The raft was gone by the time he crawled onto the stones. Waves dragged it back into the black water, rope fibers unraveling where his blood had soaked them. He didn't look back. Looking back had never saved him before.
The island that greeted him was wrapped in torchlight. Not bright like the fires nobles burn for festivals, but desperate, uneven, sickly light—like wax had been spilled across stone and forced to burn in defiance of darkness. Even from the shoreline he could smell it: melted candles, wet rust, and rotting bread.
The Kingdom of Rust and Candlelight.
He crouched at the water's edge, chest heaving. He was six winters old. He had teeth chipped from bone and skin mapped with scars. His crow perched above on a bent mast, feathers slicked with salt, three eyes watching him without blinking.
His thoughts were not words. They were shapes. Hunger. Cold. The memory of the Pits pressing down like a second skin. He ran his tongue across his teeth and remembered the first rat, the way warmth filled his belly and made the shivering stop. Hunger was always there. Hunger was always the lesson.
He entered the city like a shadow that had forgotten it belonged to someone.
The streets twisted, alleys narrowing until even his ribs scraped walls. The people here looked like the Pits had stretched across an island—hollow-cheeked, shoulders bent, eyes darting from soldier to gutter. But there was a difference. In the Pits, everyone knew death waited behind every breath. Here, they still pretended it didn't.
He scavenged scraps at first. Crusts left in the mud. A turnip peel. He moved like a ghost, slipping between crowds, crawling under carts, listening for the thread of danger the way he had learned underwater. He knew when hands twitched toward pockets, when boots turned toward alleys, when steel was about to flash. His body shifted before the blade appeared. Observation guiding him like invisible strings.
But scraps weren't enough. His stomach gnawed at him, whispering louder than the torches. He began to watch the palace.
The palace was alive with candles. Gold dripped from every wall, wax pooling on floors, while the streets outside grew darker.
He hated the sight of it without knowing why. His chest ached. His fingers clenched until nails bit his palms. The Pits had been empty and cruel, but at least it had been honest. This kingdom wrapped its hunger in silk and candlelight and called it beauty.
That night, he crawled through a drainage tunnel. Rats scurried around him. He bit one mid-crawl, crunching its spine between his teeth, chewing while he moved. By the time he reached the grates, blood ran down his chin.
Inside, the palace breathed warmth. Tables groaned with meat. Wine spilled in rivers. Nobles with bellies round as barrels laughed while peasants outside starved.
He crouched under a table, staring at their mouths chewing. He thought of how his own mouth had torn through flesh in the Pits, how he had bitten rats, dogs, even men, because nothing else had offered itself. These men and women laughed while the world rotted. His chest burned, and the pressure began to swell.
Goblets toppled. One noble slumped face-first into his plate. Another fell backward, limbs twitching. Screams erupted. Guards rushed in.
The boy moved.
He burst from the table like a knife tearing through cloth. His shard of metal glinted in the candlelight. He leapt onto a guard, teeth finding throat, shard ripping into the joint of armor. Blood sprayed across the gold plates.
The soldiers froze for a breath — long enough for his will to crash over them. Several collapsed, clutching their heads, eyes rolled white. Conqueror's Haki flared without thought.
Then chaos swallowed the hall.
He fought low and savage. He drove the shard under ribs, into necks, across faces. When a spear thrust at his chest, his body hardened—skin blackening faintly with Armament. The wood snapped, splinters stinging his flesh. He punched back, ribs crunching under his small fist.
His mind was cold and sharp. He remembered the dogs in the Pits and slipped low when men lunged high. He remembered the flood and let his body flow between blades. He remembered hunger and bit down when his shard failed, tearing flesh with his teeth.
Every strike tied back to his past. Every kill was a memory sharpened into a weapon.
The nobles shrieked, stumbling over each other. Their candlelight became smoke and fire. Guards shouted orders, but panic drowned discipline. His Observation tugged him aside a heartbeat before a blade could split him. His Armament thickened where pain would have landed. His Conqueror's pulsed, dropping men mid-swing.
When silence finally fell, only the crackle of burning wax remained. The tables were red. The candles sputtered out in blood.
He stood among corpses, chest heaving, blood dripping from his shard. His crow landed on his shoulder, claws digging into flesh. Its three eyes blinked.
His thoughts came in fragments.
The Pits. The cloth that smoked. The first rat. The hand that threw me. The laughter of men with full bellies.
He looked at the corpses. They did not move. They would not laugh again. He felt no joy. No triumph. Only a hollow echo of the Pits, as if he had chewed meat that gave no warmth.
But he was alive. That was enough.
By dawn, the palace burned. The city woke to smoke. Rumors spread faster than fire.
Some said a demon had walked through the banquet hall. Others swore a starving boy had cut down an army. Most dismissed it as lies — gutter talk, peasant madness. A single child couldn't burn a kingdom.
But the torches lit the walls in alarm. Archers lined the ramparts. And still, he walked through the gates.
Arrows rained down. The pressure flared, and bowstrings slipped. Arrows clattered harmlessly. He caught one midair, Armament hardening his fingers, and drove it into a captain's eye. The men faltered. Some fled.
The people watched in silence. Some crossed themselves. Some spat. Most simply stared, because what else could they do?
By dusk, the banners were ash.
The boy walked back into the sea, crow on his shoulder, leaving ruin behind.
Whispers
In taverns that night, drunks muttered.
"Did you hear? The palace burned."
"A child, they say."
"Fairytales. No child could do that."
"Then why's the king dead?"
A bounty clerk wrote a note in the margins of a ledger. Unconfirmed: demon child, Candlelight Kingdom collapse. He chuckled and smudged the ink. "Not worth ink."
On the docks, a beggar spat into the sea. "If it was a demon, let it drown."
The world turned. The story carried, twisted, doubted. Just another ghost rumor.
And in the sea, the boy swam again, thoughts gnawing at him like hunger:
They ate. I starved. They laughed. I crawled. I lived. They died.
He clenched his fists. The Pits still lived inside him. And he would never forget.