The Wind of Loguetown
Dark clouds filled the sky over Loguetown.
The view looked out from the roof of a building, taking in the entire square.
On the Execution Platform, a clown with a face painted in garish colors pinned a straw-hatted boy against the platform, a blade at his neck.
Luffy.
Luffy had been thinner back then, with a more boyish face than he had now, but his lips were curved in a smile.
He had smiled in the final moment before his execution.
"Sorry, I'm going to die."
The moment those words rang out from the Execution Platform, the air in the square froze.
The Sky Screen showed another view.
In an alley on the outskirts of the square, a man in a dark cloak leaned against the wall. His hood was pulled low, leaving only the lower half of his face and the tattoo on its left side visible.
Dragon.
He had heard those words.
His body leaned forward.
His feet shifted half a step forward.
The Sky Screen displayed a set of figures.
[Monkey D. Dragon's straight-line distance from the Execution Platform at this moment: 127 meters]
[Time required to reach the Execution Platform using his Storm-Storm Fruit ability: 0.4 seconds]
The clown's blade came down.
Dragon's right foot took a second step.
But his left foot did not follow.
His left foot stayed rooted to the ground, his knee locked straight, his entire body caught between the two steps.
Right foot forward, left foot back.
Within the distance of a single step lay twenty years of struggle.
The Sky Screen showed a close-up of his face.
His teeth were clenched so hard that every muscle along his cheekbones stood out. A trace of blood seeped from the edge of his lips, and his eyes were fixed on the Execution Platform, reflecting the boy who had smiled and said he was going to die.
Then he chose a compromise.
The wind rose.
He did not go over to save him.
A storm descended from the sky instead, carrying a bolt of lightning that struck the very center of the Execution Platform.
The Execution Platform collapsed under the lightning strike, and Luffy rolled out of the wreckage, unharmed.
The crowd in the square fell into chaos. The Marines began their pursuit, and Luffy ran toward the harbor.
Dragon stood in the alley without moving a single step.
He watched Luffy's retreating figure run farther and farther into the crowd. That figure was small, dressed in a red vest. The straw hat nearly blew off as he ran, and he held it down with one hand.
Dragon's gaze followed that figure a long way.
Until Luffy rounded a street corner and vanished from sight.
The Sky Screen showed one last shot of Dragon.
His right hand emerged from his cloak pocket. His fingers spread, then closed on empty air, as though reaching for something more than a hundred meters away.
Then his five fingers slowly curled into a fist.
His lips moved.
The Sky Screen enlarged the movement of his lips.
Two syllables.
"Luffy."
There was no sound.
His throat moved, but his vocal cords did not vibrate. Air passed silently between his lips and was scattered by the sea breeze.
Soundless.
He had spoken his son's name.
From 127 meters away.
Amid the noise of the crowd.
Where no one could hear him.
A caption appeared on the Sky Screen.
[System mental scan record: This was the first time Monkey D. Dragon had spoken Luffy's name in the twenty years since their separation]
[The full name was mouthed, but no sound was made]
[In the twenty years since, up to the present, he has repeated this name 3,721 times while alone]
[Every time was soundless]
When those figures appeared, no one in the world spoke.
3,721 times.
Twenty years.
Every time had been soundless.
Late at night over twenty years, a father had spoken his son's name into the air more than three thousand times, more than three thousand times without making a single sound.
On Drum Island, Doctorine's pipe went out, and she did not relight it.
In a tavern in Water 7, liquid dripped from behind Franky's sunglasses. He tipped his head back hard and said the ceiling was leaking.
In the royal palace of Alabasta, Vivi buried her face in Cobra's shoulder, her shoulders trembling.
Cobra laid a hand on his daughter's hair and gently patted it twice.
"3,721 times."
His voice had grown hoarse.
"And every time, he didn't dare make a sound."
The image on the Sky Screen changed.
It jumped to the time of the Paramount War.
This footage had appeared in the earlier reckoning of war criminals: Dragon had watched the live broadcast alone at Revolutionary Army Headquarters, watching Luffy fight through blood on the battlefield and Ace die before Luffy's eyes.
But this time, the footage included details that had not been shown before.
The instant Dragon saw Akainu pierce Ace's chest, he showed no outward reaction.
His body did not move, his expression did not change, and his hands did not clench.
He simply stood there.
But the Sky Screen brought up a set of figures.
[System physiological monitoring: At that instant, Monkey D. Dragon's heart rate soared from 62 beats per minute to 189]
[Blood pressure soared to a dangerous threshold]
[The Storm-Storm Fruit activated unconsciously. Within three seconds, air pressure within a ten-kilometer radius of Revolutionary Army Headquarters dropped by forty percent, triggering a localized storm]
His body did not move.
