The System waited.
Not impatient.
Not urgent.
It waited the way something certain does.
Ren felt the heat of the mark burning through his coat, through skin, down to bone. Data pressed at the edges of his awareness—paths, probabilities, futures where he survived and futures where he didn't.
And almost all of the safe ones required him to leave.
The colossal creature beneath the Sunny roared, its armored back rising higher, lifting the ship until the sea fell away on all sides. The masts groaned. The hull screamed.
"FRANKY!" Usopp wailed.
"I KNOW, I KNOW!" Franky shouted back, bracing the engines. "But that thing's not letting go!"
Luffy dug his heels into the deck, veins bulging in his legs. "Then I'll make it let go!"
He stretched back, haki crackling faintly around his fists.
Ren looked at him.
Looked at all of them.
Nami, teeth clenched as she fought the wheel even though there was no sea to steer against. Zoro, blades planted into the deck to keep from sliding. Sanji launching again and again, each kick denting armor but never breaking it. Robin's arms trembling under strain.
They weren't asking him to save them.
They were fighting with him.
The System spoke again.
Survival protocol will isolate threat.
Crew safety probability increases if user disengages.
Ren exhaled slowly.
"No," he said.
The System paused.
"I don't survive alone anymore."
Something shifted.
Not resistance.
Acceptance.
User choice confirmed.
The heat in Ren's chest exploded outward—not violently, but expansively. His senses sharpened, haki flowing cleaner, steadier, threading through his body like a second heartbeat.
No new power.
Just alignment.
Ren stepped forward, placing himself beside Luffy at the bow.
Luffy glanced sideways, grin splitting his face. "Good."
Ren raised his blade, blackened with armament haki, and slammed it down into the creature's armor—not to cut, but to anchor. Haki surged outward, resonating.
Zoro felt it instantly.
"Tch," he grinned. "About time."
He followed Ren's strike, blades biting into the same seam. Sanji adjusted midair without a word, his flaming kick crashing down where steel had weakened shell.
"NOW!" Nami shouted, reading the shift like a storm.
Franky rerouted everything. "SUUUUUPER BURST!"
The Sunny's engines screamed as cola fire roared, the ship surging forward just as the beast lost its grip.
The creature bellowed, armor splitting at last.
Luffy launched.
"GOMU GOMU NO—"
Ren moved with him.
They didn't plan it.
They didn't need to.
Steel and rubber struck together, haki roaring as the blow shattered armor and sent the colossal monster crashing back into the sea in a thunderous explosion of water and broken plating.
Silence followed.
Then cheers.
Usopp collapsed to his knees. "WE'RE ALIVE!"
Nami sagged against the wheel, breathing hard. Robin smiled softly. Sanji lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.
Ren stood still, chest heaving.
The mark on his chest dimmed—but didn't vanish.
The black ship had stopped.
It floated there, perfectly still, as if satisfied.
The figure at its prow watched Ren with something like interest.
"Fascinating," the voice carried across the water. "You chose inefficiency."
The ship began to turn away.
"But inefficiency," the figure continued, "is how legends begin."
The vessel slipped beneath the waves, vanishing without a ripple.
Ren felt the System settle, quieter than it had ever been.
Path deviation locked.
Future recalculating.
Luffy laughed, loud and bright. He slung an arm around Ren's shoulders. "See? Way more fun together!"
Ren laughed too—short, breathless, real.
The sea calmed.
Too fast.
Nami straightened slowly, eyes narrowing. "That's not right."
The horizon darkened.
Storm clouds rolled in unnaturally fast, spiraling inward toward a single point ahead.
Robin's voice was quiet.
"That wasn't a retreat."
Ren stared into the forming storm, the mark on his chest pulsing once more.
"They're leading us somewhere," he said.
The clouds split.
And at their center—
An island that did not exist on any map.
End of Chapter Fifteen
The Thousand Sunny sailed straight toward a place the world had tried to erase.
And whatever waited there already knew their names.
Author's Note:
Daily update complete. Cliffhangers stay. If you want Chapter 16 tomorrow, drop your comments and Power Stones — the next arc phase begins on that island.