This Grudge, I, Gion, Will Remember!

When the long-legged beauty glared at him, Wood could only stare back in bewilderment.

Honestly, his results had been middling at best. He hadn't even managed to come in third, so even if the girl was competitive, there was no reason for her to fixate on him, the one who came in fourth.

But Wood's mental age was far beyond his outward appearance, and he knew that trying to reason with a teenage girl was nothing but asking for trouble.

Besides, having a girl like her hold a grudge against him would only bring him more trouble. So Wood raised his hand and spoke up. "Instructor, I think Gion is absolutely right.

"Since we both scored three misses, our results should be treated as a tie.

"Even if you put yourself in someone else's shoes, what if the person standing next to the pirate wasn't a pirate, but a Marine fighting one...

"So I think my score should put me in fifth place... No, tenth. Since I hit an ally, I did worse than the students who didn't fire at all."

It was only a test ranking. Even if he came in first, there was no prize money. Why not get the girl to stop holding a grudge against him while staying true to his unremarkable persona? What was there to lose?

Wood considered himself a mature person. There was no need to get worked up over a bunch of kids. Besides, he had no particular sense of pride in the Marines. He was only here to land a respectable job in the future.

"I'm glad to see you hold yourself to such high standards. But a test is a test.

"Now that the results have been announced, there's no changing them. And I don't believe my judgment was wrong."

During formal training, questioning an instructor's judgment was highly disrespectful. It could even earn you a demerit.

Wood didn't have the kind of powerful connections Gion did, so he'd expected to get chewed out. But to his surprise, the Captain Instructor seemed to have misunderstood something.

Not only did he refrain from scolding Wood, he even looked at him with admiration. He thought Wood had brought up the absurd example of hitting an ally because he held himself to such high standards...

Then the Captain Instructor turned to Gion and said, "You should learn from Wood. Instead of fighting over a meaningless fourth place, he's thinking about how to hold himself to even higher standards.

"He's also willing to yield to a fellow student. Your scores in the other subjects are excellent, but when it comes to character, the difference between you is plain to see."

Hearing the Captain Instructor heap praise on him left Wood genuinely dumbfounded. Had he really thought all that through? Why hadn't he heard about it?

And Instructor, please stop talking... If you keep going, you won't make her hate me any less. You'll only keep driving up her hatred!

"Hmph. I don't need you to yield to me. I'll surpass you with my own strength.

"This grudge, I, Gion, will remember!"

Wood: "..."

Wood was exhausted, and he couldn't help thinking he'd done something wrong.

He was only fourth. Why had that been enough to make her target him? If he'd known this would happen, he should've just not fired a single shot...

Marineford, Marine Academy cafeteria

After finishing the day's basic lessons and sneaking off to complete another thousand sword swings, Wood arrived at the cafeteria, famished.

Before leaving Maple Leaf Island, he'd completed his year-long assignment to protect the island and had been rewarded with one use of the Life Simulator.

Back on the island, he hadn't used it because he'd been seriously injured and Zephyr had been aboard the same ship the whole time.

Now that he'd been at Marine Headquarters for a while and his life had settled down, Wood planned to find some time that evening to run the Life Simulator for the second time.

"That's him, right? I think his name's Wood. He looks pretty young..."

"He may be young, but he's got a good shot! I heard he hit Gion, and now she's vowed to remember him."

"Look at how much he eats in one sitting. No wonder his shot managed to impress Gion. Maybe he's young, but he's got plenty of skill."

Wood held his tray, piled with several times the food an average person would normally eat, and listened to the gossip around him with a helpless expression.

Marines were people too, and they gossiped. Their training was so monotonous that the higher-ups didn't hold the new recruits to overly strict standards.

The grueling daily training needed a little variety, after all.

Wood had gotten used to this sort of gossip over the past few days. These people were all talk. He knew the real trouble hadn't come knocking yet.

He'd barely sat down to eat when a commotion rippled through the cafeteria. A man in his early twenties appeared amid a crowd of new recruits. He looked older than his years and had a perpetually squinty-eyed smile.

The young man's name was Kaji. He was one year ahead of Wood's class and had been the top student in his year.

Kaji might not have been much to look at, but ever since Akainu and Aokiji had left, he'd been head and shoulders above everyone else in nearly every subject.

They weren't in the same year, and Kaji was obviously a top student. Normally, he'd have had no reason to associate with an unknown like Wood.

The problem was that the girl Wood had crossed a few days ago was far more important than he'd imagined!

Gion. If you only heard her name, you might not recognize it. Wood had been no different.

But if someone mentioned her future nickname, most people would suddenly realize who she was.

"Momousagi"—that was the nickname Gion would eventually be known by. Wood had only discovered this a few days earlier, after doing some investigating.

After offending a girl who seemed to come from an influential family, Wood's cautious nature had led him to discreetly look into her background.

The Captain Instructor from the shooting class had taken a liking to Wood's character. When Wood said he wanted to learn more about Gion and find a chance to apologize to her, the instructor readily gave him Gion's information sheet.

He wouldn't have so easily revealed the records of a Marine officer, but Wood and Gion were both new recruits, so there was no issue.

When Wood saw that she was connected to Vice Admiral Tsuru and carried Kompira, one of the Twenty-One Great Grade Swords, he immediately understood who Gion was.

An ordinary Marine recruit wouldn't be able to own such a precious Great Grade Sword. And as for Kompira, Wood remembered that it had only one known wielder.