The humid air of Sabaody tasted like rust and saltwater, thick with the shrieks of the infected and the thunderous impacts of collapsing structures. Marya and Rayleigh burst from the ruined laboratory entrance, blinking against the sudden, harsh daylight filtering through the canopy. Above, the sky was a bruised tapestry of smoke and unnatural tawny light.
FWOOSH!
A massive shadow blotted out the sickly sun as Captain Nuri Evander descended, wings beating air into a miniature hurricane. Dust and loose mangrove leaves swirled violently around them. Before his taloned feet fully touched the scorched earth, Captain Kai Sullivan slid from his back with the practiced grace of a cat landing on a fence. He landed lightly beside Nuri, adjusting his glasses with a sharp, familiar flick of his middle finger, his custom sniper rifle, Silent Requiem, already slung across his back beside the violin case. Nuri shook his massive pterosaur head, scoffing at the stench of resin and smolder.
"Vice Admiral Harlow's orders," Kai announced, his voice crisp despite the surrounding din. His dark eyes scanned the chaotic grove, missing nothing. "We're your escort. High-priority targets require high-priority delivery." He tapped the earpiece nestled under his shaggy hair. "Sentomaru's tracking the worst resin concentrations. We know where you need to go."
Rayleigh chuckled, wiping grime and serpent sludge from his face with the back of his hand. His white hair was plastered to his forehead. "Escorts? Kai, my boy, haven't had VIP treatment like this since… well, since I paid for it in a less reputable establishment." He shot a wry grin at Marya, who stood beside him, Eternal Eclipse resting lightly on her shoulder. Water dripped from her denim shorts and combat boots, darkening the cracked earth beneath her feet. Her golden eyes, ringed like her father's, were fixed on the sky, calculating.
Kai ignored Rayleigh's jibe, his focus absolute. "Follow our shadow. Keep pace. Deviations waste time." He gave a curt signal to Nuri. "Evander, vector Alpha-Seven. Maximum velocity."
Nuri let out a guttural, bird-like screech that vibrated in Marya's teeth. "Grand Slam trajectory locked! Hold onto your hats, ground-pounders!" His voice, distorted by his hybrid beak, carried a manic edge. With a powerful downstroke that sent loose debris skittering across the ground, Nuri launched himself skyward. Kai hopped onto his back adjusting his stance as Nuri beat his wings to be airborne.
"After you, kid," Rayleigh said, his usual smirk firmly in place despite the exhaustion lining his face. There was a spark in his eyes – the thrill of the impossible chase.
Marya merely nodded, a sharp, economical movement. She tightened her grip on Eclipse's obsidian hilt, the permanent black void veins on her arms pulsing faintly beneath her skin. Then she was a blur, jetting forward with explosive speed that kicked up a plume of ash and fragmented bark. Rayleigh matched her stride for stride, his coat streaming behind him like a battle standard.
They became streaks of motion, tearing through Grove 4. The tainted resin pulsed underfoot like diseased flesh, tendrils lashing out sluggishly. Infected figures, their skin mottled yellow and black, stumbled towards the sudden movement, moans turning into guttural snarls. But Marya and Rayleigh were ghosts, moving faster than corrupted synapses could fire. They weaved through grasping hands and lunging bodies, Eclipse humming with contained power, Rayleigh's fists a blur of instinctive deflection. A clawed hand swiped at Marya's leather jacket; she didn't break stride, Eclipse's flat side slapping the limb aside with bone-crunching force. The infected crumpled, left behind in their wake.
Above, Nuri's massive shadow raced across the ruined landscape, a dark arrow against the toxic sky. Kai clung low, shouting coordinates down, his voice barely audible over the wind and Nuri's wingbeats. "Hard left! Ravine ahead! Resin saturation critical!"
They skidded to a halt on the crumbling edge of a deep fissure. The ground across the chasm wasn't just covered in resin; it was resin. A thick, undulating carpet of the sickly yellow substance stretched for dozens of yards, glistening wetly. It bubbled and hissed, releasing puffs of sweet-rot vapor that stung the eyes. Towering mangrove roots, half-consumed by the ooze, writhed like tormented giants.
"Looks like we're getting warm," Rayleigh observed, peering into the chasm. The resin below seemed to watch them.
Marya didn't hesitate. She swung Eternal Eclipse in a short, brutal arc. Armament Haki, dark as the space between stars, surged around the blade. With a sound like tearing silk, a thick mangrove branch, still free of the taint, sheared off high above. It plummeted down, striking the edge of the chasm on their side and bridging the gap with a heavy thud, its clean wood stark against the corrupted ground.
"What the—?!" Kai's yell came from above. "Sullivan! That's structural! We needed that for—!"
Rayleigh laughed, a rich sound that cut through the grove's misery. "Structural? Son, we're making our own road today!" He nudged Marya. "Efficient. I like it."
