The moment Roger's request hit the air, the easy drinking mood around Whitebeard dropped away like an anchor.
What replaced it was pressure as deep and still as the abyss.
Roger's words rang clear atop the giant mushroom cap, each syllable clean as a bell. Yet it felt as if they had been tossed into a bottomless trench, swallowed without reply.
"Gurararara."
The low laugh rolled out of Whitebeard's chest without a hint of mirth. It made the air feel thick and heavy.
Crack.
The bottle in his hand turned to glittering shards, glass and liquor raining at his feet.
"Are you kidding me."
His roar broke like thunder. He drove a fist down at his side.
Kra-chak.
A violent shock wave burst from his knuckles. Spiderweb cracks flashed across the supposedly indestructible cap beneath them, the whole mushroom shivering on its stalk.
Even the clamor of the feast below seemed to flatten under the blast of fury. From his perch in the branches, Kael could see the air itself split into white arcs like glass giving way.
Conqueror's Haki surged skyward, tearing the evening glow to ribbons.
"Roger." Whitebeard rose. He had always been a mountain. Now he seemed taller still. The shadow he cast swallowed both Roger and Oden. "You want to take my family from me."
Family came out like a hammer blow, enough force packed into each sound to split a sea.
Roger did not move. He understood the anger. He had expected it. He could not back down.
Kozuki Oden stood in a different storm. Roger's vision had detonated inside his skull. The phrase final island kept tolling like a bell. The Kozuki cipher passed down the line. Why could he read the stone. Why had he left the closed borders of Wano only to meet these men on this ocean.
Was this fate.
A mission like magma pushed up through him. His blood ran hot.
He looked at Roger. He looked at the furious Whitebeard. The urge that gripped him was almost beyond control.
"White-chee."
Oden blurted it out, voice trembling with heat.
"Let me go." He swung to Whitebeard, eyes blazing in a way they never had before. "I want to see it. I want to see what that final island really is."
Whitebeard's massive frame went rigid. He turned, unwilling, and looked down at his "little brother." The gold in his eyes burned hotter. His mouth dipped into a wounded line he could not quite hide.
"No."
The word came low and thick. "Oden, you are my brother."
"It is only a year, White-chee."
"Not even a year." Both fists clenched. He slashed them through the air, twin shock rings ripping the atmosphere with dull booms.
He looked away, as if he could not stand to see the hunger on Oden's face. "On my ship, family do not get off halfway."
The air froze tight.
Roger did not speak. This was Newgate and Oden's house business now. All he could do was wait.
Oden stared at that mountain of a back, pulled a breath into his lungs, and dropped to his knees like a post falling. His forehead hit the cracked cap with a thud.
"Please, White-chee."
The plea held everything he was. His yearning for the horizon. His guilt and reluctant parting from a brother.
Whitebeard's broad back visibly flinched.
He did not turn.
Time ticked. Wind crossed the cap. The shouts from the feast below crept back in, only making the quiet up here feel more suffocating.
A long while passed.
At last the power gathering around Whitebeard ebbed like a tide. He said nothing. He did not agree. He did not refuse again. He simply walked to the far edge and dropped from the cap, landing in his own camp with a boom.
His answer was in the act.
Roger let out the breath he had been holding and smiled, open and real.
He stepped up and clapped a hand to Oden's shoulder. "Come on, Oden. Do not keep Newgate waiting."
Oden lifted his head, eyes a little red, and nodded hard.
Kael: pfft, textbook tsundere.
…
The news that Kozuki Oden would sail with the Roger Pirates for a year hit Whitebeard's crew like a cannon broadside.
The sendoff was not tragic. It was a rally.
"Oden, do not you dare die out there."
"If you do not come back, we are raiding Roger's ship and dragging you home."
Marco shoved his hands into his pockets and passed over a small bundle. "Special salve from the doc. Works great. Do not waste it."
Jozu thumped his back with a sound like stone on stone. "Write down what you see. Tell us all of it."
Thatch forced a massive lunch box into his arms. "Sea King leg roast. Fresh. Two days' worth."
Oden laughed and shoved and hugged and bumped fists with every brother who came at him, tucking each warning and wish where he would not lose it.
At the end he slung Enma and Ame no Habakiri, and with the crew around him like a guard of honor, he walked toward the Oro Jackson.
He looked back once. In the crowd he did not see the biggest, most familiar shape.
"Hey, where's Pops," someone whispered.
"Over there."
They followed the glance. Whitebeard sat alone in his custom chair at the center of camp, back turned to the whole farewell.
He said nothing. He drank like no one else existed.
Still sulking.
Oden's step hitched. A shadow crossed his face and was gone. He bowed, deep and long, to that broad back, then turned and strode up the gangplank to the Oro Jackson.
When Oden's figure vanished into the ship, the crew drifted back to their captain.
"Pops, you are not going to see him off."
"Hmph." Whitebeard snorted through his nose and took a long pull.
Just then a sailor ran up hugging a treasure chest. "Pops, look." He flipped the lid. A flood of gold and jewels threw light over their faces. "Roger says thanks and sent a mountain of treasure. And food and wine. So much."
Cheers broke around them.
Whitebeard stopped mid-swig.
He exploded at the messenger, voice loud enough to make ears ring. "What are you standing there for."
The man flinched, lost.
Whitebeard snatched a nearby tub piled high with roast meat and fruit. He jabbed a finger toward the harbor and bellowed. "Take the food back right now. Those idiots know nothing about taking care of people. What if Oden goes hungry."
"Yes, sir."
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