"DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Loki's voice rang out like a deranged showman announcing the main act, the sound bouncing unnaturally off the mist-choked plaza. His laughter chased the words, jagged and wild, each note thick with mockery.
The blade slid away from Varin's throat—slow, deliberate—but not without a parting gift. Loki dragged it backward just enough to carve a thin, stinging line along the side of Varin's neck. A warm trickle of blood followed, running down to his collarbone, sharp against the cool weight of the fog.
Loki stepped back, twirling the knife between his fingers as though it were nothing more than a toy, his grin impossibly wide. "And what does our brave little pup win for guessing right?" His black eyes shimmered, glinting like oil in firelight. "A scar to remember me by, of course. Something to keep you warm at night when you start wondering if this was all a dream."
The laughter came again, softer now, but all the more unsettling for the way it rippled through the mist, brushing against Varin's skin like invisible hands.
"So what does a god, you specifically, want from me?" Varin's voice was steady, though his words carried that sharp, irritated edge he always defaulted to when he was out of his depth. He turned slowly, not rushing the motion, his boots crunching faintly against the cobblestones beneath the thick curtain of fog. His body moved with a languid, almost careless ease—but his mind was working fast, spinning, cataloguing the situation.
One hand rose instinctively to his neck, fingers brushing across the shallow cut Loki had left there. The warmth of the blood was fresh and sticky, sliding sluggishly along the side of his throat until his fingertips smeared it. He looked down at the crimson streak on his hand, flexing his fingers as though to test the reality of it. The sting wasn't deep, barely more than a surface wound, but it was enough—a reminder that whoever this being was, he had no trouble slipping through the veil between threat and act.
"You mean other than meeting the man who carries my son's power?" Loki's voice came slick and amused, cutting through the fog like a knife through silk. His form began to shift into focus again—not all at once, not fully—but enough to catch the sly curl of his lips, the sharp gleam in his eyes, and the mockery dripping from his tone. His fingers rose lazily, wagging in the air with theatrical flourish as he spoke, curling into exaggerated quotation marks.
"Who just so happens to be the first in his family's long, long line to turn his back on 'order'." The word order came out laced with venom and ridicule, his fingers flexing in the air like he could physically pluck the word apart. He drew it out, savoring every syllable as though the very concept amused him beyond measure.
He gave a laugh—a quick, biting thing that pressed close from all directions at once—before lowering his hands with a flourish, the grin on his face widening, too sharp, too knowing. "Ah, the irony of it. The little pup who chose to bare his teeth at the shepherd instead of the wolves. The one who decided rules weren't for him. And here you stand, blood on your neck, fog at your heels, asking me why I came."
Loki's laugh died into the fog like a coin dropped into a deep well—bright, quick, and oddly delighted. He inhaled once, the sound more a ripple than a breath, then spoke again, softer now but no less venomous.
"Because it's fun," he said. The words came easily, as if mischief were a muscle he'd been flexing for millennia. "Besides—" He let that word hang, drew it out like a cat pulling a string. "—I feel obligated to… assist. Yes. Let's call it that. I feel compelled to assist you on this little journey of yours."
The plaza seemed to lean in with him. The mist trembled, as though it, too, were amused by the notion of a god pledging help. Varin squinted into the grey where Loki's presence threaded the air; the cut along his neck burned pleasantly, a little hot and very real. He tasted iron on his tongue and the old, bitter tang of whiskey at the back of his throat. None of it made the situation safer—if anything, it sharpened the edges.
"Assist," Varin repeated, letting the single syllable wobble between mockery and incredulity. He wiped his bleeding hand on his trousers, slow and deliberate, as if buying time to think of a response that wouldn't give the god satisfaction. "That's noble of you. Gods tend not to meddle unless they want something in return. What's the catch, then? You want worship? A temple? My skull on a spike?"
Loki's chuckle curled around the stalls and fallen crates. "Oh, I don't bother with temples—far too much upkeep." The voice softened into something almost intimate. "Nor do I collect trophies; they're so… limiting. No. I want stories, choices, reactions. I want to see what a man like you will do when you're offered the knife and told the blade's yours to swing. I want to watch you pick which rules to spit on—and which rules you'll bend to break something else. I want to watch the chaos you and your crew will wreak upon this world."
