First Lieutenant Haas had stopped sleeping well about two months ago.
It wasn't because of nightmares. It was the opposite problem. He lay awake in the dark, his mind turning over the same uncomfortable facts, and every time he tried to argue himself out of it, he ran face-first into the exact same wall.
Captain Yagami was right.
It was a terrifyingly simple thought. Every pirate crew they had slaughtered over the past twelve weeks had been exactly what the Captain claimed: human failures. Haas had personally walked through the smoldering remains of the villages they had burned. He had cataloged the stolen cargo and interviewed the traumatized survivors.
And then there was Commodore Vesh.
After the assassination, Haas had quietly, meticulously pulled Vesh's actual, unredacted record. He found things that had been buried under Marine stamps for a decade. An extortion racket bleeding half the South Blue dry. Bribes. Disappearances. Headquarters had simply looked the other way because Vesh kept the pirate arrest numbers high and the gold flowing.
Haas didn't know how the Captain knew who to kill. He had stopped trying to figure it out. He only knew that every single person Light had executed had, upon closer inspection, violently earned it.
So, Haas filed the sanitized reports without a single question. He handled the logistics—requisitions, supply runs, crew rotations—before the Captain even had to ask. If Captain Yagami was acting as an instrument of actual, uncorrupted justice, the least Haas could do was ensure the ship ran so flawlessly that Light never had to look away from his work.
The rest of the crew thought the Lieutenant had lost his mind. Second Lieutenant Tarro had cornered him in the armory just last week.
"You're covering for him," Tarro had whispered, his face pale. "You know what he does to them, Haas. You know it's a massacre, and you're just covering for him."
"I am filing accurate operational reports, Tarro," Haas replied smoothly, not looking up from his ledger.
"Haas, for God's sake—"
"Go pull Commodore Vesh's recently exposed financial records," Haas interrupted, finally looking up with eyes that were entirely dead. "Read them. Then come talk to me about massacres."
Tarro hadn't come back.
Haas returned to his requisition forms. For the first time in his Marine career, he felt like he was actually doing his job.
⬛ ⬛ ⬛
Three months passed in a blur of blood and sea salt.
The System panel moved steadily. Light's Rankyaku, Shigan, and Life Force hit Level 2, then Level 3, with his Weapon Arts leveling right alongside them. The South Blue had no shortage of Red Karma hovering above ten thousand, and Light worked through the dregs of the ocean with the methodical precision of a scythe harvesting wheat.
Headquarters kept sending letters regarding the astonishing arrest-and-casualty record of their ship. His extensive "lethal force" against pirates had caught the brass's attention. Light read the commendations over his morning coffee, smiled his pleasant smile, and went back to the slaughter.
By the end of the third month, his panel read:
[ KARMA SYSTEM ] [ KP: 482,700 ]
[ LIFE FORCE Lv.3 — Next: 120,000 KP ] [ WEAPON ARTS Lv.3 — Next: 80,000 KP ]
[ OBSERVATION Lv.0 — Next: 500,000 KP ] [ ARMAMENT Lv.0 — Next: 500,000 KP ] [ CONQUEROR'S Lv.0 — Next: 1,000,000 KP ]
[ SORU Lv.2 — Next: 150,000 KP ] [ TEKKAI Lv.2 — Next: 150,000 KP ] [ GEPPO Lv.2 — Next: 150,000 KP ] [ KAMI-E Lv.2 — Next: 150,000 KP ] [ RANKYAKU Lv.2 — Next: 150,000 KP ] [ SHIGAN Lv.2 — Next: 150,000 KP ] [ LIFE RETURN Lv.1 — Next: 80,000 KP ]
[ CROSSOVER PERK: FORCE AUTHORITY (Max Output) ]
Light had spent considerable time testing his "Force Authority." Functionally, it acted as absolute, localized magnetism over matter and space—attraction and repulsion. But the stamina drain was severe. A few heavy uses left his heart pounding and his lungs burning. That was why he had prioritized his physical upgrades. Once his Life Force reached higher tiers, his biological engine would finally be strong enough to wield his God-given authority without restraint.
Of his current arsenal, he found Life Return to be the most fascinating. It granted him absolute, cellular control over his own biology. He could digest food instantly, control his sleep cycles to function perfectly on two hours of rest, and heighten his senses. It was the perfect tool for a mind that demanded absolute control over everything.
His Weapon Arts was equally efficient; he found he could wield a flintlock, a heavy cannon, or a saber with the exact same lethal, instinctual mastery.
But his eyes always drifted to the top of the panel.
482,700. He needed 500,000 for Observation Haki. He was a mere 17,300 points short. He had been staring at that threshold since his first day in this world, and the final stretch was agonizing.
