Reality stood before Kid like an immovable mountain.
Against forces this overwhelming, individual pride and determination meant painfully little. He simply did not have another choice.
The current of the times had already swept him onto this path. No matter how much resentment or resistance remained in his heart, fighting against it now would accomplish nothing except getting himself killed.
Complex emotions flickered through Kid's eyes.
All he could do was hope that showing enough good sense to come here willingly would earn the Divine Kingdom's acceptance and give his crew a relatively stable place to survive.
And survival alone was not enough.
Somewhere deep inside, Kid still hoped that one day, after enduring all of this and growing strong enough, he could reclaim the pride he had been forced to swallow today.
That someday, he could straighten his back again and stand before the world without bowing his head to anyone.
For now, though—
he had paperwork.
A lot of paperwork.
Under Swart's calm and efficient guidance, Kid was put through a long series of registration and reporting procedures.
Forms.
Rules.
Declarations.
Crew manifests.
Temporary-entry documentation.
The amount of bureaucracy involved was enough to test even Kid's newly discovered self-restraint.
Still, he cooperated without complaint.
Eventually, after every procedure had been completed, Swart handed him a temporary identity tag.
The metal plate felt cold and unusually heavy in his palm.
Then came another piece of information.
Given Kid's current standing within the Divine Kingdom, he was nowhere near important enough to receive a direct audience with Ron.
Under ordinary circumstances, that statement alone might have been enough to make Kid explode.
Eustass Kid was not exactly famous for reacting well when someone implied he was beneath their notice.
But this time, he merely stood there and turned the cold identity tag between his fingers.
Strangely enough, he was not even angry.
If anything, a feeling of resignation settled over him.
'Yeah. Figures.'
He had almost expected it.
...
As Kid walked deeper into the Divine Kingdom, he found himself paying much more attention to his surroundings.
The streets were broad, spotless, and meticulously maintained. Smooth stone paving stretched beneath his boots, while imposing buildings rose on either side in orderly rows.
Everything felt deliberate.
Structured.
Prosperous.
The contrast with most pirate-controlled territories was impossible to ignore.
There was an atmosphere of stability here that Kid found difficult to describe.
Not the fragile calm of a town praying pirates would leave it alone.
Not the forced silence of civilians too terrified to speak.
This felt different.
People genuinely seemed secure.
Yet beneath that stability lay something else—
power.
An immense, sleeping strength seemed to permeate the entire country.
It did not need to be displayed openly.
Kid could feel it anyway.
Like some colossal beast resting beneath the surface, perfectly calm only because nothing around it posed enough of a threat to make it move.
As he continued along the street, several passing figures caught his attention.
Kid's eyes narrowed.
He recognized some of them.
Former officers who had once served beneath other Emperors.
Pirates with ugly reputations and names that had once carried real weight across the New World.
Yet here they were.
They wore the distinctive clothing of the Divine Kingdom and hurried through the streets attending to their assigned duties.
There was none of their former swagger.
No one strutted around demanding that civilians get out of their way.
They moved naturally through the system as though they had been part of it for years.
The sight hit Kid harder than he expected.
His understanding of the sea had always been built around strength, independence, and personal ambition.
Yet one scene after another inside the Divine Kingdom was forcing him to reconsider what those things actually meant in the current age.
'The Four Emperors…'
Kid frowned.
That title had once represented the absolute summit of piracy.
The dream of countless pirates.
The rulers standing above the New World.
Whitebeard.
Kaido.
Big Mom.
These had been monsters Kid could once only look up at from below.
And now?
They had all ended up beneath Ron's banner.
Even "Red-Haired" Shanks—the man Kid had long considered one of his greatest enemies and whose strength had always seemed impossible to measure—had failed to escape the same changing tide.
Kid had heard what happened.
Shanks had refused to submit to Ron.
So Ron had crushed his position without hesitation.
The Red Hair Pirates had been driven out of the ranks of the Four Emperors, and the territory they once controlled had been rapidly swallowed by the Divine Kingdom.
Just like that.
No prolonged stalemate.
No years of war.
One Emperor refused to bend—
and Ron simply removed him from the board.
Kid drew in a slow breath.
'That's fucking insane.'
And yet the evidence was everywhere.
Ron was not merely another Emperor competing for territory.
He had created something that was swallowing the old pirate order whole.
The more Kid thought about it, the smaller his earlier irritation over not being allowed to meet Ron became.
A few minutes ago, part of him had still felt insulted.
'Who the hell does he think he is, making me wait?'
Now that thought seemed almost embarrassingly stupid.
Kid's expression gradually changed.
The resentment disappeared.
In its place came a far deeper sense of caution—
and grudging awe.
'Think about it.'
His mind started working overtime.
'Those old monsters ruled the sea for decades, and Ron either made them join him or kicked them out of the game entirely.'
Kid gave a slow nod to himself.
'And I just got here.'
His annoyance faded further.
'So why the hell would he drop everything just because Eustass Kid wants a meeting?'
Another nod.
'Yeah.'
His expression became increasingly serious.
'Makes sense.'
A few steps later, Kid had practically completed the argument against himself.
