The thunder of cannon fire was the only melody left on Ohara.
The sky was a terrifying gray, as if it might collapse at any moment.
The burning Tree of Knowledge stood like a sky-piercing torch, bathing the entire dim daylight in a bloody crimson.
In the scorching air hung the smell of scorched paper, mixed with the salty, fishy damp that the wind dragged in from the sea.
"BOOM—!"
Another shell landed nearby. Dirt and shattered stone burst up and rained down like a storm.
The surviving scholars shrieked again, instinctively huddling and crouching together, shaking in hopeless terror.
Rosinante and Smoker reached the edge of the clearing in this chaos, half-crawling, half-sprinting.
The moment Smoker arrived and saw Rain standing calmly in the middle of a sea of corpses, he froze.
Then he spat the cigar out of his mouth, threw it down, and ground it out with his mud-caked boot.
"Rain!" He rushed up in a few long strides, not even bothering to wipe the soot off his face, voice lowered and furious. "What the hell are you doing?! You said there was an urgent situation—so why did you suddenly speed up, ditch us, and charge in alone?!"
"R-Rain…" Rosinante was bent over, hands on his knees, gasping hard. He lifted his head—and his gaze locked in place.
CP9 corpses.
Headless ones. Split in half. Cleanly bisected by a sword wave. Blood pooling into little streams.
A chill shot from his feet to his skull. His face went paper white.
His eyes moved from the bodies, to Rain's calm profile, to the scholars nearby with despair carved into their faces.
Rosinante's heart clenched.
He felt like he… understood something.
"These people… are…?" he asked, voice trembling.
Rain's expression didn't change. He dusted his hands, straightened his wrinkled collar with leisurely calm, and replied casually:
"Who else? Pirates. A bunch of them who tried to land during the Buster Call and loot the place. I cleaned them up on the way."
"Pirates?" Smoker's brows twisted into a knot. He recognized the distinctive emblem on the black suits. "Pirates that dress this uniformly…?"
"Don't worry about who they were."
Rain's voice hardened, all humor gone as he cut Smoker off.
He scanned the scene—the terrified scholars, the dying Olvia, the little girl clinging to Dr. Clover's robe, the child named Robin.
Finally, he looked straight at Smoker and Rosinante.
"I need to ask you something more important."
The air seemed to congeal. Even the cannonfire felt far away.
"You two… do you trust me?"
Rosinante didn't hesitate. For him, it wasn't even a question.
He nodded hard, voice cracking with emotion. "Of course! Rain! Of course I trust you!"
Smoker stayed silent.
He wasn't as naive as Rosinante. He looked at the CP9 bodies on the ground, then at Rain's eyes—eyes that brooked no argument.
He knew Rain was lying.
…But.
"Duh!" Smoker finally roared, voice hoarse. "The second I got your signal, I dropped my job and hauled my ass over here! And now you're asking if I trust you?!"
After living together this long, Rain's name in Smoker's heart had long been filed right alongside Hina's—someone who mattered.
"So what the hell are you trying to say?!" Smoker demanded.
"Good."
Rain nodded. That was the answer he needed.
He took a deep breath and said the line that hit like a meteor:
"I'm going to save all of these scholars."
Rosinante: ((((;°Д°))))
Smoker and Rosinante both sucked in a sharp breath.
"You've lost your mind?!" Smoker nearly jumped, forcing his voice low as he growled. "This is a Buster Call! The World Government's highest order! Even if we don't help carry it out—openly defying it?! You want to be executed as a war criminal?!"
"The World Government's order?" Rain sneered. "Smoker—look around!"
He pointed at the unarmed people shaking in the firelight.
"What crime did they commit? Studying history? Knowing something certain people don't want known?"
"I don't care what the Government says!" Rain's voice rose sharply, filled with absolute authority. "This is slaughter!"
The words hit Smoker and Rosinante like a hammer.
Rosinante was kind by nature and already sickened by indiscriminate killing; now his fists clenched so hard his nails bit into his skin.
Smoker's chest rose and fell violently. He believed in justice—but his justice was the one in his own heart, not some blind order from above.
"…Damn it."
Smoker spat on the ground. "I knew hanging around you was never going to end well!"
He lifted his head, red-rimmed eyes locked onto Rain. "Fine. Tell me what to do. There are dozens of scholars here—too big a target. How do we run? The sea is packed with warships!"
Only then did a faint smile appear at the corner of Rain's mouth.
"That's more like it."
He didn't answer immediately. He walked straight up to Smoker and yanked the military shoulder bag off him.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" Smoker blinked.
Rain unzipped it and shoved a hand inside, pretending to rummage.
The next second, under everyone's stunned stare, Rain began pulling out item after item from the tiny bag:
sterile gauze, hemostats, roll after roll of bandages, several large bottles of medical alcohol, suture needles and thread, and seven or eight small medicine bottles filled with different pills.
In moments, the supplies piled into a small mountain.
Smoker rolled his eyes on the spot.
He looked down at the pile, then at his now-flattened bag, and didn't even bother questioning it anymore.
"…Yeah, yeah. I knew it. That trick again," he muttered, completely numb to the absurdity by now.
Rain didn't care about his teammates' reactions. He grabbed the most essential first-aid items and shouted to the scholars:
"Who here knows medicine? This woman is dying—help stabilize her wounds, now!"
Several scholars responded at once.
"I do!"
"I used to be a doctor!"
"Good! Get over here!"
Rain shoved supplies into their hands. Then he crouched beside Olvia. Her breathing was paper-thin, and the wound in her abdomen had begun bleeding again.
Rain looked into her gray eyes, already drifting from blood loss, and said quietly:
"Hold on. You're going to see your daughter, and you'll be able to live with her—from now on."
Olvia's unfocused pupils snapped tighter. With her last strength, she grabbed Rain's wrist, lips moving shakily:
"Y-you… who are you… why help us… help Ohara…?"
"We'll have time to talk later," Rain said gently, lowering her hand back down. "Save your strength."
He stood and watched the scholars begin working—clumsy from panic, but still professional enough—cleaning and stopping the bleeding.
Rain's gaze drifted to the Tree of Knowledge burning like a torch.
He asked himself: if the Tree of Knowledge had not intervened, would he still have chosen to act?
Yes.
This had nothing to do with being a saint.
It was because his soul—born in a modern world—could not tolerate being a bystander.
If, after gaining the power to change things, he still chose to hide like a turtle and pretend it was "fate," he would despise himself for the rest of his life.
He refused to live as that kind of coward.