Buggy could not keep still. He waved the stack of treasure charts like festival flags, tore one open, then another, eyes flaring brighter the more he read.
"Oh, ho. These are all in the East Blue. That is perfect."
One of his gloved hands spun off his wrist and skimmed across the parchment, tracing island silhouettes he actually recognized. Some he had even visited years ago.
"Who would have thought," he breathed, pupils sparkling. "Those plain little islands hiding this much loot."
Ozz straightened his collar, wearing that harmless smile he saved for friends. "Is that so. What a coincidence."
Which was one way to put it. The host and the guest were both in high spirits. Buggy detached his upper body, floated up, and threw an arm over Ozz's shoulder. The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder like boys ditching chores.
Off to the side, Mihawk folded his arms and watched, faintly at a loss. Treasure charts. If by charts they meant the pages Ozz had handed over on arrival, Hawk-Eye could say with confidence they had been drawn an hour ago with whatever paper and ink he found on the way. Ozz had crumpled them, rubbed grit into the fibers, even ground a heel across them to put the years on.
Then he had phoned Sami.
Send a squad to bury funds where these maps indicate. A few hundred million at each site is fine. Keep an eye out so no one digs them up early.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light. Perhaps it was memory. Mihawk could not shake the sense that Ozz handled Buggy differently than he handled Shanks, though they had sailed the same deck as boys.
And this clown. He seemed painfully weak.
From the Oro Jackson, Mihawk had expected monsters. They did not have to be Ozz. They could be like Shanks, a talent that even Mihawk respected at a glance. But this Buggy.
"Oi, Hawk," Ozz said, cheerful as ever. "Meet my best friend. He is a natural counter to swordsmen."
Mihawk's eyes narrowed. "A counter to swordsmen."
Buggy puffed his chest like a parade rooster. Inside, his brain was screaming. If I cannot dodge, I am dead. He knew this face. World's greatest swordsman, rumored to have surpassed even Ozz in pure technique. But Ozz had praised him out loud. You did not disappoint a friend when he handed you a drum.
"Sure," Buggy said with a laugh that quavered only a little. "That would be me."
Mihawk did not waste words. He reached over one shoulder, drew Yoru, and in the instant before Buggy's panic could catch up to his mouth, black light whispered.
Zip.
Buggy's body parted cleanly at the waist. The join went shadow-black, then nothing. He blinked down at his floating chest and, belatedly, realized he did not hurt at all.
"That was the strange trick," Mihawk said softly. It had triggered without conscious thought.
"Useless," Ozz said mildly, lifting Buggy's upper half and seating it back on his hips as if docking a barrel. "Even with Armament. Haki only beats a Fruit when it lands on the real body."
Like Katakuri's mochi. You could coat a fist and punch at a cloud all day. If the man turned his body to paste and you did not hit the paste, nothing stuck.
That did not mean Mihawk had no answer to Buggy. A simple fist with Armament would fold him in half. But the Chop-Chop Fruit's core function was exactly what Ozz said. Slashes did not find purchase.
Mihawk's mouth ticked. Taken to its logical end, that Fruit really was a natural thorn in a swordsman's thumb. Give this clown a body worth the defense and a Haki to match, and Hawk-Eye would find him irritating in the extreme.
Buggy. He filed the name away.
"Crew," Buggy barked suddenly, puffed back to full height. "Party."
"Oh," the tent erupted. "Oh."
Ozz dropped cross-legged among them without the slightest stiffness, and the Buggy Pirates could not stop sneaking looks. It was true. It was actually true. The Black Emperor, bounty forty-four billion berries, was drinking with their captain and calling him friend.
In the East Blue, where eight figures was rare and nine came with legend attached, numbers like Ozz's might as well be myth. It felt like a shop clerk sharing a table with a titan of industry. Hands shook. Cups rattled. Men tried not to breathe too loudly.
Mohji and Richie, who had earlier bounced down a road under the weight of Ozz's glance and collected a constellation of lumps, were the most spooked. The idea that they had charged such a thing seemed like a story told about someone else. A dead someone else.
Ozz let the room find its level. He did not press, did not preach, did not pull rank. He clinked Buggy's cup and drank. They traded old jokes until Buggy's eyes went wide at a thought and his head popped off and zipped toward the back of the tent.
"Right. Right. Almost forgot."
"What now," someone muttered, wary.
Buggy hollered at the crew, "Bring out my stash. The haul from last time."
"Aye, Captain," came the chorus. A handful of men jogged off and returned shortly with a handcart groaning under a mountain of fruit.
Oranges. Big ones, skin tight and glossy, the kind of cultivar merchants bragged about to each other in market stalls.
"I have been hunting these beauties for years," Buggy said, turning back with mock grandeur and real pride. "Best fruit on the market in East Blue. I have not had time to press them."
Ozz blinked. The smile on his face tilted, and something unguarded passed through his eyes.
"You remembered," he said.
"What kind of nonsense is that," Buggy snapped, more flustered than angry. "I said I would treat you to the best orange juice in the world. I do not break my word."
He held up both hands and let them drift apart, the gesture bigger than his body, his jaw set with a seriousness that turned the greasepaint noble.
"These might not be the best yet," he said. "But there will be a day."
His fists clenched. His hands floated higher, and for a heartbeat the whole varnished clown act fell away. It was just Buggy. Loud. Petty. Brave in sideways ways. Loyal.
"I, Captain Buggy, will find it."
Mihawk watched Ozz watch Buggy and thought about the maps in Ozz's pocket a few hours ago, blank and clean. He thought about the call to a woman whose name he had only heard in passing, and the money that would go into the ground before dawn. He thought about Shanks, who had bled and laughed and argued with Ozz like a storm hitting a cliff face.
Different, he decided. Not lesser. Not greater. A different way Ozz carried old crew in his present tense.
The crew squeezed oranges by the bucket. Someone rigged cheesecloth and a barrel. The first froth of juice came up bright as a sunrise. Buggy poured with two hands, not trusting either to do it alone, and thrust the cup into Ozz's grip like an oath made tangible.
Ozz drank. The tent went quiet.
He set the cup down and nodded. "Good. Sweet without being soft."
Buggy whooped. The tent exploded. Drums appeared from nowhere. Someone taught Richie to clap in time. Mohji fell asleep briefly on his own lion and woke up pretending he had not.
Ozz and Buggy knocked cups again. Mihawk accepted a glass with the stoic grace of a man who would have preferred wine. He took a measured sip and did not grimace. That, from him, was praise.
Between toasts, Ozz leaned closer. "About Cocoyasi Village."
Buggy coughed. "Strategic interests."
"Tangerines."
"You heard nothing," Buggy said, pinking again.
"I hear everything," Ozz said, amused. "News Coo."
Buggy made a helpless sound that might have been a laugh. Outside, the sea leaned on the pilings and listened. Inside, an old friendship wound itself back into place, knot by knot, as if it had never been untied.
Later, when the torch smoke had thinned and the last cups had tipped, Buggy would fall asleep sitting up, both hands still clutching a map like a child with a prized toy. Cabaji would drape a coat over his shoulders. Ozz would look down once more and then lift his eyes to Mihawk's across the tent.
"Tomorrow," Mihawk said.
"Tomorrow," Ozz agreed.
Tonight belonged to oranges and a promise made years ago by two boys on a ship that no longer sailed.
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