Krieg's crew didn't take the hint.
Even after Mihawk left — even after watching the dock fight, watching Zoro go down, watching Ethan put a blade to the world's greatest swordsman's throat — sixty men looked at each other, looked at the Baratie, and apparently decided the math still worked in their favor.
Ethan almost respected the commitment.
Almost.
"They're still coming," Usopp said, from behind a barrel.
"Yes," Ethan said.
"Even after — you know." Usopp gestured vaguely at the space where Mihawk had been standing ten minutes ago.
"People see what they want to see," Ethan said. "They want to see sixty versus five."
"It's sixty versus five."
"It's really not."
Krieg was back on his feet, armor deploying from hidden compartments across his body with the mechanical efficiency of someone who had built himself into a weapon over years. Spikes, shields, concealed launchers — the man was a walking armory and he moved like he knew it.
*MH5 poison gas,* Ciel said. *He'll use it if cornered. Don't let the crew breathe it.*
Noted.
Luffy cracked his knuckles and looked at Krieg with the expression he got when a problem had become personal.
"You," Luffy said. "You're mine."
Krieg looked at him like he was a mild inconvenience.
"Boy, I've destroyed entire Marine fleets—"
"Yeah yeah," Luffy said, and launched himself forward.
---
The dock turned into three fights happening simultaneously.
Luffy and Krieg in the center — rubber fists against iron armor, the specific chaos of someone who refused to fight the way physics expected colliding with someone who had built every contingency into his equipment.
Sanji had appeared from somewhere — cigarette lit now, sleeves rolled, moving through the outer edge of Krieg's crew with his legs doing things legs weren't supposed to do. Fast, precise, devastating. He fought like a dancer who had decided dancing wasn't enough.
Ethan moved through the rest.
He wasn't flashy about it. The katana stayed sheathed — no need, not for this. He used his hands, his footwork, the Law of Weapons giving him a complete understanding of every weapon being swung at him before it arrived. He redirected a sword, stepped inside someone's guard, put them down cleanly. Moved to the next. The next.
*You're smiling,* Ciel observed.
"Good fight," Ethan said.
*Forty-three still standing.*
"I know. I'm enjoying the warmup."
He felt Sanji glance at him from across the dock — the cook's sharp eyes catching Ethan between two opponents, reading the way he moved, filing it away. Sanji was perceptive. More than he let on.
Ethan put down his next opponent and caught Sanji's eye for a half second.
Sanji looked away first. But the assessment was running.
---
The poison gas came out when Luffy got the upper hand.
Krieg was backed against the dock's edge, armor dented, one arm hanging wrong, and he reached for the golden egg at his chest with the specific desperation of someone whose plans had collapsed and who had one option left.
"Everyone back!" Ethan called.
He was already moving.
The canister fired before Luffy could react — a yellow cloud blooming across the dock fast, spreading toward the crew, toward the Baratie's entrance where some of the restaurant staff were still watching.
Ethan exhaled.
He pushed his aura out — not Haki, not yet, something quieter. The presence of the Sovereign passive, expanded deliberately, carrying one clear message in every direction:
*Move. Now.*
People moved. They didn't know why. They just moved — the crew, the staff, the bystanders, all of them stepping back from the gas cloud with the instinctive urgency of people whose bodies had received a clear signal.
The gas spread across an empty section of dock and dissipated into the open air.
Luffy looked back at Ethan with raised eyebrows.
Ethan shrugged. "Wind changed."
Luffy accepted this completely and turned back to Krieg.
*Smooth,* Ciel said.
"Thank you."
---
Luffy beat Krieg the way Luffy beat everyone — not through superior technique, but through something that had no clean name. Stubbornness wasn't quite right. Will wasn't quite right either. It was more like Luffy simply refused to acknowledge the possibility of any outcome other than the one he'd decided on, and the universe, after testing him enough, tended to agree.
Krieg hit the water.
His crew, one by one, stopped fighting.
The dock went quiet.
Sanji stood at the edge of the dock, breathing hard, looking at the water where Krieg had gone in. Something was moving across his face that wasn't quite satisfaction and wasn't quite relief. Something more complicated.
Zeff appeared at the Baratie's entrance.
The old chef looked at the dock. At the damage. At Krieg floating unconscious in the harbor. At Luffy, who was already looking around for food. At Ethan.
His gaze stopped on Ethan.
On the katana at his hip.
On the place where Mihawk had been standing an hour ago.
Zeff said nothing. But his expression said he had done the math.
---
They went back inside.
Zoro was in a back room with his wounds dressed, sitting up against the wall with the specific expression of someone whose body had been through something significant and who was refusing to treat that as relevant. Chopper — no, not yet. Someone from the Baratie staff had handled the wound. It was clean. He'd live.
Ethan came in and sat across from him.
Zoro looked at him.
"The sword," Zoro said.
"Yes."
"You picked mine up."
"Yes."
"And then you fought Mihawk."
"Yes."
Zoro was quiet for a moment. The gears turning behind his eyes, assembling something.
"You beat him," Zoro said.
"Yes."
Another pause. Longer.
"How long have you been a swordsman," Zoro said. His voice was even. Careful.
Ethan thought about the honest answer.
"Today," he said.
Zoro stared at him.
"The sword found me," Ethan said. "When I picked yours up — something unlocked. I can't explain it better than that."
"Today," Zoro repeated.
"Yes."
