The house had never been loud. It felt heavier than the mountain beyond it.
But now it was silent in a way that even the wind respected.
Morning light filtered through wooden slats of the hideout, the golden hue turning pale and uncertain as it met the stillness inside. Dust floated in thin beams, unmoving, suspended like held breath. The hearth crackled in the corner, but even the fire sounded hesitant—like it, too, knew something had broken.
Makino placed three bowls on the table.
None of them asked why.
Luffy sat curled up in his usual spot, knees to chest, chin resting on them like he was trying not to fall apart. His straw hat lay beside him on the floor, upside down, collecting dust. He hadn't worn it since the wreckage. Since the sea had returned pieces of wood and sail—but no sign of skin, no sign of breath. Since the world had answered their hope with silence.
Since the boat.
Since the silence.
The sky hadn't offered thunder. No storm had come to mourn.
Just… silence. And that was worse.
Ace wasn't at the table.
He wasn't inside. He hadn't stepped through the door since dawn. Not even when the rain started.
Makino moved like someone in a ritual. Her steps were quiet, but precise. Each bowl was placed with a rhythm only she could feel. She laid the chopsticks gently at the third setting, hesitating slightly as if her fingers didn't want to let go. Her eyes lingered on the third setting—on the bowl that stayed untouched—and then she smoothed the cloth underneath it once more— not to fix it, but to give it presence. Reverence. One perfect crease. One gentle press.
As if that would bring him back.
A third bowl for a brother who had no grave.
The peacock sat near the open door. She hadn't moved all morning. Her long tail feathers stretched across the wooden floor like spilled silk. Damp from the dew outside, dulled from lack of preening. Her head was low, eyes barely blinking. She hadn't made a sound since the night they'd built the shrine.
No sound came from her throat. No songs. No coos. Not even a cry.
She had sung the night Krishna left.
But not since the sea had returned wood and fabric where Sabo should have been.
Dadan clomped into the room, boots muddy, her apron stained with more than just food. She paced behind them, loud in her movements, a scowl buried deep in her face. Her voice, when it came, was too sharp.
"Food's ready," she said, dropping a pan on the stove like it had insulted her. It didn't carry like it used to. The walls didn't echo back.
No one moved.
Luffy didn't lift his head.
Dadan didn't look at the bowls. She turned back to the kitchen like she had something important to stir. Her shoulders were tense, jaw set in a frown. "Tch. You boys are gonna waste away."
Makino didn't respond.
She just poured warm tea into three cups. Her eyes looked distant but dry.
Luffy stared at her for a long while. Then whispered, "Is he… still out there?"
His voice cracked mid-sentence. Not loud enough for hope. Not broken enough for grief.
Makino turned her face toward him, but she didn't answer. Her lips pressed together, and her gaze lingered on the third bowl. She was trying to stay calm. Always calm. Because someone had to be.
Outside, the thud of fists hitting the ground echoed through the fog.
Rhythmic. Raw.
Ace wasn't training. He wasn't refining form or pushing his limits. He was just hitting the earth with raw, blind rage. Punching the same crater he'd carved over the last two days. Sweat mixed with rain. Skin cracked open on his knuckles. He hadn't wrapped them. He hadn't even bandaged the shallow cut above his brow.
He didn't stop.
He didn't cry.
He hadn't spoken to anyone.
He'd been doing it since Krishna left. Since Krishna said it was his journey alone. Since the pieces of Sabo's boat had floated to shore like ghost offerings.
Makino poured warm water into a small cup beside Luffy. Her hands moved with the muscle memory of someone who'd done this for years—served tea, soothed boys, kept silence sacred. But there was a tremble in her wrist she couldn't shake.
"Eat something, Luffy," she said gently.
He nodded but didn't move.
His eyes were still on the third bowl.
Not a word was said, but both of them knew who it belonged to.
It wasn't about pretending he'd walk through the door.
It was about remembering that he used to.
The peacock shifted slightly, feathers rustling like parchment. She inched closer to Luffy, her long neck curling toward the table, her head tilted just so—like she, too, was looking for someone who wasn't there.
