By the time the longboat turned around the corner of the bay and slipped into its water, the bay itself had stopped being peaceful.
The Sea King had risen in the west—yes, the younger one, the one that was more interested in people than others.
Kael thought it was likely that she had sensed the ship, as he did, and unlike him, she hadn’t had months to be patient with new arrivals.
Most of her head and most of her back were now sticking out of the water as she circled in place.
Kael stepped into the water.
There was nothing for it—he couldn’t let an agitated Sea King go where there were five new strangers landing.
He reached out with a firm pulse of chakra.
Hold your peace.
They’re mine.
They’re not threats.
There was no response that resembled anything like words, only a soft echo of the question: Why are they here?
I have been waiting for them.
She wasn’t satisfied with the answer, but satisfied enough not to drive them away.
She submerged in the water, turning her head sideways, so that she could follow the progress of the longboat that now approached the shore of the bay.
Kael waded the rest of the way out to her—he needed to reach the waist of the water, the bottom of which was now sandy and full of little pebbles—and placed a hand on her nose, leaning his weight against her face.
She allowed him.
She lowered her head to the level of his hand even more.
He got on top of her nose, trying to see the boat.
Compared to the Sea King, the boat looked absolutely tiny.
The people stopped rowing.
Five people—the boy in the straw hat, the man with green hair who carried three swords and was clearly skilled at fighting, the woman with orange hair who obviously could judge any route in this bay and was a navigator, the man with a slingshot and a long nose already holding it in place, and finally the man with a cigarette and a very relaxed posture.
The man with the slingshot appeared to be considering his choices, weighing them against each other and coming to a conclusion about which of the two was better—the worst was to start shooting at the Sea King, ten times larger than the whole boat, or maybe rowing in the opposite direction.
The man with green hair had his hand on the sword’s hilt, looking intently at Kael and not at the Sea King.
The orange-haired woman kept checking her charts and getting angry, as if the charts didn’t prepare her for this kind of situation.
The cook was lighting another cigarette.
And the boy was smiling.
The boy lifted his hand, waved, and said something.
Kael waved in response.
He turned around to the Sea King.
She wasn’t really planning on going anywhere yet, but the discussion had switched from whether to chase the strangers away to the more familiar matter that she had wanted to discuss for the past few days—a matter of the bay’s western passage, which lay between two cliffs and a shoal under the water where the Sea King’s cousin preferred to sleep.
Kael knew that.
He had been delaying the discussion of it.
He pressed his palm harder against the Sea King’s nose.
Not now.
Later.
She held his eyes.
Then she showed him that she was agreeing to speak later and disappeared under the waves, leaving behind the dignity that the strangers’ boat wouldn’t be able to miss.
She closed the bay, leaving it calm and peaceful behind her.
Kael stayed in the spot of sea that was left dry by the Sea King, wringing out his wet cloak and letting his hair lie flat against his head, and turned towards the longboat.
Now the longboat was halfway in, but nobody in it was rowing anymore.
They were all staring at him.
I’m sorry, Kael said, wringing out another sleeve.
She wants to discuss it since the beginning of last week.
I’ve been putting her off.
The woman in orange hair was lowering her chart in a very measured fashion.
The boy in the straw hat—that one boy who Kael was sure had never made any uncertain decisions in his life—pronounced it cool.
And the boy launched himself from the boat to land in the surf of the bay.
It took only a second for him to jump that far, but he landed with both feet and started walking to Kael with a raised hand.
My name is Luffy.
I’ll become the Pirate King one day.
Tell me your name.
Kael shook hands with the boy.
The boy’s grip was warm and firm and lacked any of the evaluations that his fellow sailors tried to make of Kael from the boat.
The boy had made up his mind about Kael in those few seconds of a jump from the boat to the land.
There was no re-evaluation.
Kael Ashwood.
You can talk to Sea Kings.
To some degree.
This is so cool!
Come with us.
The woman in orange hair, who had just stepped out of the boat, sounded both exasperated and loving when saying that.
Luffy.
You haven’t even learned who he is yet.
I’m learning it now.
Kael.
I mean— She gave up.
Hi, I’m Nami.
I’m the navigator.
Please tell me that the western passage through your bay is accessible, because otherwise I will have to plot another route.
