Just as Cael was about to help Lucien up, the rubble shifted and the Marine pushed through it, voice coming out ahead of him, angry and unhurried.
"I don't know who you are, old man, but helping members of the Roger Pirates and striking a Marine upholding justice. Age does not exempt you from that."
Cael sighed. He turned toward him and looked at him for a moment before speaking.
"Sakazuki. I had heard you were a hothead, but I did not think you were also careless. Look at the boy you were trying to drag away. He is not a member of Roger's crew. He came from North Blue to watch the execution. Nothing more." He clasped his hands behind his back. "The apprentices from the Roger crew? It was the other two. But I suppose all that fame back in North Blue has been going to your head a little. I should trim it back before you head to Marineford."
He disappeared.
The roles reversed entirely. Cael moved through Sakazuki's guard like it was not there, Haki-hardened strikes landing with a precision and economy that gave the younger man no rhythm to find and no gap to exploit. Sakazuki was strong, and his vitality was extraordinary, but extraordinary vitality only meant the beating lasted longer. Eventually, even that ran out. He went down mid-block, his body finally overruling whatever was driving him to keep standing, and did not get up.
Cael straightened his coat and looked at him on the ground for a moment.
"Zephyr," he called out, toward no direction in particular. "Come and collect this one before he wakes up and starts again."
A few seconds of silence. Then Zephyr landed nearby from somewhere above with the particular impact of a very large man who had stopped bothering to descend gradually. He looked around at the scene. Sakazuki on the ground. Lucien barely conscious against the wall. Shanks on his feet but only just. Buggy standing completely still with his mouth open.
"I am going to have to train this one personally when he reaches Marineford," Zephyr said, looking at Sakazuki. "Too reckless. But the hatred for pirates is in exactly the right place." He looked up at Cael. "Any plans to come back to Marineford? Grand Line?"
Cael's expression did not change.
Zephyr nodded slowly, as though he had already known the answer and asked only to confirm it. He reached down, grabbed Sakazuki by the ankle, and walked away dragging him across the cobblestones without further ceremony.
Cael watched him go and then turned to Shanks and Buggy.
"Take your hand and your friend and leave," he said. "Do not announce yourselves to anyone else on the way out. Just go."
Buggy nodded rapidly, picked up his still-detached hand from where it had ended up, tucked it under his arm, grabbed Shanks by the sleeve, and ran. Shanks went with him but looked back once at Cael, then at Lucien against the wall, with the focused attention he gave things he considered worth remembering.
Then they were gone.
Cael looked down at Lucien, who had finally lost the argument with consciousness entirely and gone still. He looked at the ruckus around them, the broken walls, the scattered rubble, the general state of the street, and sighed.
ONE WEEK LATER
Lucien watched the Red Line shrink behind them as the ship moved further into North Blue and thought about the past two weeks.
He had seen the Pirate King. The man whose name alone made people step back, the man the world called its greatest criminal, the man who had looked at his own execution and smiled. He had watched him set the entire world moving with a single sentence and then simply stop existing, and the world had not stopped moving since.
He had seen what Roger's apprentices could do at fifteen and understood, with the particular clarity that comes from being on the receiving end of something, exactly how large the gap between them and himself actually was.
He had felt the strength of one of North Blue's most feared Marines and understood that cruelty did not belong exclusively to pirates. And he had seen Cael move, properly move, for the first time, and had been given a brief explanation of what Haki was afterward that had raised more questions than it answered.
He was still turning all of it over when Cael appeared beside him at the railing.
"Thinking about how weak you are again?"
Lucien glanced at him and said nothing.
"Good," Cael said. "You should be. You are weak. Very weak." He leaned on the railing and looked out at the water. "But it is acceptable to be weak at thirteen. You have time, and I have a few more years of useful things to teach you before you have to find the rest on your own. So do not waste it." He stood, looked at Lucien once more with the expression he used when something had been said that did not require a response, and laughed once, short and genuine.
As he watched the old man walk away, Lucien found himself thinking about something he had not considered in a while. Who was Cael, exactly. What position had he held in the Marines to know a current Admiral by name and speak to him the way a senior speaks to a junior. And how had a man of that calibre ended up owing a favour to a shipbuilder from a North Blue port town.
Then there was the other thing. Zephyr had known his father's name without being told it. That did not happen by accident. A Marine Admiral knowing the name of an ordinary shipbuilder made no sense unless the shipbuilder was not, or had not always been, entirely ordinary. Which meant his father had either worked with the Marines at some point or had done something significant enough that people at that level knew who he was.
Neither option was something his father had ever mentioned over dinner.
Lucien turned back to the water. The questions sat in a neat row in his head, unanswered and likely to stay that way for a while. That was fine. Unanswered questions had a way of becoming answered eventually if you stayed patient and paid attention, and he had both of those in reasonable supply.
He opened the notebook, found a blank margin, and wrote four words.
Not weak for long.
He closed it and watched the sea.
************************************
Hey everyone! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the book so far — since this is my first original fanfic, your feedback means a lot to me. Any suggestions for improvement are always welcome and will definitely be taken on board.
Starting this week, I'm also launching a little incentive: for every 50 Power Stones donated, I'll drop a bonus chapter immediately, on top of the regular daily release! I'm hoping to climb the rankings and get this book a bit more visibility.
The deal: Every 50 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter.
Your support through Power Stones and comments goes a long way.
Thank you so much! 🙏