The Straw Hat and the Wind

The prompt on the Sky Screen glowed quietly in the night sky.

A straw hat, a name that could never be spoken, and a wind that had blown through Loguetown.

The whole world was guessing.

In Water 7, Iceburg leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk as he looked at the words.

"The straw hat is Luffy's trademark."

His secretary was leafing through a newspaper beside him. She looked up.

"The wind in Loguetown? Two years ago, Straw Hat Luffy was nearly executed there. They say a storm suddenly blew in, and lightning struck the Execution Platform, saving his life."

"That wind wasn't a natural disaster."

Iceburg's fingers stopped.

"The Sky Screen revealed Dragon's power before: the Storm-Storm Fruit."

He said no more, but his meaning was clear.

Sabaody Archipelago.

Luffy stood where he was, gripping the brim of his straw hat as he stared at the words on the Sky Screen for a long time.

Zoro stood beside him, a hand on his sword hilt, saying nothing.

Rayleigh leaned against the wall with a bottle at his feet and his arms crossed. His gaze moved from Luffy's straw hat to the Sky Screen, then back again.

"Luffy."

"Yeah."

"You just said he was your dad."

"Yeah."

Luffy's voice was even, with nothing extra in it.

"Shanks gave me the straw hat."

He took it off his head and held it in his hands, looking at it.

"That man was the one who made the wind in Loguetown."

"The name that couldn't be spoken."

He paused for a beat.

"He's never called me by my name, has he?"

Rayleigh's fingers tightened slightly against his folded arms.

There was no anger or resentment in those words, only a quiet statement.

A son calmly stating a fact.

New words began to appear on the Sky Screen.

[The ten greatest regrets, second place]

[Monkey D. Dragon]

[The heart of the regret: a father traded twenty years of silence for a revolution, yet repeated the same name late every night—a name he had never once spoken to its owner's face]

When those words appeared, the atmosphere at the Revolutionary Army Headquarters changed.

Sabo stood behind Dragon and saw his back stiffen for an instant. It lasted less than half a second before it vanished, but Sabo caught it.

"Mr. Dragon."

Dragon did not turn around.

"I'm fine."

"Your hand is shaking."

Dragon glanced down at his hand. There was indeed an extremely slight tremor between the index and middle fingers of his right hand. It was so slow that it was impossible to notice without looking closely.

He slipped his hand into his cloak pocket.

"The wind's strong."

Sabo did not expose the excuse, though there was no wind in the room.

A question appeared on the Sky Screen.

[Question: What was Monkey D. Dragon's greatest regret in his life?]

[A. Failing to overthrow the World Government with his own hands]

[B. Failing to save his sons during the Paramount War]

[C. Never standing before Luffy as his father in twenty years, never calling him by his name himself]

[D. All of the above]

When option C appeared, the whole world fell silent for a beat.

It was not the silence of shock, but the silence of something lodging in people's chests.

On Drum Island, Doctorine took the pipe from her mouth, looked at option C, and read it aloud.

"Twenty years without calling his son by name."

She put the pipe back in her mouth and took a hard drag.

"More cruel than war."

In Alabasta, Princess Vivi sat beside the sickbed of her father, Cobra, and the two watched the Sky Screen together.

Vivi clutched Cobra's sleeve.

"Father."

"Yes?"

"Why didn't he call him by name?"

Cobra was silent for a few seconds.

"Because once he did, he would no longer be a revolutionary."

His voice was soft.

"He would be just a father."

"A father can't defeat the World Government."

The countdown on the Sky Screen reached zero.

[Correct answer: D]

The image lit up.

The first scene began twenty years ago.

A very small room stood on an unnamed island somewhere in the East Blue. Through the window, a gray sea could be seen.

There was a table in the room, with a map spread across it. Red marks covered the map, connecting to form a line that stretched from the East Blue through the Grand Line and on to the New World.

Dragon stood in front of the table.

He was twenty years younger than he was now. The tattoo on his face was still new, and his cloak was not as worn. His whole outline was sharper, like a freshly honed blade.

A man stood before him.

Garp.

Garp wore a Marine uniform, his cap tilted on his head. None of his usual grinning remained; his entire face was as stern as iron.

"Are you sure?"

Garp's voice sounded as though it had been forced through a crack in stone.

"I'm sure."

"You know that once you leave, this child won't have a father."

"He has you."

"I'm his grandfather."

Garp's voice rose slightly.

"A grandfather can't replace a father. You know that better than anyone, damn it."

Dragon did not respond. He looked down at the map on the table, his finger pressed against the Red Line.

"If I don't leave, more children in this world will be left without fathers."

"Don't try to beat me down with lofty principles."

Garp slammed his fist on the table, making the map jump.

"Just tell me one thing. Do you not want to be his father anymore?"

Dragon raised his head.

He looked at Garp, something complicated churning in his eyes. It surged in the depths of his pupils for two or three seconds before he forcefully pushed it down.

"It's not that I don't want to."

His voice grew quieter.

"I can't."

"The World Government's intelligence network is already investigating me. If they find out I have a son, that child won't live to be five."

Garp's fist remained pressed against the table, his knuckles white.

"So what's your plan? Pretend this child doesn't exist?"

"My plan is to make this world a place where he can live without needing his father to protect him."

After saying that, Dragon took a cloth bundle from beneath the table.

The bundle was small, and inside it was a child less than two years old.

The child was asleep, his tiny fists clenched and his mouth slightly open as he breathed softly.

Dragon held the bundle out.

He did it quickly, as if afraid he would change his mind if he were a second slower.

Garp reached out and took it.

The moment the bundle changed hands, the child stirred. His tiny fists opened, and his fingers grasped at the air twice, as if searching for something.

Dragon's hand stopped in midair.

His fingers were less than three centimeters from the child's little hand.

Three centimeters.

His fingers hovered there for two seconds.

Then he drew them back.

The Sky Screen slowed those two seconds down, enough to show Dragon's fingertips trembling slightly, the edges of his nails turning white. The tremor was exactly the same as the one Sabo had just seen at the Revolutionary Army Headquarters.

Twenty years, and the same tremor.

In the scene, Dragon turned to face the door.

"What's his name?"

Garp's voice came from behind him.

Dragon stopped at the door without turning around.

His lips moved twice.

The Sky Screen showed a close-up of his lips. Their movements were clear: two syllables.

But he made no sound.

What he finally said was something else.

"You name him."

Then he walked out.

When the door closed, the child woke and began crying in Garp's arms.

The cries passed through the thin wooden door and followed Dragon's retreating figure a long way.

Dragon walked quickly down the road outside, the hem of his cloak lifted by the sea breeze.

The Sky Screen showed him from the front.

His face was expressionless, his jawline taut as a drawn bowstring. His eyes stared straight ahead, and each stride was longer than the last.

But his ears were moving.

The movement was slight, an effort to catch the cries growing fainter behind him.

His right hand was clenched inside his cloak pocket, his nails digging into his palm.

The scene paused for a second.

A note appeared on the Sky Screen.

[System scan record: In the forty-eight hours after Monkey D. Dragon left, he turned back three times and came within fifty meters of the house, only to turn around and leave each time]

[After turning away the third time, he sat beneath a tree until dawn]

[After dawn, he did not look back again]

The whole world watched the note, and the feeling of something lodged in their chests grew heavier.

It wasn't that Dragon didn't want to go back.

He went back three times.

He came within fifty meters, close enough to hear the child crying, then forced himself to turn and walk away.

The third time, he sat beneath a tree all night.

Then he told himself he couldn't go back again.

The scene on the Sky Screen continued, jumping to two years ago.

Loguetown.