Garp, Do You Really Know How to Raise Kids?

"Then you might be disappointed."

When Ron had said that yesterday, his smile had been full of confidence.

At the first hint of dawn the next day, he realized he had talked too big.

Bang!

A towering figure flew backward from the center of the training ground, his face plowing a trench over ten meters long as sand and dirt poured down his collar.

Ron rolled over and sat up, spitting the sand out of his mouth.

"Teacher, aren't you using training as an excuse to settle a personal grudge?"

Zephyr rolled his wrists, his knuckles cracking.

"Who was it last night, thumping his chest and saying he'd be just as strong without his fruit?"

"I said I'd be strong, not that I wouldn't get beaten up!"

"Then get up!"

Zephyr pointed his chin at a wooden sign standing at the edge of the field. It bore a single rule: [No using the Door-Door Fruit.]

The watching recruits felt their scalps tingle.

Just yesterday, this guy had fought Vice Admiral Borsalino. He had been a monster.

Today, Instructor Zephyr was tossing him all over the field like a sandbag.

The next second, Ron pushed himself to his feet with his sword.

"Again."

Clang!

Zhenyuan sliced through the morning breeze.

The young man, standing just over two and a half meters tall, strode forward and brought his greatsword down, its blade wrapped in Armament Haki!

Zephyr didn't meet it head-on.

He stepped in sideways, rested a palm lightly on the spine of the sword, and used its brute force to deflect it.

Though the sword had only shifted half a step, Ron felt as if he had punched a wad of cotton. It was even worse than a head-on clash.

The greatsword crashed into the ground, and a kick landed behind his knee immediately afterward.

Bang!

He took another hard tumble.

"You've got plenty of strength."

Zephyr sneered. "And then what? Planning to hack the floor to death? What did the floor ever do to you?"

Zephyr closed in with one step, his fist flying straight at Ron's face.

Ron's eyes flickered. His Observation Haki had already picked up the incoming punch.

He immediately raised his sword across his body to block.

But Zephyr's fist stopped in midair. His other hand grabbed the hilt, and his shoulder slammed forward!

Boom!

Ron stumbled backward once more.

"Guessing again?" Zephyr stared at him.

"You're putting too much faith in your predictions."

Ron was about to argue, but Zephyr was already closing in again.

Bang!

Before Ron could bring his sword across, a fist landed squarely on his chest.

"Your opponent can change his moves!"

Ron wiped the sand from the corner of his mouth.

"So?"

"So lower that sword. We're practicing close combat today."

For the next ten minutes, the training ground echoed with the dull thuds of fists and feet colliding.

Zephyr pressed him at every step, giving Zhenyuan no chance to use its superior reach.

His attacks came from almost against Ron's body.

Out of habit, Ron tried to open a door and retreat, but the moment he raised his hand, he heard Zephyr snort.

"One foul, two extra hours of training."

"...You're ruthless."

Ron gritted his teeth, planted his foot hard, and brought his sword back to block at close range.

After being thrown twice more, Ron changed his approach.

This time, as soon as Zephyr's right fist moved, Ron didn't rush to retreat. He released one hand from his sword, blocked with his forearm, and turned sideways to drive his shoulder forward.

Bang!

Cracks burst across the ground beneath both of them, and Zephyr was actually knocked back half a step.

"Hmm?"

"Teacher, swordsmen can throw punches too!"

"You think you need to tell me that?!"

Yet the corner of Zephyr's mouth secretly lifted.

In the second round, Zephyr focused on redirecting force.

No matter how fiercely Ron swung his sword, Zephyr always found a way to make that brute strength miss, then slipped inside his reach while he was recovering the greatsword.

After being caught out three times, Ron changed his grip.

Instead of simply smashing down with the greatsword, he jabbed, flicked, and pressed with its tip in short movements. Turning his waist and twisting his hips with each step, he forced Zhenyuan's frightening weight into a continuous flow of sword strikes.

Clang!

Zephyr blocked the blade with an arm coated in Armament Haki, but the second strike was already sweeping up diagonally from below.

"Now that's more like it!"

Zephyr drew a white circle on the ground.

"Final test. Don't step outside the circle."

The moment he finished speaking, he launched a sudden assault.

Ron's feet shifted rapidly across the dirt: half a step sideways, a turn of his hips, and a swing of his sword.

Each time, his feet landed just inside the white line.

The force of Zephyr's punches made his cheeks ache, but Ron didn't retreat. Instead, he stepped half a pace forward and slammed his sword hilt at Zephyr's chest!

Bang!

Zephyr raised an elbow to block, and both stopped at the same time.

Inside the white circle, Ron stood firm.

Zephyr looked at him and suddenly burst out laughing.

"Good lad!"

He had worried that the Door-Door Fruit gave the boy such an easy way out that it would make him lazy, leaving him to forget how to fight on his own two feet.

