Sea Calendar — January 2nd, Year 1517
Two months had passed since the first spar. Since the first time Justin collapsed in the dirt with nothing left in his lungs except fire and will.
The pain had never left him. It clung to his muscles and joints, followed him into sleep, and greeted him every dawn. Yet it no longer stood in his way. It was not a barrier, but a constant reminder of progress. Every scar carved into his skin was a lesson. Every bruise was a mark of how far he had pushed himself beyond the limit. He no longer counted days on the island. He counted the moments when he went further than he thought possible.
Rayleigh noticed. The old king had measured many men in his life, but few forced him to change his approach as quickly as this boy. Within weeks, he abandoned the drills, the rigid forms, the endless endurance tests. Justin no longer needed to be told how to swing or how long to hold his stance. What he needed was the battlefield. The chaos. The unpredictability of a real fight.
So Rayleigh gave him that.
Every session became a clash in the clearing, a storm of fists, steel, and Haki that echoed through the trees. They moved like predators circling one another, testing, feinting, striking. To Justin, Rayleigh was still untouchable, but not in the same way as before. There were moments, brief but real, where he saw the old man adjust, shift, and defend with focus rather than ease.
That was enough. Proof that he was on the right path.
Armament Haki no longer demanded concentration. It lived within him now, resting just beneath the surface of his skin, ready to surge forth at a thought. He had learned to mold it mid-strike, shifting its density and flow with the care of a craftsman shaping steel. Blows that once struck like wild hammers now carried precision, his fists sharpened into tools of intent rather than instinct. Rayleigh observed in silence, his one eye narrowing with quiet approval, though he rarely voiced it.
Yet one piece refused to fall into place. Within Justin, there lingered a silence too deep to ignore. Where others could sense life around them like ripples in a pond, Justin felt nothing but emptiness. Observation Haki remained a locked door, no matter how he reached for the handle. It was not weakness, his body and spirit pushed beyond limits daily, but something hidden within him barred the way.
Even so, Justin stopped waiting for that door to open.
He moved faster. He fought harder. His thoughts sharpened with every clash, every failure, every spark of insight beaten into him through struggle. If he could not hear the whispers of the world, then he would carve his own answers into it.
At night, when the clearing was silent and his body lay broken from sparring, his mind refused to rest. It drifted far beyond the island. He remembered the faces of villagers who had lived their entire lives in chains. He remembered the fear of cities crushed under the shadow of banners. He remembered the father who had been murdered by cowards parading as gods.
This was no longer training for the sake of strength. It was preparation for war.
He was not becoming stronger simply to survive. He was becoming stronger to hunt monsters.
By late January, Rayleigh had begun pushing him further into uncharted territory. Gone were the slow drills and measured corrections. Their sparring had become a brutal chess match, unfolding at blinding speeds and leaving Justin bloodied more often than not. Every movement was a test, every exchange a chance to collapse or adapt.
One afternoon, heavy rain poured down from the heavens, drenching the jungle clearing until the earth had turned to sucking mud. Lightning cracked above as Rayleigh moved in without warning. His fist blurred forward like a cannon. Justin raised his arm in time, the block ringing through his bones, numbing him from shoulder to fingertips. Before he could recover, Rayleigh's leg swept his footing away, sending him crashing into the muck. Mud splashed across his face, the taste of iron and grit filling his mouth.
"You hesitated," Rayleigh said, standing over him like a shadow made of iron.
Justin spat to the side, coughing. "I was calculating."
Rayleigh's grin widened. "You don't get time to calculate in a real fight. Trust the training. Move first. Think after."
Justin wiped the mud from his face, grit still stuck to his skin, and forced himself upright. His muscles screamed, but his eyes burned with defiance. He surged forward again.
This time, Rayleigh's counter was just as quick, but Justin twisted differently. His strike came at an odd angle, awkward and raw, but unorthodox enough to make the old man adjust. Their blows clashed, the impact sending ripples through the rain-soaked clearing.
