Back to Denji. Currently, a pink-haired girl was nagging him.
"Come on, please, Denji-kun. If you agree, I'll gift you my body." she said, smirking playfully.
Denji, while fishing, sighed.
"Bellé-mer, you really need to stop saying such stuff. I'm a man in my youth; don't get me rocked with such thoughts."
Bellé-mer laughed.
"You're just like all boys. You can't resist a woman's touch, can you? So what do you say? If you agree, we can do it right here."
Denji laughed.
"Are you serious? You're such a slut. Besides, even if you did all that, I will never join the Marines with you."
Bellé-mer's shoulders dropped, and she scolded him.
"Why though? You're so strong at such a young age! It wouldn't take long for you to become a Vice Admiral, maybe even Admiral."
Denji replied calmly.
"Why would I want to become a slave of the Marines? I want to live a free and peaceful life. That life is here, in the village."
Bellé-mer slumped, crossing her arms.
"Whatever. You do you. That's why you don't get any girls."
Denji scoffed.
"Huh. That's the last thing I want to hear from you. The reason no girls come around me is because of you."
Yes, that's right. Denji in the village was quite the womanizer. He was a heartthrob; all the girls in the village were after him. He had lost his virginity literally at ten years old. The girl was the same age, and nobody said anything about the authorities because he wasn't transmigrated—he was reborn. Effectively, he started on a clean slate.
He used to cause headaches for his mother constantly because of all the girls. Their parents often complained to her. But those complaints were never "Tell your boy to stay away from my daughter." No. They were all about instructing his mother to make him leave other girls alone and focus solely on their daughters.
All parents in the village wanted Denji as their son-in-law. He was handsome as hell, had a great personality, was well-liked by everyone, and was the strongest in the village by far. On top of that, he was an excellent fisherman.
His reputation as the Conqueror of the North Blue also kept pirates away from the village. In his past life, when he was a delinquent, he had many girls as well, so transitioning into this life had been easy.
But that all changed when Bellé-mer arrived. This Arlong victim moved to the village three years ago, before the beginning of the Great Pirate Era. The girls that used to flock to Denji gradually disappeared. Even when Denji approached them himself, they would back away and tell him to leave them alone. Such a troublesome woman.
Bellé-mer feigned ignorance.
"I wonder why that is…" she said, whistling to literally nobody.
Denji shot back.
"It's because of you, damn it. You beat them up, calling yourself my girlfriend."
Bellé-mer replied, feigning concern.
"Well, I'm doing it for your own good. Having that many women around at such a young age will ruin your development, and your thing might fall off if you overuse it."
Denji blinked, shocked.
"No, no, Bellé-mer. That's physically impossible. And what's this about ruining development? What are you even talking about?"
She continued matter-of-factly.
"I'm talking about your development, Denji-kun. Your development. I'm sure the reason you haven't been able to use your Haki since you were eight is because you've had too many women after that period. They stole all your Haki and vitality from you."
Denji frowned.
"You're saying things that don't make sense. Someone can't steal my Haki through sharing a bed, and what's this about stealing my vitality?" He stood, twirling. "Does this look like a man who's lost his vitality? Just say you want me for yourself, Bellé-mer. No one is going to blame you."
Bellé-mer shook her head.
"Mph… in your dreams. The only men I want are those who are Marines."
Denji was about to retaliate when something disrupted him. His Observation Haki flared. Something was approaching…
Yes, Denji had self-taught himself Observation Haki. This was not a plot armor asspull. Back when Denji had first unleashed Conqueror's Haki as a child and fully accepted that he was in the world of One Piece, he had started learning Observation Haki.
After nine years of disciplined training, he had all but perfected basic Observation Haki. However, he had not learned any of the other Haki forms. Why? Simply because a legitimate training method had never been shown in the anime.
With Observation Haki, glimpses of how to train it had been revealed during the Luffy's training flashback during his fight vs Katakuri, one of Denji's favorite fights. Using those flashbacks as reference, Denji had formulated his own training method and his mother happily obliged when he asked her for help.
At first, she had been torn by the idea of constantly hitting her own son in the head with a wooden bat. She would rush to check if he was hurt every single time he was struck, which was, of course, every time. It quickly became jarring. But when Denji assured her that it was for training to make himself stronger, she accepted and assisted. As long as her son could protect himself, that was all she wanted.
As for why he hadn't trained the other forms of Haki, the answer was simple: a way to train them had never been shown.
Advanced Armament Haki had a training example, we saw it with Luffy in Wano, and we already knew Advanced Conqueror Haki required a sensei like Kaido to beat it into you. But Denji couldn't even learn the basic forms because he didn't know how, so thinking about advanced forms was pointless.
Advanced Observation Haki was the same. Rayleigh was correct, it could only be learned through battle. Denji had been honing his Observation Haki for nine years, yet he still could not achieve Future Sight Haki.
However, in the present, while Denji hadn't learned Advanced Observation Haki, he had developed what he considered a special Haki variant. He could see clearly up to two kilometers away, as if the view were right in front of him.
Through this ability, he noticed a boat slowly approaching. On the boat, he could clearly make out a young Red-Haired Shanks and Benn Beckman.
His first thought was immediate.
Shanks?? Why is he coming to the village?
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