By the time the Marines arrived, all that remained were corpses strewn across the ground and pirate ships cleaved clean in half.
"What happened here? Who could do something this brutal?" Even hardened Marines, veterans of countless battles, felt their stomachs lurch at the sight.
Not a single body on the ground was whole. Every one had been split apart by cuts of blade energy so precise they might as well have been surgical.
"Sir, I spoke with the townspeople. They said a white-haired boy did all of this."
"A white-haired boy?" The officer in charge furrowed his brow. As far as he could recall, there was no white-haired youth with this kind of power.
"Some of them also mentioned that the boy looked familiar. They think he might be one of our wanted men—and that his face was in the newspapers not too long ago."
"A wanted man? In the papers?" A face flashed through the officer's mind, unbidden.
"No. Impossible. He should be dead."
The face belonged to Shirakawa. The officer had fought the Silver Pirates before, so he knew firsthand that Shirakawa was more than capable of carving up a scene like this without breaking a sweat.
And the only white-haired pirate who'd made the papers recently was Shirakawa.
"Maybe it's just someone who looks like him." Even as the thought formed, he filed a report to Marine Headquarters all the same.
If Shirakawa was truly still alive, this was no small matter.
Shirakawa, for his part, had already moved on. He made a beeline for Water 7 at full speed. Once the ship situation was handled, he planned to sweep the seas clean of the parasites infesting them. Consider it a debt repaid to his captain.
At his current pace, even going all-out, the journey to Water 7 still took the better part of a day. By the time he reached his destination, it was close to ten at night.
The moment Shirakawa set eyes on Water 7, he felt the difference. This city was nothing like the others he'd visited. It was a city that never slept—everywhere his gaze could reach, lights blazed against the dark.
The waters surrounding Water 7 were thick with anchored ships, all of them likely drawn by the island's legendary reputation.
After all, the Ancient Weapon Pluton had been built on this very island. And the Oro Jackson—the Pirate King's own ship—had been crafted by a shipwright from these shores.
Despite the late hour, Shirakawa didn't go looking for Tom right away. The man was almost certainly asleep by now. And besides—showing up unannounced when you were supposed to be dead had a way of giving people heart attacks. Better not to take the risk.
So Shirakawa found a place to stay for the night and settled in.
The next morning, at eight o'clock sharp, he stood before the gates of Tom's shipyard.
This was his second time at this place. The last visit had been over a year ago, back when he'd come with Roger and the crew.
"Wonder if Tom even remembers me," Shirakawa murmured to himself with a wry smile, and knocked on the still-closed gate.
After a few knocks, an irritated voice rang out from inside the yard. The gate swung open, and Shirakawa found himself staring at a child.
"Who are you? What do you want?" A blue-haired boy squinted up at him, radiating the full contempt of a born delinquent.
This must be Franky, Shirakawa thought. The last time he'd been here, the kid hadn't been around yet. Tom probably hadn't taken him in yet.
"I'm here to see Tom."
"Yeah, well, wait a while. The old man's still dead asleep." And with that, Franky slammed the gate shut without giving Shirakawa so much as a chance to respond.
"Who was it, Franky?" Iceburg, his senior fellow apprentice, called over.
"No idea. Another one looking for Master. I sent him packing."
Lately, the stream of visitors coming to see Tom had been endless—pirates, agents of the World Government, all sorts.
"Ah, I see."
Iceburg offered nothing more than that. He didn't scold Franky for his rudeness. Truth be told, he was fed up too.
Before, it had only been the occasional World Government official. But in the past couple of days, word had somehow gotten out that their master had built the Pirate King's ship, and now they were besieged by people showing up at their door.
Every single day, they had to turn away dozens of visitors. Some took it gracefully. The ones who didn't… well, those encounters tended to end in a fistfight.
Then again, Franky wasn't wrong. Tom really was still asleep. Age had a way of making a man need more rest, and Tom was no exception.
"If Mr. Tom is sleeping, then I'll just wait here."
The voice came from directly behind Franky. He yelped, spun around, and practically leaped to Iceburg's side.
"How did you get in? I shut the gate!"
Shirakawa let out a faint, cold laugh. "When I want to come in, I have more than one way of doing it."
"That's trespassing," Iceburg said from the side, his tone measured but firm. "I could report you to the World Government. They'd send soldiers to arrest you."
"You don't recognize me, Iceburg?"
Iceburg froze. He studied Shirakawa's face, really looked at him, and something shifted behind his eyes.
Franky blinked, confused. "Senior Brother, you two know each other?"
Then it hit Iceburg. A memory from a year ago surfaced—a figure pointing at Shirakawa, voice shaking with disbelief.
"You—you're supposed to be dead!"
"That was a false report. As you can see, I'm very much alive and kicking."
Shirakawa raised both hands and turned a slow circle, giving Iceburg a full once-over to confirm it.
"Thank God. Thank God you're alright."
Tears were already streaming down Iceburg's face. A year ago, Shirakawa, Shanks, and Buggy had left an indelible mark on him.
He'd never been able to figure out why a Yonko-level pirate crew had three kids running around on deck.
He'd even harbored dreams of joining the crew himself, but both his master Tom and Roger had turned him down. Tom didn't want to waste a shipbuilding talent like Iceburg's, and he refused to let the boy throw his life away on the dangers of piracy.
Roger, for his part, had known his voyage was nearing its end. There was no point bringing another soul aboard. And if he was being honest, Iceburg simply wasn't strong enough yet—he would have been dead weight on a crew like that.
"Hold on—I'll go wake Master. Ever since Captain Roger died, he hasn't been himself. These past couple of days have been especially rough."
"Don't bother. Let him sleep. What I need done isn't in any kind of rush. Tell me about yourselves instead—how's this past year been?"
At that, Iceburg lowered his head, and the grief crept back into his voice.
"Because Master built the Pirate King's ship, the World Government sentenced him to death. But on account of the Sea Train, they agreed to postpone the execution until after he finishes building it."
"So it's already come to that." Shirakawa's expression didn't change, but his voice carried a quiet weight. "Don't worry. Once the Sea Train is done, I'll step in and get Tom out."
"Really?" Iceburg's eyes lit up, raw hope breaking through the sorrow. They didn't dare defy the World Government—but the man standing in front of them might not share that fear.
Franky's face mirrored the same desperate hope. He'd only been taken in less than a year ago, but it was no exaggeration to say that his feelings for Tom ran deeper than anything he'd felt for his own parents.
"Of course. I came here to have Tom build me a ship. If it gets damaged and there's no one alive who can fix it, I'd be in a sorry state, wouldn't I?"
Shirakawa delivered the line with a grin, light as a joke. But the meaning underneath was ironclad: he would not stand by and watch Tom die. Not when Tom had been, in every sense that mattered, a benefactor to the entire Roger Pirates.