Ro’s feet tapped against the cool stone in the dimly lit cavern. It had been quite a while since she had been in here, the place was reminiscent of her early days, grafting and grinding. She walked over to the wall and flicked open a metal box. Pulling down on the lever, the junky mechanism switched on with a ‘ka-chunk’. One after the other, lamps attached to the ceiling four metres above turned on, the bright white glow banished the darkness, the incandescent lights hummed. Crates upon crates of various things, tarpaulins tied over palettes of materials and work benches piled high with discarded papers. This was Ro’s old stomping ground, a bunker hidden a few metres under the sand. From here she could work in peace as well as store all of the materials she would need to fulfill her orders and further her research. The air hinted at a musty tinge, a faint aroma of oxidised iron wafted by. She had no use for such a place anymore, as she no longer hid her true self or her work from the outside world. This place was to isolated to be practical, and so it was forgotten. However, it was still a cool -and surprisingly well conditioned- area that would be perfect for todays activity.

Today, she had invited someone over to show her the ways of utilising haki. She hoped she could finally tap into the power that eluded her. She thought of her big brother, who had been able to draw into his own haki at half her age. In a family of monsters, she was just some nerd. At a young age, she had just assumed that she was not meant for conflict, and based on her natural talents, was meant for a different lifestyle. However, she could not shy away from her responsibility to increase her own strength anymore. This would be very necessary were she to face the threats that lay ahead.

She had also invited the Shichibukai she had met last week by the name of Sebastian Sinclair, the ‘Mad Prophet’. She was hoping that such a show of hospitality would strengthen their relationship. Being on good terms with the man would be a fruitful endeavor, she could tell already.

So there she waited, strolling around the fifty square metre bunker, flicking through a few documents and fiddling with some of her discarded prototypes. She had given both of her guests the coordinates to the location, and uncovered the door so that they would have no trouble finding the place.

Rokuju turned and nodded at the new arrival. By his appearance, this was the man she had asked along to train her. She flashed sapphire eyes over a half smile. His name was Colt, and she had heard good things from Junbei about him. This is why she had sought out this particular individual. In return, she had offered a great sum for his troubles however she didn't know if he was a man that was interested in beli. If she recalled, she had agreed to work out the price of his help when he arrived. She was interested in what sort of character he would turn out to be, and whether he really had it in him to teach her a thing or two.

What she was greeted with, was a superficial summary that was rather vulgar. Ro didn't mind too much, it wasn't the first time and she doubted it would be the last. She remembered back when she was a girl, deliberately hiding her looks as much as possible so that she wouldn't attract the attention of dangerous people while she was vulnerable. Ro doubted the man in front of her would bare her that type of ill will, but that didn't stop him from being a weirdo. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr Colt. I hope you had a pleasant trip. I trust that the people of Alabasta have been accommodating to your needs?"

As Colt continued on, the Vinsmoke's expression would not change, her hands clasped out in front of her. "Why do I wish to learn haki? Well, let's see." Her eyes turned down, considering the question, taking care with her answer. "I imagine that I am on some sort of unstoppable train. So I will need to see what's ahead and survive any collisions." Her half smile did not waver, delivering a little cryptic analogy that she thought was appropriate. "Please bear with this aristocratic brat for the mean time." She had lived a dozen different lives in her time, what people decided to draw their preconceptions on her from did not bother her.

"Is this place appropriate for whatever you have planned? We can relocate if you wish." Ro then called down to the soldiers finally catching up behind colt. "Thank you all, we can manage from here." If the man wished to move to a new location before starting the session then she would agree and follow him.

"Oh." Colt responded to the woman's statement of being an unstoppable train. Raising his eyebrow, "Alright, here will be fine. Don't move." Colt commanded. Taking his katana from his belt, the man began to draw a circle around Rokuju's current position, encircling the woman in a dust trace, about fifteen inches in radius. Hopping backwards about five inches, Colt placed three fingers, allowing his index and thumb to touch. "In every human, life energy is present. Obviously because we're alive. However, it's an almost magical force that some humans can tap into. We in this realm call it, Haki. They are three kinds of Haki. Kenbunshoku - Observation, Busoshoku - Armament and Haoshoku - Willpower." Colt explained, now beginning to skip on one leg. "You seem quite intuitive. As I spoke about your body, I could feel your true emotions... Your aura had red, no orange kind of feel to it. It's almost amazing you're able to keep so pleasant on the outside. Your the kind of person I'm most afraid of." Colt said grinning. "I don't know much about your skill-sets, but I'll allow you to exit the circle gain the tools you need. For the next few hours, I'm going to have you fire projectiles at me. I'll be showing you the power of Kenbunshoku Haki. It's a level of Observation in which it surpassed your ocular capabilities, think of it as a sixth sense. The ability to sense things that may not be as obvious or even possible of being perceived by the regular five senses." Colt commented. Closing his eyes, Colt smiled, continually hopping on his left leg.  

