[A/N:
Hey all — quick note before the storm begins. I am very sorry about the late upload.
I had three brutal lab exams across two days while writing this chapter. That meant splitting it: half one day, half the next — and finalizing it just hours before upload.
So if this chapter feels like it's stitched together between circuits, scalpel stress, and sleeplessness… you're absolutely right.
But even so — the silence still moved.
Now, back to Krishna.]
...
He didn't say goodbye to Cocoyashi. He didn't leave with words.
Didn't wait for Nami to see him from the garden path. Didn't wait for Nojiko's glance or Bell-mère's nod. He left the way a shadow leaves at dusk — slow, seamless, and unnoticed.
Just stillness—quiet, long, deliberate—and then motion.
The way a tide recedes after blessing a shore.
It felt easier that way.
The wind behind him moved as if reluctant to let go. He didn't slow his pace.
Krishna walked east before the sun had finished rising, his bare feet pressing prints into the soft loam path that would erase them within the hour. Medha stayed silent in his mind. Sheshika slithered through the undergrowth at a respectful distance, trailing him like shadow made silk.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
He didn't know where he was going. That was the point. No paths. No destinations. Only presence—a drifting idea wrapped in skin.
A ghost in the making.
The wind moved gently through the reeds as he passed the last tree that still remembered Cocoyashi. After that, the forest grew thinner. The scent of salt faded behind him. And the map folded itself into something wider, lonelier.
The road narrowed as the trees changed — from gentle orchard greens to brittle, bone-thin pines that snapped underfoot without warning. He moved east through forest paths no map bothered to name, past villages where even rumors didn't stop to linger.
Three days.
Not a single soul looked him in the eye.
But on the fourth, there were screams.
He heard them long before he reached the clearing.
Sharp. Real. Not the theatrical kind. The kind torn from a throat that didn't know it could reach that pitch.
His pace didn't quicken.
Only his heartbeat did.
A single pulse — calm, focused, then still.
He stepped into the clearing just as one pirate drove a knee into an old man's stomach.
...
The village had no name.
Or maybe it did—but Krishna didn't ask. Names anchored things. And what was about to happen didn't need anchors.
The village was a collection of seven buildings, slouched against each other like tired dogs in the sun. A broken fountain hissed in the middle of the square, dribbling brown water.
He heard the noise before he saw it: harsh yelling, splintered wood, a child crying. His pace didn't quicken. He didn't blink.
Just shifted direction.
And in the middle of the square: three pirates.
Low-rank. No banners. Mismatched boots. Laughing too loud.
One held a cleaver to the back of an old man's neck.
Another held a boy by the collar, dangling him like a fish too small to eat.
The third was kicking over baskets of drying herbs like he thought domination came from bruising someone's harvest.
The villagers didn't resist.
Just stared. Hopeless. Hollow.
Krishna walked in.
Didn't announce himself.
Didn't pose.
He simply stepped into the square as if he'd always been there.
No one noticed him at first. His steps made no sound.
When the first pirate turned to mock someone behind him, he noticed the figure.
He froze.
"Who the hell are y—"
He moved forward with the cleaver raised.
The sentence never finished.
By the time he stepped once, Krishna had already moved through him.
The cleaver clattered to the ground. The pirate hit the ground a second later.
The pirate's wrist bent the wrong way, then his shoulder followed, then his consciousness slipped out like a candle smothered under a bowl.
The other two turned.
Too late.
The second lunged.
Krishna ducked, redirected, twisted the man's wrist inward. A yelp, then silence as pressure on a nerve ended the conversation.
The third didn't even reach for his weapon. He dropped the boy and tried to run.
He collapsed mid-turn.
No blood.
No sound beyond motion and breath.
Less than ten seconds.
Krishna hadn't touched him. Not visibly.
He stepped back.
The silence that followed was… wrong.
Not grateful.
Tense.
The square was still.
The child didn't cry anymore. Just stared.
The old man had fallen to his knees, hands still in a prayer shape that didn't seem meant for anyone in particular.
And the villagers… gathered.
Slowly.
Cautiously.
From homes, from windows, from rooftops.
Not running forward in thanks.
Not sighing in relief.
Just… watching.
Their eyes didn't say "savior."
They said "what are you?"
Krishna stood where he was. He didn't move.
A woman stepped forward. Her hands were still clutching a spool of thread. She pulled her daughter behind her skirt.
A man near the well muttered something Krishna didn't catch.
An elder turned and crossed himself—not toward Krishna, but against him.
A child dropped a toy. It rolled across the square. No one retrieved it.
Krishna heard it all.
He bent slightly and reached into his coat.
He walked to the well. Pulled out a single white-and-gold feather.
He placed it—carefully—on the edge of the well.
He didn't speak.
Didn't bow.
Just turned.
And waited.
But no one came forward.
No one asked his name.
No one offered thanks.
Instead—
"Did you see how he moved?" someone whispered. "Like death had a spine."
"Monsters don't bleed," said another. "And I didn't see him breathe."
"He ain't from here."
"He ain't from anywhere."
Krishna said nothing.
He turned again and walked away.
Behind him, no one followed.
Ahead of him, no one waited.
And inside him—something cracked.
...
He walked for hours.
The trees began to thin again. A stream ran crooked alongside the path, choked with leaves and moonlight.
Sheshika trailed silently beside him for a while.
Then, "They did not kneel."
"I didn't ask them to."
"But you left a feather."
"I thought I should."
Medha's voice emerged, soft and toneless.
"Threat resolved. Three attackers. Zero casualties. No structural damage. No external observers. No fatal injuries. Civilian safety restored. No pursuit detected."
Krishna kept walking.
His feet felt heavier than they had in weeks.
"Three attackers down," Medha continued. "Zero casualties. Mission parameters clean."
"Then why," Krishna said, his voice barely audible, "do I feel like the monster?"
He stopped near a stream. Sat beside it. Watched the water ripple past his knees.
The surface refused to hold his reflection for long. The wind kept interrupting it.
He let his hand dip in.
