---
The morning Ronald and Luffy left Foosha Village started the same as every other morning.
Birds. Salt air. The sound of the sea doing what it always did regardless of what was happening on shore.
Ronald was up before sunrise. He sat on the edge of his bed for a moment in the dark and looked at the small room he'd woken up in every day for the past fifteen years. The cracked wooden ceiling. The window with no glass. The chair in the corner with his things folded on it.
He'd packed the night before. There wasn't much. A change of clothes, a small knife, some dried food Greta had pressed into his hands without saying much. She wasn't a woman who made things dramatic. She'd looked at his packed bag the evening before and nodded once and gone back to what she was doing. But later that night he'd heard her moving around the kitchen longer than usual. Doing nothing in particular. Just — moving around.
He got up, got dressed, and went downstairs.
Greta was already at the table. Two bowls of food sitting there. She was drinking tea and looking at the wall the way she looked at things when she was thinking about something she wasn't going to say out loud.
Ronald sat down and started eating.
They were quiet for a while. The kind of quiet that had its own texture — full rather than empty. Fifteen years of mornings in this kitchen had built something between them that didn't need words to exist.
"You have everything you need?" Greta said eventually.
"Everything I can carry," Ronald said.
She nodded. Took a sip of tea. "The sea is unpredictable. Even the East Blue."
"I know."
"And the people on it are more unpredictable than the sea," she said.
"I know that too."
She looked at him then. Really looked at him the way she rarely did directly. Her eyes were clear and sharp the way old people's eyes sometimes are — like everything soft had burned away over the years and left only the essential parts.
"You've known things since you were small," she said quietly. "Things a child shouldn't know. I never asked where it came from." She wrapped both hands around her cup. "I'm still not asking. But I want you to know that whatever it is you're carrying — you've carried it well. Without making it anyone else's weight."
Ronald looked at her.
In fifteen years she had never said anything like that. She'd fed him and housed him and left him space and asked nothing in return. And now on the last morning she was giving him this — simple and direct and completely genuine.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything. All of it."
She waved her hand like it was nothing. But her eyes were a little too bright for it to be nothing.
"Go on then," she said. "Eat before it gets cold."
He ate. She drank her tea. The morning came through the window slowly the way it always did.
---
Luffy was at the dock before Ronald got there.
He was standing at the edge looking at the small boat they'd spent the last two months preparing — patching the hull, checking the sail, making sure everything that needed to be solid was solid. It wasn't a grand ship. It was barely more than a decent sized rowboat with a mast. But it was seaworthy and it was theirs and Luffy was looking at it with an expression Ronald had never seen on him before.
Not nervous exactly. More like — aware. Like he understood in this moment the full weight of what he was about to do and was holding it properly instead of brushing past it.
Ronald stopped beside him and looked at the boat too.
"Ready?" Ronald said.
"Been ready since I was seven," Luffy said. Then he glanced at Ronald sideways. "Maybe since I was five actually."
"You didn't know what the sea was when you were five," Ronald said.
"I knew I wanted to be on it," Luffy said simply. "That was enough."
Ronald looked at the water beyond the dock. The early morning sea was calm and flat and grey-blue, the sky above it just starting to show color at the edges. It was a good morning to leave on. Clear visibility, light wind coming from the right direction.
He looked back at the village.
Makino was standing at the edge of the dock. She'd come early — earlier than he'd expected. She had a cloth in her hands that she was holding without doing anything with it, the way people hold things when they need something to hold.
Luffy saw her and walked over immediately.
She opened her arms and he went into them without hesitation, the way he'd probably been doing since he was small enough that she had to crouch down to reach him. Now he had to bend down slightly. She held on for a moment longer than a quick goodbye hug and then stepped back and looked at his face with her hands on his shoulders.
"You eat properly," she said. Her voice was steady but only just.
"I always eat properly," Luffy said.
"You eat constantly," she corrected. "That's not the same thing. Eat things that are actually good for you sometimes."
"Meat is good for me," Luffy said seriously.
She laughed despite herself. It was a small laugh but it was real. She shook her head and looked at him for another moment like she was memorizing something. Then she pulled him in briefly one more time and let go.
She looked at Ronald.
He stepped forward and she put one hand on his arm and looked at him with that warm steady gaze of hers.
"Look after each other," she said.
"We will," Ronald said.
