Marineford HQ - Fortress.

Aizen stood in front of the mighty fortress, only amazement and appreciation could be seen from his deep black eyes.

Today was the day to report to the elite camp, and coincidently, the camp was located inside the fortress. Aizen finally understood the meaning of \'Elite\' before \'camp\'. Elites are already counted as the core of marine base and its future powerhouses.

Sadly, The mightiness of the fortress and its lavish training centers didn\'t attract young people, as every talent choose to walk the pirate road, leaving the marine corps with only average talented people.

Aizen in this week grow up a lot, as his body muscles were chiseled, and his height already surpassed 170cm (160cm before), and his tender face started to roughen.

His current appearance made him appear like any other teenager in the training camp, Aizen himself was a little surprised at the fact, maybe when he turn 18, he wouldn\'t wonder if he already passed the 190cm mark, not that he mind, after all, his master was about 185cm.

Every sėxy woman in one piece world was that tall, if he wasn\'t taller, he would be ashamed.

"Aizen kun?" As Aizen was watching the giant fortress with an unfocused expression, he heard someone calling him.

Turning his head, he was surprised as he met with another interesting character.

A slender, curvaceous young woman in a navy mentor attire. Reddish-brown eyes and dark blue hair that cascaded over her shoulders while framing her face.

She had a serious look on her face while eying Aizen. From what he understood from her eyes that spoke volumes, was that she wanted him to validate his identity.

"Yes, and you are?" Asked Aizen, but inwardly, he was reminded of the massacre that will happen in 4 years of time. Z passed his whole life accumulating merits and training disciples, a former admiral, but at the end, he wasn\'t even spared when he lost his value.

"My name is Ain, I\'m a disciple under the care of Z sensei, and also a mentor!" Answered the meticulous Ain with her poker face, but deep inside, her admiration couldn\'t be hidden.

After all Aizen was the little \'hero\' of the marines.

"Let me guide you to the elite camp training ground!" Ain started walking inside the fortress, and Aizen tagged along.

The inside of the fortress were even bigger than what appeared from outside. There were multiple floors, and it seems that every one of those floors had some kind of utility.

Inquiring Ain, she told him that the higher floors were the offices of the Admirals, the fleet Admiral along with the Vice Admirals,Training facilities, resting rooms and conference rooms.

The middle floors were for the Rear Admirals and Commodores while the lower floors were for the Elite camp and the intelligence network (bounties, reports, communications monitoring...)

As the elite camp was in the third floor, it didn\'t take much, and as Aizen suspected, he saw one of the early presented marines in one piece, Smoker with his cigar.

He was currently getting reprimanded by Z.

"Idiot disciple, I told you thousands of times that there are plenty of ways to kill you, your smoke ability may make you feel invincible for now, but that\'s it, the moment you enter the real world, you would ended up as a corpse!" Z shouted the last line, it was full of meaning, but Smoker didn\'t really buy it.

"Sensei, I\'m confident in my ability, I heard that there is a rare metal that\'s called \'sea stone\', If I was able to accumulate merits and get some forged to a weapon, I would have advantage against pirates even if they were devil fruit users!" Answered Smoker, Sea stone was something that only the navy and the W.G have in hand, there is of course sea stone in the black market, but as it was pricy, not many people could buy it, while the government could produce it easily. (Vegapunk)

Z forehead was full of black lines as this disciple don\'t seem to understand at all. But Aizen was a little bit confused.

The way smoker spoke could only mean that he has no idea that a power called \'Haki\' exist.

Z turned away to look towards the coming duo, and his face couldn\'t help but turn delighted.

He turned again towards Smoker and said.

"The new elite recruits, did you met them in the training grounds? what do you think?"Asked Z strangely.

"Weak, They couldn\'t even touch me, there were two interesting recruits, one with a Zoan fruit, but other than defending for some minutes, he couldn\'t guard more than that. The other one with rust fruit damaged my weapon, that\'s why I thought about forging one with sea stone to cover my weakness." Said Smoker, the last part surely made him pissed. either way, he was the same as the dino boy, he couldn\'t take a beating.

