In the New World, projecting Armament Haki is as commonplace as hardening. One isn't "higher" than the other they're simply different tools. In the end, the strength of either comes down to the user.
Hardening and projection are just different answers to different problems.
Ares lifted his hand. The skin, parched and blackened from heat, made the muscles look like polished obsidian oily, light-catching. In the blink of an eye, that black shifted to a blood-bright gloss, like carnelian: his Armament Haki.
"Let's try releasing it…"
A red heat-haze began to shimmy up along his forearm like flame then winked out, unstable from the outset.
It unraveled.
His first attempt at Armament projection had failed, and he immediately dissected it. "Not cohesive enough like a candle in a draft. One gust and poof."
"I need it tighter, denser. More of it a thicker weave."
He tried again. This time that red aura licked and burned over his arm without fading.
Ares's face lit. "That's only step one. Next is control send the Armament outward. That's real projection."
Right now the haki was clinging to his flesh; the goal was to launch it make a pressure wall, or fire it as a shockwave.
Like when Silvers Rayleigh had blasted a beast back with a palm from meters away.
He flattened his hand, willing the blood-red Armament to shoot off like an air bullet.
Pop!
The air cracked, like a bursting balloon.
The force was stronger than a balloon by dozens of times but still useless.
"The moment it leaves me, it loses shape and detonates," Ares noted. Another problem to solve.
Training was always a chain of problems he just worked down the links. And Ares had his unfair edge: a built-in cheat, the way his mind could replay every attempt frame by frame. Find the first place the breakdown began, fix that; then fix the next failure, and the next.
He sank into the work, losing all sense of time in the red thrum of his haki.
Elsewhere, the little figure of Katakuri was a mess of swelling and split skin, beads of blood welling where the branch had struck his body hundreds of times now.
His face had gone paper white. Two thin trickles of red seeped from the corners of his mouth. He could barely stand, and still he kept hammering himself.
Kaido had to admit it the kid's will was tougher than he'd expected. He plucked the stick away and snapped, "Trying to die, brat?"
"This won't work. You need to build the body first. As you are, your frame can't take it."
"Giv give it back…" Katakuri forced the words out and coughed up a mouthful of blood, wiping it with the back of his hand and a grunt.
"Tch. Stubborn little punk." Kaido clicked his tongue. "You'll spend longer healing than training at this rate."
"You want to be like big bro Ares? Then you lay your foundation first."
At Ares's name, Katakuri's eyes brightened. He forgot the pain. "Then how did Captain Ares train before?"
"You wanna know?" Kaido's grin turned needling. "Call me big bro and I'll tell you."
"No way!"
Katakuri's answer was instant. "I'll ask Captain Ares myself. If you want to be my big bro, beat Captain Ares first."
Kaido's face froze. Awkward didn't begin to cover it.
Challenge Ares?
He'd lost every time. He'd lost so many times he'd stopped counting.
He shook his head hard. "Fine. Listen up. Start with basics make your body tougher, stronger, build stamina."
"Fight beasts. Ram trees with your body. Those were some of big bro Ares's old drills."
"One step at a time."
Katakuri's excitement flared then the world went black. He hit the dirt in a heap.
Blood loss. Kaido didn't need a doctor to tell him.
He scooped the boy up and headed for the bustling port town only to be mobbed as soon as he hit the main street.
"Hey, Kaido! Let me join Ares's squad! I'm 'Mountain Pheasant,' bounty thirty-five million!"
"Thirty-five mil? Please. I'm a Zoan user with a bounty of eighty million. Remember the name Zhiyin Kun! Sign me up!"
"Back off! I was here first!"
"Say that again and I'll gut you!"
…
The crush tightened around Kaido, names and bounties tumbling over one another. Yesterday's story Ares trading blows with Charlotte Linlin and then being named Captain of the Sixteenth Division had spread across Beehive Island like wildfire.
Now everyone wanted in on Tengetsu Ares's banner.
Kaido's brow knotted. "Out of the way. I'm busy."
His voice hit like a temple gong. Ears rang; a few faces blanched.
But most of these pirates weren't the type to bow their heads.
"If not for Ares, you'd still be an apprentice," one snarled. "What're you so high and mighty for?"
A moment later a boulder of a fist hammered into the man's chest and sent him pinwheeling into a crate stack.
Silence fell.
Kaido swept them with a killer's glare. "You want into big bro Ares's squad? Beat me first."
That look crawled over the crowd like cold iron. Skins prickled, muscles seized. Eyes slipped away.
One man didn't. The eighty-million loudmouth pushed forward Zhiyin Kun chin high. "I'll challenge you."
As he spoke, his body shifted.
Feet twisted into glossy black talons. Feathers rippled out, sleek and dark. A pink comb swelled high on his head. In a flutter of bones and sinew, he became a hulking black rooster.
"I'm a Zoan Pheasant-Pheasant Fruit. Don't you dare underestimate me!" crowed Kun, rooster beak tilted in pride. "I'll beat you and then I'm joining Ares's squad!"
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