The rooftop had become a kaleidoscope of fractured reflections.
Ryokugyu's forest grew wild around the edges of the building—roots punching through the stone walls, branches reaching for the sky, the Admiral's voice echoing through the chaos like thunder. But up here, on this broken platform above the dock, another kind of battle raged.
Mirrors surrounded Vesta Lavana on every side.
Towering panes of prism-glass rose from the rooftop like a crystalline forest—each one reflecting a different angle, a different possibility, a different Vesta. Some showed her triumphant, rainbow hair blazing, guitar raised in victory. Others showed her frozen, terrified, alone. The mirrors whispered.
"Look at yourself," Marcellus said, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere. "So many faces. So many failures. Which one is real?"
Vesta's hands trembled on Mikasi.
The living guitar hummed in her grip—a warm, thrumming vibration that ran up her arms and into her chest. Its strings glowed faintly, shifting between colors like her hair. The instrument had been trying to calm her for the past three minutes, but her heart would not stop racing.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said.
Marcellus laughed—a high, tinkling sound like wind chimes made of broken bottles. He stepped out of a mirror to her left, his glass hair clinking, his kaleidoscope eyes spinning with amusement. His white suit was immaculate. His glass rose lapel pin caught the fractured sun.
"Darling, everyone is afraid of me. I am the mirror that shows you what you refuse to see."
He raised a hand.
A pane of glass erupted from the ground at Vesta's feet, forcing her to leap backward. She landed badly, stumbling, and Mikasi let out a discordant twang.
"Did you know," Marcellus continued, advancing, "that the Soul King himself once performed in Mariejois? Brook, the living skeleton. He played for the Celestial Dragons. They laughed at him. Called him a novelty. A joke."
Vesta's eyes blazed. "Don't you dare talk about him."
"Why not? He is just a musician. And musicians..." Marcellus spread his arms, and a dozen mirrors rose behind him, each one reflecting his smug smile. "...are disposable."
---
Vesta's fingers found the strings.
She did not think. She did not plan. She played.
The chord ripped through the rooftop—a wild, discordant scream of sound that made the mirrors vibrate. From the resonance, coyotes leaped.
They poured out of Mikasi's body like smoke from a fire—rainbow-colored, sharp-toothed, their eyes burning with mischief. Three of them. Then six. Then a dozen. They bounded across the mirrors, their claws scratching the glass, their howls echoing through the maze.
"COYOTE'S CHASING SONG!" Vesta shouted, the name coming to her in the moment.
The coyotes attacked.
They threw themselves at the mirrors, at the reflections, at Marcellus himself. One bit into a glass pane and shattered it. Another leaped at the CP0 agent's throat.
Marcellus dissolved into shards.
The coyote passed through empty air, and Marcellus reformed ten feet away, brushing glass dust from his shoulder.
"Charming," he said. "But illusions cannot hurt me."
"They're not illusions!" Vesta played harder, and the coyotes grew sharper, more solid. One of them raked its claws across a mirror, and the glass cracked. "They're as real as I make them!"
Marcellus's eye twitched. "Then I will simply have to break them."
He raised both hands.
"Stained Glass Requiem."
Panels of colored glass erupted from the ground—beautiful, intricate, deadly. They formed a dome over the rooftop, each pane depicting a different scene: a shattered mirror, a weeping child, a glass statue of a woman frozen in terror.
Vesta's coyotes slammed into the panels and bounced back.
"Your little dogs cannot escape," Marcellus said. "This is my cathedral. And you..." He smiled. "You are my stained glass saint."
---
Vesta's hands shook.
The mirrors pressed in from every side. Her coyotes were trapped, confused, bouncing off the colored panels. She could see her own reflection in a dozen places—each one showing a different version of her fear.
One Vesta was crying. One Vesta was frozen. One Vesta had dropped Mikasi and was covering her ears.
"Stop it," she whispered.
Marcellus stepped out of a mirror behind her.
"Stop what? Showing you the truth?" He reached for Mikasi. "You are a child playing at music. A fan, not an artist. You will never be Brook. You will never be Uta. You are—"
Mikasi changed.
The guitar shifted in Vesta's hands—not subtly, but dramatically. The neck elongated. The body compressed. Strings rearranged themselves. What had been a six-string acoustic became a violin, and the bow that appeared in Vesta's other hand swept across the strings before she even knew what she was doing.
