The abandoned armory beneath Marineford had slept for years.
Rusty weapon racks leaned against the walls, and old cannon parts piled in the corners like the bones of forgotten metal beasts.
The air hung thick with the stench of engine oil, mold, and sea salt, settling so deeply into the cracked floor that the Marine cleaners had long abandoned the room.
Dim yellow bulbs buzzed overhead, making the shadows stretch and shrink as if the room itself were breathing.
Bogard's efficiency remained terrifying.
Less than half an hour after Zaraki made the request, the underground armory had been emptied under the guise of a classified recovery evaluation.
The surveillance Den Den Mushi were redirected, patrol routes altered, and access logs marked as "Vice Admiral Garp's private training inspection"—a phrase guaranteed to make most officers turn a blind eye.
Officially, it was a controlled physical assessment for a special trainee.
Unofficially, it was Garp letting Zaraki do something absurd before Sengoku found out and docked everyone's allowance.
Standing in the center of the armory, Zaraki tossed a Rubik's Cube-sized metal block up and down.
The cube was heavy and cold, its surface etched with strange patterns that flowed like liquid circuitry beneath the dim light.
With every catch, it emitted a dense thud, feeling less like metal and more like a compressed building waiting to unfold.
The system was utterly shameless when it came to draining points.
Remembering his balance dropping from five digits to almost nothing made Zaraki's eye twitch, yet he couldn't suppress his smirk.
His eyes shone with the anticipation of a gambler who had just shoved all his chips to the center of the table.
If he didn't bet big, how could he expect these half-finished blades to keep pace with him?
"Hey, mosshead." Zaraki stopped tossing the cube, his gaze sweeping past an irritated Smoker to land on Zoro in the corner.
Zoro's body hadn't recovered from the morning training.
His arms twitched from overexertion, and dried sweat streaked his neck, yet his hand remained firmly clamped around Wado Ichimonji's hilt.
Zaraki's grin widened at the stubborn display. "Back on the plaza, you felt that threshold, didn't you?"
Zoro raised his heavy eyelids. His exhaustion had stripped away all the noise, leaving only raw fighting spirit exposed.
"Yeah," he rasped. "It was blurry, but I felt something flowing under my skin. I just couldn't grab it." His knuckles whitened around the hilt.
"Give me a month. No, a month and a half. I'll definitely drag it out."
"A month and a half?" Zaraki chuckled, the sound dripping with enough contempt to make Zoro scowl.
"By the time you spend a month and a half learning basic hardening, you'll be dead. In the New World, that's just the entry ticket for small fry."
Zoro's jaw tightened.
He wanted to argue, but the wind pressure that had pulverized the bluestone was still fresh in his mind.
Zaraki hadn't used Haki or even touched the rock; he had simply swung a wooden sword with raw physical force.
That gap was absolute, and no amount of glaring could cut down reality.
"Then what do you want me to do?"
Zaraki pinched the metal cube between two fingers. "What if I told you I have a way to compress that month and a half into a few days?"
The armory went dead silent.
Nami froze with her hand on her staff, Carina's fake smile vanished, and Smoker paused with two cigars clamped in his teeth.
"That's impossible." Smoker exhaled a thick cloud, his voice unsteady. "I'm a Logia, and even though I don't specialize in Haki, I know what it is. It's willpower, not muscle or some technique you memorize. It has to be sharpened through pressure, training, and life-or-death experience." He narrowed his eyes.
"You're telling me you can use a machine to force it out? What is this, a fairy tale?"
Standing behind Smoker, Isuka remained silent, her hand pressed tightly against the hilt of her rapier.
Her lips formed a thin line, the desperate desire in her eyes almost painful to witness.
As a swordswoman, she understood the agony of being unable to touch a Logia's real body. A blade that couldn't hit its target wasn't a weapon; it was a decoration.
She desperately wanted Haki, but reason dictated that the sea didn't hand out shortcuts.
Zaraki didn't bother arguing.
Explaining was for the weak whose fists couldn't do the talking. He casually tossed the metal cube into the open space.
"Deploy."
The cube halted in midair.
There was no explosion, no smoke, and no roar of gears—only a high-frequency vibration that made everyone's teeth ache.
The cube silently disassembled.
Countless streams of liquid nanometal spread across the floor, rising, folding, and locking into place.
Pitch-black walls formed layer by layer, pulsing with dark red patterns like blood pumping through a mechanical heart.
Within three seconds, a small fortress dominated the armory. Its smooth, black surface was deeply unsettling, it didn't look like a training room, but rather a machine built to swallow people, grind them down, and spit out the remains.
Nami instinctively hid half her body behind Sanji. "What kind of technology is this?"
Smoker nearly dropped his cigars.
He had seen prototypes from the Science Division and strange inventions connected to Vegapunk, but this was different.
It lacked the scent of human craftsmanship, radiating a cold, precise malice.
"A modified gravity training room." Zaraki dusted his hands off like he had just pitched a tent. "The gravity can be adjusted freely, but that's not the important part. It generates a special mental pressure field. Simply put, it squeezes your will, your instincts, and your fear until your body either responds... or breaks."
