Chapter 39: Battle of Alvis
On the seventh day of his suspension, Axel was still training at home.
Now that the walls had finally been restored to their original spotless condition, he no longer dared to leave a single scratch on them. He still vividly remembered the dumbfounded look on Theodore's face when the old shipwright first laid eyes on the wreck his room had become.
So Axel had moved his training outdoors.
With a light push off the ground, he sprang onto the roof with practiced ease. Over the past few days, this had become his new training ground. It was where he had been refining his long range techniques.
His accuracy had not improved by much, but that did not concern him too greatly. His computational ability was already reliable enough that precision was not the real issue.
The real problem was the move itself.
His current [Wind Blade] still had three obvious flaws.
First, he needed wind flowing around his body in order to gather and shape it. That meant the technique was almost useless in enclosed spaces or places with dead air.
Second, its range was too short. At present, it could only travel about twenty meters.
Third, he had to separate the blade from the original wind sphere before launching it, which made it hard to use effectively against fast opponents.
Even so, compared to before, when he had no true long range option and no heavy hitting finishing move, it was already a major improvement.
After several days of repeated practice, the power of his wind blades had risen enough to pierce straight through concrete walls. He knew that for a fact, because he had personally tested it on the corner of some unlucky house nearby.
Just as he was about to continue, a familiar voice drifted up from below.
"Axel!"
The moment he heard it, his brain supplied the answer before he even looked.
Ain.
Over the past several days, he had grown so used to her voice that the recognition was instant.
He turned his head and looked down. Sure enough, Ain was running toward him from the distance.
A short while later, she arrived beneath the house, breathing hard. Her face was flushed, and unlike her usual composed self, she looked visibly anxious.
At this hour, she should still have been at school.
Axel's eyes sharpened slightly.
Something had happened.
He dropped down from the roof and landed lightly in front of her.
"Ain, what's wrong?" he asked.
She was still trying to catch her breath.
"Quick...!"
Axel frowned.
Quick?
That single word made little sense on its own, but somehow he already knew this was not something trivial.
Ain forced the words out between breaths. "Teacher Alvis... is waiting... for you."
Axel was even more puzzled.
By all rights, he was still suspended. There should have been no reason for him to go to school today.
He was just about to ask for an explanation when Ain cut him off, still breathless.
"Don't ask right now. Just go!"
He trusted her judgment.
Without wasting another second, Axel pushed off the ground and shot forward.
Back at the school, Alvis was in an atrocious mood.
Anyone with eyes could tell. His face was as dark as a storm cloud, and the students nearby kept their distance, not daring to provoke him.
The reason for his foul temper was, of course, Axel.
On the way here, Admiral Zephyr had personally accompanied him. In front of that legendary man, Alvis had confidently declared that the two children he recommended were genuine talents.
Binz had passed.
But Axel...
No matter how one looked at it, Axel was absolutely talented as well.
And yet, the first thing Alvis learned upon returning was that this same "genius" had beaten a substitute teacher half to death and earned himself a seven day suspension.
Even though Axel had won, such an incident would clearly leave a bad impression on Admiral Zephyr.
Fortunately, Binz had already passed. If Axel, who was even stronger than Binz, performed properly, then he should also pass.
That single thought was the only thing keeping Alvis from exploding.
By the time Axel arrived, he was already late.
The moment Alvis saw him, he barked, "Too slow!"
Axel stopped a short distance away, caught off guard by the sudden scolding. He had no idea what exactly had happened, only that Alvis seemed ready to blow steam out of his ears.
But Alvis did not give him time to ask questions.
"Get ready," he said sharply. "We start the fight now."
Unlike Binz's test, this time Zephyr had altered the format after hearing about the promised duel between Alvis and Axel. Rather than a simple demonstration, he wanted the two of them to fight directly.
Binz, as a Devil Fruit user, had passed after Zephyr confirmed the basics of his ability. In the Marines, Devil Fruit users naturally enjoyed a certain degree of privilege. After all, a Devil Fruit ability itself was already a form of talent. There were no weak Devil Fruits, only weak users. Depending on the fruit, the advantage it granted could be enormous, even insurmountable.
A normal person who obtained a Logia type fruit, for example, could become a terrifying threat overnight to anyone lacking Haki or Seastone.
But Axel's case was different.
He had to prove it in a direct fight.
The sudden challenge did not scare him in the slightest. On the contrary, it stirred something inside him.
He had spent the past several days training precisely to measure his current strength.
And Alvis, a Marine lieutenant of Headquarters, was the perfect benchmark. Someone like that was already at the level of pirates worth tens of millions of Berries.
This was exactly the kind of battle Axel wanted.
His blood ran hot.
Alvis stripped off his coat, revealing the solid, battle honed muscles beneath. After a brief warm up, he fixed Axel with a hard stare.
"Ready?"
Axel answered calmly, "Ready."
Then he lowered into his usual stance, like a sprinter poised to explode off the line.
Seeing that, Alvis clenched his fists. His limbs loosened, his balance shifted, and his body sank into a proper fighting posture. Thumb tucked against the side of his index finger, weight distributed evenly, center low and stable. It was the basic foundation of Marine boxing, refined further through actual combat.
After watching Axel's fight with Binz, Alvis had no intention of underestimating him just because he was a child.
He planned to go all out from the very start.
Without giving any warning, he moved first.
He burst forward in an instant.
Based on everything he had seen before, Alvis expected Axel to choose evasion. Axel's greatest advantage was his speed, and if Alvis could attack first and compress the distance immediately, then he could stop Axel from exploiting that advantage.
That was Alvis's judgment.
But this time, Axel did not dodge.
He charged straight in.
Alvis's eyes narrowed.
What is this brat planning?
From their previous clashes, Axel's strength clearly lay in speed and strange techniques. Abandoning that to meet him head on made no sense.
Was there a trap?
There was no time to think it through. From the moment they moved to the moment they entered striking range, barely a second or two had passed.
Just before they collided, Alvis abruptly stopped, planted his left foot, rotated through the hips and waist, and threw a heavy right punch. The fist roared through the air, dragging a fierce gust behind it.
Axel's mind had already calculated the trajectory.
Rather than meet the center of the punch, he slipped just outside its core path and struck sharply against the side of Alvis's arm with his own slender fist.
In that same instant, he redirected the resistance and the reaction force into his blow, driving it into the weak point he had already mapped out.
The next moment, the accumulated force surged into Alvis's body.
Bang!
The impact rang out like a hammer smashing into steel.
Then the impossible happened.
Alvis's body lifted off the ground and flew backward.
.....
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