The Island Eater solved more problems in death than it had created in life.
Its thick hide was cleaned, stretched, and cut into temporary sailcloth.
Sections of dense bone reinforced the longship's weakened ribs, while layers of hardened material from its outer jaw were shaped into plates for the hull.
Dorry and Brogy selected two massive lengths of bone to serve as the cores of new weapons, although Law refused to let them test those weapons anywhere near the Polar Tang.
Repairing the ship still took three days.
Law used ROOM to remove damaged timber and position replacement pieces with precision, while the giants supplied the strength required to bend, lift, and secure materials built on their scale.
The Heart Pirates handled ropes, pitch, steering mechanisms, and every detail Dorry and Brogy had forgotten during a century of living without a crew.
Zaraki spent most of those days under medical supervision.
The small muscle tears caused by the First Gate healed quickly with Law's treatment, but the doctor insisted on recording every change before allowing him to train again.
Zaraki learned that the gate increased output faster than his tendons and repaired muscles could safely absorb it.
If he intended to use it in real combat, he would need weeks of conditioning before opening even the First Gate for longer than a brief burst.
Dorry and Brogy continued asking when their own training would begin.
Zaraki gave them the same answer each time.
"When I know it won't kill you."
Brogy disliked that answer.
Dorry disliked it almost as much, but accepted the logic after watching Law display diagrams of what excessive circulation could do to a heart many times larger than a human's.
The giants still received training. Zaraki forced them to practice Observation Haki against unfamiliar attack patterns instead of repeating the same century-old rhythms, while Law and the Heart Pirates used thrown debris, swapped positions, and sudden changes in terrain to keep them from predicting every movement through habit.
Their new bone-cored weapons remained unfinished, so they trained with the flat sides and stopped before the material cracked.
By the third evening, the rebuilt longship stood upright in the shallows.
It was not beautiful.
Fresh ironwood contrasted sharply with ancient blackened planks, and the pale reinforcement plates made the hull look as though it wore the ribs of a sea monster on the outside.
Even so, it floated.
Dorry placed one enormous hand against the mast.
"She lives again."
Brogy wiped at one eye and immediately pretended he had not.
"Gababababa! Of course she does. A warrior's ship was never going to lose to a little rot."
Law stood on the Polar Tang's deck and looked at the vessel towering above his submarine.
"It still needs a proper crew."
Dorry pointed toward himself and Brogy.
"It has two captains."
"That is precisely the problem."
Zaraki leaned against the conning tower with Nozarashi at his waist.
"They can follow the Polar Tang on the surface."
"And when we dive?"
"They wait."
"And when the Log Pose route crosses a winter storm?"
"They row harder."
Brogy laughed as though that were an entirely acceptable answer.
Law lowered his hat.
"I am surrounded by idiots."
Bepo stood beside him.
"I'm here too, Captain."
Law looked at him.
Bepo's ears lowered.
"Sorry."
Zaraki's grin widened, but his attention soon returned to the western horizon.
The presence Nozarashi had noticed remained distant, though stronger than before.
It was no longer merely a vague sense of danger. Something powerful was moving through the Grand Line on a route that pointed toward Little Garden.
Law noticed where he was looking.
"You still haven't explained what you sensed."
"I don't know who it is."
"That is a poor reason to smile."
"It means the answer might be worth waiting for."
"We are not waiting here for an unknown enemy while transporting two giant Warlord candidates on a repaired century-old ship."
Zaraki turned toward him.
"You make that sound unreasonable."
"It is difficult to describe it any other way."
Before the argument continued, Penguin emerged from the hatch with a sealed newspaper tube recovered from a passing merchant vessel. He handed it to Law.
"Captain, the surface crew bought this from a courier ship. There's nothing public about Hells Island, but the Government issued a restricted notice to the current Warlords."
Law opened the tube.
The document was not addressed to him; he was still only a candidate.
It had reached the underworld through the usual leaks surrounding Government communications.
The notice ordered every current Warlord to report any contact with Zaraki, avoid interfering with an unspecified Government operation, and treat information concerning his route as classified.
Law read it twice.
"They are not announcing that you survived," he said. "They are telling the Warlords to watch for you."
Zaraki took the paper.
"They could have saved the ink."
"This means the Five Elders are moving against you."
"They were already annoying."
"It also means they may have warned someone else about Little Garden."
Nozarashi stirred at his waist.
Zaraki looked west again.
"Then we finish loading and leave before the guests arrive."
Law stared at him.
"You finally agree?"
"I said we leave before they arrive. I didn't say we avoid them forever."
"That is still more progress than I expected."
...
Elsewhere in the New World, several days earlier, the weather changed without warning.
One moment, sunlight burned across the sea.
The next, black clouds closed over the horizon and released rain mixed with hail.
Waves rose high enough to tear apart ordinary ships, yet a small coffin-shaped raft crossed the storm without losing speed.
Dracule Mihawk sat alone aboard it, Yoru resting across his back.
A pale-green flame burned at either end of the vessel, steady despite the wind.
Mihawk's coat moved only slightly as he watched the distant horizon, his golden eyes fixed on a destination hidden beyond the rain.
A pirate ship struggling to escape the storm passed close enough for its lookout to notice the raft.
The lookout raised a telescope, froze, and hurriedly lowered it.
"Captain," he called, voice strained, "we need to change course."
A one-eyed captain took the telescope from him. The moment he recognized the black hat, the cross-shaped sword, and the hawk-like gaze, his expression lost every trace of bravado.
"Hard turn," he ordered. "Do not fire. Do not shout. Just get us away from him."
Several crewmen stared.
"That little raft?"
"That is Dracule Mihawk."
No one questioned the order again.
The pirate ship turned through the waves while Mihawk continued past without acknowledging it.
He had not crossed the storm to hunt small pirates.
A sealed Government notice rested beneath his coat, delivered through the private channel used to command the Seven Warlords.
The notice confirmed Edward Weevil's death, described Zaraki as acting beyond Marine authorization, and ordered the Warlords to report any contact with him.
It did not state that Zaraki had betrayed the Marines.
It did not explain why the Government was concealing his survival from the public.
It merely warned the Warlords not to interfere with whatever action followed.
Mihawk knew enough to recognize the omission.
He had seen Zaraki alive on Kuraigana.
He had fought him, watched him struggle to control Nozarashi, and sent him away only after the Marine learned to place his strength with greater precision.
The Government's notice told Mihawk nothing about Zaraki's survival.
It told him that the Five Elders intended to turn that survival into a problem.
The coffin-shaped raft cut through the storm toward the territory of the Red-Haired Pirates.
A Den Den Mushi call would have been faster.
Mihawk had chosen to come in person because he wanted an answer no unsecured line could provide: whether Kaido had begun moving, and whether Shanks intended to let the World Government guide an Emperor into Paradise without response.