"Waa…"
"Mmm…"
"Heeey."
The tension rolling across the deck of the Red Force had a very particular source.
A very small one.
"Hey, Shanks, give it a rest. If you cannot calm her down, stop pretending you can." Ozz sat cross-legged nearby and watched Shanks pull faces, hook a pinky in his nose, and generally make a spectacle of himself to coax a laugh out of the baby. His commentary was merciless.
"Can it." Shanks brandished a fist without heat. "You are not any better at this than I am. And you were totally taking pictures just now. I have Observation Haki now. Delete it."
If he had any chance of winning, he would already have tackled Ozz to pry the camera out of his hands. The idea that someone would capture him clowning for a baby was unbearable.
"Aha… you are as sharp as ever," Ozz said, laughing. The camera transponder snail in his palm vanished as if it had never existed, which was not the same thing as erasing anything. Of course he was not deleting it. A future Emperor caught on film as a young man mining his nostril to amuse a baby was not something you threw away. He intended to show it to Buggy one day. And if, years from now, Shanks arrived with the full weight of his legend and decided to act cool in front of Ozz, a single photo would puncture the aura like a pin in a balloon.
Shanks kept up his antics with gathering desperation and little success. Ozz finally sighed, gave him a gentle shove aside, and picked the child up himself. The baby with the red and white hair hiccuped, felt a steady hand at her back, and slowed her crying. Wide wet eyes fixed on Ozz's face, then curved into crescents as she broke into a laugh.
"Eh?"
Shanks' jaw dropped. How. He had adopted the child. Why did it look like she preferred Ozz. Was he going to lose even at baby-soothing.
He turned to stone.
"What is that look supposed to be," Ozz asked.
"Nothing," Shanks muttered as he folded his legs and sat down again, staring at Uta with the dopey smile of a brand-new parent. "I just realized you might be better suited to be a father than I am."
His voice lost its usual careless swing. "Power, money, a safe place to sleep, even the skill to settle a child down. You can give Uta more than I can. We are pirates. Every day is danger and violence. To be honest…"
His eyes dipped.
"I do not know if keeping her with us is really the right home."
Ozz looked at him for a beat, then smiled and lifted a finger.
Flick.
"Ow."
"Sorry. Used too much strength," Ozz said without a shred of remorse. A neat red spot bloomed on Shanks' forehead.
"Shanks, you are her father. Do not say irresponsible things." He shifted Uta in the crook of his arm and fished out a rattle made of gold and tiger skin from somewhere only he knew. He pressed it into her hands. She shook it and squealed with delight. "From the moment you chose to take her in, she became your daughter."
Shanks rubbed his brow and watched Uta make the rattle sing. The thought settled in his chest like a stone that felt surprisingly light. "Right."
"Uta is my daughter."
When he lifted his head again his eyes were full of love and something harder that sat behind it. Responsibility.
"Of course, if you need a godfather, I am available," Ozz said.
The warm little tableau shattered. Shanks felt the speech he had been about to make evaporate in his throat. Ozz had that effect on him. Where other men saw a titan, Shanks saw the same infuriating friend who always seemed to deserve a punch.
He hugged Uta closer, teeth flashing. "Uta has one father. Me."
"Do not be stingy," Ozz said.
"No."
…
"I have never seen it," Hongo said from his seat on a barrel, chin propped on the heel of his hand as he watched the two grown men snipe at each other over a baby. "The famously unflappable Shanks, actually riled."
Since the day he had been moved by the young captain's presence and stepped aboard, Hongo had seen Shanks be many things. Calm. Childish. Unreliable. Loud. He had never seen him genuinely angry. That face usually belonged to the crew when their irresponsible captain had pushed his luck.
"Maybe," Hongo mused, "every force has its counter."
"His friend is interesting," he added, taking a sip and turning to make the remark to Yasopp.
No answer came.
He frowned, pivoted, and saw the sniper crouched over his rifle, hands steady, eyes bright with a concentrated heat Hongo had watched alight a hundred times before in battle.
That line of sight pointed toward Ozz.
"Hey," Hongo said sharply. "What do you think you are doing."
He grabbed for Yasopp's shoulder. Something was off. This was how Yasopp looked when he was about to take the most dangerous shot of a fight.
"That man is Shanks' friend," Hongo hissed. "The Black Emperor. You know who he is. What are you trying to do."
Of everyone aboard, Hongo probably understood best what the name Ozz contained. A terrifying individual power. A network of influence that could upend the sea itself. Shanks himself had said he had never once beaten him.
"I am not about to do anything stupid," Yasopp said. He let Hongo pull him half a step back, then turned until the doctor could see his face. The brashness had not left it, but there was something earnest beneath. "I want to challenge him for the sake of my dream. I am a sniper. He is the sniper they call the world's best. If I do not see that level with my own eyes, I will die with my eyes open."
Hongo stared at the trembling focus in Yasopp's pupils and felt the hand on his shoulder loosen. He thought of the first time he had stepped into Shanks' shadow and decided to stay. He thought of the way men changed when a vision got its teeth in them.
What could stop a man from chasing his dream.
"Then do it properly," Hongo said at last. "No cheap shots. Ask."
Yasopp's mouth quirked. "Of course."
He broke the rifle down with the economy of a craftsman and slung the empty strap over his shoulder, then walked toward the light at the bow where Ozz and Shanks stood shoulder to shoulder watching Uta discover what sound felt like in her hands.
The deck's hum softened around him. Lucky Roux drifted past with a tray and gave him a glance that said he knew. Beckman leaned back against the rail and shook a cigarette out of the pack without lighting it, eyes half-lidded, measuring distance and wind out of long habit. Mihawk watched without turning his head, the way a hawk watches something move at the edge of its vision.
Yasopp stopped at a polite distance. "Black Emperor," he said, and bowed. "Name's Yasopp. I would like to test myself against your eye."
Shanks blinked, then laughed. "You picked a mountain."
Ozz bounced the rattle once in Uta's hand and looked over. The smile he gave Yasopp was not warm and it was not cold. It was the level look a veteran gives a younger man for whom he has a little time and a little respect.
"Tomorrow morning," he said. "No tricks. We will let the sea judge."
Yasopp straightened, cheeks flushed with a teenager's pride. "Thank you."
He turned and walked back the way he had come, footsteps lighter. Hongo exhaled a breath he had not realized he was holding.
Ozz glanced at Shanks. "Your man has spirit."
"He never misses on purpose," Shanks said, bouncing Uta once until she gurgled. "He just misses less than most."
Ozz grunted. "We will see if he can miss not at all."
"Do not break him," Shanks said.
"I will not," Ozz said. "I might bend him a little."
They stood with the wind in their faces and the rattle keeping time. Out beyond the rail the horizon burned a slow orange. The crew settled into the soft tasks of evening. Someone strummed a guitar. Someone else argued fondly about stew. The Red Force rode the last of the day like a man who knows where he is going even if he has not said the name out loud yet.
Shanks reached out and, carefully, tipped Uta back into Ozz's arms. "All right, godfather. Prove you earned the title."
Ozz raised an eyebrow. "You changed your mind fast."
"I did not," Shanks said. "I am borrowing your hands."
Uta yawned so wide you could see the pink of her palate. The two men laughed for no reason except that it felt good, and somewhere behind them Benn Beckman finally lit his cigarette and let the smoke veil his smile.
Night came on, warm as a blanket.
Tomorrow would bring bullets measured in breaths and heartbeats and the thin line of a horizon. Tonight belonged to a baby who had found the right rattle and to a father who had found the right words.
And to a godfather who, no matter how much he denied it, had always been soft where children were concerned.