The corridor groaned like a creature in agony, its stone ribs buckling under the weight of the collapsing ceiling. Vergo led the trio forward, his Jitte buzzing with Armament Haki—a black sheen crawling over the bamboo shaft as he deflected falling debris. Chunks of mortar and twisted metal shattered against the weapon's aura, exploding into dust that stank of burnt sugar and rust. Behind him, Dr. Elsa Visser clutched her lab coat to her chest, the neon-pink stains on its sleeves glowing faintly in the chaos. Hendrik Van Berg brought up the rear, his hulking frame tense, eyes darting between the crumbling walls and the scientist's trembling shoulders.
"Move," Vergo barked, his voice flat as a blade. A beam crashed down, and he pivoted, Jitte slashing upward. The wood splintered into matchsticks, raining splinters that pricked Elsa's cheeks like needles. She flinched but didn't scream—years under Kaido's thumb had taught her to swallow fear.
They burst into the open air, greeted by the sulfurous stench of Sanguine Lily runoff and the keening of windmills. The moon hung low, its silver light warring with the toxic glow of the canals below. The Blood Dike loomed in the distance, a jagged scar of salvaged ship hulls and rusted iron, its surface crawling with prisoners still chipping at repairs even as the island crumbled.
Vergo turned, his Marine coat pristine despite the carnage. "The plan," he demanded, Jitte tapping impatiently against his palm. "Where are they striking?"
Elsa's throat tightened. She glanced at Hendrik, but the Overseer stared at the ground, his calloused hands flexing as if grasping for absolution. "The… the dike," she whispered. "They'll flood the fields. Cut off the SAD supply."
Vergo's eyes narrowed. "They?"
"The rebels. The Heart Pirates." Her voice frayed. "They've rigged the pumps. Seawater will—"
"—destroy the harvest." Vergo finished, his tone icy. He stepped closer, looming over her. "And you knew."
Elsa's breath hitched. "I… I tried to warn Caesar, but the communications were—"
Vergo's Jitte flashed, stopping a hair's breadth from her throat. Hendrik tensed, a low growl rumbling in his chest, but Vergo ignored him. "You'll fix this. Now."
Elsa swallowed. "It's too late. The detonators are set. They'll blow the dike at the evacuation signal."
For a heartbeat, silence fell, broken only by the distant wail of a Gifter patrol. Then Vergo turned to Hendrik. "Take me there."
Hendrik's jaw clenched. His gaze drifted to the dike, where a child's skeletal doll floated in the canal, its limbs knotted from dead lily stems. His daughter had once played with such dolls, before the soil turned to salt.
"Hendrik," Elsa pleaded, her voice cracking.
The Overseer closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were hollow. "This way," he muttered, trudging toward a narrow service path along the canal's edge.
Vergo followed, his stride unhurried, Jitte resting on his shoulder. Elsa stumbled after them, her boots slipping on algae-slick stones. The path wound past abandoned tulip fields, the earth cracked and studded with the withered husks of bioengineered lilies. Their razor-petals twitched in the breeze, as if begging for a death the seawater would deliver.
Ahead, the Blood Dike's shadow stretched over them, its patchwork hulls oozing brine and rot. Hendrik paused at a rusted ladder bolted to the dike's side. "The charges… are most likely at the top."
Vergo studied the structure, then the Overseer. "You first."
Hendrik climbed, each rung groaning under his weight. Halfway up, he hesitated, his fingers brushing a crude carving in the metal—a child's stick-figure family, etched long ago by a prisoner's nail. Lotte's work, he realized. She'd always been clever with her hands.
"Keep moving," Vergo ordered.
At the summit, the wind howled, carrying the metallic tang of the sea and the sweet-rot stench of nectar vats.
*****
The subterranean canals heaved like the ribs of a dying beast, neon-pink runoff sloshing against the walls as debris rained from above. Willem Van der Zee led the group through the chaos, his black clogs slipping on algae-slick stones, the frayed hem of his mourning cloak snagging on rusted pipes. Behind him, Lotte De Vries clutched her jury-rigged pump to her chest, its copper coils still warm from overuse. Klaas Janssen limped close, his cane—carved from the mast of a ship sunk decades ago—tapping a frantic rhythm against the trembling ground. Mira De Graaf brought up the rear, her charcoal-stained fingers brushing the walls as she etched the lion crest of De Oranje Schaduw into the stone, each stroke glowing faintly with bioluminescent algae pigment.