"Oh and don't hold back. Not like I believe you can hit me anyway. A force ripe child who sees herself as unstoppable in such a small ocean has nothing to offer me, maybe a little workout." Colt said grinning. "Oh by the way... If you can't master this Haki in five days, I'll murder those two lackies who escorted me here. And, I'll kill five more civilians after that." Colt said, turning his head slightly to grin at the soldiers, now petrified by the man's words. "But your unstoppable right... I'm sure beating an old man like myself will be 'easy'." Colt concluded.

EDI, 2 x energy pistol, central system, dynamic capsules.

Ro's eyes glazed over as she took in the information. It was a similar idea to what her older brother had told her a long time ago, just with different words. The idea had seemed so abstract and meaningless back then. Ro's logical head struggled to understand the power that based itself around emotion and charisma. The problem was, there wasn't really any strong science behind it, or any that she had seen. Like a caveman harnessing fire, it could be used, but not really understood at it's deepest level - at least for someone who had been conditioned to break down every little thing and know the physical laws that bound them. Research was progressing far enough that people were beginning to get an understanding of even devil fruit, yet haki seemed a lot more like magic than anything else.

Colt finished by threatening her people, something which she noted. "That sounds fair." She said, nodding, the corners of her mouth creasing upwards. She also noted how he had twisted her earlier statement, one meant to explain her situation as out of control, and instead, making it out to be arrogance. He seemed quite ready to label her as an upstart, someone who would underestimate her situations. Very well, it may prove to be a bit of fun.

Ro turned away for the desk in front of her. Fiddling with a small mechanism, a little bot whirred to life. “I’ve set you some things to do for me, just take care while I train, ok?” It booped in response and floated away. Ro picked up something that had been laying next to it. It looked like a clunky wristband. “Hopefully with haki I can stop relying on all this gear so much.” There was a bit of sentiment to this place, the contraptions that kept her company used to be all she had. Strapping the plastic wristband to her forearm, she turned halfway back to Colt so that he was side on to her. At her command, the tech changed into a pistol that filled her hand. She held it up in front of her, showing it to Colt. “You wanted me to fire projectiles, right?” She leveled the gun at Colt. “Just tell me if your joints start hurting and we can get you a nice hot cup of cocoa.” With that, she fired. Even without haki, she was capable of avoiding normal gunshots. But the real threat came from the pistol in her other hand, that fired at the same time, directly through her own body, the part that it traveled through turned to light as it went. Both bullets were dynamic capsules, aimed at Colt’s head.

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How exactly does one anticipate something they can't sense? It was a good question, one that Ro did not know how to approach. The spar had already began. There was no time to carefully plan or dig through her psyche to find an answer. There was no more time to train nor any left for research. A master swordsman was lunging at her, and he wanted her to close her eyes. It was madness for any rational line of thought. From her perspective, there wasn't any discernible process to this training method. He was just asking her to 'do' without ever enlightening her on how she may go about that. Was that fair? How was anyone supposed to take that and just straight up accomplish learning haki? No, in fact, this approach was a perfect representation of her experiences so far. Life was not fair. She had been thrusted into her situation without any warning and had to deal with the threats that came after her. It was much like the blade currently being pointed at herself.

She had watched what Colt had done to avoid her shots. It wasn't the most amazing feat, she would have to admit, but it was as if the man had been taking a leisurely stroll the way he moved out of the way of the bullets. Simply put, it was an unnatural level of perception. It wasn't a matter of seeing and then reacting, there was something about his reaction to Ro's hidden pistol shot that made her recognise that he somehow 'knew' it was coming. It was a superhuman trait, that much was clear.

And now she was being asked to do the same. How was she supposed to use what Colt described as her 'mind's eye'? With what she thought was well founded reservations, she clamped her eyes shut as the old man darted at her. All she could see was darkness. She did remember the positioning of Colt's body when she had closed her eyes, the way his muscles tensed in his forward quadtricep that would carry him to his target, the flicking wrist that would get his weapon into the right place, and shifting core that provided thrusting power as well as shifting weight over his centre of gravity. From all of these clues, she could estimate the trajectory and guess as to where his attack would land. It looked like he was going to strike somewhere between her gut and her knee but there just wasn't enough information to have a precise answer, nor enough time and space to have such a large margin of error. Wait- was it her imagination, or had the image in her mind moved slightly? As if there was a ghost of colt in her head that had shifted a few inches forward in his attack.

A split second passed where Ro was attempting to figure out if she was just imagining things, stuck in indecision as to which action she should follow. And then the breath seemed to be sucked from her lungs, her stomach knotted itself and the hair on the back of her neck stood up on end, like an overwhelming sense of dread. And accompanied with it, was a flash image of Colt again. But this time, he was 3/4 of the way through his attack, right up in her face. His blade lancing towards her thigh. In a state of pure self preservatory instinct, she would half spring, half stumble a few inches out of the way of the sword. Her eyelids would fly open to see the sword right next to thigh. She panted, as adrenaline flew freely through her body. Was that some sort of haki? It definitely wasn't a 'hawk's eye view' like Colt had explained previously, but she could not attribute that dodge to her own skill. Ro would look at the haki master expectantly, hoping that some sort of clarification would follow.

