The air in the corner of the 'Salty Mermaid' grew thinner, charged with the weight of a decision that would echo through the coming decade. Kuro's slow smile didn't waver, but his eyes were twin shards of polished obsidian, analyzing, dissecting. The weariness was gone, burned away by the sudden, intoxicating prospect of a game that dwarfed his Syrup Village scheme.
"Justice," he repeated, tasting the word. "A commodity in short supply. And you wish to... manufacture it. On a global scale. With the Marines as your factory." He leaned back, the creaking of his chair the only sound in their secluded bubble. "An intriguing inversion. You don't want to dismantle the machine; you want to repurpose it from the control room. Ambitious. Suicidal. Fascinating."
"It is the only machine with the necessary reach," Travis replied, his voice low and even. "And control rooms can be taken, one key at a time."
"Keys," Kuro mused, his fingers steepling. "You have one, I assume. This... presence. This power you're not showing me. But one key does not a locksmith make. You need blueprints. You need to know which doors are trapped, which locks are merely for show, and which vaults hold the real levers." His gaze sharpened. "What is your first move? Your next year? Your next five?"
This was the test. Kuro would not pledge to a grand ideal. He would pledge to a competent plan.
"Three phases," Travis stated, the strategy crystallizing as he spoke. "First, Establishment and Growth. I solidify my position in the Marines, using Shells Town as a proving ground. I will gain a promotion, attract a small, loyal core within the ranks—starting with the two recruits from Coffin Cove. I will continue to develop my abilities in secret. Your role: be my external intelligence and logistics network. Use your skills to gather information—not just pirate movements, but Marine transfers, political appointments, supply line vulnerabilities. Build a shadow economy. We need resources outside Marine channels."
Kuro gave a slight, approving nod. "Sensible. Isolated operators starve. Phase Two?"
"Expansion and Influence. A transfer to a more significant base, likely in the Grand Line. I will rise through merit and calculated spectacle. We will identify and recruit the other Virtues, individuals of extraordinary character or ability who embody the principles we need. You will help vet them, create scenarios to test their worth, and manage their integration. We will also begin targeted operations—not against pirates, but against the World Government's most corrupt external limbs. Warlords with untenable privileges, Celestial Dragon enablers. We will frame it as extreme Marine zeal, building a reputation as the government's most ruthless, effective blunt instrument."
"Making yourself indispensable while bleeding the beast from within," Kuro whispered, his eyes alight with a strategist's joy. "A beautiful paradox. They will promote the very weapon that will eviscerate them. And Phase Three?"
"Ascension and Revelation. The Summit War. It will be a cataclysm. The perfect chaos. In its aftermath, I will seize the position of Fleet Admiral. With the Virtues in key commands and the Marines in disarray, we will turn the entire force against the Red Line. The final assault on Mariejois. The establishment of a new order."
He laid it out not as a dream, but as a campaign map. It was audacious, reliant on a thousand variables aligning, but it was a plan. A scaffold upon which a patient, brilliant mind like Kuro's could build intricate architecture.
Kuro was silent for a long moment, his gaze distant, running simulations. "The Summit War... you speak of it as a certainty. A decade hence."
"I know it is coming."
"Foreknowledge?" Kuro's voice was a razor's edge. "Or conviction?"
"A combination," Travis evaded. He couldn't reveal the full truth of his transmigration, not yet. "Certain events have a momentum that becomes inevitable."
Kuro accepted the non-answer. The 'how' mattered less than the utility of the knowledge. "Your timeline is... aggressive. It relies on you becoming a monster of combat prowess and political maneuvering within a decade. A tall order for a boy who still smells of boot polish."
"The boy is not the man who will be Fleet Admiral," Travis said, and for the first time, he let a sliver of the kingly certainty bleed into his tone, a hint of the iron that lay beneath the calm. "I have the foundations. I have the will. And now, I will have the strategist."
