Wayne eyed the hot-headed teen before him and let a hint of mockery curl his lips.
"You don't even know what Haki is, yet you dream of sailing the Grand Line?"
He folded his arms. "Out there, warriors who wield Haki are as common as seashells on a beach. A rookie like you wouldn't last a day."
That was a lie, of course, but Ace had no way of knowing. For the first time, doubt tugged at his confidence. He had crushed more than a dozen pirate crews in East Blue since eating the Flame–Flame Fruit, and the string of easy victories had swollen his ego.
"You're kidding. The Grand Line can't be crawling with monsters like you!"
"Why would I bother lying?" Wayne said, though he was doing exactly that. He raised a fist that glimmered black. "See this? Armament Haki. It hardens the body for both attack and defense and more importantly, it lets me hit Logia users."
Black spread from his knuckles to his forearm. In a blur of motion he closed the gap and drove that fist into Ace's jaw.
"Elemental shift!"
Ace tried to disperse into flames, but without Observation Haki he could not foresee the strike. The punch hurled him through the air and smashed a boulder behind him.
"I told you Armament is the bane of every Logia."
Wayne's cold gaze slid past Ace to the soaked pirates gathering onshore. "Get up, or your crew will die next."
"Flame Wall Flame Cage!"
Two blazing walls rose to box Wayne in. Ace shouted to his men, "Go! I'll catch up!"
"Captain, we can't leave you!"
"Idiots, I can always turn to fire and escape. You'll just get in my way."
The crew hesitated until the first mate, Deuce black eyepatch and all barked, "Trust the captain. We'll wait in Loguetown for his victory!"
He herded the others toward their emergency launch. Just before casting off, Deuce looked back. He understood Ace's real motive: sparing them from a slaughter.
Wayne heard every word through Observation Haki yet made no move to stop them; killing had never been his goal. He simply needed Ace to rethink the Grand Line.
Once every pirate was gone, he gripped his sword and spun. White arcs of compressed air whirled around him, shredding the twin fire walls in seconds.
"Didn't expect you to be the sentimental type, kid."
Ace, battered and bleeding, steadied himself. "Shut up. Take this Divine Flame: Shiranui!"
Wayne dodged easily, taunting with each sidestep. To Ace it felt like a cat toying with a mouse.
"I said it already. With Observation Haki you can't touch me. Why not try predicting my strikes ah, but you're far too green to sense an enemy's aura, aren't you?"
He delivered the lesson in the guise of ridicule. "By the way, anger shuts Observation down completely. Stay calm and you can feel targets you can't even see. Call it intuition."
Ace ducked another slash, Wayne's words echoing in his head: prediction, aura, intuition…
Night crept in; silver moonlight washed over Wayne's mask, lending him an eerie mystique. He showered Ace with flying slashes, never lethal yet relentlessly precise, while Ace convinced himself Wayne was merely torturing him.
After who knew how many exchanges
Ace finally slipped into elemental form a split-second early, letting a Haki-laced slash whistle through harmlessly.
"Oh?"
Wayne checked the golden Rolex on his wrist. "Barely ten hours and you've taken your first step into Observation. Impressive talent."
He sent two more Haki slashes. Ace dodged one but the second cut deep into his thigh. He toppled with a howl.
By now his arms, torso, back, and legs were etched with dozens of controlled wounds serious but never fatal.
"So that last dodge was luck? No. You're sensing auras but can't use the skill smoothly yet." Wayne sheathed his sword. "What you need now is repetition endless repetition."
He looked as if measuring his prey for a finishing blow, yet secretly flicked open the den-den mushi in his coat. After two rings he hung up without a word.
Ace, half-kneeling from blood loss, never noticed.
"All that's left," Wayne muttered, "is to wait for Robin to arrive."