One Piece: Lust Haki

The examination hall was the largest room at Marineford that didn't have sand on the floor. Rows of desks, wooden and identical, spaced four feet apart so nobody could read a neighbor's paper. The windows were high and narrow and the morning light came through them in rectangles that moved across the stone walls as the hours passed. Two hundred recruits in pressed uniforms with pens and blank faces and a proctor at the front who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.

I was in row seven. Isuka on my left. Tashigi on my right. Alphabetical by block. Three hours in a chair between the two people I'd spent the last seven months orbiting.

The written exam was four sections. Marine law. Tactical analysis of historical engagements. Ethics and rules of engagement. Weapons identification.

The history section was easy in a way that made me uncomfortable. The fall of Ohara. The Battle of Edd War. God Valley. The Warlord system. I knew the outcomes because I'd read them in a manga in another life, and the exam was asking me to analyze decisions that I already knew the results of. I wrote my analysis carefully, making sure the reasoning sounded like a smart recruit and not like someone who'd read the ending.

Isuka's foot nudged mine under the desk.

Once. The side of her boot against the side of mine, a deliberate press and release. She was looking at her exam paper. Her pen was moving. Her posture was perfect.

I nudged back.

She didn't react. Her pen kept moving. But the strokes got smoother. The tight scratching of someone pressing too hard on the paper relaxed into something more even.

On my right, Tashigi adjusted her glasses. She was deep in the weapons section, her pen moving fast, her mouth set with the focus she gave Shigure during maintenance. The air near her carried tangerine oil. She used it on her blade cloth and the scent got into her uniform and her hair and it was there now, faint and sharp, cutting through the chalk dust and the two hundred bodies in the room.

I sat between them. Isuka's boot print still warm on mine. Tashigi's tangerine oil in the air. The proctor turned a page of the novel he was pretending not to read.

Results posted that evening. I ranked first in tactical analysis and history. Isuka beat me in ethics by four points. Tashigi beat us both in weapons identification by a margin that wasn't close. Her score was the highest in the Academy that year. She was quiet about it. Her ears were pink.

Day two was combat.

The evaluation yard was the same yard where mid-year evaluations had happened three weeks ago, except now there were more officers watching and the brackets were deeper. Four rounds minimum.

I won my bracket. The fights weren't close. My Observation read intentions before muscles committed and my Armament held long enough to block anything the other recruits threw. The evaluating Lieutenant Commander wrote something on her clipboard after my third match and didn't look up.

Isuka won the bladed bracket. Her rapier work was clean and efficient and she dismantled three opponents without taking a hit. The fourth opponent was a second-year who fought with a heavy saber and had thirty pounds on her. She feinted him into overcommitting, stepped inside his guard, and put the rapier point to his throat in two seconds. The yard was quiet for a beat.

Tashigi ranked in the top five for swordsmanship. She lost to a recruit whose reach advantage was physical and whose technique was just good enough to keep Shigure from finding the angles Tashigi wanted. She took the loss with her chin up and her glasses straight and asked the recruit afterward to show her the guard transition she hadn't been able to break. The recruit looked confused. Tashigi waited. The recruit showed her.

Day three. Haki assessment.

Gion conducted it in the advanced training room. The weapon rack, the floor polish, the lamps that buzzed at the frequency my Observation could hear. She was in uniform. Coat draped. Konpira at her hip.

There were six recruits with confirmed Haki development, and I was last on the list.

The assessment was clinical. She placed markers at measured distances and tested my Observation's range. Fifteen meters was clean. Twenty was present but blurred. At thirty I could detect presence but not detail.

"Fifteen clean. Thirty fuzzy," she said, marking the form. Her pen didn't pause. "Armament."

I hardened my right fist. The knuckles went dark. She timed it.

"Hold it under movement."

I moved. Stepped forward, pivoted, threw a combination at the striking post. The hardening held through the first two strikes, flickered on the third, and dropped on the fourth.

"Six seconds stable. Degradation under kinetic stress at seven." She wrote. "Significant improvement from baseline. Rate of development exceeds standard progression models." She looked at the form, not at me. "Recommendation: continued advanced mentorship. Conqueror's Haki: not assessed. No indicators observed."

She signed the form. Set down the pen. Looked at me. First time during the assessment.

"Dismissed."

"Yes, ma'am."

I left.

The mess hall after the last assessment was full of recruits who'd spent a week being tested and wanted to eat their way back to normal. The fish was the same. The rice was the same. The noise was louder because everyone was talking about scores.

I sat at the table. Isuka sat across. Tashigi sat next to me.

"I hate exams," Isuka said. She had rice in her chopsticks and her rapier was propped against the bench and her hair was tied back with the white one and she looked like she'd run a marathon.

"You ranked second," Tashigi said.

"I hate being second."

"You ranked first in bladed combat."

"Overall second." Isuka ate her rice. "Overall is what matters."

"I ranked first and I also hate exams," I said.

She kicked me under the table. Her boot connected with my shin and her face didn't change.

I kicked back. Her mouth pulled at one corner.

Tashigi looked at both of us and the corners of her mouth came up and she ate her rice.

A recruit at the next table knocked over his miso soup and the guy beside him moved his tray too late and the soup went across both their trays and the resulting argument was loud and involved a lot of hand gestures and neither of them cleaned it up.

Seven months at Marineford. Five months until graduation and postings and whatever came after. The mess hall was loud and the fish was bad and Isuka's boot was still touching mine under the table and Tashigi's shoulder was near mine.

I ate my fish. It was the same as yesterday.

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