Heaven Has No Limit Interlude II - Wife Number Two

It happened two days after the Saint was announced as the Hero of Germa. She had been summoned into the Saint’s Room, along with a different girl, one she had learned was from the Kuja Tribe in the Grand Line. Garbed in a maid’s clothing, the girl had knelt in the chambers provided for Saint Noah, and she, too, had done the same.

The truth was revealed to her father, and her father revealed it to her. Yet, even when she’d seen the corpse rolled into their laboratory, she doubted it. A corpse would typically imply a body, but there was no torso to be found, only a battered, bruised head of a man whose face was contorted into a maddening grin. A man known the world over as the Hero of the Marines.

The Saint, who had brought back the single lifeless head, perhaps as a trophy, or perhaps for purposes of scientific inquiry, had been different since.

He had killed one of the guards who muttered about the Hero of the Marines not living up to expectations without a single word, and then shot the man’s companion thrice in the head afterwards, and kept firing until the man’s head was reduced to nothing, to the complete silence of everyone in the vicinity. No one had dared to stop him, and no one dared to tell him to stop.

The day after, one of the servants who brought him food had made a small mistake while pouring the meal, and the Saint had commanded the man to gorge on plates of food in his vicinity. Eating, and eating and eating until the man could eat no more, and when the man eventually did regurgitate the meal, the Saint killed him instantly, severing his head with a single motion of his finger.

Her father saw no issue with the deaths of the servants, as it was always the place of the serfs to die for, and serve the nobility with due diligence, such that he could only apologize for their lacking manners that offended Saint Noah.

The Saint, standing before them in his white suit, had not said a single word. Something about the man’s death had affected the Saint, for his eyes, sharp, blue eyes which before had contained a form of oppressive, almost commandeering, will, drive, and authority, were now…

They were… Cold. Freezing. Just looking at his eyes made Reiju feel a chill that ran up her spine. It made her feel as if she was being submerged, from head to toe, in the iciest depths of the ocean. There was a smothering, suffocating, all-consuming feeling just emanating from him in waves and droves that even if she had not already understood the basic etiquette of getting on her knees before a World Noble, she would have bent the knee all the same.  

The Saint’s presence before had not been like… this. Something had changed with the death of the Marine Hero. Whatever it was, Reiju could not say if it was for the better or for the worse.

“Reiju, Hancock. Hancock, Reiju, Vinsmoke’s Daughter, your new competition.” 

The word competition immediately had Reiju’s back stiffen, as the older girl beside her in the maid outfit snapped her neck to her.

“For now, there’s two of you. But there’ll be more joining you soon. I’m not going to bother remembering the names of any wife not in the top ten. I’m not going to give my time to anyone not in the top five.”

The Saint’s icy blue eyes narrowed. “You aren’t friends. You aren’t sisters. You aren’t co-lovers. This isn’t some polycule shit. It’s a harem. You girls are competitors. Those at the top get to win the prize: me. If I see you kissing each other when I’m not there, you’re both dead.”

He clapped his hands. “That concludes the First Harem Meeting. I’ll be leaving the room. You two work out amongst yourselves who wants to be wife number one and wife number two. Work it out however you want. My only rule is you can’t kill, permanently maim or cripple each other.”

What? Reiju’s brows shot high. The Saint was already leaving the room before she could speak to voice any questions. Once the door closed, Reiju turned her head to find a not-so-friendly, not-so-smiling woman, whose leg had already whipped out, faintly clad in the black sheen of what she recognized to be Armament Haki.

=====)+(=====

She was Wife Number Two.

Stumbling her way towards her father’s laboratory to fix her arm, which was now bent backwards and contorted in the manner of a pretzel, Reiju did not find much joy in her new position. On one hand, officially becoming the spouse of a Celestial Dragon was something her father wished for her, something he strove for, but on the other, she was aware her position only existed because there was no Wife Number Three, Four or Five yet. 

She could not beat the Kuja. That much was clear. She was a perfectly grown, genetically engineered super child, but she did not have a grasp of that power, Haki. With Armament Haki shielding her, all of Reiju’s attacks had bounced off the Kuja. She simply did not have the required force or power to break through her Armament Hardening. In the same vein, the Kuja could predict all of her attacks and evade them with absolute ease. The only time she managed to land a hit was by sacrificing her arm to do so, but even then, she did not break through the woman’s Color of Armament.

