Story Quote: "The line between god and monster is drawn by hunger."
-The Palace-
The throne room shook like a dying beast. Roots snapped and twisted along the ceiling, raining amber sap and shards of vine-marbled stone.
Kairo steadied himself against a broken column, Kusanagi drawn, its edge glowing faintly from residual plasma heat. Aria reloaded beside him, the floor beneath her boots rippling like living flesh.
"We can't stay here," she said between breaths. "The whole palace is coming down.""We need to find the core," Kairo replied. "Before it finds us."
The walls split open, revealing tunnels of pulsing green light. The air grew thick, sweet—like nectar masking decay.
Kairo stepped forward, Observation Haki sweeping through the ruin. What he felt made his skin crawl. A consciousness. Ancient. Hungry.
Then the voice came.
"You killed my vessel."
The air trembled as if the sound came from the roots themselves.
"He was weak, unworthy. But you… you carry the scent of the sky."
Aria froze. "What—what does that mean?"
The floor split beneath them. Vines erupted upward, forming a massive figure—humanoid, elegant, terrifying. She stood nearly three meters tall, skin of green marble, hair of vines adorned with blooming white petals that dripped translucent sap. Her eyes glowed a deep gold—cold, calculating, and ancient.
The Verdant Mother had taken form.
"You will feed the soil," she said simply.
Kairo charged first, his body dissolving into a trail of vapor, reappearing at her flank. His sword sliced across her midsection, a clean arc that should have bisected any living being.
But the wound closed instantly, vines knitting themselves together. She turned her head, unbothered, and backhanded Kairo with enough force to shatter a tree. He flew into a pillar, cracking it clean in half.
"Kairo!" Aria fired three consecutive rounds. Each bullet embedded into the Verdant Mother's torso and exploded in bursts of flame and smoke.
The creature stepped through the blast, unharmed, her floral armor peeling and regrowing within seconds.
"I do not bleed," she murmured. "I bloom."
Kairo rose slowly, coughing blood but grinning faintly. "Good. I needed a challenge."
He coated Kusanagi in Armament Haki, the blade darkening until it shimmered black with violet sparks. The air around him distorted as heat and gas converged.
"Gas Blade Style—Tempest Cleaver!"
A spiraling arc of compressed heat and gas tore through the air, cleaving through several of her vine-tendrils and blasting the palace wall apart.
For the first time, she staggered.
Aria took advantage, sprinting forward and firing a chain-shot round into the creature's chest, wrapping her in Haki-infused cables. The Verdant Mother hissed, tearing at the binds, but for a moment, she was slowed.
"Kairo! Now!""On it!"
He lunged forward—but before the blade could land, roots erupted from beneath his feet, coiling around his ankles and wrists. The bindings burned with acidic sap that hissed against his skin.
"You will return what you have taken," the Verdant Mother whispered, her tone not angry but sorrowful. "The king's blood. The lives of my children. Your flesh will replace theirs."
-Inside The City-
Outside the palace, the world was ending.
The jungle had come alive. Trees uprooted themselves and marched toward the coast, vines wrapped around cannons, dragging Marines screaming into the undergrowth.
Rumi, Mira, Kino, and Jett raced along a collapsing bridge of branches as the forest writhed beneath them.
"The entire ecosystem's reacting!" Rumi shouted, clutching her satchel of volatile mixtures. "It's coordinated—like a nervous system!""Then we're running through its veins," Kino snapped. "Stay light!"
A cluster of Marines burst from the tree line ahead—uniforms torn, faces wild. They weren't hunting anymore; they were surviving.
"Hold your ground!" one of them screamed. "The pirates are here! Hold—"
Jett slammed into the group like a human avalanche, hammer spinning in wide arcs that shattered rifles and ribcages alike. Mira darted in after him, slicing vines and deflecting stray bullets, her movements clean, rhythmic, almost graceful amid chaos.
"Keep moving!" Kino ordered. "The palace is our rendezvous!""Easier said than done!" Jett roared, smashing through a fallen root the size of a ship mast.
Rumi uncorked a vial and hurled it at a group of advancing Marines. The bottle shattered, releasing a cloud of shimmering gas that turned their armor brittle as glass. Jett followed up with a single swing—shattering the soldiers into unconscious heaps.
They pressed on. Behind them, the jungle burned.
-The Palace-
Kairo strained against the tightening roots. His muscles screamed as he tried to force Armament Haki through his limbs, burning the bindings from within. The sap hissed louder, releasing clouds of vapor that stung his lungs.
"You cannot cut the soil that bore you," the Verdant Mother intoned.
She reached toward him, her touch delicate but filled with monstrous strength.
Aria fired again—this time directly into the creature's eye. The bullet embedded deep, releasing a burst of Rumi's earlier concoction—liquid nitrogen.
The eye froze solid. The Verdant Mother shrieked, staggering back as shards of ice fell from her face.
Kairo ripped free, gas surging from his body as he inhaled deeply, pulling the oxygen out of the air itself. His form blurred—half man, half vapor, eyes glowing faint blue.
"You want to feed, monster?" he growled. "Choke on me instead."
He exploded forward, a cyclone of gas and Haki-infused blade strikes, every swing creating sonic booms that tore through the chamber.
The Verdant Mother countered, vines lashing like serpents, each strike strong enough to split marble. Aria kept firing, each shot coordinated with Kairo's rhythm—one covering, the other cutting.
Still, for every vine they destroyed, three more grew.
"She's regenerating too fast!" Aria shouted."Then we find the core!" Kairo yelled back.
As if responding, the Verdant Mother's chest split open, revealing a faintly pulsing crystal heart embedded within a network of glowing roots. It throbbed in rhythm with the earth's heartbeat.
Kairo lunged—but just as his blade neared the heart, it vanished into her body, sinking deeper, retreating into the palace's living walls.
"You think me a beast to slay?" she whispered, voice echoing all around them. "I am the breath between the tides. I am the seed that outlasts death."
The entire palace shook violently. Vines erupted upward, tearing through the ceiling, exposing the moonlit canopy beyond.
"She's merging with the island," Aria realized. "If we don't stop her now—""We won't have an island left to save," Kairo finished grimly.