Luffy shifted slightly, his voice small. "Ace… won't come inside."
"He needs time," Makino said gently.
"Will Krishna come back?" Luffy asked, even smaller.
Makino took a slow breath.
"Yes," she said. "But he'll come back different."
Luffy didn't understand that. But he nodded anyway.
He looked at the bowl across from him.
The one that stayed full. The one no one reached for. The one that still steamed, like its owner had just stepped away.
They didn't say his name.
They didn't need to.
The peacock rose silently and walked across the floor with a strange, grieving grace. She rested her head gently on the edge of the third bowl. Not pecking. Not hungry. Just… present.
Makino's eyes glistened. She reached forward and ran her hand gently along the bird's back. "You miss him too, don't you?" she whispered.
The peacock didn't move.
Luffy reached for his cup of tea, but his hand trembled. He pulled it back. His eyes watered, but nothing fell. There were no tears left in him. Just weight.
Makino folded her hands in her lap and stared at the bowls.
"He was always the one to eat the fastest," she said softly. "Sometimes I thought he didn't taste a single thing."
"He did," Luffy mumbled. "He just liked chewing fast."
Makino smiled. A crack in the stillness.
For a moment, they sat in the warmth of memory instead of the cold of absence.
A breeze passed through the open door. The feather beside the shrine outside—left there by Krishna—fluttered slightly, but did not lift. It stayed grounded, just like them.
Makino reached forward and adjusted the third pair of chopsticks.
"Let it stay," she said. "Just for today."
Luffy didn't argue.
Outside, Ace screamed once. A short, choked sound.
Luffy closed his eyes and curled in tighter.
"I'm gonna train later," he said suddenly, voice flat. "Like Ace."
Makino nodded. "That's good."
Silence lingered again.
Dadan's chopping grew louder in the kitchen—more furious. She muttered under her breath, slamming the knife against vegetables that didn't deserve the wrath. Her back was to them, but her shoulders trembled more with each slice.
"You think Krishna's okay?" Luffy asked, barely audible.
Makino hesitated.
"…Yes," she said at last. "But that doesn't mean we are."
Luffy didn't reply.
Outside, the rain started falling again.
Inside, the third bowl remained untouched.
Just as it had every day since Sabo didn't come home.
The rain had passed by afternoon.
But the ground still wept.
The air was heavy with that scent that always lingered after a storm—wet bark, soaked earth, and something faintly metallic. Like the sky had been crying all night, and the ground hadn't finished mourning yet.
Behind Dadan's house, the clearing waited.
Once, it had been their battleground, their fortress, their kingdom. Now it was quieter than a churchyard.
Ace stood at the edge of the clearing behind Dadan's house, shirt stuck to his back, knuckles bruised and crusted with dried mud. His breathing was shallow. Controlled. Not because he was calm—but because he didn't want anyone to hear him unravel.
He stared at the stump in the center of the glade.
It used to be their meeting spot. Where they planned to become pirates. Where they trained and fought and swore their blood brotherhood beneath the sky.
Now it was something else.
Luffy walked up beside him, slow and quiet. He held something in his hands—a long stick, shaped with rough carvings. Behind him came Makino, carrying an old red bandana, and Dadan, pretending she didn't care, even though she held a half-burned piece of Sabo's old training gloves wrapped in twine.
None of them said it aloud.
There was no plan. No words.
But everyone knew what they'd come here to build.
A grave.
Or maybe something less cruel—a marker. A memory. A place for their hearts to land.
For someone who had no body. No bones. No final breath.
The stump at the center of the clearing had once held a wooden flagpole, their makeshift pirate banner nailed to its top. It had been snapped weeks ago in a storm. Now it looked like a gravestone waiting for a name.
Ace stepped forward and drove a thick stick into the stump's center. It was carved unevenly—rough edges, but deep cuts. Luffy had spent the morning etching the grooves himself. It didn't look like a cross. Or a sign. It just looked like it belonged there.
"This is where we started," Ace muttered. "This is where he should stay."
