Chapter 270: Aoxi’s Little Class
“Kaido!”
“Boss Kaido!”
“Mr. Kaido!”
“Governor-General!”
“This is bad, Boss has no breath!”
“Ah! My arm!”
“Don’t touch Boss Kaido, you’ll get frostbite!!”
“Quick, quick, go get Miss La!”
“I don’t know where Miss La is right now!”
“Call the Den Den Mushi!!!”
“……”
As a large gulp of ice-blue alcoholic beverage was poured defenselessly down his throat, the next second, Kaido’s invincible body crashed down.
And the crowd at the banquet instantly descended into chaos, with sounds of trampling, screams, and dishes crashing to the ground mixed together with Ember’s roars as they all rushed messily out of the banquet hall.
……
The chocolate slowly melted in the mouth, like a small stream of warm flow, spreading a soft, silent sweetness wherever it went between lips and teeth.
Crunch~
The sweet river gradually dried up, leaving only the cookie soaked in saliva, no longer so crispy… and then the Pocky was mercilessly bitten into two pieces.
In an unremarkable corner of the training ground, Aoxi was swinging her legs while sitting on a branch of an old tree, munching on snacks with crunching sounds while guiding Jinbe under the tree shade below.
“I’m saying~ little fat fish, the action is wrong~.”
“Hm?”
Hearing Aoxi’s voice, which was somewhat sweet from the chocolate, Jinbe stopped his action and humbly asked:
“Miss Aoxi, I have been practicing all according to the actions taught by the instructor teacher. I wonder where the problem is?”
Although Aoxi’s age was clearly younger than his own, Miss La had once said ‘learning has no precedence, the accomplished is the teacher’, so as long as the other’s skill was above his own, he could take them as teacher… Jinbe deeply agreed with this.
Hearing Jinbe’s tone clearly seeking instruction, Aoxi didn’t play coy and directly hooked the branch with her tail, swinging leisurely, hanging upside down as she came right in front of him.
Her gilded eyes reflected Jinbe’s inverted serious face, and Aoxi explained:
“Simple, your power exertion technique is completely copying that Fish-Man who replaced Uncle Burufaruto~”
“Mm.”
Jinbe nodded. The training he was doing now was entirely based on the key points taught by that Fish-Man earlier.
“But that’s wrong~”
Saying this, Aoxi tore open the packaging and poured all the remaining Pocky from the paper box in her hand… but those slender chocolate sticks miraculously didn’t fall to the ground, instead floating in the air.
Nom~
Ignoring Jinbe’s astonished gaze, Aoxi first picked up one and held it in her mouth, then lightly tapped her fingers, guiding those casually floating Pocky to the right positions.
Over a dozen chocolate sticks, after arrangement and combination, finally formed two slightly complex matchstick figure shapes.
“See, this is the skeleton proportion of that Fish-Man teaching you Fish-Man Karate now.”
Aoxi pointed to one of the slender-proportioned ‘matchstick figures’, then shifted her finger to the one next to it, which was more balanced, and said:
“And this is your skeleton proportion.”
Crunch~
Biting the Pocky in her mouth into two pieces, Aoxi used the outer long stick-shaped cookie as a teaching pointer, indicating details on the two matchstick figures.
“See it? Your two bodies have quite a lot of differences in proportion.”
“You Fish-Men have great differences in build due to different species, so those key points he teaches like ‘fist retract to such position, leg level with such’ actually don’t apply to all of you.”
Ones like Jinbe or Arlong with normal two arms and two legs are fine… but if like Hachi with three arms on one side, some actions just can’t be done at all.
“What you were practicing just now is the straight punch, so your power exertion stance should be able to release all your power, but imitating his stance like you did earlier can only bring out eighty percent power.”
“That substitute Fish-Man teacher is only teaching his karate, not Fish-Man Karate.”
“Mm.”
Jinbe nodded cooperatively. With his exceptional talent, he had actually vaguely noticed this issue.
But the Fish-Man substitute teacher had taken time out of a busy schedule to teach them, so he really didn’t want to trouble him further.
To get started with a skill like Fish-Man Karate is actually simple—just roughly copy the fixed actions taught by the instructor, or even practice from a guidebook yourself, and with Fish-Men’s innate powerful wrist strength, you can produce decent power.
But to master it or even reach the level of using Secret Techniques requires specialized and rigorous training.
Best is one-on-one guidance from a Fish-Man Karate master who can use Secret Techniques, correcting power exertion techniques in real time based on each Fish-Man’s different body proportions.
Otherwise, you can only rely on your own talent to grope bit by bit.
Like Aoxi, who hadn’t properly learned even a day of Fish-Man Karate, but could fully master those techniques at a glance, even extrapolating, using those Secret Techniques like basic attacks.
……
Snap!
After a crisp finger snap, the two ‘matchstick figures’ were scattered again, but those Pocky didn’t return to the box in Aoxi’s hand; instead, they dispersed and floated around Jinbe’s body.
Seeing a Pocky stuck to every joint position on his arms, shoulders, torso, and legs, Jinbe was somewhat puzzled.
“Enemy controller.”
As Aoxi spread her ten fingers, using those chocolate sticks as medium, strands of fine golden electric current conducted from her fingertips to Jinbe’s surrounding joints.
Immediately after, Jinbe found his body moving subconsciously, startling him into tensing up.
“Don’t resist, relax.”
Aoxi’s “enemy controller” move was something she figured out watching toads fight when bored; the principle was similar to Pain’s black rods.
In theory, this move is best done by inserting highly conductive materials directly into the opponent’s body to interfere with electrical signals for full body control.
But since this was teaching now, no need to make it so bloody, so Aoxi directly used chocolate sticks as substitute.
Though much weaker in control strength, as long as the opponent doesn’t resist, there’s no issue.
“Come, I’ll now guide you through all the basic actions of Fish-Man Karate again.”
“This is the standard action most suited to your body. Little fat, you must remember it well in your head.”
“……”
“Yes.”
This was already spoon-feeding level teaching. For Jinbe, accustomed to feast or famine, he truly couldn’t imagine how to repay this kindness.
……
After guiding Jinbe through the basic actions from start to finish a full ten times, and confirming he had fully adapted to the new techniques, Aoxi withdrew the proxy control system.
“Alright, once you’ve fully integrated this set of actions, we’ll move on to the next step of advanced teaching.”
“At that time I’ll be even stricter—”
“Buruburu~ Buruburu~”
The Den Den Mushi’s sound suddenly interrupted Aoxi’s post-lesson lecture.
“Hello, who—”
“Aoxi! Come quick!”
“Mr. Kaido is not going to make it!”
“……”
“?”
“Ah?!”*2
