The transition was as jarring as sailing from a sunlit dream into a waking nightmare.
One moment, the Tidereaver was gliding through calm, blue waters under a bright sky; the next, it slipped silently into the oppressive gloom of Thriller Bark's domain.
The very air grew thick and cold, tasting of grave dust and stale sorrow. The light faded, not into twilight, but into a perpetual, sickly greenish-black murk that seemed to swallow sound itself.
Jagged, ship-like spires loomed in the distance, silhouetted against a sky devoid of stars or moon, a permanent funeral shroud for this floating island of the dead.
It was Nami who spotted it first: a lone barrel, bobbing innocuously in the water ahead. "Captain," she called out, pointing. "A barrel. It seems… out of place."
A slow fierce smile spread across Ragnar's face, a flash of white in the encroaching darkness. "Pick it up," he commanded, his voice low, but it cut through the unnatural silence.
Wyper, with a grunt of effort, used a long gaff hook to snag the barrel and haul it aboard. As soon as it clattered onto the deck, a faint, almost imperceptible click sounded from within, followed by a soft, pulsing red light that emanated from a small device attached to its underside.
"The hell is that?" Zoro grunted, his hand instinctively going to Kitetsu's hilt.
"It's a signal," Ragnar said, his amusement evident. He leaned against the rail, looking utterly at ease, as if he were watching a mildly interesting play. "An alarm. We've just announced our arrival to the master of this haunted house."
The crew looked from the blinking barrel to their captain's unconcerned expression. Confusion was on most of their faces, but seeing Ragnar's calm demeanor, and noting that the ever-silent, ever-watchful Kuro showed no sign of alarm, merely adjusting his glasses with a clawed finger, they held their tongues. They trusted their captain's inscrutable plans.
The Tidereaver drifted closer to the main island, the skeletal outlines of masts and ruined buildings becoming clearer.
It was then that a subtle shift occurred among the more perceptive members of the crew. Ragnar, Robin, Nojiko, and Zoro all stiffened almost imperceptibly, their heads tilting as they focused their Observation Haki.
There was an anomaly on their ship, a presence that was trying desperately to be nothing, a void in the fabric of the air where sound and intention should have been.
It was moving with a clumsy, lecherous stealth, its focus zeroing in on Robin, who stood near the starboard rail, observing the gloomy architecture with academic curiosity.
They didn't need to speak. A silent understanding passed between them. Before anyone could even form a plan, Kuro was simply… gone.
There was no blur of motion, no sound of displaced air. One moment he was standing near the mast, the next, he had vanished into the shadows, his "Silent Step" technique rendering him even more undetectable than their invisible guest.
The invisible presence crept closer to Robin, its intent a vile, slimy thing that made her skin crawl. She pretended not to notice, a small, cold smile playing on her lips. She could feel Kuro nearby, a shadow within the shadows.
Then, with a wet, tearing sound that was horribly loud in the quiet, two sets of wickedly sharp cat-claws erupted from the empty space directly behind the presence.
They punched through cloth, flesh, and bone with surgical precision, piercing the invisible man's heart from behind. A choked, gurgling scream tore through the air, cut off almost instantly. The invisibility flickered, wavered like a heat haze, and then dissolved completely.
The man who crumpled to the deck was a grotesque sight. He was large, with a lion-like mane of hair and a body covered in stitching, as if he'd been assembled from parts.
His face, frozen in a mask of shock and agony, was dominated by a massive, hideous nose. This was Absalom.
A unified wave of disgust rolled through the crew, particularly the women. Nami looked like she might be sick. "So this is the pervert," she spat, her voice trembling with revulsion.
Absalom, blood bubbling from his lips, managed to glare up at them with fading eyes. "Y-You… fools…" he rasped, each word a struggle. "Moria-sama… will not… let you go…"
His dying threat trailed off as his gaze finally landed on Ragnar. The Sea Scourge looked down at him, his expression one of utter, bored disdain, his golden eyes holding no anger, only the absolute certainty of a predator examining a squashed insect.
In that final moment, Absalom understood. Moria, his zombies, his entire domain, they were all just temporary obstacles before this man. It was impossible. A final, despairing breath rattled from his lungs, and his body went limp.
Before the corpse had even finished settling, Bartolomeo, his face a picture of zealous fervor, sprang into action. He snatched a fresh, red apple from a nearby fruit basket and practically dove to place it on Absalom's still-warm chest.
"For you, Captain!" he declared, his eyes shining with devotion.
Ragnar gave a slight, acknowledging nod. He stepped forward, raising a hand over the corpse. The air began to hum with latent power. A complex, brilliantly white magic circle etched with celestial script flared to life on the deck beneath Absalom's body.
From it, tendrils of light, tinged with a faint, ethereal purple, snaked out and enveloped the dead man. They seemed to pulse, drawing something out of his very essence, condensing it, pulling it into the apple.
The fruit trembled, its vibrant red skin swirling with patterns of light before settling, now imbued with a new, strange potential. The Suke Suke no Mi had been harvested.
Ragnar plucked the apple from the corpse and, with a thought, sent it shimmering into the storage vault of his Heavens Dimension.
"Dispose of the body," he said, his tone flat and dismissive.
Nami didn't need to be told twice. A look of pure vindictive satisfaction on her face, she strode over, drew back her leg, and delivered a powerful, furious kick to the corpse.
"Get off our ship, you creep!" she snarled. Absalom's body tumbled over the railing and splashed into the dark, stagnant waters below, sinking without a trace.
Soon after, the Tidereaver reached a dilapidated dock. Once the crew had disembarked, Ragnar placed a hand on the ship's obsidian hull. With a soft glow, the entire vessel dissolved into motes of celestial light and vanished, safely stored away in its personal pocket dimension.
They had taken only a few dozen meters into the mist-shrouded, graveyard-like landscape when the ground in front of them began to churn.
Dirt and moldy soil erupted as decayed hands, some missing fingers, others sporting tattered formal wear, clawed their way to the surface. Zombies, their eyes glowing with a malevolent yellow light, pulled themselves from their shallow graves, moaning and reaching for the living with a mindless hunger.
The girls recoiled in unison, their faces masks of profound disgust. "Ugh, they smell worse than they look!" Nojiko grimaced, holding a hand over her nose.
"Wyper," Robin said, her voice cool and composed despite the macabre scene. "If you would, please obliterate these cuties."
The Skypiean warrior didn't need the instruction. He had already leveled his Burn Bazooka. Before the first zombie could fully emerge, a searing blast of white-hot plasma erupted from the weapon, engulfing the entire group.
There were no screams, only the sizzle and pop of rotting flesh being instantly incinerated, leaving behind nothing but scorched earth and the acrid smell of ozone and burnt meat.
But Thriller Bark was a vast necropolis, and the fallen were legion. As they pressed deeper, more zombies shambled from behind crumbling mausoleums, rose from hidden pits, and stumbled out of the fog.
They were endless, a tide of rotting flesh and clattering bones. Their mindless moans became a constant, irritating drone.
Wyper, growing increasingly annoyed, holstered his bazooka. This petty horde wasn't worth the dial's charge. Instead, he raised a hand to the gloomy, static-charged sky.
"Raitei," he grunted. A fork of brilliant blue lightning descended from the heavens, forking out to strike a dozen zombies at once, reducing them to charred skeletons that collapsed into piles of ash and bone.
He repeated the process again and again, a walking storm of divine retribution, clearing a path through the relentless, shuffling dead.