Argentus looked Dragon dead in the eye, his silver gaze unwavering.
"Your old man was incredibly loud and incredibly noisy."
The room fell into a heavy, confused silence.
The only sound was the night wind rattling the window frames and making the paper walls flutter slightly.
Ivankov blinked, his massive eyelashes clicking together audibly like bamboo chimes. He looked from Argentus to Dragon, then back to Argentus, then back to Dragon again.
"Old man?" Ivankov repeated slowly, his voice losing all its theatrical lilt and dropping into genuine, unfiltered confusion. "Dragon, my dear, who is this 'loud and noisy old man' ze boy speaks of?"
He turned to face Dragon fully, his hands on his hips.
"You didn't tell me you have a family! How long have ve been working together? Ten years? Fifteen? And you never mentioned having a father?!"
Dragon didn't answer Ivankov immediately.
For the first time since Argentus had entered the room, the stoic mask of the World's Most Wanted Criminal—the Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Army who had toppled kingdoms and freed nations—cracked.
A vein pulsed visibly on his tattooed forehead, throbbing with what could only be described as profound, bone-deep exasperation.
He closed his eyes and let out a long, weary sigh—the kind of sigh that contained within it the accumulated frustration of decades. It was the sigh of a man who carried the weight of changing the entire world on his shoulders... and yet somehow found his own family to be the heaviest burden of all.
"So," Dragon rumbled, his voice dry as desert sand. "He found you."
He opened his eyes, looking at Argentus.
"I dropped you off far enough from Windmill Village that our paths shouldn't have crossed. I specifically chose the Gray Terminal to minimize the chance of... complications."
He rubbed his temples with two fingers.
"I didn't expect him to return to the East Blue for a vacation."
"It wasn't a vacation," Argentus corrected, pushing off the pillar to stand upright. "He was visiting your son in Windmill Village. Apparently, he does that periodically to check on the boy's 'progress.'"
Argentus made air quotes with his fingers, his expression souring at the memory.
"I was just unlucky enough to get entangled with your son and his brother. Your father took one look at me, decided I had 'potential,' and proceeded to make my life a living hell for six months."
His eye twitched slightly.
"He'd show up out of nowhere—I swear the man can teleport—laugh like an absolute maniac, eat all my carefully rationed dried meat, and then punch me into the ground with his so-called 'Fist of Love' just because I had the audacity to glare at him."
Argentus's voice took on a mocking tone, imitating Garp's booming voice:
"'You've got eyes like a rebellious brat I used to know! That means you need discipline! BWAHAHAHA!'"
He dropped the impression.
"I assume the 'rebellious brat' he was referring to was you."
Ivankov's jaw dropped.
His mouth opened so wide it looked like he could comfortably swallow a watermelon whole without chewing.
"SON?!" Ivankov shrieked, his voice cracking and climbing into registers that might have shattered glass. "YOU?! DRAGON! YOU HAVE A SON?!"
He spun in a complete circle, his cape swirling dramatically.
"How?! Vhen?! Vith VHOM?! And more importantly—VHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!"
"Keep your voice down, Iva," Dragon commanded, his tone sharp enough to cut steel.
Despite the order, he looked pained, like a man with a migraine being forced to attend a loud party.
He rubbed his entire face with one hand, the gesture weary and resigned.
"Yes. I have a son. His name is Monkey D. Luffy. And that 'loud and noisy old man' Argentus mentioned is Marine Hero Garp—Vice Admiral of the Navy, the man who cornered the Pirate King, and yes, my father."
He let the information hang in the air.
Ivankov looked like he was about to physically faint from the sheer scandal of it all.
He swayed on his feet, one hand pressed dramatically to his forehead.
"Hee-haw! So it's in ze bloodline!" Ivankov gasped, fanning himself with his other hand. "No vonder you are so... intense! So driven! So impossibly stubborn!"
He pointed an accusing finger at Dragon.
"You have ze blood of a Marine Hero running through your veins, and you became ze World's Vorst Criminal! Zat is... zat is..."
He searched for words.
"...peak teenage rebellion! Did you have a goth phase too?!"
