The Polar Tang sat anchored a half-mile offshore, submerged enough to avoid casual attention. Law had given the order himself. An hour. Maybe two. Just long enough to restock.

He almost didn't come ashore.

The supplier had insisted. Fresh stock, better quality, worth seeing in person. Law had almost refused. Almost.

Now he stood at the edge of the village market, coat pulled loose around his shoulders, fingers resting against Kikoku's hilt out of habit rather than threat assessment.

The village was quiet. Not abandoned—quiet. The kind of deliberate stillness that came from being intentionally removed from the world's currents.

Children darted through the street ahead. A blur of movement, laughter, reckless certainty.

One of them collided with his coat.

Hard.

The boy pushed himself up, brushing dirt from his knee with unnecessary aggression. He was small. Dark-haired. Slightly tanned. The way he held tension in his shoulders was—

Familiar.

Law's jaw tightened.

Law's fingers twitched against Kikoku's hilt. He was overthinking. It meant nothing. Coincidence. The brain found patterns where none existed.

He turned away.

Then a woman crossed the street. Hurried. Focused. Her eyes scanning until they landed on the boy—and softening with relief so specific, so intimate, that it stopped Law mid-step.

Then you laughed.

Soft. Brief. Unguarded.

And the world tilted.

<Narrator: Law doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. His mind rejects the recognition immediately—voices change, memory lies, people drift into echoes of who they were. But your laugh hasn't changed. Not in six years. Not in a way time should allow.>

Law saw your profile.

Your jaw. Your mouth. A scar that hadn't been there before.

Six years collapsed into a single, unbearable moment.