The sea's echo

The words on the Sky Screen lit up.

[But in this rewritten timeline, the system has decided to shorten the wait]

The whole world held its breath.

[Reward recipients: Soul King Brook, the whale Laboon]

[Reward one: The magnetic interference in Brook's current location will be removed. The permanent fog shrouding the Florian Triangle will dissipate within forty-eight hours, and Brook's ship will receive a permanent navigation pointer to Twin Cape]

When the reward appeared, deep in the Florian Triangle, in a stretch of sea that had been shrouded in fog for decades, a skeleton sat on the deck of a battered sailing ship, holding an empty teacup and pouring himself tea.

Brook looked up.

There were no eyeballs in his hollow sockets, but when the golden words reflected off his bones, his entire skeleton trembled slightly.

"A permanent navigation pointer."

He read the words aloud.

"Pointing to Twin Cape."

His teacup slipped through his fingers, struck the deck, and shattered into several pieces.

He paid it no attention.

"I can go back?"

His voice came from the resonance chamber of his rib cage, hoarse and raspy, rusty from fifty years without speaking normally.

"Can I really go back?"

The second reward appeared on the Sky Screen.

[Reward two: Brook is granted the passive ability Soul Resonance. The Revive-Revive Fruit enters a pre-awakening state. Brook's music will gain the power to affect souls, inflicting fear and confusion on enemies and inspiring and healing companions]

[Reward three: The whale Laboon is granted Voice of the Vow. Effect: When Brook plays Binks' Sake, Laboon will be able to hear the music no matter how far away he is]

The moment the third reward appeared, a whale's cry rose from the sea at Twin Cape.

The cry traveled across the entire first half of the Grand Line, bounced off the cliffs of the Red Line, and echoed along the horizon for a long time before fading.

Crocus, the old man beside the lighthouse, lowered the newspaper in his hands and looked up at the Sky Screen.

"He's calling out."

He turned toward the enormous whale in the sea. Laboon had stopped ramming the Red Line and raised his massive head out of the water, opening his mouth toward the sky.

Awooo.

This cry was different from every one before it.

Every previous cry had carried agitation and unease, and the despair of battering a wall for fifty years without breaking through.

But there was something new in this one.

Crocus had lived for more than seventy years, tended the lighthouse at Twin Cape for decades, and listened to Laboon's cries for decades.

He recognized it.

It was anticipation.

"Did you hear that?" he asked Laboon.

Laboon cried out again and slapped the water with his enormous tail, sending up spray that soaked the lighthouse windows.

"He's coming back." Crocus folded his newspaper and laid it on his knees.

"That skeleton boy can finally come back."

The Florian Triangle.

Brook stood on the deck, holding the Tone Dial in his hands.

The reward text about the permanent navigation pointer to Twin Cape was still glowing on the Sky Screen, but he wasn't looking at it.

He was watching the footage of Laboon ramming the Red Line.

Those one hundred and seventy-two scars.

Those fifty years and seven months of waiting.

He pressed the Tone Dial tightly against his breastbone, his bony fingers closing around it so hard that its shell creaked.

"Laboon."

His voice was trembling.

"You've waited fifty years."

"You've been ramming that wall for fifty years."

"Your head is covered in scars."

"I'm coming."

As he spoke those last words, a breeze blew through the fog, coming from directly ahead of the ship and carrying a scent entirely unlike that of this deathly silent sea.

It was the scent of salt and sunlight mingled together.

The scent of the sea breeze at the entrance to the Grand Line.

The direction of Twin Cape.

Brook picked up his violin.

He set it against his shoulder bone, laid the bow across the strings, and took a deep breath.

Even though he had no lungs.

The first note of Binks' Sake rang out.

This time was different from every time before. A visible layer of pale blue light flowed over the strings, the soul power of the Revive-Revive Fruit's pre-awakened state.

The music traveled out through the thick fog of the Florian Triangle, over island after island, through storms and ocean currents, across the entire first half of the Grand Line.

It reached Twin Cape.

Laboon's body shuddered violently in the water.

He heard it.

For the first time in fifty years, he heard that song.

Not from memory, not from the fading shadows of the past.

It came from living strings, warm and being played at that very moment: Binks' Sake.

Laboon let out a cry unlike any before. It was so loud that it raised three-meter waves on the sea near Twin Cape and shook Crocus's chair onto the ground.

But the old man paid the chair no attention. He stood on the lighthouse balcony, watching Laboon.

Laboon spun in circles in the water, his enormous body stirring up whirlpools and columns of spray, his tail slapping the sea like a child who had waited so long and finally received a reply.

The Sky Screen showed the whole scene. On the left was the skeleton playing his violin in the Florian Triangle; on the right was the whale circling beside Twin Cape.

Half the Grand Line lay between the two images.

But the music joined them together.

People all over the world watched the split screen, and many found their vision growing blurry.

In the tavern, Lin Qi watched the global emotion data on his screen. The level of emotion surged past the night's previous peak, fifteen percent higher than it had been during Rouge's installment.

"See? Animal stories are always tear bombs."

He blew his nose hard, his voice muffled and nasal.

"A whale waited fifty years, and a skeleton drifted for fifty years. Who could hold up against a story like that?"

He closed the data panel on his screen and stared at the Sky Screen for a few seconds.

Brook was still playing, and Laboon was still circling.

He rubbed his nose and turned his attention back to the system panel.

"All right, six through ten are done."

"The top five."

His fingers slid across the screen as he looked through the system's recommended list.

"Time for the main event."

He pulled up the information on fifth place. After one look, his fingers stopped.

"This person."

His brow furrowed.

"His regret wasn't that he died, or that he was forgotten."

"He was already living with regret while he was alive."

"And his regret is tied to the fate of the entire Whitebeard Pirates."

He pressed confirm.

The image on the Sky Screen slowly faded amid the lingering notes of Brook's music, and new preview text began to appear.

[Top ten regrets, fifth place, about to be revealed]

[Hint: This regret concerns a blade that was never drawn, and a man who chose to trust the wrong person on the battlefield]

In the New World, on the deck of the Moby Dick, everyone in the Whitebeard Pirates looked in the same direction at once.

The man standing there had the Whitebeard Pirates' emblem tattooed on his back and a blade hanging at his waist.

He was looking at the hint on the Sky Screen, the expression on his face changing little by little.