They fought like that until the storm itself seemed to echo their rhythm, lightning flashing with each impact, thunder rolling with every exchange. Justin stopped trying to imitate Rayleigh's clean and flawless form. His steps became jagged, unpredictable. His strikes snapped in sharp arcs, never landing the same way twice.
For the first time, Rayleigh didn't correct him. He responded.
And in that storm, soaked, shivering, and bruised, Justin found the first spark of his own style.
The spars intensified with each passing week. By mid-February, their battles were no longer simple tests of endurance, they were storms in motion, clashes of speed and power that cracked trees apart and scorched the earth beneath their feet.
In one encounter, Rayleigh pressed forward with a relentless chain of rapid strikes, his fists so precise and heavy that each blow left welts blooming across Justin's ribs and collarbone. But Justin didn't fall. He bent low, spun out of the arc of another strike, and drove his palm hard into Rayleigh's side. The impact echoed like a gunshot, and when they broke apart, Rayleigh rubbed the mark with a smirk.
"You're getting cocky," he muttered.
"I'm getting better," Justin shot back through clenched teeth, already shifting into his stance again, fists trembling but ready.
Another day brought them to the cliffs that overlooked the endless horizon of the sea. The wind howled like a beast, pulling at their clothes, and waves exploded against the jagged rocks below. Rayleigh came at him with a blade wrapped in Armament, every swing carrying the weight of decades of mastery. Justin met it head-on, his own fists hardened in dark steel, the collisions sparking bursts of light as if the sky itself had joined the duel.
The clash shook the ground beneath their feet, the sound of steel and skin colliding rolling like thunder across the waves. When at last they broke apart, neither moved. Both stood firm, their breaths ragged, the air between them vibrating with raw energy.
Rayleigh finally lowered his blade, eye narrowing as he studied the young fighter before him. After a long silence, he gave a single nod.
"You'll do."
February arrived with an unexpected calm. The air was warmer. The island quieter. For the first time since his training began, Justin moved not with desperation but with clarity.
He spent hours beneath the waterfall Rayleigh had once used for his own training, the thunderous water pounding against his shoulders like an endless drum. With stones balanced on his palms, eyes closed, he focused only on the sound of the cascade, learning to steady his breath, to slow the rush of his own heartbeat. It was not Observation Haki he found in those hours, but something close to it, a stillness that let him react without panic, an awareness born not of sensing others, but of mastering himself.
Then, during one such meditation, something unexpected happened.
A ripple in the water shifted. Flowing with the current of the falls, carried down like a gift from the island itself, came a fruit. Twisted in shape, its surface was golden-yellow, swirling with patterns that seemed almost alive. It came to rest in his hands as if placed there by fate.
Justin's eyes snapped open. He didn't need to ask what it was. The weight of it in his palms, the unnatural design etched into its skin, it was unmistakable. A Devil Fruit. One of the most coveted, dangerous, and defining sources of power in the seas.
That night, with the fire crackling low and the shadows of the jungle swaying in the wind, Justin placed the fruit before Rayleigh. Its twisted golden surface seemed to shimmer faintly in the firelight, almost alive.
"I don't know if I should even eat one," Justin admitted, staring at the fruit as if it might bite him first. "It feels like it's pulling me in, but… I don't want to rely on it. Not like others do."
Rayleigh's single eye studied him for a long moment before a small smile touched his lips. "You can do whatever you feel like doing. Power is just power. But should you choose to eat one, no matter how mighty it may seem, never forget—" he leaned forward, poking the fruit with one calloused finger, "—they're nothing more than tools. Your strength should never come from the fruit, but from yourself."
Justin nodded silently, his jaw tight. He already knew this truth, but hearing it from Rayleigh gave it weight. He was still turning the thought over in his mind when the older man reached into his travel-worn bag and pulled something out.
"I'll have an advanced Devil Fruit encyclopedia brought in soon," Rayleigh said, almost casually. Then he raised his hand to reveal another fruit resting in his palm. This one was smaller, fig-shaped, with jagged ridges spiraling along its skin, its color a deep, earthy brown that seemed to swallow the firelight.
