Zunesha's distant call faded behind them, swallowed by the endless hiss of waves.
On the deck of the Oro Jackson the revelry raged on. The mink tribe had sent them off with enough root wine for a month, and the smoky sweetness of roasted sea-beast pushed the ship's mood to a roaring peak.
"Ku ha ha ha. Lads, to the cups!"
Roger hoisted a great flagon, cheeks flushed, his voice so loud it felt like it could knock the sky on its side. He took a hero's pull. Liquor streaked through his beard, or was that nose hair, and his sheer larger-than-life gusto set every heart on fire.
"Yo!"
Cups clashed. Laughter tangled with the wind.
"Oi, Shanks. Did you see that mink girl looking at me? She must have fallen for the handsomeness of my nose."
"You slept on deck and baked your brains, idiot. That ridiculous red nose only scares ladies off."
They grappled as usual, red-faced over nothing at all.
Leaning on the rail, Silvers Rayleigh watched them with a quiet smile. He wiped down his sword with his usual calm. Yet his eyes kept drifting, despite himself, to the man in the center, the one laughing the loudest.
Roger threw his head back and a jag of coughing tore out of him.
The laughter shut off. He clapped a hand to his mouth and folded around it.
The deck went still for a breath.
"Captain?" Scopper Gaban rumbled, his grin frozen in place.
"Cough, cough." Roger waved them off with his free hand. He forced the breath back under control, opened his palm to show it was empty, then flashed that careless, sun-bright smile. "Ku ha ha ha. Wrong pipe. This stuff hits hard."
Doubt flickered across faces, then his laughter dragged the crew back into the noise.
Rayleigh's fingers tightened on the hilt. A shadow crossed his eyes behind the lenses.
In the shade of the mast, Kael Grylls frowned. For a heartbeat he had heard it. The music of Roger's life had wavered, a bright score stabbed by a broken, ominous note. The captain's will had smoothed it almost at once, but a crack remained.
This was no cough. It was a warning from a body close to breaking.
Night fell. The racket died. In the chart room lamps burned bright. Four rubbings from the Road Poneglyphs lay solemnly spread across the great sea chart.
With a hand that would not stop trembling, Roger marked each island from the rubbings onto the map. Four points drew a great rhombus. At the center of that crossing lay a blank patch, unprinted on any chart.
The Final Island.
For the first time in eight hundred years the coordinates of that myth stood clear before mortal eyes.
"Right here." Roger's finger slowed over the spot. Light unlike anything before burned behind his eyes. He drew in a breath and slammed his fist on the table.
"Brothers." In the cramped chart room his voice filled every inch, absolute and ringing. "Stand down and get the ship perfect. Three days from now we sail. Our course is the Final Island."
"Yo!"
The cheer tried to blow the roof off. Shanks and Buggy clung to each other, laughing and crying all at once. Gaban's fists crackled as he clenched them. Rayleigh wore a smile of relief that reached his eyes.
This was their hour. The Roger Pirates were about to set foot on the highest peak of glory.
In that sea of heat Kael felt like a quiet rock. He stared at the map, at the last coordinate, and a cold tide rose in his chest.
They could not wait.
Even if Roger reached the end, what then. How much time would be left inside that failing frame.
Kael slipped out without a sound and stepped onto the empty deck. Moonlight pooled like quicksilver across the waves. He lifted his hand. A faint thread of electromagnetic signal unwound from his fingertip and dissolved into the night.
He had not spent these years only adventuring. Most of his strength had gone into planning for rain while the sky was bright. With the Echo-Echo Fruit's reach for signals and patterns he had hunted legends and rumors and stitched them to the half-remembered knowledge he carried from another world, searching for one thin chance.
The Op-Op Fruit, a Devil Fruit that could grant agelessness, but only at the price of the user's life.
On a sea this wide, where would he even begin. If he found it, who would pay such a price. Even if someone would, Roger would never accept it. He would sooner die on his feet than live by another's death.
Millennial dragon bones, said to brew an elixir that cheats time. Yet millennial dragons themselves were mist and story.
There was one more path, the most likely of all.
Pure Gold.
A ring said to halt the wearer's growth, to stop time's flow, to grant a kind of never-ending life. Its raw source lay in a giant anglerfish somewhere in the Grand Line, hidden within the lure that glowed above its head.
"Decided, have you."
Rayleigh's voice came from behind. He had arrived with a bottle in his hand.
Kael did not turn. He answered with a low hum.
Rayleigh joined him at the rail and offered the bottle. Kael drank deep. The burn did nothing to thaw the chill in his chest.
"Roger will not agree," Rayleigh said, eyes on the moon.
"I know." Kael's tone was calm. "So I will not tell him."
"He will figure it out."
"Then I will beat the hell out of him. If he will not take it, I will make him."
Silence. Rayleigh studied that stubborn profile. The gentle shipmate wore an iron look that would not move.
He sighed, clapped a hand to Kael's shoulder.
"What do you need."
"A small sloop. Food and water enough."
"… All right."
At first light, as the horizon bled gold, a single-masted boat slid away from the Oro Jackson without a whisper. No one was stirred but Rayleigh.
Kael stood in the little craft and looked back. In the dawn the great ship's silhouette was magnificent, driving for that fabled end on her chosen course.
She carried his dearest friends, and the captain he respected most.
He let his eyes rest on her a long time, as if to carve every line into his bones. Then he faced forward and did not look back.
"Damn you, Roger. Do not you dare die early."
Ahead lay a road that split from the crew's, a sea of unknowns and teeth, a gamble with no promised payout.
For the sake of a light already flickering, he would risk his life and sail against the current.
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