Training (3)

It's been three weeks since Akatora started training with Sengoku and his mother, Donna. He should say that they were his father and grandmother, but it was hard to accept those titles. Because they were making life for him similar to heaven and hell.

"Boy! Are your wounds healed yet?"

"No mam! Not yet!"

"Alright, then. I'm off to the market. Do you have any requests?"

"Please, I'm alright grandmother. Have a safe trip."

"Alright, my boy. Hurry up and get healed!"

Akatora looked at Donna's back with conflicting emotions. He didn't know whether this was her true face or if it is the one he sees whenever they are training.

The first training was just dodging cotton balls. Oh, haki-infused cotton balls. Father said that only when an item is imbued with haki can it touch me, or hurt me if he's being more specific. I can still get hit by items that are thrown at me, but only if I don't bother to use my devil fruit to dodge it. Dodging by the use of elemental manifestation.

"I still don't understand why we suddenly changed my training method."

A couple days since they started, the mother-son pair suddenly agreed between themselves to change their routine. Now Akatora needed to fight his father in hand to hand combat. One that he needed to do with his elemental manifestation active the whole time.

"Your devil fruit is a blessing that you haven't even touched the basics of! It is a shame to make you start training in it only after having your haki raised to a decent level. We will first insert the basics into your system so that you can get a better handle of it. I'm getting tired of having to sew another hole in your underwear."

A red faced Akatora bowed deeply before his grandmother. Though she only smiled at his innocence. Truthfully, his devil fruit isn't something a child like him can control without a high enough will power. The fuel of haki is will power, and training haki will make him have a better control of his devil fruit.

'This boy is talented. He can skip all that.'

But after hearing his son talk about how the boy could see haki by experiencing it just once, her plan was revised immediately. Now she wanted him to advance in haki by controlling his devil fruit. Though it was true that she was running out of red thread to sew back the boy's underwear as well.

"Show me your devil fruit."

Sengoku stood before Akatora as they faced in other in the middle of a barren field. This farm had long lost it's capability to grow crops, so it was abandoned. Not even burning the weeds here have dealt with the loss, making Sengoku regretful.

'This was father's farm. I've let him down.'

Sengoku remembered that the reason he first left town was to find a solution to this problem. But life just gives choices, choices that can change a man's direction in life. Now that he was back here, he promised himself.

'I will get this land to thrive again! Even if I have to overturn all the soil in this plot of land!'

But his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden heat that appeared before him. A mass of light that radiated enough heat to burn the tips of his hair. He hurriedly used his Armament haki to protect his luscious hair, getting angry at the boy for his mistake of not doing so in the first place.

'Relax. It's not his fault, but mine.'

"Go get him, my boy!"

Donna didn't let her son's distracted mind off as she instructed Akatora to start. He hurriedly tried to step forward, only to realize that he was already at his father's side. He wasn't even sure of how he did it, but his fist was already in contact with his father's stomach.

"Ohoho! That's quite the speed. But you look like you don't even know what you're doing here. Do you understand now why you need to train, son?"

Getting hit in the stomach with a cotton ball infused with haki, Akatora was brought back to reality. He wasn't even able to dodge his grandmother's cotton balls, much less the flick that his father was sending towards his forehead.

"Flick. Ow!"