The aftermath of the Edd War spread faster than the storm itself.
A few days later a News Coo dropped the latest paper on the Oro Jackson's deck. The front page screamed in eye-shattering bold:
[Clash of the Century. The Golden Lion's Grand Armada Annihilated. Gol D. Roger, the Unbeaten Legend of the Sea.]
The article relived every heartbeat of the encounter. It painted Shiki's twenty-five flying warships as gods descending, and the Oro Jackson's lone stand as an epic, elegiac ballad. In the final paragraphs the pen swerved, lingering in awe and confusion on the storm that had been too precise, too obedient, as if guided by unseen hands.
"… the sea and thunder seemed to ally with Roger. Calamity itself became a gavel of judgment, pounding the Flying Pirates into the deep. The Golden Lion was felled by a broken helm that pierced his skull, fleeing in disgrace with his fate unknown. This battle marks the fall of one era's titan and the full apotheosis of another legend…"
"Kūhahaha. 'Ally of the sea,' my ass." Scopper Gaban wiped tears of laughter, waving the paper. "Kael did the work, the weather gets the credit."
Buggy, still stroking the singed tip of his red nose, muttered, "Quit it. I go weak at the knees whenever I see a cloud now. That day Kael-nii was scarier than a devil."
Kael Grylls leaned on the rail and cleaned his blade, deaf to the praise on the page and the chatter around him.
Joy ebbed as quickly as it had surged. Only Crocus's verdict circled in his head. Three to four years at most.
No victory could buy Roger a single extra second.
That helplessness was a needle you could not pull out.
The Oro Jackson had taken heavy damage, so the crew tucked into a quiet, out-of-the-way island. The dockyard was crude, but it was peaceful. Shipwrights hammered. Pirates slipped into town to restock or drink, noisy enough to scour away the fatigue of war.
Kael did not go.
He sat alone in a corner piled with scrap timber where he could see the Oro Jackson end to end. He sat and did not move, a statue in the shade.
A big figure cut off his sun.
"Hey."
Kael looked up into Douglas Bullet's stone-hard face.
The man called the Devil's Heir radiated danger and raw, pure power.
Bullet did not circle. "Edd War. That storm was you. Your strength is far beyond what you have shown."
Kael said nothing, gaze steady.
Bullet kept going, voice low and iron, like a judgment laid down. "Roger is strong. I admit that. But he is a sick man, a dying man with little time. His power will only drain away."
He stepped forward and looked down at Kael, eyes sharp as knives. "You are young, and you are only getting stronger. Why follow a sun that is already setting. Why waste your power on a ship that is already sinking. Is that not laughable."
A flicker finally crossed Kael's eyes. The air itself cooled.
Little Bullet, you are playing with fire.
Bullet did not notice, or did not care. He believed in power alone. "Leave this ship, Kael. Men like us are not meant to be chained by this partner game. The sea should be our stage, not someone's funeral."
"Are you done."
Bullet opened his mouth. Kael's figure vanished.
He reappeared in front of Bullet and threw a simple, unadorned straight.
Bullet's pupils shrank. He crossed his arms, Armament Haki hardening in an instant.
Boom.
The impact detonated inside his chest. It felt like taking a Sea King's full-speed charge head on. Bone wailed in his forearms, and he blasted backward like a cannonball, crushing a wall of stacked scrap planks.
"Kh…" Bullet stood from the splinters, blood wetting the corner of his mouth.
He stared at Kael in disbelief. That punch was pure and tyrannical, a strike that did not negotiate.
"You are right." Kael walked toward him step by step, face unreadable. "Roger does not have much time."
He blurred again.
Bullet strung himself taut, tracking for an angle.
Kael did not strike. He only raised one palm toward Bullet.
"Hnn." Bullet grunted. His muscles, bones, even his organs began to tremble at a vicious, high frequency.
It was not an external shake. It came from within, a tear that started inside and worked out.
His steel body turned brittle as glass.
"Strong and weak." Kael's voice sounded by his ear and from far away. "A head full of muscle and numbers does not understand a thing."
"What do you understand." Bullet roared. He forced the anomaly down and swung for Kael.
Kael slid aside and let the gale of the punch pass.
He set his palm lightly on Bullet's back.
Bullet's body locked. Muscles misfired and seized.
Eyes wide, he toppled as if cut, limbs refusing to answer, fighting the floor with ugly spasms.
Kael looked down with gold eyes that held no anger, only a winter chill.
"On this ship, every man is staking his life to chase that man's back. We are not joining his funeral. We are witnessing an era being born."
"You think Captain Roger's greatest strength is power."
"It is that smile that makes us willing to follow him to death."
"That is something you will never grasp."
He let the current go. Bullet lay gasping, numbness peeling away. The shiver planted in his core stayed.
He had lost. He had not even used his Merging-Merge Fruit, and still the loss was clean, without touching the hem of the other's coat.
He watched Kael's back as he walked away. It was not especially tall, yet somehow it overlapped with the image in his memory of Roger at the prow, laughing into a storm.
Bullet fell quiet. He sat up against the broken wall and said no more.
In the dock's shadow, Rayleigh and Gaban stood side by side.
"The kid did not pull his punches." Gaban took a swig and snickered.
Rayleigh nudged his glasses, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. "Every ship grows a little static. Someone has to clear it. Quieter now."
He looked out at the Oro Jackson returning to repairs, eyes deep.
Yes. Their time was short.
Which meant there was no room for hesitation or doubt.
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