Dragon ignored his commander's meltdown entirely, turning his piercing gaze back to Argentus.
His expression grew serious, contemplative.
"My father's 'love,'" Dragon said quietly, and there was something complex in his voice—not quite fondness, not quite resentment, but a complicated mixture of both, "is not something a normal child survives without scars. Physical, mental, or both."
He leaned forward slightly.
"But you stand here, whole and relatively sane. You've not only survived his training, you seem to have thrived under it. You imply these changes—your Haki, your strength, your control—are thanks to him?"
"He trained me," Argentus confirmed, and for the first time since entering the room, the hard edge in his voice softened slightly.
A small, nostalgic smile tugged at the corner of his lips—a rare, genuine expression for someone usually so guarded and controlled.
"Me, along with Luffy and Ace—your son and his sworn brother. For six months, he put us through absolute hell. He threw us into jungles filled with giant predators. He tied us to balloons and sent us floating over canyons. He dropped us into rivers to 'learn to swim better.' He made us run up cliffs while he threw boulders at our heads."
Argentus shook his head, the smile growing slightly.
"He beat us daily—always with that stupid 'Fist of Love' technique that somehow hurt even though Luffy's made of rubber. All of it was supposedly to make us 'fine, upstanding Marines who would carry on the family tradition of justice.'"
He let out a short, dry chuckle.
"He failed, obviously. Spectacularly, even."
Dragon's eyebrow rose. "Oh?"
"Ace wants to be a pirate," Argentus explained, ticking off fingers. "He's got this burning need to prove his existence means something, to escape the shadow of his heritage—though he never explained whose shadow specifically."
"Luffy wants to be the King of the Pirates. He declared it loudly and repeatedly, usually while your father was trying to beat the idea out of him with increasingly creative methods."
He paused.
"And me... well, I'm here. Standing in a dojo, having just learned to cut stone with bamboo, and planning to sail to the Grand Line as soon as I'm ready."
He spread his hands.
"Not a single Marine among us. Your father's recruitment record is impressively terrible."
Dragon went completely still.
The swirling, storm-like pressure in the room seemed to stop entirely, like the eye of a hurricane—that moment of perfect, breathless calm before the back wall hits.
The mention of the name "Luffy" cut through his stoic Revolutionary Commander facade more effectively than any blade could have.
"Luffy..." Dragon whispered the name, testing its weight on his tongue like a prayer or a curse.
For a brief moment—just a fraction of a second—the World's Most Dangerous Criminal disappeared. In his place sat simply a father who had abandoned his child for the sake of revolution, wondering if that child was happy, healthy, alive.
A smile appeared on his face. Small. Sad. Genuine.
"So all of you got along just fine then," he said softly, and there was relief in his voice. "He's making friends. Building bonds. That's... that's good."
Ivankov, who had been watching this exchange with growing bewilderment, looked like his brain was actively short-circuiting.
Sparks might as well have been shooting from his ears.
"Luffy?! Ace?! Vho are zese people?!" he demanded, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Dragon, you have a Marine father?! And your son is a pirate-vannabe?! And you're a Revolutionary?!"
He pressed both hands to his temples.
"Your family dinners must be absolutely insane! How do you even—no, vait, you probably don't have family dinners, do you? Because you're all trying to kill each ozzer's ideologies!"
"It seems my father's teaching methods remain remarkably consistent," Dragon said, finally turning his attention back to the conversation. He ignored Ivankov's continued panic entirely.
A faint, ironic smirk touched his lips—the expression of a man acknowledging a cosmic joke at his own expense.
"He tries to forge Marines using hammer blows and brutal training, but he only succeeds in shattering the chains of authority and creating free spirits who refuse to be controlled."
Dragon walked over to the window, pushing aside the paper screen to look out toward the dark ocean beyond, toward the East Blue sea.
Perhaps he was imagining Windmill Village. Perhaps he was thinking of a small boy in a straw hat he'd never properly met.
"He creates fine and just soldiers," Dragon continued quietly. "Warriors with unshakable moral cores and the strength to back up their convictions. But they're all free-spirited, stubborn, and completely unwilling to bow to authority."
