The sound of fabric whipping violently through the air yanked Gale out of his existential daze. He blinked, instincts kicking in just in time to pivot away from the now-closed hole in the ground where Alma and her surprise titan-sized Uber ride had just vanished.
Then he saw it.
Correction—him.
"...Oh, hell no."
Poqin was airborne, plummeting like a monk-shaped meteor with his fist cocked back. The guy looked like he'd borrowed Luffy's arm for a second—veins popping, muscles swelling, a grin on his face like this was definitely not how monks were supposed to behave.
"CATCH!" Poqin bellowed.
Gale barely managed to throw himself backwards as Poqin crash-landed right where he'd been standing, the ground exploding beneath his punch. Dust and shattered cobblestone flew in all directions, leaving a crater the size of a respectable Jacuzzi.
Gale stared at the hole. Then at Poqin.
Then back at the hole.
"…Did you have to punch the Earth?" Gale asked, eyebrow raised.
Poqin, now crouched dramatically with his fist still planted in the rubble, casually tilted his head toward the side—toward the wide-eyed audience of Marines, guards, and celestial bureaucrats gawking from the sidelines like they'd just seen a bear ride a unicycle.
Ah. Right. The audience.
Gale sighed and rubbed his face. He had completely forgotten about them.
For a moment there, he'd been so caught up in revelations and family drama, he'd almost let the whole "pretending to do his job" part slip. He was supposed to apprehend Alma—not have a heartfelt, emotionally compromising, weirdly poetic reunion-slash-duel in the middle of a street.
Good thing Poqin was a dramatic idiot.
Gale exhaled, loud enough to be heard by nearby eavesdroppers.
"Tch. She got away," he muttered, shaking his head like a disappointed cop in a crime drama. "Come on, Poqin. We're done here."
Poqin stood, brushing dust from his robes with exaggerated nonchalance. "Ah, what a shame. So close, too."
Gale resisted the urge to throw a pebble at him. They walked off together under the watchful eyes of the marines—two professionals who had definitely just done their jobs.
...
Later, aboard Kizaru's battleship…
The breeze was calm. The deck was quiet.
Poqin dropped his bottle of booze.
"WHAT?!" he shouted, then instantly snatched it back mid-fall with ninja-like reflexes. He cradled it like a wounded friend, checking it for damage. Satisfied, he turned to Gale, still processing what he'd just heard.
"That was your teacher's daughter?!" he barked, eyebrows climbing like startled cats.
Gale sat on a crate, slouched with his legs spread and one hand lazily twirling his rapier. "Yeah," he muttered. "Name's Alma."
"You're joking."
"Nope."
"You're serious?"
"Yep."
"...And you didn't realize this until after she tried to stab you?" Poqin demanded, his voice somewhere between exasperated and amused.
Gale shrugged again, like he was being accused of misplacing his keys, not missing a dead girl's resurrection. "Should've recognized her sooner."
Poqin let out a scoff so hard it probably buffed the deck. "Uh, yeah, you should've! She had the rose, the footwork, the exact same style... and now that I think about it, yeah—she even had the same resting 'I will out-fence you and steal your wine' face as the old man."
He shook his head, then pointed accusingly at Gale. "I'm sorry, but how do you mess this up that badly? That's like seeing a guy in a straw hat stretching his limbs and going 'huh, I wonder if that's Garp's idiot grandson.'"
Gale glared at him. "Maybe," he growled, "because I was led to believe she was dead. By her father's journal no less..."
Poqin raised a finger like he was about to make a snarky comment—but paused.
"...He had a journal? Go figure. He seemed the type..." he said, tone softening just a touch.
Gale nodded. "Old man wrote it himself. Said she didn't survive the fire."
A long beat of silence passed between them.
Seagulls cawed overhead. The ship creaked gently beneath their feet. Somewhere, a junior marine was yelling at someone to stop mopping the side of the ship.
Gale slowly palmed his forehead and let out a sigh so long it could've qualified for a weather advisory.
In his defense—in his defense—this was a lot to take in.
Sure, to some outsider—some smug reader with popcorn-stained fingers—it probably seemed obvious. Ooooh, she's got a rose in her hair! Just like that guy! Must be his daughter, duh! But Gale wasn't sitting in a comfy chair reading this mess like a bedtime story.
He was living it. And real life didn't exactly prepare you for the fictional absurdity of someone allegedly dead showing up not only alive, but alive, well, armed, and trying to stab you in the spleen.
