"Haki" Learning Craze

As the alcohol went to their heads and their admiration reached its peak, some strange chemical reactions began to unfold uncontrollably within the Fairy Tail guild.

"Hey! Zoro! Tell us more about that 'Haki'!"

"Yeah, yeah! How exactly do you train that 'invisible armor'?"

No one knew who started it, but before long, a crowd of drunken guild members had surrounded Zoro, bombarding him with questions.

They had witnessed firsthand the irreplaceable, miraculous role Haki had played in the S-Class mission, and every one of them had developed an intense interest in it. If they could learn such an incredible power too, wouldn't future missions become far easier?

The noise gave Zoro a headache, but there were too many of them to ignore, so he could only explain impatiently, "I already told you. It's an embodiment of 'spirit' and 'resolve,' not something you can learn just by studying it."

However, for mages accustomed to mastering magic through "training" and "learning," such idealistic theories were clearly impossible to accept.

And so, a grand yet absurd "Haki learning craze," born from alcohol and admiration, officially began in the guild hall.

The first to put it into practice was naturally Natsu.

He believed that the "spirit" Zoro spoke of definitely meant having a loud enough voice and a fierce enough expression!

Imitating Zoro, he crossed his arms over his chest. Then, at an innocent mouse that happened to be passing by his feet, he suddenly widened his eyes and let out an earth-shaking roar with all his strength:

"Get—down—now—!"

The sound made dust rain down from the ceiling beams.

Yet the mouse merely shuddered in fright. Then it shot Natsu a look that seemed to say, Is this guy sick? before slowly and swaggeringly running past his feet and disappearing into a hole in the corner.

Natsu: "..."

The entire hall erupted in laughter.

The second to try was Gray, who considered himself rather "smart."

He felt that the Observation Haki Zoro mentioned had to be some kind of mental power, with "perception" as its core.

So, he found a piece of black cloth and blindfolded himself, trying to walk around the guild to train his "perceptive abilities."

"I can feel it... the movement of the wind... the vibrations of the air..." He held his hands out and groped his way forward step by step, muttering to himself all the while.

Then, with a "thud," he crashed headfirst, with incredible precision, into Erza, who was enjoying a strawberry cake.

The cake splattered magnificently across Erza's face.

Before Gray could even remove his blindfold, he felt a terrifying killing intent capable of freezing hell itself envelop him.

The next second, his miserable screams rang through the guild.

And the most persistent of them all was Elfman Strauss.

He firmly believed that Conqueror's Haki had to be connected to "a man's spirit"!

He found a thick wooden board and set it upright before himself. Then he took a deep breath, struck what he considered his most handsome and imposing pose, and roared wildly at the board with all the strength in his diaphragm:

"I—am—a—man—!"

"If—you're—a—man—then—split—open—for—me—!"