Seaside System - Chapter 4.1

The thing about One Piece Kaden knew, was that Haki grew stronger during stressful situations, especially in live combat. More especially in life or death combat.

And the same applied to other skills.

Mihawk's idea of training Zoro to reach heights far beyond what he was capable of, was tossing him into combat against massive sword wielding gorilla's.

Training was all well and good when it came to getting a technique down or increasing physical abilities, but true experience and ability, would shoot through the roof in the process of live, deathly combat.

Thankfully for Kaden in that regard, he was stationed at one of the few marine bases that heartedly came at each other with full strength with no regard for each others lives.

"You're open Kaden!" Commodore Yarisugu shouted with glee as he blitzed forward at blurring speeds, huge sword coming down in a diagonal swing meant to bisect Kaden from shoulder to hip from behind.

His sword locked against another large, bald and incredibly muscular behemoth of a man, Kaden tensed his muscles with all his might until they reached a hardness iron would be proud of.

A loud clanging sound reverberated through the air as the sword struck his shoulder, sliced his flesh, but did not go any further.

"Oh!?" Commodore Yarisugu's eyes widened and a noise of interest left his mouth, while the one Kaden was facing off against, gaped at the failed slash, allowing Kaden to overpower him and launch a front kick into his stomach and launch him flying back, and take the chance to spin, sword flashing out aimed at his superiors neck, only for his own larger blade to zip up with a jerk of his hand and block it easily, "That was Tekkai was it not? Another one already? You're doing quite well." the queerly dressed marine complimented, before slamming the palm of his other hand into the flat of his blade and completely overpowering Kaden and launching him back just like he did his previous opponent.

Unlike him though-

Flipping around mid air, Kaden slammed both of his feet through the air and the air itself rumbled as he kicked off of it and launched himself back towards Commodore Yarisugu.

A tingle in the back of his head had Kaden's eyes widening though and he quickly thrust his feet down and kicked off the air again, just in time for Commodore Yarisugu to swing his blade and launch a massive blade of air towards him that tore a massive trench through the ground.

Commodore Yarisugu stomped his feet on the ground and disappeared in a blur so fast Kaden barely saw it-

Clang!

He spun at the last moment, his sword coming out to clash against Commodore Yarisugu that struck at his neck from behind. He was the type that always liked to strike at blind spots.

"Tekkai isn't really my thing," the much taller man said conversationally, a massive grin on his fish-like lips, "I prefer Soru and Geppou, and some Rankyaku too! I'm all about cutting bastard pirates down you know?" he giggled.

"I'm aware!" Kaden bit out through gritted teeth, bouncing back through the air blocking a volley of lightning flash slashes from the man as he followed him, blade slicing out in dozens of slices with each breath.

Catching the taller mans blade with his own, Kaden slid his blade down the length of the bigger mans, bleeding the momentum behind the strike into himself, before using it to kick off the air and spin around aim mid-air, lashing out with his free hand, the air rippling as something invisible coated his fist.

One thing he'd learned about this man over the past two months of fighting him every single day and getting his shit kicked in for the vast majority of those days by him, was that, just as he said, he was all about offence.

Not so much defence.

His fist struck the man on the cheek and the queerly dressed commodore shot down through the air towards the ground like a cannonball, where he smashed into and through the ground creating a large crater.

A moment later, Kaden felt the invisible coating around his fist sputter and die out and grimaced.

He couldn't hold it for any more than a few seconds.

"It's my win this time, Commodore." Kaden declared as he landed. His marine uniform was torn with dozens of slashes and stained with his blood.

"Hehe, I suppose so." Commodore Yarisugu laughed as he pulled himself out of the crater his body had caused, a bit bloodied and bruised, but no worse for wear.

It was pretty much the only rule of sparring at G5, after one good powerful hit, they were out. At least as far as the free for all training went.

This made the ninetieth time he'd fought Commodore Yarisugu, and out of ninety fights, he'd lost eighty nine.

This one, he'd won, though it was more of a technicality than anything else.

The commodore shook the debris covering him off, before he stepped forward, and disappeared in a blur, appearing at Kaden's side a split moment later, "I wasn't expecting you to have Tekkai down, I figured I was actually gonna kill ya there for a minute," he laughed, "Not bad, I mean it took ya' a near full three full months to get to this point where most would have only taken half that amount with someone to get an example of, but hey, who's counting."

He was.

…He'd only found out Commodore Yarisugu could use three of the six powers when he attempted to use Soru in a fight against him the very day after he'd found out how he ended up here.

Only for the man to laugh at him, do it in return and kick his ass all over the training field.

"Screw you." Kaden shot back with a dry glare. Seriously, fuck this guy as well. Fuck everyone here.

"Not my type blondie, I prefer giant tits," Commodore Yarisugu shrugged him off, before nodding as he looked him over, "You know, you're way too good to leave sitting as a lame petty officer, why don't you just get promoted? You don't even go out solo hunting like a ton of us, you just sit around here training and reading, you're so lame."

….He said lame twice.

"That's not up to me." Kaden replied once more, drily. He could put his name in for promotion when he thought he was ready, but it was up to his superiors to decide if he was worthy of a promotion.