Luffy nodded. His hands opened slowly, revealing a small pile of items: a red cloth, a broken button from Sabo's coat, and a feather—Krishna's feather. The long peacock plume glimmered faintly in the dusk, edges catching the last bits of light.
Makino took the red cloth and carefully tied it around the stick.
"He never liked wearing it properly," she said, forcing a small smile. "Said it made him look too responsible."
Luffy placed the button at the base of the stump. Then, with both hands, he laid the feather right in the center—beneath the knot of the red cloth.
It didn't move. Not even in the wind.
Ace crouched beside it, staring at nothing.
"I didn't stop him," he said, voice dry. "He left, and I didn't stop him."
Makino knelt down beside him. "He would've gone anyway."
"I still should've said something."
"You think he didn't know?" she asked. "You three didn't need to say anything. You just knew."
Dadan grunted. She reached into her pocket and took out a tiny, jagged knife that looked like it had seen more than its fair share of brawls. "Idiot always wanted to carve his name in this tree," she muttered. "Guess we do it for him."
She etched three letters, slowly. SAB.
She stopped before the last letter.
The knife trembled slightly. Then she drove it in deeper and finished the O, rough and crooked.
No one corrected her.
She stepped back quickly and tossed the knife onto the grass. "There. Stupid name's up now. Happy?"
Luffy stood back, clutching a single feather in his hand. A long, iridescent one—deep blue with a flash of violet at the edge. The one Krishna had left before he vanished into the sea.
He placed it at the top of the shrine.
"From Krishna," he whispered.
No one moved to stop him.
Makino stared at the feather for a long time. "He always knew something," she murmured. "Even as a baby. Like the world told him things before it told the rest of us."
Ace crouched beside the stump, arms draped over his knees.
"Maybe he knew Sabo wouldn't die," he said, voice low.
Luffy didn't look convinced. "Then why didn't he say that?"
"Because he's not here," Ace snapped.
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was jagged.
Makino sat beside them, resting her palms against the earth. "This doesn't have to be his grave," she said softly. "It can just be… a place."
"A place to remember," Luffy offered.
"A place to wait," Ace said.
Dadan didn't sit. She just stared at the stump, arms crossed.
"I still think he's out there," she said. "That little bastard was too stubborn to die."
Makino nodded. "I want to believe that."
"But?" Ace asked.
Makino glanced at the feather again. "But wanting doesn't make it true."
No one answered.
They all just stood there, letting the air do the talking.
Luffy sat down cross-legged and stared at the marker.
"It's not real," he whispered. "He's not under there. He's just… not."
Ace didn't respond.
Makino didn't either.
Because he was right.
This wasn't a grave. There was no body. No bones. No bloodied coat or final note. There was only driftwood and silence and a story cut off mid-sentence.
Still, the shrine stood.
Still, they stayed.
They stayed there until the sun began to drop.
Until the shadows stretched long over the grass.
Until the wind rose again and carried the scent of saltwater from the far cliffs.
The peacock arrived as the light faded—her footsteps light, careful. She stepped around Dadan, nudged her wing against Makino, then walked to the base of the stump and lowered her head.
She didn't cry.
But she pressed her chest into the grass and remained there—like she knew what this place was.
Like she was mourning someone she'd never met.
One wing covered the base of the stump.
A soft sound escaped her throat. Not a song. Not a cry.
Something else. Something like mourning.
Something like a prayer.
The kind only the wild things remember.
Makino looked at her, then back at the stick.
"I'll bring flowers tomorrow," she said.
Dadan scoffed. "He'd hate that."
"I know," Makino said. "I'll bring them anyway."
Ace didn't speak for a long time.
Then finally, he said quietly, "If he's alive, he better come back. If he's not…"
He couldn't finish.
Luffy finished for him. "Then we'll get stronger. And carry him anyway."
The wind shifted.
The feather trembled—but did not fall.
They didn't say his name anymore.
Not because it was forbidden. Not out of fear. Not out of denial.
But because saying it out loud made the silence that followed feel unbearable.
