Spring 1472 – The Sunken Shallows, South Blue
The ocean didn't move for Oars; he moved the ocean.
Twenty feet below the crystalline surface of the Sunken Shallows, the young Ancient Giant waded through the white-sand drifts of a nameless atoll. The South Blue brine reached his chest—a crushing, churning weight that pressed against his recovering lungs with every thrum of the tide. Each step he took sent a subterranean shudder through the Tempest's Fury, which bobbed a hundred yards away like a toy in a bathtub.
Oars gripped a thick, rust-pitted iron chain wrapped around a jagged coral monolith—a five-ton tooth of the sea he was dragging against the relentless rip current. His sunset-red skin rippled and bunched, slick with salt and the effort of a god. He wasn't swimming; he was rooted. His massive, shovel-like toes dug into the seafloor, crushing shell and stone as he fought the South Blue's gravity.
"Again! Don't let the current dictate your stride, Oars! Own the floor!" Sinbad's voice drifted down from the crow's nest, sharp and clear.
Oars roared, a muffled, gurgling sound that sent a volcanic eruption of bubbles to the surface. He heaved. His quadriceps, thick as century-old oaks, coiled and flexed. The monolith sheared through the sand with a slow, agonizing groan, a victory of primeval muscle over the indifferent weight of the world.
Sinbad watched from above, his golden eyes narrowed into slits. Seventeen years had carved the boyishness from his face, leaving behind a sharpness that bordered on predatory. He wasn't truly watching Oars's form anymore; he was scouring the horizon. His Observation Haki flickered like a dying lamp in a gale. The paranoia that had been a low hum since the day he left Baterilla was now a screaming siren in the back of his skull.
Something is wrong, he thought, the "Singularity" in his chest tightening into a knot of cold iron. The Marines are too efficient. They aren't just tracking a ship; they're anticipating a ghost.
The Parasite in the Pantry
Sinbad dropped from the rigging, his boots hitting the deck with a muffled, rhythmic thud. He ignored the stinging salt spray and strode straight toward the galley.
The air inside was a violent contrast to the sea air—thick with the scent of roasted cumin, scorched chili, and the sharp, acidic tang of Zeff's latest fermentation experiment. Zeff stood at the central prep table, his blonde hair tied back with a grease-stained cord. A heavy cleaver danced across a slab of bluefin tuna with the practiced, indifferent rhythm of a guillotine. He was fifteen, but the way he held the blade suggested he'd already forgotten the feeling of a hand without a weapon.
"Out, eggplant," Zeff snapped, his eyes never leaving the fish. "I'm prepping the Giant's caloric intake. You're standing in my light, and you smell like wet dog."
Sinbad didn't move. He closed his eyes, letting his Singularity expand. He wasn't looking for heartbeats or life-signs this time. He was looking for the "itch"—that unnatural, high-frequency vibration of a transmission he'd felt back at the Reef.
He walked toward the spice rack, his fingers hovering over the mismatched ceramic jars. Zeff's cleaver slowed, the chop-chop-chop halting mid-stroke.
"Touch my Saffron and I take a finger," Zeff warned, his voice a low, dangerous rasp. "I don't care if you're the Captain."
Sinbad ignored him, reaching behind a heavy jar of fermented black peppercorns. His fingers brushed something that wasn't clay. It was cold, fleshy, and pulsed with a faint, rhythmic heat. He yanked it out.
It was a Black Den-Den Mushi, no larger than a walnut. Its shell had been meticulously painted the exact, oily shade of the galley's shadows. The snail was awake, its tiny, bulbous eyes fixed on Sinbad with a terrifying, vacant intelligence.
"A parasite," Sinbad whispered, the realization chilling his blood.
Zeff's face went from irritation to a deathly, chalky white. He dropped the cleaver; the blade embedded itself three inches deep into the mahogany table with a resonant, vibrating thwang.
"In my kitchen?" Zeff's voice was a low, vibrating growl of pure, unadulterated sacrilege. "You brought a Government rat into my sacred space, Sinbad?"
"I didn't bring it," Sinbad replied, his own temper flaring as the Singularity pulsed in warning. "It was planted. Dead-Man's Reef. Probably while we were distracted by Isolde and the skiffs. They didn't just want us to run; they wanted us to lead them."
Zeff lunged forward, his hands trembling with a rage that surpassed his usual teenage arrogance. This was deeper—a violation of the one place where he held absolute dominion. He snatched the snail from Sinbad's hand, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened.
"They used my ship," Zeff hissed, his right boot beginning to spark and smoke as he scraped it against the floorboards. "They used my spices to hide their filth. I'll burn every wharf from here to Mariejois if I find out who touched this rack."
"Zeff, wait—don't just—"
"No!" Zeff roared. "This isn't about your 'Destiny' or your 'Flow,' Sinbad! This is an insult to the craft! If I can't keep a kitchen clean from rats, I'm not a chef. I'm just a servant with a stove!"
