Ikkaku's wrench hit the deck with a clang that echoed like a gunshot. "We have to stop," she snapped, grease smeared across her forehead, fingers twitching like live wires. "I can't weld shit when we're lurching like a drunk on payday. One more wave and the hull's gonna split like a rotten melon—which, okay, maybe we should've thought about before tangling with half the Marine fleet—"
Law's eye twitched. "Bepo. What's close?"
Bepo's nose wrinkled as he squinted at the sonar screen. "Island. Maybe… thirty knots northeast? Sensors are picking up weird readings, though. Like the water's… glowing?"
Marya patted her hips and frowned. "Anyone seen my jacket?"
Law stared at her. "Now?"
"It was my only one," she said, like that explained everything. As if they weren't one bad sneeze away from sinking. "Black. Silver stitching. Very stab-resistant."
Penguin, elbow-deep in a leaking pipe, snorted. "Yeah, 'cause that's what we're missing. A fashion crisis."
Shachi lobbed a screwdriver at him. Missed. Hit Clione in the shin. "Ow! Dick!"
Jean Bart's voice boomed over the intercom: "Land ho!"
Nieuw Bloemendaal rose from the horizon like a bruise—purple and sickly yellow under the dying sun. The canals gleamed, but not with water. Something thicker. Neon pink, syrupy, catching the light like spilled poison. Windmills loomed, their sails spinning slow and creaky, but instead of grain, they pumped that glowing sludge into fat storage tanks stamped with Doflamingo's grinning jolly roger.
Hakugan whistled low. "Smells like… candy. But, like. Candy that hates you."
Marya's nose wrinkled. "It's Sanguine Lily nectar. Toxic. Probably hallucinogenic."
Uni blinked. "How d'you know that?"
She didn't answer. Just flexed her fingers, the black veins under her skin writhing for half a second before stilling.
The Tang limped into port, its hull groaning. The docks were crowded, but not with fishermen. Farmers, maybe, if farmers wore black clogs and starched bonnets dyed the color of mourning. Their faces were hollow, eyes tracking the crew with the dull focus of people who'd forgotten how to hope.
One of them, a kid no older than ten, kicked a withered lily stem. It skittered across the cobblestones, brittle as old bones.
Ikkaku let out a sharp exhale. "We're not staying long."
Law's fingers drummed against Kikoku's hilt. "Just long enough to patch the holes."
Marya's gaze snagged on a poster nailed to a splintered post—a grinning, rose-maned lion, Kaido's crest blazing above it. Her lips curled. "Famous last words."
Somewhere deep in the island, a windmill's gears ground together. The sound was a knife dragged over teeth.
Shachi fake-whispered to Penguin: "Bet you ten berries the locals try to eat us."
Penguin fake-whispered back: "No takers. Look at them. They'd chew through steel."
Bepo whimpered.
The air tasted like sugar and rust. And beneath it, something worse. Something hungry.
Marya's missing jacket was the least of their problems.
Jean Bart stepped onto the dock first, his boots crunching over something that wasn't quite sand—more like crushed glass, glittering wet under the neon sludge-light. "Supplies," he grunted. "Food. Bolts. Anything that won't kill us faster than this air."
Clione squinted at the storefronts. Wooden signs hung crooked, names peeled down to ghosts. Van Dijk's Herbal Remedies. Tulip & Blade Smithy. All shuttered. All stinking of rot and that cloying sweetness, like someone bottled carnival cotton candy and let it ferment. "Encouraging," he muttered. "Real fucking encouraging."
Law's hand hovered near Kikoku. His jaw worked—left, right, left—as he stared at the smiling sigil spray-painted on a wall. Doflamingo's mark. Faded, but not enough. "Stay sharp," he said, quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that meant I'd slice the sky open if I could. "In and out. No detours."
Marya lingered at the edge of the group, eyes narrowed. A figure slipped into a bar down the street—tall, snake-neck tribe, hair tied with a leather cord. Hawaiian shirt flapping like a surrender flag. Amaru Valentine. Her fingers twitched toward her hilt.
Penguin nudged her. "What's up?"
"Nothing," she said, too fast. "Thought I saw… never mind."
The town was a wound.
Cobblestones cracked underfoot, weeds clawing through the gaps. Windmills loomed, their sails patched with burlap and rust, pumping that neon nectar into tanks labeled SAD in cheerful cursive. Every third building had a boarded-up window, every alley reeked of piss and lily rot. Farmers shuffled past, clogs scraping, bonnets black as funeral veils. One woman dragged a sack of withered bulbs, her hands gloved in rags.
Hakugan sniffed. "Smells like… burnt sugar. And death. But fancy death. Like, death with a ribbon."
Shachi poked a wilted tulip in a window box. The petals crumbled. "Charming place. Five stars. Would drown here again."
Bepo hovered near Law, ears flat. "Captain, that guy's staring at us."
A man leaned in a doorway, face gaunt, eyes tracking them like they were ghosts. Or maybe he was the ghost. Hard to tell. His shirt was stained pink at the collar.
