"Alvida's way too competitive to accept Marcus being stronger than her. I mean, according to what you all told me, he wasn't even that strong at the beginning. He was supposedly weaker than Usopp back then."
"Who told you that?" A voice came from behind.
Both Nami and Vivi jumped, caught red-handed gossiping.
When Vivi saw it was just Shira, she let out a relieved breath. "Usopp did. He said back in Syrup Village, Marcus had pretty weak stamina. When they arm-wrestled, Usopp actually won."
Shira's expression turned odd.
That's when Kira wandered over, drawn by the conversation. "That's not right at all. I was on the ship when that happened. Marcus won against Usopp."
"Really?"
Kira explained what really went down when they'd set sail from Syrup Village.
Back when Usopp had first joined the crew, the ship had gotten a lot more lively and chaotic. To celebrate their new member and burn off excess energy, someone had suggested holding a competition, the "First Annual Strongman Arm-Wrestling Tournament."
Everyone had participated, even Alvida who'd been confident in her natural strength.
The winner, obviously, had been Zoro. His ridiculous arm strength was in a league of its own.
Why not Luffy? Because of his rubber body's unique properties, arm-wrestling actually put him at a disadvantage. Second place went to him anyway, third was Sanji with his powerful kicks translating to decent arm strength, then Marcus, and finally Usopp bringing up the rear.
But saying Usopp had won against Marcus wasn't completely wrong either. At the start of their match, Usopp had pulled some sneaky trick to win the first round, but he'd been caught immediately and forced to redo it properly.
In the legitimate rematch, Usopp had been completely crushed.
The group of women chatted about this, getting louder as they debated the details.
Meanwhile, Alvida, the person at the center of this gossip, felt her eye twitch as she overheard them.
The reason she'd been pushing herself so damn hard lately wasn't just about pride. It was because she hadn't won a single match in that stupid contest. Not one.
She'd been completely dominated.
That feeling of getting shown up, of being weaker than she'd always believed herself to be... she coughed lightly, trying to push the memory away. How was she supposed to just accept that?
With a sudden burst of power, her mace slammed against the obsidian again.
"How exactly do you awaken Haki anyway?" she muttered, staring at her hands gripping the weapon.
Her motivation wasn't purely about female pride or ego. She genuinely shared Vivi's competitive nature, she hated losing to anyone, especially people she'd once been stronger than.
She'd participated in that first arm-wrestling tournament fully expecting to dominate most of the crew. Losing to Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji? Fine. She could accept that. Those three were monsters in their own right, and she'd felt their overwhelming strength firsthand.
But losing to everyone else? That had stung.
She'd had freakish strength since childhood, the kind that let her swing a heavy iron mace like it was a toy. That natural power had been her defining trait as a pirate captain.
But as time passed, Marcus had gradually caught up to her, then surpassed her completely. That battle on Asuka Island had made the gap clear, when the entire Straw Hat crew minus Luffy and Zoro had faced Marcus alone, the fight had ended in basically a draw.
If you looked at everyone's growth rate since Marcus joined the crew, the results were obvious.
For example, Alvida used to max out at swinging her mace full-force about a hundred times before exhaustion set in.
But after eating Sanji's cooking and fully recovering? She could do a hundred swings at eight in the morning, then another hundred and five by ten. The increase didn't look huge at first glance, but with daily training like that, she was getting ten to twenty percent stronger every single day.
That growth rate was already terrifying by normal standards.
And Marcus? His improvement was even more monstrous. Some days it seemed like he could double his strength overnight.
Even Kira was starting to catch up to Alvida's level bit by bit.
Especially with that dragon's breath technique. Sure, Kira hadn't been the one controlling it, Marcus had borrowed her body to unleash it. But that meant the potential existed inside her, waiting to be unlocked.
But what about herself? What special potential did she have?
She bit down hard, channeling frustration into her grip, and swung with everything she had.
CRACK!
