"…Buggy, you idiot."
Ozz would never admit it out loud, but he was a little moved.
"Then let us do this right. The finest orange juice in the East Blue."
He smiled, flicked a finger, and a constellation of oranges bloomed into the air above the tent, hundreds of suns wobbling over shocked heads. He looked over at Hawk-Eye. The stare landed like a weight. Mihawk's expression stiffened by degrees.
"Why are you looking at me," he muttered. "Do not tell me you want me to… Oi. You could do this yourself with that power."
"This needs all hands," Ozz said, perfectly solemn. "We are making the best orange juice in the East Blue."
"Tch."
Mihawk closed his eyes, felt every gaze tip his way, then gave up pretending he did not care. Yoru whispered free. Steel flashed. In a breathless sway of black light, the fruit spun in place while peels spiraled off like ribbons, the bitter white pith shaved away until what hung in the air were only jewel-bright segments, clean as sculpture.
"Amazing."
"World's strongest swordsman, and look at that delicate touch."
"Not a single string left."
Buggy's crew whooped and clapped and piled on honeyed praise. Mihawk slid Yoru back into its harness without acknowledging a single word. Ozz only chuckled and squeezed his hand in the air. An invisible press tightened. Oranges sighed themselves empty. Thin streams arced down into the row of waiting cups, froth rising like tide at dawn.
"Good. Then cheers."
Ozz raised his glass. Buggy's detached hand floated up with a cup of its own. The crew lifted theirs and shouted. Even Mihawk accepted one, brought it to his lips with monkish restraint, and took a single sip.
He did not drink sweet things. He also did not spit this out. In Mihawk's private scale of acknowledgment, that was practically a standing ovation.
Glasses clinked. The tent filled with juice and laughter. After the first round Ozz and Buggy slid naturally into the long, meandering exchange of men who had not seen each other in years. Most of Ozz's story Buggy knew from newspapers. Even after being blacklisted by certain presses, the Buggy Pirates had their ways. The East Blue was a village. News Coo knew every path between rooftops.
It was Buggy's side of the tale that Ozz did not know. Small raids. Smaller scores. Skirmishes with petty officers and petty people. The simple pride of having men who listened when he shouted.
"So Captain Buggy has a crew of his own now."
"It is nothing," Buggy said, snorting. "A street circus compared to you."
They circled back, inevitably, to Shanks. The name alone made Buggy's face go tight. If anyone else had brought him up, Buggy would have exploded. Because it was Ozz, he only gritted his teeth.
"I heard it," he said. "That coward has made a name in the first half of the Grand Line. A name does not change what he is."
Ozz took a slow sip, watched the old bruise show color, and let his smile tilt.
"Listen. Shanks is not avoiding One Piece. The timing is wrong."
Buggy blinked. The word sat strangely in his mouth. "Timing?"
Ozz leaned back. His voice stayed easy. "I cannot tell you what One Piece is. I promised Captain Roger. But I can say this much. He reached Laugh Tale too early. The sea itself has a clock. Twenty years too early, give or take. The real moment to claim everything will not arrive until after that."
"So Shanks could sprint himself to death and it would not matter," Ozz said. "He knows it."
Buggy lowered his head. The tent noise thinned around them. After a while he spoke to the floor between his boots.
"Then he did not betray Captain's will," he said, voice low. "He has been working all along."
"More or less."
"Got it."
He lifted his eyes again and they were not calm at all. They burned. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists and he leaned into Ozz's gaze as if he could force an answer out of his friend by sheer will.
"But there is one thing I do not understand," he said. "Ozz. Talent, command, strength, luck. You beat him in all of it."
He thumped his chest. The painted grin on his face became something like a snarl.
"Why did Captain not pass his will to you? One Piece? You could take half the sea by accident. That treasure would not even slow you down."
Mihawk went still. The Buggy Pirates went stone. Pirate King. One Piece. These were not words for East Blue tents, not for men with single-digit bounties and cheap swords. The world seemed to fold its ears toward the table.
Ozz's hand paused with the cup halfway up. He set it down, smiled, and met Buggy's anger squarely.
"For those words alone," he said, "I could not refuse you if I tried."
He inched the cup aside and spoke like he was telling Buggy something he had told no one.
"Giving up One Piece was my choice. My dream is not being Pirate King. Let someone else carry Captain's last wish. Let it come true the way it was meant to."
He let the words breathe. Then he slid a hand inside his coat and drew it out in a fist.
His fingers opened.
A glass sphere lay on his palm, clear as still water. Inside, a needle rested against the side. The wooden base was carved with a single name.
Laugh Tale.
The effect was immediate. Buggy's eyes bulged so far they threatened to drop out. Mihawk's pupils narrowed to knife points. Every crewman forgot how to swallow.
"If I felt like it," Ozz said, almost apologetic, "I could cut the line. Walk straight to the final island and lift every secret out of the ground. No one could stop me."
He tipped one shoulder, casual as a man discussing the weather. "But I gave my word to Captain Roger."
He put the Eternal Pose away and looked Buggy full in the face.
"You, though," he said. "You are a seed for the new age."
He let that title sit there. Buggy, for once, did not interrupt.
"Well," Ozz asked, and his smile went crooked with mischief and affection, "do you want to be Pirate King?"
Buggy made a strangled sound. The crew made several.
"I can help," Ozz said simply.
Silence rang like a bell. Somewhere behind them a crate creaked. Outside, waves broke on pilings. Inside, men tried to remember how to breathe.
Buggy's first instinct was to cackle and say yes on the spot. His second was panic. His third, strangest of all, was to look down at his own hands. They were shaking. He pressed them to his knees until they stopped and forced his voice to work.
"Are you serious," he asked, because he had to hear it out loud. "You, Ozz, will help me. Me."
Ozz shrugged, all ease. "Why not. You think I would offer Shanks? He has his way. He has men who will cross fire for him. You are different."
"Different," Buggy repeated, half-laughing. "That is one way to put it."
Ozz's grin sharpened. "The sea is not a single mold. You are a clown who cannot be cut. You survive. You keep promises about orange juice for years like they are life and death. You gather men. You make noise. If a world is going to change, it needs more than kings and blades. It needs spectacles."
Buggy stared at him, then started to laugh. It was not pretty. It was real.
Mihawk took another sip of juice to hide a smile he certainly did not have. The crew exchanged looks that tried and failed to be subtle. A few had tears in their eyes and pretended it was the citrus.
"What does helping mean," Buggy asked at last, squaring his shoulders as if he had just decided to take a punch. "Do you hand me that Eternal Pose and call it a day."
"No," Ozz said at once, and there was iron under the velvet. "You do not move before the sea is ready. You do not skip the story. You build. You learn to take a blow without coming apart. You learn to punch without depending on your Fruit. You make allies. You make enemies. You make the world say your name without me in the sentence."
Buggy swallowed. "And then."
"And then," Ozz said, "when the needle is finally pointing where it should and the waves sing the right song, I will be there. Not in front. Beside you."
Buggy closed his eyes for one heartbeat. When he opened them again, they were bright and ridiculous and stubborn in a way that had nothing to do with paint.
"Fine," he said. "Captain Buggy will be Pirate King. We are going to need a lot more oranges."
Ozz laughed, clapped him on the back hard enough to jolt his head into the air and back down again, and downed the last of his juice.
"Now you are talking."
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