It was easier to leave the syllables floating in the air, unspoken. Like smoke. Like memory.
So they kept it folded, tucked in the spaces between breaths.
Makino was sweeping the floor again. It didn't need it. The wind hadn't been strong, and Luffy had tracked in barely any dirt today. Her hands moved in rhythm. Scrub. Pause. Breathe. Scrub. But her hands needed something to do—something that didn't tremble.
She moved like a ghost retracing familiar steps, pausing every so often by the door as if she half-expected someone to walk through it.
He never did.
Dadan smoked on the porch, chewing the end of her cigarette more than she inhaled. She hadn't yelled all day. Not once. That, more than anything, unsettled Luffy.
Luffy sat on the floor near the hearth, carving a stick with dull precision. The knife wasn't sharp, and the wood didn't matter. He wasn't trying to make anything—just digging shallow grooves into the grain, line after line, like he could wear away the feeling in his chest if he worked long enough.
Ace leaned against the back wall, arms crossed tight, back to the window.
It was Luffy who finally broke the silence.
"Do you think he would've come back if Krishna hadn't left?"
Makino stopped sweeping.
Ace didn't move.
Luffy looked up, eyes dull. "He said he'd be back before anything happened."
Makino didn't lie. "I think Krishna believed that."
"But it wasn't enough."
"No," she said quietly. "It wasn't."
Luffy looked back down at the stick and carved another line. "Then why didn't he stop Sabo?"
Ace turned sharply. "Because Sabo didn't tell us."
"He didn't have to," Luffy said. "We should've known."
Makino stepped forward, set the broom aside. She knelt next to Luffy and took the knife from his hand without force. "This isn't your fault."
He didn't argue. Just rested his head against her shoulder, and for a few moments, said nothing at all.
The peacock entered the room slowly, tail feathers brushing the floor like soft paint strokes. She nudged the base of the table, then curled herself in a corner, watching the boys with steady, silent eyes.
Ace stared at the peacock.
"She waited by the shrine again this morning," he murmured. "Didn't even eat until I walked her back."
Makino's voice was low. "She's grieving too."
Ace scoffed. "She didn't even know him."
"Sometimes you don't need to," Makino said. "Sometimes you just feel what someone meant to the people around you."
A long silence fell over them.
A voice broke the quiet.
"Why do we keep the bowl?" Ace asked quietly.
Makino didn't look up. "Because we're not ready to stop."
"Stop what?"
She turned, wiping her hands on her apron. "Waiting."
Silence fell over the room.
Ace stood against the wall, arms folded, eyes distant. He hadn't trained that morning. His hands were bandaged now—rough wrappings done poorly, a few spots already soaked in red.
"I feel stupid," he mumbled.
Luffy looked up. "Why?"
"Because I keep looking at the sky. Like I'll see a boat again. Like Sabo's just... late."
Makino walked over and sat down beside him. "Grief is never stupid."
Ace's jaw clenched. "I'm supposed to be strong."
"Strength isn't not hurting."
Luffy muttered, "Krishna said something like that."
Makino nodded. "Then he was right."
Then, from the hallway, Dadan's heavy footsteps sounded. She stomped in with her usual weight, arms crossed, cigarette dangling from her lip. She paused at the doorway, eyes flicking to the three of them, arms crossed.
"Still mopin' like ghosts, huh?"
No one answered.
"Enough brooding. You wanna be strong?" she said, looking straight at Ace. "Then train. Fight. Do something."
"I did," Ace muttered. "Didn't stop anything."
Dadan scowled. "You think being strong means saving everyone?"
"Yes."
"Well, you're wrong. Sometimes being strong means carrying what you couldn't save."
Ace didn't respond.
Luffy stared at the floor.
Makino looked at them both. "He's not gone."
They turned.
"I don't mean alive or dead," she said softly. "I mean... Sabo's still in here." She pressed her palm to her chest. "And in both of you. In how you walk. How you laugh. How you keep pushing."
Silence.
Dadan blew out smoke and shifted awkwardly. "I, uh… found one of his old notebooks."
