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On a shattered barren isle, wind-scoured rock bore bizarre hollows carved by the sea; sparse withered grass rustled amid the grit.
"Old man,"
Sanji began, voice laced with a confusion he couldn't shake, turning to Rayleigh lounging in a wicker chair, brows knit.
"Every time I merge the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's power with Diable Jambe…"
He paused, lifted his right leg, and stared at it intently.
"It feels… off."
Sanji weighed his words; the usual levity or sharpness on his handsome face replaced by pure bewilderment.
"In that instant when lightning's heat and hell-flame coil and erupt, there's a… very faint sense of repulsion."
He sketched the abstract feeling in the air with a finger, trying to give it shape.
"Like two surging torrents racing the same way, yet at their tightest confluence they jostle each other."
"Or two tuning forks of different pitches—struck together, they still hum with a discord you can't quite smooth out."
Rayleigh's eyes were half-lidded, silver hair fluttering; he didn't answer at once, only listened.
"It's that subtle wrongness,"
Sanji went on, faster now, frustration bleeding through,
"that bleeds a notch of force from what should be a perfect burst, right at the critical instant."
"Outsiders might still call it devastating, but I can feel it—that fused strike, at best, delivers only eighty percent of what it should."
He clenched a fist, knuckles cracking, and shot Rayleigh a sharp look:
"Old man Rayleigh, you've seen every power on the seas. What causes a repulsion that feels… like incompatible natures?"
Sea wind swept the isle, lifting sand that scudded across Rayleigh's weathered face.
His gaze slowly focused, sliding from the distant horizon to Sanji's leg crackling with thunder and flame.
"Repulsion?"
He set down his flask, mouth curving in a knowing, complicated smile,
"is merely the surface symptom. The root lies in the origin and 'rank' of these forces—they're worlds apart from the start."
"The fire of your Diable Jambe burns from the bloodline factors engineered inside you."
"Fierce as it is, it's still of this world, driven by flesh, will, the life-energy of a human."
His fingers lifted as if pinching an invisible spark from the air.
"But this lightning comes from the Rumble-Rumble Fruit—it embodies a rule beyond ordinary physics."
"One is a man-made creation of science; the other, a fragment of the world's own law."
"The 'repulsion' you feel is simply the first, shallow echo of that fundamental mismatch."
Rayleigh's tone shifted; he stared at Sanji:
"What you're sensing is only the discomfort of that mismatch—proof that your grasp of the fruit's power is still at the level of simple 'use'."
"You command the phenomenon of lightning, but you haven't yet grasped or mastered its core as a 'law'."
His voice hardened, each word like white-hot iron striking the island's stones:
"But listen, boy—when a Devil Fruit crosses the threshold into Awakening, 'repulsion' becomes too gentle a word."
Rayleigh leaned forward, eyes blazing with dangerous light.
"Awakening means the fruit's power grows no longer content with the user alone."
"It swells, domineeringly spreads outward, forcibly converting the surroundings—and every 'law' it touches—into a domain of its own nature."
He let the sea breeze carry off the last shred of hesitation, leaving only cold certainty:
"The bloodline-flame born of human science can never rival Awakened lightning, a corner of the world's own rule."
"In the end, it can only be suppressed—reconstructed."
Only the ceaseless wash of waves and the chill portent of those words remained on the barren isle.
"So…"
Sanji spoke slowly, voice lower than usual, each word dredged from deep thought,
"the most rational path now is to abandon Diable Jambe's flame entirely, and pour everything into evolving the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's thunder?"
He understood.
The science-forged bloodline fire and reality-warping Awakened lightning
were leagues apart in 'rank'; Rayleigh had carved that truth like a blade.
Forcing the fusion would only halve the gain and risk an inner war of laws—clutching an unstable bomb.
The logic stood like an immovable mountain.
Yet… Sanji lowered his gaze to his legs, toes remembering the sting of searing flame, a heat that resonated with a cook's burning heart.
Diable Jambe wasn't just a weapon; it was born on a desolate ice field, sworn to his crew, etched with his struggle to break chains and define strength by his own will.
That flame burned with his past, his defiance—the very soul that made him "Black Leg Sanji," not "Vinsmoke Sanji."
Abandon it?
A fierce refusal lodged in his throat, scorching his chest.
Not greed for power, but denial of a piece of himself.
Rayleigh read every flicker of that struggle and defiance in Sanji's eyes.
He didn't press, only took another sip and let the silence ferment between them.
After a moment he nodded—part affirmation, part something beyond it—then slowly shook his head.
"What I just said,"
Rayleigh's voice had regained its calm, yet it now held the vast, unfathomable depth of an endless sea.
"It is the 'common sense' of this sea, proven by countless tears and blood—the acknowledged 'best way' with the smallest price and the clearest future."
"Follow it, and you'll at least stand stably among the top-tier powerhouses, under the pure name of Lightning."
His tone shifted; in those eyes that had witnessed countless legends and falls, a searing brilliance suddenly flared like a meteor cleaving the night.
