Every pair of eyes on deck turned toward Kid, waiting for his decision.
Kid slowly swept his sharp gaze across the faces of his crew.
He saw fear hidden in the wrinkles of the older sailors. He saw the uncertain light in the younger men's eyes gradually dim. Even the warriors who were normally fearless had begun to tremble faintly as they gripped their weapons.
At last, Kid looked past all of them toward the distant Eternal Divine Kingdom, its silhouette bathed in brilliant light on the horizon.
That land radiated an almost unnatural sense of power, inspiring equal measures of awe and apprehension.
His thoughts returned to the rumors surrounding Ron.
One slash.
That was supposedly all it had taken for Ron to cut down an Admiral.
And the Divine Kingdom itself had already demonstrated strength terrifying enough to haunt anyone who understood what had happened there. Its monstrous fighters, strange technologies, and enormous military power all pointed toward the same conclusion.
This was no longer a force anyone could casually ignore.
"We can't keep watching from the sidelines."
Kid's voice was low, but every word carried grim resolve.
"This sea doesn't have room for neutrals anymore."
He clenched his jaw.
"We've got two choices. Either we stand around until one of those monsters comes along and crushes us into history…"
His voice faltered for the briefest instant.
"…or…"
Kid drew in a deep breath.
It felt almost like saying farewell to the version of himself that had once believed sheer pride and strength were enough to survive anything.
Then he shouted the decision he would once have considered unthinkable.
"Turn the ship around!"
"Set course for the Eternal Divine Kingdom!"
He paused.
His fist clenched so tightly that his knuckles cracked.
Pride.
Self-respect.
Every instinct that had carried him this far rebelled against what he was about to say.
Reality did not care.
Kid gritted his teeth.
"We're going to…"
His expression twisted.
"…pledge ourselves to them!"
The words hit the deck like a cannon blast.
Silence followed.
Absolute silence.
The entire crew stared at him in stunned disbelief.
Some looked angry, as though their captain had just trampled on everything they stood for.
Others looked frightened, wondering whether sailing willingly into the Divine Kingdom was any safer than staying where they were.
A few simply lowered their heads and began thinking through the consequences.
Whatever their reactions, everyone understood one thing.
From this moment onward, the fate of the Kid Pirates had changed completely.
Kid felt as though someone had slapped him across the face.
Hard.
The humiliation burned.
Yet beneath it, his mind had never been clearer.
A storm was gathering that would soon engulf the entire world.
Against forces this enormous, a pirate crew like his could be erased in an instant.
And if he wanted not only to survive but someday pursue the ambitions still burning inside him, then there was only one sensible move left.
Get behind the strongest power available.
Protection.
Resources.
Opportunity.
A chance to survive long enough to become stronger.
Kid hated admitting it.
That did not make it any less true.
"What the hell are you idiots staring at?!"
He suddenly wheeled around and roared at the crew.
"Raise the sails!"
His voice thundered across the deck.
"And lower our flag halfway!"
The crew jolted back into motion.
"We're going to the harbor right now and requesting an audience!"
Kid's expression hardened.
"Better to walk in there on our own feet than wait until they come knocking and end up begging on our knees!"
Sunlight flashed coldly across his metal arm.
There was no hesitation left in him.
The Kid Pirates' vessel slowly turned.
Its oars churned through the water, throwing up white foam as the massive ship changed course.
Like a beast finally committing itself to a direction, it began sailing toward the territory that had increasingly become the center of the entire world's fate—
the Eternal Divine Kingdom.
Whatever waited there, Kid and his crew would face it.
...
At the harbor of the Eternal Divine Kingdom, Kid stood rigidly beneath the sea breeze.
He lifted his head slightly and took a long breath.
Salt filled his lungs, accompanied by the strange pressure of entering territory belonging to a power he had once regarded as just another rival on the seas.
Kid clenched his teeth.
With considerable effort, he forced his usual temper and impatience down into the deepest corner of his mind.
His gloved hands repeatedly clenched into fists and relaxed again.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Each movement was an attempt to release some of the tension building inside him.
For Eustass Kid, simply standing here and behaving himself required almost as much effort as some battles.
Then an old memory surfaced.
"Mad Axe" Jason.
The miserable fate that man had suffered after provoking the Divine Kingdom rang through Kid's head like a warning bell.
He remembered exactly what had happened.
And he had absolutely no intention of becoming the next example.
...
What had happened to "Mad Axe" Jason had been nothing short of a tragedy.
A bounty of 830 million Berries was already enough to mark someone as a terrifying powerhouse capable of carving out territory and making a name for himself deep in the New World.
Yet even a pirate of that caliber had been destroyed simply because he showed disrespect toward what appeared to be an ordinary reception envoy.
His fleet had been annihilated.
His crew had been wiped out.
