Roger's gaze swept across the flushed faces and came to rest on Kael.
He neither smiled nor frowned. The fire that usually blazed in his eyes had gone still, a bottomless calm that made everyone uneasy.
"Kael."
He spoke only the name, and the noisy deck fell silent until all that moved was the snap of canvas in the wind.
"You know where we go next," Roger said softly, the words dropping like an anchor into every chest. "It is the finish line we have chased together. Are you telling me you will stop before it."
There was no reproach in his tone, only statement.
Which gave it more weight than any shout. It carried every storm since the day they set sail and every dream they had sworn to share.
"I understand." Kael met Roger's eyes, steady. "But the finish line means something a little different to me."
"What could be different," Gaban barked. "Are we not a family."
"Because we are a family," Kael said, glancing toward the cabin where his two most troublesome disciples lay with high fevers, "I cannot leave two burning brats behind. When Shanks is sick he is even less manageable than Buggy."
"Then we trade places. I will stay."
"I will do it. I swim well and I can fight."
The deck flared again.
"Enough," Rayleigh snapped, and the murmurs died. He pushed his glasses up, the look behind the lenses sharp as a blade. "Kael, give us a real reason. Any of us can sit a sickbed. Not everyone can shoulder missing the Final Island."
Kael paused, as if arranging his words. Around him men held their breath.
"My body is not quite like yours," he said at last, calm as if discussing the weather. "You know my fruit is the Wave-Wave Fruit."
Heads nodded.
"For years I have studied how to use it to strengthen myself," Kael continued. "By manipulating extremely fine electromagnetic waves, I can influence, even guide, the currents inside a living body."
"Living currents," a hand muttered, scratching his head. "Is that some new lightning move."
Kael let out a small helpless smile. "Put simply, I stimulate my own cells to keep them at peak activity."
That only deepened the blank stares.
They were men who wrestled with waves and enemies, not words like cells.
Kozuki Oden, though, lit up as if he had discovered a new festival. "Oh. Kael-san means he can keep himself lively all the time. Like after a big feast."
Crude, but close enough.
"More or less," Kael said, shifting to plainer speech. "Long-term activation has two direct effects. First, my recovery and physical toughness far exceed the norm. Second…"
He let the pause stretch and looked around the circle.
"My aging has slowed. Drastically."
Silence hit the deck.
Every eye widened. They stared at Kael as if he were the oddity, then at one another, at the sea-lines time had carved into their own faces, and back to his.
Gaban moved first, crowding close to peer at him up and down. "Wait. How old are you again. Let me think."
"Past thirty," Kael answered without flinching.
"Over thirty."
The number landed like a shellburst.
Most of them looked like uncles to the world; Kael's clear, youthful face did not fit that picture at all.
"So," Kael said with a shrug, "I am still the young one. Your era is about to blaze into its grand finale. My adventure is only beginning."
There was mischief in his smile and, if you listened closely, a wistfulness for a long road ahead.
"If I go now and learn every secret and see the very end, what then," he said. "Do I spend the decades to come as a living legend in a bar, bragging about the old days. I would die of boredom."
He shook his head. "That is not the life I want."
"I want to uncover this world with my own eyes, piece by piece. And someday, when I reach that place, I want to laugh and tell you, look, I made it, and not much later than you."
When he finished, not a word rose against him.
Those who had argued loudest were quiet now. They might not grasp cells or currents, but they understood the meaning.
It was not running away. It was not surrender. It was a larger, freer choice.
And what do pirates prize more than freedom.
He was saving a measure of wonder for the road ahead, refusing to let the answer arrive too soon and drain the color from the journey.
"Damn you. That reason makes me mad," Gaban grumbled, dropping onto the planks with a thump, scratching his head with a crooked grin.
Rayleigh leaned on the mainmast, head tilted so his face was hidden. After a long beat he let out a quiet laugh and shook his head.
"You win."
The stern set of Roger's face had melted without anyone noticing.
He looked at Kael, and the fire was back in his eyes, bright with respect and understanding.
"Ku ha ha ha."
His laugh split the harbor without warning.
"You bastard," Roger said, slinging an arm around Kael's neck, grinning wide. "Talking like we are a bunch of old men sprinting to retire."
The grin faded, and the captain's gaze went clear and fierce.
"I understand."
He held out a fist and stopped it at Kael's chest.
"Then it is settled. Take good care of those two brats."
Kael smiled and met the fist with his own.
"Of course."
"Listen up," Roger roared, wheeling toward the crew with his arm high, joy and iron braided in his voice. "You heard him. Enough long faces."
"Our mate is only choosing a route that bends a little wider."
"Oh."
The pent-up air on deck erupted and burned clean. Shouts and laughter rose again. When they looked at Kael this time there was no clinging worry, only understanding and a rowdy blessing.
"Kael. Drinks are on you next time."
"When you finally hit the Final Island, we are not sharing the haul. All ours."
"First come, first served, idiot."
The Oro Jackson buzzed back to life, all noise and motion as she readied to fly.
Kael stood a little apart, watching his crewmates throw themselves into the work, watching Roger take his place at the prow and fix his eyes once more on the far horizon.
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