But the floor beneath his feet cracked.
Dense fractures radiated outward from where he stood, extending three meters in every direction.
The floor was made of stone, more than twenty centimeters thick.
Standing in place without taking a step, he had crushed the stone floor beneath his feet.
In the footage, the air around Dragon began to distort. The sky outside the window turned pitch-black within seconds, and thunder rolled in from the distance, drawing closer and closer.
Revolutionary Army soldiers ran down the corridor and stopped at the door, unable to approach because of the wind pressure pouring through the gap.
Dragon stood on the shattered floor, watching the image on the Sky Screen of Luffy kneeling in a pool of blood, holding Ace's body.
His lips moved again.
The Sky Screen enlarged the movement of his lips.
The same two syllables.
"Luffy."
Still no sound.
3,722 times.
The footage cut off there.
The screen remained black for five seconds.
Then the final segment of footage appeared on the Sky Screen.
Time marker: original timeline, seventh day after the end of the Paramount War.
Revolutionary Army Headquarters, Dragon's private room.
The room was small and furnished with extreme simplicity: a bed, a desk, and a chair.
There was nothing on the desk.
But the Sky Screen's view moved in on the desk drawer.
The drawer opened.
There was only one thing inside.
A newspaper.
The newspaper was dated seventeen years ago. Its pages had yellowed and its corners had curled, but it had been pressed flat, every crease carefully smoothed out.
There was a photograph in the newspaper.
The photograph was small and poorly printed, a candid shot of a harbor somewhere in East Blue. A group of children were chasing seagulls.
One of the children wore a straw hat, his mouth open wider than his face, both hands reaching for the sky as though trying to catch the seagull flying highest.
The Sky Screen enlarged the photograph.
The child's face was blurry because he had been running when the picture was taken.
But the straw hat was clear.
Dragon sat at the desk, took the newspaper from the drawer, and spread it out before him.
His finger came down on the blurry figure in the straw hat, and its pad lingered on that little face for a long time.
A line of text appeared on the Sky Screen.
[Monkey D. Dragon obtained this newspaper through an underground intelligence network seventeen years ago. It contains the only photograph of Luffy he owns]
[Number of times this newspaper has been looked through: more than 6,000]
[The area worn by repeated touching is concentrated on Luffy's face in the photograph]
Six thousand times.
The palm-sized, blurry outline in an out-of-focus photograph had been touched by a pair of hands six thousand times.
He had touched the spot where Luffy's face appeared until it turned white, the ink completely worn away.
Dragon sat at the desk, his finger resting on the face that had become so blurred it was barely recognizable.
His lips parted.
This time, the Sky Screen played the audio as well.
"Luffy."
There was sound.
Very faint.
So faint that no one could have heard it if the Sky Screen had not amplified the volume.
But this was the first time in twenty years.
With sound.
He had called his son's name.
Late at night, in a room with no one else in it, before a newspaper that had been touched six thousand times.
The footage cut off there.
The judgment began to appear on the Sky Screen.
[Regret assessment: Monkey D. Dragon's regret is not that he made the wrong choice]
[His regret is that he made the right choice, but that choice required him to give up, with his own hands, every right he had as a father]
[He cannot go back]
[He cannot be seen]
[He cannot call that name to his face]
[All he can do is use the wind in place of an embrace from 127 meters away, and six thousand touches in place of being there]
As the final line appeared, in the Sabaody Archipelago:
Luffy stood still, the brim of his straw hat covering his eyes and hiding his expression.
Zoro stood beside him, one hand on Luffy's shoulder, saying nothing.
Rayleigh leaned against a wall, watching the final image on the Sky Screen without moving for a long time.
"Luffy."
Rayleigh spoke.
Luffy did not look up.
"What do you think?"
Luffy was silent for a long time.
The shadow beneath his straw hat covered most of his face, leaving only his chin and lips visible.
His lips tightened, then relaxed.
"He touched it six thousand times."
Luffy's voice was lower than usual.
"A single photograph."
"Touched six thousand times."
He reached up, took off the straw hat, and held it in his hands.
There was an old scar on the brim, made by Crocodile in Alabasta. Luffy had never let anyone repair it.
He stared at the scar for a few seconds.
"I don't need him to be my dad."
He put the straw hat back on his head.
"But if he sees me again next time."
He raised his head, the golden light of the Sky Screen reflected in his eyes.
"Then he should say my name to my face."
"Out loud."
On the Sky Screen, the final line of the judgment text was still glowing.
New content was appearing.
[Given that the core of Monkey D. Dragon's regret lies in twenty years of silence and absence, the system has determined the reward as follows]