Blood had stained the sea, and in the end, neither Jason nor his men had survived.
That incident had taught everyone one thing about the Eternal Divine Kingdom.
It was domineering.
Utterly so.
It tolerated no challenge to its authority, protected its own people with almost unreasonable ferocity, and enforced its rules without compromise.
Anyone who crossed those lines paid the price.
Kid understood that perfectly.
Inside the Eternal Divine Kingdom, he was no longer the same "Captain" who could sail across the sea doing whatever the hell he wanted and deciding other people's lives according to his mood.
His bounty might have once been enough to make countless pirates wary of him.
His Magnet-Magnet Fruit might have allowed him to dominate battlefields by bending enormous quantities of metal to his will.
But before the Divine Kingdom's absolute order and unfathomable strength, those accomplishments suddenly felt painfully small.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Kid genuinely understood what it felt like to be the smaller creature entering someone else's territory.
And this time, the situation was fundamentally different.
He was the one asking for something.
Whatever pride or glory he had possessed before, Kid now stood at a crossroads where the support of the Eternal Divine Kingdom could determine whether he and his crew survived the coming age at all.
A storm powerful enough to tear apart the existing world order was approaching.
The old balance was collapsing.
For someone like Kid to survive that chaos—much less preserve enough strength to pursue his ambitions later—there was really only one realistic option.
Get under the protection of the strongest power available.
The initiative no longer belonged to him.
He knew it.
And he hated it.
When a Divine Kingdom envoy named Swart approached in spotless white robes, carrying an almost unnervingly calm presence, Kid immediately understood exactly what the man represented.
So he summoned every scrap of acting ability he possessed.
Which, admittedly, was not much.
Kid's naturally vicious expression underwent a painful transformation.
His facial muscles tightened and relaxed in awkward little adjustments as he tried desperately to make himself look less like he wanted to punch someone.
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
Forced the corners of his mouth upward.
And somehow produced what he apparently believed was a "friendly smile."
It looked like the expression had been carved out of stone with a blunt knife.
Still, he tried.
Swart calmly delivered the standard instructions for newly arrived forces entering Divine Kingdom territory.
Kid listened.
Every word felt like another reminder that he was no longer the one making the rules.
But he did not interrupt.
He did not argue.
He did not even complain.
After taking a deep breath, he forced his voice to remain steady.
"…Fine."
Kid glanced toward the path ahead.
"Lead the way."
The concession nearly hurt more than getting punched.
For someone with Kid's temperament, forcing himself to smile, speak politely, and suppress every instinct to challenge authority was somehow more exhausting than an actual battle.
Every courteous word felt dragged directly out of his soul.
Behind him, the Kid Pirates were equally subdued.
The usual loud, unruly atmosphere following a successful raid was nowhere to be found.
Instead, there was only quiet observation and calculation.
Killer, Kid's most trusted companion, silently wiped down his scythe-like weapons while looking across the crew from behind his mask.
Some still wore expressions of resentment.
Others looked uncertain.
But most had already reached a kind of resigned acceptance.
Then news reached the harbor that Marineford was being ravaged by Kaido and Bullet, with Marine Headquarters rapidly turning into a battlefield from hell.
A small stir passed through the crew.
It disappeared almost immediately.
No one celebrated what was happening to the Marines.
No one offered some careless pirate joke about it.
Killer even silenced several older crew members with a look before they could speak.
Everyone understood that their position had changed.
Their captain had chosen to submit to the Eternal Divine Kingdom.
That meant they were no longer merely a pirate crew free to do whatever they pleased.
They had become a blade beneath another banner.
And from now on, wherever that banner pointed—
that would be their battlefield.
"This sea stopped being a place where you can survive alone a long time ago."
Killer's voice came through his mask, low and heavy.
He looked around at the crew.
"You either stand with the Marines, or you stand against them."
His gaze dropped toward the cold identity tag issued by the Divine Kingdom in his hand.
"And right now, among everyone standing against them, the Eternal Divine Kingdom is the strongest."
Killer turned the tag slowly between his fingers.
"Picking a side sooner or later makes no difference."
His tone remained calm.
"Better to choose now than wait until somebody crushes us and we're forced to beg afterward."
"At least this way…"
He looked toward the towering territory ahead.
"…we've got someone strong enough behind us that most people will think twice before touching us."
No one argued.
They had witnessed the Divine Kingdom's strength.
They had heard the stories of Ron cutting down an Admiral with a single slash.
And they had personally seen a man as arrogant and untamable as Eustass Kid finally lower his head.
In an age where order was collapsing and strength determined everything, joining the most powerful faction was not cowardice.
It was survival.
As for the freedom and ambition they had once prized above everything else?
Against overwhelming power and brutal reality—
those suddenly looked like luxuries.