Things were going…well, well enough, if Varin was being generous with the definition of okay. His entire left side felt like it had been introduced to a battering ram at high speed, his ribs were screaming every time he breathed, and the heat rolling off the melting wax was starting to sting his skin. But compared to the crater punched into his stomach earlier, the burn was almost pleasant.
He drove his fist down again, knuckles wrapped tight around the flaming branch he'd stolen from the bush he crash landed in. Each strike sank deeper, punching through layers of softening wax as the fire chewed its way into the Candle Champion's spine. The wax hissed and bubbled under the heat, splattering around his arm in tiny droplets that clung like molten glue. He grit his teeth and kept going, snarling as the heat bit his skin.
The Champion lurched wildly, swinging in clumsy circles as Mister 3 fought to keep it upright. Every buck of the giant's shoulders rattled Varin's bones, but he didn't let up. He hammered the burning branch in again, embers flying, wax sloughing off in thick sheets. The entire construct shivered, its back denting, sagging, deforming as the fire spread.
Finally, his fist punched through the softened wax with a wet, cracking pop, nearly sending him forward off balance. For a half second, he saw Mister 3's head exposed beneath him, sweat beading on the man's forehead, eyes wild with rage and disbelief.
"Nighty night," Varin muttered.
He didn't even swing properly. He didn't need to. He just dragged his arm back and drove his fist straight into the back of Mister 3's skull. The man's head snapped forward with a dull thud, his whole frame going rigid before going limp.
Varin expected a slump. A stagger. Maybe a controlled collapse as the structure lost its pilot.
He did not expect the Candle Champion to topple backwards like a felled tree.
His eyes widened. "Oh come on, "
The shadow swallowed him as the fifteen-foot wax construct pitched back with all the grace of a brick. Varin didn't think. Instinct took the reins, even if his instincts were about three injuries past functioning properly. He planted his foot on the melting armour, ignored the scream from his ribs, and shoved off with everything he had left.
His legs fired once. Hard. It felt like someone jammed a hot poker into his side, but he still soared.
The Champion hit the ground behind him like a collapsing building, sending a wave of melted wax splashing outward. Varin hit the dirt a second later, rolling hard enough to tear the scabs on his knuckles open again. His body tried its best to break apart on impact, but he managed to skid to a stop on his back, staring up at the sky that spun way too much for comfort.
He lay there for a moment, panting, tasting iron, trying to convince his ribs to keep existing without complaint.
"That…" he wheezed, swallowing back a cough that would've been agony, "could have gone…better."
He forced himself onto an elbow, vision swimming. The melted remains of the Candle Champion were still steaming, a massive, half-liquid heap with Mister 3 buried somewhere under it. The agents fighting Luffy and Usopp had paused, staring in confusion at the puddle that had once been their strongest member.
Varin dragged himself up, bracing a hand against a tree trunk to keep his legs from giving. His breath came sharp and uneven, each inhale cutting him from the inside. But his grin still carved across his face like he wasn't two steps from blacking out.
Torso dented, ribs cracked, pants scorched and torn, face smeared with blood, soot, and wax.
He looked like hell. He also looked like he was not done yet.
"That's one wax clown down," he muttered, wiping a line of blood from his lip with the back of his hand. "Now… who's next?"
And he pushed himself forward, step by stubborn step, back toward the chaos he'd crawled out of.
"Alright, let's make a deal, yea?" Varin said, dragging each word out like he had all the time in the world, even though his knees were wobbling and his ribs felt like shattered glass grinding together. He lifted his hand and vaguely gestured toward the rapidly liquefying Candle Champion, which now looked more like a collapsing wax sculpture than a threat. "You all get him," he said, voice raspy but steady, "and we get our people out of the… candle coffin… candle… thing he made, whatever. And you get to live. Sound good?"
Mister 5 clicked his tongue, trying to act unimpressed. "You're barely standing, drunkard, with a dent in your side," he shot back, flicking at his own sleeve like he wasn't the slightest bit bothered.
