The sudden absence of the submarine was a physical blow to the water itself. Jinbe, the steadfast Knight of the Sea, was sent into a disorienting spiral by the vacuum left in its wake. He righted himself, the powerful muscles in his tail fin twitching to stabilize his form. He and the royal guards could only stare into the empty, swirling blue where their quarry had vanished a heartbeat before. A low, guttural curse, a stream of agitated bubbles, was the ocean's only eulogy for their escape. They were gone, leaving behind nothing but frustration and the vast, indifferent sea.
The water in the throne room felt heavier than usual, thick with a silence that even the gentle, drifting sea blossoms could not penetrate. Jinbe floated before King Neptune, his head bowed not in submission, but in profound disappointment. The usual warm, welcoming light of the chamber seemed dimmed, the playful glints off the mother-of-pearl floors subdued.
"Well?" King Neptune's voice boomed, though it lacked its customary vigor, weighed down by dread. "Were they detained? Was the Heart's shard retrieved?"
Jinbe slowly raised his head, his expression grave. "No, Sire. They escaped. Their vessel employed a technology I have never encountered. They vanished into the deep." A collective, dismayed sigh seemed to pass through the room. The king's massive shoulders slumped. "And the Princess?"
"She has locked herself away in her chambers," Neptune replied, his voice softening with paternal worry. "She believes this betrayal is her responsibility."
"The responsibility is mine," Jinbe said, his tone firm and full of regret. "I brought her into our halls. I vouched for her. We were all deceived, but the blame rests with me. I have no excuse."
King Neptune waved a massive hand, a gesture of weary absolution. "There was no way any of us could have known her true intentions. The question that now drowns us is… what do we do?"
The great doors to the throne room swung open. Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi, and Manboshi entered, their faces smudged with effort and their postures tense with urgency.
"Report," Neptune commanded.
Fukaboshi swam forward, his spear held tight. "The initial tremors have ceased. The island appears to have stabilized for now. Our engineers believe the Heart of the Devourer is… compensating for its missing piece. But it is a strained equilibrium." His voice was calm, but his eyes were troubled.
Ryuboshi cut in, his usual mischief gone. "The damage is not contained to our island, Father. Scouts reported from the upper trenches. A substantial crack has appeared in the bedrock foundation of the Grand Line itself. It is spreading."
A sharp, shared gasp echoed through the room. Jinbe's eyes widened. King Neptune gripped the arms of his coral-throne, his knuckles white.
"Should the foundation continue to fracture…" Fukaboshi left the horrific conclusion unspoken. The entire undersea kingdom could be crushed, its protective bubble shattered by the geological collapse.
Manboshi, uncharacteristically solemn, asked the question on everyone's mind. "Is there anything that can be done? Even if we get the crystal back?"
Jinbe's face was a mask of grim thought. "I do not know. The damage to such an ancient system may be—"
King Neptune interrupted, his voice regaining its thunderous authority. "We must try. We have no other course."
Jinbe straightened, his determination returning. "I will lead the pursuit. I will find Marya and—"
"No," Neptune interjected, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Your mission to the surface remains critical. Our people's future cannot hinge on this single disaster. We will address this threat." Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi, and Manboshi nodded in fierce unison, a united front of royal resolve.
Jinbe's brow furrowed in frustration. "Sire, with respect, Marya Zaleska is every bit as formidable as her father. Her skills are unmatched. Who among our forces could be her counter? Who could overpower the daughter of the world's greatest swordsman and retrieve the shard?"
The question hung in the water, a daunting challenge that silenced the room. They contemplated their strongest warriors, knowing each would be outmatched.
It was Jinbe who broke the silence, an idea lighting his wise eyes. "There is a way."
"Speak," Neptune commanded.
"The Whitebeard Pirates are no more," Jinbe began, "but the bonds of family forged under his flag are not so easily broken. There are still allies, powerful beyond measure, who would answer our call for aid. All we need do is ask."
King Neptune did not hesitate. "Whatever it takes. Whatever price they name, we will compensate. Our very existence is the bargaining chip."
Jinbe gave a deep, respectful nod. "Yes, Sire. I will make the call."
Haruta Haruta Haruta
Far above, on the sun-drenched deck of a sturdy brigantine, two men were locked in a contest of chance. Vista, the towering swordsman with his magnificent curled mustache, laughed as he swept a small pile of berries toward himself across a barrel-top. Across from him, Haruta, the clever commander with a cap pulled low over his eyes, scowled playfully and tossed down his losing cards.
"The seas favor me today, Haruta!" Vista chuckled, his voice a warm rumble.