He understood the hidden question.
No small talk.
He had been the first scout, the man whose life had turned on observation for a long while.
His answer came direct and clear for her request.
“It’ll be passable.
It’ll be tomorrow morning.
The Sea King who just arrived will stay out west until midday—she’s going to feed out six miles—and the shoal where her cousin rests isn’t an issue as long as you draw below fifteen feet, which you do.
Tomorrow’s wind will let you get away cleanly for several hours following an hour after sunrise.
You’ll want the long tack to southwest first.”
They had reached land at that point.
They clustered around Luffy in a relaxed semicircle formation.
The cook had moved next to Nami and held out a hand for hers, taking it without looking as she withdrew hers from the book.
The swordsman had yet to release his white sword fully, but his fingers had left its grip to settle lightly on its saya.
The slingshot man looked beyond Kael at the bay where the Sea King had rested, as if to make doubly sure that it wasn’t going to appear without notice.
Nami herself hadn’t moved.
Kael could recognize that slight inward bend to her lips that meant that she was judging information to be valuable enough to be considered accurate despite the source being impossible, or just that the information’s source was confident enough to warrant trust.
At least it looked like that.
“How do you know the wind?”
“I can feel it.”
“You can sense the weather.”
Once again, he nodded.
But she remained motionless.
He could see the judgment forming in her mind as to whether he was lying or if he was telling the truth.
But in the meantime, there was still no reason for her to think otherwise since checking for truth doesn’t cost her anything.
She fished the leather notebook from her belt and flipped it open as her gaze stayed fixed on Kael’s face.
“Tell me the forecast for the coming days.”
He explained the forecast for the coming days.
The wind direction, its speed, the front that was due to hit at sundown the day after tomorrow, but not break above the bay because the highlands will deflect it eastward, the temperature drop overnight tomorrow, squall chances fourth.
He provided the information objectively as if giving the data to himself.
She entered it in her notebook without even bothering to look at it.
And when he finished, she closed it on her finger and met his gaze for several seconds.
“If half of it is correct, I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Sanji is cooking, right?”
“…How do you know that.”
“He already started organizing the menu.
It shows.”
It seemed that Sanji, who had started counting his inventory mentally, realized what happened midway through his thoughts and looked Kael dead-on.
And then he chuckled warmly and drew a small bow that seemed elegant somehow despite the cigarette.
“I am Sanji.
It’ll be my pleasure.”
The swordsman finally released the grip on his sword Wado and stepped closer—not quite invading his space, but closer than necessary.
He scrutinized him silently with a gaze that told that he was doing his best work as a professional killer who needed to know whom to kill and whom not.
“Zoro.”
“Kael.”
“You are strong.”
“Yes.”
“How strong.”
“I’d prefer to demonstrate that.”
And indeed, Zoro smirked.
It was the satisfaction with an expected answer he received at last.
He took half a step back and remained silent.
The slingshot man, now confident enough that the Sea King won’t come, stepped closer.
“Captain Usopp of Usopp Pirates.
You may have heard of me.”
“No.”
“This is…” He stopped.
“Understandable.
We operate in different waters.”
“But I look forward to hearing from you.”
Usopp, who had expected rejection and received encouragement instead, lit up instantly.
Luffy, who watched them all with a patient smile, snapped his hands.
“Alright, he joins us.”
“Luffy,” Nami tried to protest, “please!”
“He joins us.”
“But…”
“Watch me.”
Looking at Luffy, Kael felt that chakra once again, that burning force of pure power.
It didn’t analyze its own self, didn’t try to justify or judge anything—it was an explosion of pure potential with nothing holding it in check.
Kael had seen nothing like it before in either his previous or current life, and standing on the wet beach with seawater still clinging to his sleeves, he knew that those months had not been wasted.
“I haven’t agreed.”
“But you will.”
“I can still say no.”
“And I’ll wait for that.”
Kael smiled.
For the first time in months, a laugh erupted in his heart, spreading across his face.
He couldn’t help it, this simple pleasure of communicating with a fellow human after a prolonged period of solitude felt surprisingly good.
“Climb to the cliff,” he waved up the path.
“We’ll have fruit and water up there.
There’s a fire ring too, let’s sit down and talk.”
And they moved on.