Luffy shoved his face closer, so distorted with terror that tears and snot had smeared together. His voice quivered like a plucked string. "While Grandpa's still laughing like an idiot... let's scram too! That old man missed Ace just now, so he's definitely got a bellyful of anger with nowhere to vent it! If he catches us, he'll throw us deep into the mountains to feed the tigers!"
This kid's survival instincts always kicked in over the strangest things.
Lin Xuan was just about to retort, "Do you think I can even move right now?" when a massive shadow suddenly fell across his vision.
It felt as though a mountain had moved over his head in an instant.
"Scram? Where do you think you're going?"
Garp's enormous face appeared directly above the two of them without warning, wearing a terrifying grin that could have silenced a crying child in the night.
"Waaaaaah!!!" Luffy let out a bloodcurdling scream. His neck stretched like a spring, trying to catapult his head to safety.
But all resistance was futile before the "Fist of Love."
Thud!
A dull, teeth-rattling boom rang out.
Like a watermelon struck by a pile driver, Luffy's head smashed a human-shaped crater straight into the hard wooden pier.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!!"
Clutching his head, which had instantly swollen two stories high, Luffy rolled frantically on the ground like a caterpillar, tears spraying from his eyes. "Why does it hurt when I'm rubber?! And I wasn't even the one who wanted to run! That bastard Ace ran first! Why are you only hitting me?!"
"Shut up! That's collective responsibility!"
Garp blew the white smoke off his fist and roared back as though this were perfectly reasonable. Then, ignoring his grandson's tantrum on the ground, he turned and fixed his fierce eyes once more on Lin Xuan, who stood motionless nearby.
That oppressive presence abruptly vanished, replaced by the purer scrutiny of a top-tier powerhouse.
But before that gaze had lingered for even two seconds, a figure in a gray suit silently stepped between them.
Bogard, who had been watching in silence all this time, finally moved.
He neither looked at Luffy rolling on the ground nor paid any attention to Garp's antics, instead walking straight up to Lin Xuan.
Beneath the low brim of his fedora, a pair of hawklike eyes was fully revealed for the first time. They looked directly into Lin Xuan's black eyes, which showed not the slightest wavering despite his exhaustion.
"That was a sword scar."
Bogard withdrew the fingers he had run along the crack in the pier. A few still-warm wood shavings clung to his fingertips.
He rose, the hem of his coat snapping in the sea breeze. His normally impassive face now displayed undisguised admiration as he looked at Lin Xuan.
"Judging by the destructive power and pressure of that strike alone, you already have a ticket to the pinnacle of these seas."
Bogard walked up to Lin Xuan. Rather than showing any contempt for his youthful appearance, he straightened slightly, adopting the solemn bearing of someone addressing an equal.
"Lin Xuan, I'm Bogard, a lieutenant commander from Marine Headquarters. I now formally invite you on behalf of Marine Headquarters."
His voice was quiet, but it sounded exceptionally clear on the dock, where only the waves could be heard. Each word was like a drumbeat striking the heart. "Come back to Marineford with me. With systematic training and polishing, an uncut gem like you could one day qualify to contend for the position of Marine Admiral, one of our greatest fighting forces."
Admiral.
The moment that word was spoken, even the air seemed to freeze.
Luffy lay on the ground, still rubbing his swollen head, but even he stopped rolling when he heard it. His round eyes darted nervously between Lin Xuan and the stern-looking man through the gaps in his fingers.
Even Garp, who had been picking his nose nearby and pretending not to care, turned his head toward the sea, but his little finger froze in midair, betraying the fact that he was listening intently.
In an instant, everyone's attention converged on the boy who needed sheer willpower just to remain standing.
Lin Xuan took a deep breath. His lungs ached faintly from the overloaded slash he had just unleashed.
He raised his eyes. Their golden gleam had dimmed somewhat, but they still held a wild edge.
Go to Marineford?
It was indeed a shortcut to becoming stronger.
Countless powerful fighters were there, experts he could never reach in this little village in the East Blue.
For the battle-hungry "Kenpachi Zaraki" template inside him, it was practically a promised land flowing with milk and honey.
But...
"Being an admiral sounds like a pain."
Lin Xuan curled his lip, unceremoniously shattering the solemn atmosphere Bogard had created. "Managing all that stuff, taking orders from a bunch of old men drinking tea in their offices... just thinking about a life that boring makes me want to puke."
