The battle ended the only way it could have—with a clean, total victory for the Red Hair Pirates.
With a walking cheat code like Gavin aboard, there weren’t many people left in all of East Blue who could stop them, provided they didn’t stumble into that dog-hatted lawman who hurled cannonballs with his bare hands!
Down at the shoreline, five men and one monkey stood together, gazing out into the distance.
The Marines were dragging their leader away as they fled.
Thompson’s bloodstained justice coat snapped and fluttered in the wind, and from the way his arms swung limp at his sides, it was plain enough that the commodore had already bid the sea farewell.
Or the world entirely, if you wanted to be honest about it.
“You sure about this?
Letting them limp home doesn’t sit right with me—doesn’t matter how small the fry are.” Gavin released Nozarashi’s Shikai and settled the rough, slender blade back against his shoulder.
Snake ran a cloth down his weapons, wiping them clean.
“If it were up to me, we’d have finished the lot of them.
That would’ve been the smart move.” The others nodded along with their navigator.
None of them had families to speak of, but if petty enemies kept turning up to nip at their heels down the road, that was its own kind of headache.
“I’m not some bloodthirsty maniac.
Let them live,” Shanks said.
“Besides—your bounties need to climb.
Gavin’s most of all.” “Let the survivors carry our story home for us.
Break a few more waves of attackers after this, and there won’t be a soul in East Blue with the nerve to raise a hand against us.
An old pirate taught me that trick once.” He flicked his right wrist, sending a spray of seawater flying off the brim of his straw hat.
Once it was a shade drier, he set it back on his head, pressed it down with two fingers, and started off toward the heart of the island.
“Hongo, you stay behind and patch Gavin up.
Keep an eye on the ship while you’re at it.
The rest of you, with me—we’re going to collect that half-famous sniper of ours.” Gavin didn’t push the argument any further.
Shanks was the captain, and Gavin had to admit the man had a point.
He wasn’t a bloodthirsty maniac himself, whatever it might look like from the outside.
Kenpachi’s memories had simply left him with a hunger for a good fight that ran deeper than the marrow.
But a fight was only worth as much as the man on the other end of it.
If it was someone like Thompson—an East Blue fighter who scraped just past the line of “competent”—then Gavin would happily cut down as many as came at him.
But the sort of Marine who couldn’t even aim straight?
Not worth the effort.
Butchering the helpless only dulled the edge of the blade.
“Don’t take it to heart.
That’s just Shanks for you.” Hongo smiled as the two of them made their way back to the Red Force, his hands already busy drawing tweezers and hemostatic gauze from the medical kit.
“He likes to roam wherever the wind takes him.
Fighting’s only one part of the fun for him, nothing more.” He set to work, easing the bullets out of Gavin’s body one by one.
“No—honestly, I’m with Shanks on this,” Gavin said.
“Kill nothing but the weak, over and over, and you’ll rot into something weak yourself.
What we’re after is the clash.
Strong opponents, real ones i mean.” “The survivors are messengers.
They’re bait, too.
Only the ones who felt our strength firsthand can spin the story with any color to it.” “As long as they’re breathing, stronger enemies will come hunting for us.
And that’s exactly what Shanks and I want to see.” “There’s only one road that leads anywhere worth going, Hongo.
You grow through fighting or you don’t grow at all.” Gavin lifted his right hand and closed it slowly, as though trying to seize the glittering sea spread out before him.
“East Blue is too small for us.” “Me, Shanks, every last one of you—one day we’ll walk out of this quiet little paradise for good.
The back half of the Grand Line, the sea they call the New World.
That’s where we’re meant to end up.” “BIG MOM’s crew.
The Beasts Pirates.
Whitebeard’s fleet… one day we’ll stand at the very peak of the sea and cross blades with monsters like those!” Hongo went still.
His eyes moved to Gavin’s almost on instinct, and when he saw the raw anticipation burning in those blood-red pupils, a wry smile tugged at his mouth despite himself.
“I figured this bounty business would’ve eaten at you.
Turns out you’re cut from the same cloth as Shanks!
A proud son of a bitch through and through.” “Back when I first came aboard, the captain told me something just like it.
What he wants is to measure himself against the strong.
Spend your whole life beating down the weak, and you’ll wither into something weak yourself.” “And then one day some nobody knocks you flat, and you go down in history as a joke.” Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
The last of the bullets dropped free, and Hongo let out a quiet breath.
He sprinkled a measure of special salve over the wounds and wound the bandages tight and fast.
“There.
Done.
Now all you have to do is sit still and rest for a while.” “Rest?
I haven’t got the time.
These are flesh wounds, nothing more.” Gavin rose to his feet and worked through the stiffness in his body, testing it.
Once he’d adjusted to the ache, he took up Nozarashi, stepped off to one side, and eased straight into his late-morning swordsmanship drills.
Hongo’s eyes went wide.
“Hey!
I’m the ship’s doctor here!