The current moved past him.
Didn't slow. Didn't greet.
Just moved.
"They didn't thank me," he said softly.
Sheshika shifted nearby, folding her body like ribbon over a root.
"They were afraid," she murmured.
"They feared me more than the men who tried to hurt them."
Sheshika coiled gently on the moss nearby. "Because they could name the pirates. They could hate them without consequence."
"I didn't hurt them."
"But you reminded them that something bigger lives in the dark."
He closed his eyes.
"I wanted them to feel safe."
Medha answered first. "They did. Safer than before. But not safer with you."
He leaned forward, dipping his fingers into the water.
It curved around his hand.
Didn't embrace it.
Just moved past.
He whispered, "Then I've become a shadow pretending to be light."
He opened his eyes and looked at his reflection. The water didn't hold it for long.
"What did I do wrong?"
Medha was silent.
Then,
"They feared what they couldn't name. You gave them safety. But not story. No context. No name. Just power."
Krishna exhaled.
A long, breathless sound that felt too old for his lungs.
"I don't need to be thanked," he said. "But I didn't want to be feared."
Sheshika leaned her head forward.
"They've seen pirates. Brutes. Liars. Saviors who ask for gold after bleeding someone else. But you..."
He looked at her.
"You left nothing. Not even a name. Just silence. Just the question, 'What if the next one isn't so kind?'"
He looked away.
Reached into his coat.
Pulled out another feather.
Stared at it.
He didn't place it anywhere.
Just… held it.
Then slid it back inside.
"I won't leave one where I'm not welcome," he murmured.
He rose.
Didn't speak again.
Just kept walking.
And this time, the trees didn't part for him.
They let him pass.
But they didn't welcome him, either.
...
They rested under a twisted oak that night.
Sheshika curled around the base.
Krishna sat against the trunk, eyes open but still.
The forest made sounds.
But none of them reached him.
He didn't sleep.
He didn't meditate.
He just listened.
For a long time.
And when Medha finally spoke again, it was almost kind.
"You did not fail them."
He didn't reply.
But something in his silence agreed.
Only he didn't believe it yet.
...
He didn't walk quickly.
The wind was still, the trees barely rustled, but Krishna's body moved like something half-submerged. His steps weren't heavy — just deliberate. Measured. Almost like he was trying to feel the world react beneath each heel.
But the world didn't respond.
Not with warmth.
Not even with wariness.
Just silence.
Not the kind he carried.
A different kind.
The kind that follows a question no one wants to ask aloud.
...
The forest ahead thickened. Pines rising like bones from the dirt. Their needles made no noise as they fell. A creek veered to the left and vanished. The path narrowed. Sheshika slithered behind him, making no comment. She knew this kind of walk.
She'd seen it before.
The walk of a man who hadn't lost a fight — but something worse.
A man who had won and still came away feeling smaller.
Krishna didn't look back at her.
Didn't need to.
Medha's presence flickered, muted but attentive. She was watching his vitals. His brain patterns. The silence was an echo chamber for her diagnostics.
She didn't speak.
Not yet.
...
The trees had thinned by the time Krishna stopped walking.
He hadn't meant to go this far.
But when you're running from something inside yourself, distance becomes a poor man's distraction.
He found a crooked bluff above a half-dried creek, where the moss didn't mind his weight and the wind forgot how to whisper. He sat slowly, back resting against a tilted stone split by roots, and let the world catch up to him.
Or maybe he just ran out of places to run.
Krishna sat.
He didn't do it like a monk or a mystic.
He folded.
The mask across his lower face loosened slightly as he exhaled. The breath that left him didn't sound tired. It sounded... unfinished.
He didn't close his eyes.
Didn't meditate.
Didn't center himself.
He just existed — and let it hurt.
...
Sheshika coiled nearby, her movements deliberate, fluid — slow out of respect, not hesitation. Medha was silent, but present. Her pulse in the back of his mind was low and steady, running background scans, monitoring biofeedback.
They didn't speak.
Not yet.
Krishna stared down at his open hands.
The feather was still there, caught between his fingers like it didn't know whether it had been rejected or saved.
He hadn't left it behind.
Couldn't.
He wanted to.
But something in him recoiled at the thought.
He turned it once in his palm. The gold tip shimmered faintly in the fading light.
"They were never going to understand you," Medha said finally."Even if they weren't afraid, they couldn't have understood."
Krishna didn't answer.
"You stopped something terrible from happening," she added. "Cleanly. Without pain. Without injury. They were alive because of you."
He said, not to anyone in particular, "They looked at me like I was the one they'd need to stop next."
His voice didn't rise. It didn't even carry.
But it cut.
Medha paused.
"Yes," she admitted.
"I didn't say it wasn't clean."
"Then what are you asking?"
Krishna looked up.
Not at her projection — just at the sky.
"The more I do this," he said, "the less I recognize myself afterward."
Sheshika coiled nearby. The quiet of her movements was almost a kindness.
"You left no wounds," she said.
"Doesn't matter."
"You gave no commands. You took no praise. You made no demands."
"They weren't grateful."
"Do you need them to be?"
Krishna looked down at his hands.
Flexed them.
"Do I?" he repeated. "Or did I just think that silence would speak for me — and forget what silence looks like to people who only know fear?"
Sheshika stirred. "You do not feel anger."
"No."
"Then what?"
He hesitated.
Then answered, "Detachment."
He didn't say it like it was enlightenment.
He said it like it was a warning.
"I moved through those men like they were obstacles. Not people. Like I was a function. A reaction. I didn't feel righteous. I didn't feel merciful. I just... completed something."
He closed his hand around the feather.
"And when it was over, they didn't cheer. They didn't cry. They backed away like I was still waiting to finish the job."
No one replied.
He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees.
"Peace is supposed to feel lighter than this."
Medha pulsed gently.
"You wore no insignia. Spoke no words. Your face — masked. Your presence — silent. You left no context."
He nodded slowly.
"I thought they'd understand what the feather meant."
"Some do," Sheshika said.