"Left!" Willem barked, ducking as a chunk of ceiling plunged into the water beside them. The impact sent a geyser of neon sludge arcing through the air, drenching Lotte's braids. She spat out a mouthful of acrid fluid, her face twisting.
"Tastes like rotten tulips!"
"Quiet!" Klaas hissed, his monocle cracked and askew. "The Overseers'll hear—"
A boot slammed against metal overhead. They froze.
Above, through gaps in the collapsing tunnel, shadows moved—black-uniformed Overseers, their faces obscured by gas masks shaped like tulip bulbs. One paused, tilting his head, the red lens of his mask glinting as it scanned the canals.
Lotte's breath hitched. She tightened her grip on the pump, her knuckles white around the trigger. Willem met her gaze, nodded once.
Now.
She fired.
The tulip bulb bomb—stuffed with stolen antidote and golden pollen—exploded in a sunburst of shimmering dust. Klaas raised a dented megaphone to his lips, his voice cracking as he bellowed the old, fabled hymn:
"De storm zal breken, het licht zal komen…"
The storm will break, the light will come.
The pollen swirled, a gilded haze clinging to the air. Above, the Overseers coughed, stumbling back as the mist seeped into their masks. But below, in the canals, the zombified farmers paused. Their heads swiveled, nectar-glazed eyes reflecting Mira's murals—the lion crest now pulsing like a heartbeat in the algae's glow.
A woman in a tattered bonnet reached out, skeletal fingers brushing the mural. Her lips moved, soundless, but the shape was clear: "Home."
"They're… following," Lotte whispered, her voice trembling with awe.
Mira said nothing. Her hands never stopped moving, sketching directions on every surface—arrows, stars, lions—guiding the hollowed-out souls toward the storm drains.
Klaas wiped his face with a shaking hand, tears cutting through the grime. "They're remembering," he rasped. "The anthem—the crest—it's waking them."
Willem yanked open a rusted grate, revealing a warren of storm drains. The stench of iron and rot billowed out, but the scuttle of rats echoed from within—plump, greasy-furred creatures darting through the dark, their eyes reflecting the neon like tiny lanterns.
"Follow the rats!" Lotte urged, shoving her pump into the tunnel. "They avoid the nectar—they know the way!"
A farmer boy, no older than ten, crawled past her, his black clogs scraping stone. He paused, nostrils flaring at the pollen, and looked up at Lotte. For a heartbeat, his eyes cleared—brown, warm, human—before the nectar's grip tightened again. He shuffled onward, guided by Mira's glowing arrows.
Klaas leaned heavily on his cane, watching the procession. "Centuries ago, these drains carried spices from the East," he murmured, more to himself than anyone. "Now they carry ghosts."
Lotte punched his arm, her grin smudged with soot and triumph. "Quit mumbling and move! Mechanics beat storytelling, old man!"
Klaas snorted. "Without my hymns, they'd still be lost."
"Without my pumps, they'd be puking!"
Above, the windmills groaned, their blades slicing through clouds of pink smoke. The ground shuddered again—another aftershock from Vergo and Marya's battle. But below, in the belly of Nieuw Bloemendaal, the rats led the way.
Willem hesitated at the drain's edge, his sunken eyes scanning the farmers' faces. "What if they're too far gone?"
Lotte shouldered past him, her boots splashing into the muck. "Then we drag 'em back. Oranje Schaduw style."
Aboveground, the Overseers regrouped, their shouts muffled by pollen-clogged masks. But in the drains, the resistance flowed like a secret river—a chain of hollowed souls, a mechanic, a historian, an artist, and a leader, all chasing the twitch of rodent tails and the glow of rebellion.
Mira paused, her charcoal hovering. On the wall, she sketched a final mural: farmers and rats and lions, dancing under a sky free of neon.
For now, it was only pigment and hope.
But tomorrow?
Tomorrow, it might be prophecy.
*****
The Blood Dike rose before them like the carcass of a leviathan, its patchwork hulls oozing brine and rust, the air thick with the caustic sting of Sanguine Lily runoff. Neon-pink sludge glowed in the canals below, casting jagged reflections on the iron supports that groaned under the weight of centuries. Law cut the engine, letting the rowboat drift silently against the dike's base. Above, the wind screamed through broken ship masts repurposed as girders, their rigging tangled like veins.
Bepo's ears perked as Law's boat pulled alongside theirs. "Captain! You're okay!" The polar bear wore relief on his face, his fur matted with algae and soot.