"Uncomfortably straightforward for the god of trickery," Varin said, lips curling. He rocked on his heels, thumb tracing at the fresh cut as if its sting would keep the fog honest. "That's it? You don't need my permission to watch. Gods do the whole 'do whatever we want' bit — always did. So why pick me? Why make a bargain? What's the point of a puppet if you can just pull any string you like?"
The mist pulsed with a sound like suppressed laughter, and Loki's voice slipped around him, silky and amused. "Ah, but that's precisely the charm, pup. I can pull any string I fancy. I can topple empires like a child knocks over blocks. I can rearrange stars for the spectacle of it and call it evening entertainment." There was a pause, tastefully theatrical. "And yet—there is a certain decadence in watching a live thing choose the chaos. A god's theatre is richer when the actor leaps rather than is flung."
Varin snorted, half a laugh, half a curse. "So you admit you're a showman. You like the drama. Fine. Entertain yourself. Why me? Why this drunk, ragged… mess?"
Before Varin could shape the next words that burned behind his teeth, a small hand slid across his cheek—soft, warm, and impossibly light against the grit of his skin. He froze, the world narrowing to the sudden, baffling contact. When he turned his head, the place where Loki's shadowed presence had been was occupied by a child.
No more than ten. Black hair long and ragged, a thin dress that had seen better days. She stood with the frankness of a child who had never been taught to be cautious, and her gaze met his as if she had every right to challenge him.
"That's obvious," she said, as if answering a question he'd never asked. Her voice hopped in a way that made something in Varin's chest clench. "Big brother—because of her. Me, your family." Her Silver eyes, the same as Varin's, stared up at him with a thin layer of amusement.
Varin's hand sliced through the air like a blade, but met nothing. The girl's small body was gone, dissolved into the mist as if she'd never been; only the echo of her words lingered, bright and impossible in his ears. His palm closed on empty fog, fingers coming away with the chill of the plaza and a smear of cold, damp cobblestone.
"DO NOT USE HER TO TOY WITH ME, GOD!" he roared, the sound tearing from somewhere deep and animal in his chest. The shout cracked the fog like a thrown stone. For an instant, even the mist held its breath.
Loki answered, the voice sliding out of the fog like mercury: soft, amused, delighted. "Oh, but I was only warming up, pup. You sound so romantic when you rage." The tone scraped at him—precise, infuriating—then the god laughed, a ripple that brushed the ruins and turned to a knife. "Do you think threats move me? Do you think my toys notice the anger in a drunk's voice? Charming."
Varin's shoulders bunched; his mouth opened and closed around a curse he didn't bother forming. Rage flared, hot and honest—less fear, more affront. This was not the measured snarl of a man facing death. This was the animal response of a protector who'd had the one warm thing handed to him, only to have it snatched away for amusement. He felt the raw, sharp ache of something claimed and then discarded, and it burned.
Around him, the crew stirred. Nami's head snapped up from whatever negotiation she'd been mid-sentence with Vivi; her eyes narrowed to coins, logic clicking into place as she caught sight of Varin's stance and the smear of cold on his hand. Zoro turned, one blade half-slung, lashes low, expression folding into a predator's attention as though he'd smelled blood in the fog. Luffy, still cackling from some ruined stall he'd just demolished, blinked—just once—before his grin returned, sharper, hungrier, like he'd just sensed a new kind of fight waiting for him.
"Varin? What—what's going on?" Nami asked tentatively, her eyes wide and cautious, her voice pitched somewhere between demand and fear.
"Ah, that's on me actually," came a voice from behind her—smooth, dripping with playfulness, the kind that carried like oil.
They turned, every one of them.
Perched atop Karoo's back, of all things, was Loki. The trickster god sat there as if he owned the creature, legs folded lazily, one hand twined in the duck's feathers like reins. Karoo's entire body trembled beneath him, feathers puffed out, and eyes bulging so wide it looked like he might faint. Even the duck seemed aware that something fundamentally wrong was happening, and yet it was powerless to shake the god off.