'If anything, letting some newcomer walk straight into the ruler's throne room whenever he feels like it would make this place look weak.'
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
'That's right.'
'This isn't them looking down on me.'
'This is how a real powerhouse should operate.'
By the time Kid reached the end of the street, the irritation that had been quietly building inside him had vanished completely.
Somehow, without anyone needing to persuade him—
Eustass Kid had successfully talked himself into accepting the entire situation.
...
'And what am I, really?'
Kid's thoughts continued turning.
'I've only just started making a name for myself on this brutal sea. I'm nowhere near being one of the true monsters at the top.'
'Compared to people like that, isn't it perfectly normal that I can't meet Ron yet?'
Once he looked at it that way, the disappointment did not discourage him at all.
If anything, it strengthened his determination to remain in the Divine Kingdom.
The rules of the sea had changed completely.
There had once been an age when individual courage, strength, and the willingness to gamble everything on adventure could carry a pirate surprisingly far.
But now?
Against powers operating on the scale of the Eternal Divine Kingdom, individual bravery was little more than a drop in the ocean.
In this new era, attaching himself to someone like Ron—someone who possessed enough overwhelming strength to create an entirely new order—and then finding opportunities within that order was beginning to seem increasingly sensible.
Outside the Divine Kingdom, Kid could continue calling himself a "free" pirate.
And what would that freedom actually mean?
Sleeping every night knowing that some stronger faction could appear tomorrow and crush his entire crew like insects?
Compared with that, surrendering a portion of his freedom in exchange for security, resources, and room to grow suddenly did not sound nearly as unbearable.
"Ron…"
Kid lightly ran his tongue across his dry lips.
A trace of admiration flickered through his eyes before he even realized it was there.
Kid respected strength.
Always had.
And Ron possessed more than simple personal strength.
He had enough power to rewrite the rules governing the entire sea.
That was something Kid could acknowledge from the bottom of his heart.
It was not merely fear.
It was respect for someone who had succeeded in doing what countless ambitious pirates could only dream of.
If Kid wanted to carve out his own place in this increasingly insane world, staying close to someone capable of reshaping it might actually be his best chance.
The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous his earlier irritation began to feel.
The faint resentment that had appeared because Ron would not meet him evaporated completely.
In its place rose something closer to awe.
'Those veteran Emperors ruled the sea for decades.'
Kid lowered his head slightly as he thought.
'And Ron either brought them under his banner or drove them out.'
His eyes flickered with complicated emotion.
Kaido.
Big Mom.
Whitebeard.
These were names that had once seemed synonymous with the very peak of piracy.
And Ron had changed the entire landscape surrounding them.
Then there was Kid himself.
'Me?'
He almost snorted at his own earlier ego.
'I'm just some Supernova who's only recently made enough noise for the world to remember my name.'
'Compared with someone like him, why the hell would it be strange that I can't just walk in and meet him whenever I want?'
Instead of dragging him into frustration, that realization poured fuel directly onto Kid's ambition.
The sea was not the same place it had once been.
No matter how brave or individually powerful someone was, absolute military strength and organized power could still crush them flat.
The days when a pirate could rely entirely on guts, violence, and stubbornness to force his way through every problem were disappearing.
Kid understood that much now.
Rather than wander around outside like a headless idiot while constantly risking annihilation at the hands of whichever greater monster happened to notice him next, it was far smarter to stand beneath a dominant power and look for opportunities inside the system that power was creating.
The road would not necessarily be easy.
But at least it offered possibilities.
"Ron…"
Kid murmured the name again.
His eyes carried an admiration he still had not consciously admitted to himself.
Someone who possessed absolute power and could use that power to reshape the order of the world—
that was a man Kid could respect.
A man he could accept losing to, for now.
The small setback of being denied an audience no longer felt humiliating.
Instead, it became motivation.
Kid tightened his grip around the temporary identity tag in his hand until his knuckles whitened.
His eyes lifted, stubborn determination burning in them.
'Just wait, Ron.'
'You think I'm insignificant right now?'
'Fine.'
A fierce grin slowly returned to Kid's face.
'I'll climb.'
'One step at a time, I'll climb until I'm standing high enough that you can't ignore me anymore.'
'Someday, you'll have no choice but to look me straight in the eye and acknowledge Eustass Kid.'
The humiliation had vanished.
In its place was something Kid understood far better—
a challenge.
And challenges were exactly what kept him moving.
Rather than seeing his present position as an insult, he now saw it as the bottom rung of a ladder.
All he had to do was climb.
...
Swart stood quietly before him, maintaining the same calm, professional expression as always.
Kid stepped forward.
Then, with unusual seriousness, he accepted the contract scroll that would formalize one of the greatest turning points of his life.
His fingers brushed against the slightly rough parchment.
The material felt faintly cool against his skin.
Kid lowered his eyes and examined it.
Dense lines of text covered the document from top to bottom, written in elegant but firm handwriting.
Clause after clause.
Requirement after requirement.
The terms that would define exactly what joining the Eternal Divine Kingdom meant were laid out before him.
---------
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