The Kamui was silence.
Absolute silence, not of this world.
Black stone platforms floated in the void like forgotten islands, spinning slowly beneath a starless sky. Gravity here obeyed a different logic. No wind. No cold. Only the crushing weight of existence bent under a single will.
Riser Phenex stood at the center of the main platform.
His black coat rippled with an unnatural softness, as if gliding over invisible layers of shattered reality. His left eye—the Mangekyō Sharingan—spun slowly, humming a silent song of space and time.
Before him, dimensional windows floated in a circle.
Images danced in liquid frames:
Marineford—a grave for heroes and traitors, trembling under Whitebeard's final roar.
Water 7—a shattered city, where shadows and steel still clashed amid flames.
Riser's golden gaze drifted slowly between them.
'The empire of justice… crumbling.'
'The pillars of the era… cracked.'
'The legends… choked by their own broken promises.'
Each thought came cold, carved with surgical precision.
Kalifa's figure appeared a few meters away.
She approached with precise steps, her heels echoing softly in the void.
Her new uniform clung to her form practically, stripped of excess. A refined version of the image that once served CP9, now adapted to a new throne, a new order.
Kalifa stopped a few paces away, kneeling in fluid reverence.
Her blonde hair was tied in a perfect bun, a few loose strands floating like golden threads in the distorted gravity of the Kamui.
She lowered her head.
"My Lord."
Her voice was a fearless whisper.
Riser didn't respond immediately.
The Mangekyō projected a larger window ahead: Lucci, in Water 7, moved with clinical ferocity against Alvida and Kaya.
Pure technique still gravitated around him, a reminder of his nature—a machine built to kill.
But even Lucci, at his peak, trembled before what Riser was.
'Competent.'
'Enough… to be used before being broken.'
Riser moved a finger.
The image of Water 7 froze.
His golden attention settled on Kalifa.
"What remains in you… of your old life?"
The question was a blade slicing through the void.
Kalifa raised her gaze.
Her ice-blue eyes, now colder than frost, met his without hesitation.
"Only dead memories."
The silence absorbed her response.
Riser tilted his head slightly.
The Sharingan spun slowly, as if piercing the very seams of her soul.
No hesitation.
No lies.
No regrets.
Kalifa uncrossed her arms.
Her bare hands touched the black stone floor.
Her head lowered again.
"I swear, before the abyss and eternity, that all I was… was left to die in Water 7."
Her voice was steel and stardust.
"I exist now only to serve you. To extend your will beyond this broken world."
The Kamui seemed to vibrate in response.
The secondary platforms shifted, orbiting in slow, hypnotic patterns.
Riser watched.
His head held high, like a king judging his vassals' oaths.
Her blood already carried his mark.
Her mind had been shaped by his presence.
But hearing the oath… sealed something older.
Something beyond contracts and alliances.
Something that clawed at the roots of free will itself.
Riser closed his eyes for a brief moment.
The sound of the real world—of Marineford cracking—still echoed faintly through the floating windows.
When he opened his eyes again, the gold burned with renewed intensity.
"Rise."
Kalifa obeyed without hesitation.
Her posture was perfect, shoulders straight, her gaze now free of any doubt.
"You are no longer a shadow of the World Government."
Riser's voice was deep, so heavy it seemed to bend the space between them.
"You are *my* shadow."
Kalifa crossed her right arm over her chest.
The universal symbol of an ancient oath of loyalty.
"My Lord."
---
Water 7 choked in the dark.
The industrial docks stood like forgotten skeletons, their abandoned cranes creaking to the rhythm of the salty breeze that cut the skin. A low fog crawled between rusted containers, like pale fingers reaching for anything alive.
Alvida moved first.
Her leap made the leather of her suit hiss against her body. The shadows under her feet reacted like blades, expanding to cut Rob Lucci's path.
The CP9 agent tilted his body at the last second.
Soru snapped.
His form blurred to the side, repositioning with pinpoint precision.
Kaya drew her bowstring.
The sound was subtle—like a thread of silk tearing.
The arrow fired.
Its shadow-dipped tip spun through the air.
Lucci twisted his torso, letting the projectile pass centimeters from his face.
The movement was so fast the fog didn't have time to dissipate.
His gaze locked onto the girl.
Cold.
Calculating.
Wordless.