Loki grinned, resting his chin in his palm as though he were lounging on a throne instead of an oversized bird. "May have hit a nerve," he admitted lightly, like someone confessing to stealing the last drink at the table. His black eyes gleamed, the unnatural shine catching in the mist as if they themselves were lanterns. "Couldn't help myself. Your friend here makes such interesting faces when the right string's plucked."
The plaza seemed to shrink even more, the fog pressing in, though only Varin could feel the true weight of it. To the rest, it was only unease, the kind that prickled skin and made breath come short.
Zoro's grip on his sword tightened, knuckles pale. "Who the hell are you?" His tone wasn't cautious. It was sharp, ready to cut.
Luffy, on the other hand, tilted his head with that wild grin, staring at Loki like he'd just found a shiny new toy. "He's weird," he said simply, a laugh bubbling under the word. "I like weird."
Nami didn't laugh. She didn't even breathe for a moment. Her hand went instinctively to Vivi's arm, pulling the princess a half-step back while her eyes stayed locked on Loki. "Varin," she said, her voice a low hiss. "What is this?"
Karoo quaked beneath the god's weight, but Loki only laughed—a sound too human, too casual, and all the more unsettling for it. He leaned forward just enough to stroke the duck's neck as though it were a prized steed. "Relax, little sailors," he crooned. "I'm just here for conversation."
"I'm going to ask you nicely and be clear for once," Varin said, eyes locked onto Loki. "What do you want?"
"Fine, fine, no fun at all, little pup," Loki replied with an exaggerated sigh, palms spread in mock surrender as he rocked gently on Karoo's uneasy back. The duck's feathers bristled under him, eyes wide and suspicious, like a noble steed with a vengeful spirit. "Soon, I imagine, you'll be meeting a most… interesting person. What I want is simple: you must win against them. Nothing more, nothing less."
The words dropped into the fog like a stone. For a heartbeat, there was only the distant drip of water from a shattered gutter and the soft crackle of ruined wood. Time seemed to pause at the edge of the sentence, waiting to see how Varin would take such a blunt, absurd demand.
Varin's jaw worked. "Win?" he repeated, letting the syllable taste bitter on his tongue. He scuffed a boot against the cobbles and felt the grit bite his sole. The cut at his throat pulsed with a dull pain, a stinging reminder of how close the god's blade had come; it made the command feel less like a game and more like a hand placing a gauntlet at his feet. "Against who?"
Loki's grin creased wider, as if Varin had given him exactly the reaction he wanted. "Ah, curiosity! Delightful," the god said, as though he'd been handed a rare confection. "But part of the sport is discovery. I do enjoy the theatrics of a reveal. You'll know them when you see them. They'll have a map of their own secrets, and a face that makes promises you'll want to break. They are quite good at making people say 'yes' when they mean 'no.'"
Nami's lips pinched into a hard line. "That's maddeningly vague," she hissed. "You give him a riddle with the stakes and call it what? A mission, job?"
"It's not for you, merchant," Loki purred, flicking one hand as if dismissing a fly. "This is between the pup and the theater." He leaned forward, so close that the edge of his grin cut like a coin. "Winning means more than surviving, by the way. Win how I say you win. Shape the field, take the prize, and don't disappoint. Simple theatre. Delicious consequence."
Varin's eyes narrowed into slits. The word win flared like a warning. "You say a thing and mean a dozen others," he muttered. His voice was low but steady; each word measured. "And what if I refuse? What if I walk away before you can make a puppet of me?"
Loki's laugh, soft and musical, floated like smoke. "Refusal is an option. It always is. But remember, I've already nicked your neck. I have ways of making questions interesting. Besides, why would you walk away when the thing I offer might keep your lot breathing another winter? Consider it… investment." He tapped his temple like a watchman winding a clock. "You want your crew; I want a story. We can both have our appetites fed."