"But most don't."
"No."
He opened his hand again.
Stared at it.
"It used to be enough — just to help. Then leave."
He looked up at the trees, eyes narrowing.
"Now it feels like every time I show up, I add something to their fear."
Medha's tone shifted .
"There's a pattern now," she said. "Your presence used to disappear. Now it lingers."
"I'm not doing anything different."
"Exactly," she said.
"You're still not doing anything. But now the world's decided that means something."
He exhaled again. This time slower. He hated how right she was.
"I was just trying to help."
"You did."
He pressed his palms together, fingertips at his lips.
"They don't see the restraint."
"They never will," Sheshika said.
"They see what I could've done."
"Yes."
He looked up toward the trees. The branches didn't break the sky. They just offered glimpses of it — stars blinking between needles like scars that hadn't healed right.
"I didn't want to become this," he whispered.
Medha's voice softened.
"You became a thing that terrifies the things that terrorize."
He let that sit.
Let it curdle.
"Then why do I feel like I'm only one inch from becoming what I'm chasing?"
Sheshika stirred.
Because that was the question neither of them wanted to hear out loud.
The wind shifted slightly.
Only slightly.
Enough to brush the back of Krishna's neck like a sigh from something older than the trees.
...
There was a long pause.
Even the forest hushed.
Not in reverence.
In unease.
As if it, too, didn't know what Krishna was becoming.
He leaned back against the stone, one hand pressed lightly to the side of his mask.
"I haven't taken it off in two weeks."
Medha confirmed.
"Seventeen days, nine hours."
"I'm starting to forget what my face feels like."
Sheshika's tongue flicked softly.
"You are hiding it less from them," she said, "and more from yourself."
Krishna didn't argue.
He couldn't.
"I thought silence was the most respectful form of mercy."
"And it was," said Sheshika. "Until silence became a signature."
He didn't blink.
"Now it's a brand."
"Now it's fear," Medha added softly.
Then he reached for a pocket inside the lining of his coat.
Slid the feathers inside, side by side.
Not discarded.
Not displayed.
Just hidden.
Not because he was ashamed of them.
But because right now — they didn't feel like gifts.
A silence followed.
But this one wasn't peaceful.
It was full.
Dense.
Heavy.
Like a held breath between heartbeats.
Krishna reached inside his coat again.
Pulled out a second feather.
Held them both — one in each hand.
"I used to believe the feather said enough."
"It still can," Medha offered.
"Not when they look at it like a curse."
He stood slowly.
Walked a few paces toward the edge of the bluff.
Watched the creek below flicker like a dying vein.
"I wanted to be hope," he said quietly. "Not consequence."
"You are both," said Sheshika.
"And you can't be one," Medha added, "without being mistaken for the other."
He exhaled.
And for a moment, it felt like it might be too much.
But only for a moment.
"There's a boundary," he said finally.
"A line."
"Yes," Medha agreed.
"A thin one."
"Yes."
Krishna's fingers curled slightly.
"I don't want to cross it."
"You haven't."
He looked at the feather in his hand.
Unmarked. Untouched. The fibers didn't tremble, even in the breeze.
"I almost did."
Medha adjusted her tone again — this time clinical.
"You showed no excess. You struck cleanly. You stopped violence. You did not escalate."
"I wasn't talking about the act," Krishna replied.
He looked at her projection in his peripheral vision — a faint pulse against the side of his mask's lens.
"I was talking about the feeling."
He closed his hand around the feather.
"It felt easy."
That silence, that breath, that ease — that was what haunted him.
Not the villagers.
Not the fear.
Not even the whispers of "monster" and "god."
What haunted him was how easily he had dismantled the situation.
How little he'd felt.
Not rage. Not justice. Not grief.
Just... clarity.
Pure, efficient, inhuman clarity.
And now the echo of that moment lingered. Not like a lesson.
Like a warning.
"Emotionally," Medha said softly, "you have not stabilized."
He smiled, barely.
"Observation-based empathy matrix is still active, I assume?"
"Always."
"Then tell me what you saw."
"A man who didn't breathe until he left the village."
"That's not new."
"It is if you don't notice anymore."
He let that hit.
Didn't deflect it.
Didn't dodge.
Krishna dropped the feather into his lap and leaned back against the tree trunk.
The bark pressed into his spine. He welcomed it.
It was real.
It didn't forgive or question or fear.
It just existed.
"Maybe I should stop," he said finally.
Neither Medha nor Sheshika responded.
He stared at the sky again.
"There's going to come a point," he said. "When they stop seeing feathers and start seeing a blade they can't put away."
Sheshika murmured, "And what would you do then?"
He smiled again, tired.
"I'd leave."
"And go where?"
He didn't answer.
Didn't know.
The forest had no answer either.
Just the sound of leaves rejoining the soil — a cycle that never questioned why it began again.
He turned.
Walked back toward the tree.
Sat again.
This time not in despair.
Just in pause.
"I'm not done," he said.
Medha said nothing.
Sheshika blinked slowly.
"I'm not quitting."
Still, no response.
"But I'm not sure what they'll call me next time."
That time, Sheshika answered, "Whatever they call you, it will not change what you chose."
...
He stayed there until night finished falling.
No fire. No food.
Just stillness.
Not the kind that watches.
The kind that waits.
And when he finally lay down, head resting against the root of the stone, he didn't dream.
He didn't even close his eyes.
He just let them drift — somewhere between seeing and surrender.
And when the wind came again, curling around his mask, it didn't touch his skin.
But it stayed.
And for now, that was enough.
Eventually, he stood.
Not because he was ready.
But because staying still had started to feel like giving up.
He looked down at the feather in his palm again.
Thought about leaving it against the tree bark.
Didn't.
Instead, he slid it back into the folds of his coat, tucked behind the lining where warmth tended to linger.
He didn't speak again.
Didn't vow anything.
Didn't declare purpose.
He just walked — slower this time, but steadier.
As if every step was trying to forgive itself.
And somewhere in the distance, the wind began again.