“Noah is mine,” Hancock had snarled. “Know your place.”

The fundamental problem was Haki.

Due to Haki, she lost. There was, of course, something to be said about the age difference, but that did not matter, given her genetic enhancements. In Reiju’s eyes, Haki was the defining factor.

Reiju did not have the tiniest understanding of how to use it; she did not know how to draw that mystical energy out of her body and coat her attacks with it, or defend herself with it, or predict attacks from it. The result was a one-sided, utterly unfair beating that ended in her tapping out in submission.

Is it impossible to beat someone with Haki if you can’t use it yourself?

Reiju made her way to her father’s laboratory, hoping for the man to use the tools to bend her twisted arm back into its proper position.  

“...studying Haki scientifically?”

Reiju stopped at the door of the laboratory. The soundproofing had not yet been fully reinstalled, in the aftermath of the Saint’s battle with the pirate, as almost no part of the Kingdom had been spared. Pressing her ears against the door, she overheard a conversation, her father’s voice, muffled, speaking with the voice of the man she supposed she was now to consider her husband. 

“Not… to my knowledge, Saint. It has never been done.”

“Congratulations,” she heard the Saint’s voice. “You’re gonna be the first to do it.”

“F-f-forgive me, Saint Noah, Haki isn’t the same as Devil Fruits. It isn’t scientific enough to—”

“Isn’t scientific enough to study? Is that what you want to tell me, Judge? And fruits that can let you absorb souls, move at the speed of light and turn into the fuckin’ Buddha are scientific?”

From all the tales of what Reiju had heard of them and read about Devil Fruits, she’d believed they were myths, exaggerated stories, rather than truth. It didn’t help that Devil Fruit Users were almost unheard of in North Blue. She had never even seen a Devil Fruit User before that pirate arrived.

“The World Government has been studying Devil Fruits for years, haven’t they?”

“Yes… Saint.”

“So, why the fuck have neither you nor Loserpunk thought about gathering individuals who can utilize Haki and throw them into a lab for testing?”

Reiju, at the door, heard the silence linger for a long stretch. Outside of the Grand Line, she thought. Haki users should be rarer than Devil Fruit Users…

Though that excuse was not one her father would use. Reiju was aware of how her father thought. The excuse was thin because if he truly wished for it, finding a few users of Haki to study would not be out of his capabilities.

Just as with most of the things Saint Noah discussed, the answer was simply: He had not thought of it.

The Saint sees the world in a completely different manner than we do, Reiju, her father had told her. He is the proof of all I have been telling you. Proof that by the nature of your birth, as one born into nobility, you are simply above all others who were not. The Saint interacts with those at the pinnacle of the world day after day, to the point where what seems impossible for you and me are merely things that, in the Saint’s eyes, should have been thought about ages ago.

“...Haki can be stored objects that’ll still have them hundreds of years later, and the legendary blade Enma is a sword that can force the release of the Haki of anyone who holds it. That’s grounds for scientific study. This is your task, Judge. Start studying Haki. Get Reiju to help you.”

“Reiju…? But S-Saint, I thought you were taking her with—”

“I’m not heading back to Mariejois yet,” he said. “'Cause once I head back, I’m gonna do something big. Something that’ll make a lot of noise and get a lot of those fuckers up there riled up.”

“You are?”

“Don’t ask. You’ll see it in the papers.”

“I… see. Saint. B-but… regarding this task, even with Reiju’s help, my hands are… full, especially if you take into account the other project, regarding the viruses. If I’m working on this at the same time—”

“If you’re so overworked, just clone yourself,” the Saint said. “You’re a geneticist who makes clone armies. Create two clones of yourself to help you with work, and put the same failsafes in the clones that you put in Reiju.”

“...Clone… myself?”

The door swung open. Reiju froze as Saint Noah stood there, staring at her with those icy, cold eyes. Those same eyes flicked to her twisted arm. “You lost.”

It was not a question.

“Yes, Saint.”

“No surprise there,” he said. “Hancock is a Kuja. On her island, Strength is Beauty. They fight each other daily and hunt monsters and Sea Kings for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She won’t lose to you, especially if you can’t use Haki. A Haki User losing to a Haki-less fighter simply can’t happen unless they’re brain-dead.”

Saint Noah stopped, before he ran his hand through his hair and muttered something under his breath. “Still don’t know how the hell she managed to get kidnapped in the first place… whatever.”

