Kamui

Kizaru's face was practically screaming reluctance as he raised a hand and said,

"Teacher Zephyr, Gigue is still a newcomer, and he's a Logia too. What if he loses control later...?"

Zephyr cut him off impatiently.

"That's none of your concern. Get up there now!"

"Ahh!"

With a heavy sigh, Kizaru drooped his head and walked over to stand opposite Gigue. Zephyr added from the side,

"Take it seriously later. If I find you're just going through the motions, I'll cancel your extra allowance for this month."

"Nani!? Teacher Zephyr, you can't joke about something like that!"

"Who's joking with you? You haven't had a proper fight in a long time, have you? I need to see how much you've improved lately."

"Then Sakazuki too..."

"I don't need to worry about Sakazuki at all. As for you..."

Zephyr folded his arms and shot Kizaru a sidelong glance. The meaning could not have been clearer.

Kizaru still wanted to struggle a little more, but Zephyr kicked him squarely in the backside and roared,

"Enough nonsense! Start already!"

After saying that, Zephyr directed the other trainees to retreat to the edge of the training ground, leaving the entire field to Gigue and Kizaru. He was giving the two Logias quite the grand treatment.

Kizaru patted the large black shoeprint on his backside and muttered something under his breath. Then he looked up at Gigue and asked,

"Gigue, shall we begin?"

Gigue smiled and replied,

"Please go easy on me, Borsalino."

The moment he finished speaking, Kizaru raised his hand and fired a laser. It pierced straight through Gigue's body before exploding behind him, instantly blasting a charred crater into the ground.

Kizaru had expected this outcome. In his view, since Gigue was a Logia, he would naturally be able to elementalize. An energy attack of that level was certainly useless. This move was purely to annoy Zephyr.

Zephyr had just said that Kizaru only needed to focus on fighting and need not worry about anything else. That meant dear Teacher Zephyr would have to worry all the more about repairing the training ground~

Anyway, Kizaru always secretly enjoyed seeing Zephyr's face turn dark!

But Zephyr knew Kizaru far too well. With a grim expression, he shouted at him,

"Borsalino, haven't I taught you how to deal with Logias?"

Kizaru pursed his lips, knowing he could not keep up the act. He raised his leg, and a layer of pitch-black Armament Haki slowly coated his shin, drawing cries of surprise from the trainees.

"That's Armament Haki? Borsalino has already mastered it!?"

"This guy hid it well. We've never seen him use it before!"

"Could it be that he simply never needed Armament Haki against us?"

"Uh, that's true. But do you think Sakazuki can use it too?"

"That's monster business. We'd better not pry. Knowing too much will only make us miserable!"

"This Gigue is in trouble. Without Armament Haki, he can't threaten his opponent at all."

Zephyr nodded lightly. Judging from Kizaru's display, he had already gained a fairly solid grasp of Armament Haki.

He had another reason for making Kizaru use Armament Haki: he wanted Gigue, as a Logia Ability User, to experience what it felt like to be hit.

Over his decades-long Navy career, Zephyr had encountered quite a few Logia Ability Users. Nearly all of them shared the same flaw: they relied too heavily on elementalization.

He wanted Gigue to recognize this early on, so that he would not become overly confident simply because he was a Logia Ability User, and would pay more attention to training his physical body.

Kizaru kindly reminded Gigue,

"Gigue, be careful later. You might get hurt."

Gigue seemed unaware of how powerful Haki was and remained perfectly calm, as if telling Kizaru to come at him however he liked.

Kizaru pushed up the sunglasses on his face. Golden light radiated from his body as he transformed into a streak of light and appeared before Gigue, sweeping a kick toward Gigue's waist.

He was incredibly fast. By the time the people watching reacted, Kizaru's right leg had already struck Gigue.

Yet the expected sight of Gigue being sent flying never came. Kizaru's right leg, coated in Armament Haki, passed straight through Gigue's body.

Kizaru had never expected this to happen. Dumbfounded, he spun three hundred and sixty degrees in front of Gigue from the momentum, then staggered and nearly fell.

After steadying himself, he glanced at the Armament Haki still lingering on his right leg, then raised his head and stared at Gigue in disbelief.

It was not just him. Even Zephyr at the edge of the field was stunned. With his extensive combat experience, he quickly concluded that Gigue had predicted Kizaru's attack and moved his elementalized body away in advance.

That realization only shocked Zephyr even more, because it meant Gigue had already awakened Observation Haki, and it was no weak version of it!

Kizaru's ability granted an utterly terrifying boost to his speed. Ordinary Observation Haki simply could not keep up with him.

Zephyr could not help recalling the moment at the training ground entrance when Gigue had grabbed his arm. He became even more certain.

Thinking of Gigue's age, Zephyr no longer knew what to say.

Even without the Dark-Dark Fruit, Gigue was a true genius!

What Zephyr did not know was that Gigue's situation was completely different from what he imagined.

Only after becoming a Dark-Dark Fruit Ability User did Gigue discover that the Dark-Dark Fruit could actually elementalize as well. However, due to the nature of darkness, any attacks it received would be automatically absorbed, then reflected back onto his body as pain multiplied several times over.

To avoid this weakness, Gigue developed another kind of "elementalization": he hid his elementalized body within a dark space, thereby evading attacks.

The advantage of this method was that it could avoid nearly all attacks, even Haki.

Of course, the drawback was that once he entered this state, Gigue could not attack anyone either.

And although Gigue himself was darkness, leaving his body inside the dark space for too long could still make him lose himself in the endless darkness. Each use could not exceed ten minutes.

However, as Gigue developed his Devil Fruit ability further, the duration would gradually increase.

This method had been inspired by Obito's Kamui in Naruto, so Gigue named this special elementalization Kamui.

Kizaru was unwilling to give up and wanted to test him a few more times, but Gigue gave him no such opportunity.

A black vortex appeared in Gigue's palm. Kizaru instinctively sensed danger and instantly transformed into photons, scattering backward.

Gigue unhurriedly raised his right hand and said softly,

"Banshō Ten'in."

The countless points of light Kizaru had become suddenly stopped, then all flew back in the direction they had just come from, finally condensing back into Kizaru's form.

Gigue's hand clamped tightly around his shoulder, and a rare look of panic appeared on his face.

Because he discovered that he could not activate his ability at all!