Even the vice-captain answers to the doctor!” “Fine, fine.
I’ll take a proper nap at noon, and I’ll swap this afternoon’s sparring for meditation.
Happy?” Gavin ignored the rest and kept swinging.
More than ten days had passed since Nozarashi came into his hands.
Which meant that once the sniper was aboard and they’d sailed further, it would very likely be time to trade this blade for a new Zanpakutō.
Where was he supposed to find time to rest?
There was no telling when—or whether—he’d ever hold this particular sword again.
A few weeping bullet holes weren’t about to keep him from drilling the swordsmanship buried in his memories.
A few more wounds on top of them wouldn’t do it either.
“Every single one of you is out of your damn mind!” Hongo shot Gavin a look of pure, wounded exasperation, then turned on his heel and stomped back into the cabin.
After stowing the medical kit away, he began cataloguing the damage the ship had taken.
….
A few hours slid by.
By the time Shanks and the others came trudging back down the beach, there was an unfamiliar face walking among them.
Thick lips, a mop of curls, flat and forgettable features, and a red bandanna knotted around his head.
He had the look of a man born to stand in the background of somebody else’s story.
“Yo, you two.
Name’s Yasopp.
Looking forward to sailing with you.” “Hongo.
And that fellow over there—the one training while he sprays blood across the whole deck—is our vice-captain, Hickman D.
Gavin.” After trading a fist-bump with Yasopp, Hongo grabbed a mop and bucket, marched over to where Gavin was drilling, and started sopping the blood off the planks.
“Squeak?” Perched on Bonk Punch’s shoulder, Monster stared at Gavin in deep, honest bewilderment.
As far as the little monkey’s understanding of the world went—shouldn’t a wounded animal be lying down somewhere and resting?
“Don’t waste your breath on him.
The man’s a training addict, plain and simple.” Shanks slung an arm around Yasopp’s shoulders and threw his left hand high into the air.
“You lot!
Let’s raise a glass to the arrival of our sniper!
Bring on the banquet!” Bonk Punch came bounding over to Gavin.
“Hey, hey, Gavin!
Train later—come dance with us for a bit!” Gavin answered with a perfectly straight face.
“I’m a wounded patient…
can’t be doing anything too strenuous.
You lot go on ahead with the music and the dancing.” Bonk Punch watched a fresh arc of blood fan out from Gavin’s wounds with every full-force swing of the sword.
‘???????’ ‘So swordsmanship training didn’t count as strenuous exercise?’ “Damn it, Gavin!
You can mop your own floor later!” His patience worn clean through, Hongo hurled down the mop, seized Bonk Punch by the arm, and dragged him toward the grill, cursing under his breath the whole way.
He’d honestly assumed the vice-captain would call it quits the moment the blood started flying.
Instead, Gavin hadn’t so much as slowed—if anything, he’d picked up the pace of his swings!
The real problem was that Gavin’s wounds weren’t grouped neatly in one place, or even facing the same direction.
He had cuts on his arms, his thighs, his back, his stomach.
Which meant that every time he put his full weight behind a swing, anywhere from one to several ribbons of blood came whipping out in random directions all at once.
“That guy…” Yasopp said—already sinking into the rhythm of the crew at a genuinely impressive speed.
Maybe it was down to his easy, cheerful nature, and the fact that he loved his freedom just as fiercely as they loved theirs.
A few cups of rum in, and the shooting fanatic out of Syrup Village had his arm slung around Shanks and the rest, all of them bellowing songs and stamping out a dance.
“I mean… has the vice-captain always been like this?” “You mean Gavin?
Yeah, more or less.” Shanks set his cup down and dragged a hand through his red hair, his expression somewhere between fond and troubled.
“Thing is, ever since Gavin join us, the whole feel of this ship’s changed.
Snake—you’ve noticed it too, right?” Snake grumbled without a flicker of expression.
“‘Changed’ is putting it kindly…
Disciplined, more like.
Before him, we never once did anything you could call ‘organized training.’ And then Gavin comes along, becomes vice-captain, and…” “He never orders anybody to train.
That’s the worst part!
But when a man that strong is out there grinding every single day, then even when you’d give an arm to sleep in, you just… can’t.” “Shanks.
I’m starting to feel like we joined the Marines by accident.” Shanks gave him a bright, guileless smile.
“Hey, it’s not all bad.
Our strength’s shot up something fierce lately, you can’t deny that.” “And good luck finding a sparring partner as easygoing and patient as Gavin.
You could sail every sea there is and come up empty.” “Finding what, now?” Right on cue, Gavin came ambling toward the banquet deck, the towel in his hand soaked a deep red with sweat and blood.
“Finally wrapped up today’s training.
Yo—Yasopp.
Welcome aboard!
Names Hickman D.
Gavin.” Their cups met with a soft knock, the wine trembling inside.
Yasopp grinned across at him.
“I’ll be in your care from here on out, Vice-Captain.”