Beyond deflecting misfortune, the full divine Light Screen also drew fortunate things toward its bearer—warping space itself to gather them in, if necessary.
Blackbeard had been a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, one of the Four Emperors' crews, yet had never risen above the rank of common crewmate. (He claimed he simply hadn't wanted to compete.) Adopted by Whitebeard as a child, he'd recently snapped, murdered a fellow crew member who'd been his friend for the sake of a single Devil Fruit, and fled.
The Dark-Dark Fruit. A Logia-type anomaly among Logia-types. From the very first time Blackbeard had opened a Devil Fruit encyclopedia, the ambition had taken root: if fate never brought this fruit to him, he'd live out his days quietly under Whitebeard's wing. But if it ever appeared—he would claim it at any cost.
That was his story, anyway. But given the easy camaraderie aboard the Whitebeard Pirates, and the casual attitude a division commander would've had toward a single Devil Fruit and a guaranteed hundred-million-Berry bounty, Blackbeard probably could have just asked and had it tossed to him with a laugh. The murder was less about the fruit itself and more about severing ties—a declaration of his own ambition to the world.
As for why his little boat happened to be heading straight toward Ymi's—that wasn't a coincidence, though in his own mind no outside force was involved. He'd simply sensed someone broadcasting Supreme King Haki from a considerable distance and decided to see which big shot was making such a show of themselves.
A man of vast ambition, his top priority was recruiting talent. Unfortunately, talent was hard to come by in these waters. His original plan had been to make a stop at Impel Down, the world's most impenetrable prison.
He'd expected to find two heavyweight pirates clashing, or perhaps one heavyweight stomping on a weakling. But when he raised his telescope, all he got was a searing pain in both eyes—the light was blinding. Even at that distance, having eaten the Dark-Dark Fruit, he had no desire to look a second time.
Then his Observation Haki slammed a warning bell straight into his forehead.
Ymi stared at the mushroom snoring away in her hands. She glanced up at the late-morning sky.
Opened her small mouth. Took a chomp right on top of the mushroom's head.
Maybe it was the Frightening Monsters' influence—her little fangs packed more bite than a zombie's. That single chomp was enough to jolt the mushroom awake. It fixed Ymi with the bleary, murderous glare of something torn from a perfectly good nap.
Ymi dropped it on the deck and clapped both hands over her ears.
The mushroom began to swell. The air over this stretch of ocean seemed to freeze for a single heartbeat. Then the sea split, pushed apart as if by an invisible hand, and a mushroom cloud punched straight through to the sky. Tsunamis a hundred meters tall radiated outward in every direction. Even the cloud cover overhead was blasted into a perfect circular hole.
"Mrow mrow mrow mrow!" The cat clung to the mast for dear life.
"Quest updated. Please check, Host."
Defeat the Four Emperors (3/4).
The cat didn't notice any of it. Not the fat man two kilometers away who'd been trying to spy on her, now blasted into oblivion. Not the other fat man on the far side—one who would someday impersonate Straw Hat Luffy—vaporized by a bolt of misfortune redirected through Love Train. Right now, she had a more pressing problem.
For reasons unknown, the spot where the mushroom had detonated now contained a gaping crater in the ocean itself. A hole in the water. The surrounding currents showed no inclination to fill it in.
Fortunately, Love Train's functionality was robust enough. Golden light poured through a fracture in space and shoved her bodily to a stretch of sea with a higher waterline.
No more throwing mushrooms around carelessly.
...
Some time later, a small boat drifted up. A man dressed head to toe in white stared at the island-sized void before him and couldn't close his mouth.
"It's like something Whitebeard punched out."
"No... eyewitnesses say it was an explosion. Could it be—"
"A bombardment from the Ancient Weapon Pluton..."
With three of her four targets down, the cat actually relaxed a little. She was starting to think maybe everyone in this world was an Emperor—how else could she randomly chuck a bomb and take one out?
There had to be at least...
She counted on her fingers.
Fifty-something Emperors, right?
She was pretty sure a hundred was a really big number.
This world was definitely the slowest-paced so far. The small sailboat wasn't that hard to handle; just remembering how to steer was enough to keep her drifting along for ages. The rainstorm she'd weathered earlier had at least served as a crash course in sailing. The only real concern was staying on course.
Still, by now she'd spent more days in this world than in the previous two combined.
The Log Pose worked by recording an island's unique magnetism after you stayed there long enough, then automatically pointing toward the next island. But if you had a specific destination, that approach was painfully slow—some islands took a year or more to fully register. That was where the Eternal Pose came in.
Just as the name implied, it permanently locked onto one island's magnetic signature. Whenever you wanted to go there, you simply followed its heading—no island-hopping required.
Sabaody Archipelago. A cluster of islands just before the Red Line, formed by seventy-nine massive mangrove trees. The spaces among the roots counted as islands. Regardless of whether you took the Fish-Man Island route or the Mary Geoise route, you had to pass through here.
Each tree naturally secreted a special resin that inflated into surprisingly sturdy bubbles on contact with air—though they'd pop the moment they left the archipelago. The locals had built an entire tourism industry around them: bubble cars, bubble Ferris wheels, bubble everything.
"Ooh."
After all those days at sea, the little cat—who looked no older than nine or ten but was technically only a bit over one year old—completed the feat of sailing solo and arrived at this gateway to the New World without incident.
Still unaware that she'd become a bona fide newspaper celebrity, the cat tied the boat up wherever, grabbed a fish she'd just caught, and bit right in.
All those days of sailing had netted her quite a few large catches. Her spiritual energy had grown to the point where she could project it outward now. She just couldn't figure out what it was good for. Couldn't sense things with it. Couldn't hit people with it.
The cat overheard people nearby murmuring things like "Hawk-Eye's teaching his daughter to eat raw fish," "what a terrible way to raise a child," and "Hawk-Eye doesn't even feed his daughter." She had no idea who this "Hawk-Eye's daughter" was supposed to be.
"Little miss, islands one through twenty-nine aren't exactly safe. You might want to dock somewhere else." An old fisherman who'd just come back empty-handed walked over with a friendly warning.
He looked her up and down in surprise. "Well now, that's something. Did that young fellow Hawk-Eye teach you to broadcast Supreme King Haki as a warning whenever you arrive somewhere new? Though it doesn't quite look like Supreme King Haki..."
Dark King Rayleigh. Not the Ancient Weapon Pluton kind of "Dark King"—just a nickname.
First mate aboard Gol D. Roger's ship. Currently retired. He'd wandered over out of curiosity after spotting a little girl continuously radiating what appeared to be an extremely weak, extremely localized version of Supreme King Haki.
"Supreme King Haki?" The cat tilted her head.
Rayleigh studied the girl with open fascination and let out a soft chuckle. "Hawk-Eye didn't even teach you that? I would've thought he had Supreme King Haki himself... If I were twenty years younger I'd definitely take the time to give you a few pointers, but unfortunately, I've got some gambling to do."
"Congratulations, Host. Achievement unlocked: [Misguiding Students: Dark King Rayleigh]. Reward: Portal Energy +5%."
"Misguiding Students?" Another phrase the cat had never heard.
"It refers to someone whose poor or reckless teaching leads to their students' stunted development," the system explained.
Short and clear. The cat understood.
This man had just said he wanted to teach her!
The little cat pointed at his face with undisguised contempt and recited the achievement verbatim: "Misguiding Students: Dark King Rayleigh."
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