The skies above Loguetown cracked with thunder, though no storm had arrived. It felt like the world itself was holding its breath. Something had shifted. A message had been spoken from atop the old execution platform—and it wasn't just heard by those in the square.
It was felt.
> "I'm here to be a compass. To point toward the future."
The Compass Pirates now had a name, a direction... and a price on their heads.
And their captain, Kairos, had taken his first real wound.
---
Haunted by Meaning
Kairos sat alone in the Compass Pirates' rented room above a dingy bar, the smell of salt and rain drifting in through a cracked window.
His arm throbbed—freshly bandaged, still sore.
He stared at his open palm, fingers twitching with phantom pain.
> "I bled today... and I'm still breathing."
The Swap-Swap Fruit hadn't saved him. Not entirely. No clever trick or exchange had stopped that dagger.
Skill alone wasn't enough.
Bonney barged in with a plate of half-eaten meat and dropped it beside him. "Eat. You're no good to us starving and sulking."
"I'm not sulking," he muttered.
"You're thinking too hard," she said. "Same thing."
---
Zoroko's Lesson
Later that night, Zoroko found him atop the inn's roof, gazing at the stars.
She joined him without speaking.
Then, casually, she drew one of her swords and cut a thin line across her own forearm.
Kairos jolted. "What the hell?!"
She didn't flinch.
"Pain teaches. Blood remembers."
"Are you trying to prove something?"
"I'm reminding you of something," she said calmly, watching the blood bead up and trickle down. "We're pirates, Kairos. But more than that—we're alive. And this world? It only respects those who carve their place in it."
He frowned. "I thought I could be different. Not just another killer."
"You can," she said. "But you still have to survive first."
---
The World Reacts
Elsewhere, across East Blue, the name Kairos traveled.
A freshly printed bounty poster fluttered into a tavern in Dawn Island.
"WANTED – KAIROS 'THE POWER DEVIL' – 22,000,000 BERRIES."
An old man with a straw hat squinted at the name and gave a soft chuckle.
"Another fire's been lit," he whispered.
In Marine HQ, a Vice Admiral slammed the poster onto a desk.
"He's already gathering Devil Fruit users, revolutionaries, and criminals. This isn't a pirate crew. It's a movement."
Back in Loguetown, the man chosen to stop that movement received his orders.
Captain Smoker.
---
The Compass is Born
At dawn, the Compass Pirates gathered at the dock. Their ship—a sturdy cutter stolen and refurbished—rocked gently in the tide. It wasn't much. But it was theirs.
Bonney stretched, cheeks full of food. "So, what now, Captain?"
Kairos looked at each of them—Bonney, Nami, Roroko, Zoroko, Toma, and Jinx.
They were misfits. Survivors. People with pasts they didn't talk about yet.
But they followed him.
He held up his palm, the Swap symbol glowing faintly in the light of the rising sun.
> "We set a course for the Grand Line."
> "We're not just another pirate crew. We're a compass."
> "And I swear this—"
> "Wherever we go, we'll change everything."
---
Footsteps in the Fog
Just as they began boarding the ship, a thick fog rolled in—unnaturally fast.
Boots thudded on the wooden pier.
A deep, smoke-filled voice echoed from the mist.
> "Pirates…"
> "You should've left yesterday."
The crew spun around, hands on weapons.
A tall man stepped through the fog. A white jacket draped over his shoulders like a cape. A cigar in each corner of his mouth.
Chains coiled loosely around his arms, leading to a smoking jitte.
Captain Smoker of the Marines.
His eyes locked with Kairos.
"You're not leaving Loguetown."