Back in his old world, the most dramatic resurrection you could expect was some insurance scammer faking his death to avoid alimony payments. You didn't expect them to show up wielding rapiers and roses.
And maybe that was the problem.
Despite two years, despite everything—Torino Island, Centaurea, Karate Island, and all the nonsense he went through—that old part of Gale was still in there. The part that saw tropes as entertainment, not warnings. The part that didn't naturally convert "Oh wow, she's got a rose and fencing skills" into:
"BEHOLD, THAT'S THE DEAD DAUGHTER OF YOUR DEAD MENTOR WHO MIGHT NOT BE SO DEAD AFTER ALL."
He groaned again, dragging a hand down his face.
Poqin, watching his slow-motion breakdown with the same detached interest he gave most things, leaned back against a barrel, raised his bottle, and took a long swig.
"On the bright side…" the monk muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "if she shows up again riding a giant flaming bird, your life would officially qualify as a soap opera. One I'd definitely pay to see."
Gale let out a tired laugh, half chuckle, half wheeze. "Yeah… and maybe next we'll meet my nemesis who is actually my long-lost father. Who's also a pirate. Who also has amnesia. And a robot leg."
Poqin's eyebrows shot up in genuine consideration. "Okay, but I would read that. I'll drink to it too..."
And he did.
Twice.
Gale let the moment sit. The breeze picked up, tugging at his coat. Somewhere out in the ocean, another absurd adventure was already bubbling toward them.
"...Soap opera, huh."
Poqin burped in response.
...
The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon when Kizaru returned to the battleship. His usual languid gait didn't seem any slower than usual, but something about the way his coat fluttered in the wind—or maybe the way everyone on deck instinctively stood a little straighter—hinted that he wasn't back from just any stroll through Holy Land bureaucracy.
Gale, who was half-sitting on a stack of rope coils and poking idly at a crab with his sheathed rapier (the crab was winning), looked up as the admiral stepped aboard.
Kizaru gave a lazy wave, his voice drawling like it was hungover. "Mmm… the Reverie's concluded. Time to pack up and head back to HQ, boys and girls."
All around the port, the buzz of departure had begun. Marine ships bustled with motion—orders being shouted, sails unfurled, cannons locked back into place.
Even the royal vessels, gaudy and impractical as they were, were slowly shaking off their decorative stupor and preparing to set sail again.
Gale spotted one that looked like a floating peacock.
He hated it.
He hopped down from the ropes and approached Kizaru, rubbing his neck. "So… what happened up there?"
Kizaru tilted his head. "Hmm? Oh… that. That was the Revolutionary Army."
Gale blinked. "Seriously?"
Kizaru nodded, not a strand of hair moving despite the sea breeze. "One of them tried to assassinate a Celestial Dragon. Caused quite a stir."
Gale scratched his head. "I mean, is that… like… a thing that just happens? Do they do that often? Jump out of the curtains and try to stab a dragon in the middle of a world summit?"
Kizaru's eyes half-lidded, voice as unbothered as always. "Nope. The Revolutionaries tend to be more… hmmmmm… subtle. They sneak in, poke around, steal some files, maybe cause a mild explosion. You know—stuff that make the fleet admiral wish he could do something about it..."
"Sounds like a Tuesday," Gale muttered.
Kizaru continued, "It's not strange for them to infiltrate Mary Geoise during the Reverie—gather intel, whisper into a few ears, take embarrassing photos of nobles with their wigs off… but to attack a Celestial Dragon directly? That's new."
Gale folded his arms. "So... what's the response? We just let it slide again while pretending we're super mad?"
Kizaru gave him a look. "Mmm… usually, yes. The Marines are always short-staffed. Nobody wants to commit to fighting the Revolutionaries because it means pulling people from other fronts—pirates, bounty hunting, paperwork... you know. Real threats."
Gale winced. "So… we're doing that thing again where we act annoyed but don't actually do anything?"
Kizaru shook his head, his mouth forming the tiniest frown—just enough to be noticeable if you stared long enough with a magnifying glass.
"Not this time. They went too far. The Celestials are furious. They're demanding retribution, and the higher-ups can't ignore them anymore. Even if it means we'll be scraping together manpower from everywhere."
"Everywhere," Gale echoed, his face falling.
"Mm-hmm," Kizaru confirmed.
"…Like me."
Kizaru gave the tiniest of shrugs. "You're not technically nailed down to anything right now. Might as well prepare for your first real deployment..."
