The first assassination attempt was laughable.
A poisoned tea cup. Amateur hour.
They served it to Winter.
She drank it.
Then vaporized the waiter.
Not out of rage.
Out of discipline.
She set him aflame with internal lightning, cooked him from within until he collapsed as a smoking husk. No flash. No scream. No mess.
Just judgment.
"Who sent him?" she asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
I examined the cup.
"Low-tier poison. Not Marine issue. Probably a noble."
"Roswald?"
"He's too scared of me."
"Charlos?"
"Too dumb."
She tilted her head. "Then it's a message."
"Correct."
"From who?"
I smiled thinly. "Everyone."
The dinner halls grew quieter after that.
No one invited me anymore.
Some said it was fear.
Others said I'd gone mad, trying to build a personal army and consort with a logia slave.
They weren't wrong.
But they didn't understand why.
The world was shifting.
And so was I.
The second attempt was clever.
An invitation to a duel.
Figarland vs. Saint Fontaine. A 'friendly spar.' Swords only. Ten minutes. Public, but not too public. Enough to create stakes. Enough to be watched.
A trap, of course.
Fontaine was a retired Rear Admiral in his youth. Muscles like ropes. Still carried his saber like a Marine.
I accepted anyway.
Because Winter would be watching.
The duel was held in the Spiral Garden.
Marble tiles. Fountains. Cherry trees that never bloomed.
Fontaine bowed. "Last chance to forfeit."
I stretched my neck.
"My back hurts, my knees ache, and I'm hungover. Let's begin."
He came in fast. Surprisingly fast. Old age hadn't dulled him.
He struck twice, feinted, then lunged.
I dodged none of it.
Because Winter did.
Lightning intercepted his blade in midair, redirecting it just an inch off center.
Nobody saw her.
They just saw me block with elegance I didn't possess.
The crowd gasped.
The tide turned.
By the fifth minute, Fontaine's wrist trembled.
By the eighth, he was on one knee.
By the tenth, I stood over him, sword at his throat.
He looked up.
"You cheated."
"I survived."
He smiled, bitterly.
"Then you've already won."
That night, I gifted Winter a dress.
Not as a reward.
But as armor.
Black velvet. Woven with sea-prism filaments. Lined with arc-reactive insulation. Elegant, silent, deadly.
She held it up.
"I look like a queen."
"You are."
She stepped closer.
"Would you like me to act like one tonight?"
"No," I said softly. "Tonight, I need my lightning."
She kissed my hand.
"Then let it storm."
The orphan academy produced its first candidate.
A girl named Selka. Sixteen. Blind in one eye. Haki sensitivity off the charts. Winter trained her personally.
Not as a sister.
As a soldier.
"Loyalty first," Winter told her. "To him. Always."
Selka didn't question it.
Nobody we kept ever did.
Because we saved them from worse.
Imu did not speak again.
But the agents multiplied.
More whispers.
More eyes.
One night, Winter called me to the vault.
She showed me a shell.
Black. Cracked. Smoking.
"Den Den Mushi," she said. "Hidden in the floor. Linked to nothing."
"Transmitter?"
"No. Receiver."
"Meaning?"
"Someone is already inside."
I gathered the inner circle.
Seven trusted ghosts.
None of them nobility.
All of them broken things I'd fixed.
I told them the truth.
"We are hunted."
They nodded.
I continued.
"Our enemies are gods."
More nods.
"And we will outlive them."
A pause.
Then a single word from Selka.
"Amen."
We didn't pray.
We prepared.