"But, Sanji… true monsters—those who finally tower above the surging waves and turn their own names into symbols of an era—never pave their roads with 'common sense.'"
"When they see a wall, they think of how to shatter it or rise above it; when they meet two incompatible powers, they exhaust their wits and stake everything to create an unprecedented third possibility."
Rayleigh clenched his fist in the air, as though to grasp that intangible 'possibility.'
"That path is strewn with thorns, nine chances of death to one of life; you may never find an exit, and in the end the two clashing forces might devour you completely."
His gaze was like an anvil, hammering the next words into Sanji's ears:
"Yet once you break through… what you possess will no longer be mere Flame or Thunder, but an unprecedented Law—one that belongs solely to 'Black Leg Sanji.'"
Sanji's pupils contracted sharply.
All his reluctance, hesitation, and weighing were, before these words, split apart by a violent bolt of lightning; what emerged was not bewilderment, but a razor-edged flame now ignited.
Before him appeared no longer a fork demanding a choice, but an uncharted, perilous and magnificent wilderness of chaos.
"…"
He drew a deep breath of air laced with brine and scorched tang, his chest rising and falling slowly.
A moment later, facing Rayleigh, he no longer adopted the stance of a junior seeking counsel.
He looked more like a warrior offering formal respect to the one who had shown him the way.
He dipped his hands in a concise salute, simple yet brimming with strength.
When he lifted his head, the eyes that usually reflected either a lady's silhouette or an enemy's weakness had settled; the earlier frustration and confusion had precipitated away.
In their place remained a crystalline clarity and a white-hot resolve to burn one's boats.
"Much obliged, old man."
The voice was low but clear and steady, like the first ringing strike of a blade after quenching, carrying far across the broken island.
He did not say which road he would choose.
Yet the blazing light in his eyes already declared:
Whether he would follow common sense to the summit or stake everything to open the wilds, he would walk to the end as 'Black Leg Sanji.'
"Ahem."
A light cough sounded, jarringly out of place amid the island's harsh training atmosphere.
The voice carried its usual chill, yet was laced with a barely perceptible speechlessness.
Not far away, beside a charred tree trunk, Trafalgar Law was leaning askew.
His spotted cap was caked with dust, his once-handsome fur coat torn in many places, revealing half-wrapped, still-bleeding bandages beneath.
He held a tube of ointment; every movement tugged at his wounds, making his motions stiff, his face expressionless.
Only the faint crease between his brows betrayed both the pain and an unspoken exasperation at the scene before him.
"Mr. Rayleigh,"
he continued, head still lowered as he wrestled with the bandages, tone flat,
"why don't you 'while you're at it' give me some guidance as well?"
The air seemed to freeze for an instant.
Rayleigh turned; his gaze landed on Law's battered state, the corner of his mouth twitching almost imperceptibly.
He raised his flask, took a long swig, then let out a reluctant "ha,"
his eyes looking as though at a troublesome kid who'd gained an advantage and still wanted more.
"You?"
Rayleigh's tone was blunt to the point of rudeness,
"As the 'Surgeon of Death,' you've already pushed your ability to a dazzling extreme."
"The use of ROOM, your treacherous tactics, even merging your power with swordsmanship—your path is as clear as if drawn with a ruler, your direction terrifyingly firm."
"What else do you need me to guide?"
"Teach you how to wrap yourself up a bit prettier?"
The words were barbed, yet they were also the highest praise.
Law heard them, his hand applying ointment pausing for a beat; the corner of his mouth twitched—whether from pain or something else, who could say.
Beside them, Sanji snapped back to his senses.
Only now did he realize that, immersed in Rayleigh's answers and his own inner storm, he had completely forgotten the "wounded man."
And as for Law's injuries—well, training always brings bruises, but at least seventy or eighty percent of the credit belonged to Sanji's own relish for "bullying the weak."
A flicker of guilt, tiny as an electric arc, flashed across Sanji's heart.
He habitually straightened the collar of his already tattered suit and walked toward Law.
"Hey, uh…"
Sanji's voice carried less levity than usual. He crouched, eyes sweeping over the shocking wounds on Law's body.
"Even if you're a doctor, bandaging yourself… must feel pretty awkward!!"
Without waiting for a reply, he naturally reached out and took the clumsily handled bandage roll from Law's hand.
"Let me help."
Sanji said, his tone hardly gentle—rather stiff and awkward—but his movements were unexpectedly steady and precise.
Law's body stiffened almost imperceptibly; he clearly wasn't used to such sudden "friendliness."
He lifted his eyes, those pupils ever aloof giving Sanji a sidelong glance, said nothing, but silently passed over the ointment tube.
On the desolate island, the wind still howled.
On one side stood Silvers Rayleigh, shaking his head and drinking; on the other,
the cook, temporarily setting aside his quest for power, focused on bandaging, and the Surgeon of Death, enduring pain and looking somewhat awkward.
A strange, slightly awkward yet unexpectedly harmonious atmosphere quietly spread.