He turned back to Argentus, his expression serious once more.
"Just like him. Just like me. Just like you, apparently."
He studied the silver-haired boy carefully.
"If you grew up with Luffy and Ace under Garp's fist, then you're not just a stranger anymore, Argentus D. Drake. You're connected to my family, whether either of us intended it or not."
Dragon's presence seemed to grow heavier, more focused.
"I will ask you again, Argentus—now that you know what you know, now that you carry these connections, now that you carry the fire I saw in you years ago..."
He paused, his dark eyes boring into Argentus's silver ones.
"Do you still want to walk the path you told me about? To stand at the top of the world and claim everything it has to offer?"
The small, nostalgic smile that had been on Argentus's face when he spoke of Garp and his sworn brothers vanished instantly.
Completely.
The warmth drained from his eyes like water down a sink, replaced by a gaze as cold and hard as the steel he'd learned to cut. As unforgiving as winter ice on a northern sea.
He stopped leaning casually against the pillar and stood to his full height—not particularly tall yet, still growing, but somehow seeming to fill more space than his physical form should allow.
The air around him seemed to settle, becoming heavy and still like the pressure before a storm.
"Luffy draws people in like the sun," Argentus said quietly, his voice controlled but intense. "He has this gravity to him, this magnetic pull. People naturally want to follow him, to be near him, to help him. He'll build a crew of monsters and they'll follow him into hell itself because he smiled at them."
He paused.
"Ace burns bright because he needs to prove he exists, that his life has meaning beyond his blood. He'll set the world on fire just to prove he was here."
Argentus placed one hand over his chest, right over his heart.
"I acknowledged both of them as my brothers. We shared sake. We made vows. That bond is real to me."
"But," Argentus continued, and his voice dropped, becoming harder, colder, "make no mistake, Dragon."
He took a step forward, his silver eyes locked onto Dragon's.
"My ambition isn't something that can be shared or diluted or compromised. It's not a dream that gets smaller to make room for others. It's absolute. Singular. Non-negotiable."
Another step.
"Even if people enter my heart—and they have, somehow, despite my best efforts—they cannot change my fundamental decision. Not Garp with all his strength and 'love.' Not my brothers with their dreams and bonds. Not you with your revolution and your vision of freedom."
He stopped, standing directly in front of Dragon now, refusing to be intimidated by the most wanted man in the world.
"I will sail to the end of this world, Dragon. I will take everything it has to offer—every berry, every treasure, every inch of power and influence available. I'll buy islands. I'll own businesses. I'll build an empire so vast that everyone will have to acknowledge my existence whether they want to or not."
His voice was absolutely certain, carrying the weight of unshakable conviction.
"My path is absolute. No one steers this ship but me. Not destiny. Not fate. Not friendship or family or love."
He placed a hand over his heart again.
"Just me."
Dragon held Argentus's gaze for a long, tense moment that seemed to stretch into infinity.
The room was absolutely silent except for the sound of wind outside and Ivankov's shocked breathing.
Then, slowly, deliberately, the corners of Dragon's mouth lifted into a genuine smile.
Not the revolutionary leader's mask. Not political calculation. Just honest, approving respect.
"Good," Dragon said simply, his voice carrying satisfaction.
He stood, his green cloak settling around his broad shoulders.
"A storm that changes direction for every ship it meets is just a breeze—annoying, but ultimately harmless and forgettable."
He walked toward Argentus, stopping just in front of him.
"But a true storm? A true storm moves where it pleases, destroying or sparing according to its own nature. It doesn't apologize. It doesn't compromise. It simply is, and the world must adapt or be swept away."
Dragon reached into his cloak.
When his hand emerged, he held a small rectangular piece of paper that seemed to pulse with a faint, almost imperceptible life force. The edges were slightly worn, well-kept.
A Vivre Card.
"If you ever find that your path and mine are aligned against the World Government—if the thing you want and the thing I want happen to point in the same direction, even temporarily—use this."
He held it out.
"It will lead you to me, no matter where I am in the world. No matter how far apart we might be."