NIHM: Ch. 10

As for Pirate Kazuha's abilities, due to the lack of a chakra system and no energy-sharing function in the shared abilities, he currently couldn't use the Eight Gates.

On the contrary, Ninja Kazuha, relying on his extremely high vitality gained through shared training, managed to master the Eight Gates within just half a year of intense training.

However, the Eight Gates trained in this manner didn't result in the godlike "instant destruction" state like Guy's. Instead, it resembled a method of accelerating self-consumption to temporarily burst out an ultra-limit level of power.

He calculated that, without harming his foundation, he could achieve up to a 5x power state.

Although his 5x speed might not match the power of Guy's Death Gate, it was much stronger than Guy's Seventh Gate.

Kazuha didn't need to "burn with youth," this version of the Eight Gates was already more than sufficient. Most importantly, as his vitality continued to increase, the multiplier effect could continue to grow as well.

Perhaps one day, he would reach Guy's Death Gate state without injuring himself.

And that was his ambition.

---

In the One Piece world, Pirate Kazuha was also working hard for his future. After gaining ninja body training techniques from Ninja Kazuha's memory, he began a frenzy of training in Little Garden.

With rational training and sufficient nutrition, not only did he develop the Rokushiki, but his body also turned the "Life Return" state into a passive ability. From then on, as long as the injury wasn't fatal or permanently crippling, he could recover rapidly through nutrition.

In just two years, his strength had become completely incomparable to before.

His figure darted and leapt through the jungle. With agile movements, he appeared beside a triceratops and knocked it unconscious with a lightning-fast whip kick.

Just as he was about to prepare the dinosaur for a meal, he heard several distant booms.

He put down the dinosaur's body and leapt onto a towering tree, looking in the direction of the sound. Looking into the distance, he saw that in a part of Little Garden near his location, several ships were approaching.

After watching for a while, he understood what was happening.

It seemed that several factions were fighting: one group were pirates, another were Marines, and the third seemed to be a merchant ship. It looked like the pirate ship was trying to plunder the merchant ship, and the Marine warship was escorting it.

At that moment, the two ships were chasing and bombarding each other at sea, drawing closer and closer.

The merchant ship, seemingly damaged by cannon fire, was taking on water. Using its remaining strength, and taking advantage of the marines intercepting the pirate ship, it was making a desperate attempt to reach the island before sinking.

Seeing this, he felt a surge of interest and began leaping through the trees like a nimble monkey, rapidly heading in that direction.

When he arrived, the merchant ship had already sunk about a hundred meters from shore. The people on board were swimming to the beach with all their strength, and it seemed they'd make it safely.

Meanwhile, the marine warship and the pirate ship were still pursuing each other, drawing closer to the island as their distance narrowed.

When they were about five hundred meters from Little Garden, the two ships finally collided. Or rather, the pirate ship rammed into the marine warship. Pirates wielding sabers and guns leapt onto the marine ship, and a fierce battle broke out.

Although the Marines were well-trained, they couldn't match the ferocity of bloodthirsty pirates. One pirate in particular stood out, a massive, three-meter-tall man. After jumping aboard the marine ship, he charged like a wild bull.

Anyone he got close to was sent flying over ten meters.

Some Marines were knocked into the sea, while others coughed up blood and collapsed on the deck.

A few Marines who were about to fire their guns were swiftly dodged by the enemy, then sent flying over ten meters by a charging attack, landing in the sea and disappearing beneath the waves.

Kazuha watched this scene unfold, and it once again reminded him of the woman he saw when he first opened his eyes after transmigrating. If there had been no pirates, perhaps he could've lived a decent life even without awakening any special powers.

"The anime really romanticized this world. Pirate crews like Luffy's are more like tour groups. Real pirates are never kind, and they never chase dreams. What they call 'freedom' is just lawless indulgence. And the so-called dreams are nothing more than excuses to pursue their desires," he murmured to himself as he watched the pirates, who had destroyed the Marine warship, begin to head toward the island to finish off the survivors. His gaze gradually turned cold.

That expression in his eyes only ever appeared when he was starving.

Silently, he concealed himself within the jungle, waiting for the pirates to arrive. He had watched the earlier battle carefully. To put it simply, he felt it wouldn't be difficult to handle them. However, being cautious by nature, he never fought a battle he wasn't sure he could win.

This was his first time planning to take action against pirates without Dorry and Brogy around to provide backup.

And more than that, he was preparing to kill.

He wasn't sure if he might mess up. So, he decided to play it safe.

Soon, the group of pirates came shouting into Little Garden.

They seemed unaware of the island's dangers. Upon arriving, they were immediately ambushed by a saber-toothed tiger, resulting in one death and one injury. However, that saber-toothed tiger was soon heavily injured by the pirates' concentrated firepower and then hacked to death in a flurry of blades.

From this, it was clear the pirates weren't just a disorganized bunch, they had decent coordination and teamwork.

Even so, when Kazuha saw the saber-toothed tiger dismembered by them, he shook his head. In this forest, saber-toothed tigers were considered ordinary creatures, no more dangerous than wild rabbits in a normal jungle. Though not powerful themselves, their blood carried a scent that could attract many predators who loved to feed on them.

Before the pirates could brag about their bravery, one of them was snatched from above by a pterosaur and flown off into the distance. That direction was likely the location of the pterosaur's nest.

There, the pterosaur would probably use its sharp beak to maim the pirate's limbs and then use its jagged, razor-like teeth to tear the flesh from his body bit by bit, feeding the freshest meat to its not-yet-weaned young.

Pterosaur eggs tasted bad, far too fishy, with a strange rubbery aftertaste. However, the wings of the mutant dragon were a rare delicacy. Paired with honey from a wild giant bee hive in the jungle, they made for an incredibly tasty honey-glazed wing dish.

Don't ask how he knew that.