Zoro looked at the ceiling. Something moved across his face — not anger, not envy, something much more complicated and much more honest than either. The expression of someone who had given ten years of their life to a single pursuit and had just learned that someone else had arrived at the destination in one afternoon.
He sat with it for a long moment.
Then he looked back at Ethan.
"Mihawk's the best this world has," Zoro said. "Or was."
"Was," Ethan agreed quietly.
"Then my goal just got bigger," Zoro said. Simple. Clean. No drama in it. Just a man updating his map.
Ethan looked at him.
This was why. This exact thing — the way Zoro received impossible information and converted it immediately into fuel. No self-pity. No resentment. Just forward.
"Your goal was always bigger than Mihawk," Ethan said. "You just didn't know it yet."
Zoro looked at him steadily. "You know where it ends."
"I know where it goes," Ethan said. "Not the same thing."
Zoro held his gaze for another beat.
Then he closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. "Wake me up when we're leaving," he said.
---
Sanji found Ethan on the outer deck an hour later.
The cook leaned on the railing beside him, lit a new cigarette, looked at the water. Didn't say anything for a while. Ethan let the silence run — Sanji would get to it when he was ready.
"You defeated Mihawk," Sanji said finally.
"Yes."
"In about four minutes."
"Give or take."
Sanji took a long drag. Blew it out sideways. "I've been here three years and nothing interesting has happened. You've been here half a day."
"We have that effect," Ethan said.
Sanji glanced at him. A real look — the same sharp assessment Ethan had caught on the dock, fully deployed now. "Who are you actually."
"Cook. Swordsman. Traveler." Ethan paused. "In that order, depending on the day."
"Cook first," Sanji said. Skeptical.
"Your food is the best I've had in this sea," Ethan said. Honest. "I'm good. You're better. For now."
Sanji turned to look at him fully. The skepticism hadn't left but something else had joined it.
"For now," Sanji repeated.
"I learn fast," Ethan said.
Sanji smoked. Thought about something. Looked at the water.
"Luffy asked me to join," he said.
"I know."
"I said no."
"I know that too."
Sanji looked at him. "You know a lot of things."
"Some things," Ethan said. "Not everything."
A long pause.
"The All Blue," Sanji said. Quiet. Like testing whether the word still meant what it had always meant when he said it out loud.
"It exists," Ethan said. Just that. No performance, no qualification.
Sanji went very still.
"You've been there," Sanji said.
"No. But I know people who would know, and they say it exists."
Sanji stared at him.
Ethan looked at the water. "The question isn't whether it's real. The question is whether you're going to find it from this dock or from the Grand Line."
The silence that followed was long.
Sanji smoked his cigarette down to the end. Dropped it. Watched it hit the water.
Then he pushed off the railing and walked back inside without another word.
Ethan stayed at the railing.
*That went well,* Ciel said.
"He'll come," Ethan said.
*I know. I was being sincere.*
---
The conversation between Sanji and Zeff happened behind closed doors.
Ethan didn't listen. He didn't need to. Some things deserved their privacy — the specific weight of a debt between a man and the person who had kept him alive, settled in whatever words they found for it. Whatever passed between them in that room was theirs.
What came out of it was Sanji walking back onto the dock with a single bag over his shoulder and his eyes red in a way he was managing with his jaw set and his chin up.
Luffy was already grinning.
"You're joining," Luffy said.
"I'm joining," Sanji said. "If you ever call me anything other than cook I'll kick you into the ocean."
"Got it," Luffy said. Still grinning.
Sanji looked at the crew assembled on the dock. Zoro, sitting up now, arms crossed, watching him with the expression of someone already calculating new territorial dynamics. Usopp, beaming. Nami, looking at the new crew member with the practiced eye of someone mentally adjusting provisioning requirements.
His gaze reached Ethan last.
Ethan held out his hand.
Sanji looked at it. Looked at Ethan. Shook it.
"You said for now," Sanji said. "About your cooking."
"I did," Ethan said.
"Galley's mine," Sanji said. "Non-negotiable."
"Completely fine," Ethan said. "I'll learn from watching."
Something shifted in Sanji's expression — the first unguarded thing Ethan had seen from him, small and quickly controlled. The look of someone who had just been told, cleanly and without agenda, that what they did mattered.
"Let's go then," Sanji said.
They went.
---
The Merry left the Baratie in the early evening, the restaurant getting smaller behind them, the East Blue opening ahead into the particular gold of a day that had been full and strange and real.
Luffy was at the bow.
Sanji was in the galley, already taking inventory with the focused energy of a man establishing his domain.
Zoro was on the deck, sitting against the mast, swords across his lap, eyes closed. Healing, or thinking, or both — with Zoro it was hard to tell.
Usopp was telling Nami about the fight in the version where Usopp's contribution had been somewhat larger than the historical record supported, and Nami was listening with the patient expression of someone who had decided this was fine.
Ethan stood at the stern and watched the Baratie disappear.
He put his hand on the katana's scabbard.
The hum was there — low, warm, constant. The blade settling into him the way the Law of Weapons had settled, like something that had always been there waiting to be found.
*It still needs a name,* Ciel said.
"I know," Ethan said. "Not yet."
*When will you know?*
Ethan thought about it. About Zoro updating his map without flinching. About Sanji walking out with a bag and his eyes red and his chin up. About Mihawk's face when the blade touched his throat — not defeat, recognition.
"When it earns one," Ethan said.
Ciel was quiet for a moment.
*Fair enough,* she said.
The Merry moved east.
Somewhere ahead, Nami's island was waiting.
And the story, as it always did, moved forward.