The moment the order came through, Smoker moved like a man possessed.
He pushed his crew day and night without pause, no rest called, no slack given, and drove the ship to G-1 Marine Base at a pace that would have broken most crews. The wind, the weather -- none of it mattered. He had somewhere to be.
There was one thing visibly different about the arrival, though. Smoker, Hancock, and Jinbe were standing on the deck of a pirate ship, same as always -- but they were wearing Marine uniforms.
For the first time in fifteen years, Smoker had his vest of justice on his back. The Vice Admiral's cloak hung from his shoulders, rank badges sitting where they were supposed to sit. He hadn't let himself look at it too long while getting dressed. He'd thought that might be safer.
It wasn't.
When his boots touched the dock at G-1 and the familiar smell of salt air and engine smoke hit him, two lines of tears ran silently down his face.
"Smoker?" Hancock and Jinbe both turned to look at him.
It wasn't that the surprise was unkind. It was just that neither of them had quite expected it. They were both undercover in their own right, both technically pirates as far as the world was concerned -- but their situations had never been quite what Smoker's was. The weight he was putting down right now was not a weight either of them had been carrying.
Jinbe had come into the Marine's orbit through a different path entirely. He had been the captain of the royal guard at Ryugu Palace, a loyal subordinate of King Neptune, bound first to Fish-Man Island's interests before anything else. When those interests aligned with the Marine's, he had stepped into the arrangement with open eyes and a clear head. His years under cover had been spent largely at Fish-Man Island, doing work that didn't feel that different from what he'd been doing before. He had served well, and he had done so without too much of himself being torn in the process.
Hancock's history was stranger and darker at its roots, but the Marine had become something she moved toward, not away from. Captured young, taken as a slave, she had been rescued by circumstance and by the Marine's G-7 base in ways that had shifted the entire trajectory of Amazon Lily. She had grown up, gone back to her island, and inherited the Nine Snake Pirates according to the plan that had been quietly arranged around her. Amazon Lily had changed almost beyond recognition since then -- its warriors now considered Marine service a point of pride, its future rulers required by Hancock's own decree to achieve Vice Admiral rank before they could return to claim the throne. From a certain angle, Amazon Lily had become a Marine base that happened to have a queen.
She had spent most of her time there, or in the Calm Belt. She had not been adrift.
Smoker had been adrift for fifteen years.
He had started in Roguetown. That was where it had begun -- watching two men at the execution platform, Roger facing the end of his life with the kind of fearlessness that left marks on people, and a younger Finn standing somewhere in the crowd with a presence that had made Smoker feel, for the first time, what it might mean to actually become someone. He'd carried that feeling back to the Marine Academy with him, pushed himself hard enough to graduate as chief of the 1502nd Officer Training Camp class, and then had the entire shape of his future rearranged by one conversation in one office.
One conversation. And then fifteen years of open sea.
Sixteen years old when he left Marineford. Branded a traitor. No cover story clean enough to share with anyone he might have wanted to trust. Sailing under a pirate's flag in a Marine's heart, climbing from nothing to one of the Four Emperors of the Sea, building an organization large enough that the world took it seriously -- and doing all of it while never once forgetting what he actually was.
Not everyone could have done that. The truth was, very few people in the world could have. The loyalty required wasn't the easy kind, the kind that holds when things are comfortable and the path is visible. It was the kind that holds in the dark, when no one's watching, when it would be far simpler to just become the thing you're pretending to be.
Zephyr had been right about him. Finn had been right about him.
Only Smoker could have done this.
"Fifteen nervous years," Smoker said, to no one in particular, his voice catching somewhere between laughing and crying and not quite managing either cleanly. "Three years after three years. When the admiral first sent me out, he told me it'd be three years and then I'd come back a Vice Admiral. I said yes without even thinking about it. I was so sure." A sound that was almost a laugh. "Five rounds of three years. Fifteen years. I was sixteen when I left Marineford. I'm almost thirty-one." He dragged his sleeve across his face. "Fifteen years later and I can finally wear this thing again out in the open."
It was not quite fifteen years, technically, but nobody said anything about that.
Finn and Sakazuki arrived at the dock together to meet them in person.
They heard Smoker before they fully saw him -- the half-laughing, half-sobbing soliloquy of a man letting something go that he had been holding for a very long time. Sakazuki, whose default expression generally suggested he had not experienced an emotion since early childhood, slowed his pace slightly. Something in his face shifted. He had seen Smoker once or twice when the man was still the training camp chief, had pegged him immediately as someone who was going to rise quickly through the ranks, had expected to see him climbing the headquarters structure on a fast track. Instead Smoker had vanished into the East Blue under false colors, and the Marine that had expected great things from him had spent fifteen years officially pretending he was an enemy.
It was easy to forget, in the abstract, what that actually meant for a person.
Finn watched Smoker from a few steps back and felt time fold over on itself for a moment. The office. Fifteen years ago. Zephyr's furniture and the smell of old papers, and a sixteen-year-old who had needed exactly the right kind of provocation to say yes to something this large. He had been a bully, back then, in the way that young men with too much talent and not enough direction often are. Arrogant. Prickly. Burning with something that hadn't found its shape yet.
He had found it.
"Smoker," Finn said. "Vice Admiral."
The name and the rank together. It took a second.
Smoker's expression steadied. He turned, and straightened, and brought his hand up in a full formal salute -- spine vertical, eyes forward, every line of his body exact. "Yes, Admiral Finn! Vice Admiral of Marine Headquarters, Smoker, reporting in!"
He had been waiting to say those words for who knew how long. They came out clean and loud and without any trembling in them.
"Hahaha! Good. Welcome back, Vice Admiral Smoker!" Finn laughed, and meant it.
Smoker lowered his hand and wiped his face again, then turned to Sakazuki and delivered a second salute. When he came back around, there was a slightly uncertain edge to his expression. "It really isn't going to be another three years, is it?"
"It really isn't," Finn said. "Unless you'd like to make a run at becoming the Pirate King while you're at it."
That finally broke something loose. Smoker waved his hand like he was swatting the suggestion out of the air. "Pirate King? No, no. You know what I've realized? Being a Captain in the Marine is better than any of it. All these years -- I'd think about Marineford sometimes. The academy. The drills and the stupid arguments and the feeling of actually being somewhere I was supposed to be." He shook his head, something almost fond in his expression. "I wouldn't trade any of that. Not for the Four Emperors, not for the whole sea."
Finn listened, and felt the quiet satisfaction of having been right about someone settle somewhere in his chest alongside a small, stubborn knot of guilt.
"I have something I've owed you for a long time, Smoker," he said. "I should have said it sooner. I couldn't then. But it's time."
Smoker came to attention again, easy and automatic. "Please."
"I can't really call it teaching. You're an excellent Marine -- an exceptionally excellent Marine. In that area, I'd say you've outpaced me, if I'm honest." Finn paused. "But there's something I want to say to you. Consider it both my apology and my wish."
He looked at Smoker directly.
"May you walk through half your life," Finn said, "and return as a young man."
It was a quiet moment. The dock noise around them seemed to soften.
Finn looked at Smoker's face -- the steadiness of it, the lines that hadn't been there fifteen years ago, the same jaw and the same eyes underneath -- and thought he could see, just at the edges, the bully from the academy. The boy who had stood in a crowd and watched a man die at the execution platform and decided that he wanted to be someone worth remembering.
Sixteen when he left. Thirty-one standing here now.
Half a life, walked out to sea and back again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~