The medics were finally tending to Dax — not because he asked, but because they refused to let him stand on his own anymore.
He winced as they dabbed his face with alcohol and stitched a small cut above his eyebrow.
His knuckles were split. His ribs were taped. His body was wrecked.
But his spirit?
Still steel.
The other recruits watched from a distance — some with awe, others with disbelief.
"Why the hell is he smiling…?"
"I'd be unconscious."
"Dude's not human…"
Dax didn't hear them.
He was watching the wind blow through the Marine flag above the field.
Then... the atmosphere changed.
Boots crunched on gravel behind him. Heavy. Calm. Intentional.
The medics paused. Silence rippled across the field.
Dax looked up — and his eyes widened.
Standing before him was Vice Admiral Rael Vos.
Tall, severe, with sharp silver hair and emotionless, eagle-like eyes. His coat bore no medals, but the black insignia on his shoulder — a ghostly white bird — told everyone what he was.
Not a talker.
Not a showman.
A hunter of pirates feared even in the New World.
Dax sat up straighter. "...Sir."
Rael stared at him for a long moment.
"You don't dodge," the Vice Admiral said, voice cold and smooth. "You don't block. You take every hit like it's your duty."
Dax nodded slowly. "I believe pain's the cost of protection, sir."
Rael raised a brow. "And if you die in the process?"
Dax smiled through the blood. "Then I die doing my job."
The Vice Admiral didn't smile.
But he reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver badge — marked with two stripes and the Marine symbol.
The crowd gasped.
Dax blinked. "...That's a Vice Captain badge."
Rael tossed it to him.
Dax barely caught it with one hand, stunned.
"I'm forming a new combat unit," Rael said. "Frontline insertion. Dangerous operations. No glory. No headlines. Just results."
He leaned down slightly, eyes sharp.
"I want someone who takes hits the world can't. I want someone who doesn't need orders to protect the weak."
A long pause.
"I want you, Dax Verno, as my Vice Captain."
The entire field fell into stunned silence.
Even Captain Bron, watching from the tower, nearly dropped his anchor.
Dax looked at the badge in his hands. Then at his bruised, broken knuckles.
He stood — slowly — painfully.
And saluted.
"I accept, Vice Admiral."
Rael nodded once. "You leave in three days. Rest. Bleed. Then get stronger."
He turned without another word and walked off, coat fluttering behind him like a ghost.
Dax stood alone now.
Vice Captain.
Eighteen years old.
Bloodied.
But chosen.
A cheer broke out somewhere. Then another. Then a wave of applause and shouting erupted across the field.
"DAX?!"
"THAT CRAZY IDIOT GOT PROMOTED?!"
"NO WAY—!"
Dax just looked down at the badge in his hand.
He wasn't dreaming.
This was real.
And for the first time in his life… he didn't feel like just another survivor from Batro Island.
He felt like a Marine.
The cheers faded.
The crowd dispersed.
But Dax was still standing in the middle of the training field, holding the Vice Captain badge like it was made of gold and fire.
Even now, it felt… unreal.
Eventually, the medics forced him back to the barracks. He limped the whole way — ribs taped tight, legs dragging, still covered in sweat and dirt. Every step was a reminder that he earned this not by grace… but by grit.
The Barracks – Late Afternoon
The sun had dipped lower in the sky, casting long beams of light across the barrack floor.
Dax pushed open the door to his room and stepped inside — expecting to collapse onto his bunk like he always did.
But he stopped cold.
There, lying across his mattress like it had been waiting for years, was a Marine coat.
Not a recruit's coat.
Not an officer's hand-me-down.
This one was crisp white, edged in silver trim. The back bore the Marine insignia and, just below it in stitched black thread:
"VICE CAPTAIN – GHOST SIGNAL UNIT"
Folded neatly beside it was a black undershirt, fresh gloves, and a pair of iron-gray boots — tougher, heavier than standard issue. A set of gear tailored for someone who didn't dodge the fight.
Dax stepped forward slowly, staring at the coat like it was a dream stitched in cloth.
He reached out, brushing his fingers across the shoulder.
It felt… heavier than he expected.
Not in weight.
In meaning.
He'd been sleeping in this same bunk for six months — fighting for scraps, laughed at by instructors, treated like a walking joke. He'd taken every punch without complaint. Bled in silence. Never once backed down.
And now?
He was somebody.
A Vice Captain.
Not because he was the strongest.
Not because he was the smartest.
But because he refused to fall.
He slowly shrugged off his bandaged, torn coat and slipped into the new one. It stung against his wounds. His ribs protested. His shoulders burned.
But when it settled over him?
He felt invincible.
He looked at himself in the small cracked mirror across the room — bruised face, swollen jaw, taped-up body…
And the Vice Captain's coat over it all.
He grinned, blood still drying on his teeth.
"Still look like an idiot."
But now?
He was Rael Vos' idiot.
Outside the window, the wind howled off the sea.
And far beyond the waves, pirate flags fluttered across the Grand Line.
Waiting.
The next three days were hell.
Not because of any orders.
Not because of missions.
But because Dax Verno refused to rest.
While others celebrated their rankings, packed their gear, or showed off for the arriving Vice Admirals, Dax was on the beach, shirtless and bruised, letting waves crash against his healing wounds.
He punched driftwood until his knuckles split again, then kept going.
He ran barefoot across sharp coral and broken stone, letting pain sharpen his instincts.
He stood still while recruits hit him with wooden batons, again and again, refusing to flinch.
No one told him to do it.
But everyone started watching.
At first, they thought he was showing off.
By the second day, they realized he was preparing for war.
One evening, a group of recruits gathered outside the mess hall, peeking out a side window.
"There he is again…"
"Bro. He's training with busted ribs."
"He's insane."
"No… He's serious."
By the third day, even the instructors who once rolled their eyes started nodding in silence when they passed him.
One handed him a heavier training vest without a word.
Another offered a bucket of sea-salt water to harden his hands.
Captain Bron watched from the tower, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"…Idiot kid might survive longer than I thought," he muttered.
Dax didn't do it to impress.
He did it because the Ghost Signal Unit wasn't a reward.
It was a responsibility.
He knew Vice Admiral Rael didn't pick him to play dress-up. He picked him to stand between monsters and the people who couldn't.
So Dax trained like the Grand Line was already waiting to kill him.
Because it was.
On the final morning, as the Ghost Signal ship loomed at the dock, gleaming like a phantom in the mist, Dax walked through the base in full uniform.
His Vice Captain coat fit him better now — not looser, but earned.
No one called him "Punchbag Dax."
No one laughed when he walked by.
One recruit stepped aside and muttered, "Respect, Verno."
Another saluted.
Dax just smiled and kept walking.
He didn't need their praise.
But he'd take their respect.