The Oro Jackson put to sea without ceremony.
At the first cut of dawn across the horizon, the great anchor rose on its chain with a long, heavy groan, like a last farewell to the harbor.
Kael did not go down to the pier. He stood at an upstairs window of the tavern and watched the ship that carried an era's dream slide out in silence.
No one on deck looked back. No throats were raised. Every goodbye had been poured into last night's cups. Every blessing had already passed between their eyes.
Roger stood at the prow, his back a mountain.
Only when the ship swung fully toward the open sea and the hull was about to vanish at the edge did he lift his arm as if idly, fist raised high toward the little town.
Leaning in the window frame, Kael raised his own cup. Across the brightening water, he clinked it from afar against that distant silhouette.
"Fair winds, Captain."
…
He had seen a band of legends off. What faced him now were two bedridden anchors.
"Water. I want water. Treasure. It is all mine." Buggy writhed under his blanket like a grub, face flushed scarlet, mumbling nonsense.
Shanks was faring slightly better. At least he was not talking in his sleep. He had burritoed his blanket into a scabbard shape, hugged it tight, brow knotted as if dueling some peerless foe in a dream.
Kael sighed, feeling himself demoted from core combatant to full-time nurse.
He lifted a finger. At the fingertip something too fine to see began to hum.
A cool, soft breeze bloomed out of nowhere and stroked both foreheads, lifting away the fever's heat.
Shanks' brow eased. Buggy stopped muttering about treasure, smacked his lips, and sank deeper into sleep.
The next few days gave Kael the full delight of childcare.
Their fevers rose and fell. Worse than fever was consciousness.
"Kael. Is my nose bigger. Look. You have to check." Buggy clutched a mirror, eyes watering. "That red-haired idiot gave this to me."
"What did you say, you clown," Shanks croaked, still feeble but combative, flinging a pillow. "You were the first to drop."
"My nose. My handsome nose."
Kael the Human Mediator stepped in before furniture suffered.
"Kael, I want to practice," Shanks said, eyes blazing. "I think I can swing a blade lying down. Maybe a new move will come."
"You try one more time and I set you in the ceiling," Kael said without expression.
Shanks went obedient at once.
To keep them from demolishing the room mid-fever, Kael started inventing new uses for his fruit.
Each day he swept them with a scheduled pass of Perceptive Wave to check lungs and keep infection at bay, sparing them from Crocus' pitch-black decoctions that tasted like death.
The price was Buggy shrieking that he felt seen through, clutching his blanket and calling Kael a pervert.
He tapped the lowest setting of Searing Heat to warm their cooled medicine with pinpoint accuracy and, while he was at it, roasted a sweet potato or two.
So the days ran on, all feathers and fuss.
The brats mended bit by bit. From flat on their backs, to shuffling on their feet, to bouncing around town stirring trouble as usual.
Kael enjoyed the quiet where he found it. Sometimes he sat on the breakwater and teased fish with a thread of Tidemurmur, or used Mirage Light to refract sunlight into odd silhouettes on the walls, drawing cheers from the village children.
He never once regretted his choice.
The secrets at the world's end, the Will of D, the blank century. To him they were like a book shelved just out of reach. He knew it was there and full of lure, but he preferred the stretch of the arm, the feel of turning the first page himself.
Roger and his crew were founders of an era, men who would stamp an exclamation point on the world.
Kael wanted to be a free reader, savoring the tale.
On a clear day with a sky rinsed blue, Kael was out beyond town with the two convalescents for a bit of "rehab training."
"Kael. My sword is starving," Shanks cried, whipping his wooden blade, wind hissing at the tip.
"My throwing knives never miss," Buggy bellowed, refusing to be outshouted.
Kael palmed both their heads and pressed them gently to stillness.
Wings beat overhead.
Caw caw.
News Coo.
Flocks spiraled down, dropping papers into the square. The town boiled over in a heartbeat.
"Extra. Look."
"Heavens. Is it true."
"Unbelievable. The world is about to change."
"The Roger Pirates finally did it."
The clamor rolled like surf. The same scene was erupting everywhere across the seas.
Shanks and Buggy forgot their scuffle and dashed to the square.
Kael stayed where he was and listened to the shouts spill and break.
"Pirate Roger completes the first circumnavigation in history."
"He reached the legendary Final Island."
"The sovereign of these seas has appeared."
"He is the King of the Seas. The Pirate King."
…
When those three words, Pirate King, reached him clear, the corner of Kael's mouth finally lifted and would not be pressed down.
He let out a long breath, as if setting down a burden they had all carried together.
What rose in his chest was not regret for missing it, but a clean, proud joy.
Shanks and Buggy burst back through the crowd with a paper and all but shoved it into his hands.
"Kael. Look," Shanks said, face flushed with excitement, finger jabbing the bannered headline.
Pirate King Crowned. Gol D. Roger Conquers the Grand Line.
Below the headline, a photo caught Roger laughing at the prow of the Oro Jackson.
That smile was the same as ever, big enough to swallow the whole sea.
"The captain. He really did it," Buggy sniffed, eyes wet and mouth grinning so wide it looked ridiculous and perfectly sincere.
Kael's eyes dropped from the title to the details.
The story acknowledged the feat and declared that the man who held the world's wealth, fame, and influence would be called by all the King of the Pirates. It also said Roger had named that island no one had set foot upon for eight hundred years.
"Laugh Tale."
Kael said it softly.
He could see it. They arrive at the end. They find what passes for a treasure. Roger, pointing and howling, bent double with tears in his eyes, then turning to the world in that matchless voice of his.
"This island is Laugh Tale. Ku ha ha ha."
Because the greatest treasure of all was a cosmic joke.
It was so him.
"Hey, why are you smiling," Shanks asked, puzzled.
"Nothing," Kael said, smoothing a hand over two bristly heads. "Only that Roger's laugh really is the loudest in the world."
He lifted his gaze to the far sky, as if he could see through cloud and distance to the legendary ship on her homeward run.
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