The hatch explodes outward with a screech of tortured metal, and Marya hits the deck first—boots landing silent despite the chaos. Nisshoku clears her shoulder in a single fluid motion, the obsidian blade drinking what little light filters through the island's perpetual haze.
Behind her, the rest of her crew pours onto the deck like a wave breaking against a cliff.
The cyborgs are already there. Dozens of them. Human frames fused with rusted plating, Mink bodies half-consumed by mechanical grafts, Fish-Men with fins replaced by whirring saw-blades. Long-limbed warriors whose arms stretch unnaturally, tipped with claw-like appendages. And at the rear, the Beast Pirates remnants—SMILE users whose animal features have been violently integrated with Athene's cybernetic handiwork.
One of them raises a cannon-arm.
Marya is already moving.
Nisshoku carves a crescent arc through the air. The cannon-arm separates from its owner's shoulder, the severed limb still twitching as it clatters to the deck. The cyborg doesn't even have time to scream before Marya's follow-through bisects its torso from hip to collarbone.
Then the explosion hits.
Not from the cyborg—from behind them, where the submarine's secondary hatch has been breached by something massive. A shockwave rips across the deck, sending sparks and debris flying.
Atlas is the first to react after Marya. His rust-red fur bristles as blue Electro crackles across his knuckles. "Finally! I was getting bored!" He launches himself at a cluster of Mink-cyborgs, Stormclaw and Thunderfang swinging in tandem. Each impact sends arcs of electricity dancing through their metallic grafts, frying circuits and seizing joints.
Galit's whips sing through the air—Current's Deception, twin Vipera Whips that crack like thunder. He doesn't strike to kill. Instead, the weapons coil around limbs, trip mechanisms, entangle. His long neck sways as he reads the battlefield, directing the chaos. "Atlas! Your left!" The red-furred Mink pivots, driving a mace through a cyborg's chest plate.
Jannali's spear Gosan extends with a satisfying shink. The segmented alloy locks into place just as a Beast Pirate cyborg lunges at her—massive, ursine, half its face replaced by grinding gears. She sidesteps, drives the tip through its knee joint, and twists. The creature howls. "Bloody hell, mate! You call that an upgrade?" She rips the spear free, and the cyborg crumples.
Aurélie moves like water flowing downhill. Anathema whispers from its sheath, and three cyborgs fall before the first one hits the deck. Her silver hair streams behind her, and for just a moment, her eyes flicker—compound insectoid pupils catching the emergency glow. She doesn't speak. She doesn't need to. Her blade does all the talking.
Ember's giggle echoes across the deck like broken glass. She's already rigged a trio of cyborgs with Sparkler Rounds, and when she detonates them, the resulting flash blinds half the remaining force. "Boom boom boom! Look, Josiah! They're dancing!" She pirouettes through the chaos, leaving a trail of crackling explosives in her wake.
Bō-Zak materializes from a patch of shadow that shouldn't exist. His dual sickles—Kamaitachi—flash in the crimson glow. A Fish-Man cyborg swings a massive mechanical arm at him, and Bō-Zak simply isn't there anymore. He's behind it, driving both blades into its spine. "Lovely weather we're having." He kicks off the collapsing body and lands in a crouch, pipe still dangling from his lips. "Anyone else feel like a drink after this?"
Kaburo doesn't answer. He's too busy feeding the Beast Pirates their own teeth.
Kalamaru moves like a serpent made of black steel. The ōdachi traces impossible arcs, each stroke finding the gaps in armor, the seams in metal. Kaburo's face remains impassive—the same cold, calculating expression he's worn since he stepped through the hatch. But his eyes betray him. They're hungry. "These are not worthy opponents," he mutters, almost to himself. "Where is the challenge?"
Then Charlie stumbles past him, screaming something about proper archaeological protocol, and the moment shatters.
"I've cataloged seventeen distinct alloy compositions in the first wave alone! The fusion techniques are—" A cyborg grabs him by the pith helmet. Charlie shrieks. "UNHAND ME, YOU UNCULTURED BRUTE! I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF AN IMPORTANT OBSERVATION!"
Vesta swings Mikasi like a battle-axe, the guitar's cursed strings humming with otherworldly resonance. The soundwave catches the cyborg mid-grab, and it staggers, limbs seizing. "B flat minor, baby!" She grins, rainbow hair whipping around her face. "That one always gets 'em!"
Eliane darts between the larger combatants, her bamboo practice sword held in a white-knuckled grip. She's not swinging—she's distracting. A flick here, a jab there. Her silver hair bounces with each movement, and her blue eyes are wide with a terror that's slowly being pushed aside by something harder. "Stay back! I'm—I'm warning you!" She jabs a cyborg in the eye socket, and it stumbles back, clawing at its face.