Only judgment.
'They're improving… but it's still not enough.'
The Rokushiki vibrated in his muscles like an ancestral echo.
His palm sliced the air.
"Shigan."
His finger pierced the distance.
A dry snap.
Alvida lunged forward, stepping in front of Kaya.
Shadows rose like makeshift walls.
The Shigan tore through three layers before losing force.
The impact ricocheted off Alvida's chest, her Observation Haki warning her in time to harden the point of impact with shadow manipulation.
She slid two meters back, eyes narrowed.
Her smile widened on her sweat-streaked face.
"Close call."
Kaya stepped back twice.
Her bow pulsed in her hand, shadows dripping from the arrows like black venom.
The ground trembled under their silent duel.
---
Among the metallic alleys, heavy footsteps echoed.
Franky emerged, his broad silhouette framed against the twilight.
"What's going down, supeeer?!"
His shout cut the tension like a blunt blade.
Lucci's gaze shifted.
His jaw tightened.
'Franky… can't see this.'
His body vanished in a burst of Soru.
The distance between him and Franky closed in two heartbeats.
But the world reacted.
Shadows rose around the agent.
Claws of mist.
Spears of darkness.
Tentacles vibrating with silent fury.
Alvida charged from the right flank.
Kaya leaped to the left, three arrows ready, their tips trembling with raw energy.
Lucci moved.
Rankyaku erupted in a cutting line of air.
The wind blades flew toward Kaya.
She jumped back, her combat dress tearing in the process.
The air swirled around them, thick with hatred and instinct.
---
From the dormant shadows, two presences emerged.
First, the soft sound of boots touching rusted steel.
Then, the slow twirl of an umbrella.
Mikita.
Her smile was sweet, almost lazy.
But the shadow at her feet slithered, as if each step traced runes of invisible destruction.
Zala appeared beside her, hair plastered to her face by the cold damp.
Her half-closed eyes glinted with the silent hunger of someone who had already killed that night.
Shadow blades coiled around her fingers like living rings.
The air shifted.
Even Lucci felt it.
The Rokushiki pulsed in his heart like a war drum.
'Reflexes… maximum alert.'
His mind, trained for absolute battlefield awareness, processed everything in fractions.
Four enemies.
Shadows acting collectively.
Magic—albeit rudimentary.
Observation Haki in at least three of them.
Franky, vulnerable.
Mission: compromised.
Success probability: 18%.
Survival rate if continued: 34%.
A cold smile split Lucci's face.
"So this is it."
His voice was low.
Laced with mortal disdain.
"You came to die."
Alvida responded fearlessly.
Mikita's umbrella twirled slowly behind her, casting shimmering shadows on the cracked ground.
"The only death here…"
Alvida's shadow snaked under the dying light.
"…is that of the old world you still believe in."
Kaya drew another arrow.
The bow sang again.
Lucci tilted his body, dodging.
But this time… the ground gave way beneath him.
Zala's shadow pulled at the foundation.
The perfect balance of Rokushiki faltered.
For just a second.
But it was enough.
Mikita's shadows surged.
Black blades tore through Lucci's coat.
Blood flowed.
A thin line.
But real.
And in the depths of Rob Lucci's perfect, calculating mind…
A snap.
The first in years.
His right hand trembled.
Almost imperceptible.
But there.
The Rokushiki was not invincible.
Not in this territory.
Not against wolves hunting with hunger, with intelligence, with old blood and newly freed shadows.
---
Franky, further ahead, still laughed, oblivious to the abyss opening behind him.
"You guys training something new, supeeer?!"
His right arm raised in a casual salute.
But the girls didn't respond.
The shadow beneath Franky rippled subtly, ready to pull him out of reach at any moment.
Mikita smiled, teeth hidden.
Zala shifted her weight, her blade humming.
Alvida drove her heel into the ground.
Kaya drew another arrow, the bowstring creaking under the tension.
And Rob Lucci, for the first time since becoming the World Government's monster…
Thought.
'I… might…'
'…not win.'
The sky above was already black.
The ground beneath vibrated as if the shadows were ravenous.
And Marineford, far away, still burned like a forgotten memory of a world that no longer existed.
Water 7… had new predators now.
They didn't wear masks of justice.
They wore fangs.
They wore shadows.
They wore fury.
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