His hand landed on her shoulder.

“There’s no shame in being Wife Number Two. But if you don’t want to remain in second place forever, do what you can to help your old man. Got it?”

“Yes, Saint.”

The Saint walked off, his hands behind his back, and Reiju turned to her father, who was slowly stroking his chin as he stood within the lab, his eyes far, far away. “Scientifically studying Haki…” Judge muttered. “The things he thinks of…”

“Father, does the Saint seem…” Reiju paused. “Different?”

“Hm?” Her father turned his attention to her. “Reiju, what happened to your arm?”

“I lost to the Kuja that accompanies the Saint,” Reiju said. “...That makes me his Second Wife.”

“Second?” Her father frowned. There was a fire in his eyes. “No daughter of mine is going to be second fiddle to some barbarian sea-wench. Reiju, we’re starting your Haki training immediately.”

He grabbed a small hammer and a set of tools and gestured her over. She obliged, and he went to work on her twisted arm.

“I can study it as I train you in it. We’ll figure out how to make sure you can beat that woman and become the Saint’s First Wife.”

…Was this what the Saint intended?

Saint Noah pitted her against the Kuja, knowing she would lose because she lacked Haki. As she arrived, he was discussing the study of Haki with her father. Her father, hearing about her loss, now had a vested interest in teaching it to her and in studying it.

Reiju could not see what the Saint’s goal here was, only that the two events were not isolated. They were connected. She just could not see how.

=====)+(=====

The Saint began to drop by during her Haki Training Sessions and the post-training, journaling sessions conducted by her father. Their training sessions took place in a large private training ground behind the castle, where neither visitors nor staff were permitted. She would sit, cross-legged, attempting to grasp and feel the energy, the so-called life-force surrounding her body, to mixed results, and the two would be watching her, as Saint Noah discussed concepts and ideas Reiju could not at all understand, and, judging by her father’s face as he furiously scribbled, neither could he.

“...can be considered a result of willpower, grit and ambition,” the Saint said. “Haki can be seen as a function of willpower multiplied by grit and ambition. It seems like it’s the fucking indomitable human spirit bullshit, but most people forget that grit, ambition, and willpower are dependent on bloody genetics.”

“Willpower is a fuckin’ facet of personality, composed of elements such as grit and drive. Grit is a facet of conscientiousness, on the Big fucking Five. 40% to 50% of traits associated with conscientiousness, aka, grit, are heritable. If I have brats, they’ll inherit their mother’s grit, her perseverance. Or mine, or both. And I inherited my father’s, my mother’s… my grandmother’s…”

“The Big… Five, Saint?”

“Big Five Personality Traits: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticity. It’s a fuckin’ scientific model for measuring and describing human personality traits. They’re the actual scientific shit… instead of that MBTI bullshit… Fuckin’ astrology for people who think they’re above astrology…”

Reiju had never heard of any of this, yet the Saint continued, his arms crossed, his icy blue eyes carrying an assured chill, speaking with a confidence that his knowledge could not be doubted. There were days and moments where she felt her father exaggerated the Saint’s genius, but then, he would do things like this, speak like this, and make her feel that, on the contrary, neither of them had even scratched the surface of the bottomless sea of knowledge and intelligence possessed within Saint Jaygarcia Noah.

“My point is…” Saint Noah’s icy blue eyes landed on her. “No one in the world chooses their personality. That’s decided by genetics and environment. Not gonna go into the whole fucking nature vs nurture bullshit, but the too-long, didn’t read, is that nature influences nurture. Ambition, willpower, drive, and determination depend a lot on your hardware. Your genes.”

“If Haki is a power that comes from willpower, drive, and ambition, those with the better genes who inherited higher dopamine sensitivity have a leg-up. People who feel a massive hit of ‘fuck yeah’ chemicals just for brushing their teeth are gonna outscale those who need a fire alarm just to get out of bed. The good gene hardware bitches are gonna be sending messages at lightspeed, while those with shit genes are gonna be using fuckin’ pidgeon-mail.”

A power… that comes from… genes? Reiju turned to her father, and she had never seen him grin wider, and wider, grin from ear-to-ear. It was as if the Saint had confirmed it, with his own mouth, his own words, that he was right, that his belief in the superiority of the bloodline and the place of nobles above all else was right. That confirmation, that belief, he looked so unbelievably happy that it made Reiju’s stomach sink.

“Reiju.”

