Time moved like a current, slipping by without a sound.
Months later, the World Government honored an invisible bargain.
The wanted posters for the Roger Pirates vanished from bounty boards across the seas overnight, as if the crew that had plagued the Navy for decades had never existed.
In their place came the headline that shook the world.
"Pirate King Gol D. Roger captured, to be executed publicly in his hometown of Loguetown in the East Blue."
A news coo flapped down and dropped a paper at Kael Grylls's feet.
He did not pick it up at once. He only watched the page lift and fall in the breeze.
The banner headline was set in the largest type, black as a blow to the eyes.
Beneath it was Roger's grinning bounty portrait.
Kael bent and took up the paper.
The bargain was struck.
His fingers whitened around the newsprint until it crackled in protest.
…
Word of the Pirate King's impending execution hit the world like a stone hurled into the sea, a single splash birthing tidal waves.
New World, Moby Dick
The deck had gone quiet. Whitebeard, Edward Newgate, lifted his enormous sake bowl and drained it in one pull.
He stared at Roger's wild smile on the page and said nothing for a long time.
"Pops…" Marco watched him, anxious.
"Gurararara." The deep laugh held no joy, only the complicated ache one legend feels for another whose curtain is about to fall.
"That man always did love a grand scene."
He tipped his chin to the sky, gaze traveling far.
"Roger, I know what you are trying to do. Still, this curtain call is too dull by half."
North Blue, Spider Miles
A blond youth in a flamingo-pink coat and sunglasses lounged with one leg thrown over the other.
At his feet lay several half-dead gangsters.
"Fufufufu." Donquixote Doflamingo eyed the paper. "So the old-era monster is finally stepping offstage. What a boring end."
Trebol oozed closer. "Hey, Doffy, Doffy, the Pirate King's era is over."
"No, Trebol." Doflamingo's mouth split into an extravagant grin, madness and ambition glittering in his eyes.
"It is not an ending. It is a beginning. A truly chaotic, truly interesting era, one ruled by us, starts now. Fufufufu."
Somewhere in an underground casino
A young Crocodile reclined on a sofa, a cigar burning between their lips, smoke coiling.
They skimmed the headline and smiled, cold and disdainful.
"So-called kings die like anyone else. Better to hide your hand and pull the strings."
Ash flicked from the cigar. Hunger for power flashed in their eyes. "Power only lasts when it sits in your own palm."
West Blue, Kuraigana Island
A hawk-eyed youth swung a black blade. Even a casual slash left deep furrows gouged in the earth.
A news coo fluttered past and dropped a paper.
Dracule Mihawk glanced at the page, then let it fall.
"Pirate King." He tasted the title, no awe, no fear, only a pure interest in strength. "The apex of an era. Then who stands at the apex of the next."
His grip tightened around Yoru. His gaze honed to a razor's edge.
Grand Line, Florian Triangle
Gecko Moria, riding high on recent successes, broke into a screeching laugh when he heard the news. He declared that he, and no other, would surpass the Pirate King.
An unnamed island's harbor
A young man in a green cloak, a tattoo marking his face, watched ships put to sea.
The paper snapped in the wind between Dragon's fingers. His expression held neither grief nor joy, only a pressure like thunderheads piling up.
"To set an era on fire." He spoke to the horizon. "Roger, where does this hand of yours turn the world. Toward rebirth, or into deeper turmoil."
New World, a palace on a floating island
A blond man with a ship's wheel jammed in his head read the headline. His conqueror's will shook the palace until it thrummed.
"Roger, you bastard." Shiki the Golden Lion crushed his glass, eyes blazing.
"Caught by those Navy weaklings. What a joke. If you die, it should be by my hand."
"I will ask him myself what this is."
On that day, schemers, titans, and would-be kings across the world turned their gaze to a small town in the East Blue, Loguetown.
They waited. They watched. They hungered.
Some came to witness a legend's end, some to mourn, but far more eyes burned with naked greed and ambition.
The throne was about to stand empty.
…
Kael crushed the paper into a ball and tossed it into the fire.
Orange flames licked Roger's printed smile, turned it to ash.
He thought of Roger's final trust, of the nephew he had never met yet somehow knew, of Roger's almost casual certainty when he handed everything to Garp.
He trusted neither the World Government nor the Dragons above the world.
To them, the Pirate King's blood was a stain to be scrubbed from the earth.
Kael could already see the picture to come. After Roger's death, Navy intelligence would go rabid, hunting any woman linked to him and every child newly born.
In the name of justice, they would issue the cruelest order.
Better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one slip through.
Baterilla, that tiny South Blue island where Rouge lived, would be the first target of the purge.
Navy hounds and CP agents would knock at every door. Cold eyes would measure every womb. Bloody points would level at every newborn's chest.
Every pregnant woman and every infant on the island would be marked for slaughter.
Garp.
The old man was loyal and fierce, yes, but he was still the Navy's hero.
He might save one. He might save ten. Could he stand against the Government's will when it decided the cost did not matter.
He could not stop it.
Kael stood.
The fire crackled, painting his face in light and shadow.
Roger had bought their freedom with his life. This was not the kind of freedom Kael wanted, hiding in a corner while Roger's wife and child were butchered, while a tragedy unfolded.
Then.
Gold lit in Kael's eyes, brightening by degrees.
Good.
If every gaze in the world was fixed on the East Blue, then Marine Headquarters would be thinner than usual.
He would give the World Government and the Navy something to do.
Something large enough that they would have no hands left to spare for a remote South Blue island and its newborns.
Roger had chosen to ignite a new age with his death.
Kael Grylls, the Pirate King's brother, would pay for that king's fall with the loudest salute the age could hear.
He lifted his foot. The ground thrummed.
A heartbeat later his body tore the air into a white shock-front and punched for the end of Paradise, the fortress that claimed absolute justice.
Marineford.
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