A lacerating gale shears past Jannali's temples, venting a feral shriek that drowns the marrow of her hearing.
She crouches low on Gosan's back—her fingers digging into the massive Hatzegopteryx's neck, her afro whipping in the slipstream, her golden hoop earrings dancing against her cheeks. The wind smells of salt and smoke and something older—something like blood, like fire, like the particular stench of a world that has begun to break.
Below her—spread across the gray sea like a wound—the Thousand Sunny burns.
The ship is a shadow of itself. Splintered timber spars jut skyward like broken ribs from a furnace-scoured deck, the keel rolling heavily into the trough to take its final, salt-choked lungful. Fire crawls across its surface in orange and red waves, consuming wood and rope and sail. Smoke billows upward in thick black columns, painting the gray sky in shades of hell.
And on either side of the burning ship—rising from the depths like gods emerging from slumber—two vessels that have no business existing in this era.
The Pluton.
The Dreadnought Thalassa.
Jannali's breath catches in her throat. Her brown eyes—wide, expressive, seeing—trace the impossible silhouettes of the ancient weapons.
"Bloody hell," she mutters. "What have I gotten myself into?"
Gosan screeches—a sound that might be agreement, might be mockery, might be nothing at all.
Jannali leans forward, her eyes narrowing as she scans the chaos below. She sees figures moving on the decks of the impossible vessels—tiny silhouettes against the massive scale of the ships. She sees the Heart Pirates scrambling aboard, their retreat complete. She sees—
Her breath stops.
There—on the railing of the burning Sunny—a small figure dangles over the edge. Red hair. Gundam t-Shirt. A tiny frame that looks impossibly fragile against the backdrop of fire and destruction.
Sanza.
And above him—holding onto his wrist, her face twisted with effort, her orange hair whipping in the wind—Nami.
Jannali's brow furrows.
"Bloody hell, what's he carrying on about?"
She watches as Sanza kicks his legs, his free hand scrabbling at the broken railing, his mouth moving in words she can't hear. He looks terrified. He looks small. He looks like exactly what he is—an eight-year-old boy who has gotten in way over his head.
Jannali scoffs.
Then she dives.
---
Nami's arm is screaming.
Her shoulder feels like it's being pulled from its socket. Her fingers—wrapped around Sanza's wrist—are white with strain. Her teeth are gritted so hard her jaw aches.
But she doesn't let go.
"I've got you!"
The words come out through clenched teeth—not a reassurance, not a comfort, but a statement of fact. She has him. She's not letting go. No matter how much her arm hurts, no matter how much the ship rocks, no matter how much the world is falling apart around them.
Sanza looks up at her.
His eyes—those piercing, judgmental eyes that seem to analyze everyone as inferior—are wide with fear. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
"You... you saved me."
Nami's grip tightens.
"Don't make me regret it."
A shriek splits the air.
Not a human scream—something else. Something massive. Something that makes the air itself vibrate with the particular frequency of an apex predator announcing its presence.
Nami's head snaps up.
Her eyes bulge.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"
The creature descending from the sky is enormous—a Hatzegopteryx, its wingspan stretching ten meters across, its beak thick as a stone pillar, its eyes burning with ancient hunger. Its talons gleam like daggers. And on its back—crouched low, her afro whipping in the wind, her headscarf firmly in place—a woman.
Nami covers her head.
She curls into a ball—still holding onto Sanza, still refusing to let go, but terrified of the impossible creature diving toward her. Her voice comes out muffled against her own arms, high-pitched and panicked.
"NOT AGAIN! WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME?!"
The Hatzegopteryx swoops past.
Not at her—under her. The massive creature dips low, its body passing beneath Sanza's dangling feet, its back positioned perfectly to catch the falling boy.
Jannali's arm shoots out.
Her fingers close around Sanza's shirt—not his wrist, not his arm, but the fabric itself—and she pulls. The boy tumbles onto Gosan's back, his small body rolling across the leathery his arms and legs splaying out like a starfish.
Nami's hand closes on empty air.
She blinks.
Looks down at her empty fingers.
Looks up at the Hatzegopteryx as it soars upward, Sanza on its back.
"What—"
The wind steals her voice.
---
Sanza lies on Gosan's back, his chest heaving, his eyes wide, his small body trembling with adrenaline and fear. His hands grip the leather beneath him—not because he needs to, but because he doesn't know what else to do.
Jannali looks over her shoulder.
Her expression is... complicated. Annoyance. Exasperation. A hint of amusement.
"Bloody hell, what're ya hangin' on for?"
Sanza blinks.
"What?"
