Chapter 95 - 95: Awakening

A month later, Amazon lily's island, in a tranquil forest.

Two silhouettes were sitting in front of each other. Those were of course Edam and Hancock.

"Ah, wait don't move!" Edam suddenly exclaimed.

He was currently carefully holding what seems to be a small golden statue of a beautiful woman while comparing it to the young woman acting as a huge model sitting in front of himself.

"Ah, sorry…" An apologetic expression flew by her face.

"Sigh, I failed, it's hard…" Edam sighed as he looked at the statue in his hand. The small statue was made out of his Ki and solidified. 

It was training made by Admiral Aokiji for him. He always liked how the Admiral could freeze everything and so tried in his way to imitate his power, and he succeeded but it was still somewhat hard.

The Admiral would always say, the magic word here is "Control" but the level of control required was quite high.

The other day, he had casually condensed a ball of Ki and solidified it receiving the Admiral's praise but also another difficulty, and that was to mold out a human statue down to its expression in a short amount of time.

He had found the task to be sky high difficult and extremely boring when he was told to...

But, today as he tried it for the first time it wasn't so bad…

He found out that carving out, or more like molding out a beauty was extremely satisfying, although he had failed every single time he tried. It wasn't boring anymore…

And so here he was looking at his failed statue with disappointment. The silhouette was perfectly done but the expression was blurred.

Just as he sighed and was gonna destroy this one too like the rest, Hancock called out.

"Ah, wait, just leave it there… I wanna keep it."

"..?" Edam tilted his head and said. "But, it's a failed product…"

She shook her head and said. "Doesn't matter, I just want to keep it…"

"Oh, well as you wish princess…"

"Stop calling me princess…" She seemed to pout her lips a bit.

"Yes yes…" He shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject.

…

A month had passed by quietly and both of them became even closer to each other appreciating the company of one another.

As for the place they were at, well, the third week of his return everything had been converted into a large space to rest. Trickling down the mountain wall there was a small waterfall with river and lake included as well as a wooden house or more like a wooden villa built not so far away while the entire forest acted as the garden. The place was truly heavenly and perfect for vacation.

Edam felt somewhat bad for those who had to work on it.

For Edam's Marine work, well their unit was mostly deployed in Paradise, and almost none of the pirates there was his worthy opponent anymore. For a few days, his team members would even go as far as to ask him not to interfere. He oddly felt like a burden every time this happens.

…

"Say, how can you fly in the air so smoothly?" Hancock asked as she curiously looked at him flying up a tree to pick some fruits.

"Ah?" He looked at himself before floating down to land next to her and sat down.

"Right, I never truly explain to you how it is done…"

"Hum…"

"This is a bit complicated, hum, in short, you have to control your life force and release it out, it's the same principle as Haki but instead of your willpower, you bring it to your life force by using your willpower, in fact, those two powers are closely related…" He began to talk about everything he knew so far which took him half an hour or so. He didn't dare to call himself a master but he had experimented a lot during those years.

Hancock just looked at him obediently with her big and beautiful eyes, blinking from time to time. She didn't interrupt him at all. Who knew if she was listening to him or...

But he still made sure to carefully explain everything.

"That's it, do you have any question?" Edam asked, feeling quite excited to talk about it.

"Hum, you said that this Ki is life force right and that everyone has life force?"

"Un…" He nodded feeling quite pleased that she listened to everything he said so far.

"Then can I learn it?" She asked curiously. 

"Uh…" Now that was a big question for him too, he had already tried long ago with Zaz making him learn the Yggdrasil arts by heart but they didn't succeed and so gave up as soon as it was brought up. They were only ten at that time and had better things to do so...

However, now he was fifteen years old and was quite proficient at it and there were a lot of methods that they never thought about when they were ten years old.

"Well, in theory, it should be possible…" He pondered on it for a moment and said.

"Humm, give me your hands…" As he said that he stood up and brought his hands forward hinting at her to place her hands against his owns.

Her face turned a bit red but she still did as she was told to as she stood up too.