She tossed a small, ragged-bound book onto the table. It slid across the wood and stopped near Luffy's hand.
Ace stepped forward slowly. Picked it up.
The pages were dog-eared. The handwriting inside was messy but passionate. It wasn't a log. It was a dream book. Places he wanted to go. Things he wanted to build. Ships. Maps. Pirate names.
Ace's fingers trembled.
"I forgot his handwriting," he said.
Luffy leaned closer, reading quietly. "'The Sea of Stars. I'll go there one day.'"
Makino looked between them.
"You don't have to say it," she said softly.
Ace blinked. "Say what?"
"His name."
A beat.
Then Luffy asked, "Why shouldn't we say his name?"
Ace opened his mouth—but couldn't answer.
Makino did.
"Because if we say it… we'll start crying again."
Ace looked down at the notebook. "Then maybe we should say it."
Luffy met his eyes. "Let's say it together."
A long pause.
Then—quietly, like a whisper across the sea,
"Sabo."
And they did cry. All of them.
No sobbing. No wails.
Just tears that didn't ask for permission.
The peacock watched quietly.
Makino reached over and took both their hands. "You can cry. You can remember. You can even be angry. But promise me—don't forget."
Luffy nodded slowly.
Ace didn't move.
Dadan turned away, wiping her eyes without permission.
Makino didn't speak again. Just set down a cup of warm tea beside the notebook.
And Luffy traced the name on the cover with his finger. Slowly. Over and over.
As if trying to remember how it sounded in his mouth.
As if hoping the name might find its way home.
The clouds rolled in again, but didn't cry this time.
It just hovered—low, gray, and full—with a kind of stillness that made every breath feel borrowed, but the air smelled like thunder was holding its breath.
Ace stood shirtless on the upper ridge of the hill behind Dadan's house, soaked in sweat, rain clinging to his body like salt on skin. His hands were wrapped, but poorly. The cloth was coming undone, stained with the rust-colored proof of repetition gone too far. He removed them harshly. His hands were bare now, just raw skin and dried streaks of blood that split at the knuckles every time he clenched his fists.
He was still punching.
Not the ground this time.
The old log Krishna had used for Soru drills.
Over.
And over.
And over.
He threw another punch into the log.
It didn't crack.
Didn't move.
Another.
And another.
Each strike echoed, not with impact, but with ache. The kind of ache that hollows out from the inside.
Behind him, Luffy sat beneath the cover of a gnarled tree root, arms wrapped around his legs, biting his lip until it bled. He'd followed Ace hours ago but hadn't said a word.
He just watched.
The rain started again.
A fine mist at first. Then sharper.
Ace didn't stop.
He didn't shout.
But his body shook with something that hadn't left him since the day Sabo's boat was found in pieces.
Not until the sky spoke.
"Still think the answer's at the bottom of a fist?"
Garp's voice cut through the fog like a blade dulled by time.
He stood at the edge of the clearing, boots crunching against the soaked earth, hands in his coat pockets, hat tilted against the drizzle. His presence didn't thunder. It didn't dominate. It just… settled.
Ace didn't turn around.
"I'm training," he muttered.
"No," Garp said. "You're punishing yourself."
Ace punched again. His knuckles hit wood. His knees buckled slightly.
"I let him go."
Garp stepped forward.
"You didn't let him do anything. He made a choice."
Ace spun on him, eyes bloodshot, hair clinging to his forehead.
"He was our brother!"
"And now you want someone to blame," Garp said, not flinching. "So you're picking the only punching bag that doesn't punch back."
Ace's breath hitched.
"You think Krishna didn't blame himself?"
Ace said nothing.
Another strike. His knuckles bled.
Garp didn't speak again.
Not until Ace's fist cracked against the log so hard that splinters broke skin. He staggered back. Panting. He turned toward the old man, eyes bloodshot, teeth gritted.
"You knew."
Garp raised a brow.
Ace's voice cracked. "You knew about Goa. About the nobles. About what they were capable of."
"I did."
