Twenty thousand meters above the sea, the deck of the Eclipse buzzed with energy.
Rayleigh shrugged off his coat, down to just a shirt, and picked up a custom brush. He spread a thick, pungent resin in even strokes across the Eclipse's massive black hull.
"Watch closely, kid."
He kept brushing as he spoke to Jeno at his side. "Yarukiman Mangrove resin develops a unique elasticity when it hits air. Every inch of the coating has to be the same thickness. One thin spot, and at ten thousand meters down, the water pressure will pop that bubble like nothing. Then everyone on board feeds the fish."
"Understood, Master Rayleigh."
Jeno pushed up his goggles, eyes locked on Rayleigh's technique. He didn't take notes. Instead, he activated the micro-scanner built into his mechanical arm, recording every angle, every pressure, every second of the resin's curing time.
A few hours later, a massive transparent hemisphere encased the Eclipse in a perfect bubble.
"There. Done. That's one solid ship you've got."
Rayleigh wiped sweat from his forehead and admired the coating glinting in the sunlight.
"That's it?"
Jeno rubbed his chin, circling the membrane. "So the whole principle is just controlling resin elasticity and surface tension. I've already got the chemical structure mapped out."
He bolted for the lower-deck lab, shouting over his shoulder. "Captain, give me two hours! I'll rig up a resin-mix valve and this ship will never need manual coating again!"
Rayleigh stared after the mechanic, then turned to where Ace was sparring with Sabo nearby.
"You've got some crew. An old man's trade, picked up in one watch?"
"His head holds more than you'd guess."
Ace stopped moving and grabbed a towel. "Once he builds the automatic coating generator, there won't be a place on these seas the Eclipse can't reach."
Two hours later.
The sound of machining faded, and Jeno strode back onto the deck.
"Done."
He slapped a newly installed metal ring along the Eclipse's gunwale. "Hooked the resin tank to the hull's micro exhaust ports. Flip a switch, the resin sprays out, follows the hull geometry, and forms a perfect coating. Ten times faster, and we can reapply anytime."
"Hah! That's our guy."
Sabo punched Jeno in the shoulder. "No more begging for a coat every time we dive."
Rayleigh looked at the metal ring and shook his head, smiling.
"Kids these days. Less and less room for an old man to earn his keep."
He walked to the rail and glanced down at the thick cloud layer below. "Well, work's done. Time I headed back. Shakky's probably muttering at the bar by now."
"Leona, see him down," Ace said.
"No need."
Rayleigh waved a hand. "Getting hauled up here is one thing. Going down, I'll handle myself. Stretch the legs a little."
"Ace."
Rayleigh stood on the rail and looked back at the young man who carried Roger's blood. "The sea winds of the New World are a lot rougher than Paradise. Don't go stumbling in front of those Emperors."
"Worry about yourself, old man. Lose less at the card tables."
Ace folded his arms, a confident edge curling at his mouth.
Rayleigh laughed, then leapt. His lean, explosive frame dropped from twenty thousand meters, Moonwalk steps cracking through the air as he vanished into the sea of clouds.
"Little Eclipse, begin descent." Ace stood at the helm.
"Command confirmed. Deactivating hover array. Gravity balance system engaged. Steady descent initiated. Target depth: sea level."
The Eclipse's vast black hull slipped smoothly out of the stratosphere. It fell like a dark swan spreading its wings, elegant and steady, cutting through the sky toward the blue ocean below.
"Whoa! We're going in!"
Chopper pressed against the transparent coating at the rail, eyes huge. "This is my first time under the sea!"
"Over there! Marines!" Carina pointed at the expanding view of the water below.
Off the outer waters of the Sabaody Archipelago, a massive Marine battleship sat at anchor. On its deck, a grim-faced Vice Admiral in a Justice coat scanned the sky with his telescope.
"Vice Admiral! Unidentified object descending fast from the cloud layer! Hull markings... it's the Eclipse!"
"What?!" The Vice Admiral's face darkened. He hurled the telescope aside. "Those lunatics came back? All hands to battle stations! Lock main cannons! Do not let them near the port!"
The Eclipse's secondary guns were already online before the Marines could finish prepping their barrage.
"Captain, that warship looks like it wants a piece of us." Jeno sat at the weapons station, fingers light on the controls.
"Give them one. Remind them who not to provoke." Ace's voice was flat.
"Copy. Laser cannon, fire."
A pale blue beam lanced down from ten thousand meters.
Boom.
The shot struck dead-on. The heavy battleship flipped, soldiers scattering across the deck and hurling themselves into the sea.
"Tch. No manners at all."
Sabo stood beside Ace, watching the chaos below with a faint smile.
A soft sound.
The Eclipse's hull met the water. The coating cushioned the impact. No jolt, no shudder. The ship simply slipped beneath the surface, gravity pulling it down.
The light began to fade.
"Whoa! So this is what it looks like down here!"
Bonney skittered her mechanical spider across the deck, pressing close to the viewport at the riot of coral reefs and darting schools of fish. "Dad! Look! Glowing fish!"
Kuma stood quietly beside her and nodded.
The world outside transformed as the Eclipse sank deeper.
One thousand meters.
Sunlight grew scarce. The bright blue water deepened to a dark jade.
Two thousand meters.
The light from above was barely a whisper now.
"Where do roots that size even come from?"
Enel sat cross-legged at the bow, staring through the viewport at the colossal mangrove roots rising from the endless dark below. They were impossibly thick, stretching up into the void.
"Sunlight Tree Eve's root system. The lifeline of Sabaody and Fish-Man Island."
Ace walked to the window and pointed at the faintly glowing tendrils. "They carry sunlight and air from the surface down to the seafloor, ten thousand meters deep."
"Fascinating. How does that even work?" A flicker of genuine curiosity crossed Enel's face.
Five thousand meters.
Absolute darkness swallowed them.
The deck of the Eclipse went pitch black. The jade water had turned to dead, silent ink.
"Yohoho... I can't see a thing."
Brook's voice drifted up, cold flames flickering in his empty sockets. "This feeling rather reminds me of drifting through the Florian Triangle."
"It's so dark. What if a monster jumps out?" Chopper shrank back, neck tucked low.
A burst of crimson-gold flame ignited in Ace's right hand.
The coating blocked the heat, but the light of the Vermilion Bird's sacred fire blazed through the resin, illuminating the sea for hundreds of meters around the Eclipse.
"Whoa! That's..."
Everyone followed the glow.
A deep-sea octopus, its body alone hundreds of meters long, drifted past the gunwale. Tentacles like moving mountains. Its colossal eye gleamed cold and eerie in the firelight.
"A Kraken. Big one."
Ace watched the creature edging closer. He made no move to strike. "Let's go. No time to waste on this thing."
The Eclipse kept descending.
Along the way, they passed the wreckage of ships centuries dead, underwater volcanoes breathing magma into the black, and all manner of bizarre deep-sea giants.
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