Truth be told, she didn't care to learn this Ki thing, growing stronger wasn't necessarly her goal, she just wanted him to stay longer but she wouldn't say it out loud of course.

However, she did take notice of the immense gap in strength between her and Edam. His natural endowments were already exaggerated without adding this energy called Ki, but now he truly gave an impression to be invincible to others.

And so, the two of them were standing up holding hands with their fingers intertwined as if they were going to dance bȧrėfoot on the grass while listening to nature's song.

With her fingers intertwined with his, Edam closed his eyes with a faint smile on his face.

His two hands slowly began to glow with a golden halo and slowly spread on her own hands.

Meanwhile, her dark-blue blinked as they looked at this warm and strange golden glow slowly but surely spreading on her hands. It was warm but didn't have any kind of form or consistency, and was flowing through her pores invigorating her body in an instant.

It soon began to cover her whole body from her head to her toe, however, the energy which was calm and flowing under Edam's control was rapidly fading out in the air.

"This…" She was surprised for a moment but Edam's voice rapidly echoed.

"Close your eyes…" As soon as she heard it she closed her eyes.

"...Push your senses, feel the strands of energy flowing inside you, and try to remember this sensation…" His voice was gentle, echoing directly in her mind instead of her ears.

She focused on his voice, his breath, and heartbeats as everything became clear in her mind. She seemed to perceive this strange energy streaming down her veins and stimulating something in her own body at the same time.

"You can open your eyes now…" His voice reverberates again as she flutters slightly and opened up.

When she looked at herself again, she was stunned to see the same kind of energy now covering her whole body.

She lifted her head and saw that he was looking at her with a heartfelt smile.

"This energy that's covering you right now is mine, you will still have to maintain it for the time being to wait for your own Ki to completely awaken it seems and the quantity won't be much for now…"

"However we can also just go through this same process again to help you increase your Ki in a short time… you can choose…" Edam said with a smile.

"Then, then let's do this again…" She said in a small voice.

"Okay, we can call this a dual training I guess, it seems to help me too." It's true, he felt his own Ki moving differently from usual but with even more efficiency.

"Let me explain, according to this book…" He casually took a book out of thin air and show it.

"The goal is to purify and increase the amount of Ki in your body and although I don't know what it is about since I've never found any of these said impurities in my body and Ki, but don't worry I can still help you purify it…" Weirdly enough, whenever his Ki would pass over her Ki the impurity would be wash out like dirt being swept away.

"Now try to hit my hand." He raised a hand and had expectations in his heart.

"Un." She lifted her legs and performed a kick with Ki covering all her body…

Boom! 

Sure enough, the kick was even more powerful than normal, so much that Edam's hand was thrown back with much force.

"Ouch, sure enough, it's working…" Although he didn't add anything to protect himself, it was quite a feat to hurt him, even a bullet from a gun or even a cannonball could bȧrėly hurt him. 

His defense was truly inhuman…though he wasn't human, to begin with too so…

"Ah, are you alright?" She came to him worryingly and rubbed his hand. Her strength rose so abruptly that she didn't control it well.

"Well, I'm fine now…" He nodded at her with a smile. 

"Oh, but don't be so surprise just yet, this is just the beginning, soon enough you will even be able to fly in the sky and shoot some beam of light and pulverize everything yeah, akin to having another devil fruit but without weakness…"

"Oh, and what's next?"

"Uh, let's see…" He pondered. "How about shooting a Ki ball?"

Hancock nodded but then looked at herself and saw that the energy was fading quickly. "But it's fading out…" She looked at him and blinked.

"It's fine, I'm here…" He smiled, grabbed her fair hand and brought her closer before he turned her around with a swift movement and hugged her from behind.

The Ki that was fading out a moment ago burst out with a formidable fervor and yet a calm aura attaining a few meters in height, easily enveloping both of them.

Hancock blushed cutely but didn't move and even let herself sunk deeply into his embrace as he whispered intimately.

