South Blue, Baterilla Island.
Unlike the treacherous, unpredictable climates of the Grand Line, this place knew a spring that never ended and a sea breeze that came soft and warm.
Sunlight sprawled lazily over a white beach and warmed the fine sand.
From the town's roofs, thin threads of smoke curled. In the streets, children chased and laughed while housewives traded easy gossip.
Everything felt quiet and whole.
Kael walked the cobbled lane in an outfit so plain it could not be plainer.
The naginata on his back was disguised by light and shadow as a traveler's pack, and the usual edge in his golden eyes was tucked away. He looked like any vacationer passing through.
Picture of innocence.
A fine place to grow old, he thought as he walked.
No gunpowder or blood in the air. Only faint flowers and the salt of the sea.
Since carrying Roger's body from Loguetown, he had hidden his trail and spent days reaching this out-of-the-way island in the South Blue.
Truth was, there was no need to be this careful. If I just killed everyone tailing me, no one would know I had been here. Kidding. Mostly.
And credit where due.
If he had not punched Marineford clean through not long ago, leaving Marine Headquarters scrambling to rebuild and keep a lid on unrest, then by now the world's Marines would be swarming like sharks to the smell of blood, hunting anything and everything tied to Roger.
As it stood, the brass were busy grappling with the chaos that came with the dawn of the Great Pirate Era. Steel Bone Kong was probably still writing apologies for the execution fiasco at Loguetown. No spare hands to look this way.
No one would notice this little island. No one would guess that Portgas D. Rouge, Roger's wife, lived here.
Kael stopped before a small house that faced the sea.
Its walls were painted a warm cream. A few sheets hung in the yard, bellied by the onshore breeze.
Sunflowers crowded the sill, blazing in the sun.
This is the place.
He stood at the door. His raised hand stalled in the air and did not knock.
On the way here he had played through a dozen first meetings.
What should he say? How do you start?
Hello, Sister Rouge. I am Roger's brother. He is dead. I am here to take you away.
My condolences. I am Kael. Roger passed peacefully.
No. Poet voice off. That sounds like a debt collector.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. This was harder than invading Marineford.
There, you swing. Here, you think.
He hated this kind of moment. If Rouge saw him and thought of Roger and fell apart, what should he do?
Offer a handkerchief, give a stiff pat on the shoulder, mumble some hollow comfort he did not believe himself.
The dead do not return.
You have to be strong.
Life goes on.
While he stood at the door, thoughts tripping over themselves, the latch clicked.
The door edged open.
Kael's mind blanked. He froze where he stood like a kid cornered by relatives he did not know during New Year visits.
An eye peered through the crack, wary.
Their gazes met.
All the openings he had rehearsed fled. After a long struggle, he forced out a few dry words.
"Well… I…" His eyes drifted to the sunflowers. "The weather is… nice."
The woman had long, soft pink hair. A scatter of gentle freckles lit her face. Her eyes were clear and warm.
Kael's tongue came back to him, though his voice still felt a little wrong.
"I am… Roger's brother, Kael Grylls. Sister Rouge, I came… to take you somewhere safer."
He did not dare look at her expression. He braced for grief and tears.
Neither came.
Rouge only blinked, then a light of understanding softened her gaze.
She studied him up and down, paused at those uncommon golden eyes, then nodded.
"So you are Kael." The tone said of course you are. "Please, come in."
"Ah. Right."
He followed her in, a little dazed.
The house was simple and spotless, lived-in without clutter.
Rouge set him on the sofa and went to the kitchen to pour tea.
Not what he had expected at all.
Kael sat too straight and felt wrong in his own skin.
He watched her move and found he had nothing to say.
"No need to be nervous." Rouge returned with two steaming cups and set one on the table before him. "Back home, Roger spoke of you often."
She sat opposite, both hands around the warm cup, a quiet smile on her lips.
"He said he had the best brother in the world, the one man he never had to worry about."
"Every time the paper ran your new bounty, he would light up like a child and brag, look, that is my brother."
Her voice was light and gentle, like the sea breeze slipping in through the window.
No hysteria. No flood of tears. She spoke as if sharing a small ordinary memory.
Only when she said Roger's name did a quick dimness touch the corner of her eyes, the only sign of sorrow buried deep.
The calmer she was, the worse he felt.
What he had pressed down in Loguetown, what he had drowned at the lonely grave with rum, surged up and broke the surface.
His eyes stung without warning.
He lowered his head and watched the steam curl from the cup. His voice rasped with a knot in his throat.
"I am sorry, Sister Rouge."
"I could not bring him back."
Silence held the room for a beat.
He clenched his fists.
What answered him was a soft sigh.
"It is all right, Kael."
Rouge set her cup down and looked at him with kindness.
"This is not your fault."
"That was the road Roger chose, the will of the Pirate King."
She was the one soothing the man who made the World Government lose sleep.
"He would not want you like this. He was smiling, was he not?"
Kael snapped his head up and met those clear, steady eyes.
There was no blame in them. Only acceptance and understanding.
For a heartbeat he saw that fool of a captain again, the man who grinned wide and wore the word freedom like a badge.
So different, and so alike.
Family will always find its own.
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