Six days after the slaughter at Roca Island, Light opened his eyes.
He stared at the wooden ceiling of his cabin for a long, quiet moment, running a diagnostic check on his own biology. His left arm was tightly splinted and bound to his chest; Corro had apparently set the bone while he was unconscious, and the massive deckhand had actually done a competent job. His ribs throbbed with a dull, heavy ache that made deep breaths a chore, but it was manageable. The dozens of shallow cuts across his torso had already scabbed over, accelerated by his Life Return.
He sat up slowly, biting back a sharp hiss as his bruised muscles protested.
He raised his uninjured right hand and focused his will. The pitch-black coating of Armament Haki immediately spread across his knuckles. It felt slightly more settled than it had six days ago, responding to his intent with a smooth, metallic sheen. He flexed his fingers, watching the dark iron color deepen and then fade back into pale skin.
Level 1. It was barely a fraction of the power the monsters of the Grand Line wielded. But it was there, and it was his.
Someone knocked sharply on the door.
"Come in."
First Lieutenant Haas opened the door and stepped inside. He took one look at his Captain sitting upright in the bunk, and his rigid professionalism slipped for just a fraction of a second, revealing a profound, exhausted relief, before perfectly reassembling itself.
"Sir. It is very good to see you awake."
"Report, Lieutenant."
"Roca Island is completely stable. The civilian population has been accounted for and secured." Haas stepped forward and held out a thick, wax-sealed envelope. "Transfer and promotion orders arrived from Headquarters three days ago. You are being elevated to the rank of Major, sir. With a Grand Line patrol posting."
Light took the envelope, his face impassive.
"However," Haas paused, his tone dropping slightly, "the orders specify that you are to report to Marineford in person to formally receive the promotion. Fleet Admiral Sengoku has requested to meet you before your Grand Line posting takes effect."
Light looked up from the envelope. "The Calm Belt."
"Addressed in the orders, sir. Headquarters dispatched Captain T-Bone from Marineford on a Seastone-lined vessel to safely escort us across the belt. He has also been formally assigned as your attached officer going forward. His ship should arrive within the day."
Light stared at the name on the parchment. T-Bone.
He sifted through his inherited Marine memories. T-Bone. A Grand Line Captain with a reputation for weeping openly over his subordinates' minor scrapes and losing sleep over civilian distress. A man who embodied the absolute, bleeding-heart ideal of Marine justice.
He is going to be incredibly annoying, Light decided instantly.
"Anything else?" Light asked, setting the envelope aside.
"Nothing pressing, sir." Haas moved back toward the door, his hand on the brass knob, and hesitated. "Bonney has been asking about your condition regularly. She is currently in the mess hall." Haas delivered this information with the grim tone of a man giving a hurricane warning. He seemed to feel this was sufficient preparation.
"Send her in."
Haas nodded, stepped out, and Light heard him say something brief in the corridor. Footsteps echoed away.
There was absolute silence for exactly four seconds.
Then, the cabin door flew open, rebounding off the wall with a deafening CRACK, and Bonney appeared in the doorway. She held a half-eaten apple in one hand, her pink hair a tangled rat's nest.
She stared at him sitting up in the bunk. Her eyes went impossibly wide.
"You're—"
Then, she jumped.
"OYE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING—NO, WAIT—!"
She launched herself through the air like a feral cannonball and came down directly onto his bruised stomach. The air left Light's body in one complete, catastrophic, agonizing exit. He managed to jerk his fractured left arm out of the blast radius by approximately two centimeters before she landed.
Light lay flat on his back, staring blindly at the ceiling, wheezing for oxygen. Bonney was sitting squarely on his midsection, both hands planted on his chest, laughing at a volume that suggested she had been storing the sound up for six entire days.
"KYAHAHAHAHA! OYE, PSYCHO, YOU'RE AWAKE! I KNEW YOU WEREN'T DEAD! HAHAHAHA!"
"Get... off..." Light gasped, his vision spotting with stars.
"YOU WERE ASLEEP FOR SIX DAYS! SIX! HAAS KEPT SAYING YOU WERE FINE AND I KEPT TELLING HIM YOU PROBABLY JUST DIED OF UGLINESS!"
"Bonney, I swear to God, I will throw you into the actual ocean—"
"TRY ME!" she shrieked, tears of mirth streaming down her face. "KYAHAHAHA!"
Down the corridor, Corro's booming voice echoed, "What in the world is—" followed immediately by the massive deckhand bursting into loud, relieved laughter. Tarro, standing nearby, simply made a sound of genuine, terrified sympathy for his Captain.
Light grabbed the back of Bonney's collar with his good right hand, lifted her bodily off his battered ribs, and stood up despite everything his nervous system had to say about the decision. He walked her to the cabin door, deposited her squarely in the hallway, and stood in the frame.
"Out," he said flatly.
Bonney stood in the corridor, her clothes rumpled and her hair flying everywhere, still slightly out of breath from laughing. She grinned up at him, entirely unrepentant. "You're looking pretty pathetic right now, Big Bro. Kyahahaha!"
"Thank you."
"Does the arm still hurt?"
"Bonney."
"Okay, okay!" She held her hands up in surrender and started to turn away. Then, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. The wide, bratty grin was still there, but underneath it, her eyes had gone a fraction softer. A little quieter.
