Two weeks passed by in a blur of welts and bruises for Marcus. Two weeks that made Marcus regret every decision he ever made in his new life leading up to the point where he thought asking Garp to train him in haki was a good idea…
But a few days before Garp left something clicked for all of the boys and they were able to somewhat sense the attacks coming. It wasn't enough to allow them to dodge, but it was a massive step up from before. Garp celebrated the improvement by beating them non-stop for the last two days before he left. Marcus wasn't sure if that helped them improve any faster, but Garp seemed happy with it.
Just before Garp left he handed Marcus a decent sized diary and said, "I don't have time to teach you armament, but this should help you boys learn the very basics. You can read it now, but it won't be very useful until you unlock the basics of observation haki."
Marcus took the diary with his bruised hands as he said through swollen lips, "Thanks grandpa…"
Garp laughed and smacked Marcus on his sore back which made Marcus hiss in pain before Garp said, "I'll hopefully be back within a year. When I call and ask where you are, you better tell me…"
Garp's eyes narrowed as he focused on Marcus and asked, "If you try and send me on a wild goose chase again, we'll have more training sessions just like this, do you understand?"
Marcus reluctantly nodded before Garp laughed and smacked him on the back again as he said, "Good!"
Once Garp officially left, Marcus, Ace and Sabo dropped from complete exhaustion and slept for over a day straight. After they woke up and ate a large meal, they went off alone to check out the book Garp left them. At first Marcus thought it was something Garp threw together before he left, but Marcus and the others were completely stunned when they realized the truth.
The book was a personal journal Garp started when he was younger and detailed his insights into training, fighting, Rokushiki and haki. Sure it wasn't perfect and some stuff wasn't gone over in exact detail. But that didn't really matter since the basics were still explained and laid out for them to understand, along with Garp's insights into everything. After reading some of the journal, the boys all shared a long look before Ace asked, "Won't sharing this stuff with us get gramps in trouble?"
"If someone found out… Maybe. But I don't think grandpa cares at this point." Marcus said as he looked through the book for Garp's insights into observation haki.
It took a few minutes because the book was written haphazardly with no real order to it. But a little past halfway into the book Marcus found notes about haki and started to read them as Ace and Sabo glanced over his shoulder. They read the book for a good half an hour before Marcus's right eye started to twitch in annoyance. In the book they found a note from Garp complaining about how other people trained observation haki and what he considered it 'the pussy way' to do it.
Apparently the standardized marine way was still using a blindfold, but instead of beating people half to death. They would hit with almost no force and would use different items to give variety to the training. Apparently when you use different items it helps your senses adjust to the training easier. So instead of a stick, they would use a larger feather, squirt gun, rubber ball or anything else they found.
The main thing was changing it up repeatedly because it helped expand the person's senses. Garp on the other hand didn't care for that method and had some lower ranked marines just beat him with metal poles until he learned it himself…
Marcus shared a glance with his brothers after reading that information before Sabo happily said, "On the bright side, grampa only used a regular wooden stick on us…"
Marcus shook his head slightly before he said, "The crazy old man aside, at least we have a better way to practice now."
Ace nodded along before he said, "With gramps gone, we'll need to find some help if we all want to train at the same time now."
"We can do normal training with everyone else and then after dinner we could have Zeff help us." Sabo said after a few moments of thought.
Marcus nodded in agreement before he added, "That should work. I'm pretty sure he would be happy to hit us with different things."
They spent the next couple hours reading over the journal together before they went to meet everyone else. It was late afternoon and everyone was sparring with each other just outside the village. Ace and Sabo decided to join the others, while Marcus only stopped to watch them for a few minutes before he headed towards Bellemere's orchard. This was the first bit of free time he's had since his fight with Arlong and wanted to see how much damage was caused to the place. He knew Arlong cut down at least a dozen trees during their fight, but his last attack only probably doubled that amount.
Marcus made his way to the area and everything looked pretty normal at first, especially around Bellemere's house. But as he walked deeper into the orchard where the main fight happened, he heard people talking. A man's voice carried from behind some trees as he said, "I'll see about getting some people from the village to help with everything."
"I know it doesn't help much, but at least we can turn all of this into usable firewood."
"It's fine. I'm not really upset, the main thing is we're all still alive… I can rebuild." A woman's voice carried over as Marcus stepped out of the tree line and saw the first cut down tree from the fight.
