into moving. Although Haki was his own 'willpower' or 'spirit' whatever you wanted to call it, moving it was like trying to move a muscle that's never been moved before. Or worse, a muscle that just suddenly appeared that you had no understanding of. It wasn't that he couldn't control it, he just didn't know how to. Now, he was learning.

As the sun started to rise, he opened his eyes and looked at his arms as he focused on moving his Armament Haki. His clenched fists turned pitch black. While the blackening slowly moved down his forearm to his elbow, it began to change. Just as the blackening passed his elbows it split apart and took on the form of several branching lightning bolts wrapped around his upper arm with a slight tint of purple around the edges of the lightning bolt shapes.

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Armament Haki (Mastered)

[Active, Level 100]

Armament Haki allows the user to physically harden their will to increase their defensive and offensive capabilities. The greatest benefit of Armament Haki is the ability to harm Devil Fruit users, even Logia users. Armament Haki can be applied to parts of or even the entire body of the user. It can even be applied to weapons when it reaches a certain level. Advanced users can even project Armament Haki a short distance from their bodies while extremely advanced users can project it into an opponent's body to deal internal damage.

+500% Damage Dealt, can harm Devil Fruit users

-99.5% Damage Received

Cost: 5 Willpower/Second

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