Sanza stands behind her, his own bamboo sword raised, his red hair a disaster of childhood rebellion. "I'll protect you, Eliane! I am the future Supreme Commander, after all!" His voice cracks on Commander, but he holds his ground.
Bianca has already transformed the chaos into an opportunity. She's on her knees beside a fallen cyborg, her fingers buried in its chest cavity, extracting something that glows faintly. "Oh, this is, like, gorgeous. The power distribution alone—" She's interrupted by a cyborg lunging at her. She rolls to the side, still clutching the glowing component. "Like, rude!"
Jelly bounces through the fray, his gelatinous body absorbing punches, deflecting blades, redirecting kinetic energy with a cheerful giggle. "Bloop! Bounce time!" He morphs into a giant trampoline at the exact moment three cyborgs charge him, launching them back into their own ranks. "Hee hee! That never gets old!"
The fight spirals into a blur of motion and sound. Metal screeches against metal. Electro crackles and pops. Explosions punctuate the chaos like drumbeats. And at the center of it all, Marya moves.
She is a storm contained in human form.
Her mist coils around her legs, responding to her will without conscious thought. She steps through a cannon blast, letting the projectile pass through her intangible form before solidifying on the other side. Nisshoku flashes—once, twice, three times. Each stroke claims a cyborg. Each one falls without ever seeing the blade that killed them.
She doesn't feel satisfaction. She feels nothing but the cold certainty of purpose. These things are obstacles. They need to be removed. It's as simple as breathing.
Atlas catches one of the cyborgs mid-swing, his claws sinking into its mechanical arm. "You're slow," he taunts, Electro coursing through his grip. The cyborg convulses, sparks flying from its joints. "Is this the best you've got?"
Galit's whips coil around another's legs, sending it crashing to the deck. "Atlas, focus! There are more coming from the—" He ducks as a blade whistles past his ear. "—starboard side!"
"I see them!" Atlas pivots, hurling Thunderfang at the approaching cluster. The mace spins through the air, trailing blue lightning, and detonates in a burst of EMP that sends four cyborgs sprawling.
Jannali leaps over a fallen Mink-cyborg, Gosan trailing a spray of hydraulic fluid. "There's too many of 'em!" She lands, rolls, comes up with her spear already in motion. "We need to thin the herd!"
Ember cackles, pulling another round from her hair. "Way ahead of you!" She lobs it into the densest pocket of cyborgs, and the explosion rocks the entire deck. "THAT'S FOR MY SISTER! ...I think!"
Bō-Zak flows through the carnage like smoke, his sickles dancing. "You know," he muses, decapitating a cyborg mid-sentence, "I've fought in worse conditions. But the company here is exceptionally strange."
Kaburo cleaves a cyborg in two, then pauses to examine the clean cut. "The craftsmanship is adequate," he concedes. "But the materials are substandard. These are mass-produced weapons. No soul. No artistry."
"Are you critiquing them mid-battle?" Charlie shouts, still being carried around by the same cyborg. "This is NOT the time for a review! PUT ME DOWN!"
The cyborg holding Charlie complies. By throwing him into a wall.
Charlie bounces off the metal surface with a thump and slides to the deck, his pith helmet somehow still on his head. "Ouch," he wheezes. "That was... wholly unnecessary."
Vesta strums a chord that sends a concussive wave through the air, scattering the cyborgs in her immediate vicinity. "New song idea: 'Get Off My Ship You Rusty Nightmares.' Thoughts?"
Jelly bounces past her, giggling. "I love it! Can I be in the chorus?"
"You're always in the chorus, Jelly!"
The deck clears—slowly, brutally, with every member of Marya's crew fighting with desperate ferocity. Cyborgs fall. Some get back up, their damaged systems trying to repair themselves. Those get put down again, more permanently this time.
When the last one collapses, the silence hits like a physical weight.
They stand in a circle of cooling metal and leaking fluids, breathing hard, weapons still raised. The emergency lights paint everything in shades of crimson and shadow.
Jannali wipes a smear of something dark from her cheek. "Bloody hell," she mutters, taking in the carnage. Her headscarf has slipped slightly, and she adjusts it with a shaking hand. "I hate this bloody island already."
Bianca stands, the glowing component still clutched to her chest. "Like, for real," she agrees, her voice uncharacteristically subdued. "Like, where the hell are we?"
The question hangs in the air.