Clione, his bandana soaked through with sweat, leaned over the edge. "What the hell happened back there? We heard the ceiling—"
"Later," Law snapped, sheathing Kikoku with a metallic hiss. His eyes flicked upward, where the dike's summit loomed, shrouded in mist and the distant wail of Overseer horns. "The bombs. Now."
Hakugan adjusted his cracked goggles, squinting at the climb. "Ladders are rusted to hell. One wrong step and we're shark bait."
"Then don't step wrong," Marya said, already hoisting herself onto a corroded rung. Her Eternal Eclipse glinted faintly, its obsidian blade swallowing the neon haze.
The ascent was a gauntlet of creaking metal and crumbling mortar. Halfway up, Uni's boot slipped, dislodging a chunk of hull plating that spiraled into the canal below. The splash echoed like a gunshot.
"S-sorry!" Uni whispered, face pale.
Bram, his tattooed arms trembling, hauled him up. "Eyes forward, kid. Think of it as… vertical sailing."
At the summit, the wind tore at their clothes, carrying the metallic tang of storm clouds and the sweet-rot stench of nectar vats. Law crouched behind a salvage-beam, gesturing for silence. Ahead, Vergo stood flanked by a dozen Overseers and Gifters—their Smile mutations grotesque in the half-light. A deformed dog-man snarled, matted fur peeling from its flanks like diseased skin. Beside Vergo, Hendrik Van Berg loomed, his hulking frame rigid, while Dr. Elsa Visser clutched a detonator remote, her lab coat flapping like a surrender flag.
Uni's breath hitched. "What do we do? There's too many—"
Marya unsheathed her sword, the blade's crimson runes flickering to life. "You plant the bombs. We'll handle the distractions."
Law's jaw flexed. "We?"
She tilted her head, golden eyes glinting. "Unless you'd prefer to lecture me on risk assessment."
A beat passed—the kind of silence that hangs between lightning and thunder. Then Law nodded curtly. "Keep Vergo occupied. Don't engage the Gifters."
Marya's smirk was razor-thin. "Worried I'll show off?"
"Worried you'll collapse the dike faster than the bombs."
Bepo whimpered, ears flattening. "Captain, maybe we should—"
"Go," Law growled, already summoning his Room. The blue sphere crackled to life, its edges fraying in the toxic wind.
Marya stepped into the open, Eternal Eclipse trailing mist. "Vergo," she called, voice smooth as oiled steel.
The Marine turned, Jitte buzzing with Armament Haki. "Mihawk's whelp. Come here to die?"
Her smile didn't waver, but the air around her warped—a ripple of Void energy that leeched color from the stones. "Here to return the favor."
She vanished, reforming behind him in a swirl of fog, her blade carving a gash across his shoulder. Vergo pivoted, Jitte slamming into her guard with a shower of sparks. The impact reverberated through the dike, dislodging a rusted anchor that plummeted into the canal.
Law lunged into the fray, Kikoku flashing as he swapped a Gifter's axe with a rotten timber. The beast roared, its deformed maw snapping at empty air.
"Distract them, don't kill them!" Law barked, dodging a swipe from a distorted-scaled serpent.
Marya laughed—a sound like shattered glass. "Semantics."
Below, the Heart Pirates scrambled. Bram and Bepo lashed explosives to the dike's supports, their paws and hands slick with algae. Clione rigged fuses, cursing as the wind snuffed his matches. Uni hovered, clutching a flare gun like a talisman.
"H-how long do we have?!"
"Till the Captain blows the signal!" Hakugan yelled over the din.
Above, the clash intensified. Marya's Void-mist coiled around Vergo's legs, freezing the metal beneath his boots. He shattered it with a Haki-infused stomp, lunging at Law.
"You've grown sloppy, Law," Vergo sneered, Jitte aimed at his throat.
Law smirked. "You've grown predictable."
A Shambles swapped their positions, and Vergo's strike impaled a Gifter instead. The beast howled, thrashing into the Overseers.
Marya materialized beside Law, her blade dripping neon-pink ichor. "Ready to end this?"
He glanced at the bombs—half-set, their timers blinking red. "Not yet."
"Then improvise."
Her Void-mist surged, engulfing the summit in a shroud of swirling darkness. The Overseers faltered, their masks useless against the choking void. Hendrik seized the moment, yanking the detonator from Elsa's grip.
"Go!" he roared at the Heart Pirates, hurling the remote into the canal.