"Pfft!" Garp spat despite himself, whipping his head around with wide eyes.
Even Bogard's poker face twitched. He clearly had not expected that reason.
"Still..." Lin Xuan changed tack. His gaze passed over Bogard and settled on the vacant-looking Luffy nearby, then seemed to pierce through space to the freckled boy who had already fled deep into the mountains.
At that moment, his expression grew somewhat complicated. A trace of human warmth entered what had been pure wildness.
When he had watched One Piece in his previous life, the Paramount War had been not only the end of Ace's journey, but also a lifelong source of pain for Garp.
As a Marine hero, he could only watch helplessly as his two grandsons took the opposing side, leaving one dead and the other fleeing across the seas.
Since I've come to this world, eaten Garp's rice crackers for two years, and had these two brats call me big brother...
Lin Xuan grinned, his smile looking slightly ferocious yet carrying an inexplicable warmth.
"Even though I'm not interested in upholding justice, I'll still go to Headquarters."
He looked at Garp's stunned old face, his tone calm and firm. "After all, if I leave those two idiots alone, who knows how much trouble they'll cause down the road? Before that happens, I need to go pave the way. At the very least... someone needs to be able to protect them legitimately, right?"
At that instant, the dock fell deathly silent.
Only the sea breeze continued to blow.
Three seconds later.
"You little bastard!!!"
A furious roar shattered the silence.
Veins bulged on Garp's forehead as he charged over like a tyrannosaur whose tail had been stepped on. "What do you mean, you're not interested in justice?! I'm sending you to become a Marine to catch pirates! Not to babysit these two brats! You even want to protect them? Are you trying to turn Marine Headquarters into a daycare?!"
Just as that iron fist brimming with love was about to fall again, a gray figure swiftly darted between them.
"Vice Admiral! Calm down! Whatever his motive, he agreed!"
Bogard clung tightly to Garp's waist. Though he was dragged along hard enough to plow two deep furrows into the ground, he refused to let go, speaking at astonishing speed. "Once he gets to Headquarters, educating him is the instructors' job! If that punch scares off a future admiral, Fleet Admiral Sengoku will eat you alive!"
"Let go of me! There's something wrong with this brat's thinking! It needs correcting right now! This is blatant contempt for justice!"
"Wah! Grandpa's so scary! Run, Big Brother Lin Xuan!" Luffy shouted from the side, adding fuel to the fire.
"You shut up too, Luffy!" Struggling against Bogard, Garp turned his head and roared at Luffy. "Did you get a good look? That's your role model! Once that bastard brother of yours leaves, you're going to behave yourself and become a Marine too! If you dare become a pirate, I'll skin you alive!"
After that roar, Garp seemed to have vented enough-or perhaps it was because Lin Xuan had agreed to join the Marines after all. His furious face instantly cleared.
"Fine! Since the brat has his heart set on it, I'll reluctantly accept!"
Garp shoved the sweating Bogard aside and burst into laughter, his voice making the dock's planks tremble. "Makino! Where's Makino? Today's a good day! Bring out all the best booze in your bar! It's on me! We're celebrating my grandson... ahem, my adopted grandson finally not having to become a mountain bandit!"
Watching the old man switch instantly from fury to wild delight, Lin Xuan shook his head helplessly. His taut body finally relaxed, and he sat down at the edge of the pier.
He lowered his head and looked at his reflection in the water.
Join the Marines. Change the plot.
It seemed like a path full of restrictions, but for someone with the "strongest template," perhaps it was precisely the freest battlefield.
More importantly, that regret of Garp's... perhaps he really could bring it to an end.
At that thought, the emptiness Lin Xuan felt from exhausting his stamina seemed to fill with a certain secret anticipation.
"Lin Xuan."
While Garp was still loudly directing Makino to carry wine barrels in the distance, Bogard had somehow come to stand beside him again.
The adjutant straightened the tie that had been pulled askew earlier, restoring his meticulously groomed, professional appearance.
Rather than looking at the celebrating Garp, he gazed alongside Lin Xuan at the distant sea, so blue it seemed almost unreal. His voice lowered.
"Since you've made your decision, I won't treat you like an ordinary child and hide certain things about the true nature of these seas from you."
Bogard pushed up the glasses on his nose, their lenses catching a cold glint of sunlight.
