Painted Three Sisters (1)

An hour later, at the clearing—

"Whoa! What happened here? It looks like it's been plowed over by missiles!" Oshi gasped as she stared at the utterly unrecognizable training grounds before them.

Obe crouched down, grabbed a handful of partially crystallized soil fragments, and rubbed them between her fingers. "Someone must have fought here. The commotion this morning probably came from this place."

"Huh? There was some kind of commotion this morning?"

"You slept like a dead pig, of course you wouldn't know. I thought it was an earthquake this morning. I shook you forever, but you never woke up."

"So what happened after that??"

"Afterward, I figured the earthquake wasn't that strong, and Big Sis didn't come looking for us, so I went back to sleep."

Well, the two sisters were equally hopeless.

Clap, clap, clap~

"Alright, enough chatting. Let's officially begin training." Crisp clapping cut off the two girls' bickering.

Seeing both of them turn toward her, Ra said, "First, Obe. We need to get you to master Observation Haki."

"But Big Sis, I tried all day yesterday, and I still have absolutely no clue." Obe scratched her indigo hair in frustration.

"If neither you nor Oshi had learned it, I'd have thought this thing had some kind of species restriction."

"Oh, please~ How could you compare yourself to us? Sister Ra and I are peerless geniuses. Of course we learned it right away."

"But don't lose heart. If a little dummy like you works at it for a few more days, maybe you'll get it too. No matter how dumb you are, you're still my little sister~" Oshi folded her arms and consoled(?) her with the air of a senior.

😠

Seeing how smug she looked, Obe ground her teeth in anger.

"The reason you haven't learned it is most likely because your learning style is very different from Oshi's."

"Oshi's body learns first, and then her brain fills in the relevant knowledge and principles afterward... though it doesn't matter if it never does. You, on the other hand, need to understand things with your brain before you can make your body learn them."

"One of you is instinct-driven, while the other is theory-driven." Ra's voice was always like a clear spring, easily soothing away the smoke of resentment.

"Think first, then master it..." Obe murmured after calming down.

"That's right. The reason you haven't mastered Observation Haki is partly because you can't fully understand what King and the others mean by 'presence' and 'intuition.'

"On the other hand, your own thinking and reaction abilities are simply too exceptional."

"Oshi follows her instincts, while you need to overcome yours."

Ra could actually understand how having an overly outstanding body could instead become a shackle on one's breakthrough. After all, every physical attribute of this body was far higher than either Obe's or Oshi's.

But unlike Obe, once Ra understood this point, she had immediately been able to overcome her body's instinctive inertia on her own.

"So now I'll teach you in a more suitable way. Close your eyes."

Obe obediently closed her eyes, then immediately felt a warm touch against her forehead.

Ra gently pressed her forehead against Obe's. Before the other girl could say anything out of embarrassment, she softly said first, "The earth, the ocean, sunlight, living things—everything around us contains energy.

"Obe, next I'll temporarily seal your five senses. You need to try to find a new way to observe this world again, from the perspective of energy."

"A new way... from the perspective of energy..."

The moment her muttering ended, Obe noticed that she was gradually losing her perception of the world.

First came her vision, then her hearing, followed by her sense of smell and touch... until the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch had completely sunk into silent darkness.

"Use the same method you use to sense the divine power within your body to sense the energy of other objects outside. They're very faint, so be careful."

Ra's voice sounded in the darkness, soft and gentle, as if encouraging a toddling infant to bravely prop itself up and stand.

Guided by Ra's words and energy, Obe awkwardly mobilized her perception.

This mysterious sensation beyond the five senses became extremely difficult to control once it left her body. The harder Obe tried, the more she felt that helplessness, like mud sinking into the sea.

That sense of powerlessness lasted until she was nearly mentally exhausted and about to give up. Only then did she finally discover scattered points of light flickering in the world that had previously been nothing but blackness and silence.

"Why is there... light? What... what is this... what's going on?" Obe could not help asking.

"Energy radar." Ra used an analogy Obe could easily understand.

Boom!

It was as if the clouds had parted in her mind, revealing the sun. The gloomy doubts hanging over Obe's head were blown away in an instant by those words.

"Our bodies are constantly emitting energy, and when that energy encounters another source of energy, it bounces back while bringing information about that energy source with it. And since our reconstructed bodies possess exceptional sensitivity to energy..."

The moment Ra lifted a corner of the answer, Obe completed the entire principle herself without the slightest pause.

"That's right, it's radar! Those lights are energy feedback! I get it, haha! I get it!"

Sure enough, ninety-nine percent perspiration still could not compare to that one percent inspiration~

"Shh~ Don't make a sound, Obe. Come, feel the world of energy."

Ra interrupted Obe's excitement and transmitted her own energy vision to her, allowing her to truly witness a world stripped of everything but energy.

Golden light appeared on Ra's forehead. In Obe's perception, the scene that had resembled a forest shrouded in night suddenly began to change.

The sun had risen. The moment it appeared, everything in this world became clearly visible.

"Th-this is the world Sister sees?"

Obe incredulously sensed everything around her, as if she had returned to infancy and was opening her eyes to see the world for the first time.

"Observation Haki—'observation' means seeing the flow of energy. 'Hearing' means listening to the rhythm of energy. Combined, the two let you understand the present and foresee the future." Ra gave her final summary.

"I don't know whether this is the same thing as the Observation Haki they talk about, but this method can undoubtedly achieve the same effects."

"D-doesn't that make you Laplace's Demon?" Obe asked in shock.

"No, it's not that exaggerated. Human strength has its limits, and so do gods'. Being able to make targeted predictions within the space around you is already the limit."

"Um, what are you two talking about? What radar? What energy world? Did someone turn into a monster?"

Oshi, who had been boredly kicking pebbles nearby, was completely lost. The two of them were talking about something she couldn't understand again.

"It's nothing. I was just explaining the principles of Observation Haki to Obe. No one turned into a monster." Ra smiled and rubbed Oshi's head.

"Hehe~ So that means Obe learned it?"

"That's right. The moment I saw 'that world,' I mastered it." Obe's confident voice answered her.

"Just as I thought! I knew Sister Ra was the best. As long as she makes a move, any problem can be solved. She could even teach a dumb little fool like you, Obe, right away."

"You little brat, are you asking for another beating? I'm telling you, you won't get away this time. I can already sense which direction you'll dodge."

"Hoho~ Then come try it! Secret technique—Repeated Side Hops! Side step!"

"Damn it!"

"Ow! What happened? Why did my secret technique fail? Th-that's impossible! Could it be... could it be that you really..."

"Hehe, now that I've mastered Observation Haki, I'm invincible!"

"Damn you! Take my Blue Butterfly Cloud-Crossing Body Movement!"

"Ha↑ ha↓ ha↑ ha↓ Too slow, too slow! Before my invincible Observation Haki, your resistance is as laughable as challenging Tearlaments at full power with a rogue deck!"

[Before, I thought all his chuunibyou had been allocated to Oshi. Now it seemed Obe hadn't escaped it either; she just usually didn't show it.

This must be that thing where, "Even though it isn't written on the card, it still has that effect," huh~]

Ra quietly watched the two of them fool around while silently keeping time in her head.

The instant ten minutes were up, she clapped her hands.

"Alright, recess is over. Next is Armament Haki training."