The day proceeded without incident, for the rest of the time, all Light did was rest. He had a good sleep and woke up the next day feeling refreshed.
'Put on a show…'
The first thing he did after waking up was go back to the bottom of the ship, to the dark room where he first entered this world. There, the dead pirate was lying still just like he had been yesterday.
He ignored the shirtless corpse and pinched his nose to move forward. As it was morning, the dark room was far more clearly visible. Light shone in from the gaps in the wooden ceiling and walls, and the cannonball hole was almost like a bulb.
He swiftly located what he was looking for—his old shirt, the one that had a cannonball-sized hole in it. He brought the fabric close to the hole in the wall and finally found what he was yearning to learn—his own name.
Or more specifically, the name of the previous host of his new body. He looked down at the shimmering badge and read the name.
"Murphy Rayburn"
'Interesting name…'
For some reason, as soon as he read the name aloud, he heard a hoarse laugh inside his head, [Hahahahhahaha!]
'What is this edgelord laughing about now? Whatever, I shouldn't pry into the mysteries of madness.
Like they say: If you stare into the abyss for too long, you might have too much time on your hands to be looking at nothing, please find a job.'
Light first took off the badge and put it in his pocket. Then he looked around for a bit and stretched his arm to throw his impaled and bloodied shirt out of the hole in the wall.
'This is the last bit of proof regarding the transmigration. Who knows what people would assume if they saw this shirt with a giant hole in it? Probably nothing close to the truth, but why take the risk?'
But as he held the shirt out, he hesitated… 'I should do something about this…'
Light wasn't the most emotional person, but he believed in respect. He had taken the host's body and exchanged nothing in return.
The least he could do was show more respect to the uniform he valiantly fought for. He took back his arm and tore up the shirt. He didn't need to be stupid to show respect, so he didn't feel like tearing up the shirt to hide the hole would be a big deal.
He gave the dark room one last look and walked away.
…
Upon reaching the deck, he saw dozens of mangled and bloodied bodies rotting all over this ship, both pirates and marines lay silent in the embrace of death.
Light grimaced at the sight, 'It's all the same, no matter which world I go to… All of them are rotten to the core, filled with filth.'
His gaze shifted, and he saw the lieutenant on the other side of the deck, unceremoniously dumping many dirty bodies into the ocean. He was getting rid of the dead weight by disposing of the corpses of pirates.
For some reason, this brutal act made Light subtly smile, he shouted from the other side of the deck so his captain could hear him. "Want some help with that?"
Scarn looked back and menacingly smiled. "Guess, I can't hog all the fun myself."
With that, he dusted his hands and walked up towards the front of the deck. "Not having a helmsman while travelling through the Grand Line is a recipe for disaster, so you can take over the job of making the vessel lighter."
"Sure will"
'Grandline, huh… is that the name of the ocean?'
Without saying another word, he walked forward and stood at the edge of the wooden deck while leaning on the metal railings.
He sighed, then took out the shirt from his pocket and carefully placed it on the railing. He then took out a matchbox and a glass bottle of rum.
He poured some of it on the shirt and then lit it on fire.
He watched as the wind made the flames dance in front of him and flutter his dark orange hair.
Lieutenant Scarn looked at this scene expressionlessly. When the fire finally settled and the ashes flowed away with the wind, he slowly saluted.
…
The rest of the day was full of work. Firstly, Light dumped all the pirate bodies in the ocean without a second thought, but the work itself was tiring. It took him a few hours. Then he finally went back to his room, which was also surprisingly the same room as the one the lieutenant had put him into when he was knocked out.
'Thank god I went back and looked for my badge. It would have been awkward if the lieutenant knew about me, but I didn't.'
After reaching the room, he unceremoniously threw away the dead pirate's stinking shirt and wore another set of uniform that Rayburn—the original host of this body—had brought with him. He made an improvised pocketed vest belt to carry all the materials he had with him, especially the exquisite dagger and beautiful revolver he took from the old pirate's corpse. Even in the naval ship full of arms, nothing trumped the quality of those two weapons.
'Well, as dirty as that pirate was, he at least had some good taste when it came to killing.'
He then looked at himself in his room's full body mirror and admired the new sleeveless shirt adorned with a navy blue neck scarf and pants of the same colour.
In the end, both the lieutenant and Light decided it would be better to keep the bodies of soldiers in a cold compartment so they could be deported back to their families. If that wasn't possible, they could at least be given a proper send-off at the next naval base.
And with that, the day ended.
Or it would've, but when Light went to bed, alone in the dark and endless ocean, he heard the voice of the dead in his head again.
[Brat]
Light opened one eye and spoke back with an irritated tone, "What?!"
[You lied]
He squinted his eyes for a moment, but then relaxed and slept comfortably on his back. "Of course I did, what about it?"
[So you know it?]
"Depends on what the 'it' is."
[Just now you realised that I could feel what you feel, because both of our souls are connected, isn't that right?]
"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, what about it?"
[You didn't feel one damn thing. Throughout the whole time our souls have been connected, I could not feel a single human emotion through you. No empathy for the soldier whose body you took over, no love or hate for anyone else, regardless of whether they were pirates or the navy. All I found was apathy within your soul. All you care about is yourself and your self-interest. While you were supposedly paying your respects to the dead by lighting that shirt on fire, all you did was get rid of the evidence of your identity, and did something to get in that Scarn fellow's favour.]
Light was quiet for a while, then he spoke in a calm tone, "Yeah, and so what? You want me to be a crybaby or something? I was never an especially emotional kid; even when I felt something, I was adept at manipulating the variables in my mind to calm myself down. After all, a calm mind is the sharpest. It also helps in pretending to feel something, in order to fit in, that is all…"
The voice within his head sighed, [How boring…]
"You're problem, why tell this to me?"
[Because the purpose of me joining with your soul was to feel what it's like to be a human again, it's one of the few sources of entertainment we Shinigami have. Instead, I just got attached to a pseudo shinigami with a hollow soul.
Light sighed, "And that's my problem, how?"
[If you don't entertain me… I'll devour your soul]
…