Marcus moved in the direction of the voices and jumped up into the air to clear one of the fallen trees. As he cleared the tree his eyes widened at the sight before him. It was the spot where Arlong had slammed him into the ground and the same spot he released his conqueror's haki. Every tree past that spot was cut in half and as far as Marcus could tell, about half the orchard was destroyed.
Marcus didn't go unnoticed as he landed a few feet away from Bellemere and Genzo who turned towards him. Marcus smiled and gave a friendly wave as he said, "Looks like my fight with Arlong got a little out of control… Sorry about that."
Bellemere's left eye started to twitch as Genzo asked in concern, "What are you doing up? Didn't the doctor say you had multiple bone fractures and would be in bed for months to heal properly?
"I've been training with my grandpa the last couple weeks, didn't you see me walking through town?"
Genzo shook his head before he said, "After making sure everyone was fine and had a place to stay, that Bogard fellow took me with him to turn in the bounties for those fishmen."
"Your grandpa wanted us to claim the bounty and use it to help with any damage caused to the village." Genzo said as he gestured to the cut down trees before he added, "I just got back the other day when your grandpa left."
Marcus nodded before he turned towards Bellemere and said with a smile and a wink, "Well on the bright side of things, you can now plant some other variety of fruit trees to help diversify your income. It should make you less poor in the long run since not everyone wants mikans."
"You cheeky little brat…" Bellemere said as she rolled up her sleeves and stomped towards Marcus.
A cocky smirk played across Marcus's face as he asked, "What's wrong? You're not upset with me are you? Didn't you just say everything was fine and you could rebuild?"
Bellemere charged at Marcus who jumped over to land on one to the trees he chopped down and waved a hand towards everything around him as he said, "I'm starting to feel like you said everything is fine, but you're still blaming me for all of this."
"Of course I'm blaming you! You lead him out here, when you could have gone anywhere else to fight!" Bellemere said as she ran towards Marcus who was standing atop a tree stump.
Marcus shrugged as he said, "It was the safest place to lead him without the chance of running into more people."
"You two destroyed over half my orchard with your fight!"
"Actually, Arlong only cut down those handful of trees over there." Marcus said as he pointed to the ones smashed apart rather than cut.
Bellemere and Genzo both turned to look at the trees in question before Marcus gestured to everything else that was cleanly cut in half as he said proudly, "I cut all of those down with one slash."
Both of them paused at that statement, but Bellemere recovered first as she started to charge towards Marcus again as she said, "I don't care if you're Garp-san's grandson. I'm gonna whip you till you can't even walk!"
"Wow, settle down old lady. I already told you I'm not interested in that kinda relationship with someone like you." Marcus said with a playful smirk before he disappeared from view.
Marcus hid from the pissed off Bellemere until she finally left with Genzo about ten minutes later. Once they were gone Marcus came out from his spot hidden in the leaves of a downed tree and glanced around. He shook his head slightly to himself before he walked over to one of the tree stumps that were about three feet tall. He centered up on the stump before he grabbed it with both hands.
With a bit of effort and energy he was able to wiggle the stump a little after a few moments. He adjusted his grip slightly after a few tries and once satisfied he yanked on the stump with all of his strength. The wood groaned as his hands dug into the tree bark, but after a few seconds the tree started to move towards him. Marcus didn't waste time and as he pulled on the tree he stepped backwards at the same time. After half a minute of struggle, Marcus was able to rip the tree stump and its roots from the ground.
Once out of the ground, Marcus slammed the stump into the ground a few times to knock off as much dirt from the roots as possible. Then he easily carried it off to one side of the orchard and placed it down. With a spot picked, Marcus grabbed the closest tree stump and ripped that one out of the ground the same way. Within half an hour, Marcus had a decent area set up to one side of the orchard filled with tree stumps and the other half of the cut down trees.
Marcus glanced out over the space and let out a sigh as he realized this would take him the rest of the day to clean up the mess he made. With a slight shake of his head Marcus headed towards the next stump to get everything over with. Marcus didn't really pay attention to anything else as he cleared out the area of cut down trees. But as the sun started to set, he finished placing the last tree into the pile.
He glanced over the now mostly empty field for a few moments before he headed off to go eat dinner with everyone else. The next morning Genzo, Bellemere and a few other villagers head over towards the orchard to start the slow process of clearing the trees and processing fire. With axes and saws in hand they came to the area from yesterday and froze in place. Before them was a pot marked field and to one side rested two neat piles, one of tree stumps and the other filled with trees.
Bellemere glanced over everything for a few moments before she snorted as she said, "That cocky little shit…"