"Why didn't ya just stand on a disk?"
Sanza stares at her.
His brain—the brain of a self-proclaimed genius, a future Supreme Commander, a boy who has spent his entire life believing he is smarter than everyone around him—scrambles to process the question.
The disks.
The golden disks. The ones his Devil Fruit creates. The ones he can stand on, jump from, fly with.
He could have used them.
He could have saved himself.
He just... didn't think of it.
His head falls forward.
His shoulders slump.
"I don't know," he mutters. "I didn't think about it."
The words come out small. Defeated. Embarrassed. The voice of a child who has just realized that his grand plans and tactical genius mean nothing when he forgets the basics.
Jannali shakes her head.
"What's done is done."
She turns back to the front, her eyes fixed on the Dreadnought Thalassa. The massive vessel has fully surfaced now, its Aetherium Terrace unfolded like a mechanical flower, its integration platforms glowing with faint blue light. Figures move across its deck, preparing for departure.
Gosan tucks his wings.
"Right then," Jannali mutters. "Better get a move on."
The Hatzegopteryx dives.
The wind screams. The sea rushes up to meet them. Sanza—still lying on his back, still gripping the feathers—squeals.
"IS IT NECESSARY TO GO THIS FAST?!"
Jannali doesn't answer.
She just leans forward, her fingers tightening on Gosan's neck, her eyes fixed on the Dreadnought Thalassa's deck. The wind whips her afro, makes her earrings dance, stings her eyes.
She doesn't blink.
Gosan levels out just above the water—so close that the spray kisses their faces, so close that Sanza can see the fish scattering beneath the surface. The Thalassa looms ahead, its deck a platform of impossible engineering.
Jannali pulls back.
Gosan flares—his wings spreading, his body tilting upward, his talons extending. For a moment, they hang there—suspended between sea and sky, between the burning past and the uncertain future.
Then they land.
Gosan's talons clang against the Thalassa's deck. The Hatzegopteryx folds his wings, his massive form settling into stillness. Jannali swings her leg over his neck and slides to the ground, her sandals slapping against the metal.
She looks back at Sanza.
The boy is still lying on Gosan's back, his chest heaving, his eyes wide. He looks like a turtle that has been flipped onto its shell—helpless, confused, and vaguely embarrassed.
Jannali sighs.
"You comin' or what?"
Sanza scrambles to his feet. He slides off Gosan's back, his boots hitting the deck with a thud. He stands there, swaying slightly, his small body still trembling with adrenaline.
Jannali turns away.
She doesn't look at the burning Sunny. She doesn't look at the chaos they're leaving behind. She just walks toward the Thalassa's interior, her footsteps echoing against the metal, her headscarf firmly in place.
Sanza follows.
He doesn't look back either.
---
The Dreadnought Thalassa hums with power.
Its systems come online—one by one, a symphony of ancient technology awakening from slumber. The Aetherium Terrace folds, its panels sliding and locking into place, its trusses retracting, its railings descending. The fin-sail unfurls, catching the wind, its surface shimmering with adaptive energy.
Gosan screeches.
The Hatzegopteryx launches himself from the deck, his wings beating against the air, his massive form rising above the sinking vessel. He circles once—twice—then dives toward the water, his body shifting, changing, transforming back into the spear that is his other form.
Jannali catches him.
Her fingers close around the shaft—the segmented alloy, the seastone tip—and she attached it to her hip. The spear settles into place, its weight familiar, its presence comforting.
She looks up.
The Thousand Sunny—burning, broken, abandoned—floats alone in the gray.
Jannali watches it for a moment.
Her expression is unreadable.
Then she turns.
She walks into the Thalassa's interior, her footsteps echoing against the metal, her heart beating steady in her chest.
Behind her—above her—the world breaks a little more.
---
On the deck of the burning Sunny, Nami stands alone.
Her arm still aches. Her hand is still empty. The boy she saved—the boy she caught—is gone. Taken. Stolen.
She stares at the spot where the Dreadnought Thalassa waits.
Her fists clench.
Her jaw tightens.
And somewhere deep in her chest—somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the exhaustion, beneath the particular despair of someone who has just watched her captain be taken—a fire begins to burn.
She turns.
The Sunny is still burning. Her crew is still fighting. The battle is still raging.
But the war—the war has just begun.
She takes a breath.
She raises her Clima-Tact.
And she screams.
"ZEUS! GET YOUR CLOUDY BUTT OVER HERE! WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO!"
The thundercloud materializes beside her, his cartoonish face twisted with confusion, his small body crackling with electricity.
"Wha—Nami, what's—"