Zoro shifted his weight, blades suddenly at the ready, though he hadn't moved far. He didn't speak; he never wasted words when a threat sat in the air. Luffy's grin grew wider still, eyes bright at the notion of a challenge, as if any chance to fight was a feast to be eaten. Nami's fingers tightened on the Log Pose at her wrist, the navigator in her already cataloguing ways to outrun whatever shape this "interesting person" might wear.
Varin let the crew take in the scene, their expressions flickering between confusion, disbelief, and unease. It bought him precious moments to gather himself, to channel the raw surge of anger and protectiveness simmering in his chest into something that could actually be used. Loki's terms were maddeningly minimal—cryptic, teasing, almost cruel—but they offered a path. And that was enough. A path was something Varin could grip with calloused hands, plant his boots firmly on, and stride forward with teeth bared and purpose in his steps.
"Well, I should get going," Loki said, stepping down from Karoo with a grace that seemed effortless, even mocking. "Never know who might get upset if I linger too long. So, I'll see you, my favorite pup, after you turn that lizard into a handbag."
He paused, gave an overdramatic bow that somehow seemed both playful and menacing, the kind only a god of mischief could pull off, and then—just like that—he vanished. The air where he had been hung heavy with the ghost of his presence, leaving only the mist curling in uneasy spirals and the faint echo of a laughter that seemed to linger far longer than it should.
Varin's gaze lingered on the empty space where Loki had been for a heartbeat longer, the lingering echo of mischief and menace still vibrating faintly in the air. Then, with a sharp exhale, he snapped his focus back to the crew. His jaw clenched, the muscles tightening with controlled resolve, yet a subtle curve of a smirk tugged at his lips, betraying a flicker of amusement even amidst the tension. If a god wanted him to fight, who was he to refuse? The thought settled in his chest like a steel weight—heavy, inevitable, and oddly comforting in its clarity.
Nami's lips parted, her brow furrowed, and it was clear she was about to launch into a flurry of questions, her navigator's mind already spinning with analysis and frustration.
"Trust me, I'm mostly just as confused as you are," Varin said quickly, cutting her off before her torrent could begin. His voice was firm but not unkind, carrying that unshakable edge of authority that made the crew pause, even if only for a heartbeat. He leaned back slightly, arms crossing, his posture casual but alert, a careful balance of command and calm. "You mind if we wait a bit before I explain? I'd rather not have to repeat myself—or worse, have you trying to lecture me while I'm still figuring this out."
The crew exchanged quick, uncertain glances, the tension and lingering adrenaline from the encounter with Loki still fresh in their minds. Nami hesitated, clearly torn between pressing for answers and respecting the quiet authority in his tone. Her arms fell to her sides, though her eyes never left him, sharp and calculating as always.
Varin let the moments stretch, letting the tension bleed out of the plaza like ink spreading in water. Luffy and Zoro, finally spent, slumped against broken stalls and shattered tables, their panting heavy and uneven, no longer tearing into one another with the reckless abandon that had leveled half of Whiskey Peak. Nami's sharp heels clacked over the scattered cobblestones as she moved toward the bar, her posture stiff with the exhaustion and irritation of dealing with the aftermath—and probably of dealing with him. Usopp and Sanji, mercifully, were lost to their stupor, in a haze of drunken sleep back in the bar, oblivious to the subtle shift of reality that had just brushed past.
Varin leaned against a cracked wall, boots digging into the rubble, letting his shoulders slump slightly as his head tilted back. He could still feel it—the lingering pressure of presence, the almost-laughing weight of a god who had walked through the fog and left a mark as subtle and invasive as a knife's whisper. He clenched and unclenched his fists, letting the ache in his knuckles remind him he was alive, human, and still standing.
"What the fuck just happened?" he muttered to himself, the words lost in the emptiness, almost a challenge to the mist, almost a prayer. His mind tried to map it, to parse the fragments: the wolf, the voice, the impossibly human laughter, the way Loki had entered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Each memory burned slightly brighter in his mind, sharper edges cutting through the fog of adrenaline and alcohol.