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the women's training room, kicking up a gust of wind that swept across everything.
The other women gossiping nearby couldn't help but shrink back slightly.
"Alvida's working really hard," Kira said quietly, her own eyes growing firmer as she watched.
Her training regimen was different from everyone else's. She also needed to build stamina and strength, but her path forward was simpler in some ways, she just had to follow the training plan Marcus had laid out for her.
That plan was transformation.
The giant dragon form she'd achieved was her template. All she needed to do was practice, master the techniques, and she could keep advancing along that path.
Inspired by Alvida's relentless drive, she decided to push herself harder too.
The remaining women exchanged glances.
Vivi was the first to join the training frenzy. This time, she grabbed a stone sword from the corner of the room instead of her usual Peacock Slashers.
Originally, the men and women had trained together in the same space. But every time the women worked out, Sanji would get that lecherous look on his face and make inappropriate comments, which eventually pissed everyone off enough that they'd demanded separate training areas.
When Bon Kurei had joined the crew, he'd been swept up into the competitive training culture too. Because of Sanji's... issues... Bon Kurei ended up with his own private training space positioned between the men's and women's areas.
The current training room layout looked like this:
Men's Room, Bon Kurei's Room, and Women's Room
With Bon Kurei's space in the middle acting as a buffer zone, Sanji couldn't pull any of his usual perverted stunts. If he even tried to provoke Bon Kurei with words or peeking attempts, the women on the other side would notice immediately through the windows.
And those same windows allowed the competitive training atmosphere to spread between all three areas, pushing everyone to work harder.
The only woman who wasn't obviously training was Robin. But rather than saying she wasn't working out, it would be more accurate to say her training method was just subtle and hidden from casual observation.
While she sat comfortably in the ship's library reading a thick history book, dozens of tiny arms were lifting small dumbbells around her.
And sprouting from those same arms were pairs of feet, quietly hopping up and down in place.
The Flower-Flower Fruit's training possibilities were certainly unique.
Nibbling on one of Minecraft-style fruits, she observed the small limbs created by her Devil Fruit ability. She'd never imagined training like this, but it was surprisingly effective.
And weirdly enough, this combination of ability control and physical conditioning was perfect for her fighting style and body type.
All of this training methodology had come from conversations with Marcus.
The Flower-Flower Fruit allowed her to make any part of her body bloom like a flower anywhere within a certain range. It was an incredibly versatile ability with near-infinite applications.
To be honest though, if you didn't control this power carefully, it could seriously mess with your sanity.
He had painted some disturbing mental images during their discussion: eyes sprouting from the back of your head, dozens of arms growing from your torso like some kind of spider-human hybrid...
Just remembering his vivid descriptions made her shiver involuntarily.
She'd always had mixed feelings about her ability. Ever since childhood, people had called her a monster because of it. The power had been both a curse that isolated her and the only thing that had kept her alive through decades of running and hiding.
So when he had described those horrifying potential applications, it wasn't just dislike she'd felt. It was disgust at what she could become if she lost control.
But at the same time, he'd shown her the flip side. If used properly and developed with care, her ability could transform her into something beautiful and awe-inspiring.
"It all comes down to how I develop it," she murmured to herself.
Watching the tiny arms lift their dumbbells in perfect synchronization, she felt her stamina slowly depleting from the sustained effort.
"Simple movements, repeated a lot of times... that's how you create change."
Robin smiled softly to herself. Through the window, she could see out onto the main deck where the men were goofing around instead of training seriously.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the First Annual Sumo Wrestling Championship begins now!" Usopp announced loudly, having attached a fake mustache to his upper lip.
"Our first contestant is the Muscle Man himself, Human-Human Fruit user, Tony Tony Chopper!"
"And his opponent, the Rubber Fruit Yokozuna, Monkey D. Luffy!"
Luffy, who had used his Life Return technique to puff himself up into a round, chubby shape, patted his belly proudly and struck a sumo pose.