"Escort us?!" Nami shrieked, her voice cracking as it echoed across the silent dunes. She gripped her Clima-Tact so tightly her knuckles turned white. "Are you insane?! You're a Marine Rear Admiral! You're supposed to arrest us, not walk us to our boat!"
"Exactly," Light said, his tone perfectly even, leaving absolutely no room for debate. "Which means if the other Marine patrols sweeping this perimeter spot you walking alongside me, they will not dare engage. You will have a clear, unimpeded path to the Sandora River."
Light glanced down at Bonney, who was still sitting in the sand, aggressively emptying the contents of her boots. "Get up. We are walking."
"I hate walking!" Bonney groaned, throwing a handful of sand into the wind. She stood up, brushing off her clothes, before her stomach let out a loud, embarrassing growl that sounded like a dying sea-boar. "And I'm starving. If we're walking across a desert, I want food."
Sanji, despite the overwhelming terror of the situation and the fact that he was currently standing between a monster and his crewmates, instinctively twitched. The chef's programming overrode his survival instinct. He looked at the scruffy, pink-haired girl.
"I... I have some dried sea-boar rations in my pack," Sanji said hesitantly, lowering his fighting stance by a fraction of an inch. "It's not much, but if a lady is hungry..."
Bonney's eyes instantly snapped to the blonde cook, practically glowing with predatory intensity. "GIMME!"
She marched right up to Sanji, entirely ignoring the fact that he and Zoro were still technically radiating killing intent. Sanji, bewildered by the sheer audacity of the child, slowly reached into his canvas rucksack and handed her a wrapped bundle of heavily salted meat. Bonney tore into it like a starved wolf.
"Delicious!!" she mumbled around a massive mouthful, grease staining her chin. "You're okay, curly-brows."
Light watched the exchange with clinical, unblinking detachment.
Fascinating, Light analyzed. They are completely off-guard. There is no defensive posturing from the cook, no malice, even when a stranger belonging to a hostile faction approaches him demanding resources. His 48,000 Green Karma is actively dictating his behavior. It is a biological compulsion to provide.
"Shall we?" Light gestured politely toward the northern rocky ridge.
Luffy stared at Light for a long, heavy moment. The shadow of the straw hat hid his eyes. Then, suddenly, the fierce, unyielding intensity melted away, replaced by a wide, entirely unbothered grin.
"Okay! Shishishi! Thanks, Marine guy!"
"Luffy, are you an absolute idiot?!" Usopp hissed, grabbing his captain's collar and violently shaking him. "He's a trick! He's going to lead us into a trap! He cut a mountain in half, Luffy! A MOUNTAIN!"
"Nah, he put his sword away," Luffy said simply, as if this gesture governed the absolute, immutable laws of the universe. He started walking right past Light, his hands casually laced behind his head.
The rest of the crew had no choice but to follow their idiot captain. They moved in a tense, awkward formation. Zoro and Sanji kept themselves rigidly positioned between Light and the weaker members of the crew.
Light walked parallel to them, his posture entirely relaxed, his hands clasped behind his back.
As they marched across the scorching dunes, Light actively studied them, running their numbers through his mind again. He looked at the sniper, whose knees were visibly knocking together. Usopp: 22,000 Green, 15 Red. A coward who fought anyway. He looked at the small reindeer trembling behind the swordsman's legs. Chopper: 55,000 Green, 5 Red. A creature of pure healing. He looked at the navigator, aggressively checking her map while keeping a terrified eye on him. Nami: 35,000 Green, 850 Red. A thief who stole to save lives.
They were an anomaly. A glitch in the Grand Line's brutal ecosystem.
"Hey, Marine guy," Luffy suddenly said, walking backward to look at Light. "Why are you wearing a giant coat in the desert? Aren't you hot?"
"It is standard uniform, Monkey D. Luffy," Light replied smoothly, his Life Return perfectly regulating his internal body temperature so he didn't shed a single drop of sweat.
"Just call me Luffy. And my hat is way better," Luffy grinned, tapping the straw brim. "So, Smoky said you cut a mountain in half. Is that true?"
"Don't ask him that!" Usopp wailed from the back, clutching his head. "Don't make him angry!"
"It was obstructing my swing," Light stated matter-of-factly, as if discussing a minor inconvenience in traffic.
Luffy's eyes turned into massive, sparkling stars. "SO COOLLL!"
Zoro glared at Light out of the corner of his lone visible eye, his hand never straying far from the Wado Ichimonji. "You're really just letting us go. Why? What's your actual angle? You're a Rear Admiral. If Headquarters finds out you escorted the crew that toppled Crocodile to their ship, they'll have your head."
