Kael's smile deepened. This so-called standoff of the century, starring three future Emperors, had turned into pure farce.
Two goofs, one scaring himself and the other scared by him, staring at each other across a bonfire and somehow holding the balance of the night.
Just as Kael settled in to enjoy the show a little longer, his Observation Haki picked up a shift in the air.
High above the noise of the feast, three figures gathered atop the lone giant fungus that had survived the earlier Haki shockwaves.
Roger. Whitebeard. Kozuki Oden.
Their presence alone fenced off the clamor below and carved out an island of quiet for three people only.
Kael arched a brow and flowed from branch to branch until he crouched on a limb near the cap. Close enough to see everything, far enough not to intrude.
On the broad crown, Roger had shed his usual devil-may-care grin. His face was solemn.
Carefully, almost reverently, he drew a great sheet of rubbings from his coat and spread it between them.
A Poneglyph rubbing. Ancient characters swam in the light as if the stone still held power.
Whitebeard set down his gourd and leaned in, an eagle's focus in his eyes.
Oden's expression changed the instant he saw the script. The booze-haze and wild-man grin fell away, replaced by a startled familiarity, something like recognition coming home.
"Oden." Roger's voice was low and tight with a contained thrill. "You can really read this, can't you?"
Oden lifted his gaze from the rubbing, scratched his head, and answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Sure I can. But this stuff is the Kozuki clan's cipher passed down the line. Roger, where did you even get something like this?"
"Cipher?" Roger blinked, then joy flooded his features. "As long as you can read it. That is all that matters."
He pulled a breath through his ribs and steadied himself.
"Newgate. Oden." Roger sat cross-legged, eyes moving between friend and rival. "Listen. The Roger Pirates have already reached the end of the Log Pose. Lodestar Island."
Whitebeard's pupils tightened. Oden's eyes went wide. He longed for the sea, yes, but he didn't know all of its ultimate markers. Even so, the weight of those four words was written plain on Roger's and Whitebeard's faces.
The end of the Log Pose. Which meant they had sailed the world already.
"But." Roger's tone snapped, raw with refusal and fire.
"That is not the real end. At Lodestar the Log Pose dies. To go farther, to reach the true final island and do what no one has done before, we need another kind of compass."
He tapped the rubbing with a firm knuckle.
"This." Roger's eyes burned as if a flame had taken hold. "There are four red Road Poneglyphs in this world. Find them, read them, mark the four locations, then draw the lines. Where they meet is where the legendary final island lies."
"If we reach that place," Roger said, voice climbing, every word pushed up from his chest, "we become, beyond argument, the greatest pirates on earth."
Silence cracked over the cap of the fungus.
Edward Newgate was shaken. Since God Valley he had sought family more than fame, but he understood better than anyone how the meaning inside Roger's words could drive the whole world mad.
This was not a simple adventure. It was a hand pressed to the face of the world's truth. The highest summit a pirate could stand upon.
Oden's mouth hung open. He had thought sailing meant meeting all sorts of people and living through all sorts of things. He had never imagined that at the far edge of the sea a secret this grand was waiting.
He could feel his blood start to boil.
In that charged stillness, Roger turned to Whitebeard. His expression gentled and firmed at once.
"Newgate."
He rose to his feet and spoke with full weight.
"I need your help. To reach that place. To uncover the greatest secret this world holds. Lend me Oden for one year."
At that, Whitebeard's brow drew tight and a pressure swelled off him without a word.
Kozuki Oden was his brother, his family. He was not something to be loaned on a whim.
"Roger, are you poaching my man," Whitebeard rumbled.
"No." Roger's answer was iron. "I am asking."
The sincerity was naked. And as he spoke, the man who had never bowed to a Fleet Admiral felt his body begin to tilt, knees wanting to bend.
For the dream he had chased his whole life, he would put down every last shred of pride. He would kneel to his greatest rival if that is what it took.
Then he caught, at the edge of his vision, a figure on a nearby branch.
Kael Grylls lounged against the trunk, chin propped on one hand. Behind the sunglasses his gaze was as calm as a still sea. No shock, no urging. Just a mirror.
In it, Roger saw the shape at the core of himself.
A king about to take his throne.
A king does not kneel.
Even when he asks, he asks as a king.
Roger's body snapped straight. The bending halted. He lifted his spine until it was a pillar again. The plea did not vanish. The posture did.
He was still asking. The air around the words had changed.
No longer a supplicant begging strength from strength. A sovereign about to found an era, extending a solemn invitation to the opponent he respected.
"Newgate," Roger said again, voice level and full of force. "In the name of Gol D. Roger, I ask you. Let Oden sail with me for one year. In one year he will lay eyes on the greatest treasure this world conceals, and I will deliver him back to you whole."
He met Whitebeard's stare and did not look away.
"Please."
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