With a sickening crunch, Zeff pulverized the Den-Den Mushi in his palm. The snail let out a dying, high-pitched squeal that sounded far too human. Purple, viscous fluid leaked through Zeff's fingers, staining his white apron like an ink-blot of failure.
The Blind Spot
The moment the snail died, Sinbad's Singularity didn't just flicker—it buckled.
He tried to reach out, to find the "Scholar" the Director had mentioned. He expected the familiar slide of his meta-knowledge to kick in—to see a face from the manga, a Nico, a Clover, someone whose destiny he could manipulate.
Instead, he hit a wall of static.
The person waiting for them in the North was a Void. They weren't a variable in the "script" Yami Hirotoshi remembered. They were a blank space, a jagged tear in the tapestry of the world he thought he understood. The feedback turned Sinbad's vision into a searing, white-hot blur. He stumbled back, his spine slamming against the galley wall, breath coming in jagged, panicked hitches.
"Sinbad?" Zeff's anger cooled instantly into a sharp, suspicious concern. He wiped the snail-guts onto a rag, stepping toward his Captain. "What's wrong with your eyes?"
"I can't see them," Sinbad rasped, clutching his temples. "The Scholar... they shouldn't exist. My Singularity... it's hitting a blind spot. The history is changing, Zeff. Or it was never what I thought it was."
Zeff snorted, the arrogance returning to his posture as he picked his cleaver back up. "Good. Maybe now you'll stop acting like you've already read the ending and start fighting the man standing in front of you. Secrets are for libraries, eggplant. The sea is for sweat."
The Tempest's Fury sailed into the frigid, crystal-clear currents of the Northern South Blue forty-eight hours later.
Ahead lay an island that looked less like land and more like a mountain of fossilized wisdom: Isola d'Avorio. It was a jagged spire of white limestone, carved by centuries of wind into arches that resembled the flying buttresses of a cathedral. Hanging gardens of pale moss draped over ancient stone bridges that spanned dizzying chasms. There were no Marine flags. No pirate banners. Only the eerie, melodic whistle of the wind through the limestone flutes.
Oars waded alongside the ship, the water now only reaching his waist. He looked at the island, his golden eyes narrowed with a giant's intuition. "Captain... the air here... it smells like old paper and cold stone."
"That's the Scholar," Sinbad said, standing at the bow. His Singularity was silent, leaving a hollow, aching void in his chest. He felt blind, walking into a trap he could no longer predict.
As they glided into the shadow of the cliffs, a single figure stood on the highest bridge, three hundred feet above the masts. They held a brass telescope in one hand and a heavy, leather-bound volume in the other. Their coat—a deep, scholarly teal—whipped in the wind.
"Intruders," a voice echoed across the water. It was clear, melodic, and possessed a terrifyingly calm authority. "The World Government whispered that a King would come to my shores. I see only a boy playing at war, a cook with a temper, and a relic of a dead age."
Sinbad looked up, his golden eyes flaring with a desperate need to see through the "Void" surrounding this person. The figure on the bridge closed their book with a definitive, bone-chilling snap.
"Wait," Sinbad muttered, his Haki finally catching a ripple.
Behind the Tempest's Fury, the horizon began to bleed into shadow. It wasn't a natural storm. It was a fleet of black sails, their silhouettes jagged and predatory against the dying sun. CP5 hadn't stopped tracking them when the snail died; they had simply waited for Sinbad to lead them to the "blind spot."
"Welcome to Isola d'Avorio, Sinbad of Baterilla," the Scholar shouted, their voice carrying a strange, resonant power that made Sinbad's teeth ache. "I hope you brought more than a sword. Because tonight, we're going to find out if you're a hero of the new age... or just another ghost I have to bury in the archives."
A massive, iron-toothed gate began to rise from the seafloor with a grinding roar, sealing the harbor entrance behind them.
Sinbad stood on the deck, trapped between a fleet of assassins and a woman who didn't exist in his memories. He looked at Zeff, who was already lighting his boots, and then at Oars, who was bracing his massive shoulders against the rising gate.
"Zeff," Sinbad whispered, drawing Maelstrom. The blade didn't flicker; it hummed with a low, black-violet light. "You were right. The script is gone."
"Finally," Zeff grinned, the fire from his leg casting long, flickering shadows against the white limestone walls. "Now tell that bitch on the bridge that the 'cook' is about to serve dinner."
The Scholar raised a hand, and the hanging gardens above them suddenly erupted with the glint of long-range rifles.
"Captain," Oars rumbled, his voice shaking the hull. "What do we do?"
Sinbad looked up at the Scholar, then back at the black sails closing in. A manic, genuine smile—one not born of his "King" persona, but of Yami's old, buried excitement—spread across his face.
"We do what we always do, Oars," Sinbad said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, charismatic register. "We overclock the world until it breaks."
He turned his gaze toward the bridge. "You want to bury a ghost, Scholar? You'd better bring a bigger shovel!"
He launched himself toward the cliffs, a purple streak of defiance, as the first volley of CP5's cannons lit up the harbor in a hellish, sulfurous glow.