“Yes, Saint?”

“You’re going to be the one who lets me confirm this shit or not. You’ve got the good genes, the best genes, that Judge could upgrade. With your genetic modifications, and given who your parents are… learning Haki should be faster and easier than the bums and trash who are the children of nobodies.”

“Yes, Saint.”

Throughout her training, the Saint would toss out such tidbits of knowledge and information, her father would drop to his knees, weeping and swearing and praising Saint Noah’s genius, before running off to the lab in a frantic mess, leaving only the Saint watching her and her training.

She would sit there, and try to feel for the energy the Saint kept referring to, the lifeforce, the spiritual power, supposedly latent within her.

In the silence of his absences, the Saint never personally gave direct instructions to her. He would watch, and when she made a mistake, he would only stare with cold, blue eyes that instinctively felt as though they were piercing her soul, and they made her try a different tactic, a different method or means, and after that, he would look away, and she would let out a soft breath.

“Saint Noah… if… I may ask…?”

“What is it?”

“Did something… happen?”

The Saint’s icy eyes locked on her. “Happen?”

“Between you and… the Marine Hero.”

“Nothing happened.”

Saint Noah’s icy eyes turned away. Reiju took a breath and continued to attempt to feel the energy she was supposed to find within her. The spiritual energy that manifested, reportedly, in all living creatures.

“Do you know why I decided to do this shit, Reiju?”

“This…?”

“Studying Haki scientifically.”

Reiju shook her head. “I don’t, Saint.”

“Pride.”

“Pride…?” 

“Pride,” he repeated. “There’s no fuckin’ pride in Haki.”

Reiju, still trying to ‘feel’ the energy within her, felt a sudden spike of… something.

“Forgive me, Saint, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Donny Boy lost because he couldn’t touch my Haki. I won that fight, but it didn’t do anything for me. You know how it feels, when you’ve not even put your cock in a bitch’s cunt but she’s already moaning and screamin’ like you’re giving her the best sex she’s ever had? You know how it feels when you just put the tip in, and she starts swearing up and down that you’re god’s gift to womankind?”

She clearly did not.

“That’s how that shit felt to me. Felt like… like…”

The Saint clicked his tongue.

“...Fighting Donny Boy didn’t feel anywhere near as fuckin’ rewarding as I thought it would. Cause even if I'd trained even half as much, even if I barely trained at all, it’d still have ended the same way. Know why?”

He sneered.

“My Haki is stronger.”

A twisted, irritated laugh followed.

“My Haki is Stronger. That’s what determines it all. Not how much you train, or the moves you come up with, not your fuckin’ Battle IQ, not your mobility, ingenuity, or imagination. The guy with the stronger Haki wins. The guy with the Stronger Haki can tank fucking three thousand of your strongest attacks because fuck you, his Haki is stronger.”

There was a hitch in his voice. An irritated strain in his voice.

“...And there’s nothing you can fuckin’ do, but let them flex on you, ‘cause their Haki is stronger. Shit is fucked. Shit is prideless. I don’t wanna win or lose just ‘cause my Haki is stronger or weaker. Fuck that noise. If I win, I wanna win cause I’M stronger.” 

“Saint…” Reiju paused. “Isn’t your Haki a part of you?”

“Is it?”

…What? 

“When Hancock mopped the floor with you, did you feel she was strong because she had Haki?” Saint Noah asked. “Or that she had Haki because she was strong?”

Reiju did not answer.

“Keep practising, Reiju.”

=====)+(=====

It took her four days.

Four days to be able to finally faintly sense the energy that the Saint and her father called Haki. Less than one week to sense it, and less than one week to be able to faintly start to use it on her hand, learning how to coat her right hand in what was called the Color of Armament.

The Saint forbade her from celebrating her achievement.

“Don’t feel proud about this,” he said. “Don’t even think about feeling proud about it. Got it?”

Her father had wanted to celebrate. She told her father that she was not allowed to celebrate. Her father, confused, had gone to make an inquiry to the Saint. She stood outside the door of the lab, where the Saint was working on something, staring down at her pink shoes in silence.

“...pride in her achievement, Saint! Less than a week to be able to use Haki, at her age, with no prior experience, is remarkable! It’s proof that—”

“What’s there to be proud about?” She heard the Saint reply. “It’s like telling your wife to take pride in her massive tits. Sure, it’s nice to be appreciated for having massive fucking tits, but she didn’t choose to have massive fucking tits. What the fuck is she supposed to say when you tell her you really appreciate those tits? Oh, thanks! I got it from my mom?”

