Shave

The Six Powers were said to surpass the limits of human physical ability, and that was no exaggeration. You only truly understood it when you experienced them firsthand.

Practitioners needed superhuman physiques as a prerequisite. If the Six Powers were like the water in a fish tank and the human body like a washbasin, pouring all the water from the tank into the basin at once would only make it spill everywhere.

Only by continually transforming and expanding this "container" until it could hold all the water would you have a chance of mastering the techniques.

It wasn't that Gray's notes and training methods were wrong; their bodies simply didn't meet the strict requirements.

Once Buggy understood this, he immediately gathered Cabaji, Mohji, and Shuma for an island-circling endurance run. They ran around the outskirts of the island, which had a circumference of roughly fifty or sixty kilometers and twice Earth's gravity.

In the glow of the setting sun, several shadows gradually stretched longer, like the surging youth that had flashed by like an epiphyllum in bloom, sweat pouring as they gave their all...

Men... boys until the day they died!

Some of the Buggy Pirates sat on deck, while others stood on the lookout platform. Most of them looked lazy and bleary-eyed.

Though it lacked the thrill of plundering treasure, these few days of leisure had given their taut nerves an unprecedented chance to relax. Normally, they spent their lives at sea being chased by the Navy like stray dogs, or perishing in terrifying waves.

Captain Buggy didn't say much—or rather, he tacitly approved of what they were doing. Whether they played poker on deck every day, fished for a few sea fish, or held a banquet every few days, Captain Buggy just smiled and let them be. Of course, they did have one simple duty: every three days, they had to go to nearby Ailu Island to buy a certain amount of fresh water and provisions.

By Earth's standards, they were the kind of employees who got paid while being on vacation every day.

Most of the pirates aboard had followed Buggy for six or seven years. They might not have earned great credit, but they had certainly worked hard. They had endured plenty of hardships under the younger Buggy, whose temper had been terrible. And as they grew older and spent more time at sea, they began to fear and tire of the unpredictable ocean.

Two drunk pirates aboard the ship gazed blearily at the island and chatted without a care.

"Luz, I've long forgotten why I became a pirate in the first place..."

"Yeah. The years have flown by. I used to long for a life full of passion, but in the end, I realized... nothing makes you happier than getting a comfortable night's sleep."

"I thought that all I needed was passion to make a name for myself on the sea. But after seeing so much killing and being killed, my heart gradually grew numb. I'm not even strong enough to be a mouthful for someone else."

"Maybe being pirates was just a dream we had when we were young..."

"You're right. Surviving that storm was already a miracle. We're old... We shouldn't let this ocean make a snack out of us."

The two clinked their bottles together and burst out laughing.

As the days passed, Buggy's training finally began to pay off. At first, he could take only three steps in an instant; now he could manage five. He also taught Mohji what he knew about Iron Body, Cabaji what he knew about Paper Art, and Shuma what he knew about Shave and Geppo.

Buggy had made these choices only after careful consideration. It was better to master a few things than to dabble in many.

Iron Body distributed the force of an impact across the whole body, preventing any one part from taking a fatal blow and helping the user resist external force. For Mohji, a Store-Store Fruit user, it could reduce the damage he sustained and improve his resistance to blows. Combined with his ability, it should work quite well.

Paper Art let the user read an opponent's attack by observing the airflow and changes in their muscles as they moved, then dodge accordingly. For Cabaji, who favored a skillful sword style, it could improve his evasion and deepen his understanding of swordsmanship.

As for Shuma, he was a sniper. To avoid close-range attacks, Shave's rapid movement and Geppo's ability to move through the air were the best choices. He was also younger and learned faster, giving him an advantage over the other two officers.

The island-circling runs continued for two months. Every day, they ended up drenched in sweat and utterly exhausted. After eating the dishes Shuma cooked, they couldn't even keep their eyes open and would slump into a deep sleep, delaying their Devil Fruit training as a result.

Having adapted to two or three times normal gravity, Buggy continued training in Shave. His feet pounded rapidly against the ground. Unlike at the beginning, his steps had become so fast that they were invisible. Though his feet hit the ground more than ten times, it looked as if he had only just placed them down.

"I can feel it..."

For an instant, Buggy felt that he had just barely crossed the threshold of Shave.

"Again!"

Buggy's feet pounded the ground more than ten times in an instant. Then he vanished... and reappeared on the beach a hundred meters away.

After testing it out, he finally understood the difference between Shave and simply running fast.

Resistance. Air resistance!

When he used Shave, the energy bursting from within his body counteracted the resistance of the air, allowing his feet to move faster than the naked eye could follow... If he kept training, the energy bursting from within him wouldn't just counteract external resistance—it would gradually exceed it, raising his speed without limit.

That was Shave!

However, Shave had a very limited range, around a hundred meters. It was a kind of burst of speed. Once he exceeded that distance, he had to strike the ground again and build up another burst of speed before using Shave a second time. He couldn't use it endlessly.

The Six Powers truly lived up to their name. They weren't some branch-specific Powers, East Blue Powers, or West Blue Powers; they were martial arts that bore the name of the entire Navy. They were truly terrifying...

For the next month, Buggy focused on getting used to Shave. At first, he couldn't control his direction, but gradually he mastered the rhythm until he could use Shave freely, speeding up and slowing down at will.

Cabaji and the others, who had kept up with Buggy's island-circling runs, also improved little by little. Their strength and endurance increased substantially. The island, which had originally taken them a full day to run around, now took only half a day. They spent the other half training in the Six Powers and practicing other techniques and strength exercises.

In this atmosphere of "You're stronger than me, and I won't accept it—I'm going to surpass you," none of the officers dared slack off. Cabaji and Mohji were especially competitive behind the scenes, while Shuma would occasionally disrupt their training rhythm from the sidelines.

Having mastered Shave, Buggy's next targets were Tempest Kick and Finger Pistol. He didn't really like using daggers as weapons. For one thing, they had too narrow a striking range; for another, their quality was nothing special. Against a truly powerful opponent, they could even become a useless burden. Tempest Kick and Finger Pistol seemed like they could make up for his current lack of offensive power.

(ps: The training process definitely needs to include my own ideas, since this stuff doesn't appear in the original. So I have to come up with something that "sounds like it makes sense"!)