Smoker was like the king of recruits here, with his logia power, he was someone with good future, under such an environment, it was no wonder that he was arrogant, still he was not a bad person either, just flatly honest.

Aizen turned towards Ain and asked her the question that bugged his mind.

"Ain Sama, this white haired boy, isn\'t he a little idiot? he don\'t know about haki?" Asked Aizen in a weak voice, only for Ain to hear.

Her calm facade was almost destroyed hearing such a cute boy calling her \'Sama\'. She who could control her emotions quite well almost lose it all, but she didn\'t deny it, she quite like it a lot.

"Aizen kun, it\'s not strange, one at least need to comprehend the superhuman six style martial arts to get to know about haki, not everyone is knowledgable or talented to awaken his haki, so a lot of elite recruits graduate and they still didn\'t master the six styles!"Answered Ain without showing any annoyance.

Aizen finally understood, the six arts truly seems to be haki basics. Tekkai for hardening, Kami-e for dodging, while the other arts focus on footworks (Suru Geppo) or swordsmanship (Rankyaku, shigan)

Seimei Kikan for better controlling the power.

The more he thought about it, the more amazed he look. It may look random, but every art accomplish the other leaving the one without shortcoming or weaknesses, no wonder rob lucci was that overpowered.

"Aizen boy, come here!"Z suddenly shouted towards Aizen, who walked towards him.

"Yes Z sensei?" Asked Aizen, while inwardly he could guess that Z would use him to trash Smoker.

"At the island ȧssessment, you seems to be able to use that \'mystical\' force, right?" Z asked profoundly.

"Hm? yes, although I\'m not really skillful, I still have 50-50 chance!" Aizen answered \'truthfully\'. He would never say that he already master the basics, and could harden a part of his body. It wasn\'t some great achievement, but for someone of his age, having 50-50 was already top genius.

"Smoker, how about fighting Aizen?" Asked Z with meaningful look.

"Ho, so you are the one that was called \'hero\' lately, I heard that you awakened some mystical force that could allow you to sense danger? a power that could only obtained by Vice admiral, but that\'s it, even if you sense danger, you would still get beaten up." Said Smoker not putting him in his eyes. It was a teenager jealousy, as even though, he said that, his side eyes never left Aizen.

Aizen of course wouldn\'t put a weakling nonsense such as smoker in his eyes, he could faintly understand why Shanks would listen to other people insults while not showing a reaction.

He was an emperor and yet. It was that simple, no one would care about ants.

Smoker may be a good character in one piece, but currently he was only a brat with a narcissistic disorder.

Aizen still didn\'t change his expression, but the \'Sama\' that he liked to use, was degraded to \'kun\'.

"Smoker kun was it? I don\'t really know why you are so arrogant, but it should be better to tune it down, Z sensei didn\'t ask us to spare, he is blatantly asking me to beat you up!" Aizen said calmly while still keeping a polite smile on his face.

Z and Ain were both taken back.

Z was impressed how ruthlessly honest the boy was, along with the fact that he added a kun in his talk, that only shows how Aizen look down on Smoker. Not power, but character.

Gion always praised her disciple as polite, and would always add sama to anyone he respect or appreciate. The fact that Smoker was labeled with a kun, already put him beneath his respect.

Ain on the other counterpart, was shocked, she never thought that the polite boy would have a second facade.

Smoker hearing Aizen words, almost lost his calm, it wasn\'t because he knew the secret behind the suffix, rather, he could feel a degrading intent. The boy was deliberately looking down on him.

Turning his head towards Z sensei, he didn\'t hear a retort, quite, he seems to approve.

Losing his last shred of calmness, his waist suddenly turned to smoke, and his upper body moved with a fast speed. It didn\'t take more than second to appear in front of Aizen, smirking ruthlessly, he launched his arm like a missile towards the boy \'pretty\' face.

Aizen calmly raised his finger, and stopped the fist with a simple finger. the finger was imbued with black mystical power (Haki).

Smoker failed to understand what happened, He is a logia, how could he be touched? did the boy finger armed with sea stones, that must be it! His feeling was like a roller coster as he was apprehensive, confused, as inexperienced he was, just the fact that something that he didn\'t know appeared in front of him throw his whole body in chaos.

