ONE PIECE: NEN MASTER - CHAPTER 9 (Patreon)

Life returned to normal soon enough, with the days flying by with me having the same old routine, with the change of now spending my days training with Inuarashi.

Today, like every morning after breakfast, I was training with Inuarashi, sparring with him in the forest, a few miles away from the city to avoid perturbing anyone. The winds, like always, were howling shrouding the sounds of our clashes that echoed around.

I was nowhere near besting Inuarashi, I knew he was fighting with just enough power to match mine, granted, I wasn’t using Nen during our sparring matches, not that using it would give me a big edge anyways, not right now. 

As to why I wasn’t using Nen? Well, I wanted to improve my bases, and that was something I had the luxury to do now with Inurashi as my teacher, lecturing after every match, telling me what I had done wrong, and how to correct it.

“Enough for today,” Inuarashi said, stopping our spar of the day with a big smile as his tail wagged from side to side, “You are improving at an alarming rate,” his smile, however, soon turned into a scowl, “But your moves are still unbearably rigid.”

He was right, a problem of mine I had noticed sparring with him on a daily basis was that my moves were, as he described them, rigid. I lacked that element of freedom every battle needed.

“Remember, rigid moves soon turn into predictable moves, and a predictable fighter soon becomes a dead man,” Inuarashi said, walking towards our drink zone, a zone he had set to store our drinks for after the fight, “You have to be… in the middle of the spectrum, you have to be rigid, but flexible, never fully one, because different instances will require you to apply a different approach to them.”

I nodded, following him to the drink stand, while wondering how to lose that bad fighting habit of mine. The sooner I did, the better it would be in the long  run. After all, habits become harder to drop the more they cement their roots in our day to day life.

"Give it time," The deep, gruff voice of Inuarashi snapped me out of my long reverie. As he reached the drinks carefully laying inside a cooler, grabbing a few bottles of Monkey Brew, before uncorking them, pouring me a drink. "Everyone has a difficult area they must conquer in their training, the solution will eventually come to you."

I smiled, grabbing the drink, remembering how a few weeks ago I had tasted my first drop of Alcohol in this world at the hands of Inuarashi, which in turn made my dad go full depressed mode, saying that that was a father-son bonding moment he was planning to have with me soon.

I was truly glad my age wasn’t an impediment when it came to this. Don’t get me wrong, I was no alcoholic, but even before being a Mink, I enjoyed the occasional beer or two on a sunny day, but here? The drinks were overwhelmingly better.

“Ahh, this tastes great,” I said, feeling the flavor of it all permeating my tongue before going down, making my whiskers twitch ever so slightly.

“Haha!” Inuarashi chuckled, downing his drink in one go, like the fucking beast he was, my respects, “We do make some of the best drinks!” 

I smiled, taking another sip of my drink, to which once again, my whiskers twitched as the pleasant sensation of flavor gushed over me.

“Valor, I have a question for you,” Inuarashi said, opening another bottle of Monkey Brew before taking a seat on the ground, “What do you know about Haki?”

In the middle of taking another sip of my drink, I coughed at his unexpected question, choking for a brief moment before I turned to face him, “Nothing,” I replied, using my right hand to clean my face from the drink I had just spat all over it.

“You know enough to know it’s something,” Inuarashi chuckled, downing his second drink as fast as the first one, seriously, fucking beast, “Well, you see, Haki is a mysterious power that allows those who seek to understand it, the ability utilize their own will in combat. Depending on everyone's individual affinity to it, some can use it to sense others and predict their actions, or to gain a protective coating against all damage that also increases your overall strength, and, for a certain group of unique individuals, the power to overpower the willpower of others.”

Now that I hear it outloud, Haki and Nen feel somewhat familiar.

Inuarashi chuckled, grabbing another drink, before continuing, “All living beings in the world are capable of learning Haki; however, most don’t. That everyone is capable of it, doesn’t mean everyone has it equally easy, some are so out of tune with their Haki, it might as well be considered a moot point to try and learn it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my ears turned forward.

“Well,” Inuarashi sighed, scratching behind his ears, “Nothing really, just something that’s been bugging for a while. I know you don’t have Haki, or rather that you haven’t learned it yet. Nonetheless, I feel within you a Will, comparable only to a few people I have met.”

My tail twitched, as I mused over his answer. A Will comparable only to a few he had met? Was one able to see the power of someone’s Haki before the person in question even learned how to use it?

“It’s not a common occurrence. You seem to be a special case,” Inuarashi said, once again seeing right through me. At times, it almost looked like he could read minds, “I’m telling you this, because the next step of your training is that, learning how to tap into your Haki.”

I smiled, my tail quivering in sheer excitement.

“Don’t smile just yet,” Inuarashi said, giving me a hard look, “Learning Haki takes time, no matter your affinity with it, it takes a lot of effort, so be ready to train until your body gives up.”

I nodded, trying to hide the fact I felt quite confident I would learn Haki in record time. Something about Haki made me feel that my experience with Nen would translate well.

“Good,” Inuarashi nodded, standing up as he did so, “I’ll see you tomorrow at the same time, tomorrow we start with the basics. I recommend that for breakfast you don’t eat a lot, you will most likely throw up during training.”