Direction

The Navy left.

After the gray-blue outline of the warship vanished beyond the horizon, White Wax Town took two days to fully digest what had happened.

The topic at the docks shifted from "Where exactly were those pirates hiding?" to "I heard half their heads had rotted away," then to "What are we having for dinner tonight?" Until, in the end, nobody mentioned it anymore. Fishing boats went out as usual, the market opened as usual, everything exactly as it had been before the warship arrived.

Marcus's household returned to the same old routine as well. Damian went to the docks before dawn every day and came home at dusk, his shoulders forever dusted with wood shavings he could never quite brush clean. Barlow ran around with the fishmongers, replacing the fish scales stuck to his ledger's cover time and again. Roy and Mila trained chakra, swordsmanship, and Fire Release in the woods, then went home to cook dinner.

That evening, Damian came back earlier than usual. There had been little cargo at the docks that day, so the foreman had dismissed them early.

When he pushed open the door, Barlow was the only one in the kitchen.

He sat by the wooden table without looking at the open ledger before him.

He stared at the grain of the tabletop, tapping the ledger's cover with one finger at steady intervals.

Damian draped his coat over the back of a chair and scooped up a ladleful of water from the vat.

"Where are Mila and Roy?"

"Upstairs."

Damian drank the water and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

He glanced at Barlow. Barlow's fingers were still tapping, not quickly, but with exactly the same interval between each tap.

"Something you want to say?"

Barlow did not answer. He closed the ledger.

"Wait until everyone's here."

After dinner, the oil lamp had been refilled once. Once its flame settled, it cast the shadows of the four of them onto the kitchen walls.

Damian sat nearest the door, Roy by the window, while Mila sat cross-legged on a wooden stool, turning a piece of white wax wood over and over in her hands.

Barlow sat across the table, the ledger before him unopened.

"We have to do something."

His voice was quiet, but every word landed clearly. The kitchen fell silent for a beat.

Damian lowered his hand from the table.

"What do you want to do?"

Barlow looked at him. The oil lamp flickered, and the light in Barlow's eyes flickered with it before steadying again.

"Are we really going to spend our entire lives here as ordinary people, carrying the Uchiha's abilities and bloodline?"

No one answered.

"I'm not saying we need fame and glory, but we should do something. At the very least, improve our household's circumstances."

Mila placed the white wax branch on the table. "That pirate crew's 'inheritance' was only twenty or thirty thousand Beli. What can you even do with that?"

"Twenty or thirty thousand Beli can buy a few barrels of fruit in Orange Town." Barlow spoke unhurriedly. "But the point isn't the fruit."

Mila's fingers stopped on the branch.

"I've studied the geography of the East Blue for a year." Barlow opened the ledger, but not to the pages of accounts. He flipped instead to the inside of the back cover.

A sheet of paper folded many times was tucked there. Its surface had been handled so often that the creases had started to fray. He pulled it out, unfolded it, and spread it across the table.

It was a sea chart.

Over the past year, whenever he encountered a merchant ship or an outsider sailor, he had found ways to pry out scraps of information: an island's name, the direction of a route, the location of a reef. He had recorded them bit by bit.

In the end, the sea chart left behind by the pirates Roy had captured completely filled the gaps in Barlow's information, allowing him to finally complete this chart.

Mila leaned over for a look.

"When did you draw this?"

"Not important."

Barlow's finger landed on a point on the chart.

"Orange Town, the largest trade hub in the Wind Organ Archipelago. It's the fruit distribution center of the East Blue. Oranges, apples, grapes—they're shipped out of the Wind Organ Archipelago, pass through Orange Town, then sold to places like the Goa Kingdom and the Konomi Archipelago. Orange Town itself produces little fruit, but every fruit merchant in the East Blue has to go there to buy stock."

His finger began to move, stopping over another cluster of islands.

"The Konomi Archipelago, the island chain we belong to. More than twenty inhabited islands and over forty uninhabited ones, scattered in an arc from east to west. White Wax Island lies at the easternmost edge of the archipelago—remote, tiny, not even marked on most maps."

His finger continued onward.

"Beyond the Konomi Archipelago lies the Goa Kingdom."

His tone sank slightly. "The largest country in the East Blue, with the biggest population and strongest military. Its capital is on the northern main island, enclosed by high walls. Nobles live inside, commoners outside, and scavengers farther out still. One wall separates one class of people from the next."

His finger moved again, stopping at a circled location near the edge of the chart.

"Loguetown, the necessary passage into the Grand Line. Every ship entering the Grand Line from the East Blue makes its last resupply there. Pirates, merchants, Marines, bounty hunters—you find all kinds."

Barlow withdrew his hand.

"The core of East Blue maritime trade lies in the Wind Organ Archipelago. Orange Town is the throat of the Wind Organ Archipelago. Right now, several local merchant groups control Orange Town's fruit distribution, each acting on its own and undercutting the others. Every year, more fruit rots on the docks than gets sold. Whoever gains a foothold in Orange Town holds the lifeline of the East Blue fruit trade. The Konomi Archipelago's catches, the Goa Kingdom's timber and ore, the Wind Organ Archipelago's fruit—these three goods flow across these seas day and night. But seven out of every ten cargo ships belong to independent operators. One ship belongs to this owner, another to that one. Their shipping capacity is scattered, their bargaining power weak, and middlemen strip them layer by layer."