"Luck, not skill," Haruta retorted, a grin tugging at his lips. "Next port, the victory will be mine."
The peaceful moment was broken by the abrupt Haruta purururururuHaruta of a Den Den Mushi from the captain's quarters. Vista pushed back from the barrel with a sigh and ambled over to answer it.
"This is the Haruta Fierce Tiger-Haruta ," he announced jovially into the receiver.
The voice that came back was deeply familiar, but its tone was uncharacteristically somber. "Vista. It is Jinbe."
"Jinbe! By the tides, it's good to hear your voice!" Vista's smile was genuine. But it faded as he listened, replaced by a focused intensity. Haruta, sensing the shift in mood, abandoned his cards and joined him.
Jinbe's voice was a low, serious thrum through the snail. "I contact you with a heavy heart, my friend, to ask a favor. The situation is grim. A great treasure, vital to the survival of Fish-Man Island itself, has been stolen."
Vista and Haruta exchanged a glance, their playful energy gone, replaced by the sharp attentiveness of seasoned warriors.
"Name the thief," Vista said, his voice now all business. "We'll see it returned."
There was a pause on the other end. "The thief… is Dracule Marya Zaleska."
Vista's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. Haruta's mouth fell open in pure shock.
"Mihawk's… daughter?" Vista breathed, the name feeling strange on his tongue. "I didn't know he had one."
"She is every bit as formidable as her father," Jinbe warned, his voice grave. "Perhaps more unpredictable. We have it on good authority that she is en route to Drum Island."
A slow, competitive smirk spread across Vista's face. He looked at Haruta, who mirrored the expression, a spark of excitement in his eyes. A challenge. A real one.
"Drum Island, you say?" Vista said, his voice now laced with a new, eager energy.
"We are in your debt, Jinbe," Haruta added, already turning away from the snail.
When the call ended, Vista slammed his fist on the table, a wide grin splitting his face. "You hear that, men?" he bellowed to the crew on deck. "Weigh anchor! Set sail for Drum Island! It seems we have a date with a legend's legacy!"
The chase was on, and the winds of fate began to shift.
*****
The submarine drifted in a sea of eerie stillness. Outside the thick viewports, the water was a sheet of dark glass reflecting a bruised, twilight sky. The air that seeped in when Souta cautiously cracked the hatch was thick and heavy, smelling of salt and something else—a cloying, sweet scent like rotting flowers and wet stone, utterly alien and vaguely unsettling. The silence after the roaring chaos of Tequila Wolf was deafening.
Inside, the atmosphere was thick with a different kind of tension. Aurélie Nakano Takeko sat with her leather-bound poetry notebook open on her knee, her silver hair seeming to absorb the dim emergency lighting. Her pen moved in swift, sure strokes, but her compound eyes, partially visible, missed nothing.
The source of the tension was Bianca Clark, who was elbows-deep in an open access panel in the floor, surrounded by a spill of intricate tools from her corset holster. A string of creative curses, punctuated by her signature "like," flowed freely. "Like, come on, you temperamental piece of… gah! The flux coupling is totally fried!"
Kuro, leaning against a polished brass pipe with an air of bored detachment, adjusted his spectacles. "This does not sound promising," he remarked, his voice a dry counterpoint to Bianca's frustration.
From the co-pilot's chair, Ember giggled, tracing patterns on the fogged viewport. She seemed utterly recovered from her near-drowning, lost in some private, manic world. Charlie Wooley, wringing his hands nearby, glanced nervously between her and the exposed wiring. "Ahem! Should we, perhaps, be monitoring Miss Ember's proximity to the controls more closely?"
"I locked out the console," Aurélie stated without looking up from her verse. "She can do no harm." Her tone suggested the matter was as settled as the strange sea around them.
Souta, a silent observer until now, spoke from the shadows near the hatch, his voice a low murmur. "What exactly is the problem?"
Bianca emerged from the panel, her face smudged with grease, her goggles pushed up on her forehead. She blew a stray strand of hair from her eyes, exasperated. "The problem ," she said, her words coming in a frustrated rush, "is that the primary seal is, like, totally compromised from that ricochet. And because we did a half-baked jump, the phase alignment manifold is, like, out of whack. And I need, like, specific parts to fix it. And I don't have the tools I need to, like, make the parts!" She threw her hands up, a wrench clutched in one. "It's a whole thing!"
Aurélie snapped her notebook shut, the sound sharp in the confined space. "The sensors indicate an island nearby. Approximately three days' travel on impulse power."
