Sea Circle Calendar, Year 1472 – Open Waters, South Blue.
Rain hissed against the smoldering embers of the Tempest's Fury, a mournful sound that mimicked the steam rising from the cooling cannons of the distant Marine fleet. The ship didn't just smell of battle; it was a charnel house of sensory overload—the ozone of Sinbad's Haki-discharge, the cloying, sweet stench of burnt giant-fat, and the sharp, metallic tang of spent gunpowder that coated the tongue like copper.
Sinbad stood at the aft rail, his hands trembling so violently he had to lock his elbows to keep from collapsing. He gripped the wood, but there was no relief; the skin of his palms was a ruin of scorched, weeping flesh, the legacy of the Sea-Prism cable. It looked like raw, marbled steak, the edges curled and blackened.
Seventeen years of this life—the collision of Yami Hirotoshi's memories and the brutal reality of the Sea Circle Calendar—had carved every last bit of softness out of him. His purple hair, once a tangled mat of ship-grime, was now tied in a sharp, pragmatic ponytail that whipped in the gale like a lash. He stared into the churning wake, his golden eyes—now bloodshot and pupils blown wide—searching the fog for that telltale green glow of the submersible.
"Eggplant. Move."
Zeff stood behind him. The fifteen-year-old didn't offer a shoulder or a word of comfort. He held a bucket of lye and a scrubbing brush, his knuckles white. His face was a mask of simmering, adolescent fury, the blonde peach-fuzz of his mustache twitching with every jagged breath he took.
"I'm busy, Zeff," Sinbad rasped, his voice sounding like he'd swallowed a handful of glass.
"You're bleeding on the mahogany, you incompetent brat," Zeff snapped. He didn't wait for Sinbad to move; he shoved him aside with a shoulder, his boots clicking a harsh, rhythmic beat against the deck. He dropped to his knees and began to scrub the blood-stained wood with a violence that spoke of a man trying to wash away his own fear. "You risked the ship. You risked my kitchen. You risked every dream we've built for a wall of meat that nearly dragged us to the seafloor."
Sinbad's jaw tightened, the bone popping. The Singularity in his chest pulsed—a low, discordant thrum that felt like a funeral bell. "He's my crew. He's your crew."
"He's a liability!" Zeff roared, standing up, the lye-water splashing his shins. "In a real crew, the Captain makes the hard call! You let sentiment cloud your sight. If that stone had been an inch deeper, Oars would be a floating corpse and we'd be breathing salt water right now! You don't trade a king for a pawn, Sinbad!"
"I didn't lose him," Sinbad said, turning. His charisma, usually a warm, inviting shield that drew people in, was now a cold, naked blade. It cut through Zeff's bravado, making the air between them feel thin and brittle. "I won't lose anyone. Not like before. Not ever."
Zeff stared at him, his own arrogance clashing with the sheer, terrifying weight of Sinbad's conviction. He was shorter than Sinbad, but his presence filled the deck, smelling of smoke and stubbornness. "This isn't a game of 'King,' Sinbad. The sea doesn't care about your 'Will.' It only cares about who's left standing. You want to lead? Stop acting like a martyr and start acting like a survivor. A dead King doesn't have a kingdom."
The tension broke not with words, but with a low, tectonic moan that vibrated through the deck.
Oars sat on the reinforced section of the bow, his massive back leaning against the main mast. He looked smaller than he had an hour ago, his bruised red skin turned a sickly, translucent pale under the moonlight. The wound in his chest was a jagged crater, the edges of the muscle blackened and necrotic where the Sea-Prism had touched him.
Zeff's anger didn't disappear; it transformed. He vanished into the galley, and for ten minutes, the only sound was the frantic clatter of pans and the hiss of a high-pressure stove. When he emerged, he was carrying a cauldron the size of a bathtub. The steam rising from it was thick, smelling of rust, brine, and high-altitude herbs that cleared the sinuses like a punch.
"Eat," Zeff commanded, sliding the cauldron toward the giant with his foot.
"Oars... not hungry," the giant rumbled, his voice a dry, papery rasp. He stared at his hands—massive, scarred palms that had failed to stop the "Small Men's Stones."
"I didn't ask if you were hungry, you overgrown radish," Zeff barked, his blonde hair damp from the sea spray. "This is Hematite Bouillabaisse. I used the blood-marrow of the Peach-Fleshed King and iron-salts I've been saving since the South Reefs. It'll kick the Sea-Prism poison out of your marrow and restart your heart. Drink it, or I'll kick you overboard myself and save the Marines the trouble."
Oars looked at Sinbad. The Captain nodded once, a silent, heavy gesture. The giant lifted the cauldron like a delicate porcelain teacup and drained it in a single, massive gulp.
The reaction was violent. Oars's body jolted, his massive neck veins bulging like thick cables as the mineral-rich, spicy broth flooded his system. The deathly paleness receded, replaced by the deep, angry red of his heritage. He let out a long, steaming breath that smelled of peppers and iron.
"Zeff..." Oars whispered, his golden eyes refocusing. "Small Man's food... has fire."
"It's not 'fire,' it's nutrition, you idiot," Zeff muttered, though he finally stopped scrubbing the deck.
Sinbad walked toward the giant, his bare feet silent on the wood. He placed a hand—tiny, scarred, and still weeping clear fluid—on Oars's knee.
"I'm sorry," Sinbad said.
Oars looked down at his Captain. The fear was still there, lurking in the corners of his eyes—the primal terror of the stone that had turned his mountain-moving strength into ash. But as he looked at Sinbad's ruined hands, the fear shifted into something harder.
"Captain hurt for Oars," the giant rumbled. "Small men have stones that bite. Oars... was weak. Oars was anchor."
"We were both weak," Sinbad corrected, his voice firming. "The World Government has weapons we don't understand yet. They have science that mocks the gods. But we learn. We grow. We 'overclock' until their science looks like a child's toy."
Oars's hand closed into a fist the size of a carriage, the knuckles cracking like dry timber. "Oars will not be the anchor that sinks the ship. Oars will be the mountain the sea breaks against. Next time... the stones will break first."
Sinbad felt the Singularity resonate. The Distress—the high-pitched whine of failure—was gone, replaced by a jagged, hungry Destiny. Oars wasn't just a shield anymore; he was a weapon being forged in the heat of a loss.
Zeff walked to the rail, staring toward the North, where the sky was a bruised purple. "We're being followed, eggplant."
Sinbad joined him. He pushed his Observation Haki out, straining against the exhaustion that threatened to pull him into a coma. He didn't see ships, but he felt a needle-prick of irritation—a resonance that seemed to emanate from the very air around the main mast.
"The harpoon," Sinbad realized, his voice dropping an octave. He reached out and touched the wood where the cable had been attached. He could feel it now—a high-frequency vibration, a digital pulse in a world of sails. "It wasn't just a weapon. It was a beacon. They didn't want to sink us; they wanted to tether us."
"The Marines don't give up," Zeff said, his arrogance returning as his strength recovered. "They want the Giant. And they want you, the 'Demon' with the weird eyes."
"They're leading us," Sinbad said, his eyes narrowing. "The Director mentioned a 'Scholar' in the North. Someone the Government wants even more than a Singularity or an Ancient Giant."
"A Scholar?" Zeff snorted, spat over the rail. "What's a book-worm worth to the Marines?"
"Everything," Sinbad replied, his mind flashing to the meta-knowledge of the Void Century, of the Poneglyphs, and the woman who would one day be the Light of the Revolution. "If we find this Scholar first, we don't just get a Navigator. We get the truth. And the truth is the only thing that can burn the World