"I also found this today," Rayleigh continued. His tone was even, but his eye glinted with curiosity. "I was going to give it to you once I figured out what it was. Seems the island wants to test you, giving you two choices at once."
Justin looked between the fruits, one glowing gold in the firelight, the other dark and jagged like some hidden stone from the earth's depths. For the first time, he truly felt the weight of the decision pressing against him. Fate had placed not one, but two possible paths in front of him.
The following morning, Rayleigh surprised Justin by giving him three full days of rest. No training. No sparring. Nothing but sleep, food, and time to let the body mend. By the third day, Justin's muscles still ached faintly, but the fire in his chest was stronger than ever.
That evening, Rayleigh returned the way only he could — swimming across the Calm Belt, brushing off the monstrous sea kings that lurked beneath as though they were gnats. By nightfall, he stood by the fire, dripping salt water onto the dirt, and pulled two heavy books from his bag.
Both were weathered, their bindings cracked and pages yellowed. One was thin, its cover plain. The other was thick, worn almost to bursting.
"The thin one," Rayleigh said, holding it up, "is the advanced encyclopedia. The kind the government doesn't want people to have. Took a bit of… persuasion to get my hands on it." He said it lightly, as if it were nothing more than a casual errand, though Justin had no doubt entire criminal rings had been wiped out in the process.
He lifted the thicker volume next. "This one is the general edition, the kind you can buy on the Grand Line."
They began with the thick book first. Page after page revealed illustrations and descriptions of strange, twisted fruits. Then Justin froze. The golden fruit he had found beneath the waterfall sat before him in ink and parchment.
Kibo-Kibo no Mi. The Scale-Scale Fruit. A Paramecia.
Justin stared at the sketch, deep in thought. His mind worked differently than anyone born in this world, and already he was imagining ways to push its limits.
Rayleigh noticed the intensity in his eyes. "Its power allows the user to scale attributes between objects," he explained. "Weight, height, volume. You could strip the heaviness from a boulder and give it to a pebble. Useful, yes. But still considered average."
Justin gave a silent nod, but Rayleigh could see he wasn't dismissing it. He was studying it. Turning it over. Building strategies in his head the way only someone outside the system could.
They moved on.
The second fruit, the one Rayleigh himself had found, wasn't listed in the general book at all. So they opened the thinner one, the dangerous one. And there, beneath bold red ink, they found it.
Inu-Inu no Mi: Model Anubis. The Dog-Dog Fruit, Mythical Zoan.
Rayleigh let out a long whistle, then laughed. "Well, now. That's a rare gift. Even luckier than I imagined."
His expression turned serious as he read on. "It says here the last recorded user died over two centuries ago. Nothing about what powers it grants, though with a Mythical Zoan… it will be both useful and powerful. No doubt about that."
Justin looked at the page, then at the jagged brown fruit resting in Rayleigh's palm. Two choices. Two futures. And he couldn't shake the feeling that whichever one he chose, the world itself would feel the weight of it.
Justin sat in silence as Rayleigh finished explaining, but his thoughts ran deeper than the calm surface of his face betrayed.
It might seem like a no-brainer to eat the Mythical Zoan, he thought, eyes drifting between the jagged fruit and the golden one still glowing faintly by the firelight. But I know better. Those fruits have wills of their own. And I don't want to share mine with anything, no matter how powerful.
His gaze returned to the Scale-Scale Fruit. This one… this is different. Everyone sees it as simple, a trick of weight, a parlor ability. But I can see it for what it really is. Scaling isn't limited to mass. Scaling is balance. Proportion. Equilibrium. And balance… balance is absolute.
Justin's mind sharpened. In this world, Paramecia were misunderstood. He had come to categorize them himself:
The ordinary kind, like Doflamingo's String-String Fruit or the Rust-Rust Fruit, simple powers over objects or states.
The rare "special" type, like Katakuri's Mochi-Mochi, blurring the line toward Logia but still bound by physical limitations.
And finally, the concept fruits, those terrifying abilities that bent reality itself. Fujitora's Press-Press Fruit, manipulating gravity. The Ope-Ope, turning the world into a surgeon's playground. These were the ones that shifted eras.