Nami's face twitched. "That isn't comforting at all."
"It wasn't meant to be." Zaraki turned back to Zoro. "It increases the chance of touching the Haki threshold by fifty percent. The price is feeling like someone is dragging sandpaper across your nerves from the inside. So?" His smile turned feral. "Dare to go in?"
The silence stretched.
A fifty percent increase in awakening Haki was an insane prospect. If word leaked, the entire sea would go mad.
Pirates, Marines, bounty hunters, and half-dead old monsters hiding in the New World would tear the world apart for it.
Haki was the difference between being a pawn and stepping onto the board, and Zaraki had just dropped a machine capable of forcing that threshold.
"Heh." A low laugh broke the tension.
Zoro pushed off the wall, his legs trembling but his grin razor-sharp.
"That's exactly what I want."
He marched toward the black metal door without a shred of hesitation. He didn't need proof; Zaraki himself was the proof.
"Hey! You mosshead idiot!" Sanji cursed, crushing his cigarette and adjusting his collar before following.
"I don't know what this thing is, but I'm not letting a brute like you steal the spotlight. I have to protect Nami-swan."
"Seriously... you're all crazy." Nami sighed, tightening her grip on her staff and stepping forward.
Her courage was never loud like Zoro's or proud like Sanji's, it was practical and terrified, yet it never stopped her from moving.
"If I can get stronger," she muttered, "even just a little..."
Carina twirled her rifle strap around her finger with a helpless smile.
"I hate painful training, I really do. But I hate being useless even more."
Smoker watched them march toward the unknown, his expression warring with itself.
As a Marine officer, he should shut this highly suspicious experiment down.
But as a Logia who had been repeatedly humiliated recently, his pride screamed for him to enter.
Pride won out.
"Isuka, stand guard outside." Smoker snorted, his lower half turning into smoke as he drifted toward the door.
"I want to see what trick this brat is hiding."
"No, Captain Smoker."
Smoker turned back.
The brown-haired swordswoman was already marching forward with her hand on her hilt.
"I want to go too," Isuka said, her voice trembling but every word clear. "If I don't cross this hurdle, I'll forever be someone who only watches everyone else's backs."
Ignoring her captain's order, she gritted her teeth and stepped through the black entrance.
Smoker's face darkened. "Reckless brats... every one of them."
He didn't stop her, following her inside.
The heavy metal door sealed shut with a deep thud, echoing through the armory like a closing tomb.
Zaraki turned to the outer control panel.
Rows of red indicators lit up, his gaze naturally falling on the largest button in the center: MAXIMUM OUTPUT, glowing in an inviting crimson.
His finger hovered over it.
The wicked urge to slam it down nearly won before a tiny line of red text appeared in his vision.
[Warning: Activating the core mental pressure field at full output without gradual adaptation may cause severe psychological collapse, loss of combat will, or permanent cognitive damage.]
Zaraki stared at the warning, his anticipation twisting into disgust.
Training people into monsters was useful; breaking them into idiots was a waste of eight thousand points.
He dragged his finger away and hovered over the gray panel beside it instead.
"Boring."
"Zaraki," Bogard's calm voice echoed behind him.
Zaraki glanced back.
The adjutant pushed up his sunglasses with one finger. "If you kill Captain Smoker, Second Lieutenant Isuka, and your own companions during a classified exercise, Fleet Admiral Sengoku will not request a report. He will bury you under Marineford."
Zaraki clicked his tongue. "I didn't press it."
"That is the only reason I am still standing here calmly."
Ignoring him, Zaraki pressed the smaller button.
BEGINNER HELL MODE.
The lights inside the training room flared crimson as a mechanical voice announced:
[Gravity: 2.0 times.]
[Will Pressure Field: Level 1.]
[Haki Awakening Assistance: Activated.]
[Warning: Nausea, dizziness, muscle failure, emotional overload, and temporary hallucinations may occur.]
Silence reigned for three seconds.
Then Zoro's roar pierced the reinforced walls. "Again!"
"You moss-headed lunatic, we haven't even started moving!" Sanji cursed.
"Zaraki! I'm charging you for emotional damage!" Nami shrieked.
"Can I quit?" Carina's voice trembled. "I suddenly remembered I'm a support type!"
Smoker's bellow drowned them all out. "Stop whining and stand up!"
Listening to the chaos, Zaraki leaned against the wall with folded arms, a slow grin spreading across his face.
Bogard watched him expressionlessly. "You are enjoying this too much."
"Of course." Zaraki closed his eyes. "If they can crawl out stronger, then this boring stay at Marineford won't be a total waste."
Deep in his mind, the system panel flickered.
[Special Training Facility activated.]
[Participants detected: Roronoa Zoro, Sanji, Nami, Carina, Smoker, Isuka.]
[Training evaluation in progress.]
[Warning: Excessive stimulation may cause participant collapse.]
Zaraki opened one eye, his smile turning feral.
"Collapse is fine. As long as they stand back up."
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