Chapter 29

" So I heard there were guests," said Rayleigh while standing behind the group of five. Robin was stunned, apart from the identity of this person he was also the second person who escaped her perception through her observation haki. She knew he was strong, given his identity, but after looking at him in person she couldn't figure out the depths of his power, she knew if she fought him it would not be easy to defeat him.

The bartender seeing the girl's expression was amused and decided to tease her a bit " Rayleigh-san looks like your cover is blown yet again, this time I am not moving again, you just "take care" of the problem."

Robin who heard this immediately came to sense and quickly assumed a battle stance as knew what "taking care" meant, looking at this Rayleigh chuckled and said " Shakky you need to stop teasing others, and Miss Nico Robin please do excuse my wife she loves her pranks. The Marines know that I stay here and dont interfere in my business as long as I don't get caught interfering in theirs. So now lets get settled and listen to what you need to ask."

Robin still ready to fight said " Before we ask questions can we have a friendly spar? It would be easier for you to answer after knowing our strength" as she knew from her previous lifetime that old fogeys usually gave a straight forward answers regarding dangerous tasks when they knew the juniors' strength, else they would just say redundant stuff like "It's too dangerous" " Do you really have it in you? " etc

Hearing the request Rayleigh was slightly amused and suddenly he released a suppressive force while saying " I have already given up that lifestyle you know, I am just a ship coater and I really don't like people disrupting my peaceful lifestyle".

Robin felt that the suppressive force released by the old man was really strange, it was as if trying to test rather dominate her willpower, although she wasn't really affected, still she could feel the strength behind the suppression and knew if one's will power was weak they would faint and even if they didn't faint they wouldn't be able to stand without sufficient willpower. When she looked over to the trio although they were struggling they were still standing and in their eyes she didn't see a single ounce of fear but only determination. Suddenly Robin had a strange feeling developing inside her, she was actually proud of the three, who she considered as pseudo disciples and finally understood why a few masters of the disciples she had killed, in her previous lifetime, wanted to chase and kill her.

Rayleigh releasing the pressure spoke once again " Stubborn fools aren't you, very well I shall entertain your request for a spar, show me what you got". Hearing this a faint look of surprise was seen on Shakky's face and said " Hey if are using the basement to spar better not break and stuff else each one of you will have to pay ten times the price of the items you break"

Rayleigh led them to the basement, luckily basement was mostly empty, but Robin knew she still had to be careful as she knew it wouldn't end well for her and her entourage if ignored Shakky's warning.

Robin asked the trio to fight together against him, she didn't need to explain anything further as all three of them knew individually they won't stand a chance, more than that all of them wanted to impress their goddess by unleashing their all against Rayleigh.

So the trio attacked Rayleigh first, under the tutelage of Robin they had grown exponentially stronger. They had attained a high degree of proficiency in fish-man karate due to the constant spars with their goddess, in terms of haki Hody had managed to awaken observation haki only towards the end of the training while being very close to awakening armament haki, while both Arlong and Jinbe had reached the intermediate stage in both hakis, Jinbe held a slight end over Arlong mainly due to his experience and training as a soldier. According to Robin when of all three of them fought together they should be able to easily match Aokiji's strength when she had fought him in Ohara. The trio had decided to go all out from. the get go, Hody charged straight forward while Arlong and Jinbe flanked him, their intention was to make Rayleigh choose either to defend the two attacks from the side and get hit by the frontal attack or try to take out the weakest member of the group so that it would be 2 v 1 but risk getting attacked from the sides. Although a good strategy Rayleigh did neither but just moved around in such a way that their formation was constantly getting disturbed and in their frustration they broke the formation and attacked wildly at Rayleigh.

As soon as Robin saw them abandon thier strategy she knew the battle was over and just as she expected Rayleigh immediately knocked out Hody, Hody had no time to dodge even though he could see the attack coming only thing his observation haki did was allow him to know how he was knocked out instead of having no clue what happened.

Although Jinbe and Arlong soon realized their mistake it was too late for them to save Hody , they were also surprised to see Rayleigh move so fast as they thought only their goddess was capable of such speed. After giving a silent prayer in their minds for Hody, they continued their assault in a one - two manner where they stuck side by side to each other and if Jinbe went on the offensive Arlong would focus on defense they similarly switched roles at random times to confuse the opponent as the offence styles of Jinbe and Arlong were very different, Jinbe's attacks were like an incoming tsunami while Arlong's was like a fully formed tornado.

Although Rayleigh had used evasive manoeuvres against the duo too soon he was cornered, which led the duo to believe they had him,but just a moment of overconfidence was enough for Rayleigh to unleash a few successive blows enough to knock both of them out.

And thus the battle between the fish-men and Rayleigh had concluded. After Robin had picked up the trio and placed them on sides, she came to the centre facing Rayleigh. Rayleigh said " That was a great warmup I hadn't had to use more than 10% of my power in a long time " while stretching and rolling his arm. Hearing this Robin laughed " Well if you did use more than 10% of your power to deal with them then I guess I have nothing to worry about other than leaving an old fogey in a sorry state"

" Enough chit chat, let us fight old man" Robin rushed towards Rayleigh . " You know you hurt my feelings calling me old man, old fogey, I am a middle aged man" said Rayleigh while moving towards Robin to face her head on instead of being like a slippery frog.