His gaze swept across the plaza again. The debris, the shattered stalls, the signs of chaos—it was all a theater, a stage set for a performance he hadn't agreed to. But the memory of the blade at his neck, the whisper in his ear, the notion that something in this world—or perhaps beyond it—considered him a "pup," stuck. He knew, somewhere in the folds of his mind, that this was not the end, that the game had only just begun.
Varin pressed a hand to the line on his neck, feeling the warmth of the fresh nick, and let out a long, low hum. Not fear, not regret, not triumph—something that hovered in the space between awareness and calculation. Each pulse of his heartbeat seemed to echo against the remnants of chaos in the plaza, a quiet rhythm against the unnatural tension still lingering in the air.
He wouldn't voice the words aloud—not yet. Too dangerous. Too reckless. Even in the haze of adrenaline and alcohol, he knew better than to tempt the trickster's wrath before he had the strength to face it. There was a cold, sharp edge to restraint that few could appreciate, a patience that had kept him alive through battles where instinct alone would have failed.
But beneath that careful caution, a thought wormed its way through, insistent and sharp: he didn't truly believe this Loki was the god himself. The performance had been flawless—the wolf, the whispers. No, this was not the Loki of legend, not the one whose name carried the weight of myths and terror alike. The god who had fathered wolves and serpents, who had traded oaths and broken them in the same breath, who had turned the fate of entire pantheons with a laugh—no, that presence had not been here tonight.
This was something lesser, though no less dangerous. A man—flesh and blood, arrogance and audacity stitched together into the shape of a trickster. Perhaps blessed, or cursed, with a Devil Fruit's power. The Human-Human Fruit—Model: Loki. A mockery and a crown all at once, giving its wielder the chance to wear divinity like a mask, to take a god's name and make the world believe it true.
Varin's lips twitched into the faintest of smirks as the thought crystallized. Devil Fruits were powerful, yes—terrifying even—but they were also shackles. They bound their user to limits, to weaknesses, to the inescapable curse of the sea. And that made this… thing… beatable. Not untouchable, not eternal, not divine. A man, not a god.
And a man could bleed.
And for using her face, for dragging that image from the depths of memory and twisting it into a mockery, he would bleed more than most. Varin's jaw tightened as the promise rooted itself deeper than any oath he'd ever spoken aloud. It wasn't rage alone that burned in his chest—it was something colder, sharper, born from a place no blade could touch.
Whether the thing had been an impostor with a fruit and an ego the size of the Grand Line, or the true Loki cloaked in mischief and lies, it didn't matter. God or man, trickster or titan, there was no forgiveness for that crime. The image of her—silver eyes, too young, too fragile—wasn't a weapon to be brandished like a toy.
He would kill him. The impostor Loki, the real Loki, or anyone else who thought to wear her face as a mask. Varin promised himself that, a vow carved deeper than blood. One day, whether on cobblestones or in the depths of the sea, he would drive that laughter into silence.
Because some things—some people—were not for gods to touch.
Loki sat perched atop one of Whiskey Peak's cacti as if it were a throne, the needles bowing beneath him but never daring to pierce his skin. From up here, the chaos below looked smaller, quieter—the tension easing among the mortals like ripples finally calming after a stone had been thrown. He chuckled to himself, the sound rolling low in his chest, a predator amused by the scurrying of prey.
His gaze drifted down to his hand. A single bead of blood clung stubbornly to his knuckle, dark against pale skin. Barely more than a drop, hardly enough to notice—yet his grin widened, sharp and delighted. The little pup had made him bleed. That wasn't supposed to happen. Not here, not in this game where he pulled all the strings.
He tilted his hand, letting the droplet glisten as it caught the faintest light. His eyes never deceived him—sharp, unblinking, always hungry—and in that fleeting instant when the pup's claw had raked him, he had seen it. A flicker, the barest trace of black curling along the edge of his claw, there and gone in a heartbeat.
"Ohhh," he murmured, voice honeyed with amusement and curiosity, "so the pup does have some bite after all."
The thought thrilled him, gnawed at him, made the laughter bubble again. This game, he realized, was going to be far more entertaining than he had ever dared hope.