And the Scale-Scale belonged to this third kind.
His thoughts flashed to the stories of another world he once knew. A power called The Balance. Jugram Haschwalth's terrifying gift, the ability to tip fate itself until it obeyed equilibrium. And here, in his hands, was the closest thing to that.
He raised his eyes to Rayleigh, voice steady. "I'm going to eat the Scale-Scale Fruit."
Rayleigh actually froze. Of all the answers he expected, that was not one of them. "The Scale-Scale? Even knowing the other is a Mythical Zoan?" he asked, genuine disbelief breaking through his usual calm. "Can you tell me what drove you to that decision?"
Justin's lips curved faintly. "First of all… I can feel something pushing me toward it. Almost like it's calling me. But more than that—" He held the fruit up, golden skin glinting in the firelight. "Even if it looks average, this fruit has the potential to surpass nearly everything. Because weight isn't the only thing that can be scaled."
Rayleigh's eyes widened as the implication dawned on him. It wasn't weight Justin was thinking of. It was speed. Power. Durability. Even… fate itself.
Then the old man chuckled, low and amused. "Hah. It seems the younger generation has an imagination far sharper than ours ever was." He leaned back, arms crossed, watching the boy with a spark of excitement in his eye. "Very well. Show me what your imagination can turn this fruit into."
Justin smiled, a rare genuine smile, and without hesitation took the smallest bite he could. The taste was vile, like ash and bile clawing down his throat, but he forced it down in one swallow.
The fruit was gone.
The choice was made.
In the days that followed, Justin returned to his brutal routine with Rayleigh, only now his growth was frightening even to himself. His body hardened by strain, his movements sharper by instinct, his endurance a wall that refused to break. Beasts that had once driven him back through the jungle now fell with single blows, and even without Observation Haki his senses grew razor keen, sharpened through ceaseless repetition.
And layered over all of it, the Devil Fruit.
It was as though the Scale-Scale Fruit had been waiting for him. Within days he was shifting the weight of objects up to five tons, and within a week he could apply that same scaling to living beings. Rayleigh had watched with quiet amazement as Justin toyed with concepts far beyond the encyclopedia's simple descriptions, experimenting with size, speed, momentum. These tests strained him near to collapse, the resistance of reality itself pushing back, but each breakthrough proved his theory right: the fruit was far more than "average." It was a weapon shaped by imagination.
Outside his fruit training, Rayleigh pressed him harder than ever. Sword forms that demanded precision, hand-to-hand combat drawn from seas Justin had never seen, and lessons in Haki that cut deeper than armor, not just shielding, but piercing, penetrating. Each new technique was another piece in a puzzle that Justin could feel himself assembling.
One grueling afternoon in early March, Rayleigh forced him through a three-hour gauntlet under a blazing sun, forbidding the use of his fruit. Justin's body screamed with every movement, but he endured. And in a flash of raw instinct, he disarmed Rayleigh. It was messy, clumsy, but real. Rayleigh paused, blinking at the empty hand where his blade had been, before laughing with genuine delight.
"That's the first time in a long while someone managed that."
Justin stood doubled over, chest heaving, sweat dripping into the dirt. But through the exhaustion, he grinned.
That night, as firelight painted the clearing in flickering gold, Justin finally broke his silence. His eyes never left the flames as the words spilled from him, the truth he had carried since stepping onto the island.
"Rayleigh… I want to cleanse the seas of the real evil. Not the pirates the world talks about. Not the rebels they call dangerous. The real ones. The ones who thrive on power and prey on the weak."
Rayleigh said nothing, only watching.
"I'll start with the South Blue. That sea has suffered too long. From there, I'll move east. Then north. Then west. Until the world changes."
The fire crackled, the wind shifted, and for a moment the silence carried more weight than words.
Rayleigh did not laugh. He did not dismiss it as youthful arrogance. He only looked at Justin with the steady eyes of a man who had seen entire eras rise and fall.
And in that look, Justin understood, the Dark King believed him.
Sea Calendar — March 29th, Year 1517