Three days had passed since Zaraki returned to Marineford.
The official report remained classified, leaving the public with a sanitized version: the Golden Lion had attacked Loguetown and was repelled by Marine forces, resulting in a mysterious young trainee being placed under special observation.
While the underworld boiled with rumors, the center of the storm remained oblivious, standing in the training plaza at dawn with a wooden sword in hand.
The morning mist clung to the cracked stones and scorched marks left behind by Akainu's magma, the faint stench of sulfur lingering in the air.
Yet amidst the ruins, thousands of Marine soldiers—from choresmen to high-ranking officers—had formed a massive circle without a single order or instructor.
They held their breath, every pair of eyes locked onto the bare-chested swordsman in the center.
Layers of bandages wrapped Zaraki's torso. His blistered hand remained raw, and old cuts tugged with every movement.
The doctors had strictly forbidden intense exercise, a command he treated as a mild suggestion.
In the pale light, he performed the most basic movement: raising the wooden blade and slashing down. Sweat tracked down his back to drip onto the broken stones.
His movements lacked speed, but every swing produced a dull hum as pure physical strength tore the air apart.
'Nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-one...'
Zaraki counted in his head, his gaze vacant but clear.
Basic drills bored him, yet he understood the system's template was just a foundation that required sweat to solidify.
The Kenpachi template demanded combat, and until Sengoku lifted his confinement, this repetitive motion was the only way to keep his body from rusting.
"Fleet Admiral, shouldn't we stop him?" an adjutant asked from the top-floor office, looking down with concern.
"The doctors ordered rest, the plaza is still ruined, and a massive crowd has gathered..."
"Stop him? Why?" Sengoku stood by the window with a cup of hot tea, his gaze softening behind his round glasses.
He watched the young man sweating in the mist and the surrounding soldiers who had unconsciously synced their breathing to Zaraki's rhythm.
A few had even grabbed their own practice weapons to imitate the swings.
"Look at their eyes," Sengoku murmured. "Ever since Roger ignited the Great Pirate Era, I've only seen hatred and the fear of sacrifice in our recruits. Now, I see a confidence I haven't witnessed in years."
It was a raw yearning for strength, a reviving belief in the Navy's power.
Keeping Zaraki under special observation carried risks, and letting him become a symbol was outright dangerous.
Yet looking at the scene below, the Fleet Admiral had to admit this battle-crazed brat was more effective than any propaganda speech.
Sengoku rubbed his temples and glanced at the red Den Den Mushi on his desk—the direct line to Mary Geoise.
The Five Elders were bound to call demanding answers about the Golden Lion, the twin blades, and the underworld rumors.
He sighed, deciding to keep the political burden to himself.
The youth needed to sweat freely while they still had the chance.
Down in the plaza, Zaraki remained ignorant of the Four Emperors targeting him or the underworld debating his possession of the Dark-Dark Fruit.
His body felt lighter today, as if invisible shackles had shattered.
'Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine...'
He drew a breath for the final slash.
he muscles across his arms tightened as the pure will to swing reached its peak.
He used no Reiatsu and channeled no Haki; this was nothing but the raw resonance of physical power.
"Ten thousand."
Boom!
A concussive shockwave silenced the courtyard.
The standard wooden sword in Zaraki's grip halted in midair, two meters away from a waist-high bluestone marker.
The air warped before a transparent, high-pressure blast slammed into the stone.
Crack.
Instead of a clean cut, the dense granite splintered from the center outward.
Debris exploded across the tiled ground like shrapnel.
Zaraki lowered the blade and exhaled a long breath that lingered in the chill air.
Sweat dripped from his jaw, yet he felt no fatigue.
The intense session had merely stretched his muscles and bones. For his current physique, ten thousand swings barely constituted a warm-up.
Silence gripped the plaza for three seconds before someone gulped loud enough for the whole crowd to hear.
"That has to be a trick... right?"
"That was just normal wood. He didn't use Haki, and the blade never touched the stone..."
"Can a human wrist even generate that kind of force?"
The trainees froze, their practice weapons suddenly feeling like lead weights.
Staring at their own meager puddles of sweat compared to the ruined bluestone, a profound sense of powerlessness washed over the soldiers.
They had struggled through five hundred swings, fighting lactic acid just to lift their arms, while this bandaged monster had cleared ten thousand reps without breaking a sweat and pulverized granite using mere wind pressure.
The gap was so vast it defied logic.
Ignoring the awestruck and bitter stares, Zaraki grabbed a towel from the railing to scrub his neck.
His gaze drifted past the crowd to lock onto a trembling figure in the corner refusing to quit.
Roronoa Zoro.
At this point, the green-haired swordsman was still just a rookie who hadn't spent much time at sea.
He bit down hard on the hilt of the Wado Ichimonji while his hands gripped two heavy wooden training swords.
Each agonizing lift looked like it drained the last reserves of his strength.
"Five thousand... and twenty..." Zoro wheezed through his teeth.
His eyes lacked focus but burned with rabid determination as he glared at Zaraki.
Sailing with this monster for over a month had repeatedly shattered his concept of strength.
Initially, he had intended to defeat Zaraki fair and square, but that goal kept slipping further over the horizon.
Now, he was just fighting to keep pace.
Zaraki had slowed his own speed to match the rhythm of the plaza, yet despite giving everything he had, Zoro only managed to hit the halfway mark.
His stamina and speed were leagues behind.
Worse still was the concept of Haki that Bogard had been lecturing about for the past few days.
Zoro hadn't even touched the threshold of that power, while Zaraki was obliterating boulders with mere physical force.
'I have to become stronger. Otherwise, forget surpassing him, I won't even have the right to stand behind him!'
Zoro let out a guttural roar, squeezing out the absolute last drop of strength in his core to bring the heavy wooden swords crashing down once more.