Kuro studied him, the final calculations clicking into place in his mind. The risk was astronomical. The reward... was a legacy that would make the theft of a single fortune look like petty thievery. To be the architect of a new world. To have his patience, his thousand plans, be the framework upon which history turned. It was the ultimate game.
He reached into his shabby coat and produced a small, plain notebook and a pencil. "Very well, Employer Pendragon. Let us draft the first sub-plan. Your immediate problem: the auditor, Silas."
Travis felt a surge of cold relief. The gambit had worked. "He's a bureaucrat. He suspects my power. He's offering registry or excision."
"Bureaucrats are the most dangerous predators," Kuro said, his pencil already moving, sketching a quick flowchart. "They hunt with paper trails and regulations. Direct confrontation is futile. You cannot erase him without bringing a storm. Therefore, we must make him... irrelevant. Or better yet, an unwitting asset."
"How?"
"By giving him a truth," Kuro said, a sinister smile playing on his lips. "But not your truth. A more compelling, distracting truth. You say he collects anomalies? We will gift him a bouquet. Your report on Coffin Cove is a weak thread. We must weave a stronger, more chaotic tapestry around it that obscures the single strand."
He tapped the notebook. "First, we need a diversion. A larger anomaly for him to chase. Shells Town has a thriving black market in stolen naval supplies, run by a former quartermaster's mate named Borin. He has connections to a minor pirate crew that occasionally does jobs for certain... lax officials here. I have been observing him as a potential resource. We will now sacrifice him."
"You'll leak evidence to Silas?"
"Better. We will make it seem as if Borin, fearing exposure, attempts to sabotage the audit itself. A clumsy attempt to burn a records room that coincidentally contains the very ledgers Silas is questioning. The fire will be contained, but the implication of conspiracy will be vast. Silas will be consumed by unraveling a web of local corruption, a tangible, prosecutable crime. Your powder discrepancy becomes a minor footnote, possibly even explained as part of Borin's pilfering."
Travis was impressed. It was ruthless, efficient, and leveraged Silas's own nature against him. "And Borin? He won't confess to a crime he didn't commit."
"He will be presented with a choice: take the fall for a simple case of embezzlement and arson, with a promise of leniency from a 'sympathetic' contact we will cultivate... or face immediate exposure for the actual treason of supplying pirates, a hanging offense. He will choose the fall. It is the patient man's move: sacrifice a pawn to protect the queen."
Kuro's plan was cold, elegant, and amoral. It upheld a form of justice—Borin was guilty of real crimes—but it manipulated the scales. Travis felt the tension between his code and the necessary pragmatism. Equal Justice for Borin would be a trial for his actual crimes. But Equal Justice for the mission, for the future he was building, required Borin to be a tool.
He made the choice. The greater justice would have to balance the ledger one day. "Proceed."
"Good," Kuro said, making a note. "Second, we must address your personal development. Your 'special conditioning' with the brute Hackett is insufficient. It teaches control, not artistry. You need a proper tutor for that Devil Fruit power. Someone who understands conceptual destruction."
"Do you know such a person?" Travis asked, surprised.
"I know of a legend. A hermit, former Marine scientist, said to have studied the physics of Devil Fruits, especially the Paramecia class. He lives in the Calm Belt, of all insane places. Reaching him is currently impossible for you. But it is a long-term objective. For now, we focus on what you can do. Your Sign-In system. You need to trigger it again, somewhere more potent than a cellar or a pirate nest."
"I have patrols. The opportunities are limited."
"Then we create an opportunity," Kuro said, his eyes gleaming. "The cliffs east of Shells Town. There is a cave system, rumored to have been used by a famous rogue Marine a century ago—a man who defied a direct order from a Celestial Dragon and was hunted for it. A place of defiance. It has the historical resonance your system seems to crave. I will provide you with coordinates and a cover story for your patrol—a fabricated sighting of a smuggler's raft. You will 'investigate' and have your moment. Dorn, your partner, is lazy and suggestible. A minor bribe from a 'concerned merchant' (me) to check the area will suffice."
