Nearly a year adrift had carved fresh scars into the hull of the Oro Jackson.
At last they reached the final staging port at the end of the legend's course, a nameless town.
The air smelled of brine and rum and something faint the way a finish line might smell if it had a scent of its own.
In the town's only tavern the Roger Pirates, as always, took the place over.
"Another cask, boss," Scopper Gaban boomed, heaving an empty barrel onto the counter so hard the glasses danced.
"Shanks. You stole my drink again, didn't you."
"You just sip too slow, red-nose."
Their daily brawl broke out on cue, Shanks and Buggy rolling across the floor while the crew howled and jeered.
The room throbbed with life, as if the whole year's fatigue and pressure were being shouted out in one joyous racket.
Roger did not join in.
He sat alone in a booth, a single glass of water before him. He watched his men's flushed faces and bright eyes and wore an easy smile.
They had said if only Kael were here more than he could count these past months, yet they had made it this far. Each of them looked steadier and stronger than a year ago.
Pride warmed him, yet it was missing one piece, like a masterpiece nearly finished with the most important tile still lost somewhere far away.
He raised his water. A tickle clawed at his throat. He forced it down.
Time was short. His own. This voyage's.
It was time.
He rose. The crew hooted for the captain to down another, and he waved them off with a grin and slipped out into the night.
He did not return to the ship. He walked the pier to the empty end of the breakwater.
Wind combed his unruly black hair. From his coat he drew a tiny Den Den Mushi.
Kael had left it behind, a private line for the two of them. In nearly a year it had rung only once, Kael telling Rayleigh he was safe and the crew should not worry. Beyond a few sparse letters there had been only silence.
Roger flicked the switch.
Purururu. Purururu.
The little snail clicked.
…
The Grand Line, a nameless abyss.
Light did not live here. Sound had no grave but this one. Only stillness and dark ruled.
A giant anglerfish corpse, large enough to swallow an island, drifted in the dead water. Its lure that once glowed temptation had gone out and hung limp like a withered branch. The stink of rot bled into the sea.
One figure sat alone upon the monster's head.
Kael Grylls was splattered with slime and blood, his clothes eaten through in several places. He stood there and had stood there for a very long time.
The gold of his eyes had dulled. He stared at the angler's dead lantern, its gleam long gone.
There was nothing inside.
No Pure Gold, that fabled metal said to halt time's flow for the one who wore it.
Nothing at all.
A year of chasing every ancient rumor he could scrape together, a year of threading murderous waters and fighting things without names. Those odd cures he mailed to Roger again and again, the ones that sounded like swindles, were trophies torn from those hunts.
His greatest hope had been this creature out of legend.
And the prize was emptiness.
Disappointment and helplessness pressed in from every side like the weight of the deep, trying to grind his bones to powder.
The abrupt trill of the Den Den Mushi shattered the quiet.
Purururu. Purururu.
He jolted as if shocked, dragged the snail free with stiff fingers, and answered.
"…Roger." His voice was sanded raw.
"Ku ha ha ha. So you are alive, you bastard." Roger's unmistakable laugh crackled through, as full of life as ever. "I figured some Sea King had eaten you for a snack."
The instant Kael heard him, the taut wire inside him snapped. Panic and urgency surged up. He rushed his words, like trying to throw every syllable across the sea at once.
"Roger, I found it. The giant anglerfish from the stories, the source of Pure Gold. I found it. This cannot be the only one. The legends cannot all be wrong. Give me a little more time and I will find the next one. I will find Pure Gold. Then you "
"Kael."
Roger's voice was warm, like a hand laid gently on a fevered brow, and it stilled the frenzy.
Kael fell silent.
"That is enough."
Soft words, yet they carried the weight of a captain. No blame. No disappointment. Only a calm that steadied the heart.
"…Enough what." Kael heard his own pulse pounding. "I have not found it yet. I can fix you."
"I have not given up, idiot." Roger chuckled. "We made it. The Final Island is right ahead."
Final Island.
The two words cracked like thunder through Kael's muddled thoughts. He froze.
Of course. A year had gone.
While he chased phantoms, his crewmates had cut on and were about to reach the end of the dream.
"This voyage was a rough one," Roger said, a thread of weariness under the fondness. "That maze fog, the storms that tried to flip the sky. Those idiots were chanting your name every day."
He paused, then snorted. "They have puffed you up into a saint, you know."
Kael listened without a sound, knuckles whitening around the receiver.
He could see it. He could see their faces when they said his name in a pinch.
"So come back, Kael," Roger said, gentle again.
"But your illness "
"That is my problem." Roger cut him off, more serious than Kael had ever heard him. "My road is mine to walk to the end. Do you understand."
Kael had no words.
"I am about to be the Pirate King," Roger said, the old swagger brightening his tone. "If you miss something like that I will not forgive you. And if you are not here, that brat Buggy will brag to everyone that he found the Final Island. You better come keep him honest. Ku ha ha ha."
The easy joke hit like a hammer.
"We will wait on the last island," Roger's voice carried through the snail, across ten thousand waves, clear in Kael's ear. "The victory feast does not start without our chief maestro."
"…All right."
It took a long time to force the word out.
He set the receiver down and tucked the Den Den Mushi back inside his coat with care.
Then he straightened atop the carcass of the giant.
Was a gamble against the current always doomed to lose to time.
Maybe not a loss, not completely.
Next
Go home.
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