He pulled his hand away from the chart and leaned back in his chair.

"Whoever can consolidate all that can carve out their own territory on the East Blue's trade map."

The kitchen remained silent for a long time. The lamp's flame burned steadily, occasionally giving off the faintest crackle.

Roy stared at the dense markings on the chart, the lamp's light reflected in his brown eyes.

"You want to go into business?"

Barlow nodded once.

"Twenty or thirty thousand Beli can't buy a shipload of goods, but it can buy a ticket to Orange Town."

He raised three fingers, then folded them down one by one. "First, I follow fishmongers through the markets every day, from White Wax Town to neighboring towns. Which island has a good catch, which has a poor one, which market has high prices, which has low prices—it's all recorded in the ledger. The same fish can differ in price by thirty percent on different islands."

He folded down his second finger.

"Second, I've met plenty of East Blue shipowners who run independent routes. Most are honest people. They own a ship, hire two or three sailors, carry a cargo, and earn a little money through hard work. Their ships are never fully loaded. It isn't that they don't want more cargo—they just can't find enough. The return trips are even emptier. Sometimes they sail there with half a shipload of oranges and return with an empty hold. The freight costs still have to be paid. The shipowners lose money, and so do the cargo owners."

He folded down his third finger.

"Third, White Wax Island has white wax wood, and Dad's craftsmanship is unmatched across the entire Konomi Archipelago. Fishing boats, merchant ships, Navy ships—a ship is a ship. Someone with the skill to repair ships will never starve anywhere."

He curled all three fingers into a fist.

"We don't need to stay here forever. Dad's craftsmanship is our root, and that root is planted on White Wax Island. But the branches and leaves can stretch outward."

Mila shifted her gaze from the chart to Barlow's face.

"So you want to gather the Konomi Archipelago's catches, use the spare capacity of independent shipowners to transport them all to Orange Town, then bring fruit back from Orange Town and distribute it across the Konomi Archipelago. Earn freight fees with one hand and price differences with the other. Ship repair keeps the shipowners close."

Barlow looked at her.

"When did you figure that out?"

"Just now, when you mentioned 'empty ships on the return trip.'"

"It's not just fish and fruit. The biggest problem with maritime trade in the East Blue is information. One island doesn't know another island's prices. Shipowners don't know where cargo owners are, and cargo owners don't know where shipowners are. Whoever controls the information can take a cut in the middle. The cut doesn't need to be large. Take ten percent from every transaction, and a hundred transactions become serious money."

His finger traced back and forth between Orange Town and the Konomi Archipelago on the chart.

"From Konomi to Wind Organ, from Wind Organ to Goa, from Goa to Loguetown. Link it all into one line. Start with the two nearest islands, with fish and fruit. Don't spend the money we earn—put all of it into the next shipment. After one trip, twenty or thirty thousand Beli can become a hundred thousand. Once we own our own ship, freight costs drop by a huge margin, and profits will soar."

Damian finally spoke. He had barely said anything all night, sitting near the door with his arms folded as he watched Barlow point across the chart.

"Once you make money, then what?"

Barlow turned to look at him.

"You said you wanted to improve our household's circumstances." Damian spoke slowly. "Making money improves our circumstances. Once you've made enough, then what?"

"That's not what you want to ask."

Damian said nothing.

"You want to ask whether the road I'm taking is the same as the road you're taking."

"It isn't."

Barlow answered himself.

"You want to change this world. So do I. But you think the problem lies with people, while I think it lies with the rules." Barlow folded up the sea chart along its original creases, folding it carefully piece by piece. "The Navy is order, and order itself isn't wrong. But the current order, from Mary Geoise to the Four Blues, crushes people downward at every level. The Goa Kingdom's high walls, the Celestial Dragons' privilege, the Navy's obedience—this isn't because some person lost their conscience. This system was designed this way from the beginning. You want to enter the rules and change them. I want to build a set of my own outside them."

He tucked the folded chart back inside the ledger's back cover.

"Two roads don't necessarily have to be the same road."

Damian remained silent for a long time. The oil lamp's flame shone steadily in his eyes. Then he stood.

"Then walk your road. Let me see how far you can go."

He turned and went upstairs. The wooden steps creaked familiarly beneath his feet, fading one step at a time.

Barlow closed the ledger.

"Mila."

"Yeah?"

"You're coming with me."

Mila set down the white wax branch in her hand, stood, and headed upstairs. Her voice drifted back from afar. "What else would I do?"

Only Barlow and Roy remained in the kitchen.

"Second Brother."

"Yeah?"

"For what you want to do, what do you need me to do?"

Barlow's fingers paused on the ledger's cover.

"When you awakened your eyes, that voice said to let them witness the Uchiha's power."

Roy said nothing.

"You're the only one among us who has taken another step into the Uchiha's power. We may be doing business, but in these seas, in this world, strength is always indispensable."

"I need you to protect us."

He patted Roy on the shoulder and turned to go upstairs.

Roy sat alone by the window. He reached into his pocket and took out the magatama.

After Mila put it back yesterday, he had taken it from the hidden compartment and kept it on him ever since. The white jade gave off a warm, gentle glow beneath the moonlight, the dark red crack running through its middle like an old scar.

He closed the magatama in his palm.