And this bastard with the spear just walked in and asked to learn it like it was a simple technique instead of a lifetime's pursuit.
Koushiro looked at Argentus for a long time.
He saw the ambition burning in those silver eyes—not the wild, unfocused ambition of youth, but something colder. Harder. More certain.
He saw the raw physical power barely contained in that lean, scarred frame.
He saw the terrifying talent that had allowed the boy to awaken Observation Haki at an age when most children were still learning to properly hold a sword.
This boy will either change the world... or burn it to the ground trying.
Finally, Koushiro smiled—a genuine smile this time, not just the polite mask.
"To teach a spearman the way of the sword so that he can surpass the spear itself..." Koushiro mused, a note of amusement in his voice. "It is unorthodox. Highly irregular. Some of the old masters would call it heresy."
He picked up his tea cup and took a slow sip.
"But the way of the warrior is not a straight path, Argentus-kun. It has never been. Those who walk only in straight lines never reach the summit."
He set his cup down decisively.
"Very well. You may stay. Train here as long as you need."
He raised one finger in warning.
"But do not expect me to teach you how to use your spear. I will teach you the heart of the sword—the philosophy, the breath, the spirit. It will be up to you to translate that language into your own weapon. To find your own truth."
Argentus's face split into a predatory grin, genuine excitement filling his eyes for the first time since he'd arrived.
"That's all I ask."
Koushiro stood up with the fluid grace of a lifelong martial artist and clapped his hands twice, the sharp sound echoing through the hall.
"Zoro!"
Zoro straightened up immediately, his posture shifting from casual to attentive. "Yeah?"
"Since you seem to have so much free time after your... 'navigation practice,'" Koushiro said, his tone carrying just a hint of dry amusement, "you will be Argentus-kun's primary training partner. If he wishes to learn the weight of steel, the speed of the blade, the rhythm of combat... you will show it to him."
Zoro cracked his neck, one side then the other, the sound loud in the quiet hall. A feral grin that mirrored Argentus's spread across his face.
"Fine by me," Zoro said, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. "I still owe him for that cheap shot at my ankles."
Argentus stood, picking up his spear and slinging it across his back.
"Looking forward to it, directional idiot."
"SAY THAT AGAIN, I DARE YOU—"
"Zoro." Koushiro's voice was still gentle, but it carried an undercurrent of steel that immediately silenced the green-haired swordsman.
The Next Few Weeks
The training regimen at the Isshin Dojo fell into a rhythm defined by two very distinct, very contradictory sounds.
The first sound was the deafening, bone-shaking crash of wood and steel colliding at high speed.
"AGAIN!" Zoro roared, sweat flying from his face as he launched himself off a tree stump for the fifteenth time that hour.
Argentus didn't waste breath on a reply. He planted his feet in the dirt, feeling the ground crack slightly under his boots from the force, and thrust his spear forward in a straight, powerful line.
He wasn't using the sharp tip—Koushiro had explicitly forbidden lethal weapons during training spars—but the heavy, iron-shod butt of the spear was dangerous enough. A solid hit could shatter ribs or crack skulls.
Clack!
Zoro caught the thrust with the flat sides of his two hand-held blades, angling them to redirect the force rather than absorb it directly. The impact still slid him backward several feet through the loose dirt, his boots leaving parallel furrows in the earth.
But before Argentus could fully retract the weapon, Zoro bit down hard on the Wado Ichimonji clamped between his teeth and spun.
"Santoryu: Tatsu Maki!"
The spinning technique generated enough wind pressure to kick up a localized tornado of sand, dirt, and debris. The miniature cyclone engulfed Argentus, throwing stinging particles directly into his eyes.
Argentus's vision went white with pain and grit.
But he didn't panic.
He instinctively flared his Observation Haki, letting his other sense take over. He didn't need physical eyes when he could feel Zoro's killing intent like a red-hot spike screaming at his right side.
There.
Argentus dropped into a low crouch, sweeping his spear in a wide horizontal arc at ankle height.
Zoro saw the attack coming and jumped, his boots leaving the ground. For a split second, he was airborne, vulnerable.
But instead of landing safely, Zoro did something unexpected—he landed on the horizontal spear shaft itself, balancing on the iron pole for just a fraction of a second before using it as a springboard.
He launched himself directly at Argentus's face, all three swords angled for a close-range strike.
They collided mid-air.
CRASH.
They tumbled into the grass together, a chaotic tangle of limbs, wooden sword hilts, and iron spear shaft. They rolled twice, each trying to gain the dominant position.
"You use that stick like a club!" Zoro grunted, trying to hook his leg around Argentus's arm and lock the joint.