“But… Reiju put in the effort! She worked hard for—”

“I asked Hancock how long it usually takes for girls on her island to learn Haki. She said, even amongst the most talented of the Kuja, it takes years of intense training. Some manage to awaken it in the heat of battle, but those have already been learning it since they were kids. I told her Reiju figured it out in four days. No fuckin’ battle. No fuckin’ fighting. Just sitting down and listening to us prattle on about it. She couldn’t believe it. So, what, did Reiju work harder in less than one week than all those Kuja did for years, or were those bitches just not working hard enough?”

The Saint let out a loud snort.

“Pride. Garp said I had pride,” Saint Noah continued. “He was right. Pride is meant to be the reward for a fuckin’ achievement. You work hard, you get shit done, your brain squirts out some dopamine, and you feel ‘proud.’ It’s our monkey-brain incentive to keep doing difficult shit. It’s why the fuck I bother doing any of this shit.”

“But when you take pride in something out of your control, you become a bum, Judge. Oh, I’m tall, I’m proud of how tall I am. Bitch, you didn’t do anything to be tall. The moment you define your worth by something you didn’t fuckin’ earn, you become lazy as fuck. You become like those fucks up in Mariejois. You start finding other things you didn’t earn and feel pride in that shit too.”

“Worse, you make it so anyone who has that feature you take pride in becomes part of your ‘group’. You tell yourself, I’m better because I’m tall, so anyone who’s not tall isn’t shit. You find other tall people who agree with you, and that’s how you become a group of losers together. A group of losers who think winning the genetic lottery is an achievement.”

Reiju, standing behind the door, felt her entire heart clutch tight. “But…” she heard her father mutter. “Saint… weren’t you… glad to know that Haki is—”

“Listen to me, Judge, only losers take pride in shit they have no control over, shit they didn't choose or earn, and feel that it makes them better than others. Be it pride in their height, pride in their fat titties, or pride in the circumstances of their fuckin' birth.”

For years, her father had told her the opposite, that they were superior to the commonfolk because they were nobles, that they were better than them and should never worry about them or care for them or lower themselves to appease them, and take pride in what they were by the nature of their birth into nobility.

Yet, here, and now, a Celestial Dragon was telling him to his face that doing so made him a loser.

“But… but… but…” Reiju could almost taste the conflict in her father’s voice as he stammered. “T-the World Nobles believe… S-Saint… t-that’s the— that the only reason the World Nobles— you… The Celestial Dragons' entire philosophy is about… their right to rule, from their heritage and—”

“Like I said,” She heard the Saint snarl. “Only. Losers.”

Reiju almost laughed. Quickly, she covered her hand with her mouth.

“But… then… Saint N-Noah, f-forgive me, but… your Haki, your Color of the Supreme King… isn't it the same? It is the power to subjugate others, to rule over others… given, by the nature of birth alone… No matter how hard one trains, it cannot be gotten! It can’t be earned!”

“...Yeah.”

The Saint’s voice trailed off.

“Conqueror’s Haki runs on the same ideology as the World Dragons. A right to dominate and rule others not for shit you did or earned, but because you were born amongst a privileged few.” 

“Yes! That’s exactly—”

“That isn’t something to be fuckin’ proud about either,” the Saint cut him off. “As I told Reiju, there’s no pride in Haki.”

Her father choked on his words.

“If you've got nothing else to say, get goin’. I’m busy. There’s shit I need to do before I leave for Mariejois.”

Her father exited the room, swaying, looking as if his entire worldview had been overturned. He turned to her, opened his lips, and then closed them, and then he simply stared at the space in front of him.

“It’s okay, father. You can still take pride in being nobility.”

It just means, in the Saint’s eyes… you’re a loser…

Reiju shot a glance at the room where the Saint was.

In my eyes… the Saint… he’s….

He did not feel like someone born into nobility and privilege; on the contrary, if Reiju didn’t know any better, she would say that the Saint…

The Saint was someone who came from the lowest of the low.

Like in those storybooks and fairy tales, he was a pauper, who’d been made into a Prince.

…But he was born a World Noble… so… why is he… different?

Reiju had no understanding of it.

But, she was Wife Number Two.

Maybe, just maybe, one day…

She would find out.