Softly.
As if it was still deciding whether he deserved its company.
...
Shimotsuki Village greeted him with the smell of pine oil and oiled blades.
No gates. No guards. Just a quiet bend in the forest, where the path thinned and the pines gave way to tilled earth and worn wooden eaves. The buildings leaned low and clean, tucked among the trees like they knew how to listen.
A half-faded banner hung from the dojo's awning, still catching morning light like it was waiting for a name worth remembering.
Krishna didn't enter through the front gate.
He stepped in from the forest's edge, walking barefoot past the fading outer markers carved in Old Wano script — older than the villagers realized, older than some of the trees that bore them. His coat fluttered faintly in the breeze, his mask still on, lower face hidden
He had walked two days since the last village. His feet ached, but not badly. The ache grounded him — like gravity trying to remember he was still a body, not just the echo of a presence that had forgotten what it meant to arrive anywhere without purpose.
He didn't remove his mask.
He never did anymore.
But he let his hood down. That was enough.
He wasn't here to be seen.
Just to see something.
The path wound uphill gently. The forest behind him thinned into memory. As he climbed, the village seemed to lean inward. Fewer voices. No clatter. Only the distant rhythm of a bokken striking wood in repetition — a sharp tak, tak, tak, like someone carving time into the earth through sheer will.
He passed no one on the road.
But the sound pulled him forward.
...
There was a grave near the top of the hill — clean, simple, meticulously kept. The grass around it didn't dare grow crooked. A single ribbon, pale blue, fluttered from the hilt of a sword embedded in the earth before the stone.
Kuina.
He paused there.
Only briefly.
Didn't pray.
Didn't kneel.
Just... standing.
And in that silence, thought, She still trains him, even now.
He just nodded — once — and turned away.
The sound of training carried from the field behind the dojo.
He followed it.
...
The training field sat just beyond the ridge. There were no spectators, no instructors — only one boy, alone, breathing hard as he struck again and again at three upright posts. Each swing came with deliberate aggression, but not violence. Precision, but not patience.
The boy was alone.
No teachers. No audience.
Just him, a training post, and three wooden swords.
His hands were raw. His stance wide, almost too wide for balance. He didn't pause between sets. Just re-centered and struck again.
There was rhythm to it — but no grace. Precision, but no calm.
Krishna stood at the edge of the clearing and watched.
Thirty-seven strikes.
On the thirty-eighth, the boy stopped and turned.
He saw him.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't lower his weapon.
"Who are you?" the boy asked.
Krishna didn't answer.
The boy studied the mask, the eyes, the lack of insignia.
"You here to train?"
"No."
The boy's grip tightened slightly.
"Then what?"
"To correct something."
Zoro's jaw set. "I don't need correcting."
"You do," Krishna said. "But only one thing."
He stepped forward, unhurried, slow, measured. He pointed at the boy's left foot.
"You're leaning too far forward on the outside edge. When you pivot for a downward arc, your weight leaks. You'll lose pressure on the follow-through."
The boy blinked. Didn't speak.
Krishna gestured again.
"Back heel. Inside pressure. Reset."
Reluctantly, the boy did.
He shifted his weight.
Tested the stance.
Swung again.
The arc was cleaner. Not perfect. But cleaner.
His body didn't sway.
Zoro stared at the impact point in the post.
"Again," Krishna said.
Zoro swung.
Clean.
Again.
Cleaner.
The boy narrowed his eyes. "You a swordsman?"
Krishna tilted his head. "Once."
"You give lessons?"
"No."
"Then why help?"
He hesitated before answering.
"Because you're not just swinging at wood."
Zoro didn't reply.
He didn't need to.
Krishna saw it in his shoulders — the grief, the frustration, the weight of someone trying to punish the absence of someone they can't bring back.
"She was better," Zoro said suddenly, almost like he didn't mean to say it out loud.
Krishna nodded. "She still is. You're not training to catch up to her anymore."
Zoro paused. "Then what am I training for?"
Krishna looked at him — really looked.
"You're training to carry her."
They stood in silence after that.
Zoro returned to practice.
This time slower.
Focused.
Balanced.
Krishna watched four more sets, then walked to a low stone bench at the edge of the field. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small cloth-wrapped bundle. Folded it once, set it on the bench.
"Open this when your swords feel heavy but your hands still move."
Zoro didn't look over.
"Who says they'll ever feel heavy?"
"They will."
He turned to leave.
Didn't expect thanks.
Didn't need it.
But just before he reached the edge of the trees, Zoro called out, "You didn't tell me your name."
Krishna paused.
Without turning back, he answered:
"I am... a nobody."
Then he disappeared into the forest.
Zoro didn't touch the bundle until the next morning.
He woke before sunrise, moved through his stretches, and found himself glancing at the bench.
Unwrapped the cloth.
Inside, a single page of soft parchment, sealed in wax. When he opened it, a few diagrams — stances and corrections — and a handwritten line across the top,
Power is not in the cut. It is in the restraint before it.
Zoro read it three times.
Then folded the paper and slid it inside his shirt.
That day, when he trained, he didn't swing harder.
He swung smarter.
More deliberate.
More aware.
And he didn't train alone anymore.
Not because someone joined him.
But because he felt watched — not judged — by something quieter than memory.
Not like burdens.
Like sparring partners.
And something sharper than steel.
...
They weren't supposed to be in Goa.
That was the first lie.
The second was that they hadn't planned it.
Ace had planned it. Badly.
Luffy had made it worse. Enthusiastically.
The goal wasn't even all that grand: steal some food rations from a noble's manor kitchen, reroute half the guard patrol through a flooded pigpen, and pass the haul to a local orphanage up the eastern rise before anyone noticed the smoke.
It was going fine—right up until Luffy punched someone too hard for laughing at Ace's scars.
And then it was a sprint.
Through vines, over rooftops, past confused shopkeepers and startled goats, the kind of joyful chaos only boys could make holy.
They had no plan for the aftermath.
They never did.
And yet somehow they always landed somewhere soft.
