Chapter 47: Five Years
Five years had passed since God Valley sank beneath the waves.
The world had changed. The Rocks Pirates were gone, but their remnants had scattered across the New World, each carving out a kingdom of their own. Whitebeard sailed under his own flag, gathering sons. Kaido had vanished into the chaos, rumored to be building something in the mountains of Wano. Linlin had returned to her islands, her family growing. Shiki had declared himself a king of the skies.
And the Roger Pirates sailed on, chasing a dream that no one else believed in.
The Oro Jackson had not changed. Her hull still bore the scars of a hundred battles, her sails still caught the wind with a hunger that never faded. But the voices on her deck were different now.
"North is the end of the Grand Line!" a boy's voice shouted. "Everyone knows that!"
"The captain says the end isn't north or south," another argued. "He says it's wherever the adventure takes us."
Shanks, now five years old, stood with his hands on his hips, his red hair bright in the afternoon sun. Beside him, Buggy—smaller, sharper, his nose already the color of a ripe berry—glared with the fury of a child who knew he was right and hated being contradicted.
"Treasure is real," Buggy insisted. "Adventure is just how you find it."
"Adventure is the point."
"Treasure is the point!"
Kyle sat against the mast, his naginata across his knees, a whetstone in his hand. He watched the two boys argue without intervening. In another life, he would have known what they would become. Here, they were just children—loud, stubborn, alive.
Rayleigh was nearby, a newspaper open in his lap. "Zephyr has stepped down," he said quietly. "His family was killed by a pirate. He'll train recruits now, they say."
Kyle's hand paused on the blade. Zephyr. The Marine who had believed in justice, broken by the very thing he had fought. Another piece of the world shifting.
He glanced at the paper. A small article near the bottom mentioned two new recruits at Marine Headquarters—Sakazuki and Borsalino. Names that would one day be famous. But that was another story.
"Kyle!" Shanks ran over, his argument apparently unresolved. "Buggy says treasure is more important than adventure. Tell him he's wrong!"
Buggy was close behind, his face red. "You're the one who's wrong!"
Kyle looked at them both. An idealist and a realist, already locked in a debate that would follow them for the rest of their lives. He reached out, flicked each boy on the forehead, not hard.
"If you have energy to argue, you have energy to clean the deck."
"The whole deck?" Buggy's voice cracked.
"The whole deck."
They grumbled, but they took the brushes and buckets. Within minutes they were arguing again—over whose section was larger, whose water was dirtier—but they were working.
Jabba leaned against the rail, watching. "You were just as troublesome when you came aboard."
"I was six. I knew how to scrub a deck without being told."
"And you argued with Roger every chance you got."
Kyle smiled. "That was different. He was wrong."
Jabba laughed, and the sound carried across the deck.
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Buggy had been on the ship for two years.
Kyle still remembered finding him in a port town, digging through refuse, thin and quick and already fierce. He had brought the boy aboard without thinking—another mouth to feed, another child to watch. It was only later, when a crate had fallen and Buggy's nose had emerged red and swollen, that Kyle had understood who he had found.
He had not told anyone. Some things, he had learned, were better kept quiet.
Shanks had arrived earlier, in a box meant for treasure, and the crew had simply folded him into their lives. Roger had declared him a crew member before anyone could object. Rayleigh had made a cradle. Jabba had tried to feed him jerky. Kyle had made lights dance to quiet his crying.
Now they were both part of the ship's rhythm. They learned to tie knots, to read the wind, to argue about everything. They followed Roger like ducklings, begged Rayleigh for stories, pestered Kyle for tricks. They were pirates now, in the only way children could be.
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The afternoon sun was high when Roger emerged from his cabin, stretching like a man who had been napping.
"Kyle!" he called. "You've been polishing that blade all day. Come spar with me."
Kyle stood, rolling his shoulders. "You'll lose."
"Kuhahaha! You keep saying that."
The crew cleared the deck, gathering to watch. Shanks and Buggy dropped their brushes, pushing to the front. Roger drew his sword, his grin easy, his stance relaxed.
Kyle raised his naginata. He did not waste time with words. He swung, and the air in front of him folded, compressed, released. A shockwave shaped like a bird's wing shot toward Roger, its sound a low hum that made the deck tremble.
Roger met it with a downward slash. His Haki met the shockwave, and the two forces canceled, sending a gust of wind across the deck that made the boys stumble.
Kyle was already moving. He closed the distance, his naginata sweeping low, then high, then low again. Roger blocked each strike, his sword moving with the ease of a man who had been fighting all his life. They were not trying to hurt each other. They were feeling the rhythm, the weight, the shape of the other's will.
Kyle feinted left, drove right, and Roger caught the blade a hair's breadth from his shoulder. Their eyes met.
"Better," Roger said.
"Not good enough."
"Not yet."
They stepped apart. The crew clapped. Shanks was staring at Roger with the pure adoration of a boy who had found his hero. Buggy was watching Kyle, his small face lit with something that might have been longing.
Kyle sheathed his naginata. "You two," he called to the boys. "Back to work. The deck won't scrub itself."
They ran. The crew laughed. Roger clapped Kyle on the shoulder and went to find something to drink.
Rayleigh folded his newspaper. "You're teaching them without meaning to."
Kyle watched the boys argue over the mop bucket. "They'll learn what they need to."
"And what's that?"
Kyle thought about the future. The wars, the losses, the lives they would lead. Shanks, who would carry Roger's legacy. Buggy, who would survive everything by being exactly who he was.
"How to be themselves," he said. "That's enough for now."
The sun sank toward the horizon. The ship sailed on. And on the deck of the Oro Jackson, two boys argued about treasure and adventure, and a crew of pirates watched them grow.
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End of Chapter 47