Light's mind raced, processing the staggering numbers. Eight hundred and fifty thousand Green. Three hundred thousand Red. A statistical paradox. So much good and so much bad? This... This wasn't a man who killed for pleasure like Crocodile or the trash in the South Blue. The massive Green Karma indicated a man driven by profound, world-altering ideals—a savior's complex. But the equally massive Red Karma meant he had committed unspeakable, ruthless atrocities to achieve those goals.
The Tyrant was a revolutionary draped in the skin of a monster.
"Bonney," Light said quietly, not taking his eyes off Kuma.
Bonney had stopped chewing. The turkey leg slipped from her hands, hitting the deck with a dull thud. Her eyes were wide, her pupils trembling as she stared at the massive man on the iron platform.
"Dad...?" she whispered, her voice cracking, entirely devoid of its usual brash arrogance.
Light's eyes narrowed by a fraction of a millimeter. Dad. The puzzle pieces slammed into place. The mysterious Warlord. The girl with the age-manipulation fruit who the World Government desperately wanted to keep on a short leash. The massive Green Karma.
Bartholomew Kuma slowly closed his Bible. The heavy thud of the book shutting seemed to echo across the quiet ocean.
He stood up. He was nearly twenty-three feet tall.
Kuma didn't look at the trembling Marines. He didn't look at the warship's cannons. His strange, pale eyes locked directly onto Bonney.
For a long, agonizing second, the Warlord simply looked at his daughter. There was no warmth in his expression, no fatherly smile. His face was an unreadable, stoic mask—entirely devoid of whatever humanity had driven him to come here.
Then, Kuma raised his right hand. He pulled off his black glove, revealing the strange, soft-looking paw pad embedded in his palm.
He thrust his palm forward.
There was no sound, no explosion. Just a sudden, terrifying ripple in the air itself. A highly compressed, paw-shaped bubble of absolute spatial repulsion shot across the fifty yards of open water at the speed of a cannonball, aimed directly at the bow of the ship.
Aimed directly at Bonney.
"Look out!" T-Bone screamed, diving to the deck.
Bonney simply stood there, paralyzed, unable to comprehend why her father was attacking her.
Light didn't blink. He didn't draw his saber.
He stepped smoothly in front of Bonney, raising his left hand.
Force Authority. Maximum Output: Repulsion.
Light unleashed a localized, hyper-dense sphere of gravitational rejection. The invisible wall of gravity clashed directly with Kuma's spatial repulsion bubble in mid-air, right over the bow railing.
The resulting collision was catastrophic.
The air shrieked. The two opposing forces of physics ground against each other, creating a concussive shockwave that shattered all the glass on the warship's bridge and violently rocked the heavy vessel backward. The ocean below them cratered, displacing thousands of gallons of water in a massive, circular wave.
Light's boots skidded backward across the wooden deck, grooving two deep trenches into the timber. His arm muscles strained, trembling slightly under the sheer, unadulterated mass of Kuma's attack.
With a final, sharp twist of his wrist, Light redirected the remaining kinetic energy straight up. The paw-bubble deflected into the sky, exploding harmlessly among the clouds and parting them perfectly in a massive circle.
Silence fell over the bay, save for the rocking of the ship and the rushing of the displaced water.
Light slowly lowered his hand, his white coat settling around him. He flexed his fingers, masking the dull ache in his wrist. Incredible. A casual, one-handed strike carried the kinetic force of a small meteor. He truly is in a different league than Paradise.
Kuma lowered his bare hand. He looked at Light, his expression completely unchanged.
"Rear Admiral Light Yagami," Kuma spoke. His voice was deep, resonant, and eerily calm. "They call you the Smiling Reaper. They say you have brought a localized extinction to the first half of the Grand Line."
"I am merely doing my duty as a Marine, Warlord," Light replied smoothly, his pleasant smile returning, though his eyes remained utterly dead. "And you are currently attacking a Marine vessel. Explain yourself."
Kuma ignored the question. He looked at Bonney, who was still standing behind Light, shaking.
"You have chosen a very dark shadow to hide in, Jewelry Bonney," Kuma said softly.
"Why are you doing this?" Bonney cried out, gripping the back of Light's coat, genuinely terrified of the coldness in her father's eyes. "It's me!"
"Because the world is entering a storm," Kuma replied, his gaze shifting back to Light. 'Bonney, I must know if the monster protecting you is strong enough to weather it. I must know if his scythe is sharp enough to protect what stands behind him.' The Tyrant did not voice his thoughts completely.
Light understood. This wasn't an assassination attempt. This wasn't a World Government mission.
This was a father, bound to the World Government as a Warlord, risking a clash with a Marine Rear Admiral to test the man who had inadvertently taken custody of his daughter. Kuma wanted to see if Light Yagami was a predator capable of keeping Bonney safe from the other monsters in the New World.
He is testing me, Light thought, the cold, sociopathic arrogance flaring hot and bright in his chest. A mechanized lapdog of a rotting government dares to test the one who will scrub this world clean? Light reached down and gently pried Bonney's trembling fingers off his coat. He stepped forward, putting himself fully between the Warlord and the girl.
"Captain T-Bone," Light said quietly, his eyes locked on Kuma.
"S-Sir?!"
"Take Bonney. Order the men below deck. Secure the ship," Light commanded, his right hand finally dropping to the hilt of his black saber. "If the Warlord wishes to measure my saber, I would hate to disappoint him."
Kuma slowly reached up with both hands, removing his thick black gloves and dropping them to the iron floor. Both of his palms bore the soft, terrifying paw pads of the Nikyu Nikyu no Mi.
"If you were to take a vacation..." Kuma asked, his voice echoing over the water as the air around him began to warp and distort under immense pressure. "...where would you like to go?"
Light drew his saber. The steel instantly blackened, coated in the sleek, terrifying void of Intermediate Armament Haki.
"Try to find out" Light smiled.