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Ro breathed in deeply then exhaled, a cold sweat running down her temple. Was it really necessary to go to such lengths as to closer her eyes? Regardless, she had felt something. An aggressive attempt and some sort of warning as to where the attack was coming from. Ro would listen as Colt went on to explain what she had just felt. It was a surreal experience. How would such a thing translate into a force she could use? It seemed so unreliable. Ro didn't even know if she could replicate what had just happened, let alone adapt that to an actual fight. At this point, she was sure that if she were to close her eyes in a real fight that she would meet her end very quickly. Yet, she wanted to explore this further. As the man suggested, they would train for another three hours to attempt to unlock more of her potential. Ro would nod, rising up onto the balls of her feet before switching her pistols back into their non threatening positions. From here on out, she would attempt to evade, seeing if she could replicate or even grow whatever she had just experienced.

And so they began. Ro was taken off guard by the pure aggressiveness at which Colt ran at her. Did he realise that this was supposed to be a training session and not a life or death battle? Ro spent much of the first hour just trying to get away from the old man as he lunged at her. She did what she could to make space within the circle and not get trapped by his masterful combinations. But time after time he would have her up against the ropes with nowhere to go. Even tapping into the speed from her devil fruit would not be of much use when she had no time to escape and no space to move. He struck her the occasional time, lashes of red running down her forearm, her abdomen, two on her back, one across her shoulder and even grazing her cheek. She quickly realised that in these spots, she could not merely 'react' to the incoming stimulus, she would have to somehow know it was coming. In the second hour, the pair had receded into some sort of rhythm, with Ro closing her eyes whenever she drew enough courage to. She felt like she was gaining an edge, whether it be that her opponent was getting tired, whether she was getting used to his attacks or something else. Ro felt like she was beating him to the punch when it came to diving out of the way of his sword swings. She could feel his aggressive intent and seemingly knew the timing of his strikes. In the third hour, both of them were quite obviously tired, taking larger intervals before beginning new sets. However, not once during this time did Colt manage to pin her up against the boundary like he had done constantly in the first hour. She was always able to find space and dance around attacks that she knew were coming. When she closed her eyes she could see flashes again of what techniques were coming.

Finally after the three hours were up, Colt would sit on the ground, catching his breath. Ro took one step towards him, faltering slightly before righting herself. She had stripped down to the bear minimum, and what was left had been soaked in blood from the first hour. Ro looked at him, a clear blue aura visible inside his body. She panted out a smile. "Having a rest already?"

Ro wasn't the most athletic individual, and even though she wouldn't admit it, she was pretty tired after the exchange. The blood loss did not help much either. Her blue eyes traced him as he got to his feet once more, panting as he went to explain the next part of the exercise. She would agree, giving concent for the soldiers to attack Colt. He was going to demonstrate armament haki, the type that helped strengthen your skin. Rokuju knew about this from her older brother, and seeing him fight with his whole body clad in the black armour. Not only did it prove useful in defence but also had some interesting properties when it came to offensvie uses. Ro would probably not be interested in these but it would be good to have some defensive capability if she got herself caught in a jam. She watched with interest as the spears smashed into splinters as they came into contact with Colt's back. Impressive, he didn't even flinch. It just went to show what the mastery of haki could bring. Ro could have used that in the previous round.

Now it was her turn, apparently. Colt turned to her and explained that he was going to attack her and this time, she wasn't going to dodge, no. Instead, she was expected to block it with her bare hands. "I'm... Not sure about this." Ro took a half step backward. If she were to fail, then she would lose her arm. Ro breathed out, her respiration taking on a small shake. Was it really necessary to put everything on the line here? She had heard that haki was an extension of one's will, but was hers resolute enough to test her bare skin against the blade of a master swordsman? But... Was it any different to what she had been doing all along? Had her resolve dulled somewhere over the last couple of years? That young girl that she used to be would not have even hesitated at this test, willing to take the chance with her own wellbeing at stake. Reaching into herself, she realised that it must be done. Ro would step forward and raise her forearms in a cross, ready for Colt's attack.

Her heart was beating out of her chest as she tried to steady her breathing. As the blade fell down onto her forearms she could feel the rush of adrenaline coursing through her. And then she decided. The sword would NOT hurt her. Flashing through the air, it struck down and collided with her forearms, biting barely through her skin before stopping. Ro looked at Colt with wide eyes, her chest heaving as adrenaline coursed through her. He had definitely not been taking it easy on her with that attack. If this was busoshoku then one thing was for sure, she would need more practice. Rokuju would be ready to train with Colt for the rest of the day to make sure that all the things she had discovered today would be cemented into something useful.
~exit~

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