Encountering Pirates

The next morning.

At Marineford's harbor, several vice admiral-class warships stood ready.

Rayne carried a simple pack and stepped aboard Vice Admiral Sakazuki's Navy warship, which exuded an atmosphere of grim menace.

Today, he wore a pair of utterly ordinary black-rimmed glasses, giving his handsome yet stern face a faint scholarly air.

The moment he stepped onto the deck, he saw a familiar figure clumsily trying to prop up a fallen suitcase, only to trip over a rope and land flat on his back.

Rayne walked over and calmly held out a hand.

"Th-thank you! You're such a nice person!" Rosinante, the "big golden retriever," grabbed his hand and climbed up, brushing off dust as he lowered his head in thanks.

Rayne said nothing.

When Rosinante got no response, he lifted his head in confusion. Once he saw the person before him clearly, he realized he did not recognize him.

Rayne slowly took off his glasses.

"Rayne?!" Rosinante's eyes nearly popped out. "Y-you started wearing glasses? I didn't even recognize you just now!"

"I just got them. Still not used to them." Rayne casually brushed it off, understanding dawning in his heart. As expected of a system product. The effect is outstanding.

"By the way, why are you on Vice Admiral Sakazuki's warship?"

"It was Mr. Sengoku..." Rosinante dejectedly got to his feet. "He said my training wasn't iron-blooded enough, so... so he forced me onto this ship and told Vice Admiral Sakazuki to properly toughen me up..."

Seeing his airheaded expression, Rayne had only one thought. Sengoku... are you sending your adopted son here to die?

Just then, a cold, hoarse voice that seemed to carry the scent of sulfur came from behind them.

"So, you two are Teacher Zephyr's new recruits."

The two of them spun around.

An extremely tall man stood before them. He wore a vice admiral's coat emblazoned with the word Justice, while a cigar hung from his mouth. Beneath the coat was an incongruously styled dark red floral shirt.

His sharply defined face carried an innate severity and brutality.

It was Vice Admiral Sakazuki.

Rosinante instantly froze in fear and clumsily saluted. "V-Vice Admiral, sir!"

Rayne, meanwhile, calmly stood at attention and saluted. "Corvo Rayne, reporting, sir!"

Sakazuki's gaze swept over Rosinante, and his gloomy eyes openly revealed his disdain.

Then he turned to Rayne. Under that scrutinizing gaze, it seemed as though he wanted to see straight through Rayne's bones.

"I don't care what kind of softhearted nonsense you learned from Teacher Zephyr."

He spoke coldly, his voice not loud, yet it overwhelmed the sound of the waves.

"On my ship, justice has only one definition—absolute justice."

"Any hesitation toward evil is a desecration of justice."

"Your duty is to tear evil out by the roots and leave it no chance to rise again. Do you understand?!"

"Yes!!!" Rosinante shouted, terrified.

Rayne remained calm. "Yes, Vice Admiral."

Sakazuki gave Rayne a long look.

This recruit's calmness surprised him even more than Rosinante's excessive panic.

Without another word, he turned toward the boundless sea, and a thick plume of smoke escaped from the corner of his cigar-clenched mouth.

"Set sail!"

At Sakazuki's command, the steel beast rumbled to life and slowly departed Marineford.

The third day after the warship left Marineford.

The weather in the first half of the Grand Line was as fickle as a child's moods.

One moment, the sky could be clear and cloudless; the next, there could be howling winds and torrential rain.

Aboard Sakazuki's warship, the atmosphere was like the worst weather on these seas—oppressive, stifling, and filled with killing intent.

It was completely different from the atmosphere at the recruit camp.

Every Marine aboard wore an expressionless face, moving with machine-like efficiency.

They rarely spoke to one another. Aside from the sound of waves and shouted orders, there was not the slightest other noise on deck.

And Rosinante, the "big golden retriever," was practically a disaster aboard this ship.

His clumsy nature was magnified without limit here.

He would trip on flat ground across the deck and kick over buckets.

When pouring coffee for officers, his hands would shake. He would spill it over his own hand, scream in pain, and draw everyone's cold stares.

During training, he was even less able to adapt to the intensity of training aboard Sakazuki's warship.

In just three days, he had become the joke of the entire warship.

Sakazuki had grown too lazy to get angry at Rosinante's incompetence. He simply treated Rosinante like air.

That disregard and contempt that seeped from his very bones hurt far more than direct insults.

Rayne was the complete opposite.

He spoke little and kept his quarters impeccably neat. During daily routine training, he gave everything he had, perfectly playing the part of an Elite Training Camp recruit with fairly good results.

Rayne neither mocked Rosinante's clumsiness nor deliberately kept his distance from him.

On this ship where everyone was like a machine, Rayne had practically become the only person Rosinante could exchange a few words with.

During breaks in training, Rosinante would awkwardly come over and hand Rayne a bottle of water, quietly complaining about how awful the food was aboard the ship or how terrifying Vice Admiral Sakazuki was.

Rayne usually just listened calmly, occasionally responding with an "Mm," without offering much comment.

He understood that Rosinante's complaints did not need solutions. He only needed emotional comfort—on this cold ship, having someone willing to listen was enough.

Rayne did not mind being that listener.

Just like now, as Rayne did push-ups and listened to Rosinante's rambling, he calculated inwardly, I wonder when I'll finally get to open for business.

As if answering his expectations, at that very moment—

"Beep—beep!" A piercing alarm from the lookout tower tore through the silence of the deck.

"Pirate ship spotted at three o'clock ahead!!"

"Confirmed! It's the 'Broken Finger' Pirates! Bounty: 35 million Beli!"

"Whoosh—!"

The deck, lifeless just moments ago, sprang into action instantly.

Every Marine immediately entered combat readiness. That cold, grim aura condensed into tangible killing intent that permeated the air.

Rosinante's palms sweated with nerves. This was the first time he was truly about to enter a battlefield against pirates.

Rayne sprang up from the ground, his face wearing just the right amount of tension and excitement.

"It's finally here! A pirate crew with a 35 million Beli bounty must have at least dozens of men aboard. This should bring in quite a haul. It's in the bag!"

"All hands, prepare for first-level combat."

With a cigar in his mouth, Sakazuki slowly emerged from the cabin. He was not even wearing his vice admiral's coat, only that dark red floral shirt.

He walked to the bow, glanced at the pirate ship in the distance as it turned around, and gave an order in his hoarse voice.

"You two recruits, stay by my side." Sakazuki's tone was cold. "Use this first battle to get accustomed."

"Yes!" The two hurried behind him.

"Men! It's a Navy warship! Only one!"

At the same time, a filthy revelry was underway inside the cabin of the Broken Finger Pirates' ship.

This pirate crew was notorious for massacring civilians and plundering villages. Their captain, One-Eye, was an outlaw with a bounty of 35 million Beli.

They seemed to have just looted a small town. Treasure was piled all over the ship, and faint cries of women could still be heard from the cabin.

"Men! It's a Navy warship! Only one!"

Captain One-Eye arrogantly raised a bottle of liquor, planted one foot atop a treasure chest, and laughed. "Brothers, kill these Marines and take their warship too! Our reputation will grow even greater! Turn the ship around and show them what we're made of!"

Most pirates in the first half of the Grand Line were fools like this, ignorant of their own limits.