"Then why didn't you stop them?! Why didn't you stop Sabo from going back?!"
Garp didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "Because I thought you three were strong enough to handle the truth. And maybe I was wrong."
Ace's fist trembled. "You're damn right you were."
"You think you could've stopped Sabo?" Garp asked.
Ace flinched.
"You couldn't have, Ace," Garp said, quieter. "And neither could Krishna."
"You weren't there!"
Garp walked past him and sat on a nearby rock like it was the most normal thing in the world. The rain soaked his shoulders, but he didn't care.
"I've lost people too," Garp said. "More than you can count. I buried my friends. My comrades. Men I trained. Some I raised. I've buried more friends than I care to count. Don't talk to me about not being there."
The wind picked up.
"I've blamed the world. I've blamed fate. I've blamed the sea."
Luffy finally stood, walking toward them.
"But the worst blame—the one that eats you—is when you start thinking you could've stopped it if you were just… stronger."
Ace looked down at his hands.
Raw. Bleeding. Shaking.
"I am strong," he whispered.
"You're getting there," Garp said. "But strength isn't just fists."
Ace looked at him, jaw clenched. "Then what the hell is it?"
Garp met his eyes.
"Strength is standing here. In the rain. Still breathing. Still carrying his name."
"He was our brother," Ace whispered.
"And you were his," Garp said. "That means carrying the pain when he's gone. Not throwing it into trees."
Ace's fists lowered.
Luffy stepped forward, slowly.
He looked up at Garp. "Do you think he's still alive?"
Garp paused.
"I don't know," he said honestly.
Ace closed his eyes.
Luffy was holding something in his small hands, now beside him. He offered it to Ace.
A small, broken piece of Sabo's boat.
"Krishna said," Luffy began, voice shaking, "that we don't carry the dead with grief."
He looked up.
"We carry them with how we live."
Ace stared at the wood, then dropped to his knees.
He didn't scream.
Didn't sob.
But he bent forward and pressed his forehead to the wet grass, shoulders trembling.
Not from cold.
Not from weakness.
But from the weight of holding it in for too long.
Garp didn't move to console him.
But he stayed.
Which mattered more.
The rain started. Just a drizzle.
Soft enough that no one noticed the tears.
Until Garp stepped forward and rested a heavy hand on Ace's shoulder.
"You think pain is weakness. But it's not. It's proof you gave a damn."
Ace didn't look up, still pressing his forehead on to the ground, rain falling on his head.
But he didn't pull away.
Krishna didn't leave a hole.
He left a rhythm.
And the house — the people inside it — tried to keep the beat even after the drum had fallen silent, it changed without ever moving.
Krishna's corner in the loft still had the cloth folded just the way Makino always liked it — the blanket crisp, untouched since he left. No one said it aloud, but none of them climbed up there. Not even Luffy. Not even Ace. Especially not Makino.
Sheshika hadn't coiled near the fire in days. She was gone with Krishna, and yet her absence left behind a strange, phantom warmth. Like the floorboards still remembered the weight of her scales. Like her hiss was still tucked in the walls.
Luffy woke up early now. Not because he was told to. Not because Krishna ever ordered him.
But because somewhere in the back of his heart, he remembered that Krishna had always risen before the sun.
Always alone.
Always still.
Now it was Luffy who sat cross-legged in the clearing just past the ridge, eyes closed, pretending to feel the heartbeat of ants, the wind cutting through tree bark, the way the air shifted when someone walked within ten steps.
He didn't understand it.
But he remembered Krishna had said,
"You don't listen with your ears. You listen with the stillness between your breaths."
And so he sat. And listened. And breathed.
He didn't train like Krishna did.
He just… moved the way Krishna had.
First Observation drills — standing still until the forest stirred around him. Then Soru, imperfect and clumsy. Sometimes he'd tumble into bushes. Sometimes he got it right, just once, and grinned like a lantern was lit in his chest.
Sometimes Ace watched from the porch. Quietly. His arms folded across his chest, one eye squinting as if judging Luffy's posture but never saying a word.