Ikkaku gripped her wrench tighter. "Yeah, well. Stare back. Maybe he'll blink."
They passed a canal, the water glowing toxic pink, fat bubbles rising to the surface. Something moved under the sludge—a Gifter, maybe, scales glinting like oil spills, patrolling with a trident. Uni froze. "Are those… teeth in the water?"
Jean Bart kept walking. "Don't ask."
A child crouched in the gutter, stacking lily stems into a skeletal doll. Her fingers trembled. Marya tossed her a berry. The kid stared at it like it was a spider.
"Don't," Law warned.
Too late. An Overseer materialized from the shadows—black uniform moth-eaten, eyes hollow. He snatched the berry, crushed it in his fist. "No handouts," he hissed, voice like a rusted hinge. "Harvest's thin enough."
Marya's blade was half-drawn before Law caught her wrist. "Focus," he growled.
She yanked free. "I'm focused on his funeral."
The market square was worse. Stalls lined with jars of nectar, pink and pulsing. A vendor hawked "Bloom Tokens" from a cart—petal-shaped iron coins, Kaido's crest stamped crooked. "Trade for rations!" he croaked. "Trade for mercy!"
Penguin picked up a token. Flipped it. "Real generous. What's this get me? A punch in the throat?"
The vendor smiled, gums bleeding. "A punch's free."
Shachi snorted. "Hilarious. You're a riot. Got any actual food?"
A hand tugged Law's sleeve. A girl, maybe sixteen, face smudged with soot. "You're pirates," she whispered. "You got explosives? Medicine? I'll trade." She opened her palm—a wilted lily bulb. "S'got secrets in it."
Law stepped back. "We're not staying."
The girl's face hardened. "Yeah. Nobody stays."
Marya lagged behind, gaze darting to the bar Amaru had slipped into. The Gilded Gracht, the sign read. Waterfront patio, tables draped in moldy lace. Laughter spilled out—too loud, too sharp. A Marine's laugh. Or a pirate's.
Penguin caught up, breathless. "You gonna volunteer as tribute or what?"
She glared. "Or what?"
Inside, a shadow moved—Amaru, leaning over a dice game, Lady Luck rifle slung across his back. His Hawaiian shirt was pristine, like the island's grime refused to touch him.
Marya turned away. "Let's go."
"Go where?"
"Anywhere that isn't here."
The streets coiled tighter, the air thicker. They passed a mural half-scraped off a wall—a lion battling a dragon, orange paint bleeding into the cracks. Resistance art, maybe. Or an epitaph.
Bepo sneezed. "Why's it smell like… vanilla?"
Law didn't answer. Ahead, a windmill creaked, its gears grinding out a wet, metallic scream. Inside, shadows moved. Figures in lab coats. Caesar Clown's laugh, high and wheezing, echoed in the rafters. Or maybe it was the wind.
Jean Bart stopped. "Captain. We're being followed."
Law didn't look back. "I know."
Footsteps, then. Dozens. Soft, shuffling. The farmers. The hollow-eyed. The ones with pink-stained hands.
Marya's thumb brushed the hilt of Eternal Eclipse. "Told you," she muttered. "Famous last words."
They ducked into an alley—narrow, walls sweating neon sludge, the air thick enough to chew. Jean Bart's shoulders scraped brick; Ikkaku's wrench hissed as she spun it, ready to crack skulls. But the farmers didn't charge. Just… fell. Knees hitting cobblestones, hands clasped like broken puppets. One woman reached out, her glove fraying, fingertips raw and glittering with lily pollen. "Take us," she whispered. "Please."
Bepo's ears flattened. "Uh. Captain. They're… begging?"
Law's voice was a scalpel. "We're not a ferry service."
Marya leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "Why?"
The farmers flinched. Looked at each other. A man with salt-cracked lips mouthed something—no, not here—eyes darting to the alley's mouth. The windmill's shadow stretched over them, gears grinding like a beast chewing bone.
Law turned to leave. "Parts. Supplies. That's all."
A girl—maybe sixteen, bonnet askew—lunged forward. "I can get you bolts! Sheet metal! Anything." Her voice cracked. "But you gotta—"
"Gotta what?" Law's jaw flexed. "Burn down a distillery? Start a war?"
Marya smirked. "We've been floating for days. I'm game."
Bepo whimpered. Shachi elbowed Penguin: "Ten berries says she stabs someone before sunset."
The girl's hands shook. "Just… come."
A commotion erupted in the street—boots stomping, Overseers barking orders. "Harvest quotas!" A whip cracked. Someone screamed. High. Animal.
Marya tilted her head. "Too late, Captain."
Law's knuckles whitened on Kikoku. For a second, you could see it—the surgeon calculating blood loss, the pirate weighing risk. The man remembering a trunk, a gunshot, a brother's last breath.
The girl grabbed his sleeve. "Please."
Ikkaku spat. "We're wasting time."
The alley walls seemed to lean closer, oozing that pink nectar. It dripped into puddles, reflecting their faces back at them—smeared, warped. Strangers.
Clione gagged. "Smells like… candy-floss rotting in a landfill."