Gale sighed, dramatically and loudly. "Great. Just what I wanted. War with a rebel army. Next thing you know, I'll be promoted to captain of the paperwork division."
"I hear they offer dental now," Kizaru said, straight-faced.
Gale stared at him. "You're kidding."
Kizaru shrugged.
Just behind them, Poqin—leaning against a barrel again with his ever-present bottle—gave a snort. "On the bright side, maybe one of the Revolutionaries will turn out to be your long-lost brother."
"Please," Gale muttered, rubbing his temple. "Don't give fate ideas."
...
The underground hideout was eerily quiet, save for the soft, rhythmic scratching of Alma's pen against parchment. Somewhere above them—miles of stone and blood-stained history away—Mary Geoise was probably still in an uproar.
But down here, in this air pocket carved deep into the Red Line's roots, the Revolutionaries had found momentary refuge.
Alma sat cross-legged on the stone floor, hunched over a makeshift writing desk balanced on two crates and a flattened helmet.
She wrote in quick, sharp strokes, detailing everything from her infiltration to the final seconds of her escape.
Her fingers ached. Her head pounded. And her thoughts? An absolute mess.
Sitting beside her—technically lounging—was a literal giant. Broad as a house, with a comically tiny pink tutu for modesty and facial hair that would put most old sages to shame, Morley seemed entirely at ease in the subterranean space he had shaped with his own powers.
The Oshi-Oshi Fruit let him mold the ground like clay, and without it, Alma would've likely been skewered on a Marine saber by now.
The giant, cradling his cheeks in his massive hands, let out a dreamy sigh.
"That fight looked quite violent," he said in a soft, sing-songy voice, the kind usually reserved for complimenting teacups or cats in bonnets. "That's why boys are so bothersome…"
Alma paused mid-sentence, her pen halting just as she was about to write "—unknown variant observed wielding—"
She inhaled, exhaled, and said nothing. She had already ignored several of Morley's not-so-subtle nudges. Ooooh, was that someone you knew~?You seemed so emotional, darling.He was rather handsome for a punch magnet, don't you think?
She gritted her teeth and tried to resume writing.
Morley leaned in closer, pink skirt fluttering slightly from the underground breeze. "He was cute in a battered puppy kind of way, wasn't he?"
The pen snapped.
Alma dropped it and sat back with a growl. "If you wanna know something, just ask already. Stop being weird about it."
Morley gasped theatrically, placing a hand over his chest. "Me? Weird? Alma, I am a flower of discretion. But if you insist on telling me who that boy was... I suppose I could listen."
Alma stared at him, unamused. "You've been dying to ask since we got here."
"Only a tiny bit," Morley sang, grinning beneath his mustache.
Alma leaned back against the wall, rubbing her temples. "He's nobody," she muttered. "Just a pain in the ass who shouldn't even be here."
Morley's brow rose so high it nearly left his forehead. "That 'nobody' fought you to a standstill and had you staring at him like he killed your puppy and played a love song over its grave."
Alma squinted. "You have a dark imagination for someone wearing a tutu."
Morley beamed. "It's part of my charm."
Silence returned for a beat, broken only by Alma dragging a replacement pen from her bag. She tapped the tip against the parchment, debating if she should even bother finishing the report today.
Morley folded his arms like a curious auntie. "So~? Former friend? Lost lover? Brother from another timeline? Some dashing pirate who swept you off your feet back in the day~?"
"…He was my father's student."
Morley blinked. "Ooooooh. Forbidden mentorship drama. Keep going."
"He wasn't supposed to be here," Alma muttered, voice quieter now. "He wasn't supposed to exist for all I cared because my father died a long time ago... or so I thought..."
She stopped there. Saying too much would only make it harder to stay on mission. Harder to keep her head in the fight.
Morley leaned over and patted her gently—well, gently for a giant, which still shook the floor. "Feelings are messy, sweetheart. But hey… at least your old friend didn't try to fry you with his lightning hammer. That happened to me once."
Alma blinked. "What?"
He sighed wistfully. "Ah, memories."
She turned back to the report, pressing the pen harder than necessary as she resumed writing.
"Maybe next time," Morley cooed, "you'll introduce me to him. I'd love to know how he keeps his hair so dramatically windswept."
Alma didn't respond, but she did scribble harder.
As for her father's student... she'll figure out who he really is, and what to do about him.
Eventually.
...
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