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Hakugun knows it would be easy to get lost, damaged, or wrecked in the blizzard that surrounds Punk Hazard, even when hiding underneath the horizon. It’s been nearly a year past when the admirals had their duel and the elements are still rioting in their aftermath, air and ocean in a turmoil as unnatural as the fruits that caused it. At home, it would have been an omen of nothing less than the apocalypse, total violent annihilation lurking in the future, the spirits in a fervor never seen before.
And as the Captain surveys the storm, the dark mass of clouds and snow and hail and wind and every sea danger packed into one, for the first time, Hakugan thinks the omens may be right. The world will be upended when they reach Punk Hazard, the Hearts fractured. The Captain will be splintered off, left to face the coming maw alone. An apocalypse of sorts—the spirits are fond of metaphor.
The Captain, frowning at the sky, isn’t.
“Can you sail it?” he asks, lightning flashing as he does, its grim light dancing over a grimmer glower. “Or do we wait?”
There’s the thunder crash, always chasing after, and Hakugan realizes that he could lie.
It would work. Hearts don’t lie, not about the questions that matter. Not to the Captain. He’d be believed without question. They’d retreat, let the storm pass, let Penguin and the others have more time to try and convince the Captain to find another path entirely. A way where the Hearts stay whole.
“We just need more time to get through to him,” Penguin had said that morning, a hushed whisper in the kitchen while the Captain slept. “He knows we’re right.”
Hakugan had slurped his coffee, straw tucked under the mask, and wondered how much Penguin really believed that. Weeks en route hadn’t been enough, nor the hissed arguments none of the Hearts had acknowledged—but. Maybe. Just maybe a few more days, a few more tries or discussions or fights—it’s an easy, alluring thought. They have changed his mind before, smaller stakes backed with sounder reasoning.
But. Nine years ago, Hakugan had sworn to steer the Tang in whatever direction the Captain wished to take her, however ill-advised or dangerous. This promise, unspoken but known all the same, had carried them through the North Blue, Paradise, Marineford. Rocky Port. The Warlords. Through good decisions and bad ones, adventures and terror. Hakugan has steered their ship on this path without ever faltering. Punk Hazard is just the next stop, even if it’s also the last. There is no shifting off this course, not for the Captain, and not for Hakugan either. This is one oath he won’t break.
The Captain’s watching him, gaze steady and unquestioning, waiting for Hakugan to make the call. And Hakugan doesn’t lie.
“Yes,” he says, and the Captain’s shoulders relax from a tension unnoticed. “We’ll be there by nightfall.”
Hakugan knows he made the right choice. He just hopes the lurking storm’s aftermath won’t make him regret it.