"I have no angle, Roronoa Zoro," Light said, his dark eyes sliding over to the bleeding swordsman. "And Headquarters only knows what I permit them to know. As I said, I only eradicate those who fail my moral calculus. Your aura is stained, swordsman. I can sense the blood on your hands from your days in the East Blue. You are exceptionally close to the line. I suggest you watch your step."
Zoro didn't know what 'the line' meant, but the cold, absolute certainty in the Rear Admiral's voice made the hair on his arms stand straight up. He could feel it. This guy's saber... it was turning into a cursed saber. Due to extreme slaughter.The man wasn't making a threat; he was stating a fact.
Light continued to observe them in silence for the next mile. They were loyal. They were brave. But underneath the overwhelming Green Karma, Light saw something else: absolute, fatal weakness. They were battered, bleeding, and running on sheer willpower. Crocodile had nearly killed them, and Crocodile was merely a gatekeeper.
If they sail into sail into the New World in this condition, Light calculated, from what he had researched, they will be slaughtered within a month. The Admirals will crush them. The Emperors will break them. A crew with this much Green Karma which causes so much chaos is a highly useful counterbalance to showcase the World Government's corruption. It would be a profound waste for them to die before they disrupt the board further.
They crested the final ridge. Hidden in the tall reeds of the Sandora River was a small, battered caravel with a sheep's figurehead. The Going Merry.
"There it is!" Nami cried, genuine tears of relief washing over her face. "The Merry!"
The crew scrambled down the embankment toward the ship. Sanji and Zoro stayed back near the tree line, watching Light warily as the others boarded and began prepping the sails.
Light stopped at the edge of the riverbank. He reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a high-quality, leather-bound Marine ledger and a silver fountain pen.
He didn't have notes prepared for this. He hadn't expected to encounter a crew worth keeping alive. Even the pirates he spared sometimes weren't worth it. He had broken their wills, after all. But this time, he would invest. His Level 5 Weapon Arts and Intermediate Haki didn't just give him power; they gave him an absolute, fundamental understanding of kinetic force, spiritual pressure, and biological hardening.
Soru.
Light didn't move his feet, but he applied the explosive speed technique entirely to his right hand. He, Light Yagami, had always been a genius.
To Zoro and Sanji, Light's hand simply became a blur. The silver pen tore across the thick parchment pages, the friction literally causing the paper to smoke slightly. In exactly twelve seconds, Light authored a dense, hyper-condensed, highly pedagogical breakdown of the fundamentals of Observation and Armament Haki, translating the esoteric spiritual concepts into brutal, physical mechanics that even a rubber idiot could understand.
He capped the pen, tore the pages cleanly from the ledger, and folded them into a tight, aerodynamic dart.
"Monkey D. Luffy," Light called out.
Luffy popped his head over the wooden railing of the Merry. "Yeah?"
"You survived Crocodile through sheer luck and stubbornness" Light said, his voice carrying effortlessly over the rushing river water. "That will not save you in the second half of this ocean. You lack the fundamental power required to survive the Grand Line."
Light flicked his wrist.
The folded papers cut through the air faster than a bullet, embedding themselves firmly into the wooden mast exactly two inches from Luffy's head.
"Those are my personal notes on the awakening and application of a power you currently lack," Light said, offering his chilling, perfectly pleasant smile. "Read them. Learn them. If you intend to topple the natural order of this world, you will need it."
Luffy pulled the papers from the mast, looking at the dense handwriting blankly. "Ha-ki?"
"We are leaving, Bonney," Light said, turning his back on the pirate ship.
Bonney, who was licking the very last of the grease from Sanji's dried meat off her fingers, groaned loudly. "Fine. Hey, curly-brows! The food was decent! Don't die before I can eat your cooking again!"
Sanji, despite his exhaustion and the terrifying Marine standing ten feet away, swooned slightly, his visible eye turning into a heart. "A compliment from a lady! I shall cherish it!"
"Idiot." Zoro muttered, shaking his head.
Light didn't look back at the caravel. He grabbed the back of Bonney's shirt, triggered Geppo, and stepped directly into the sky. The sheer force of his leap kicked up a massive cloud of sand on the riverbank.
As the Going Merry set sail down the river, officially escaping the Marine blockade and slipping into the open ocean, Light watched them from high above the clouds.
Grow stronger, Straw Hat, Light thought, his dark eyes cold and calculating as the small ship became a speck on the horizon. 'Because if the weight of your sins ever crosses the threshold... I will be the one to end you.'