Now it seemed he had worried for nothing.

The boy was just too lazy to walk most of the time. He was nothing like Borsalino, who seemed unable to move without the Glint-Glint Fruit.

Zephyr lowered his fists and looked at Ron for two seconds.

"Remember that feeling."

He pointed his chin at the sword in Ron's hand. "Doors make you harder to kill. They aren't supposed to leave you unable to kill without them."

Ron wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. "Teacher, you don't sound like a Marine instructor."

"Cut the nonsense. Again!"

Another flurry of punches and kicks followed. By the time the sun had climbed high, the training ground was covered in sword marks and craters.

Ron was panting, his training clothes soaked from top to bottom. He nearly used Zhenyuan as a walking stick.

Zephyr glanced at the sword marks covering the ground and nodded in satisfaction.

"All right, that's enough for today."

"Finally..."

"Oh, right. Sengoku wants to see you this afternoon."

"Me again?!" Ron instantly straightened up, wondering whether he should find an excuse to go out to sea.

"It's not about a report."

"That's fine, then."

Zephyr: "..."

This brat really did need another beating.

The headquarters cafeteria.

Ron had just sat down with two heaping plates of meat when a large hand suddenly reached out in front of him.

Swish!

The biggest rack of ribs on his plate was gone.

"Old man Garp!"

"Hahahaha! Eating too much is bad for a young man's digestion. I'll help you out!"

Garp chewed a large mouthful of meat as his other hand reached for the bag of rice crackers beside Ron.

Ron snatched it up.

"Give me back my meat!"

"You couldn't take it back yourself. Who's to blame for that?"

"Then say goodbye to your rice crackers."

Crunch!

Right in front of him, Ron bit through half the bag in one mouthful.

Garp's eyes went wide. "You little brat! Those are my snacks!"

"I took them from the Fleet Admiral first!"

Several Marines nearby kept their heads down and ate, not daring to make a sound.

One recruit had just started to rise and salute when a companion pulled him back into his seat.

"Don't. Go over there now and those two really might drag you in to decide who gets which piece of meat."

After fighting over the food for a while, the two finally settled on an uneasy truce, each holding a plate of meat.

"Oh, right."

Garp put down his chopsticks and grinned. "I just got back from the East Blue a little while ago."

Ron paused mid-bite.

The East Blue. He had probably gone to see those two kids again.

In Ron's memories of his previous life, Ace and Luffy had both caused plenty of trouble after growing up, each more than the other.

"Did you go see the kids back home again?"

"Of course!"

Garp thumped his chest. "I personally gave them a lesson in love! They'll all be outstanding Marines someday!"

Ron glanced at him. "You beat them all up again?"

"Yep!"

"Then you came back to headquarters?"

"Yep!"

Ron fell silent for two seconds and held his forehead. "Old man."

"What?"

"Do you really think you know how to raise kids?"

"..."

Asked that, Garp suddenly found that the meat in his mouth no longer tasted so good.

"You brat! How could I not know?!"

"If you want them to join the Marines, stay with them and teach them."

Ron stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth. "If nothing else works, you could bring them back to headquarters."

"Every time you go back, you beat them up, shout a couple of times that they have to join the Marines, and then disappear for half a year."

"If kids were really that easy to raise, Sengoku would have closed the Marine school ages ago."

A Marine nearby nearly spat out his food and hurriedly lowered his head to hold it in.

Garp's face turned pale, then flushed. He chewed the meat in his mouth twice but didn't swallow.

"What do you know?! That's how I was trained back in the day!"

"Besides, the reason I don't bring them here is..."

Ron cut him off at once, afraid he would say something he shouldn't and then activate his "take-back fruit ability."

"Back then, did you ever meet anyone who tried to persuade you to become a pirate?"

"No. Speaking of which, why would anyone go all the way to the East Blue just to make them pirates?!"

Ron picked up a large piece of meat and stuffed it into his mouth.

He couldn't tell Garp that he knew about things that hadn't happened yet.

In the future, one grandson would walk onto the Execution Platform, and the other would force his way onto the battlefield at Marineford to save him.

And this old man, who usually laughed the loudest, would be torn nearly to breaking that day between justice and family.

"Anyway, go back and spend more time with them. Don't just beat them up every time."

Ron lowered his head and chewed his meat, his voice a little muffled. "Don't wait until certain people lead them astray while you're not around."

Garp opened his mouth, intending to argue.

But after thinking for a long while, he really couldn't remember what Luffy had said to him the last time they spoke.

He snorted impatiently.

"My grandson will definitely become an outstanding Marine!"

"Let's hope so."

Just then, a messenger ran into the mess hall.

"Major Ron! Fleet Admiral Sengoku asks that you come see him now!"

Ron put down his chopsticks.

"Understood."