The mad echo of Ember's cackle still hung in the cavern's stale air when another figure stumbled from the same side tunnel. Bianca Clark emerged, gasping for breath, her grease-stained overalls smeared with a worrying array of new filth and what looked suspiciously like bone dust. She braced herself against the damp, cold wall, buckling over, hands on her knees as she tried to suck air into her burning lungs.
Charlie's eyes widened. "Miss Clark! Your attire is—"
"Not—" Bianca wheezed, holding up a hand to stop him, "—time for that—" another gasp, "—now! We like, really have to stop her!" Her magnifying goggles were fogged completely opaque.
Aurélie stepped forward, her posture rigid. "Report. What transpired?"
Bianca straightened up with effort, shaking her head as if to clear the madness from it. Her usually expressive hands hung limp at her sides. "I like, am not real sure," she panted. "One minute she was just... Ember. Then she saw this gross old book and, like, flipped a switch. Now she's... she's going to do something really crazy." The word 'crazy' coming from Bianca, who once tried to weaponize caramel, carried a terrifying weight.
Souta, a deeper shadow against the cave wall, spoke in his low murmur. "Crazier than her established baseline?"
Bianca met his gaze, her face pale beneath the grime. She gave a single, solemn nod. "Like, I think so. Way crazier."
Sabo furrowed his brow. "Define 'crazy'," he said, his voice calm but edged with the seriousness of a man who understood the volatility of human powder kegs.
He didn't need words. The answer came in a single, unified look exchanged between Aurélie, Bianca, Souta, and even Kuro. It was a cocktail of pure dread, weary exasperation, and the grim certainty of impending, explosive disaster.
Charlie, sensing the severe shift in mood, cleared his throat. "Ahem! While Miss Ember's psychological state has always been... dynamic, her current trajectory suggests a significant departure from her standard operational parameters. Her actions could yield profoundly unpredictable and likely catastrophic outcomes. Miss Clark's assessment should be taken with the utmost seriousness. Literally."
Sabo's gaze swept over the grim faces. The glyphs detailing global annihilation seemed to pulse on the walls behind him. He sighed, the sound lost in the vastness of the cavern. "I see." He turned to Koala. "It appears our priorities have been... forcibly reorganized. Find her. Contain her. Before she makes the bridge's destruction a matter of when, not if."
Koala nodded sharply, already mentally mapping the tunnel network. "Right. I'll organize search parties. We'll sweep the accessible sectors."
Kuro let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand inconveniences. He adjusted his spectacles. "So terribly troublesome," he murmured, the words dripping with aristocratic ennui, as if dealing with a world-ending pyromaniac was a tedious social obligation.
Elsewhere, in the Guts of the Beast...
Ember skipped through a narrower, older tunnel. The air here was different – drier, carrying the scent of ancient, cured timber and cold, dense stone. The walls were reinforced with massive, dark wood beams, each one wider than she was tall, crusted with the patina of centuries. They groaned softly, a constant, deep-throated complaint under the unimaginable weight of the bridge above.
She stopped, her manic energy pausing as her mismatched eyes landed on the beams. They weren't just supports; they were the skeleton of the entire monstrous structure here, the critical load-bearing points.
"Oooo..." she breathed, her voice full of a child's wonder at finding the biggest, most interesting sticks in the world. She walked up to one, her small hand reaching out to touch the rough, splintered surface. She stroked it, feeling the immense, dormant power held within the ancient wood.
"They hold it all up," Josiah's voice slithered into her ear, a venomous whisper. "Every hammer fall. Every chain rattle. Every single scream. They're the reason it all keeps going. Watch them... watch how they splinter. Such a pretty light... then the big, big fall. You can make it all quiet. You can make it all stop."
Ember's playful expression melted into something dark and awestruck. A slow, wide smile spread across her face. In the distance, faint but growing louder, she could hear voices calling her name. Koala's search parties.
She giggled, a low, bubbling sound that was anything but joyful. "They should all see," she whispered to the beam, patting it fondly. "They should all see the pretty light." Her fingers twitched towards the Helltide slingshot rifle slung across her back, her mind already calculating the charge, the contact time needed to turn this immense pillar of stability into the epicenter of a collapse that would shake the world. The game had changed. Hide and seek was over. Now it was time for the grand finale.
*****
The comfortable silence left by Fia and the children was short-lived. In the coral loft, dawn's faint glow through the seaglass windows painted everything in watery shades of grey and green. Galit was already pulling on his boots, the leather stiff and cold, when a soft squelch sounded from under the door. Jelly oozed through the narrow gap, reforming himself with a soft bloop and immediately bouncing towards the hammock where Atlas lay.
