Kaido tipped back his mug and chugged, long gulps glug-glug-glugging down his throat. "Ares just became a squad captain, and the first to join after me, Kaido is a snot-nosed brat?"
"Don't look down on me. If I were your age, I'd beat you till you couldn't tell east from west." Charlotte Katakuri was a pup who didn't know how to bow his head even with Kaido towering over him.
"You little punk!"
Kaido's eyes went wide. Leaning in, all fangs and predator's glare, he growled, "When you're grown, I'll still crush you without trying."
Pinned by that gaze, Katakuri tensed like a deer facing a tiger. But he knew Kaido wouldn't actually hurt him. He turned his face aside, lips jutting. "Then we'll fight when I'm grown. We'll see who's stronger."
"Hmph!"
Arms crossed, Katakuri declared, deadly serious, "But I've already seen the future you lose to me."
"Impossible!" Kaido bristled. "Now or in the future, I'm not losing to you."
"And what would a brat like you 'see' of the future anyway?!"
"It'll happen whether I see it or not," Katakuri shot back. "I'm destined to beat you."
"…"
Watching the two snipe at each other, Tengetsu Ares couldn't help but laugh.
Having a kid around… wasn't so bad.
Somewhere, the threads of fate twisted a fraction but whatever the future held, what mattered was the here and now.
The next morning.
Before dawn had even thought about breaking, Katakuri was up and washed. He faced the mirror and puffed himself up. "I will get stronger. I'll earn Ares's recognition!"
"No matter how brutal the training, I'll see it through!"
Wanting to make a good impression, he started much earlier than usual and set off at a brisk trot for the Skull Castle.
He found Ares's door but didn't knock. Back straight, he stood guard outside.
He waited for hours.
A passing pirate finally spotted him and blinked. "Hey, kid. Waiting on Captain Ares?"
Katakuri nodded.
"No need. He's already headed into the mountains behind the castle to train."
"Nani?!" Katakuri's eyes flew wide. "So he wasn't in there at all."
He thanked the pirate and sprinted for the back mountain.
As he ran, awe bubbled up. I thought I was early, but Ares started even earlier. He's already so strong, and he still trains this hard…
Next time I'll beat him out the door.
For a four-year-old, the hike wasn't short. By the forest's edge he was gasping, sweat pouring off him in sheets.
Deep among the trees, a muffled boom… boom… rolled like distant thunder.
Joy lit his face. That has to be Ares training!
The ache in his legs blurred to a hum; he pushed faster.
Ten-odd minutes later
"Huff huff "
Hands on knees, Katakuri dragged in air. Even with his freakish gifts, his little body was flagging.
"What is this…? The deeper I go, the hotter it gets. The air's hotter than high summer." He wiped his brow. Heat pressed from all sides wrong, unnatural.
He steadied his breathing and pushed on. The temperature kept climbing. Soon he saw a wavering smear of firelight ahead.
Why is there fire here? A wildfire? He frowned. Not in this weather…
Big drops pattered down his cheeks. The torn corners of his mouth ruined his babyish looks, but his clear, child-bright eyes held steady resolve.
He staggered through the heat like a wall and finally saw the source.
A towering figure, inside the blaze.
"Ares…"
His small heart reeled. The gusting heat hit like a hammer, and yet he barely felt it shock had turned him to stone.
He couldn't imagine it: a man using killing fire to temper his own flesh.
Even tens of meters away, his lips cracked white, hair shriveled into tight curls, the sheen cooked out of it. Dizziness swam up. His body was near collapse.
So this… this is why he's so strong?
"Oi, kid! Enough staring another minute and you'll be a raisin."
Kaido's bark snapped him out of it. A moment later Katakuri felt himself lifted clean off the ground. The furnace heat fell away as Kaido hauled him back.
"Ares, I'm taking the brat," Kaido called over his shoulder.
"Put me down! I want to train with Captain Ares!" Katakuri thrashed, that gator-grin of a mouth open wide in protest.
It was useless. Against Kaido's strength, a four-year-old's struggles were ripples in a storm sea.
"Tch." Kaido snorted. "With that twiggy frame? You can't even handle the heat near big bro Ares, forget 'training.'"
"Be smart. Work from a distance."
After a few hundred meters, he set the boy down. "If Ares hadn't okayed it, I wouldn't bother with you at all."
"Don't get cocky. I'll surpass you," Katakuri said, chin high.
Kaido ignored him. He hefted a massive iron club and started smashing it into his own body thump, thump like war drums battering armor. The shocks rattled Katakuri's ribs.
A flicker of respect stirred… and vanished just as fast when he remembered Kaido's jeers.
Too proud to ask the man anything, Katakuri scanned the ground, found a fallen branch, and copied him beating it against his own torso.
Whack!
Pain exploded. His small face twisted, the skin livid and swelling in an instant.
"Hsss "
Kaido slanted him a look. "Hurts, huh? If you can't stick with it, stop wasting your time."
"It doesn't hurt at all!" Katakuri ground out, teeth clenched. He set his jaw, and the branch rose and fell again.
It hurt. He frowned hard, breath tight but he refused to give Kaido the satisfaction. He had to get stronger. He would get stronger.
Kaido raised a brow, then sank back into his own ironclad regimen.
Elsewhere among the rocks, Ares let the flames gutter out and shifted to a different problem.
"Captain Rocks said to use Conqueror's Haki in attacks, I've got to gather that force then use Armament Haki to seal it in, so it doesn't leak everywhere."
"But my Armament isn't like the usual kind it's blood-red. First I need to figure out how to project this blood-red Armament outward."
"I'll need a workaround…"
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