"And you fight like a lawnmower with no off switch!" Argentus retorted, shoving Zoro off with a sudden burst of raw strength that sent the swordsman rolling backward.
They both lay there for a moment, chests heaving, staring up at the sky through the canopy of leaves.
Bruised. Battered. Covered in dirt and sweat.
These daily sessions were brutal.
Zoro was learning how to close distance against a weapon with superior reach, forcing him to become faster, more explosive, more creative with angles of attack.
Argentus, in turn, was learning how to defend against the chaotic, unpredictable multi-angle assaults of Santoryu—the Three-Sword Style that attacked from directions that shouldn't be physically possible.
It was mutual torture.
It was also the most effective training either of them had ever experienced.
But the second sound of Argentus's training was far more frustrating.
Silence.
Complete, absolute, maddening silence.
Every afternoon, while Zoro practiced swinging progressively heavier weights to build raw strength, Koushiro would lead Argentus deep into the forest to a small clearing.
In the center of the clearing sat a large, moss-covered boulder—roughly the size of a horse, ancient and weathered.
"Cut it," Koushiro had said on the first day, his tone completely serious.
Argentus had blinked. "With the spear?"
"No." Koushiro tapped the stone with one finger. "With your mind. With your understanding. Once you truly understand the stone—once you can hear its breath—the spear will simply be the tool that translates that understanding into reality."
For ten days, Argentus sat in front of that boulder.
He felt ridiculous.
He tried everything. He stared at it until his eyes watered. He meditated in front of it until his legs went numb. He touched it, listening for vibrations. He even tried hitting it with progressively increasing force, hoping that brute strength would somehow trigger enlightenment.
Nothing worked.
The problem, he finally realized, was his Haki.
His Observation Haki was fundamentally a radar. It was an active, aggressive sense. It constantly pinged the world around him, searching for threats, for living things, for intent to cause harm.
When he looked at the rock with his Haki active, he sensed... nothing.
The stone was dead. Inanimate. It had no heartbeat, no breath, no voice, no desire to attack or defend. It had no intent to kill him.
So his Haki simply ignored it as background noise, the same way human eyes eventually stop seeing a painting hanging on a wall after looking at it every day.
"It's not working," Argentus growled on the eleventh day, his frustration finally boiling over.
He picked up a small pebble from the ground and hurled it at the boulder with unnecessary force. It bounced off harmlessly with a dull thunk.
"I can sense a squirrel's heartbeat from fifty meters away through solid tree trunks. I can tell you that Zoro is currently scratching his head exactly three fields over and debating whether to take a nap. But this rock?"
He glared at the moss-covered stone.
"It's just a rock."
Koushiro, who had been quietly watering some nearby plants with a wooden ladle and bucket, paused.
He set the bucket down gently and walked over to stand beside Argentus, looking at the boulder with an expression of quiet contemplation.
"That is because you are listening for a shout," the master said softly, his voice carrying the weight of hard-earned wisdom. "You are searching for noise. For aggression. For life."
He placed one hand on the stone's surface.
"But the rock does not shout, Argentus-kun. It does not scream its existence at you. It simply... is."
Koushiro turned to look at the boy.
"Your Observation Haki is a powerful tool. A shield and a weapon. It projects your will outward, searching for threats, for danger, for killing intent. It is active. Aggressive."
He tapped the stone again, his fingers making a hollow sound against the moss.
"But to hear the Breath of All Things, you must learn to do the opposite. You must stop projecting your will onto the world."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"You must learn to receive."
"Receive?" Argentus repeated, frowning.
Koushiro nodded slowly.
"A spear thrust relies on force," he explained, miming a stabbing motion. "You concentrate your will, your strength, your momentum into a single point and force it upon the target. You impose your reality onto the world through violence."
He gestured to the boulder.
"But to cut steel—to truly cut it, not just break it with overwhelming power—you must do something different. You must understand the steel. You must sense its frequency, its grain, its internal structure. You must harmonize with it."
Koushiro's voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
"And then, once you understand it completely, you slip your blade between the spaces of its existence. You don't break the steel. You simply... separate it along the lines where it was always meant to come apart."
Argentus stared at the boulder, his mind churning.
Stop projecting. Start receiving.
Don't force. Harmonize.
Don't break. Separate.
It sounded like mystical nonsense. Like the kind of cryptic wisdom old masters spouted to sound profound.
But Koushiro had no reason to lie to him.
He closed his eyes again, but this time, he tried something different.
Instead of pushing his Observation Haki outward like a searchlight hunting for threats...
He tried to soften it.
To make it receptive instead of aggressive.