ONE PIECE: NEN MASTER - CHAPTER 12 (Patreon)

“I will teach you how to be a real mink warrior!” Nekomamushi declared, his tone giving not an ounce of doubt as he walked towards me, blowing pipe smoke.

I smiled, inwardly chuckling at the fact that their rivalry would probably benefit me a lot, as they would try to outdo each other on my training.

“Now, I want you to fight me!” Nekomamushi ordered, his whiskers tensing, as his friendly demeanor disappeared as if it had never been there to begin with.

At his demand, I said nothing, immediately getting into position.

Seeing me get into position, Nekomamushi’s mouth stretched into a broad smile, as he tipped his head toward the night sky gazing at the moon intently before roaring in an explosion of Haki, “NYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

The wave of incoming Haki that came with the wake of his roar shook the forest itself, demonstrating the differences between him and Inuarashi. Unlike the Lord of the Day, whose Haki was calm and collected, Nekomamushi’s Haki felt turbulent, like a wild fire without any restraint.

Staff at hand, the Lord of the Night grinned, turning his attention back to me, before darting forward at incredible speed, swinging his weapon at me, as I retreated.

Laughing like a maniac, Nekomamushi continued the assault, as I continued to dodge using my size to my advantage moving around him, putting myself in difficult angles to hit before attempting to counter with a Haki coated kick to his chest which failed when the mink colossus took to the air with a fast jump.

Smiling, Nekomamushi dropped to the ground before darting forward, quickly continuing his assault, with a barrage of powerful thrusts from his staff, each thrust stronger than the last.

Ears pricked and eyes unblinking, I dodged every set of attacks slowly retrieving while looking for an opening. Then, when one his thrust was a hair’s breadth apart from my face, the opportunity presented itself.

Seeing my chance, I kicked suddenly at the ground pushing my body into the air a few inches above him, body flipped upside down, we stared into each other, face to face, before my arms shot forward, delivering a double haki coated strike to his face.

With a tremor, the ground beneath Nekomamushi crumbled beneath his foot, destroying his stance as I took the chance to twirled mid air, delivering a horizontal Haki coated kick that the Lord of the Night parried with his bare hand, laughing.

“Good! good! You are better than I expected!” He declared, a bit of blood dripping from his face from my previous attack, “But you still have a long way to go!” baring his fangs for the briefest of moments, Nekomamushi blurred out of sight, appearing behind me with right first reeled back ready to strike.

Fully aware I would not be able to dodge his incoming attack, the fur on my spine prickled as I coated my back with both Nen and Haki and braced for the impact that came soon after, blasting me away in a painful explosion.

For a second or two, my body flew across the air aimlessly before I rotated my body, regaining control, preemptively preparing into a crouching position, ready to leap at any moment's notice the instant my feet touched the ground once again.

“Goronyanyaa!” Nekomamushi laughed, clearly thrilled at the fact his attack had not taken me down.

Feet gracing the ground, I kicked at the ground, leaping from tree to tree towards Nekomamushi, claws sparkling with Electro.

However, inches before I could reach him, Nekomamushi brought his staff to the ground, saying, “Enough, just wanted to see what that dumb mutt had taught you. You fight well, you have good instincts, and you keep your head focused during battle, but you are as stiff as they come!” he yowled, his whiskers twitching as he glared at me, “It was almost like fighting a rock! A Haki wielding rock! But don’t worry, I will teach you what that mutt couldn’t, I will teach you how to fight freely!”

A Haki wielding rock, well that’s a new one.

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As my real training with Nekomamushi began, I soon learned what he meant by saying he would teach me how to fight freely. At any moment, regardless of the situation I was in, he would jump out of nowhere, or stop doing whatever he was doing with me if he was at the moment, and attack me, starting random sparring matches.

He literally had no boundaries with this strategy of his. I was taking a piss? Too bad, he would jump out of the shadows, staff at hand, and start attacking me without even allowing me to put my pants back up.

I’m not sure what hurts more, cutting a piss halfway or getting destroyed with my pants down.

Though, as PTSD-inducing as his training was, it was easy to see what he was trying to do, catching me at the most ill-timed moments, giving me no time to prepare, in the process, pushing me out of my comfort zone.

His mentality was, sink or swim basically.

In just one night, he had forced me to hasten my learning and mastering of En, as I now had to create a zone just to take a piss. It really shows how necessity pushes invention and evolution. Before his training started, my En radius was small, being around two meters only, after him, it had increased to four meters in a matter of hours.

If one night training with him had already produced fruits, I couldn't even imagine the end results.

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As the days went by, I continued training with Nekomamushi, slowly but surely adjusting to his unusual way of training, feeling the massive change of pace between one teacher and the other. It was a huge contrast when the days I had to train with Inuarashi came.

Which, thanks to Nekomamushi, I would be jumpy.

Reacting to any surprise by throwing an attack.

To the point, Inuarashi had begrudgingly admitted under his breath that that damned cat was breaking out of my bad habit. Immediately taking that feat as competition, increasing the level of difficulty of his own training to outdo Nekomamushi’s one, just as I had predicted.

Meaning, the other would increase his as well.

Though, I wasn’t sure how the Lord of the Night would up his already traumatizing mental scarring training. I couldn’t help but shudder at the thought, imagining what was next? Him jumping out of my lunch box?

Anyway, when I wasn’t training with them, which was only one day of the week. I focused my all on training on Nen, I already had a firm grasp of the basics, and the next step was to create a Hatsu, an ability to bring Nen’s full potential to life.

I was, however, having troubles with this particular task.

Unlike the other ramifications of Nen, I was a specialist. The type of Nen with less information about. Meaning, I had no clue where to start, but for some reason, deep within myself, I felt I was close to it.

It was a complicated feeling.

But one I knew eventually I would solve.

It was simply a matter of time.