Pirates.
The word struck Kael like lightning.
Heat surged through his blood. Boredom, restlessness, pent-up energy all ignited into a sharp, eager will to fight.
He sprinted to the rail and narrowed his eyes where Rayleigh pointed.
Sure enough, a black speck swelled against the blue seam of sea and sky. The outline firmed into a ship far larger than their shabby boat. Its sail bore a grinning skull with two battle-axes crossed beneath it, loud and vicious.
They had noticed them too. Laughter drifted over the water, pirates waving weapons and throwing crude taunts.
"Kuahahaha. Ask for a pillow and the nap comes to you," Gol D. Roger cracked his knuckles with happy pops. "My hands were itching anyway."
"Captain!"
The shout cut him off.
Roger and Silvers Rayleigh turned, surprised.
The boy stood at the rail, black hair whipped by the wind, eyes burning like twin furnaces on the verge of eruption.
"That ship is mine."
He faced Roger, grip tightening around the patched-together naginata resting against the gunwale.
Roger blinked, then burst into his signature laugh.
"Kuahahaha." He strode up and clapped a palm on Kael's shoulder hard enough to rock him. "Good. It is yours, little Kael."
He planted his fists on his hips, grin all expectation and indulgence.
"Show us what two months of training bought you."
"But" Roger's smile tilted wickedly "if you cannot handle it or get pounded half to death, no dinner."
"Gladly." Kael's mouth curled with quiet confidence.
He drew a breath and turned back to the oncoming ship.
On the enemy deck a slab-faced bear of a captain peered through a spyglass. Seeing only three figures aboard, one a half-grown kid, he threw his head back and cackled.
"Look at that. A wreck, two beggars, and a weaned brat." He dropped the glass and bellowed, "Lucky day. Kill them and take everything."
A howl rose from his crew.
Kael set one hand to the rail and sprang.
"Stride on Waves."
The instant before he would have hit water, concentric ripples shivered outward beneath his feet, then bucked inward, condensing into a clear, water-bright step.
Kael set his foot down and stood on the sea.
Then a second step. A third.
Why not just blast himself across with recoil, you ask?
Make way. Kael is going to flex.
Under a deckful of hanging jaws, he walked the swells with a naginata at his side as if strolling a garden path, heading straight for them.
On Roger's deck, the Pirate King-to-be lit up, murmuring kakkoii over and over.
Rayleigh leaned on the mast, pushed his glasses up, and let the faintest smile touch his mouth. "The curtain rises."
Wind combed the boy's hair. He moved one calm step at a time across the glittering surface toward the three-master.
The Great Axe Pirates erupted.
"What is that?"
"He is walking on the sea!"
"Devil Fruit user!"
Panic bubbled. Steel felt lighter in their hands. This eerie entrance hit harder than any bared teeth.
"Shut it." A roar bulldozed the noise flat.
The slab-faced captain kicked aside a crewman and stormed to the prow, spit flying. "So what if he is an ability user. He is still a snot-nosed brat."
He sneered at Kael's unhurried approach and cupped his hands to jeer. "Hey, kid. This is not your backyard pool. Did your mama forget to call you home for milk?"
The crew forced laughter, courage sloshing back into them on the wave of mockery.
"Shift port guns five millimeters. Fire." The captain's grin went feral. "Blow him to scraps."
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Three cannons barked smoke and flame. Black iron screamed across the gap toward Kael.
Roger and Rayleigh did not so much as blink. Roger folded his arms, grinning like a man settling in for a show.
Kael did not dodge.
His knees dipped.
"Shock Step: Blink."
The sea dented under his soles. An unseen blast went off beneath his feet.
Whump.
Recoil hurled him straight up, ten meters in an eyeblink.
"What?" The captain's grin cracked.
Suspended above the spray, Kael uncoiled. Sunlight slid along the naginata's blunt edge in a cold arc.
No flourish. Just the strength distilled from two months of grind, poured into steel. He cut at the incoming round.
A solid white blade of pressure leapt from the edge and met the center cannonball first.
Thud-crack.
The shell crumpled as if squeezed by an invisible fist. Vibration chain-linked through the cluster. The others shattered into iron confetti.
Smoke and mist swallowed the sea between ships.
Kael burst from the haze a heartbeat later. He lifted his head in midair. Battle burned in his gold eyes.
"Game over."
The naginata came across his body. A low hum built along the edge.
He let the Wave-Wave Fruit off its leash. Air warped and shrieked around the blade.
"Listen close. This is your requiem."
He leaned back, both hands tight on the haft, gathering his entire body into a single swing.
"Sound-Cleave: Exploding Phoenix Cry."
He cut.
Time seemed to seize. From the naginata's tip a colossal, visible shockwave took flight in the shape of a phoenix.
Air wailed along its path, crazed with hairline cracks like shattered glass.
The high-pressure bird screamed, wings flaring, and crossed a hundred meters of sea in a blink. It slammed dead center into the Great Axe Pirates' hull.
KRAKOOM.
The sky itself felt torn.
The proud three-master took the hit like a giant's iron fist to the ribs. A crater bulged inward along the keel, webs of cracks racing out from ground zero. In the next instant the entire ship came apart.
Spars snapped. Boards and canvas flew. Pirates pinwheeled through the air, splashing into the sea like dumplings into a pot.
The captain who had been laughing a breath ago stared bug-eyed, mouth working soundlessly, terror etched deep. A broken plank clipped him and he vanished with the wreckage into the deep.
In minutes a fully armed pirate ship and dozens of crew were undone by one earth-shaking strike.
Only flotsam and groans dotted the water.
Kael planted the naginata and stood on the heaving surface, chest pumping, a fierce, clean exhilaration roaring up from his core.
Move fast. Look cool. Shout the move's name. That is youth.
"Ku… kuahahaha."
On Roger's deck silence held for a heartbeat, then shattered under his thunderous laugh.
He doubled over, eyes wet, thumping Rayleigh's back between peals. "Did you see that, Rayleigh. Did you see it. Kuahaha. Beautifully done, Kael."
Rayleigh slipped free of Roger's palm, pushed his glasses up again, and let the warmth and approval in his eyes show.