A/N: +1 chapter upload since I missed a day and want the pace to pick up. #college_exams
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Miles away, on the sunny, bubble-filled lawns of the Sabaody Archipelago, the atmosphere was a stark, jarring contrast to the frozen hell of Marineford.
In Grove 15, thousands of civilians, bounty hunters, and reporters were gathered around three massive visual Den Den Mushi screens. But despite the massive crowd, the grove was deathly silent. No one was cheering. No one was drinking. They were entirely paralyzed by the sheer, unfiltered horror broadcasting live from the Summit War.
Standing near the back of the crowd, shrouded in heavy cloaks, were the remnants of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Nami had both of her hands clamped tightly over her mouth, tears streaming freely down her face as she watched her captain. Luffy was covered in blood, steaming with exhaustion, throwing himself into a meat grinder of giants and Admirals.
"Luffy... please," Nami choked out, her voice barely a whisper.
"Just grab Ace and run. Please don't die..."
Usopp was clutching Chopper, both of them weeping uncontrollably.
"He's fighting Admirals! He's fighting Warlords! It's too much! It's way too much for him!"
"Our captain is a man who defies the heavens," Brook said softly, his skeletal hand resting on the hilt of his cane-sword. Though he had no eyes, his socket-gaze was locked intensely on the screen. "But even the heavens seem to be falling today."
Standing slightly apart from the crying crew was Nico Robin and Franky, alongside the retired Empress of the underworld, Shakky.
Robin's arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her sharp, analytical blue eyes completely bypassing Luffy and tracking the man in the black coat. She had been the one to initially assess Light Yagami when he first walked into Shakky's bar. She had sensed the danger radiating from him then, but seeing it unleashed on a global scale was entirely different.
"This changes everything the Marines assumed about him," Robin murmured, her voice laced with dread.
"What do you mean, Robin-sister?" Franky asked, adjusting his sunglasses, genuinely unnerved by the destruction of the battleships.
"That invisible crushing power of his is totally SUUPER-terrifying!"
"That's exactly my point, Franky," Robin replied, her eyes narrowing as the screen replayed the clash between Light and Mihawk. "We, and likely the Marines, operated under the assumption that his terrifying telekinesis—his Devil Fruit ability to hurl warships and crush men from afar—was his primary offensive capability. We assumed he was a ranged fighter. A man reliant on a mysterious, overwhelming Devil Fruit power."
Shakky took a slow drag from her cigarette, blowing a thin plume of smoke into the air. "But a man who relies purely on a trick doesn't deflect the World's Strongest Swordsman/"
"Precisely," Robin nodded, a shiver running down her spine. "To match Dracule Mihawk's vertical slash with a horizontal counter requires absolute mastery of the blade. It means even at close quarters... he has no blind spots. He has no physical weaknesses to exploit."
Not far from the Straw Hats, a different group of spectators was experiencing an entirely different kind of revelation.
The Supernovas—the Worst Generation—had gathered in Sabaody, believing themselves to be the future rulers of the sea. They had watched the beginning of the war with arrogant smirks, eager to see the old era tear itself apart so they could claim the vacant thrones.
But as the broadcast continued, the arrogance was rapidly bleeding out of them.
Eustass "Captain" Kid stood with his arms crossed, his metallic, magnetic arm clenching and unclenching in a rhythmic display of deep, suppressed anxiety. His usual manic grin was forced, twitching at the corners.
"Did you see that?!" Kid barked, kicking a nearby tree root in frustration. "Six battleships! Dropped from the sky like toys! What kind of sick, twisted Devil Fruit allows a man to do that?!"
"It's not just the ships, Kid," Killer noted from beside him, his voice muffled by his blue and white mask.
"He can probably control anything."
"And look at the crater. He just fought Hawk-Eye Mihawk to a dead standstill with a single swing. And he didn't even look like he was trying."
Kid gritted his teeth, a profound sense of inadequacy washing over him. He had built his reputation on brutality and magnetic destruction, but looking at Light Yagami, Kid realized the future was hard. The sheer gap in power was staggering.
"Hmmm..."
A few yards away, Trafalgar Law sat casually on a wooden crate, his long nodachi resting against his shoulder. His spotted hat was pulled low over his eyes.
"The Surgeon of Death" was renowned for his tactical brilliance and his calm demeanor under pressure. But even Law couldn't suppress the slight tremor in his hand as he watched Light casually decapitate a pirate captain without breaking eye contact with Mihawk.
'He's not a pirate, an anomaly.'
Law thought, his grey eyes tracking Light's every movement.
'He doesn't fight like a Marine, and he doesn't fight like a pirate. What is he?'
'Can I... can I employ his help?'
'I need to see more!'
"Captain?" Bepo, the martial artist polar bear, asked nervously, tugging on Law's sleeve. "That man in the black coat... is he stronger than Whitebeard?"
Law was silent for a long, heavy moment. He watched as the screen panned, showing the half-destroyed Marine Headquarters, the crushed Moby Dick, and the massive, symmetrical cross carved into the ice.
"I don't know, Bepo," Law answered honestly, his voice barely rising above the ambient murmur of the terrified crowd. "Whitebeard has the power to destroy the world. But that man... Light Yagami..."
Law adjusted his grip on his nodachi, a profound sense of awe mixing with his apprehension.
"...That man looks like his goal is to destroy the world."
The broadcast continued to roll, projecting the nightmare of Marineford to the entire globe. The world watched, paralyzed and breathless, as the False Deity turned away from the Warlord and resumed his slow, methodical march through the meat grinder, his black coat swaying like the pendulum of a grand, apocalyptic clock.
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A/N: Let's get back to the present now! Time won't stop for Light. Ah man i dont want to miss anythinggg. F.