The sea breeze in the East Blue was still the same as ever.
Salty and damp, it swept in from the open sea carrying bits of broken surf from the shallows.
If it blew in from the Konomi Archipelago, it carried an extra layer of scorched dried-fish fragrance; if it backflowed from Loguetown, it was heavy with the mixed dockside smell of rust and beer.
The dockworkers of Orange Town could tell the wind direction by smell, but they did not need to anymore. The Uchiha Trading Company had erected a weather vane on the breakwater, with a red-over-white gunbai flag hanging from it, bright enough to hurt the eyes on clear days.
Another year had passed.
Newly laid bluestone paving stretched from the docks beyond the town center, and shops spread out along both sides of the stone road. A new commercial lane had appeared, dedicated to specialties from the West Blue.
The first shop at the entrance was a West Blue tobacco store, its display window filled with hand-rolled cigars shipped from Capone Family territory. Next door was a West Blue deepwater pearl shop.
Fruit ships and spice ships lined up in the harbor to unload. The masts no longer flew a jumble of colorful flags, but either the uniform red-over-white gunbai of the Uchiha Trading Company or the Capone Family's black flag with its silver hound, sometimes both side by side.
The nobles of the Goa Kingdom's High District now drank black tea sweetened with citrus honey, served shellfish freshly harvested from deepwater reefs in the West Blue, and lit Capone Family special hand-rolled cigars in their studies.
They did not know where those goods came from. They only knew that once the words "Uchiha Trading Company" were spoken at any port in the East Blue, people