Say what you will about Roger, but the explanation he gave was a lot more than Six had imagined.
For a man who had lived life on pure instinct and raw power, Roger had an impressive way of breaking things down. His insight into Observation Haki wasn't just theoretical—it was practical, battle-hardened wisdom from someone who had lived at the pinnacle of combat.
"Now, to continue, you will need to put your training gear on."
Roger declared, pulling out a blindfold and a pair of earmuffs.
Six's eye twitched.
"Oh, hell no."
Roger grinned like a demon.
"Oh, hell yes."
Rebecca leaned in with an amused smirk.
"You're not actually starting to enjoy getting beaten up, are you honey?"
Six shot her a glare.
"Pfft. Absolutely not."
"Uh-huh."
She said, not convinced.
Roger clapped his hands, drawing their attention back.
"Normally, we'd just go with the blindfold method, let your senses slowly develop over time. But that would take too damn long."
His grin turned feral.
Six felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"So, I'm going to beat the Observation Haki into you."
"Huuuuuuuuh?!"
The days that followed were a special kind of hell. Six's Observation Haki skyrocketed, but at the cost of his dignity, sanity, and quite possibly some brain cells.
Deprived of sight and hearing, he had to rely on feeling his surroundings, sensing shifts in the air, predicting attacks before they landed. And when he failed? Well… Roger didn't hold back.
By the end of it, Six could dodge attacks he couldn't see, feel the presence of people around him, and even pick up on emotions. Roger, despite his usual carefree nature, actually seemed impressed.
"Heh."
Roger chuckled, tossing Six a Nuka Cola.
"Not bad, brat. At this rate, you might actually survive my training."
Six caught the bottle, cracked it open, and took a long, exhausted sip.
"I better survive, or I'm haunting your ass from the afterlife."
Roger just laughed.
"Good luck with that. I got experience dying, remember?"
Roger was summoned at his peak—right at the time when leukemia had begun eating away at him, after his legendary execution. Had it not been for the insane medical advancements in this world, he wouldn't have lasted long enough to train Six at all.
Roger, ever the lucky bastard, found himself in a world where cancer was treated like the common cold. A few sessions with the right tech, and he was back in top form, as if his body had never known sickness.
And that meant one thing—Six had no excuses.
Roger was stronger, faster, and full of boundless energy, ready to push him past his limits every single day. It was almost unfair how quickly the man adapted to being alive again, like he had been waiting for a second round.
For Roger, it was a chance to live without the looming shadow of death. For Six, it was a never-ending nightmare of haki-enhanced beatdowns.
That said, Roger wasted no time in making up for lost opportunities. His training regimen was brutal, borderline sadistic even, but it got results.
Six had lost count of the number of times he had been sent flying, crashing into walls, trees, or even straight through makeshift training dummies. Every time he got hit, Roger simply laughed and told him to "feel" the attack before it landed.
Easier said than done when an iron rod moving faster than the eye could track was involved.
But damn if it wasn't working.
At first, he had been flailing around in complete darkness, reacting too slow and getting his ass handed to him. Then, something changed. It started as faint tingles—an instinctive twitch of his muscles before an impact. Then, he could feel disturbances in the air, subtle shifts in movement. Eventually, he could predict Roger's strikes, dodging by a hair's breadth.
Roger was impressed.
"Heh, looks like you're getting the hang of it, brat. Guess beating the fear of pain into you actually worked."
Six groaned, still sprawled on the ground from their last spar.
"You mean the sense into me. And you enjoy this way too much, old man."
Roger slung the iron rod over his shoulder and smirked. "Damn right I do. Now, let's kick it up a notch."
Six paled.
"Wait, we're already at hell mode! What's worse than—"
Roger pulled out a weighted vest.
Six's stomach dropped.
"Time to train with handicaps, brat. Hope you're ready, 'cause Observation Haki ain't worth shit if your body can't keep up!"
Rebecca, watching from the sidelines with a bucket of popcorn, whistled.
"Oh, this is gonna be fun to watch."
The training however was not halted that much, and Six was pushed even harder by Roger, who increased the speed of his attacks. They forces Six grow accustomed to it. All this, however, didn't end well for him. Roger started pushing the training even harder while he ate and taunted Six while he was lying on the ground, battered.
After another brutal training session, Six staggered out of the training room, his body aching from the relentless beatdown. He had made significant progress with his Observation Haki, but at the cost of numerous bruises and a deep-seated fear of Roger's feral grin.
He wasn't alone in his suffering.
Rebecca limped out behind him, panting, her hair a mess. She had tried to stay on the sidelines, but Roger had none of it, dragging her into training as well. However, the moment he discovered she was pregnant, he eased up—relatively. Instead of haki-infused strikes, she endured more reflex-based training, dodging wooden projectiles and forced to enhance her balance while carrying a small weight on her stomach.
"That old bastard…"
Rebecca grumbled, rubbing her sore arms.
"I swear he's enjoying this way too much."
Six sighed, placing a hand on his own aching ribs.
"You have no idea…"
As they made their way to the dining hall, Roger's voice echoed from behind.
"Hurry up, you brats! Lunch break's only an hour, then we go again!"
Six's eye twitched, and Rebecca groaned.
This was going to be a long pregnancy.
Watching Rebecca, the fiery gremlin, fight back someone double her size was... captivating. He had always admired her strength, her willpower, and her ability to stand her ground.
But now, as he watched, there was an overprotective edge to his thoughts. It wasn't just admiration—it was obsession. The way she fought, the way she threw herself into the chaos, triggered something primal in him.
Part of him wanted to trap her in a cage so she would never get hurt—and the other thought terrified him, of what he would do to those who hurt his precious ones.
Had his transformation done this to him? Was this the cost of becoming stronger, of preparing for the constant battles he now faced? He couldn't shake the feeling that, with each fight, with each new battle won, he was losing a piece of himself.
His fear was real—he feared that the man who once cared deeply for those around him, the man who had a heart, might be slipping away. It was like he was becoming a machine, driven by nothing but a need for victory, for control, for power. A psychopath.
He tried to shake off the unsettling thought. Surely it wasn't true. He was starting to care only about Rebecca and their children. He barely cared about the future he was building, about protecting everyone else. There was a creeping emptiness behind those thoughts, a coldness that he couldn't ignore.
"What the hell is happening with me?"
He muttered under his breath.
Rebecca, who had been walking beside him, turned to glance at him with a concerned look.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
Six said quickly, shaking his head.
"Just… thinking about how much more I need to do. We're not ready for the real threats yet."
But in his mind, he couldn't help but wonder if the real threat wasn't the outside world. It was the one inside himself.