Silence swallowed the last word.
Every gaze swung to Kael Grylls, wide with shock and questions. The omen was too vague and too dire. Was he disaster made flesh, the one to end the end, or a bystander who would score the world's last movement with his back to all humankind?
Kael looked just as taken aback.Wait, what. Since when did I go full doom-bringer.He was pretty sure his head was screwed on straight. And a vision that looked like the end of days did not have to be his fault.Still, that image of him standing there, back to everyone… tsk, tsk. Stylish. He had to admit it. That pose had flair.
Laughter detonated like a cannon.
"Ku-hahaha." Roger slapped his thigh, doubled over until tears pricked his eyes. "Look at your faces. How is that not cool."
He hooked an arm around Kael's neck and squeezed him half to death, beaming at the others. "Back to the whole world. Hear that. Badass. Better than some old man who retires to coat ships, right, Rayleigh."
"Pft."
Shanks and Buggy lost it all over again. Rayleigh had been stroking his chin in solemn thought; his mouth twitched and he rolled his eyes. "Captain, my quiet retirement cannot handle your comparisons."
"That is the spirit," Gaban rumbled. A strange battle light kindled in his eyes as he looked at Kael. "End of the world or not, we will fight when it comes."
Everyone else stared.Was that really the point to take away.
The laughter blew the heaviness to bits. They were the Roger Pirates, lunatics who danced on knife-edges and chased fun where other men found death. A prophecy, no matter how dire, could not outweigh the trust forged day by day. It could not bend the course of this ship.
Kael pried himself free of Roger's headlock, seeing the crew's faces settle back into their usual grins. His own surprise thinned to a crooked smile. He turned to Shyarly, who still looked rattled, and offered her a gentle nod.
She blinked up at him. There was no shadow in his eyes, only water-clear light, like the sea above Fish-Man Island. Her fear ebbed, leaving a tidepool of confusion.
"All right," Roger clapped his hands. Attention snapped back to him on instinct. "We have the rubbings. We have a prophecy. Time to shove off. Neptune, thanks for the hospitality."
Watching these men bounce from doom to merriment made Neptune's head throb worse than before. He let out a long breath and waved. "I will see you out."
At the gangway Roger slung an arm over Neptune's shoulder again and leaned in as if sharing state secrets. "Hey, Neptune, ten years goes fast. Chop chop."
The massive king froze. Color flooded to his collarbones. He shoved Roger away and bellowed, "You scoundrel. Back on your ship."
"Ku-hahaha."
Wrapped in its shimmering bubble, the Oro Jackson began to rise. The crew waved down at Ryugu Castle. The people of Fish-Man Island waved back, not with fear this time but with shy curiosity. A few brave children flapped their hands until the ship was a glimmer.
Light thickened. Blue gloom thinned to warm dawn. With a soft pop they breached into sun. Every man on deck drew a salt-sweet breath like a first cry.
"Set sail," Roger sang out from the prow. "Our target is the last Road Poneglyph."
"Aye."
The Oro Jackson left the deep and once more rode the treacherous, glittering face of the Grand Line.
The mood stayed high. Shyarly's unnerving vision was already a shipboard joke. "Mr. Rayleigh," Shanks said as he shouldered a mop, sidling up to the first mate polishing his blade. "Should I order you a set of work clothes. Coating edition."
Rayleigh did not even look up. He drew the cloth down the edge, unhurried. "When you can last ten moves against me, worry about my retirement, brat."
"Pft." Buggy howled. "Shanks, focus on not getting your head drum-beaten by his practice sword."
"What did you say, red nose."
"You want a fight, mop head."
They tumbled into their usual scuffle.
Kael leaned against the mast and absently plucked little scales of air into a sound only he could hear. He watched the sparring brats, then Roger's broad back at the wheel, and smiled to himself.
Days later, the sea changed.
Without warning, milk-white fog poured from every horizon, a spun-sugar wall that swallowed sky and water in one mouthful. A heartbeat earlier the heavens were clear. Now visibility shrank to ten paces. Damp matted the air. Waves sounded muted and far. Only the steady hush of the hull through water remained.
"All hands, ready," Rayleigh's voice cut the quiet, edged with caution. "Eyes open."
Men moved, posts were manned, easy laughter clipped short.
"Ku-hahaha. Interesting. What treasure are you hiding," Roger prowled to the bow, thrilled, squinting into the veil.
"Roger, this fog is wrong," Kael said at his shoulder, brows drawn. "My soundings and EM pulses are being swallowed. The returns are mush."
"Oh." Roger rubbed his chin, grin widening. "Even better."
"Buggy. Up the mast," Shanks yelled. "That red nose of yours is the brightest thing out here. Be our beacon."
"Shut it, Shanks. My nose is not a beacon." Buggy hopped anyway, swearing, and swarmed up the ratlines to the lookout.
"Report the moment you see anything."
"Yeah, yeah. Urusai."
He lifted his glass and skimmed the white. Nothing but blankness that made the eyelids heavy. He yawned. "There is nothing out here. In this dump how would there even be an isla—"
He froze.
Something huge ghosted at the edge of sight. Too huge.
He twisted the focus. The shadow resolved into a near-cylindrical mass.
"A pillar," he muttered. "Out here? From a volcano."
He tipped the glass upward to trace how high it went, following that rough, deeply wrinkled gray surface. The texture made his skin pebble. Not stone. Skin.
A ridiculous thought struck him like cold water. He kept going.
Above the "pillar" loomed a shape like hills, jointed.
A joint.
Buggy forgot to breathe. The spyglass trembled in his hand. He jerked the view higher, past a titanic knee, and higher. The top vanished into fog.
This was no pillar.
It was a leg.
A leg planted on the ocean floor ten thousand meters down and still towering into the shrouded sky. In front of that leg their ship was dust.
"Wah… wa…"
The noise that came out of Buggy was not language. His face went paper white and his mouth hung round.
"Hey, Buggy. What do you see. An island," Shanks called up, impatient.
The answer split the fog like a cannon shot.
"That is not a pillar."
"It is an elephant. A walking elephant in the sea."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
If you're itching to see what happens next, check out the advanced chapters on my Patron!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"