...
"You said three guards!"
Luffy ducked under the swing of a halberd, rolled in the mud, and came up grinning. "It was three!"
Ace sprinted beside him, fists already bloodied. "That guy with the cape was not a guard!"
"Well, he was guarding something, wasn't he?"
"That was the head butler!"
"Oh."
Behind them, five uniformed men and one red-faced nobleman scrambled through a garden hedge, shouting curses and waving assorted metal at the two boys now bolting toward the eastern slope.
"YOU LITTLE ANIMALS!"
Luffy turned mid-run, tongue out. "We're bandits, thank you very much!"
Ace shoved him forward. "Don't taunt when they're still chasing us!"
"I thought you liked showing off!"
"I do! Not when we have six guards chasing us, and have more come for us after we beat them up!"
They turned a corner, feet slamming into gravel, and collided headfirst with the final gatepost of the manor grounds. Luffy caught himself on a barrel. Ace didn't. He went over it, landed hard, then sprang back up just in time to block a club with both forearms.
The impact rattled his teeth.
The second guard lunged.
Luffy kicked the man in the knee, then swung around the post and dropkicked the nobleman square in the chest.
The man wheezed. Collapsed backward onto his own hat.
"Oops."
Ace smirked. "That one's going in the story."
"You're gonna write the story?"
"Makino's been teaching me!"
Luffy laughed—then got grabbed by the collar.
Ace moved before he thought. His elbow cracked against the jaw of the man holding Luffy. The guard went down, dazed, drooling.
Ace caught Luffy by the back of the shirt, spun, and flung him forward. "MOVE!"
Luffy grinned. "Race you to the bridge!"
They vanished over the rise, shouts trailing them, feet flying, hearts slamming against their ribs.
...
Now they sat under a bridge, feet dangling over a stream that smelled faintly of wet rope and peeled bark. The sun filtered through the canopy above them. Their breath still came fast, uneven, exhilarated.
Ace's knuckles were scraped. Luffy's cheek was smudged with soot. There were two loaves of bread between them, already torn into halves. One had teeth marks before Ace had even finished sitting down.
They collapsed on the ground, panting. And then Ace started laughing, and Luffy joined in a second later.
They didn't stop laughing for a full minute.
"You shouldn't have hit him," Ace said finally.
"He called your face a map of failure," Luffy muttered through a mouthful of crust.
"He was a guard. He had a point."
"He was a rich guard. That's two insults."
Ace smirked.
Didn't argue.
After some time, they sat on opposite rocks, munching on stolen bread they'd swiped before the chaos started.
"You threw that last guy like a sack of potatoes," Luffy said, chewing loudly.
"He was shaped like one."
"Still—bam! He just fell."
Ace grinned. "You kicked that noble in the chest."
They sat in silence for a bit, chewing, listening to the water move like it had secrets worth guarding.
Then, Luffy said, "Would've been funnier if Krishna was here."
Ace's grin faded slightly.
"Yeah," he said. "He'd have caught the bread mid-air while lecturing us."
"And then eaten it before finishing the sentence."
"He'd have told us not to punch the guy. Then broken his sword anyway."
"He'd have made the bread toast itself with a look."
"Or scolded us while handing us the rest of the guard's rations."
They laughed again, but the sound thinned quicker this time.
The silence that followed wasn't like the ones Krishna used to carry — quiet but full.
This was a thinner thing.
A missing shape.
Luffy swung his legs over the edge of the bridge a little harder.
He poked at a cut on his wrist. "He'd have known that guy was behind me."
"Krishna always knew. Everything."
"He'd have stopped the whole fight before it started."
"Yeah," Ace said. "But he wouldn't have stopped us."
Luffy looked up.
Ace picked at his crust. "You ever notice that? He never stopped us. Not when it was stupid. Not when it was loud. Just... when it was cruel."
Luffy nodded slowly. "He said it's okay to punch back. But never first."
"And never with the kind of hit that feels good," Ace muttered.
"That's the hard part."
"Yeah."
They sat quietly.
Luffy tapped his fingers on his knees.
"Makino says he's not just helping anymore."
"What's he doing?"
"Watching."
Ace frowned. "What does that mean?"
"She said sometimes it's worse when people start watching instead of helping. It means something's changing."
Ace tossed the last crust of bread into the stream.
"I don't think Krishna's changing."
"No," Luffy said. "But I think the world is."
The stream moved between their feet, uncaring and unbothered.
Luffy tilted his head back.
"Do you think he misses us?"
Ace didn't answer.
Luffy pressed on. "I know he's helping other people now. But he loved it here. You saw how he looked at the trees."
"He doesn't miss trees, Luffy."
"Then what?"
Ace sighed.
"You ever look in the mirror after a good fight? Not bruised. Not busted. Just... full. Like you did something real."
"Yeah."
"That's how Krishna looked every time he told us a story we didn't understand."
Luffy chuckled. "Like he was explaining something to ghosts."
"Maybe he was."
They lay back on the grass beside the stream. The sky above them was cloudless. Quiet.
But not empty.
Luffy said, "He left because he thought we were okay."
"No," Ace said. "He left because he thought we were enough."
Luffy swallowed. "Are we?"
"I don't know yet."
They said nothing more.
The sun moved a little.
The wind picked up.
And the world felt one voice quieter.
Back at the house, Makino poured tea into three cups, while Dadan was yelling.
Only two were touched.
The third sat at the far end of the table, undisturbed, catching the light like it was trying to matter without being noticed.
Dadan paced.
Garp hadn't shown up, but his coat was slung across the back of the chair like a warning.
The door slammed open.
Ace and Luffy tumbled in.
Wet. Muddy. Bread-stuffed.
Dadan finally stopped yelling when Ace ducked inside and held up a half-loaf like a white flag.
Makino didn't scold.
She just raised an eyebrow.
"Guards?"
"Just three," Ace said.
"Six," Luffy corrected. "And a butler."
"Two butlers," Ace added. "I think."
Dadan stared at them.
