The Seraphim's Crown cut through the water like a blade through silk, her hull gleaming white and gold under the morning sun. The sails, woven from threads that shimmered with an unnatural luster, caught a wind that seemed to blow from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Behind them, the orange groves of Cocoasi village had long since vanished beneath the curvature of the horizon, reduced to memory and the lingering scent on Lakeman's skin.
He stood at the prow, his coat billowing behind him, eyes fixed on the vague, endless sea.
The East Blue had been pleasant enough—a playground of soft targets and easier conquests—but it held nothing more for him now.
Bellemere's submission had been thorough, her daughters planted like seeds for future harvest. The CP agents remained behind, silent guardians and gardeners both, tasked with nurturing those seeds until they ripened.
Makino appeared at his elbow, her green hair still damp from the morning bath. She carried a crystal goblet filled with wine the color of blood, her movements careful and deliberate.
The barmaid from Fushia Village had adapted quickly to her new role, though remnants of her former innocence still clung to her—evidence in the way she started at sudden noises, the way her eyes sought his for reassurance.
"Master," she murmured, offering the goblet. "The mountain approaches."
Lakeman took the wine without acknowledgment, his attention elsewhere.
His observation haki unfurled like an invisible net, stretching across the sea in a radius of a hundred kilometers. The sensation was peculiar—not sight exactly, but awareness, a map of life forces and intent painted directly onto his consciousness.
He searched for the familiar signature of Crocus, the old doctor who had tended to Gol D. Roger's crew, who had spent decades waiting in the belly of a whale.
Nothing.
Only the massive, slow-moving consciousness of Laboon far below, the island whale circling his eternal path, singing his lonely song to a crew long dead.
"Damn bunch of old shits," Lakeman muttered, the wine untouched in his hand. "Can't you all retire peacefully until I decide to kill you all?"
Makino blinked, uncertain whether the words were meant for her. She opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it.
"I didn't even get to enjoy Bellemere a few more days." Lakeman's grip tightened on the goblet, the crystal groaning under the pressure.
His mind cataloged the other beauties of East Blue—Kaya in her mansion, the various daughters of nobles and merchants who had never crossed his path.
Opportunities missed, pleasures delayed. The irritation coiled in his gut like a living thing.
He threw back the wine in one swallow, the glass shattering in his palm. Makino jumped, but the fragments never reached the deck. They hung suspended in the air for a moment, then dissolved into glittering dust that scattered on the wind.
"Don't worry, Rayleigh," Lakeman said to the empty sky, his voice carrying that particular quality of menace that made men's bowels loosen. "Don't worry, remnants of the Roger Pirates. I will make sure your lives are worse than death."
Makino pressed herself against his side, her hands finding the muscles of his shoulders, kneading with practiced gentleness.
The tension there was extraordinary—coiled power barely restrained, violence held in check by will alone. She worked in silence, learning the landscape of his body, learning what he needed without being told.
Below the surface, Laboon sang. The sound resonated through the water, a melancholy whale song that had gone unanswered for fifty years.
Lakeman's eyes narrowed. He reached out with his power—not his haki now, but the true essence of his devil fruit, the Steal-Steal ability that had made him the most feared Celestial Dragon in the history of the World Government.
He found Laboon's mind easily enough. The whale's consciousness was vast but simple, built on loyalty and loss, on the memory of pirates who had promised to return. Brook. Yorki. Crocus. The names echoed through decades of waiting, preserved in perfect, painful clarity.
Lakeman reached in and took them.
The extraction was surgical, precise. He pulled every memory of the Rumbar Pirates, every image of Brook's afro and his songs, every moment with Crocus at the Twin Cape. He took the promise that had sustained Laboon through half a century of loneliness, the hope that kept the whale circling, circling, circling. All of it came away in his mental grasp, raw and bleeding.
Then he began to edit.
The whale's mind was clay in his hands. Lakeman sculpted new memories, new loyalties, new truths.
Instead of Brook and the Rumbar Pirates, there was Lakeman—generous master, kind provider, the one who had always been there, who had never abandoned Laboon to the cold depths. The Twin Cape became a happy home, a place of regular visits and abundant food. The promise was fulfilled, again and again, in false memory after false memory.
He stuffed it all back into Laboon's consciousness, the healing power of his fruit sealing the edits into permanence. The whale's song faltered, changed key. Confusion gave way to recognition, to joy.
'Master,' Laboon thought, the word resonating through the water. Master has returned.
"Come," Lakeman commanded.
The sea erupted.
Laboon breached with enough force to capsize a normal vessel, his massive head rising twenty meters into the air, water cascading from his scarred hide in sheets.
His eye—each one larger than a man—fixed on the Seraphim's Crown with unmistakable devotion. He was the size of a small island already, his body continuing the growth that would one day make him truly worthy of his name.
Makino screamed, her composure shattering. She clutched at Lakeman's arm, her nails digging in hard enough—a transgression that would have cost her dearly with any other master. But Lakeman only laughed, pulling her onto his lap as she trembled.
"Aah! Master, it's so big!" Makino's voice climbed an octave, genuine terror warring with her training to please. "It won't eat us?"
She buried her face in his chest, her body wound tight as a spring. Lakeman stroked her hair with one hand, the other steadying her hip against him. He could feel her heart hammering against his ribs, the sweet fear-scent rising from her skin.