And he honestly wasn't really sure what to think about being a marine at this point. He would really rather not be one, he was, so he should aim for higher. But then if he did leave, it would mean he'd be given a much higher bounty.

…But that could be to his advantage as well depending on what he wanted to go for.

"Well we're missing a Commander now after the idiot went and got himself killed by that bitch Whitey Bay," Commodore Yarisugu nodded, to himself, "I think you're stronger than him now though so you should be able to handle it!"

Oh right….Whitey Bay had apparently been making a trip to go meet up woth Whitebeard or something two weeks ago, and one of the Commander's who had some kind of boner, possibly of the hate version, but perhaps just lustful sailed out with a bunch of others in the base to hunt her down, and got killed by her.

Apparently it wasn't even a fight, she slaughtered him like a pig.

"…I'm literally a petty officer," Kaden gave the man a deadpan look, "That's multiple rank jumps. And being an officer of that level takes more than just strength."

Seriously what about knowledge, experience and leadership ability? A lack of those traits is probably what got the last moron Commander killed.

"And the fact you know that, puts you way above the other shmucks around here," Commodore Yarisugu laughed clapping him on the shoulder, "I'll go let Vice Admiral Vergo know you've got my backing to get the promotion." he said, and turned around and walked away with a whistle on his lips.

"I fucking hate this place." Kaden nodded.

Literally every single person around him, was a freaking moron. Led by incredibly stupid and incompetent morons.

Yes stupid and moron was an oxymoron in of itself that should have cancelled each other out, but they were so fucking retarded both needed to be used to describe them.

What were Sengoku and the other higher ups thinking allowing morons like this to be part of the marines? And worse, allowing idiots like Commodore Yarisugu to even recommend and push for others to get promotions.

…Honestly, he already knew, it just made him feel better to gripe.

Strength, that was really it. The marines were spread thin due to the great pirate age, so much so that even a trash base like G5 was allowed to operate.

'I suppose in that case, it was actually smart of them to stick all the problematic idiots in the one base where they couldn't fuck up everyone else's work.' he thought, shaking his head.

…Maybe it was time to get a move on? With a thought, Kaden brought up his status to look over.

Name: Kaden D. Freeman
Strength: 100.5/500
Endurance: 97.7/500
Durability: 99/500
Agility: 86/500
Hand To Hand Combat: 256/1000
Swordsmanship: 240/1000
Gunmanship: 26/1000
Rokushiki: (4/7)

Haki:
Colour Of Armament: 100/1000
Colour Of Observation: 120/1000
Colour Of The Conqueror: 1/1000

Devils Fruit: -

His status as always, was kind of pitiful to look at. It was a massive difference compared to what it was two months ago, and looked a hell of a lot more impressive.

But it was still kind of pitiful. His armament haki for instance, had been stuck at one hundred where he could finally feel it and coat his hands in it two weeks ago and hadn't risen at all since then, and his Observation had dwindled massively, to the point that in the last week it only had risen two points.

And the same could be said for the likes of his hand to hand combat abilities and swordsmanship which he'd decided to work on fully over his gunmanship abilities. He'd taken to fighting constantly every day against Commodore Yarisugu, and then taking place in the free for all battle training every day as well.

In the process his swordsmanship and hand to hand combat abilities had spiked massively…for a time. But the better he got and the stronger he got, the less they increased by day no matter how hard he trained or how many of the other marines he fought.

In fact his swordsmanship hadn't increased at all in five days, and his hand to hand combat skill had creeped up a tiny bit when he began using the haki he'd began to grasp with it.

Honestly, what he was most proud of currently, was the Rokushiki listed as four out of seven on the status screen. He'd worked incredibly hard over the past few months to learn them.

Even now his arms were covered in bandages from the effort he'd put into it, he knew that beneath those bandages lay deeply bruised arms covered in prickly scabs.

It was not a pretty sight.

He glanced at the very bottom of the screen, barring the devil fruit part.

Colour Of The Conqueror: 1/1000

….That day, two months ago when he found out about his origin, the murderous rage he'd felt was so deep, he'd awakened his Conqueror's Haki.

Which was cool and all, but, he had no idea whatsoever how to bring it out, never mind train it.

Still, one thing bugged him.

"It changed back again." Kaden noted, looking at the name listed on the status screen.

It was a weird thing, but sometimes when he opened the status screen up, his name was changed to Kaden D. Topman.

And then on a few rare occasions it had labelled him as Kaden. D TopFreeman, as if it couldn't decide what his last name was.

It was super fucking weird. But it had only begun after he'd learned of his origins and he'd thought about that…a lot.

What it meant for him. Was it a death sentence, or was it something he could use like Doflamingo? He knew after all of a certain treasure held by the World Government, and he knew who sat upon the empty throne.

He'd come to the simple conclusion that like everything else, it was a hazard to him while he lacked strength. So he'd think on it later once he had the might to protect himself.

'Less than a year now before Luffy sets out and things get really crazy in the world.' Kaden mused.

Yeah…it was probably time he got a move on, especially since he'd realised something.

He was early enough that Doflamingo shouldn't have anyone monitoring Caesar yet, and that clown was a literal moron just like everyone in the G5. Only he and a bunch of crippled ex pirates should be on Punk Hazard currently.

Which made things a whole lot easier for him.