Penguin fake-whispered: "Five-star resort. Told you."
Law exhaled. "Where?"
The farmers scrambled up, hope flickering in their hollowed faces as they moved to distract the overseers. The girl led them deeper into the maze, past boarded-up shops and canals choked with lily roots. A child's doll lay abandoned—skeletal, made of stems. Hakugan nudged it with his boot. "Cheery."
They stopped at a cellar door, rusted shut. The girl pressed her palm to the wood. A symbol was carved there—faint. A lion's head, crowned. De Oranje Schaduw.
Marya's eyes narrowed. "Cute logo."
The girl didn't smile. "They'll kill me if they know I brought you."
Law's voice was ice. "Who's 'they'?"
A windmill shuddered. Somewhere, a SAD barrel rolled, its herbal remedy label peeling. The girl's answer was swallowed by the grind of gears.
Jean Bart cracked his neck. "In or out, Captain?"
In, Marya's grin said. Always in.
Law's nod was barely there.
The door creaked open.
The dark inside smelled like earth and blood. And something else—gunpowder. Hope. The kind that burns your throat.
Bepo sneezed. "Smells like mold."
Shachi snorted. "Better than lilies."
Penguin tossed a Bloom Token into the canal. It sank, glowing. "Here's to a discounted escape."
After the door closed, the girl—Lotte, she'd hissed when Shachi called her "kid"—darted around the cellar like a spooked firefly, striking matches with hands that shook just enough to betray her. Candles flared, their light pooling in the hollows of the room: a rebel den buried under the island's rot. Walls papered with canal maps, ink bleeding at the edges. Crates labeled EXPLOSIVES stacked next to a child's dollhouse. A workbench cluttered with half-built pumps, gears greased black, screws scattered like teeth.
And the smell. Oil. Mildew. Gunpowder chewing the back of your throat.
Bepo sneezed. "It smells like… wet dog?"
"Quiet," Lotte snapped, braids swinging—strung with wilted lily stems and copper wire. Her face was all angles, smudged with soot and defiance. Sixteen going on sixty.
A voice cut through the shadows, gravel-dry, salt-cured: "Who's here?"
Bram Van Leeuwen emerged from a back room, his frame filling the doorway like a ship's prow. Late fifties, maybe. Face a roadmap of scars and sunken tides. Arms sleeved in tattoos—canal routes, winding blue and green, disappearing under rolled-up sleeves. His eyes were the worst part. Not angry. Empty. Like the sea had scooped him out and left the hull.
Lotte froze mid-match. "It's me." She glanced over her shoulder, "I brought new people. They can help."
Bram's laugh was a keel dragging over rock. "Outsiders?" His eyes shifted over the group, unimpressed, "You'd trust pirates?"
"Had to," she shot back, chin jutting. "You said we're out of time. Out of options."
Law leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "We're not staying. Parts. Supplies. That's the deal."
Bram's gaze slid over him. "You think this island lets you deal?" He spat, the glob landing near Jean Bart's boot. "You're already neck-deep, just by being here."
Marya smirked. "Neck-deep's where the fun starts."
Shachi snorted. Penguin elbowed him.
Lotte gripped the workbench, knuckles white. "They've got a sub. A way out."
Bram's hand slammed down, rattling tools. "Out? You think running fixes anything?"
Ikkaku twirled her wrench. "Drama's free, bolts aren't. Where's the metal?"
Law's voice sharpened. "Last time. Supplies. Now."
Lotte didn't flinch. "Underground aquifers. Flood the fields, kill the lilies. Then you get your parts."
Bram snorted. "Kid thinks she's Admiral material."
"Kid's kept your ass alive!" she snapped, voice cracking.
Clione coughed. "Awkward."
Hakugan poked a rusted grenade. "This live?"
The room fell silent. Law's jaw worked—left, right—before he turned to leave. "Waste of time."
"Wait!" Lotte lunged, yanking open a crate. Inside: ship parts. Rivets. Steel plates stamped with Marine codes. Stolen. Salvaged. Perfect. "Take it. All of it. Just…" She faltered. "Just sink the pumps."
Bram loomed over her. "You don't speak for us."
"Someone's gotta!" Her shout echoed. Somewhere above, boots stomped. Overseers. Close.
Marya tilted her head. "Tick-tock, Captain."
Law stared at the crate. At Lotte's desperate eyes. At Bram's hollow ones. The candles guttered, wax pooling like molten bone.
Bepo whimpered. "Captain…"
Shachi fake-whispered: "Twenty berries says the old man's a mermaid in disguise."
Bram's fist clenched. "Get. Out."
Law's fingers brushed Kikoku. "We're taking the parts."
Lotte's breath hitched. "And the pumps?"
"No."
"Then you're dead." Bram's smile was a knife wound. "They'll smell the steel on you. Burn your sub to scrap."
Jean Bart cracked his knuckles. "Let 'em try."
The cellar door shuddered. A fist pounded. "Open up! Harvest inspection!"
Marya's grin widened. "Too late."
Bram swore. Lotte grabbed a wrench. Law's Room bloomed blue.
Tick-tock.