Then barked out a laugh.
"Idiots."
Luffy grinned.
Makino sipped her tea, looking at the feather pinned near the door — the one Krishna had left before departing for who-knows-where — and her fingers stilled.
"He would've broken their noses," Dadan muttered. "After the second warning."
Makino added softly, "He wouldn't have let them see it coming."
Ace sat down, rubbing his shoulder.
Luffy flopped beside him, then leaned over the table with a theatrical groan.
"Why'd he leave?" Luffy asked the ceiling.
Makino answered without looking up. "Because some things aren't fixed from inside."
Dadan grunted. "He didn't fix a damn thing. He just kept the worst parts from getting worse."
"Sometimes," Makino said, "that is fixing."
They all fell quiet.
Except for the creak of the house.
And the sound of the feather near the door — fluttering against the draft like it wanted to leave, too.
"They talked about Krishna again," Luffy said, suddenly quieter. "At the manor. Some of the guards. One of them called him 'the East Blue ghost.'"
Ace pulled off his boots. "They think he's not real."
"Makino," Luffy said. "Is he real?"
She didn't look at them when she answered.
She just nodded once. "Yes."
"How do you know?"
"Because peace doesn't last this long on accident."
The tips of the feather near the door swayed gently.
Just... there.
Quiet.
Waiting.
Makino looked at it once.
Then turned away.
"He'll be back," she said.
Luffy nodded.
Ace didn't.
But he believed it anyway.
...
Ace didn't sleep that night.
He stared at the ceiling for a long time.
Thought about the way Krishna used to move — quiet, sure, but never absent.
He wasn't like a teacher.
Or a soldier.
He was like a question the world hadn't figured out how to answer yet.
A year ago, he made everything feel like it would make sense eventually — even if it didn't make sense now.
But lately?
The silence he left behind was starting to feel like something they were supposed to inherit.
Not just remember.
And Ace wasn't sure he was ready for that.
...
Makino always set three cups out.
She didn't explain it. She didn't call it a ritual. And no one ever said anything about it—not since the day Krishna left without a sound.
One cup for whoever was visiting.
One for herself.
And one that never got touched.
Today, as the wind shifted against the shutters and the trees outside rustled with the thick breath of early rain, she poured into all three. The steam rose slowly.
She didn't look at the third cup. But she adjusted its position half an inch until it caught the light from the window in the usual way.
The third cup sat at the far edge of the table, right where he used to lean.
Right where no one else ever sat.
Dadan came in muttering. She dropped her cloak onto the hook and stomped mud off her boots with the subtle grace of a wild boar.
"Damn wind feels like it's waiting for something."
Makino offered her a seat.
Dadan took it without thanks, because that was how she gave thanks.
"Kids're restless," she added, running a hand through her hair. "Ace and Luffy went off again. Probably beating some guy somewhere by now."
Makino smiled faintly. "They'll come back hungry."
Dadan leaned back, eyeing the cups.
"You're still doing that?"
"Yes."
"Hoping he'll show up and sip it ghost-style?"
Makino didn't answer.
Dadan grumbled. "You're lucky I like you."
She drank. Bitter, hot. Just how Krishna used to make it.
Dadan just leaned back on the creaking bench and stared at the ceiling.
"I don't get it," she muttered. "You raise a kid, teach him how to punch straight, feed him like a piglet, and next thing you know he's out there... becoming fog?"
Makino smiled faintly. "He never really arrived the way others did. Why would you expect him to leave like them?"
Dadan scowled. "Because I wanted to yell at him. One more time."
Makino poured the tea. Steam curled. Quiet. Unapologetic.
"He's still here," she said.
"No, he ain't."
Makino looked up. "Then what's that?"
Dadan followed her gaze. Near the door, tacked into the wood between two old hooks, was the white-and-gold feather Krishna had left behind.
Still clean. Still bright.
Still untouched.
It hadn't gathered dust. It hadn't curled at the edges.
Like it refused to be a relic.
Dadan looked at it for a long moment, then shook her head. "I hate how that thing makes the room feel like a temple."
Makino didn't reply.
She didn't need to.
...
It was nearly an hour before Garp showed up.
He didn't knock. He never knocked.
He smelled like salt, gunpowder, and miscalculated affection.
Boots muddy. Wrists still bandaged from his latest "lesson" with Luffy.
Makino had a fourth cup ready before he sat.
He just stepped inside, grunted, and flopped into the chair across from the third cup without touching it.
He nodded his thanks and drank.
They all sat.
No talking for a while.
It wasn't a silence of discomfort.
It was the silence you build when someone's missing—but still watching the room you're in.
Finally, Dadan said, "You'd think after all this time, I'd stop checking the damn treeline every morning."
Makino replied without looking up. "You're not the only one."
Garp said nothing. His brow furrowed slightly, but his cup stayed at his lips.
"I saw that feather move yesterday," Dadan continued. "Near the door. No wind in the room. Just a twitch."
Makino's hands didn't stop working. She was cutting ginger. Quietly. Precisely.
"You think it means something?" Dadan asked.
Makino shrugged. "It never doesn't."
They sat.
The silence wasn't heavy.
It was structured.
Like a building without blueprints. Like something that had been scaffolded into place across months of not asking questions they didn't want the answers to.
Dadan eventually broke it.
"Krishna's not a god," she said.
"Nope," Garp agreed.
"He's not normal either."
"Nope."
"He's out there, what? Fixing villages? Leaving feathers? Scaring Cipher Pol?"
Makino lifted an eyebrow. "We don't know it's fear."
"It's fear," Dadan said. "Nobody sends agents in disguise to ask about feathers if they're calm."
Garp finally leaned back, setting his cup down louder than necessary.
"Maybe that's the problem." he said flatly.
Dadan frowned. "What is?"
Garp's voice lowered, just a little.
"They're scared of the symbol. Not the man."
Makino stirred her tea gently.
"He's stopped giving them anything to hold onto," Garp continued. "No name. No face. No threat. Just acts. That's the part that scares them. Because you can't retaliate against an act. You can't predict a principle."