Until one morning, when Luffy overbalanced trying to mimic Soru and face-planted into a tree.
But when Luffy tripped over his feet for the fourth time, Ace grunted and walked over. Flicked him on the forehead.
"You're overloading your back leg too soon," he muttered. "Krishna said to plant your heel, not your toe."
Luffy blinked up at him, face full of leaves.
"You remember that?"
Ace showed him the adjustment. Slower than Krishna would've. Less clean. More real.
And without another word, they trained.
They trained until their shirts stuck to their backs and their hands burned with friction.
Later, when they collapsed under the wide shade tree with grass stains on their elbows, Luffy asked, "Do you think he's watching us?"
Ace didn't respond immediately.
Then, softly, "If he is, he probably thinks we're idiots."
Luffy grinned. "That means we're doing it right."
Makino brought cold water and fresh rice balls, placing them on a cloth near where they sat. She didn't say anything either. Just smiled and patted their heads like she used to when they were small.
She noticed it in stranger ways.
She noticed it when she found her good knives sharpened and cleaned without asking. When she opened the cabinet and found labeled herbs in tiny paper wrappers — a habit Krishna had picked up from watching Medha catalog.
She noticed it when Luffy began brushing his hair in the mirror before bed. Not neatly. Just... trying.
And when Ace muttered things like "Eat slower" or "Check your stance" or "Don't block with your face, dumbass" — things Krishna used to say.
The boys weren't becoming Krishna.
But something of Krishna had become them.
Even the peacock, regal and strange, had begun picking up patterns. She now circled the perimeter of the house twice before sunrise. Always in the same path. Always ending at the tree stump shrine.
Makino found her there once, feathers slightly puffed against the dawn chill, one long blue plume dropped gently at the base of the marker.
She hadn't sung.
But that feather — perfect, luminous, quietly placed — was her own kind of prayer.
Later that night, when the hearth was burning low and the silence between them was warm again, the peacock curled near the foot of Krishna's unused mat. She hadn't sung. But her eyes never closed. They just followed every movement in the room.
Makino sat on the porch brushing her hair.
Ace joined her.
He sat down with the weight of someone who hadn't let his body rest in days.
"He taught us a lot," he said quietly.
Makino didn't look at him. "He watched you closely. Said you were the most like fire."
Ace blinked. "What about Luffy?"
Makino smiled. "He said Luffy was like a storm pretending to be sunshine."
He smirked. "And me?"
"A matchstick daring the forest to breathe."
Ace chuckled once. "Sounds like him."
Makino put the brush down and stared into the trees.
"He didn't leave a hole," she whispered. "He left a shape we're all trying to fill."
Ace said nothing.
That night, he found himself alone in the loft.
The space still smelled faintly like salt and sandalwood — the faint trace of Krishna's old cloak that hadn't been moved since the day he left.
Ace didn't sit on the blanket. He sat beside it. Cross-legged. Quiet.
Out the window, the stars blinked in and out of passing clouds.
And for the first time in days, Ace let himself speak aloud — not to anyone. Just to the space.
"I'm trying," he whispered. "I don't know what you were building, but I'm trying to keep it steady."
He leaned back against the wall.
"I'm not you. I never will be. But Luffy's watching me now the way we used to watch you. So…"
A pause.
"Wherever you are... watch us back."
But later that night, when he climbed into the loft for the first time since Krishna left, he didn't touch anything. He just sat beside the blanket and looked out the window.
The stars weren't any brighter.
But they felt closer.
The wind came softer that morning.
Not weak. Just... tender. As if the world had decided to speak more gently, knowing who might be listening.
The shrine stood in the clearing behind Dadan's hideout, untouched but never abandoned. The stump at the center had grown smooth under the weight of memory. Pebbles ringed the base. A feather still rested at the top — untouched by rain or age, as if the wind had always curved around it in respect.
Ace arrived first.
He didn't bring flowers. He brought a training glove.
Torn, worn-through, patched too many times to be useful. Sabo's glove. Or what was left of it. It had survived the last few years tucked beneath the floorboard of their hideout, forgotten, until this morning when Ace woke up without reason and knew where to look.
