"…Personal Justice."
Sheets of experimental data and half-finished schematics spiraled through the air in disarray. A massive machine wheezed smoke, and several indicator lights blinked a dull, warning red.
The laboratory had fallen deathly silent.
To Vegapunk and the others, the black-haired youth suddenly seemed impossibly tall.
They could only stare.
Stussy and Vegapunk were still struggling to breathe, faces drained pale. Cold sweat slicked Vegapunk's grotesquely oversized forehead—so much that it glistened under the lab's harsh lights.
If Borsalino hadn't pulled him back and taken the brunt of that blast, Vegapunk would have dropped like the modified creatures outside—eyes rolled back, consciousness snuffed out, no dignity left to defend.
Stussy wasn't faring much better. Sweat soaked through the back of her elegant dress; her lips had gone bloodless, and her vampire fangs had slipped out without her meaning to. Even though Darren's aura hadn't been aimed at her, it had still triggered a primitive, screaming certainty in her skull:
Death.
A pressure so dense it felt as though the air had thickened into steel, as though the space around her had been nailed in place.
If Darren turned that Conqueror's Haki on her in earnest… she wouldn't even be able to twitch a finger.
Killing her would be no more difficult than crushing an ant.
That was how terrifying it was.
And yet, in truth, the most stunned person in the room was Darren himself.
Did I just… break through?
He stood there as if his mind had slipped half a beat behind reality, staring down at his own callused hands, unable to process what had just happened.
His Perception talent flared on instinct, and the familiar readout surfaced in his mind like a cold number stamped onto his nerves.
Conqueror's Haki: 90.000!
That number filled him with a strange, dizzying awe.
From 89.999 to 90.000.
A difference of 0.001—so small it was almost a joke. And yet that hair-thin gap had been a canyon in front of him, a wall he hadn't been able to climb no matter what he threw at it.
No opponent had moved it.
No crisis had shaken it loose.
No amount of grinding had dragged it forward—even a fraction.
It had been too long.
Long enough that Darren could barely remember when he'd started calling it an impasse instead of a challenge.
At some point, he'd even begun to treat that breakthrough as something to circle back to someday, redirecting his focus into what could be measured, trained, and forced upward: physique, strength, speed; Armament Haki, Observation Haki.
Those could be improved methodically.
Conqueror's Haki—will made into power—didn't obey tidy formulas.
And yet, here on Egghead, it had cracked open.
Only after a few stunned breaths did Darren piece together why.
Conqueror's Haki, at its core, was the power born from an unstoppable will and an overwhelming spirit.
The firmer the conviction, the larger the spirit behind it, the stronger that Haki became.
In his conversation with Vegapunk, Darren had unknowingly reaffirmed the thing at the deepest center of him—his own definition of justice, his own way of living.
Personal Justice.
And with months of accumulated training already built up beneath his feet, that final, stubborn step had at last found its footing.
0.001 looked ridiculous on paper.
But to Darren, it was a qualitative leap.
Because it meant the lock had finally broken.
It meant the ceiling wasn't absolute.
It meant… there was room above.
His eyes brightened. Slowly, without realizing it, Darren clenched his fist.
Zzzzzzz!
A burst of crimson-black lightning snapped across his palm—violent, vivid, alive—before he tightened his grip and crushed it into nothing.
The sight made Stussy's eyelids twitch.
Vegapunk's breath hitched.
Even Borsalino's smile deepened, turning faintly unreadable.
Darren froze again, brow tightening as he replayed what he'd felt.
This wasn't just more power.
It was sharper.
Cleaner.
More controllable—like something had been filed down, honed, refined into a different grade altogether.
If Conqueror's Haki below 90 had been a rampaging Tyrannosaurus—pure domination, sweeping destruction—
Then now it felt like that same beast had gained focus.
Speed.
Precision.
Like raw brutality had been tempered into a predator's cold intent.
Could it be…?
A half-remembered thought surfaced, flickering at the edge of his mind.
If I keep training in this direction… could I finally master Conqueror's Haki coating?
The idea alone made the stale air in his lungs feel lighter.
He let out a long breath, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a faint, satisfied curve.
So this is what clarity feels like.
There were no new "tricks" yet—no dramatic outward transformation that could be named and paraded.
But Darren was certain of one thing.
That day wasn't far anymore.
"How terrifying," Borsalino drawled at last, breaking the silence with his usual lazy sarcasm. "Your Haki got even stronger."
He scratched his head as if genuinely troubled, then spread his hands. "This is a real headache, Darren. At this point, it's even more impossible for me to arrest you—our dear 'Government's sworn enemy.'"
"Your Conqueror's Haki is so potent it's starting to affect reality itself… Under that kind of pressure, even maintaining my elemental transformation is getting difficult."
Darren rolled his eyes.
You never intended to arrest me in the first place.
Truthfully, Darren was almost disappointed.
Not out of pride—out of curiosity.
He wanted to see what Borsalino could really do.
Because if Vegapunk's mind had sharpened Darren's perspective on his own path in just a few minutes, then what about Borsalino?
A man the World Government trusted enough to let him come and go from Egghead freely.
The man closest to Vegapunk.
To be continued...