Dadan leaned back, exhaling.
"Then he's winning."
"No," Garp said.
And that word hung there.
Heavy.
Real.
Makino said nothing.
Just set her spoon down.
"What do you mean?" Dadan asked quietly.
Garp looked at the third cup.
Still untouched.
"Because the longer he keeps moving without anchoring, the more the world will start writing its version of him. And he won't be able to correct it."
Makino's eyes narrowed slightly.
"He was never interested in being understood."
Garp shook his head. "Doesn't matter. You walk into a burning building and come out with no soot on you, people are gonna assume you lit the fire or you are the fire."
Dadan grumbled. "You've been thinking about that one."
Garp smirked. "Had a long walk."
The three of them lapsed into silence again.
Only this time, it wasn't peace.
It was vigilance.
Unspoken.
Uncertain.
Dadan crossed her arms. "So he's not a threat—but he's not not a threat."
Garp didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Makino spoke carefully. "Do they know it's him?"
"They suspect it's someone," Garp said. "They don't want to know who."
Dadan snorted. "Cowards."
"Pragmatists," Garp corrected. "You can't arrest an idea. You can't threaten a symbol."
Makino set down her knife. "You can smother it."
Garp nodded.
"And that," he said, "is what worries me.
Dadan stared at the third cup.
Steam was gone.
The liquid still warm.
"I don't care what the brass says," she muttered. "I'd trust him before any admiral with a flag sewn to their back."
"They're not worried about what he's done," Garp said. "They're worried about what he hasn't."
Makino frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means they're afraid of someone powerful who hasn't made demands. Who doesn't want power. Who doesn't speak."
He looked at the feather above the hearth.
"They don't know how to fight that."
Makino refilled his cup.
"Are you going to protect him?" she asked softly.
Garp was quiet.
Dadan looked up sharply. "You better."
"I'll do what I can."
Makino's voice didn't change. "That's not what I asked."
Garp looked at her.
And for once, his face didn't carry the usual bluff.
Just weariness.
And something colder.
"They're not calling him an enemy," he said. "But they're not calling him a citizen either."
Dadan spat into the fire pit.
"They wouldn't call him anything. That would make him real."
Makino spoke while gently swirling her tea.
"Luffy still asks about him," she said.
Garp nodded. "Of course he does."
"He doesn't ask the way he asks about Sabo."
"No."
"He doesn't ask like he wants to know where Krishna went. He asks like... he expects him to be watching."
Dadan snorted. "He is watching."
Makino tilted her head. "Is that what he does now?"
Garp looked at her.
"He's trying to be a myth without a mouth. But you can't protect the world like that."
"Because myths don't speak," Makino said softly.
"And if they don't speak," Garp replied, "then the world speaks for them."
...
They didn't say much after that.
Makino finished her tea.
Dadan refilled hers, then didn't drink it.
Garp stared at the third cup again.
Finally, "How long are you going to pour that one?"
Makino didn't blink.
"As long as he needs a place to return to."
He nodded.
Didn't challenge it.
Didn't need to.
A long moment passed.
Then Garp stood, stretched, and pulled his coat off the back of the chair.
"I'm gonna go teach Ace not to punch with his thumb inside his fist."
"He already knows," Makino said.
Garp grinned. "Then I'll teach him again."
He left.
Dadan stood a minute later, muttering something about noisy kids and training sticks.
Makino was alone in the room again.
Three cups.
Two empty.
One untouched.
She reached for it.
Felt the warmth still trapped inside.
And whispered, not like a prayer—
But like a certainty.
"You're not done yet."
Outside, the wind shifted.
Not enough to move the trees.
But enough to press against the windows like a breath held too long.
Makino glanced up.
Then to the third cup.
Still untouched.
Still waiting.
...
Makino cleaned the table.
Left the third cup alone.
Didn't clear it.
Didn't dump it.
Just left it.
Still warm.
Still waiting.
Like everything in the house had started to shape itself around an absence that refused to be a void.
The feather above the hearth twitched again.
And this time, no one pretended not to see it.
...
The night before Krishna left Shimotsuki, he watched Zoro train again — but this time, from the stone bench where he'd left the parchment.
Shimotsuki's air held that brittle weight between summer and storm — the kind that made children restless and swordsmen hungry. The training field behind the dojo had gone quiet for the night. But Krishna stood alone by the outer path, facing the edge of the hill.
The boy hadn't noticed him yet. He was in rhythm now, not the kind that struck blindly, but one born of friction and focus. His bokken met the post with careful violence, the bruises on his hands wrapped tighter, his shoulders aligned the way Krishna had shown.
The paper lay open on a flat rock nearby. Slightly smudged, slightly crumpled, but read. Studied. Held.
When Zoro finished his set, he paused. Breathed. Wiped his arm across his brow. Then turned—and stopped when he saw the figure on the bench.
"You're still here?"
Krishna inclined his head.
Zoro picked up the parchment and held it without looking at it. "I didn't think you'd wait."
"I didn't."
Zoro raised an eyebrow.
Krishna rose slowly. Stepped forward. "I watched."
They stood a meter apart, the same wind brushing both coats and sleeves.
Zoro folded the paper, slid it into his belt. "Are you going to say something cryptic again?"
"No."
"Good."
A pause.
Then, "You're standing better."
Zoro didn't smile. But he didn't scowl either.
"I'm swinging quieter," the boy muttered. "That line — about restraint — it pisses me off."
"That's normal."
"But it works."
"I know."
"Still pisses me off."
Krishna nodded once, approvingly.
The silence stretched again. Comfortable this time.
Zoro broke it.
He just asked, "You leaving?"
"Yes."
"Going anywhere?"
Krishna turned slightly toward the forest's edge.
"Not yet. But soon."
Zoro looked at the ground. Then at his own feet. "When I stand like she's still watching… it hurts."
"I know."
"But it also helps."
"I know that too."
They stood together a moment longer.
Then Zoro asked, with some hesitation in his voice, "You ever miss the people who made you strong?"