"Makino has become naughty, staying with Robin and the others." His fingers tangled in her green locks, pulling just enough to make her gasp. "Playing at fright just to feel my arms around you."
She flushed, the color rising from her collarbone to her hairline. "I—Master, I—"
"Quiet." He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. "It's my pet that I have just subdued. His name is Laboon, an island whale, which will grow as large as an island upon reaching adulthood. He would no more harm to this ship than you would harm me."
Laboon nuzzled the side of the vessel with exquisite gentleness, his massive bulk creating waves that rocked them in a soothing rhythm. The song that emerged from him now was different—happy, devoted, the song of a pet greeting its beloved owner.
On the deck behind them, the other women had emerged from their training. Robin stood with her arms crossed beneath her breasts, dark hair snapping in the salt wind. Lily stretched like a cat, all lazy grace and concealed lethality. Mirana maintained her perfect posture, hands clasped before her, evaluating the whale with the dispassion of a general assessing terrain.
None of them showed fear. They had faced sea kings larger and more ferocious, had watched Lakeman tear such creatures apart with his bare hands. This was merely... unusual.
"Keep sailing," Lakeman commanded, his voice carrying to the bridge where the CP agents manned the wheel.
Lily translated the order with a sharp gesture, and the ship surged forward. Laboon fell into line beside them, his bulk creating a wake that actually assisted their passage. He played in the water like an oversized puppy, breaching occasionally to send plumes of spray into the air, his eye always seeking his master's approval.
Lakeman ignored him, his attention fixed on the woman in his lap.
"Makino has become bad," he announced, standing in one fluid motion that left her clutching at his shoulders. "She needs to be punished."
She made no protest as he carried her below deck, her face hidden against his chest, her body pliant and yielding. The crew—his women, his agents—knew better than to watch openly. But the sounds that emerged from his quarters soon after needed no observation to interpret.
The slap of flesh against flesh. The creak of ropes—he had prepared the room before they sailed, rings set into the walls, silks and implements arranged with the precision of a torturer's workshop.
Makino's voice, rising in pitch, breaking into sobs of pleasure.
"Master—ah!—please—"
Pah. Pah. Pah.
The rhythm continued as the Seraphim's Crown approached Reverse Mountain, as they rose on the upward current, as they crested the peak and plunged down the far side into the Grand Line. The ship handled the transition with supernatural grace, Lakeman's power maintaining every plank and sail in perfect condition.
It was Robin who arrived first at his door, her silhouette dark against the corridor's lamplight. She wore only a silk robe, loosely belted, her nakedness obvious beneath. She leaned against the frame, listening to Makino's cries with a small, knowing smile.
"May I join, Master?" she asked, not bothering to knock.
The door swung open without visible intervention. Lakeman stood in the center of the room, sweat gleaming on his muscled torso, and Makino bent over a padded bench before him. Her green hair was a wild tangle, her skin flushed and marked with the evidence of his attention.
"Enter," Lakeman said, not pausing his rhythm. "All of you. I know you're listening."
One by one, they came. Lily, shedding her training gear as she walked, leaving a trail of leather and steel. Mirana, more deliberate, folding her garments with martial precision before presenting herself. The others—agents elevated to pleasure, recruits from various corners of his domain—filling the room until it seemed too small to contain them all.
The orgy lasted hours. Lakeman moved through them like a force of nature, inexhaustible, insatiable. He took them in combinations and configurations that left them breathless, that pushed the limits of their enhanced endurance.
When he finally rested, it was in a sea of flesh—women draped across him, across each other, the air thick with the scent of sex and sweat and surrender.
He slept without dreams, or with dreams so buried in his subconscious that even he could not access them.
—
The second day on the Grand Line brought Jaya Island.
It appeared on the horizon as a dark smudge, growing gradually into recognizable geography—a crescent of land dominated by a massive, ancient city half-sunk into the jungle.
The island had a reputation. Pirates used it as a waystation, a place to resupply and recruit before plunging deeper into the dangerous waters of the New World's approach. The town of Mock Town clung to the coast, a nest of vice and violence that suited its clientele perfectly.
Lakeman stood at the railing, his observation haki sweeping across the island. He found them easily enough—the signatures of men hardened by combat, their intentions dark and predatory. Dozens of them, scattered through the town and the jungle beyond. None posed any threat to him personally. They were insects beneath his notice.
But insects could serve a purpose.
"Master," Mirana said, appearing at his side. She had dressed in combat gear—tight black that allowed full movement, her hair pulled back in a severe braid. "Is there anything fun here?"
Her own haki had swept the island, finding nothing that challenged her. The strongest presence was a man with a bounty in the tens of millions, impressive by Grand Line standards, negligible by hers.
Lakeman turned to face his women. They had assembled on the deck, dressed variously for training or leisure, all of them watching him with the attentiveness of hounds awaiting the hunt.
"There are a lot of pirates on this island," he said, his voice carrying to every corner of the deck.
"You have all been training for a long time. Your strengths have already reached the level of vice admiral, except for Makino, who has just joined newly."
Makino flushed, shrinking slightly where she stood near the mast. The others straightened, pride and anticipation warring in their expressions.
"Mirana." Lakeman's gaze fixed on the martial woman. "Take all the girls. Hunt and kill the pirates. Gain combat experience. See blood." He paused, letting the weight of the command settle. "You oversee their progress without interfering unless it's life and death."
Mirana's bow was crisp, military. "Understood, Master."
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