21 Didn’t expect that

September, 1513

[Secret quest: Learn and master all rokushiki techniques, including the secret 7th technique (complete: 7/7)]

[Synchronisation with the following character's power reached 45%: Gol D. Roger. Installation Beginns upon the blessed person's order]

'Whoa?! Didn't expect that! So there were secret quests!'

I was currently under water, on seabed to be precise, to train rokushiki against huge sea kings, when I got a notification from my cheat. It was the first time the screen showed itself without me calling it in my mind and just after a big fight at that.

Reading the message I was astonished. Then I read it again. Closing the screen I shot upwards through the water using a combination of soru and geppo until I breached the water surface. Landing on the beach in the bay where Sabo and I arrived, I ordered the installation without losing a second's worth of time… or at least that's what I wanted to do.

Because of my excitement I didn't realize that there were other people on the beach. In my defense, it's very unlikely to meet people here past midnight. Still for some reason Kuina and Ibuku were here at this hour.

"Jackson-san?"

"Jackson? What are you doing here so late at night."

"Funnily I just wanted to ask you the same question Kuina. Why are you still outside?"

"I just visited Ibuku-san this evening and she invited me to stay for the night."

"And your father?"

"I left him a message saying that I'd be staying over at a friends."

Or so she says with a smug face as if she has done something incredible.

'*Sigh* It was incredibly stupid!'

"Do you want him to come after me and Sabo?! 'Staying over at a friends' but you have no friends besides us! He will think you spent the night at the same inn as me and Sabo and try to guess what he will think once he goes there and doesn't find you and me there?!"

!!

"S Shut up! I have other friends! I Ibuku-san is my friend ok?!"

"Ara ara. I'm quite happy about that Ku-chan!"

'For real?! She completely missed the main problem!'

It's been 6 months since our arrival on this island and a lot has happened. First after the first month of training Sabo, Kuina started to visit our training side.

She told me how she heard me say that she can achieve her dream and that after seeing how fast Sabo became stronger she wished to train with us.

At that time, I didn't expect her to come to us on her own but as the saying goes: 'Some problems will solve themselves.'

New Problem was that training Kuina, took a lot longer than I thought it would and not because she wasn't talented.

While training Kuina, me and Sabo noticed that she was talented but not decisive enough during sparring matches.

Understandable, since unlike us, she grew up in a normal house, protected by her father. She never had to hunt her own food or face killing intent, be it from beast or human.

So I took her to a mountain with a forest to let her train there for three months. She would have to train, hunt and fend off beasts all the time while I and Sabo took shifts to secretly watch her.

Naturally she absolutely wasn't ok with my methods, who would be in her place but after I showed her a semi-serious flying flash attack and telling her that she had to do such hard training if she wanted to reach this level showed her a goal worthy enough to endure my training.

She then adapted surprisingly fast. Building up enough stamina, doing the exercises to considerably strengthen the joint regions, building up some muscles, training the shown techniques and sparring regularly with both humans and beasts.

In less than 3 months she became the queen of that mountain, that forest and the surrounding 2 mountains.

Just too bad that this wasn't enough to calm Koushirou down. On the day when I brought her away, he actually attacked me, demanding I give her back and saying some shit about kidnapping.

I just told him where she is and that he can go by himself to get her back. His face when she refused to return with him was quite the sight to see.

At the beginning of this month, 2 months after her return from the mountain, they had a sparring match, in which Kuina proved to have become stronger than her father. They somehow made up but he still absolutely hates my guts.

Kuina learned soru, kami-e and rankyaku but she is still a bit far away from mastering them.

Sabo learned all techniques from rokushiki but has a lot to improve on. Since I trained her for almost half a year I naturally asked her to come with me and Sabo.

She told me that she was unsure and asked for more time so I gave her time till after her birthday, which is in 2 days. Maybe she still hasn't decided yet and asked Ibuku for advice.

By the way Ibuku is Hayato's wife. They are the banished family we met when we arrived on the island. Sometimes when we come here for training in the water, we would stop by their house. It started one day when I thought about how kind Ibuku was to us then, so we'd bring some weak sea king's meat after our training and eat together.

Sabo would mostly play with the twins, Haruto and Sakura and we somehow befriended their family during the last half a year.

Later, Kuina also came along even though she shouldn't have any contact with banished people, but no one rattled her out for that.

After having a small talk and a walk along the beach, we parted ways and returned to the inn, eager to have the next 5% of the synchronization rate installed in me.

Giving the command and absorbing the information that came along with it I was surprisingly surprised.

'advanced observation haki!'

My newest power up unlocked future sight!

'Really didn't expect that!'

18th September, 1513

Me, Sabo and Kuina are currently going to Hayato's house to say goodbye. Today we will go back to the sea and finally continue our journey.

Yesterday was Kuina's birthday and she openly told everybody that she would leave to join us. Her father showed a strange mixture of being proud, feeling sad and hating me even more.

In the middle of a discussion about ships we started along the way, Hayato's house appeared in our sights but something felt strange. Extremely so. Scanning the area with observation haki once, made my head numb and my blood run cold.

THIS I really didn't expect!