Hammers rang for days and nights in the dockyard while the Oro Jackson's scars knit under the shipwrights' hands.
Life aboard slipped back into its old rhythm. Drinking, cards, tall tales, until even that earthshaking sea battle felt like a blurry hangover dream.
Only one man was the exception.
Douglas Bullet, the walking keep-out sign, grew even quieter. He stopped provoking anyone and spent most hours alone in the figurehead's shadow like a beast lying low.
People gave that shadow a wide berth without meaning to. It became a no-go zone no one spoke about.
Kael Grylls leaned on the rail of the quarterdeck, wind tugging at his shirt. He looked down at Bullet and sighed.
Great. Did I punch the kid into hermit mode.
He could not fully blame Bullet. The man's world had only two tiers, strong and stronger. He worshiped the oldest law of the sea, the law of force.
To Bullet, Captain Roger's limited time was the sign of a strong man about to fall, the beginning of a crew's decline. He could not understand the bond on this ship that ran past life and death, the way a landlubber cannot understand why the sea calls.
And Kael himself. He had sailed at Roger's side for over twenty years. From a clueless kid to one of the ship's pillars, he had poured all of his youth and memory into these planks.
After twenty years under the same storms, even stone would be warm.
Roger, Rayleigh, Gaban. To him they were irreplaceable family.
Bullet had boarded too late. The roots of feeling were too shallow. He saw only Roger's strength and missed what stood behind it, the rarest kind of leadership that made men smile as they followed him to the end.
"Kael-nii…"
A timid voice cut his thoughts.
Buggy and Shanks. Buggy had Shanks behind him and peeked out like a reluctant scout.
"Um, Kael-nii," Buggy forced a smile uglier than crying, "that move the other day, the one that made Bullet flop and twitch on the deck, what was the principle. Can you teach me. Then I won't fear Sea Kings again."
Shanks smacked the back of his head. "Idiot. That is Kael-nii's Wave-Wave Fruit. You ate the Chop-Chop Fruit so how would you learn it."
He turned to Kael, scratching his hair, eyes bright with pure curiosity and awe. "But seriously, Kael-nii, when you commanded that storm, it was the coolest thing I have ever seen. Cooler than the captain."
"Hey, Shanks. You dare say the captain is not cool."
Buggy forgot to be scared and jumped up to argue.
Watching the two clowns, Kael's tight lines softened. He thumped each forehead.
"Less nonsense. If you have time to dream, swing your swords. Make your Haki look like something."
"Ow."
Buggy clutched his head and still found time to pull a face at Shanks. "Your fault."
Shanks ignored him, rubbing his own bump and snickering. The two brats tore off, noise filling the deck again.
Kael scolded with his mouth and warmed with his heart. This simple, straightforward trust was the keel of the ship.
"Do not ride them too hard. They are still kids."
Silvers Rayleigh had appeared behind him with a sealed bottle of rum. He tossed it. The glass chimed in the air.
"Catch."
Kael snagged it cleanly, bit off the cork, and took a long pull. The burn ran like a fuse from throat to gut, smoking out a corner of his gloom.
"I was just thinking. We are changing to a new mainmast and spending so much sweat." His voice dropped as he looked toward the dock where the workmen strained to step a massive spar. "For a ship already headed to its last horizon, is it really necessary."
Was he asking about a ship, or a man.
Rayleigh leaned on the rail and watched the far sky. The sunset pulled his shadow long.
"Because it is the last voyage, we should sail in our best dress, should we not." He pushed his glasses, a slice of light sparking on the lens. "As for Bullet, you did well."
He added, "Some words do not suit a first mate's mouth. But yours, Kael, you are this crew's family head. Family weighs more than orders."
"Family, huh." Kael rolled the word and his gaze drifted back to the shadow under the figurehead.
"Kūhahaha. You two old goats, sharing something good up here."
A laugh like thunder came striding closer, shaking the planks.
Roger flung an arm over each of them, a bear's hug that nearly squeezed the air from their lungs. He snatched Kael's bottle and upended it, glug-glug-glug, until Kael's eyelids twitched.
"Burp… good stuff." Roger wiped his mouth. There was no trace of sickness on him, only a sun-hot, burning life.
"I hear you gave our Devil's Heir a proper lesson. Well done. That kid needs it. Always mouthing off about strongest. He does not know what true strength is. If the strongest means mold alone in a corner, I do not want it."
He did not mention soothing Bullet at all, as if the scuffle were a small wavelet on a long passage.
He let them go and pointed at the great spar slowly settling into its step, eyes brighter than the sunset.
"Look. Our ship will be ready any minute. Next comes the last voyage."
Roger's smile washed the last shade from Kael's chest.
What made the captain strongest had never been his Conqueror's Haki, nor his sword. It was the talent to make every follower forget fear and doubt and choose to burn beside him, laughing, to the end.
Clear the static. Guard that one-of-a-kind innocence until the course runs out. Maybe that was his truest task now.
"Hey, Roger. Drink like that and you will die early."
Kael yanked the rum back, finished the bottle himself, and pitched the empty far into the sea. It rang once, crisp, before the water closed.
As if a song had just been given its final note.
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