A 'Friendly' Spar

Side by side, we walked to a quieter part of the forest. Rayleigh didn't want to cause extensive damage to the campsite just because we were having a friendly spar. Soon we arrived at an open field. It was quiet as we were getting to our respective stances, and we stared at each other as we prepared to attack. That moment arrived the moment a bird chirped before fluttering away, leaving a feather slowly trailing down on the ground between us. The moment that feather dropped, we lunged at each other; Rayleigh having his sword covered in haki as he raised it over his head. Whereas I had my axe covered in haki as well, swinging it from below, the moment our blades made contact. The impact instantly flattened all the trees around the surrounding area, a loud boom could be heard from a distance as we both unleashed Conqurer's Haki simultaneously while our blades remained against each other. 

I had been training with my axe ever since I got back to the ship, the blade was more on the heavier side to my liking. Moreover, the handle was as long as a staff making it only a little bit taller than I was in total height. Although that didn't matter, I was slowly growing taller as the days passed. So I knew I would be able to outgrow my weapon soon enough. Additionaly, the more I trained with the axe, like covering it with haki, swinging it about 5,000 times daily, and such; the more I got used to it. In the anime, there weren't many known axe users save for 'Scoppers' Gaban who dual wielded two short axes. So learning how to attack efficiently while maneuvering efficiently took quite a bit of time to do. However, where there was a will, there was damn sure a way.

We both jumped back from our initial clash and took some distance from each other, the first clash was always just a way to gauge each other's strength. The one who would be pushed back first would always be deemed as the weaker one during the fight. We started our second clash briefly after, this time instead of going for a direct collision, Rayleigh instead went for a feint. Attempting to trick me into defending my left lower side instead of my head, but I never took the bait. After finishing the bait and the sequence in which he would be aiming for my head, he had left his chest wide open. So, I took the oppurtunity to give him a push kick right there to get some distance. Followed by a large one handed swing as retaliation for his initial attack. 

The first hit managed to push him away, unfortunately the second hit never landed as he had quickly raised his guard to block my attack. What made me surprised however, was the fact that he managed to bring my swing to a complete stop. His feet didn't even budge an inch at the moment of impact. 'Fucking monster' I thought to myself as I brought the blade of my axe back to my side. Rayleigh managed to bring his sword back to his side as well, before remarking "You're pretty strong, for a man as young as yourself." I raised my axe as I prepared for another attack and gave my remarks on him as well, "You're....pretty strong too." To that Rayleigh pulled his head back before laughing and said, "Slow talker, eh?" We met each other for another series of clashes, each attack getting more lethal than the other. It seemed like he wanted to fully gauge my strength by scaling up as we continued to fight. 

I was also curious to see my limits as well, so we continued fighting for quite some time. The day slowly turned into night as we continued fighting. It appears that Rayleigh was getting tired of holding back while fighting me. While we distanced from each other, He began to infuse Conqurer's haki to his blade. He smirked at me before saying, "It's time to take this fight up a level or two, young man!" Conqurer's haki infusion? 'Fuck it here's to trying' I bitterly thought to myself as I slowly channeled my haki to my axe. The blade turned black at first, before slowly turning a slightly lighter shade of silver at the end of the blade. 'Success!' With enlightenment along with a small stroke of luck, I had managed to successfully make a Conqurer's haki infused blade. 

Rayleigh looked at me with a prideful smirk, like a teacher who watched their student successfully passed an exam. Slowly, I raised my weapon in preparation for our next clash. We both formed after images as we went full speed at each other, our clash impacting an even greater circumference of the surrounding area. It got so bad that the weather slowly started to deteriorate as clouds started to form. We had another set of collisions each one just getting more harder and faster than the previous clash. As I clashed with him, I was beginning to learn more ways to use my axe in battle. Rayleigh was fast, I had to push my Observation haki to its absolute limits in order to keep up with his movements.

Suddenly, Rayleigh jumped and landed right on the blade of my axe when I was going to attack him with a downward swing. When the blade struck the earth right in front of him, he jumped and landed right on the bladeless side of the axe. Before jumping back and doing a backflip and sending several blades of red slashes my way. My instincts warned me of the danger imposed by those slashes, so I raised my blade once more and slammed it to the ground with even more force. The ground beneath me gave in to the devastating power of the axe that I brought down, rocks and boulders flew up to the sky not only serving as a smoke screen, but also a mini barrier to buy me a few seconds to escape the barrage of attacks that Rayleigh had sent my way. This 'friendly' spar was far from over, in fact, it had only just begun.