"Fuzzy friend! Sun-up-bounce!" Jelly chirped, nudging Atlas's shoulder. There was no gruff response, no swatting hand. Atlas was motionless, his rust-red fur matted and dark with sweat. His breathing was a ragged, shallow thing, each inhale a faint whistle, each exhale a pained shudder. A low fever-heat radiated from him.
"Fuzzy friend not waking up!" Jelly's voice pitched higher, wobbling with alarm. He bounced over to Marya's cot, jiggling anxiously. "Cranky Stabby Friend! Help-bloop!"
Marya groaned, forcing herself from the lingering grip of sleep. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her denim shorts and simple shirt rumpled. "What is it, Jelly?" Her voice was rough with sleep. Then she saw Atlas. Galit was already there, standing over the hammock, his long neck craned low, emerald eyes narrowed. His usual restless energy was coiled into a tight, focused stillness.
"His condition has deteriorated significantly overnight," Galit stated, his voice low and devoid of its usual rapid-fire analysis. "Heart rate is elevated, respiration is labored. The wound is likely septic."
Marya crossed the cool coral tiles and placed the back of her hand against Atlas's forehead. The heat was intense. She pulled back, her expression unchanging but her movements becoming swift and decisive. "They said the doctor's office should be open this morning. We go. Now."
A firm knock echoed through the small apartment. Marya strode to the whalebone-framed door and pulled it open. Henrick stood there, his massive frame filling the doorway, the scents of the forge and the morning sea clinging to him. "Mornin'," he grunted. "Fia's off with the minnows. Left a pot of bubbling kelp-grits and grilled eel on the hearth for—"
"We don't have time for that," Marya interrupted, her tone flat. She stepped aside, granting him a clear view of the hammock. "Atlas is... unwell."
Henrick's easy demeanor vanished. His gaze swept over Atlas's sweat-sheened form, the ragged breathing. Concern etched deep lines into his face. Without a word, he marched into the room, his movements surprisingly quiet for his size. "Right." He bent down, and with a gentleness that belied his powerful build, he scooped Atlas into his arms as if he were a child. Atlas groaned, a raw, unconscious sound, but didn't wake, his head lolling against Henrick's broad shoulder.
"I'll take you to Kelpo's," Henrick said, his voice a low rumble. "Galit, with me. Marya, grab whatever you need. Jelly, out of the way." He didn't wait for acknowledgment, turning and heading for the spiral stairs.
They moved quickly. Marya snatched her leather jacket from the back of a chair, shrugging it on as she followed. Galit was a step behind Henrick, his sharp eyes scanning Atlas, muttering under his breath. "Risk of trauma from movement... fever spiking... requires immediate antiseptic irrigation..." Jelly wobbled after them, his usual bounciness subdued into a worried jiggle.
The forge on the ground floor was cold and silent, the great furnace a dark maw. Henrick didn't pause, carrying his burden out into Copperfin Lane. The morning market was just stirring. Vendors were unpacking prismatic fish and strange fruits that pulsed with soft light. The smell of salt and baking bread filled the air, a stark contrast to the urgency of their mission. Heads turned as the large fishman carried the limp Mink through the cobbled streets, his small procession trailing behind him—a grim-faced woman in a pirate jacket, a tense, long-necked tactician, and a wobbling, anxious blob of blue jelly.
Henrick led them away from the main thoroughfares, down a narrower alley where the buildings were older, their coral walls overgrown with whispering moss that seemed to absorb sound. The air grew cooler, smelling of damp stone and pungent, medicinal herbs. Above a low archway of woven fossilized sea-fan, a sign carved from whalebone swung gently: a stylized seahorse coiled around a mortar and pestle. This was the doctor's place. The path to the Devourer's heart would have to wait.
The narrow alley, a mere seam stitched between the bulging coral walls of older Fish-Man Island architecture, seemed to swallow sound and light. The cheerful cacophony of Copperfin Lane's market faded into a muffled hum, replaced by the cool, damp air that carried the complex scent of aged stone and a hundred different, drying herbs. It was a smell that spoke of antiquity and remedies, of secrets ground in mortars and brewed in pots over low, patient heats. Above a low archway fashioned from the bleached, intricate skeletons of giant sea fans, a whalebone sign creaked on a chain of polished links. A seahorse, its form stylized into a graceful spiral, was carved embracing a mortar and pestle.
