We were getting closer and closer to the present day, and Saint Saturn decided to inflict one last cruelty on Kuma.
He ordered that a self-destruct switch be implanted into him—a mechanism that could blow him apart instantly.
Vegapunk was absolutely furious.
He argued against it immediately, his voice rising with real anger, but in the end, even he was forced to give ground. Still, he tried one last time to save something.
He proposed a compromise.
A brain circuit.
Something simple enough for him to install, something that could toggle between personality modes. A system that would allow Kuma to keep at least some fragment of who he was, some trace of his free will.
But Saturn wanted none of it.
He made his position painfully clear.
Every trace of Kuma's free will had to be destroyed.
Nothing left behind.
Vegapunk became emotional then. He started shouting, even bringing up Bonney, trying to appeal to whatever tiny piece of humanity might have existed in the elder.
But Saturn didn't care.
He simply ended the call.
And because Vegapunk had given Kuma superhuman hearing, Kuma heard every word of it.
Every argument.
Every desperate attempt.
Every failure.
Then the day finally came.
The day Kuma would lose himself.
The room was quiet in a way that felt wrong. Heavy. Final. The kind of silence that only exists when everyone present knows something irreversible is about to happen. They spoke softly about the time they had spent together, and even though it had only been two years, they both knew those years had mattered.
They had shared meals.
Laughter.
Research.
Long conversations.
Small peaceful moments in between pain and surgery and impossible decisions.
They had, somehow, had good times together.
Vegapunk reminded him that the first mission he would be sent on after losing his free will would be against the Whitebeard Pirates.
The coming war at Marineford.
The war that history would later call the War of the Best.
Even then, Kuma did not ask for mercy for himself.
Instead, he made one final request.
He asked Vegapunk to install one last program into him.
He wanted to guard the Thousand Sunny until one of the Straw Hat crew returned to reclaim it.
He wanted to protect their ship.
Their home.
And when Vegapunk asked why, Kuma gave the simplest answer he could.
Luffy had moved his soul.
He couldn't fully explain it, but what Luffy had done, the way he fought, the way he lived, the way he threw himself against oppression and cruelty without hesitation—it felt like something ancient had stepped into the present.