⬛ ⬛ ⬛
Light approved a port stop at Folena Town. The ship required fresh supplies, and the crew desperately needed shore leave to reset their nerves.
Light walked through the bustling port town in plain clothes—a crisp white shirt and dark trousers, hands casually tucked into his pockets. Out of habit, he read the numbers floating above the crowd. Most of Folena was thoroughly unremarkable. Low Greens, low Reds. Mundane lives.
He was three streets away from the harbor when he noticed four men moving through the crowd. They were too quiet, their footsteps too deliberate for people who weren't actively trying to avoid attention. They turned sharply into a narrow, shadowed side alley.
Light glanced at the numbers above their heads as they passed.
[ Unknown — Male ] [ Green: 890 / Red: 48,200 ] [ Unknown — Male ] [ Green: 640 / Red: 41,900 ] [ Unknown — Male ] [ Green: 1,100 / Red: 45,600 ] [ Unknown — Male ] [ Green: 720 / Red: 39,800 ]
Light stopped.
All four were above thirty-nine thousand. Those were not pirate numbers. Pirates in the South Blue averaged twelve, maybe fifteen thousand at the absolute highest. These were numbers belonging to men who committed atrocities in a highly organized, professional capacity. Assassins. Underworld fixers. Corrupt government agents.
Plain clothes, silent movements, in a small port town with absolutely nothing of value in it—except, apparently, whatever was waiting in that alleyway.
Light turned and followed them into the shadows.
At the far end, backed against the brick wall, was a little girl.
She was small, with bright pink hair tied into two messy bunches, wearing clothes that were a size too big for her. She had her hands pressed flat against the wall behind her. But as Light observed her face, he noticed she wasn't crying. It wasn't quite fear on her features—it was the intense, hyper-focused look of someone rapidly calculating their survival options.
[ Unknown — Child ] [ Green: 2,200 / Red: 33 ]
Light paused in the mouth of the alley. 2,200 Green. A genuinely good child.
He stood there for a moment, looking at the girl, and then his eyes drifted up to the four massive red numbers hovering in the dim light. Over 170,000 Red Karma combined. A 17,000 KP payout.
Something cold and profoundly satisfied settled in Light's chest. He didn't need to think about this at all.
The lead man heard Light's solitary footstep and turned. He took one look at Light's relaxed, unarmed posture, and his face went completely flat and professional.
"Walk away," the man warned, his voice a low rasp. "You do not want to be here."
"I think I do, actually," Light replied pleasantly.
"Last warning." The man's hand moved smoothly under his jacket.
Light was already moving.
Soru.
The first man never got his weapon out. Light materialized in front of him and drove a Shigan-reinforced finger cleanly through his throat. The second and third men barely registered the spray of blood before Light pivoted, his saber flashing from its concealed scabbard, decapitating them both in a single, perfectly calculated arc of Level 3 Weapon Arts.
The fourth man, realizing instantly that they were entirely outmatched, spun on his heel and bolted for the alley's exit.
He made it exactly four steps.
Light didn't chase him. He stood perfectly still, raised his saber, and leveled the bloody tip directly at the fleeing man's back.
Force Authority. Pull.
The running man's momentum hitched. He slowed. Then, he stopped entirely. His feet left the cobblestones as an invisible, inescapable force grabbed his center of mass and yanked him backward through the air. The man flailed, his arms reaching forward toward the street light in pure, uncomprehending panic, pulled backward by a physics-defying gravity.
Light held the saber perfectly steady and simply let the man fly onto it.
The blade pierced his spine and exploded out of his chest. Light casually flicked his wrist, dislodging the corpse, and let the man crumple to the cobblestones.
He wiped his blade, sheathed it, and opened the panel.
[ KARMA SYSTEM ] [ KP: 500,250 ]
He stared at the number. Five hundred thousand. The threshold was crossed. A genuine, terrifying piece of Godhood was finally within his grasp. He let out a slow, deeply satisfied exhale, and then turned his attention back to the end of the alley.
The pink-haired girl hadn't moved a muscle. She had watched the entire massacre in absolute silence. The look on her face was not the look of a traumatized child who had just witnessed four men butchered; it was the look of someone assessing the new alpha predator in the room.
Smart kid, Light thought, genuinely amused.
Then, faster than a switch flipping, the girl's face completely crumpled. Her lower lip wobbled dramatically, her eyes flooded with massive, shining tears, and she launched herself forward, wrapping her arms around Light's leg like a terrified koala.
"WAAAAAH! WHA-HA-HAAAA!" she wailed, burying her face into his trousers.
Light looked down at the sobbing child, his pleasant smile returning.