"And come back," she said. "Both of you. When you've done what you're going out there to do — come back."
"We'll come back," Ronald said.
She nodded. Squeezed his arm once. Let go.
She stepped back and stood there with the cloth still in her hands and watched them with a smile that had something aching underneath it. The kind of smile people wear when they're proud and sad at exactly the same time and can't separate the two.
---
They pushed the boat out from the dock.
Luffy took the tiller. Ronald handled the sail. They'd divided it practically over the past weeks of preparation — Luffy's instincts were better for steering, Ronald's eye for wind and angle was better for the sail. It worked.
The boat moved out from the dock slowly. The water took it. The village began to shrink behind them.
Luffy looked straight ahead. His jaw was set and his eyes were clear and the straw hat — Shanks' straw hat — sat on his head in the morning light the way it always did. Like it belonged there. Like it had always been meant to be there.
Ronald watched the village getting smaller over his shoulder.
The dock. The bar. The hill above the water where they'd sat a hundred times. The road. The houses. Greta's place with its cracked wooden walls and the window with no glass.
All of it getting smaller.
All of it staying exactly what it was even as it shrank away.
He turned and looked forward.
The sea opened up in front of them. Wide and real and going on further than either of them could see from where they sat. The horizon was a clean line between dark water and brightening sky.
He breathed in.
Salt air. Real salt air — not the kind that drifted into the village from the shore. The full version. The version that lived out here and didn't apologize for being heavy.
And then—
---
*DING.*
---
Ronald went still.
It wasn't a sound exactly. It was more like something that happened inside his head at a frequency that had no comparison point. Clear and singular and completely impossible to ignore.
Text appeared in his vision.
Not in front of him like something projected onto the air. More like something that existed in a layer just slightly above what his eyes were actually seeing. Crisp. Unmistakable.
```
╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ SUPREME DEVOURER SYSTEM ║
║ INITIALIZING... ║
║ ║
║ Welcome, Ronald D. Cefiroth. ║
║ ║
║ Condition Met: ║
║ → Host has departed native island ║
║ and entered open sea. ║
║ ║
║ System Version : 1.00 ║
║ Status : ONLINE ✅ ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝
```
He stared at it for a moment.
Then another panel appeared beneath it.
```
╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ FUNCTIONS UNLOCKED ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ [1] ISLAND SIGN-IN ✅ UNLOCKED ║
║ → Sign in at new islands ║
║ → Rewards added directly to ║
║ status window ║
║ → Minimum reward tier : RARE ★★★ ║
║ ║
║ [2] STATUS WINDOW ✅ UNLOCKED ║
║ → View full status of any target ║
║ → COPY MODE available ║
║ → DEVOUR MODE available ║
║ ║
║ PASSIVE: PERFECT IMMUNITY ✅ ACTIVE ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝
```
Then one more.
```
╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ FIRST LOGIN BONUS ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ Reward : BODY REFINEMENT ║
║ Tier : EPIC ★★★★ ║
║ ║
║ → Host's physical body refined to ║
║ peak human condition. ║
║ → All physical stats increased. ║
║ → Latent physical limiters removed. ║
║ ║
║ APPLIED. ✅ ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝
```
Ronald felt it immediately.
Not dramatically. Not like lightning or fire. More like — something that had always been slightly out of alignment clicking into place. His body felt different. Cleaner somehow. Like every hour of training he'd ever done had just been given its full return at once. The weight in his limbs was gone. His breathing felt easier. The air felt like it cost less to take in.
He sat with it for a moment.
Then he looked up.
The sea was still there. The sky was still brightening. Luffy was still at the tiller, looking forward with that clear focused expression.
He hadn't noticed anything.
"You alright?" Luffy said without looking over. He'd caught the stillness in Ronald's corner of the boat.
"Yeah," Ronald said. "Just taking it in."
Luffy looked at him then. Quickly, just for a second. Then he looked back at the horizon.
"It's something right," Luffy said. "The sea. When you're actually on it."
"Yeah," Ronald said.
He looked at the open water in front of them.
The system was online. The sea was real. The world was exactly as large and dangerous as he'd always known it was.
He felt something settle in his chest. Not excitement exactly. Not nervousness.
Just — readiness.
*Alright,* he thought quietly.
*Let's go.*
---
*End of Chapter 9*
---