"Here they come."
No one knew who shouted first. The noisy square fell silent for a heartbeat, then erupted into an even fiercer commotion.
People surged toward the center like a tide. Necks craned, toes tipped up. No one dared blink for fear of missing history.
Escorted by two ranks of elite Marines, a man walked forward at an unhurried pace.
He wore no prisoner's garb. Over his shoulders lay that familiar red captain's coat.
Sea Stone cuffs bound his hands before him, yet his steps were as steady as if he were strolling through his own back garden.
Gol D. Roger.
No gloom clung to his face. No fear, not even a hint of heaviness.
Weathered by years at sea, his features carried a calm, almost cheerful smile.
He looked over the crowd, faces burning with excitement, hate, fear, curiosity. His gaze was as tranquil as a windless sea.
"So that's the Pirate King."
"Not what I imagined."
"He can still smile on the way to die…"
Whispers rose again, softer this time, touched by an odd awe.
In the loft's shadow, Kael watched in silence.
He watched Roger pass through the sea of people, each step seeming to tread upon the era's very pulse.
At the base of the clocktower, Roger paused.
He lifted his head a fraction and, without fail, fixed his eyes on the darkness where Kael hid.
Their gazes met.
Kael's pupils tightened almost imperceptibly.
Roger's smile deepened. He moved on, step by step, up the stairs toward the end.
Kael lowered his eyes and looked no more.
Across the square, the future giants of the age wore many expressions.
Gecko Moria's face flushed with sickly excitement. He ran a long tongue over his lips, as if watching the finest horror play.
Donquixote Doflamingo lounged with hands in his pockets, the grin beneath his shades pulled wide to the edge of mockery.
"Fufufu… what a magnificent show."
Crocodile clenched a cigar between his teeth, eyes cold. He cared little for who died. He cared for the power vacuum that would follow and what chances it would spill onto the sea.
At the front, a red-haired boy balled his fists. Beneath the straw hat, tears blurred his sight, yet he bit his lip and refused to make a sound.
Beside him, a red-nosed boy had no such restraint. He bawled so hard snot bubbled from his nose.
"Waaah… Captain Roger…"
On the scaffold, Roger knelt easily and urged the two impassive executioners at his sides.
"All right, hurry it up."
He sounded not like a man at the gallows, but a patron asking the tavern to bring the next round.
The executioners traded a glance and tightened their grips.
They stepped in, left and right, blades raised high, edges leveled at Roger's neck.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Dark clouds had gathered unnoticed. They pressed low over Loguetown, heavy with storm.
A suffocating stillness.
Then, from the crowd, a shout.
"Hey, Pirate King."
"Where did you stash the treasure you found? Is it on the Grand Line?"
"You got it, didn't you? The legendary trove."
"One Piece."
Roger smiled faintly. He lifted his head. In his last instant, his eyes shone like stars.
"Want my treasure?"
His voice cut through the clouds and rang clear in every ear.
Through the Den Den Mushi, it reached every corner of the sea.
"If you want it, you can have it all."
Fleet Admiral Steel Bone Kong's pupils snapped tight. His hand crushed the railing before him. Veins stood out at his temple.
"Go find it."
Roger's voice rose in a crack of thunder.
"I put everything this world has to offer in one place."
For one second, the world froze.
Then Kong's furious roar finally arrived, late and powerless.
Roger would use his death to open the wildest, most chaotic age of all.
"Fools, do it now. Execute."
The order rolled across the square, but it was too late. The cry drowned in a crowd on the verge of boiling.
Startled from their awe, the executioners hacked down with all their strength.
A twin flash of steel.
Time stopped.
Roger's smile fixed forever in that moment.
A warm drop of blood slid from the high platform and struck the boards below, blooming into a bright red flower.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Silence, as if someone had pressed mute on the world.
Then the square detonated.
"He meant it."
"One Piece is real."
"I will be the Pirate King."
"To sea. I am setting sail."
The crowd boiled.
The sea boiled.
Eyes everywhere blazed with heat. Men dropped their tools, kissed their weeping families goodbye, and ran like mad for the harbor, for that ocean where dreams and riches lay buried.
The square broke apart. The Marines' lines collapsed beneath the stampede.
A mightier age unfurled its banner.
The Great Pirate Era.
In the next heartbeat, the same people drunk on dream and frenzy fell silent as one.
Not from Marine suppression. Not from reason's return.
The sky went dark.
Not sunset. A blackness like ink spilled without cause.
The already heavy clouds began to spin and converge at a speed plain to the naked eye, forming a vast, terrible vortex directly above Loguetown.
