The salt air off the Elbaf fjord blew cold, carrying the sharp scent of pine and crushed frost down from the high peaks.
Inside the captain's cabin of the Great Hearth. A massive, iron-reinforced warship carved from the timber of the Adam Tree by Elbaf's grand shipwrights. A single brass lamp swayed against the heavy overhead beams. The ship rode the freezing tide with absolute stability, its thick hull unbothered by the rolling swells of the fjord. On the oak chart table, a sea-map of the New World lay spread flat, weighted at the corners by heavy brass compasses and an iron dagger.
Giovanni stood over the table, his right sleeve still pinned up near his shoulder, his golden eyes fixed on the blue ink of the northern currents. Toki sat across from him on a carved bench, her hands folded quietly over her woolen shawl.
"Whitebeard," Giovanni said, his voice quiet in the dim cabin. "The Moby Dick is the only place in these waters where the World Government doesn't send ciphers to knock on the door. Oden was his brother. Marco already put his life on the line for you on Wano."
Toki watched the flame flickering inside the lamp glass. She did not immediately agree or nod.
"You sound very certain," Toki said softly. She looked up, her dark eyes searching his face. "Are you offering us Whitebeard's flag because it is truly the safest place for Hiyori... or are you putting us somewhere safe so you can go after your father's ghost without having to look back?"
Giovanni's jaw tightened. He looked at the map, then directly at Toki.
"Both," Giovanni said simply. He swallowed, looking away toward the dark stern window. "If you stay with me, I'm going to spend half my time checking over my shoulder every time the wind changes. I can't do what needs to be done if I'm afraid."
Toki studied his face for a long, quiet moment. The plain, asymmetrical honesty of the admission cleared the air better than any grand speech could have. She let out a small breath and leaned her head back against the thick Adam-wood timber.
Giovanni reached into a wooden sea-chest beside the table and pulled out two transponder snails. A standard calling snail and a small, hornless White Den Den Mushi. He set the white signal-jammer beside the receiver, its pale shell humming softly as it threw up an encrypted frequency that blocked Marine interception. He raised the iron receiver.
The calling snail blinked, its eyelids heavy, before clicking to life with a quiet, rhythmic gacha.
"Taking your time, kid," Marco's lazy, drawling voice piped through the shell, accompanied by the distant sound of creaking timber and gulls. "Where are you."
"It seems you survived Kaido. We're currently leaving Elbaf," Giovanni said directly into the speaker. "I have Toki and Hiyori with me. They need a deck under them that the Navy won't dare touch."
The line went dead silent for five full seconds. The playful tone in Marco's voice vanished instantly, replaced by a low, sharp weight.
A faint rustle of paper came through the transponder, followed by the heavy, rolling sound of a massive footstep on distant oak boards. A stride that made the small shell rattle against the chart table.
"Marco, give me the horn," a deep, earth-rumbling voice echoed through the receiver. A voice that sounded like tectonic plates grinding beneath the sea floor.
Whitebeard didn't shout, but the sheer density of his breath made the brass lamp flicker.
"You've grown a spine since I last met you, Giovanni," Whitebeard rumbled, the sound rich with the rasp of old salt and age. "If Oden's widow and his little girl are standing in your way, you bring them to my family. But don't think you're dropping off cargo. Oden was a fool who ran off to sea and left his home cold, and I won't take his blood under my roof until Toki looks me in the eye and tells me what that idiot died for. Sphinx island. Three days. Bring enough salt to drink with my sons."
The snail clicked off, its eyelids falling shut.
Down on the stone pier, where the freezing tide slapped against the green barnacles of the dock posts, the Elbaf departure was underway.
Gerd stood by the edge of the gangplank, her long coat wrapped tight against the spraying salt water. She held a small wooden crate of dried mountain herbs and sealed ointment jars, setting them carefully onto the deck of the giant-forged vessel.
Giovanni walked down the wooden ramp, his boots heavy against the Adam wood. He stopped a few feet from her, his coat blowing back in the coastal wind.
Gerd straightened up, towering over him, her dark eyes looking down at his bandaged shoulder. "The cuts on your arm are going to leave thick scars if you keep tearing the stitches, Gio."
"I've got plenty of scars," Giovanni said, a faint, dry shadow of a smile touching his mouth. He looked back at the snow-capped peaks of Elbaf rising behind her. "Next time I come through these waters, I'll bring medicine from all over the New Word."
Gerd looked at him for a long moment, then reached out with one massive, calloused hand, gently tapping a single finger larger than Giovanni against his uninjured shoulder. Hard enough to rattle his teeth, but warm.
"Keep your medicine," Gerd said softly. "Just come back with fewer holes in your skin next time."
Giovanni nodded once. "Deal."
An hour later, the boat cleared the inner harbor, its heavy canvas sails catching the stiff mountain wind as the high cliffs of Elbaf began to shrink into the grey mist. Built by the giants from the indestructible wood of the Adam Tree, the boat cut through the crushing swells without so much as a groan from its timbers.
On the deck, Hiyori stood by the edge, holding Toki's hand as she watched the giants' island fade into the ocean spray. Toki looked down at her daughter, then turned her head toward where Giovanni stood by the helm.
"We go to Whitebeard," Toki said aloud, her voice clear over the rushing sound of the bow-wave. "For Hiyori."
Giovanni kept his hands on the spokes of the heavy oak wheel, his eyes fixed on the open sea ahead, where the dark, jagged horizon met the stormy clouds of the New World.
"And you?" Toki asked, stepping closer to the quarterdeck stairs. "Where are you planning on going?"
Giovanni didn't hesitate. He spoke the words clearly into the rising wind, letting the name settle over the quiet deck.
"Impel Down."
---
Find early chapters on my patreon
[Patreon.com/tenten100?]