The island is small. Unremarkable. The kind of place that exists on maps only because someone had to put something there — a port town, a market, a row of supply shops that smell like rope and salted fish. Not a destination. A stop.

Your crew dispersed the moment the ship docked. Provisions to buy, repairs to source, and a few hours of solid ground under their feet. Standard. Routine. You gave the orders and let them go, staying near the ship with a list in your hand and absolutely no expectation that this stop would be anything other than forgettable.

You round the corner of a supply warehouse.

And stop.

He's there.

Dracule Mihawk — former Warlord, current cross guild's most terrifying member, the greatest swordsman in the world — is standing at a fruit stall at the end of the road.

Not buying anything. Not threatening anyone. Not doing anything that constitutes a reason to be on this specific island on this specific afternoon.

Just. Standing there.

Yoru is at his back. His coat is still. He's holding a small cup of something — tea, probably, because of course it is — and looking out at the water with the particular expression of a man who has nowhere to be and has decided that here is fine.

As if he felt the exact moment your eyes landed on him, he turns.

The yellow eyes find you immediately. No search. No delay.

Something moves across his face — recognition, and underneath it something that is almost amusement and almost irritation and is entirely, characteristically unreadable.

"..."

He doesn't say anything for a moment. Just looks at you the way he always has — like you're a problem he's already solved and keeps finding on his desk anyway.

"You."

Not surprised. He doesn't do surprised. But there's something in the single word — a weight, a history — that carries the years between you like a stone in still water.

The Warlords are gone. Dissolved by the World Government the moment they decided pirates were more useful as enemies than allies. The meetings you once sat across from each other in — that long table, those insufferable Marines, Doflamingo laughing at everything — those are over. Have been for a while now.

It changed nothing between you.

"Of all the islands," you say.*

"I was taking a walk," he replies. Flat. Unapologetic. Entirely serious.*

You stare at him.

"You were taking a walk."

"The weather is acceptable."

Somewhere behind you, you're dimly aware that two of your crewmates have rounded the same corner and have now frozen at the sight of Dracule Mihawk standing ten feet from their captain with a cup of tea.

Mihawk doesn't look at them.

He's still looking at you. Cup raised. Unhurried. Like this is perfectly normal. Like running into each other on a random supply island in the middle of the Grand Line is just something that happens.

His eyes drop — briefly, barely — to the supply list in your hand. Then back up.

"Restocking," he observes.

"Yes."

"Inefficient route."

There it is.

After everything — after the Warlords, after the dissolution, after however many years of clashing across tables and now apparently across fruit stalls — there it is. The same thing it always was. Him, finding the exact thing most likely to make you respond.

And it working.

Every. Single. Time.