"Your strike was astonishingly powerful, but it still falls far short against the true powerhouses of the Grand Line. You only know how to release power, not how to 'coat' or 'intimidate.'" The sea breeze blew against Lin Xuan's face, carrying a slightly salty dampness that eased some of the soreness in his body, which felt as though his muscle fibers had torn.
He did not answer immediately, merely following the direction of Bogard's reflective lenses to look at the distant horizon.
There was nothing there but endless blue, as calm as an enormous sapphire.
"Coating and intimidation?" Lin Xuan quietly repeated the two words. The wild curve of his lips softened slightly, replaced by the focus of a predator scenting blood.
Every cell in his body protested against that overloaded strike, yet his mind was unusually active.
Kenpachi Zaraki's template seemed unsatisfied with that simple physical destruction. It craved deeper techniques for fighting to the death.
Bogard was very pleased with the look in Lin Xuan's eyes.
It was not blind arrogance, but a thirst for unknown power.
"The East Blue is called the 'Weakest Sea' not just because pirates with bounties over ten million are rare here." Bogard spoke evenly, as though stating the simplest of truths. "It's also because the 'environment' here is too mild. There's no truly extreme weather, nor monsters that force you to give everything you have just to stay alive."
He turned, tapping the scabbard at his waist with a white-gloved finger, producing a rhythmic knocking sound.
"In the New World-the second half of the Grand Line-that slash of yours, which did nothing but discharge power, would be like a child swinging a club. It certainly has power, but once you meet a true powerhouse..." Bogard paused, his gaze passing over Lin Xuan to settle on Luffy, who was still clutching his head and streaming tears nearby. "Why do you think Vice Admiral Garp can hurt that rubber brat?"
Lin Xuan followed his gaze.
The absurdly large bump on Luffy's head was still shining red.
A Rubber Man was immune to blunt attacks. That was common knowledge in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia.
At this point, although Luffy had yet to set out to sea, his ability to fall off a cliff without suffering so much as a scratch was already famous in Foosha Village.
Since the laws of physics did not work, it could only be a power that stood above those laws.
Lin Xuan narrowed his eyes.
Of course he knew that was "Haki," the ticket to this world's highest tier of combat power.
But in his current perception-or rather, in Kenpachi Zaraki's wild instincts-that thing did not go by that name.
Chapter 8: Extraordinary talent, Bogard's convictions crumble
That feeling when Garp threw his punch just now...
Lin Xuan instinctively raised his right hand, closing his fingers around empty air.
At that instant, Garp had done more than simply throw a punch.
The old man's "presence," or rather his utterly unreasonable willpower, had forcibly coated his fist like a layer of invisible armor.
It was not mere physical strength, but something more rooted in the mind, something capable of catching a tangible body.
Spiritual pressure was used to crush an opponent's soul.
That power, though, seemed to forcibly establish the fact: "I'm going to hit you."
"Because he doesn't think he's rubber."
Lin Xuan withdrew his hand, his palm still numb from gripping his blade too hard. He grinned and offered an answer that sounded dubious yet struck straight at the heart of the matter. "The old man's fist is stuffed full of his reasoning that says, 'I'm going to beat you flat.' Since it's reasoning, something like rubber naturally can't defend against it."
Bogard's fingers froze in midair as he adjusted his glasses.
Behind the lenses, his pupils contracted slightly.
He had prepared an entire set of basic theories on "Armament Haki," and had even worked out how to explain the concept of "catching the tangible body" in simple, accessible terms.
But he had never imagined that this brat, who had never encountered the Grand Line, would intuitively sum up the essence of Haki in a single sentence-the manifestation of will.
Though his wording was crude, even somewhat nonsensical, the logic matched to an astonishing degree.
"...That's a very strange way of understanding it, but I have to say, your comprehension is even more frightening than I imagined."
Bogard drew a deep breath, suppressing his astonishment.
He reassessed the boy before him, who could barely even stand. His original plan of guiding him step by step was overturned in an instant.
With such beastlike instincts, conventional instruction might well be a waste.
"If you can see that much, this makes things easy."
Bogard suddenly took a step to the left, positioning himself at the edge of the pier.
"Words alone might make it difficult for you to understand that sensation of 'coating.' Since Vice Admiral Garp is still moving the booze, I'll give you a demonstration of what a true slash is."
Before you continue