Marya turns, Nisshoku still in hand, her eyes scanning the nightmare landscape around them. She sees it now—the extent of it. The island stretches out in jagged, broken lines, a scar on the ocean's surface. To the north, a twisted prow juts from the earth like a frozen scream. To the south, metal and stone have fused into something unrecognizable.
But that's not what catches her attention.
Atlas's voice cuts through the silence. "No way!"
Sanza's small finger points at the vessel moored in the shallows. "Big sis, that looks like your jacket!"
Marya moves to stand beside them, her boots silent on the metal deck. She blinks. Once. Twice.
The submarine is massive—a sleek, black machine of war that somehow looks both ancient and impossibly advanced. And on its flank, unmistakable, the Heart Pirates' insignia gleams dully in the emergency light.
A smile spreads across Marya's face.
She closes her eyes. Her Kenbunshoku Haki unfurls like a flower blooming in the dark. It rolls across the island, searching, tasting, finding.
---
Elsewhere, deep within Metis's bowels.
Trafalgar D. Water Law presses himself against the wall, his breath shallow. Behind him, Penguin, Shachi, and Uni mirror his posture. They've been running for hours—ever since they got sucked into this nightmare island. The cyborgs patrol the corridors in endless waves, and every time they think they've found an exit, it leads to another chamber full of horrors.
Law's fingers twitch. He wants to expand his Room. He wants to cut through these walls and find a way out. But every time he tries, he senses something—some presence deeper in the island that makes his skin crawl.
Then he feels it.
A familiar signature. Warm and sharp and impossibly there.
His head snaps around, eyes widening. "No way."
Penguin blinks. "What is it, Captain?"
Law's grin spreads across his face as he pulls his hat down, hiding the expression. "We just got back up."
Penguin, Shachi, and Uni exchange confused looks. But they've learned not to question Law's instincts.
"Let's move," Law says, already pushing off from the wall. "We need to meet them."
---
On the surface.
Marya's Kenbunshoku Haki expands, pushing further across the island. She feels Jean Bart and Ikkaku moving through what she can only describe as a vault—row after row of stasis pods, sleeping figures visible through the frosted glass. Their footsteps echo in the silence.
She pushes deeper.
The surface. Open air. Bepo's familiar signature—warm and solid and alive. Clione and Hakugan flank him, their own presences burning like candles in the dark.
And then she sees it.
The cyborgs encircling them. Dozens of them. But these are different—more heavily modified, more animalistic. Beast Pirates. SMILE users whose animal features have been violently integrated with Athene's handiwork.
And at their center, a figure that makes her blood run cold.
Massive. Imposing. Half-man, half-beast, half-machine—some impossible fusion of flesh and steel and fur. A metal jaw gleams in the dim light. A cannon-hand rests at his side. And on his shoulder, a separate anteater head watches Bepo with hungry, instinct-driven eyes.
Juuhakai Kurosu.
Marya's eyes snap open.
She doesn't speak. She doesn't warn the others. She simply moves.
"Like, are you serious right now?!" Bianca's voice trails after her, but Marya is already gone, mist dissipating where she stood.
Vesta flops her arms out in frustration. "Like, not again! Like, she is always doing that!"
Jannali curses, her eyes scanning the empty space. "Bloody hell, where did she even go at a time like this?"
Galit sighs, his long neck curling with exasperation. "It doesn't matter."
Atlas points a thumb at the Heart Pirates' submarine. "I know where she went." He nods at Galit. "Yo, noodle-neck, recognize that?"
Galit's emerald eyes track the insignia on the vessel's hull, and understanding dawns on his face. He nods.
Bō-Zak blows out a plume of smoke, watching the exchange with narrowed eyes. "You going to keep us in suspense, or share with the class?"
Kaburo's hand rests on Kalamaru's hilt. "It's the Heart Pirates," he says flatly, remembering the encounter on Wano. "Just like on her jacket." He glances around the desolate deck. "They must be here."
Aurélie nods, Anathema still wet with cyborg fluid. "That's a reasonable assumption." She holds up a hand. "But we have another problem."
Jannali rolls her eyes. "Bloody hell, of course we do. Well, come on with it."
Aurélie's expression doesn't change. "More of our crew is missing."
Bianca looks over her shoulder, her face falling. "Like seriously?" She counts quickly on her fingers. "Ember's gone, but that's, like, totally on brand. But, like, the others too?"
Galit's eyes narrow. "Charlie."
"Vesta and Eliane," Atlas adds, his Electro crackling with agitation.
"And Jelly," Jannali finishes, her voice flat. "We've lost five of our own."
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