Henrick didn't break stride, his broad shoulders nearly scraping the alley walls as he carried Atlas's limp form through the archway and into a small, rounded entrance. The room was a cave itself, the walls smoothed by time and water, inset with shelves holding neat rows of glass jars. Within them, things floated in clear or amber liquids: unnervingly symmetrical spiral shells, knobs of root that seemed to pulse with a faint inner light, and desiccated sea blossoms that still held a ghost of their vibrant color.
Behind a crescent-shaped desk carved from a single, massive conch shell sat a young mermaid with scales the color of sunrise peaches and hair the deep green of kelp forests. She was humming, sorting vials of iridescent powder, and looked up with a start as the large group filled her quiet space. Her eyes, large and liquid, widened further when they landed on Henrick.
"By the currents—Henrick! The rumors are true! You're back!" she exclaimed, her voice a bright, melodic thing that seemed utterly out of place. A genuine, welcoming smile spread across her face. But then her gaze dropped to the burden in his arms, to the sweat-sheened, unnaturally still form of the Mink. The smile vanished, replaced by a dawning horror. The vial in her hand clattered onto the desktop, scattering pinkish dust. "Oh, seas… is he…?"
"He's burning up, Liora," Henrick cut in, his voice a low, grounding rumble that cut through her panic. "Injury's gone bad. Needs Kelpo. Now."
The name of the doctor acted like a spell. Liora's professional training overrode her shock. She nodded, a quick, jerky motion, and pushed herself away from the desk, her tail flicking to propel her chair backward. "Right. Of course. Bring him. Straight back. Follow me!" She moved with a new urgency, leading them through a beaded curtain made of polished, clicking mother-of-pearl disks.
The room beyond was small and cool, dominated by a wide, low bed hewn from porous volcanic rock, its surface covered with a thick, soft pad of woven sea-silk. Strange, gentle lights, like captive jellyfish, pulsed softly in niches in the walls. Henrick laid Atlas down with a care that contradicted his powerful frame, arranging the Mink's limbs so he wouldn't slide off.
Marya stood just inside the doorway, her arms crossed. Her sharp, golden eyes, so like her father's, did a quick, tactical sweep of the room—the single exit, the tools on a nearby tray (a bone saw with a terrifyingly fine tooth, a set of probes that looked like they were made from stingray barbs), the cleanliness of the space. Her expression was unreadable, a mask of stoic observation, but a single finger tapped a silent, restless rhythm against the sleeve of her leather jacket, the one with the faded pink Heart insignia.
Galit, meanwhile, was a live wire of contained anxiety. His long neck was coiled into a tight, complex knot of tension, his emerald eyes darting from Atlas's fever-flushed face to the door, already calculating the seconds until the doctor's arrival. His fingers twitched at his sides as if mentally sketching triage diagrams on the air. Jelly simply wobbled in place near the foot of the bed, his form quivering with a distress that made his entire body jiggle like an unset gelatin. "Fuzzy friend too hot… too quiet…" he blorped miserably.
The door swung open again with enough force to make the pearl beads rattle. Liora returned, followed by a hulking manatee fishman in a spotless white smock, his face a landscape of gentle wrinkles and kind, deep-set eyes. Beside him, a stern-looking nurse with the sharp features of a barracuda and arms full of fresh linens moved with a swift, no-nonsense air. This was Doctor Kelpo.
The doctor's eyes, old and wise, went immediately to Atlas. He didn't speak, just moved to the bedside with a quiet, rolling grace. One large, padded finger gently pressed against the side of Atlas's neck, then lifted an eyelid. His expression, previously placid, grew grim. He made a low, thoughtful sound in his chest, a rumble like distant undersea currents.
"Everyone out," he said, his voice soft but leaving absolutely no room for argument. It was a tone accustomed to being obeyed. "Liora, see them to the waiting area. I need space and silence."
Liora nodded, gesturing urgently toward the door. "Please, come with me. He'll be seen to, I promise you."
Henrick gave a curt nod, casting one last, worried look at Atlas before turning to leave. Marya was already moving, her boots making soft scuffs on the smooth floor. Galit looked like he wanted to protest, to list the reasons he should stay and observe, but a sharp glance from the barracuda nurse made him think better of it. He followed, his neck still a tense knot of unease.
Jelly was the last to ooze out, pausing in the doorway to form a single, large, watery eye that looked back at Atlas. "Get better-bounce…" he whispered, before dejectedly sliding through the beads after the others.