Ain was amazed, it seems the observation Haki wasn\'t the only merit of this boy.

"confused? scared? is that your all?" Asked Aizen calmly, but his taunt was clear crystal.

The young smoker face turned red with shame, he took his hand back, while his teeth clenched hardly on his cigar, almost tearing it apart in the process.

He started launching all kind of attacks. This time Aizen didn\'t move from his place, he only titled his head.

Smoker attacks focused on Aizen face, because, that calm face pissed him off. He wanted to punch it.

"Your attacks are even getting weaker than the first attack, Smoker kun, aren\'t you a little bit shameless thinking that you only need a sea stone weapon, and you could rule the world?" Taunted Aizen, but the way he said it could only described as friendly advice. His calm face and polite smile on the other hand only appeared like a demon from Smoker point of view.

"Aaaaaah!" Screamed Smoker as he launched his most stronger attack.

"Ok, let\'s end this, I still have some lessons to take." Aizen calmly raised his leg, predicting his attack pattern.

Smoker only saw a black shoe in front of his face, then it was dark.

Smoker body that crashed in Aizen right foot, was sent flying towards the training ground, destroying a lot of dummies and tools in his trip.

Ain gasped, that was smoker the \'king\' of the elite camp, he couldn\'t even put up a fight?

Z wasn\'t surprised as he expected, but he didn\'t thought that it was that easy.

\'The brat Observation haki is strong, he got even stronger this week!\' Exclaimed Z internally.

"Z sensei, I think some merit points won\'t be much, right?" Aizen said towards Z with a polite smile, Z was a little bit dumbfounded, but he soon started laughing.

"Little brat, I think I owe you that much!" Z said happily. not minding this audacious side from this little prodigy.

Z wanted to use Aizen as a sharpening stone to get Smoker stop being arrogant and train his martial arts more. Aizen didn\'t mind as he knew that Z didn\'t really think badly of him, it was an unconscious move, without bad intentions.

Aizen didn\'t mind to help, and he may almost broke Smoker in the process. But if he was that soft, It\'s better to be broken.

Ain blinked her eyes as she couldn\'t understand what the two of them were talking about.

Z took Aizen towards his office while Ain left to tend her own tasks.

The two chatted a little, Z was really a kind hearted man, he explained everything about the camp to Aizen, and answered his doubts about \'merit points\' that heard Smoker talk about.

Merit points could be redeemed as martial arts, devil fruits, weapons, informations...

It seems that every month, there would be recruit combat ȧssessment / speed competition etc... (something similar) and the winner would be granted points.

Every recruit that showed a good character, discipline and improvement would be granted some too. Z was the one responsible of distributing those points.

Also every year, Z would take them out to hunt some pirates, to get a feel of a true battlefield.

Aizen merit points made him able to redeem 4 martial arts, so he choose the lacking ones.

Precisely : Kami-e - Tekkai - Rankyaku - Shigan

Haki Training wasn\'t really something to be teach in the elite camp (Vice Admiral classified knowledge), but Z promised him that he will personally train him.

The Camp didn\'t ask the recruits to come everyday, you can use the training center freely, and Z would only guide from time to time. Only people with potential that could catch his eyes would be treated as true elite disciples. (Smoker - Ain ...)

It may be favoritism, but the resources are there for talented people, wastes aren\'t that privileged. The world laws may differ from a world to other, but there is always one kind of rule that doesn\'t change. (Jungle Law)

Aizen left Z sensei office, and went back to Gion empty house. The people looked towards him with awe and respect. All the glory that Smoker accumulated in years was stolen in a blink by him.

Pathetic...

Aizen smiled politely while nodding.

The bar in his sight seems to come into a bottleneck, as the scanning seems very slow. It would take at least a year or so to broke through the 5% mark.

He may have to go look for islands with weird climates or probe the Whitebeard quakes, or Big Mom Soul Fruit. He was also interested in Marco phoenix power. Having those blueish wings would look cool on him.

Aizen couldn\'t help but smirk, but the people that passed by his side thought of it as the most innocent smile.

And just like that, a year should soon pass by.