Lightning crawled along the edge of the clouds with a sibilant hiss. No thunder followed, only a pressure that made hearts quail.
A gale rose from nowhere, keening like a thousand wailing spirits.
People staggered and fell. Mania drained from their faces, replaced by panic and blank fear.
"What is happening?"
"The sky is tearing."
A white lance of lightning split the heavens and lit the square like noon.
When the glare died, a new figure stood on the scaffold.
A black coat snapped in the wind. Golden eyes burned.
Rain came down in sheets, stones of water striking earth and faces alike with icy sting.
The world drowned beneath the downpour, all but the scaffold, which seemed wrapped in an unseen veil.
Three feet from Roger's body, the rain slid away to either side. Not a drop touched the red captain's coat.
Kael stood there and let the rain scour his face.
He crouched and reached out to smooth the smile still resting on Roger's features.
Thousands of eyes fixed on that scene.
Before them, the impossible unfolded.
The blood that had flowed from Roger's body, the bright flower blooming on the boards, stirred as if given life or drawn backward through time.
It crept together into a thin line and returned along its own path, flowing back into Roger's body.
Kael moved gently. He set one of Roger's arms over his own shoulder and slipped his other arm beneath the knees, lifting him with care.
Roger's head settled against his back as it had so many times after banquets, when comrades carried him aboard. He looked only asleep.
A whisper slipped through the wind and rain, almost too soft to hear.
"You didn't starve in Impel Down after all, you bastard."
With his captain on his back, Kael straightened and turned to go.
"Stop."
The shout cut across the storm.
"It's the Waveguide King, Kael Grylls."
"That monster from the stories."
"The man who wrecked Marineford."
Marines in the crowd raised their rifles with trembling arms.
Blinded by greed, pirates felt a fiercer hunger than before.
"Brothers, the clues to Roger's treasure have to be on him."
"Kill him and take the body. One Piece is ours."
"Right. There's only one of him."
"Take him down and we will be legends."
Desire is the finest catalyst.
In an instant, a dozen self-styled great pirates burst from the masses with blades bared, roaring as they charged the scaffold.
They would climb to the peak of the age by stepping on two legends.
At the edge of the square, Doflamingo's smile vanished, replaced by a dangerous gravity.
Crocodile's cigar slipped and hit the ground.
Dracule Mihawk's right hand had already found the hilt of the black blade on his back.
They were not fools. That man could not be challenged.
Kael did not so much as glance back.
He walked on, down the scaffold steps, with Roger upon his back.
At the first step, it happened.
A pressure rolled out from him, invisible yet heavy as a falling sky.
What kind of force was it?
As if a god above the ninth heaven opened indifferent eyes, as if a demon at the bottom of the abyss smiled in scorn.
Black and gold motes flickered into being, colliding and weaving, carrying a sovereign will that crushed all who stood before it. They swept outward in every direction.
The leading dozen pirates froze mid-snarl. Light died in their eyes. They toppled like felled trees, froth on their lips, gone to darkness.
That was only the beginning.
The black-gold conqueror's will tore across the square like a tsunami.
Thump.
Thump, thump.
They fell in swathes, pirate and Marine alike, like wheat under the scythe.
In three seconds, the square that held ten thousand souls knew only wind, rain, and the dull cascade of bodies hitting soaked boards.
A minute ago Loguetown had roared. Now it lay as silent as a vast grave.
Kael did not stop.
He stepped off the last stair into a sheet of standing water. Ripples spread from his boots.
He passed through the fallen as if no one else remained in the world.
Only a handful were still standing or kneeling.
The red-haired boy and the red-nosed boy knelt gasping for breath, eyes fixed on the familiar back. Rain and tears ran together.
Gecko Moria sat collapsed, muttering, "No way… this…"
Crocodile knelt on one knee, one hand braced on the ground, face white as bone.
Doflamingo stayed upright by will alone. His legs shook like leaves. Bloodshot eyes stared from beneath the shades.
Mihawk still stood, muscles drawn tight as bowstrings, right hand locked on his sword. His hawk's gaze never left that retreating back. A bead of cold sweat traced his brow.
Kael looked at none of them.
With his captain on his back, through a field of the unconscious, under wind and rain, he walked away one step at a time.
Behind him, the vortex of black cloud unraveled and thinned.
The rain slackened and stopped.
A blade of sunlight speared the clouds and fell upon a town strewn with bodies.
As if that apocalyptic storm had come only to send off the king of an age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
If you're itching to see what happens next, check out the advanced chapters on my Patron!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"