The note shattered the mirror behind Marcellus.
He spun, startled, and Vesta used the moment to scramble backward. She stared at the violin in her hands.
"Mikasi... what...?"
The violin wiggled in her grip—a proud, almost smug gesture—and shifted back into a guitar. Vesta blinked.
"Did you just... save me?"
The guitar hummed.
Marcellus turned back, his composure cracked. "Your instrument has a will of its own. How... irritating."
"Yeah," Vesta said, a grin spreading across her face. "It's called teamwork. You should try it sometime."
She played again.
This time, she did not panic. She closed her eyes and let the music flow through her—not a desperate scream, but a steady, confident melody. The coyotes reformed, stronger now, their bodies crackling with rainbow energy.
"Did you know," Vesta said, opening her eyes, "that Uta once performed for three days straight? Her voice gave out on the second day. She kept going anyway. She said music doesn't come from the throat. It comes from the heart."
She strummed a chord that made the mirrors tremble.
"My heart isn't breaking. It's beating."
---
Marcellus's face twisted.
"You think heart matters? You think passion defeats perfection?" He raised his arms, and the mirrors began to close in—pressing toward Vesta, shrinking her world. "I will grind you into dust. I will turn your song into silence. I will—"
Vesta stomped her foot.
"NO!"
The word carried more force than any chord. It echoed off the mirrors, and for a moment—just a moment—the glass trembled.
Mikasi shifted again.
This time, the guitar became a drum. A massive taiko, strapped to her chest, the drumheads glowing with rainbow fire. Vesta raised the bachi sticks and brought them down.
THWACK.
The shockwave rippled outward. The mirrors nearest to her cracked—spiderwebs of fracture spreading across their surfaces.
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
Each beat was a heartbeat. Each beat was a declaration.
"I am Vesta Lavana!" she shouted, her rainbow hair whipping around her face. "I am the granddaughter of Kanthar and Pilvi! I am the daughter of Brom and Neelie! I am a musician of the White-White Sea!"
THWACK.
"I sing because I cannot stop!"
THWACK.
"I play because the music lives inside me!"
THWACK.
"And I will NOT let anyone—ANYONE—keep me from my DREAM!"
The final beat shattered the dome.
Glass exploded outward—a cascade of colored shards falling like rain. The coyotes howled in triumph, bounding through the wreckage. Marcellus staggered, his hand pressed to his chest, his kaleidoscope eyes wide.
"You... you broke my cathedral."
Vesta lowered the drumsticks. The taiko shimmered and shifted back into a guitar, warm and familiar in her hands.
"I didn't break it," she said. "I just showed you what happens when you trap a song. It gets louder."
Marcellus stared at her.
Then he laughed—a hollow, broken sound.
"Louder," he repeated. "Yes. I suppose it does."
He touched his glass hair, checking for cracks. Finding none, he straightened his jacket and smoothed his lapel.
"This is not over, little songbird. Your dream is still just a dream. And dreams..." He smiled, cold and sharp. "...shatter."
He stepped backward into a mirror and vanished.
Vesta stood alone on the broken rooftop, surrounded by shattered glass and fading coyotes. Mikasi hummed in her hands.
"Did we win?" she asked.
The guitar wiggled uncertainly.
"Yeah," Vesta said, looking at the mountain where the Red Hair flag still climbed. "That's what I thought."
She took a breath. Adjusted her grip. And played.
Not for victory. Not for survival.
Just because she could not stop.
Mirrors began to reform from the shards of shattered debris, levitating and taking shape in the chaos as Marcellus began his retaliation.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving Dracule Marya Zaleska a Power Stone! It helps the novel climb the rankings and get more eyes on our story!
Thank you for sailing with us! 🏴☠️ Your support means so much!
Want to see the Dreadnought Thalassa blueprints? Or unlock the true power of Goddess Achlys?
Join the Dracule Marya Zaleska crew on Patreon to get exclusive concept art, deep-dive lore notes, and access to our private Discord community! You make the New World adventure possible.
Become a Crewmate and Unlock the Lore:
https://patreon.com/An1m3N3rd?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Thanks so much for your support and loving this story as much as I do!