It's not like he was planning much celebration anyway. Until the marker showed up, he hadn't even intended to tell anyone his birthday was approaching. Why would he? None of them know him well enough to care, and he's fine keeping it that way. His ideal celebration would simply have been to have an extra drink, smoke an extra cigarette. Spend some time alone by the water. Nothing has really changed, except that it will be hard to enjoy any of it much now.

As for the rest of what Cao Pi says, though, that's not really very encouraging either. It's true, but it's not really what he wants to hear. It makes it feel like there was an inevitability to it, that it's normal for two siblings to be so completely opposed in values and actions. And that shouldn't be the case - or if it must be so, then let it end in argument, but not death.

"It shouldn't be," he replies. But it's hard to find the words for anything more. He failed in every way to stop Doflamingo. The list of clients and contacts, all of his findings, vanished in tatters in the snow. All he can hope is that the little he was able to tell Sengoku over the years will amount to something, and that the Marines on that island that day might still have made some sort of impact. He'll never know, now.