"Do you see that rock right there?" It was a huge rock of about a hundred meters tall in the distance outside of the garden-forest, robust and hard.

"Un…"

"Lift and open your hand at it, relax your body and close your eyes to focus, I will do the rest…"

She did everything he said and then closed her eyes.

"First, you have to channel the Ki in your body, and then you expanded it out of your body before compressing it in the palm of your hand…" She didn't do anything but still felt everything happening in her body. A force was guiding her Ki quietly going through every state that Edam listed.

"You can open your eyes now…" As she opened her eyes, she immediately saw a huge ball of ki in front of her, glittering with a light and luminous purplish-pink glow at the center of the ball shining feebly while being covered by a monstrous blood-red energy all around it. 

"And now all you have to do is to unleash it on your target." His voice resounded again as he took a hold of her hand while his other held her slim waist and her face turned red yet again. She was really having some trouble concentrating on the task with him being so close but she still did her best.

She then along with his help pointed at the rock and focused her mind on it.

And with a thought…

Rumble! Boom! Swish!

A thunderous sound explode in their ears and the huge ball was blasted forward and transformed into a purplish-blood-red beam of light and violently smashed at the hundred meters tall rock exploding and easily melting it.

And the beam didn't just fade out after smashing the rock but continued on its way cleaving apart the sky and even seemed to go beyond.

And the worst is that, whenever the beam passed by, everything would melt, burn, turn to ashes, or return to nothingness…

The forest was turned into a nightmarish mess! 

Looking at that, Hancock and Edam were both speechless. Both of them never would have thought that this seemingly so small move of theirs would have resulted in 'that'.

Everything that stood in front of this beam of monstrous light was pulverized into nothingness.

"Uh, this… this is not a kill ball…" He had wanted to shoot a ball not a ray of destruction…!

"...We shouldn't use that move for now…" 

"...Un…" She wasn't willing to use this kind of attack on her homeland, that would be devastating.

He himself never thought that this would happen, after all, she just awakened her own Ki, so how could this happen? This was out of his scope of knowledge since she was the first person who used Ki and whom he had interacted with.

He clearly felt how restless his blood-red aura transformed when in close contact with her purplish Ki, fusing, and becoming something else. This is a move of mass destruction for sure! 

Hancock was even certain that it could raze a kingdom to the ground and out of the map if used correctly. The infamous buster call seemed less threatening than this.

Although, he was certain that he could easily replicate this feat with the formidable quantity of ki in his body and do something even worse, however the thing is, the present move right there had consumed a very negligible amount of ki for the amount of destruction it has caused as if it has been multiply and not just added his ki plus her's.

…

It was only after a while being in a daze that Edam finally realized that he was still holding her in his arms, but the girl didn't break out his arms clearly not caring about any ethics any longer.

He looked at her with a faint smile as she was snuggling in his embrace rapidly fell asleep in his arms with a peaceful and blissful expression on fairy-like face.

Carefully sitting down with her, he let her rest and sleep as he observed her cute face. It seems that using a huge amount of Ki on the same day of awakening it was exhausting for the body.

"Ah, right…" After having had his fill, he remembered that the forest was still in an apocalyptic state.

He lift his head to watch the devasted landscape, and his eyes suddenly lit up with a cold light as an oppressive and tyrannical might appeared and completely suppressed the flames and smokes crushing it down to earth.

Rumble!

The forest gradually returned to it's previous state, though still devastated and his eyes returned to it's clear and profound black color.

Two shadows rapidly came from the distance. They were of course Mariegold and Sandersonia as well as some other kuja warriors.

"Big Si-...!" Both sisters wanted to shout out but they quickly saw Edam turned at them with a finger on his mouth clearly telling them to 'be quiet', while Hancock was in his arms sleeping.

They shut up right away, and stared at the two, totally speechless, with the others staring too awkwardly.

"Let's go, let's go…" Sandersonia coughed a bit and turned around, leaving the two of them at peace.

Both sisters were absolutely certain that they have never seen their elder sister sleeping with such a serene expression on her face before.

....