Liora led them back to the conch-shell desk and then to a sunken seating area lined with worn but comfortable-looking cushions stuffed with dried sea-grass. "Please, make yourselves comfortable. The doctor will send word as soon as he can." Her earlier excitement was gone, replaced by a sincere, professional concern. She fussed for a moment, straightening a stack of leaflets about proper kelp hydration, before retreating behind her desk, the quiet of the herbal-scented anteroom once again descending upon them, now thick with a shared, unspoken dread. The path to the Devourer's heart wasn't just delayed; it was anchored here, in this quiet, anxious room, by the ragged breathing of their friend.
The waiting room's silence was a heavy, living thing. It was broken only by the soft rustle of Liora turning a page in her ledger, the occasional, wet-sounding quiver from Jelly as he tried to hold himself perfectly still, and the low, rhythmic tap of Marya's boot heel against the fossilized coral floor. Hours bled together, marked by the gradual shift in the light filtering through the seaglass window—from a weak, watery grey to a slightly stronger, greenish hue, the sun climbing somewhere high above the ocean's surface, far beyond the island's protective bubble.
Henrick sat like a statue carved from reef rock, his massive hands resting on his knees, his gaze fixed on the mother-of-pearl bead curtain as if he could force it to part through will alone. Galit's restlessness was a silent storm; his long neck was a tightly wound spring, his fingers tracing invisible battle diagrams and chemical formulas on his thighs, his mind undoubtedly running through a thousand scenarios, each more dire than the last. Marya remained outwardly impassive, her golden eyes scanning the room—the jars of pickled specimens, the worn herbal compendiums on a shelf, the way the dust motes danced in the faint light. She was assessing, calculating, treating the wait like a tactical delay. Jelly had finally settled into a puddle of anxious blue, his form shuddering with a soft, internal tremor every few minutes.
The sudden swish of the bead curtain was as shocking as a gunshot.
All four of them jolted to their feet as one. Dr. Kelpo emerged, wiping his broad, thick-fingered hands on a cloth already stained with a dark, purplish fluid. He looked tired, the wrinkles around his eyes seeming deeper, but his gaze was clear and direct.
"He is stable. For now," the doctor began, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that filled the quiet room. "The problem was not just the wound. There is a barb, a piece of the creature that attacked him. It has lodged itself deep in the muscle of his leg and is refusing to be dislodged by his body's own defenses. It must be removed surgically."
Marya took a half-step forward, cutting through the medical explanation with the sharpness of a blade. "But you can remove it? He will be okay?" Her voice was level, but there was an unusual tension threading through it, a demand for a binary answer: yes or no.
Dr. Kelpo sighed, a sound like water draining from a deep cave. "The removal is the easy part, child. It is what the barb carried with it that is the true enemy. A rare toxin, one I have only read about in texts from the Grand Line's winter seas. It is a vicious thing, it impedes the body's ability to heal itself. His immune system is being systematically dismantled. I need to operate immediately to remove the source, and I can support his system with the antibiotics I have on hand, but…"
Galit's analytical mind seized on the hesitation, his own voice sharp with urgency. "But? The supportive measures are insufficient. If he does not receive a direct counter-agent to the toxin itself, then the infection will simply return, stronger. There will be nothing that can be done to save him." He stated it not as a question, but as a grim, logical conclusion.
Marya's eyes narrowed, her focus absolute. "Where?" she asked, the single word loaded with intent. "Where do we need to go to get the treatment for the toxin?"
Dr. Kelpo took a slow, measured breath, as if weighing the burden of the information he was about to give. "There is nowhere on Fish-Man Island, nor in any of the nearby territories, that stocks the compounds needed to synthesize an antidote. Our pharmacology is built for the sea's ailments. This is something else entirely." He looked at each of them in turn, his old eyes grave. "Your only hope, and it is a slim one, lies with a colleague of mine. A woman of… formidable skill and temper, who specializes in the rare and the bizarre. She resides on Drum Island. Her name is Dr. Kureha."
Marya gave a single, sharp nod. The name meant nothing to her, but a destination was a solvable problem. "When can he travel?"
"I will operate today. If he survives the procedure and his fever breaks, he should be able to withstand a journey by tomorrow," Kelpo said. "But he will not be cured. He will be fragile. The antibiotics must be administered continuously through an IV drip during the voyage. Someone will have to manage it."
"Understood," Marya said, her mind already mapping the route to this Drum Island, calculating supplies, travel time. "We will be ready."
The manatee fishman nodded, a gesture of grim respect. "I will have him prepped for departure by first light. He cannot have any visitors today. The fight ahead of him requires every ounce of his strength, and my undivided attention. Return tomorrow." Without another word, he turned and disappeared back through the curtain, leaving them standing in the herbal-scented silence, the fate of their comrade now tied to a distant island and the reputation of a strange doctor.