A ghost of a smirk touched Marya's lips as she stepped onto the makeshift bridge. It creaked ominously but held. Rayleigh followed. They repeated the process twice more – Marya's Haki-infused cuts precise and devastating, sending untainted timber crashing down to span bubbling pools and rivers of ooze. Each bridge was a temporary lifeline over a landscape becoming more alien and hostile.
Finally, they reached it. The source wasn't a single tree, but a horrific fusion. Several massive mangrove trunks had twisted together, melded by the pulsating yellow resin into a single, monstrous growth. It bulged obscenely, veins of darker amber pulsing within it like a diseased heart. Smaller roots snaked out from its base, actively drilling into the earth, injecting more corruption. The air here was thick, cloying, tasting of spoiled fruit and burnt metal. The resin seemed to breathe.
Nuri circled lower, Kai pointing urgently. "Ground zero! That abomination's the pump! Take it down!"
Rayleigh whistled, low and appreciative. "Well, that's something you don't see every Tuesday. Unpleasant doesn't quite cover it, does it, kid?"
Marya's gaze was locked on the throbbing mass. Her knuckles were white on Eclipse's hilt. The void veins on her arms seemed darker, more pronounced. "No," she murmured, her voice flat.
"We'll hold perimeter!" Kai shouted down. "Suppress any reinforcements! This is your dance floor!"
Rayleigh rolled his shoulders, a predator loosening up. "Heard the man, Marya. Well then," he raised his fists, Haki crackling around them like black lightning, "Shall we do some gardening?"
Marya didn't answer with words. She simply stepped forward, raising Eternal Eclipse high. Rayleigh mirrored her, falling into a stance older than the archipelago itself. The corrupted grove seemed to hold its fetid breath. High above, Nuri banked sharply, readying for a strafing dive. Kai unslung his rifle, his humming momentarily silenced, replaced by intense focus.
Then, together, Dark King and Mist Wielder unleashed hell upon the root of the sickness. Eclipse descended in a brutal arc, trailing starless void, while Rayleigh's fist, wreathed in darkness, slammed into the pulsating mass like a meteor. The sound was less an impact, more the world tearing open. Chunks of resin-hardened wood exploded outwards. The monstrous growth shrieked, a sound like grinding stones and tearing metal. The battle for Sabaody's soul reached its crescendo at the feet of the mangroves, where two warriors began to cut away the rot, one devastating swing at a time.
*****
The air over Sabaody Archipelago still tasted like ash and despair, but a new note cut through the miasma – the sharp, clean scent of saltwater under pressure. High-pressure streams arced through the smoke-choked air, silver against the amber gloom, fired from the gleaming metallic shoulders of Pacifista units. Marines scrambled alongside them, jury-rigging fire hoses to hydrants, aiming industrial sprayers, even using reinforced buckets to fling seawater onto the thrashing, resin-coated figures and the pulsating yellow veins creeping across the mangroves.
Vice Admiral Venus Harlow stood like a grim statue amidst the organized chaos near Grove 4's periphery. Her crisp white trench coat was smudged with soot and something viscous, discarded long ago. The brass accents on her customized Marine-issue prosthetic leg gleamed dully under the hazy light as she adjusted her stance on the uneven, resin-slick ground. A cigarillo was clamped between her teeth, smoke curling around her face in agitated rings as she monitored the frantic efforts through narrowed eyes. Every flinch of her jaw sent a fresh cascade of ash tumbling down her immaculate, now-damp uniform shirt.
"Concentrate fire on the root clusters near the canopy!" she barked into a transponder snail, her voice hoarse but cutting through the din of rushing water and groaning metal. "Sullivan! Evander! Report saturation levels on Sector Gamma!"
A young Lieutenant, his face streaked with grime and eyes wide with a mix of terror and burgeoning hope, stumbled towards her, dodging a jet of water from a nearby Pacifista. "Vice Admiral! The resin... it's receding! On the people we've hit! Their skin... it's sloughing off the yellow gunk! They're collapsing, but... they look human again!"
Harlow didn't turn, her gaze fixed on a group of Marines struggling to contain a still-thrashing infected civilian. She took a sharp drag, the ember flaring. "It's working?" she rasped, more to herself than the Lieutenant. The implications crashed over her – the gamble, the desperation, the sheer, terrifying scale of it. Then, her focus snapped back, sharper than ever. "Then stop gawking and double your efforts! Every drop counts! We have an archipelago to flush clean, Lieutenant! Move!"
Inside the relative, battered sanctuary of Shakky's Rip-Off Bar, the relentless pounding against the reinforced door had ceased. Shakky, leaning against a heavy table she'd braced against the entrance, felt the sudden silence like a physical blow. Sweat plastered strands of dark hair to her temples. Across the ruined common room, Henrick swayed, his massive hammerhead shark frame trembling. The inky black veins of corruption that had pulsed beneath his deep olive skin were fading, replaced by a sickly pallor. His eyes, usually sharp emerald, were clouded with confusion and residual fury. Fia lay slumped against the bar, her coral-pink hair matted, her iridescent skin dull. Lulee and Geo were huddled together in a corner, restrained by torn curtains, their small forms shuddering as the unnatural yellow tint visibly drained from their skin, leaving behind raw, irritated patches.