Bianca slumped against the bulkhead. "That's, like, great and all, but will this mystery island have a shop that sells, like, high-grade condensate coils and micro-calibrated spanner drives?"
Aurélie raised a single, sharp eyebrow. "If they do not, they will serve as a reliable rendezvous point for…" She didn't need to finish. The unspoken name of their Consortium benefactors hung in the air.
Bianca nodded, the fight leaving her. "Yeah. Okay. That'll have to be the plan. If we're lucky, the island will, like, have what I need. Or at least the stuff to build it. If not…" She shrugged. "We make the call."
"It is settled then," Aurélie said, rising and moving to the pilot's seat. "We travel on impulse."
Kuro, who had been listening with a calculating stillness, finally spoke. "A question. The name of this convenient island?"
Charlie, eager to contribute, pointed a finger at a flickering readout. "Ahem! According to the navigational database, the nearest landmass is identified as… Kuraigana Island."
Bianca froze mid-reach for a screwdriver. She slowly turned her head to stare at Charlie, her expression one of pure disbelief. "Are you," she said, her voice flat, "like, serious right now?"
Aurélie's head tilted slightly, a rare show of curiosity.
Charlie blinked, affronted. "Yes, quite serious. The spectral analysis and cartographic alignment are quite clear. Kuraigana."
Kuro's lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I believe what Miss Clark is attempting to articulate," he said, his voice smooth as oil, "is that Kuraigana Island is the private residence of the man known as Dracule Mihawk."
Charlie's eyes bugled behind his spectacles. His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. "The… the Warlord ? The Greatest Swordsman? That Mihawk?"
"Like, yeah ," Bianca said, her voice rising an octave. "That Mihawk. Like, it's where Marya came from before she…" She caught herself abruptly, her eyes darting to Kuro and Souta. She'd almost revealed their entire mission to their temporary, and very much non-Consortium , allies. She snapped her mouth shut, her face flushing.
Aurélie stood, her movement fluid and silent. She walked to the reinforced door separating the cockpit from the main cabin, her hand resting on the cool metal. "Our options are limited," she stated, her voice cutting through the sudden, thick silence. Her steel-gray eyes swept over the group—the horrified scholar, the flustered engineer, the two inscrutable strangers, and the giggling pyromaniac. "I am confident we will be able to navigate the situation."
She left the unspoken question hanging in the air, heavy as the strange, sweet smell of the sea. Navigate how? And what, exactly, would they find on an island owned by the world's most lethal swordsman? The course was set, but the destination had just become infinitely more dangerous.
*****
Deep within the pressurized silence of the submarine, the world snapped back into existence with a low hum and the shudder of straining metal. The bubble-coated vessel tore through the veil between sea routes, emerging from its rapid transit into the frigid, sun-bleached waters surrounding a new island.
"Perimeter of Drum Island," Galit Varuna announced, his voice cutting through the engine's steady drone. His long, observant neck was tilted towards the main periscope, emerald eyes darting across the readouts. "Breaching in three… two… one."
The sub broke the surface with a great, gasping heave, seawater sluicing off its hull in roaring cataracts. The interior lights flickered once before steadying, illuminating the cramped control room.
In the co-pilot's seat, Marya Zaleska let out a slow breath, her shoulders slumping as the tension of the jump bled away. The familiar weight of her custom sword, Eternal Eclipse, was a comfort against her back.
"You alright?" Galit asked, not taking his eyes off the viewport, which now framed a monstrous, snow-capped mountain peak.
"Yeah," she replied, her voice a low murmur. Her golden-ringed eyes, so like her father's, slid from the intimidating landscape to the form stretched out on a makeshift pallet on the floor. Atlas Acuta lay unconscious, his usually vibrant rust-red fur looking dull against the grey metal. A medical IV dangled from the wall beside him, its bag of clear fluid nearly depleted. "He's not."
She pushed herself up, the movement fluid and quiet. She crossed the small space, her boots making soft sounds on the grating. With a practiced efficiency that belied her usual disinterest in others, she checked the Mink's pulse—still strong, if too slow—and swapped the IV bag with a fresh one from a nearby cooler. Hanging the new bag, she ensured the drip was steady.
"Preparing to breach the coastal ice shelf," Galit said, his hands moving over the controls. "Might get bumpy."
Marya gave a curt nod and turned toward the rear hatch. "I'll get a visual."
"Adventure!" a voice chirped. Jelly "Giggles" Squish detached himself from a warm pipe he'd been clinging to, his azure-blue form wobbling with excitement. He reshaped himself into a bouncy ball and ricocheted after her, leaving a faint, glittery streak on the floor.