Travis absorbed it all. In minutes, Kuro had drafted a multi-layered operation to neutralize an immediate threat and advance Travis's power. This was the value of the first Virtue.
"There is one more thing," Travis said, reaching into his own pocket. He pulled out a small, velvet pouch. Inside was a fruit, but unlike any on Earth or in the One Piece world. It was a deep, contemplative blue, shaped like a perfect teardrop, its skin patterned with intricate, spiraling clockwork designs that seemed to shift when not looked at directly. The Patience-Patience Fruit.
"I intend for my Virtues to be more than just skilled individuals," Travis said, placing the fruit on the table between them. "They will be the living embodiments of their ideals. This fruit will grant powers aligned with the concept of Patience: endurance, foresight, temporal perception. It is the first of seven. It is for you."
Kuro stared at the fruit, his usual composure shattered. His breath hitched. A Devil Fruit. A conceptual Devil Fruit tailored to his very nature. It wasn't just a tool; it was a symbol. An investment of unimaginable trust and purpose. It would bind him to Travis's cause on a fundamental level, but it would also elevate him beyond the cunning pirate he was.
His hand trembled slightly as he reached out, not taking it, but hovering over its impossible surface. "You would give this... to me? After one conversation?"
"I am not giving it to the Captain Kuro who plots in a tavern," Travis said. "I am giving it to the Right Hand who will help me build a world. The fruit is a catalyst. It will make you more of what you already are. The ultimate strategist. The unwavering, patient will in the shadows."
Kuro closed his eyes. The calculations were over. This was no longer just a game. It was a covenant. He saw it all—the sacrifice of his old life, the immense danger, the years of meticulous, hidden work. And he saw the pinnacle: standing beside the man who would remake the world, not as a servant, but as a pillar.
His hand closed around the fruit. It was cool, humming with latent potential. "The long game," he whispered, opening his eyes, now burning with a new, settled fire. "To the very end, Employer."
"Eat it when you are ready. The transformation will tie you to the ideal. There is no going back."
Kuro nodded, tucking the miraculous fruit away with reverence. "Then let us begin our work. I will handle Borin and Silas. You prepare for your trip to the cliffs. We will not meet again openly. I will leave dead drops in the hollow of the old banyan tree behind the shipyards. Use the code 'The king's justice is patient' to confirm receipt."
He stood, his demeanor already shifting, the weary merchant shedding his skin to reveal the lethal strategist beneath. "One final question, Employer. This code of yours. Equal Justice. When we must sacrifice a Borin, or manipulate a Silas, where does the justice lie?"
Travis met his gaze, the weight of the future heavy on his shoulders. "It lies in the balance," he said, the words feeling both like a compromise and a profound truth. "A single unjust act is a debt. The new world we build will be the repayment. The scales will be balanced, not daily, but historically. Our hands will get dirty so that one day, no one else's have to."
Kuro considered this, then gave a slow, final nod. "A king's answer. Burdenous. Possibly hypocritical. But... acceptable." He turned and melted into the tavern's smoky gloom, becoming a ghost once more.
Alone, Travis felt the enormity of the step he had just taken. He had recruited a mastermind, set in motion a ruthless scheme, and committed to a path of necessary moral ambiguity. The boy who believed in pure justice was learning the first lesson of kingship: to rule, you must first be willing to get mud on the crown.
He left the 'Salty Mermaid' and walked back toward the base under the star-flecked sky. The inspection, Silas, the constant grind—they were now just surface noise. Beneath it, the first deep, patient roots of his rebellion were taking hold. He had his strategist. The first Virtue was secured.
The game board was no longer one he played alone. He had his first, most crucial piece. And with Kuro in the shadows, the next move was already being calculated. The path to Fleet Admiral had just gained its architect.