Shakky cautiously straightened, her eyes darting to the bar's grimy windows. The thick, pulsating yellow resin that had coated the glass like diseased amber was… shrinking. It pulled back in viscous rivulets, revealing cracked panes and the hellish scene outside. She took a slow, deliberate drag from her cigarette, the smoke curling upwards in the sudden quiet.
Through the clearing grime, she saw it. A Pacifista unit, its laser eye dark, stood immobile near the mangroves. Its massive arm, however, was extended, a thick hose clamped in its metallic fist, spraying a powerful jet of seawater directly onto a group of twitching, resin-covered figures huddled near the bar's entrance. As the saltwater hit them, the yellow crust melted. It sloughed off like wet paint, revealing pale, gasping skin beneath. One figure spasmed, then went limp, breathing raggedly but cleanly.
Shakky's lips, usually curved in a knowing smirk, parted in genuine astonishment. A low, incredulous chuckle escaped her. "Well, slap me with a Sea King's fin," she muttered, ash dropping onto the already filthy floor. "Never thought I'd see the day I'd be grateful for one of those walking tin cans." She stubbed out the cigarette on the tabletop.
Henrick groaned, swaying dangerously. The confusion in his eyes was warring with the fading corruption, a low growl rumbling in his chest. Shakky moved with the fluid grace of a seasoned fighter, ducking under a clumsy, half-hearted swing of his massive fist. "Easy there, big fella," she murmured, her voice surprisingly gentle. "The tide's turnin'." She didn't try to fight him directly. Instead, she darted past him, throwing her weight against the heavy barricade she'd built. With a grunt, she shoved the table aside and yanked open the warped door.
Sunlight, weak and smoke-filtered but blessedly clean, streamed in. Shakky leaned out, spotting a squad of Marines nearby, one desperately trying to unkink a hose connected to a portable pump drawing from a cracked mangrove pool. "You! Navy boys!" she yelled, her voice cutting through the groaning of stressed wood and distant shouts. "Over here! Got live ones inside! They're comin' round, but they need the rinse cycle! Stat!"
Back at the heart of the corruption, the fused mangrove horror was gone. Where the pulsating, resin-melded monstrosity had stood was now a gaping, ragged wound in the grove floor, revealing the dark, churning ocean far below. Steam rose in thick plumes where seawater met the last sizzling remnants of the severed, sinking trunks. Rayleigh leaned heavily on his knees, breathing hard, sweat mixing with grime and resin flecks on his face. His white hair was plastered flat.
Marya stood nearby, Eternal Eclipse resting point-down on the scorched earth. Her leather jacket was torn in several places, the Heart Pirate insignia smudged but visible. Her denim shorts were soaked through, her tall combat boots caked in foul-smelling muck up to the shins. The permanent black void veins on her arms stood out starkly against her skin, slowly fading from the intensity of channeled Haki. She watched the dark water swallow the last chunk of tainted wood, her golden-ringed eyes impassive, only the slight rise and fall of her chest betraying the effort.
Above, Captain Nuri Evander banked in a wide circle, his massive Arambourgiania wings beating the smoky air. Captain Kai Sullivan, perched securely on his back, lowered the transponder snail from his ear. "Confirmed!" Kai's voice, amplified slightly by the open air, carried down. "Sensor readings across the Archipelago show resin viscosity dropping rapidly! Cellular degradation in the infected has ceased! It's working! The saltwater purge is effective!"
Rayleigh straightened up, wiping his forearm across his brow. He looked at Marya, a weary but genuine grin spreading across his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. He gestured vaguely towards the distant shape of Shakky's bar, barely visible through the thinning smoke. "Well, kid," he rasped, his voice rough but warm. "That was one helluva pruning job. Think we've earned that drink now? My throat's drier than a desert island after high tide."
Marya remained still for a moment longer, her gaze fixed on the churning water where the corruption had sunk. Then, slowly, she lifted Eclipse, the obsidian blade shedding droplets of seawater and residual slime. A flicker of something – satisfaction? exhaustion? – passed through her stoic expression. Without looking at Rayleigh, she gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. The faintest ghost of what might have been a smirk touched the corner of her lips before vanishing. It was answer enough.
As they turned to navigate the ravaged grove, a small, bedraggled squirrel, its fur matted but free of yellow taint, darted out from under a shattered root, chittering frantically before scrambling up a surviving mangrove branch. Marya's step faltered for just a fraction of a second, her guarded eyes tracking the tiny creature's frantic escape with an intensity that hadn't been there for the collapsing giants. Then, she moved on, following the Dark King towards the promise of respite, leaving the steaming scar in the earth and the echoing sounds of Sabaody's painful cleansing behind.