At the Sabaody villa, steam drifted above the hot spring pool, hazy as a dreamscape.
Hot springs really are great. A big, white hot spring.
Old salted-fish Kael leaned against the smooth, warm stone wall, arms spread wide, while Sakura and Rin sat to his left and right, carefully wiping down his shoulders.
The mist blurred the girls' delicate faces until only two shy flushes remained.
"Sigh…"
A long sigh broke the peace.
"Before I know it… I'm almost a forty-year-old man," Kael said, his voice deliberately tinged with melancholy. "Time waits for no one."
"Kael-sama isn't an old man!" Sakura snapped back at once, her face turning crimson, whether from anger or heat was hard to say. "You're the most handsome and mighty man in the world!"
"Yeah!" Rin nodded hard beside her, voice soft but firm. "Kael-sama will never get old!"
Hearing their chirping defense, Kael didn't open his eyes. He simply tilted his head back, letting the warm water lap over his neck.
Then what am I supposed to say, brothers? Run it back.
Ripples spread across the spring…
Night deepened.
On the wide bed, Sakura and Rin had long since fallen asleep, breathing evenly, cheeks still rosy with satisfied warmth.
Kael lay between them. His heart had already abandoned worldly desire, and his mind was painfully clear.
Two years was enough to change the direction of the world's tide completely.
His thoughts drifted far, all the way to Wano.
Moria's shadow crows had brought back the final outcome.
The five-year term Kozuki Oden had agreed upon with Kurozumi Orochi had finally ended. That naive samurai only realized at the very last moment that the so-called promise was nothing more than Kaido's scam to crush the people's will.
Enraged, Oden led his retainers, the Akazaya Nine, in a do-or-die assault on Onigashima.
Then the plan was exposed by a traitor.
The ending was never in doubt.
Kozuki Oden was defeated, and his legendary yet absurd life ended in a boiling cauldron of oil.
Kurozumi Orochi got his wish and sat on the shogun's seat, while Kaido became the true power behind Wano.
Kael let out a quiet sigh.
The dead were dead. Any judgment now meant nothing.
Call it Oden being too naive, believing every powerhouse on the sea would be like Roger or Whitebeard, men with honor and heart.
But he couldn't help wondering…
That brat Momonosuke, did he die or not?
Just thinking about the kid made Kael feel a visceral, physical disgust.
Just a child, yet he carried the heart of a lecherous old man, constantly taking advantage of his age to grope women without consequences.
But what sickened Kael even more was that cursed bloodline worship.
A cowardly, useless waste who shirked responsibility for his comrades' sacrifices…
Why did so many people willingly lay down their lives for him?
Just because Kozuki blood ran in his veins?
Because he was a Kozuki, the Akazaya Nine protected him with their lives…
Because he was a Kozuki, Luffy would help him become Wano's shogun…
Unworthy, yet he could lie there and win everything.
To hell with bloodline worship.
Trying to play me like I'm from Wano?
Kael's gaze turned cold.
He would never help a piece of trash that made him sick just by looking at him.
So, if that was the case…
He needed a brand-new "hero." A hero worthy of taking Wano in the open, with legitimacy no one could deny.
A man who had once challenged Kaido head-on, and survived.
In Kael's mind, a pale, massive face surfaced.
In the future, Kael would personally push the "hero who resisted Kaido," Kozuki Moria, onto Wano's stage.
Protect the innocent people, too. Consider it repayment for Oden's bowl of oden.
…
Kael rose quietly, not waking the sleeping girls beside him.
He tossed on a silk robe and padded barefoot across the floor. Moonlight streamed through the huge glass window, coating everything in the study with a soft silver haze.
Two letters lay on the desk.
They hadn't come by ordinary news seagulls. They'd been delivered silently some time ago by shadow crows.
Kael opened the first. The handwriting was Crocus's, bold and forceful, and the paper carried a faint scent of disinfectant.
"Kael, thanks for the information. I've already brought Brook back, but his situation is a bit special… anyway, it's complicated. Laboon is very happy. 'Binks' Sake' is finally whole again."
Decades of waiting. A promise that crossed life and death.
It had finally reached a perfect ending.
A smile appeared on Kael's face without him even realizing it, a genuine lightness from the bottom of his heart.
He opened the second letter. The handwriting was wild and arrogant, overflowing with shameless swagger. It was from Scopper Gaban.
"Kael, I found myself a wife, huge, the kind of huge. Heard your territory's getting bigger and bigger too? You're not a young punk anymore, and I'm sure you don't lack company around you.
Take a tip from your big bro. Watch your health. Don't go emptying yourself out while you're still young. Hahahaha!"
Kael's face darkened instantly.
That old bastard. One foot in the grave and still this indecent.
He crumpled the paper into a ball, flicked it with one finger, and the wad traced a perfect arc into the trash can in the corner.
The old comrades from Roger's ship had all found their own lives.
Kael's thoughts returned to the past year. He had met Shanks and Buggy separately. Both were already rising stars on the sea.
He'd run into Shanks in a tavern on some nameless island.
Shanks had shed the boyishness he'd carried on Roger's ship. At his waist hung the Western-style saber named Gryphon.
"Kael-bro, I'm going to form my own pirate crew," Shanks said, raising his cup, his expression more serious than Kael had ever seen.
"Decided where you'll go?" Kael clinked glasses with him. The crisp sound vanished into the tavern's noise.
"See the world… and then find an answer," Shanks said without explaining, though Kael guessed it had something to do with Celestial Dragon bloodlines.
Kael asked about Buggy.
Shanks didn't answer. He just grabbed his cup, downed the liquor in one go, and laughed loudly.
Kael met Buggy in the East Blue.
"Captain Buggy the Great" was boasting about his "glorious achievements" in a shabby tavern, with two carefully picked prospective crewmates listening with fanatical eyes.
"See that? I'm the future Pirate King! Captain Roger's will is going to be inherited by Captain Buggy!"
Buggy stood on a table, arms spread wide, spitting words like cannon fire.
Then his peripheral vision caught the black-haired man drinking alone in the corner, and his entire body froze. His speech stopped dead.
The next second, his eyes lit up, and his head and limbs flew toward Kael faster than his pride could keep up.
"Wahhh! Kael-bro! What are you doing here? Did you come all this way just to see me?"
After giving him a few words of encouragement, Kael asked about Shanks.
Buggy instantly erupted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, cursing that red-haired bastard to the skies for being ungrateful, a complete and total traitor.
Kael's thoughts returned to the present.
He walked to the window and looked down at the moonlit Sabaody Archipelago.
In the distance, the coating craftsmen's workshops were still lit. The tourist districts' noise hadn't fully died even at midnight.
This world was climbing, step by step, toward a new climax under his gaze.
The crew of the old era had found their destinations.
And the sparks of the new era had already been lit.
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