The hatch hissed open, unleashing a blast of air so cold it stole the breath from their lungs. Marya stepped onto the slick deck, groaning as a biting wind immediately lashed at her, whipping her long black hair across her face. Behind her, Jelly bounced once, chirped "Adven—bloop!" and then froze solid mid-air, his permanent grin locked in a surprised 'O', his translucent body now a solid, cartoonish popsicle.
Galit emerged behind them, pulling his riptide cloak tighter. "What is it?"
Marya grimaced, pulling her thin leather jacket closed against the gale. It was a futile gesture. "Snow," she said, the word a cloud of steam. "It's a lot of snow."
Galit scanned the island, his sharp eyes taking in the towering peaks, the glaciers, and the quaint, clustered village nestled in the white. "A winter island. You don't like snow?"
"It is not my preference," she stated, her teeth beginning to chatter faintly. "I will need a different jacket." She turned and pushed back inside, the warmth of the sub a welcome relief.
Galit smirked, following her in and sealing the hatch against the arctic chill. He glanced at Atlas's large, prone form. "Might need more than one."
"When we dock, you two stay with the sub," Marya instructed, already making her way toward a small storage closet. "I will get you some appropriate clothing and see if I can find this Dr. Kureha."
Galit nodded, reaching for a nearby Den Den Mushi. "Understood."
Marya wrenched the stubborn closet door open and glared inside. Hanging alone within was a single item: a long, heavy, and unmistakably black trench coat. She groaned. It was warm. It was practical. It was also the exact sort of dramatic, imposing garment her father would wear.
With a sigh of resignation, she shucked off her beloved leather jacket—the one with the vibrant Heart Pirates insignia on the back—and hung it on a hook with a touch that was almost reverent. She then retrieved the trench coat, its weight substantial in her hands. As she lifted it, she noticed a large, stylized emblem stitched onto the back in stark white thread. She leaned closer. It was a smiling, circular face, with six parturitions.
A smirk tugged at her lips. She shook her head, a quiet, almost inaudible laugh escaping her. "You guys," she muttered to the absent surgeons of Death, Law's crew, imagining them leaving this here for just such an occasion.
She slid her arms into the coat. It was lined with soft, thick wool and hung almost to her boots. She stood before a polished metal panel serving as a mirror, scowling at her reflection. The high collar, the sweeping black fabric—it swallowed her frame, making her look less like a rogue swordswoman and more like a junior officer in a very grim navy.
Galit appeared behind her reflection, his head tilted. "What is wrong?"
Marya cocked her head, her expression flat. "I look like my father in this coat."
Galit's lips twitched. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard. "Maybe that will be an asset. Intimidation has its uses."
Marya's only reply was a deadpan stare that promised future retribution. Galit had to look away, coughing to disguise a laugh.
"Adventure! Adventure!" Jelly chirped, having thawed back into wobbly life. He was bouncing in place, a blur of blue excitement, smacking into the walls and rebounding with happy bloops.
Galit handed Marya the Den Den Mushi. "So we can stay in touch. And I assume the squishy one will be going with you."
After navigating the icy coastal waters, they found a vacant dock at the edge of a small, sleepy port town. The air was filled with the scent of pine smoke and frozen salt. Marya walked back onto the deck, now bundled in the massive black coat. Jelly followed, bubbling with excitement.
The moment his gelatinous foot—or the blob that served as one—touched the snow-dusted deck, he froze again. Not just with cold, but in absolute, solid shock. He was literally a statue of a surprised jellyfish, one wobbly arm raised in a premature cheer for adventure.
Marya took a few steps onto the dock, the fresh snow crunching satisfyingly under her boots. She stopped when she no longer heard the familiar bouncing. She looked back. Seeing Jelly frozen solid, a small, genuine chuckle escaped her. She walked back, her steps careful on the slick wood, and pried the frozen figure off the deck. He was light and cold as a stone.
"Why don't you stay in here where it's warm," she said, her voice softer than usual. She unbuttoned the top of the coat and tucked the frozen Jelly into a deep inner pocket, where only the top of his head and his wide, startled eyes peeked out. A muffled, slightly echoing "B'venture…" emanated from within the wool lining.
Securing her passenger, Marya Zaleska pulled the high collar up against the wind, the Heart Pirates' Jolly Roger stretching across her shoulders. With a deep breath that clouded in the freezing air, she hopped onto the dock and began striding into the winter town, a stark, black silhouette against a world of endless white.