Kairo spoke to Rayleigh about coating and all that other stuff. You know, the good shit.
"So that's decided. Next time I come here, I get a favor from ya," the boy smiled brightly.
"Sure," Rayleigh replied easily. He had no issue with it. It wasn't like they were making a deal with the devil or anything.
To be fair, Rayleigh had actually seen the literal devil with his own two eyes before, and honestly, apart from being really weird-looking, it wasn't much to look at. It was strong, sure, but not overwhelmingly so. It was a regeneration merchant more than anything. While Conqueror's Haki did slow its healing down, the old generation hadn't quite reached that specific level of mastery yet.
But Kairo had. With his Conqueror's Haki-coated fists, he could just target the fruit itself, releasing his raw output directly into the source to make sure Imu didn't get the healing they wanted. Though, right now, he stood absolutely zero chance against Imu. Still, his potential was incredibly high. Even without any Devil Fruits, Kairo's raw potential would easily land him in the top three strongest in the world. Hell, maybe even Top 1. It's just that toon force was always a massive pain in the ass to deal with. Oh well.
"It was nice meeting you two. Got to go now," Kairo said.
Rayleigh simply raised his hand slightly, waving the boy off. Cool.
Kairo left Grove 13 in an excellent mood. Mission accomplished. He met Rayleigh, secured the coating favor, and learned some incredibly interesting history. Overall? A 10/10 vacation. Would absolutely do again.
As he walked through the streets of Sabaody with his hands behind his head, he began mentally planning how he was going to sneak back home. That part was going to be deeply annoying. His mother was genuinely scary. Not physically—well, okay, physically too—but mostly emotionally. The disappointment speech was always way worse than a physical beating. You know the vibe: a two-hour unskippable cutscene that you know is coming and you absolutely cannot do anything to skip it.
Maybe he could buy her a gift, or just do all the chores around the house. Women liked gifts. Probably.
Before he could continue that train of thought—a thick bag dropped straight over his head.
FWUMP.
Silence.
"..."
Kairo just stood there, completely motionless. The sack covered his head while his brain slowly processed exactly what had just occurred.
"..."
Oh. He had just been kidnapped. Interesting.
Normally, he would immediately escape, punch somebody into oblivion, or set someone on fire. But then a memory surfaced: Rayleigh's little financial scam. The image of the old man willingly selling himself into slavery just to escape with the cash afterward popped into his head.
Kairo paused. '...I kinda want to try it.'
And so, for the first time in recorded history, a kidnapping victim willingly cooperated with his captors. The kidnappers, meanwhile, were absolutely ecstatic.
"Damn, Boss!" Lenny cheered. "He ain't even fighting!"
"See?!" Fred puffed out his chest proudly. "I told you this one was gonna be easy!"
"The kid's just scared, that's why," Nick added, nodding wisely.
"He seems pretty polite," Lenny noted. "Yeah... maybe he actually wants to be kidnapped."
Fred looked like he was about to have a literal brain aneurysm. "NO ONE WANTS TO BE KIDNAPPED!"
"..."
"..."
"...Then why isn't he resisting?"
Fred opened his mouth, scrambling for an explanation. "Because his body doesn't even know how to react yet! He's in deep shock."
The other two nodded along, completely buying it.
"Boss is so smart."
"Yeah, I wish I was as smart as him."
Fred chose to just ignore them. That wasn't his business anymore.
As a small side note, Kairo had quickly put his Transformation Jutsu back up, so he just looked like a perfectly normal kid to them. To be fair, Lunarians were basically just humans forced to evolve in the harshest depths of the abyss. In the grand scheme of things, there weren't actually multiple separate species; biologically, they were from the same root. That's why all the different groups in this world could have children together. If they were entirely different species, it wouldn't work—like how a horse and a donkey can have a mule, but that mule is sterile. It wasn't like that for the races in One Piece.
But hey, that was a biology lesson for later.
Eventually, Kairo was delivered straight to the human auction house. The slave collar immediately fascinated him.
CLICK.
A heavy metal ring snapped tightly around his neck.
"Oh," Kairo muttered, casually poking at it.
A guard immediately smacked his hand away roughly. "Don't touch that!"
"Why, good sir?" Kairo asked, making his voice sound as meek and defenseless as possible.
"Unless you want your goddamn head to explode," the guard barked.
Kairo put on his best scared face. "I definitely don't want that."
"Then you better behave," the guard said coldly. None of the guards in this building possessed a single ounce of sympathy or basic humanity in their systems. Well, duh—anyone in this line of work wouldn't. It actually just made things a whole lot easier for when Kairo inevitably decided to slime them all out later.
Meanwhile, Kairo was busy analyzing the engineering of the collar. Interesting. Very interesting. It used a miniature explosive trigger—compact and reliable. It was incredibly primitive compared to his clan's advanced technology, but it was clever. He briefly considered dissecting it later.
For now, he was led away and placed into one of the large holding cells. Inside, the room was packed with various captives: adults, children, a few Fishmen, a member of the Longarm Tribe, and some regular humans.
And then there was one specific girl. Kairo noticed her immediately. Not because she felt exceptionally strong, and not because she was throwing off heavy Haki, but because she looked utterly terrified. It was the kind of deep, paralyzing fear that settles right into a person's bones.
She couldn't have been much older than him—maybe the exact same age, or perhaps a bit younger. Her clothes were dirty, and she had two entirely different colored eyes. For some odd reason, she looked incredibly familiar to him.
She sat curled tightly into a ball, holding her knees and trying her absolute best not to make eye contact with anyone.
"..."
Kairo observed her silently, a habit he had thoroughly inherited from his clan. Analyze first, act later.
Human. Female. Malnourished. No visible physical injuries, but heavy signs of recent emotional trauma.
She was repeatedly muttering phrases completely under her breath.
"...Mom... Dad... Brook..."
Kairo blinked. Brook? That name sounded familiar. Not because he knew the guy personally, but he had definitely seen it in the historical records. A pirate, a musician, a member of the Rumbar Pirates... and dead. Extremely dead.
"..."
Interesting. The girl continued to tremble violently. "I want to go home..."
Kairo tilted his head. Now, that was unfortunate. Because statistically speaking, most people brought into this specific building never saw their homes again.
The harsh realization seemed to hit her all over again, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks as she buried her face deeper into her knees.
"..."
Kairo stared at her for several seconds. Then, he slowly reached deep into his pocket, pulling out half a bag of cotton candy that he had completely forgotten he still had on him. He held it right out to her.
The girl blinked, looking up through her tears. "...Huh?"
"You look sad," Kairo stated simply.
"..."
"..."
"...Do you want some cotton candy?"
The girl just stared at him, completely and utterly confused. Because here she was, actively experiencing the absolute worst day of her entire life, while this weird kid wearing an explosive slave collar looked significantly less concerned about the situation than she was.
A/N.....So like.....on a scale of 1 to 10, how obvious is this plot looking rn