Law's Den Den Mushi crackled. "Bombs set!" Bepo's voice squeaked.
"Fall back!" Law ordered.
Marya lingered, her blade poised at Vergo's throat. "Next time," she whispered, "aim for the heart."
Then she dissolved into mist, leaving Vergo snarling at the empty air.
The Heart Pirates fled as the timers beeped their final count.
The Blood Dike stood for its last eternal moment of silence.
Then—
BOOM.
A fractured monument to centuries of exploitation, its patchwork hulls groaning under the weight of seawater and inevitability. Then, with a roar that split the sky, it erupted.
Timbers splintered like bone. Iron rivets screamed as they sheared free, spiraling into the air like shrapnel. The explosion tore through the dike's rotten spine, unleashing a tidal wave of seawater that devoured the neon-poisoned fields in a single, ravenous gulp. Sanguine Lilies shrieked as their razor-petals dissolved, roots writhing like serpents in their death throes. The Gifters—deformed man-animals, distorted-scaled snakes and reptiles, warped rodent-men—were swept into the maelstrom, their Smile-twisted bodies crumbling like wet paper. A lion's roar became a gurgle as seawater flooded its lungs; a serpent's coils unraveled, its thorned tail catching on the skeleton of a windmill before snapping like a wishbone.
Vergo stood amid the chaos, his Marine coat flapping like a battle standard. For a heartbeat, his mask of bureaucratic indifference slipped—his lips twitched, not in fear, but in something colder: recognition. The seawater surged toward him, frothing with the ghosts of a thousand drowned lilies. His Jitte trembled, Armament Haki flickering like a dying bulb.
"Doflamingo…" The name left his lips as a curse or a prayer, drowned by the flood's thunder.
Then the wave took him.
His body struck a half-sunken ship hull, the impact cracking ribs with a sound like stepping on winter ice. He clawed at the metal, fingers bleeding, but the current pried him loose. As the water dragged him under, his final thought was not of loyalty, nor regret, but of a boyhood memory: a spider lily, crimson and unbroken, growing in the cracks of a slave port.
Hendrik Van Berg lunged for Elsa as the world dissolved. The seawater tore at his Overseer's uniform, the black fabric peeling away like dead skin. His calloused hand closed around her wrist, yanking her toward a splintered mast jutting from the wreckage.
"Hold on!" he roared, saltwater stinging his eyes.
Elsa clung to him, her lab coat ballooning with water, the neon stains leaching pink trails into the foam. "The antidote—the research—"
"Fuck the research!" Hendrik snarled, hauling her onto the mast. His voice broke. "Just… live."
They straddled the beam, the current thrashing beneath them. Elsa's fingers dug into his arm, her nails drawing blood. Around them, the flood churned with debris: a child's clog, a Resistance banner, the shattered lens of a Gifter's tulip-gas mask.
"Why?" Elsa whispered, her voice raw. "After everything I did—"
Hendrik stared at the horizon, where the last windmill collapsed in a spray of sparks. "You gave them hope," he said simply. "That's enough."
Marya watched from a distant ridge, Eternal Eclipse sheathed on her back, her golden-ringed eyes reflecting the carnage. The Void's energy still thrummed in her veins, countering the sea's fury. She noted the efficiency of the flood—how it purged the fields, the Gifters, the lies—with the detachment of a scholar cataloging an experiment.
Interesting, she mused. Saltwater neutralizes the nectar's toxicity. Correlates with Vegapunk's hypothesis on synthetic fertilizers…
Bepo's sob carried on the wind—"Captain, we did it!"—but Marya didn't turn. Her gaze lingered on the spot where Vergo had vanished. A man reduced to flotsam, his loyalty as hollow as the dike's promises.
Law materialized beside her, his breath ragged, Kikoku dripping seawater. "It's done."
"Mm." Marya tilted her head, observing a Sanguine Lily root twitching in its death throes. "And the survivors?"
Law followed her gaze to Hendrik and Elsa, now clambering onto a floating crate. "They'll rebuild."
"Or repeat." Marya shrugged. "Humans excel at both."
Law's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Below, the floodwaters began to recede, leaving behind a scarred wasteland glittering with shattered glass and the bones of lilies.
In the silence, Marya unsheathed her blade, the Void's energy curling around its edge like smoke. "Next time," she said, almost to herself, "we test our limits."
The wind carried her words away, over the drowned fields, past the broken dike, into the throat of the storm gathering on the horizon.
Kaido's storm.
But that was a problem for tomorrow.