"I'm glad you're not dead, Big Bro Psycho," she muttered quickly.
Light looked down at the street rat who had somehow claimed him as her personal property.
"Go eat something," Light said, his voice losing a fraction of its icy edge. "We're leaving soon."
She immediately spun around and marched up the corridor, shouting at maximum volume toward the mess hall: "CORRO! COME LOOK! HE LOOKS SO WEAK RIGHT NOW, I BET EVEN YOU COULD BEAT HIM UP! OYEEEEE!"
Light closed the cabin door, leaned his forehead against the cool wood, and let out a long, slow breath. He looked down at the sealed transfer orders in his hand.
Marineford first. Then, the Grand Line.
⬛ ⬛ ⬛
Captain T-Bone's ship appeared on the horizon exactly three hours later.
It was a proper Headquarters warship—significantly larger than Light's South Blue patrol vessel, boasting pristine white sails and a Marine flag that snapped crisply in the wind. The massive ship pulled alongside them in the harbor, the heavy wooden gangplank was lowered, and the man himself crossed over.
Light had read the inherited memories' description of T-Bone, and he genuinely thought he had been prepared.
He had not been fully prepared.
T-Bone was incredibly tall, broad-shouldered, and possessed a skeletal, genuinely terrifying face that looked like it belonged to an undead ghoul. And yet, he had the demeanor of a man who had never once in his life managed to conceal a single positive emotion.
He crossed the gangplank, saw the South Blue crew, and immediately smiled. It wasn't a polite, professional smile. It was a genuine, radiant, tear-filled expression of pure joy. He started introducing himself by name to every single Marine he passed, shaking their hands vigorously, asking with deep concern how their recent voyage had been, and checking if they had sustained any minor scrapes.
By the time he reached the quarterdeck, T-Bone had already learned Corro's name, discovered that Tarro was from a small fishing village on the South Blue coast, and had asked two incredibly thoughtful follow-up questions about Tarro's mother.
Light stood perfectly still, his pleasant mask plastered firmly in place, and looked at the numbers hovering above the Captain's head.
[ T-Bone — Marine Captain ] [ Green: 38,200 / Red: 180 ]
38,200 Green. 180 Red.
Light stood with his fractured arm in a sling, his transfer orders in his good hand, and stared at that 180 Red. He thought about the sheer, mind-boggling statistical improbability of a grown man in active, violent military service managing to accumulate only one hundred and eighty points of Bad Karma over an entire career. It was a mathematical anomaly. It was a sign of severe mental illness.
This man is going to be insufferable, Light realized with profound dread.
"Major Yagami!" T-Bone extended his hand, his skeletal face beaming with the exact same genuine warmth he had extended to the lowest deckhand. Somehow, that made it infinitely worse. "I have read your South Blue record! Your dedication to protecting the innocent is nothing short of remarkable! I am deeply, truly honored to be assigned to your unit!"
"Captain T-Bone," Light said, taking the hand and matching the man's smile with a flawless, golden-boy beam of his own. "The honor is entirely mine. I look forward to learning from your experience."
Behind T-Bone, Bonney had appeared from the galley. She was staring at the skeletal Marine with a massive meat skewer halfway to her mouth, her head tilted at a sharp angle that meant she was currently trying to categorize him.
T-Bone noticed her. His terrifying face immediately melted into an expression of absolute, delighted gentle care. "Oh, my! And who is this precious little girl?"
"Bonney," Light said smoothly. "She is... with us. A ward of the ship."
T-Bone immediately dropped to one knee, bringing himself down to her eye level—something absolutely nobody on the crew did, because Bonney radiated the chaotic energy of someone you instinctively addressed while standing up and ready to flee.
"Hello, Bonney," T-Bone said softly, his voice thick with genuine emotion. "Are you well? Have you eaten enough today? Is the sea air treating you kindly?"
Bonney froze. She stared at his terrifying, hollowed-out face. She looked down at the massive chunk of roasted meat in her own hand. Then she looked back into T-Bone's aggressively kind eyes.
"...Yes," Bonney said, sounding entirely wrong-footed for the first time since Light had met her.
"Wonderful! Simply wonderful!" T-Bone stood back up, wiping a stray tear of joy from his eye, and turned to Light. "Shall we get underway, Major? Fleet Admiral Sengoku is eagerly expecting us."
Light nodded. "Let's cast off."
As the Marines scrambled to raise the anchors and the two ships began to cut through the water toward the Calm Belt, Bonney slowly drifted over to Corro. She stood beside the massive deckhand, watching T-Bone enthusiastically help a young ensign coil a heavy rope.
"Is he real?" Bonney whispered, her eyes narrowed in deep suspicion.
"I... I think so," Corro whispered back.
"He asked if I'd eaten," she said, sounding deeply disturbed by the concept.
"I know, kid."
"Nobody asks that. Psycho just throws money at my face and tells me to go away!" Bonney gestured wildly with her meat skewer. "This guy's scary face doesn't match his personality at all! It's a trap!"
Corro had absolutely no useful response to this. Bonney took a slow, aggressive bite of her meat, glaring at T-Bone's retreating back with an expression that was violently working out whether to be highly suspicious or deeply impressed.
Somewhere ahead of them, past the dead, windless waters of the Calm Belt, the fortress of Marineford waited.
And past Marineford, the true monsters of the Grand Line.