He placed it at the base of the stump.
Didn't say anything. Didn't need to.
Luffy came next.
He brought food — not fancy. Just a rice ball. Perfectly round. A little lopsided. He placed it beside the glove with both hands, bowing slightly as he stepped back.
"You hated fish bones," he muttered. "So I made it plain."
He stood beside Ace. Didn't speak again.
The peacock arrived last. She didn't bring anything. She just sat. Feathers half-folded, eyes on the horizon.
They waited.
Not for Krishna.
Not for a ghost.
Just for Makino.
She came quietly, carrying a bottle wrapped in cloth.
Sake.
Old. Sharp. Bitter.
She set it down, then uncorked it and poured three small cups into the grass — one for each of them.
One for each of the brothers.
They watched the liquid sink into the soil, vanishing like breath in winter.
Makino knelt.
"I know you're not gone," she said. "But even if you are... this place still remembers you."
The wind stirred the feather.
Ace knelt. Then Luffy.
The peacock lowered her head.
No prayers.
No long speeches.
Just stillness.
Then, without speaking, Luffy pulled a small slingshot from his pocket — one Sabo had carved from driftwood long ago. He placed it gently beside the rice ball.
Makino stood.
"I'll come again next week," she said, brushing her hands on her apron. "Maybe bring some pickled radish. You always made a face, but I knew you liked it."
Ace smirked.
Luffy chuckled.
Makino smiled.
Then the wind rose. Not harsh. But with just enough weight to lift the feather from the top of the stump.
It danced once.
Twice.
Then slowly spiraled down — not away, but forward.
Into the grass.
As if giving its blessing.
They left the shrine behind them.
But none of them walked away alone.
The wind felt heavier as Krishna walked.
He didn't rush. He didn't Soru through the fields or vanish like mist over water. He walked. One step at a time. Through the muddy ridges and broken paths of a land too far from peace.
Cocoyashi Village was a distant blur ahead — a speck of homes swallowed by the sea's endless breath.
But he wasn't looking at it.
He was looking up.
The sky had no answers. But it didn't lie either.
Sheshika slithered beside him in silence, her body moving in smooth waves over the wet path. Behind him, the trail was nearly invisible — footprints lost to wind and drizzle. In his hand, tucked like a whisper beneath his cloak, was a single peacock feather.
He stopped near a crooked tree, its roots half-sunken in old mud. His eyes flickered — not with fury. Not yet.
Just memory.
Sabo's voice.
Ace's grin.
Luffy's laughter.
A table with three bowls.
Krishna closed his eyes.
And for the first time in days, he whispered aloud — to no one and everything:
"Wherever you are, Sabo… come back. Don't make me lie to them."
He knelt. Just once. One knee in the mud.
And placed the feather at the tree's base.
A prayer. Not for the gods.
But from one brother to another.
Then he rose.
His face shifted.
No longer the brother.
No longer the child.
The Martial God walked again.
Toward the tyrant of the East Blue, Arlong.
Author's Note
Yo, divine degenerates and dharmic dreamers—
This one didn't scream.
It whispered.
But sometimes, the softest chapters leave the deepest cuts.
We didn't lose Sabo in a battle.
We lost him to silence.
To nobility.
To fire set by cowards who wore gold instead of honor.
This chapter wasn't about power levels.
It was about the spaces people leave behind when they're gone—and the quiet, fumbling ways we try to fill them.
Ace doesn't know how to mourn.
Luffy doesn't know how to stop believing.
Makino holds them together with hands that tremble but never break.
And Krishna?
He's not even here.
But his absence is louder than any god's presence.
If this chapter cracked your chest a little… good. That's what it was meant to do.
Next chapter:
The ocean bleeds.
The tiger meets the storm.
And Krishna walks into Cocoyashi not to fight — but to judge.
—Author out.
(Sheshika has declared all peacocks her sworn rivals. She hisses every time one's on screen. Makino's begun calling her "Jealousika." It's catching on.)