Krishna's eyes didn't blink. "Every day."
"Then why don't you go back to them?"
"Because I wouldn't be the person they made if I did."
Zoro scowled. "That's dumb."
Krishna nodded. "Yes."
Zoro swallowed, glanced away. "You think they'd recognize who we become?"
Krishna's reply was quiet. "I think they already do."
Zoro nodded, like he wanted to believe it.
He stepped back, and raised the bokken in a shallow salute — a gesture of respect, and acknowledgment.
Then said, "Don't get killed."
"I won't."
Zoro snorted. "You sound sure."
"I'm not," Krishna said. "But I move anyway."
Zoro's mouth twitched — not quite a smile, not quite disbelief. He turned and walked back toward the post, fists curling around the sword, eyes sharper.
Krishna stepped into the trees.
He didn't look back.
...
The forest was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that waits for noise — the kind that has forgotten what sound is.
Krishna followed a deer trail until it broke against a slope of moss and fractured roots. An old tree waited there — older than the village, older than the graves, maybe older than Krishna's silence.
The same twisted roots. The same split trunk. The same half-buried patch of rock that jutted out like a seat built before memory. Krishna settled onto it in silence, coat pulled tight.
He'd found it days ago.
It had waited since.
Sheshika was already there, coiled among the roots, eyes open but slow, like moonlight in a tidepool. Medha was quiet, her interface dimmed to a soft pulse in the back of his vision.
He didn't speak.
Didn't settle in meditation.
Didn't sleep.
Just sat.
His coat folded around him. His feet flat. Hands resting on his knees.
After a while, he reached into the lining of his coat and pulled out the white-and-gold feather.
Still unbroken.
Still his.
Still unshed.
He turned it in his fingers. It didn't flutter. It just balanced there — too real to be metaphor, too quiet to be protest.
Still asking a question it didn't have words for.
"You think I'm failing," he murmured.
Medha didn't respond.
Sheshika shifted.
"You think I should stop."
Still no answer.
"That means I'm not wrong."
This time, Medha stirred. Her voice gentle, but unbending.
"You doubt yourself."
"Yes."
"That doesn't make you wrong."
"No."
"But it could make you dangerous."
"I know."
He pressed the feather to his forehead for a breath.
Then lowered it.
"I didn't ask for this," he said.
"We know," Sheshika said.
"I didn't ask to be a myth."
"No," she agreed. "You just walked quietly enough to become one."
He closed his eyes.
"I wanted to be a shield. Not a story."
"Stories are shields," Medha said. "And sometimes they are swords."
He didn't move.
"I'm afraid," he admitted.
Sheshika said nothing.
Medha didn't offer reassurance.
Only data.
"Your heart rate has stabilized. But tension levels remain elevated."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
Krishna opened his eyes.
He looked at the horizon.
It wasn't glowing. Just waiting.
"I'm tired."
"Then stop."
He set the feather on his knee.
"I could disappear," he said. "Let the myth die. Let the rumors scatter."
"But you won't," said Sheshika.
"No."
"Why not?"
Krishna watched a single leaf dancing in the air.
Not spiral.
Not dance.
Just fall.
"Because I move anyway."
Medha shifted slightly.
"You're afraid of becoming what they expect."
"Yes."
"You're afraid of becoming what you fought."
"Yes."
"You're afraid of being forgotten."
That one took longer.
Then, softly, "No."
She paused. "Why not?"
"Because if I'm remembered wrong," he said, "that's still better than not having done anything at all."
He picked up the feather.
Balanced it between his fingers.
"Their fear doesn't define me."
"But it follows you."
"I let it."
"You could let it go."
"I will."
He didn't leave the feather on the rock.
He tucked it gently inside the bark of the tree — a fold of wood cracked just wide enough to hold something delicate.
Hidden.
Not displayed.
Not discarded.
Just there.
Waiting for no one.
...
The wind stirred through the tree's limbs — not like a whisper. Like breath. Like a listener who'd been waiting hours for something worth hearing.
Krishna stood.
Not quickly.
Not like a man invigorated.
Like someone accepting a weight that wouldn't get lighter, but no longer fought being carried.
He tucked the feather into a split in the tree's bark.
Not displayed.
Not hidden.
Just held.
He stepped back.
"Let them fear me," he said softly. "If they must."
His fingers grazed the bark one last time.
"But let what follows never deserve it."
Medha's pulse shifted.
"Where now?"
Krishna turned east.
"The next place," he said.
"With purpose?"
"No."
He took a step.
"But with direction."
"That's enough."
He walked.
And this time, the silence didn't hold him back.
It moved with him.
Not reverent.
Not afraid.
Just present.
And far behind him, the tree held its secret.
A feather tucked into silence.
And the only voice left behind was the one that didn't echo anymore.
...
Author's Note:
Yo, divine degenerates and dharmic believers—
This was the chapter where Krishna cracked.
Not with rage. Not with grief. But with something far more dangerous to a myth: doubt.
He saved a village — and got feared for it.
He guided a boy — and said goodbye before the boy could even realize what had been passed down.
He saw the world — and found it couldn't see him back without flinching.
And yet, he still moved. No heroic flourish. No divine calling. Just a tired, battered man choosing not to break beneath the silence that's begun to define him.
We also sat with Foosha. With the chaos. With the loss of Sabo still sore, and Krishna's absence not mourned, but held open like a door that refuses to close.
And we saw Zoro — not the swordsman yet, but the raw edge of who he'll become — sharpened quietly by a myth who never gave his name.
This was the chapter where Krishna didn't find clarity.
He found the discipline to walk without it.
Because myth or man, the step after doubt is the one that matters most.
Next chapter: A ship. A storm. And something that knows Krishna's true name.
Stay tuned.
—Author out.
(P.S. Luffy tried using Kami-e to dodge Ace's punch mid-fight. Instead he sneezed, tripped, and bit into a live eel. He insists this was "part of the plan." Sheshika agrees. Medha refuses to log it.)