But the second Varin's gaze locked with his, that act crumbled. His shoulders tightened. His jaw twitched. His one good hand drifted just slightly behind him, the way a man does when he's considering running but really doesn't want to admit he is.
Varin grinned widely, all teeth and blood, looking less like a man and more like something that dragged itself out of a nightmare. "Aye," he said casually. "And that just means when I take your other arm, it'll be a lot… and I mean a lot slower." His smile stretched farther, the blood on his teeth giving the impression of someone hungry and unhinged. "So. You feelin' up to it?"
The air went still. Even the wildlife seemed to shut up.
A long, stretched moment passed while Mister 5 stared at Varin, calculating every angle, every risk, every scream his nerves were sending up. Varin didn't move, didn't blink, didn't waver. He just kept smiling, the kind of smile that promised pain and made sane men rethink their life choices.
Finally, Mister 5 broke, clicking his tongue again but this time with irritation instead of bravado. "Let's go," he muttered to his partner. "Mister 3 needs help. The boss will send someone else to take care of these fools."
And just like that, he turned and began walking past Varin, keeping a good, safe distance while doing so.
Varin didn't stop him, didn't twitch toward him, didn't even raise his hand. He just let him pass, breathing slow through the ache in his body, watching with tired amusement.
But he didn't miss how Mister 5 kept glancing at him from the corner of his eye, like someone checking whether the monster behind the bars was still asleep.
As Mister 5 and his partner made it several paces away, Varin let out a breath he'd been holding, winced, and slumped against the nearest tree for support.
"Lucky day for you lot," he called out, his voice cracking just a bit. "Next time I won't be half dead. We'll see who starts the running then."
Mister 5 didn't look back, but his shoulders stiffened like he'd been hit with a stray bullet.
Varin chuckled under his breath, then pressed a hand carefully against his dented side. "Right… now to get those idiots out of their wax prisons before Luffy chews his way through the whole thing."
Varin moved… well, limped over to the massive candle, each step sending a fresh jab of pain up through his ribs. The thing loomed over him like a monument to bad decisions, slowly slumping under its own heat. Even from here, he could see movement inside the translucent layers, and that alone made his stomach flip.
And of course, right at the base, there was Luffy. Or… more accurately, the charred mess of rope, cloth, and half-burnt leaves that looked like something Usopp built. Because naturally, those two had decided "fire solves everything" without considering the part where their friends were also inside the giant wax sarcophagus.
Varin squinted at the small, growing pile of smouldering ingredients. "Oh, good," he muttered, voice dripping sarcasm. "Flammable mystery pile. My favorite."
Judging by the heavy black smoke, Usopp had absolutely dumped every remotely burnable thing he could grab in a ten-meter radius: leaves, tree bark, a bit of rope, maybe even pieces of his own shirt if the scorch marks meant anything. Luffy was poking at it with a stick, yelling at it to "burn harder," which was not how fire worked, but hey, enthusiasm.
The wax was melting faster, sure. But so was everything else.
Varin's eyes narrowed. The three trapped inside were sealed in with that powdered wax Mister 3 loved using, the stuff that hardened like rock and stuck like tar. If the fire got too close or too wild, well… cooked crewmates weren't on the menu today.
So he forced his legs to move, biting back a groan, and started grabbing anything he could find that would help direct the flames instead of letting them lick straight upward. Dry branches, fallen bark, leaves, and even a few chunks of wax from the fallen Candle Champion corpse melting in the grass. He arranged them by instinct and desperation, redirecting heat, feeding the flame at safe angles, trying to build a wide, even burn instead of a giant torch aimed at the hostages.
Minutes passed.
Pain blurred into the background.
Each breath felt like his rib cage was caving in.
But the wax finally gave.
A long, wet crack echoed through the clearing, like a glacier splitting. The outer shell sagged, drooping like a melting candle should, and then the entire structure began collapsing inward. Varin cursed under his breath, braced himself, and rushed forward as the first body came slipping free.
Zoro tumbled out like a rag doll, limbs stiff, eyes rolled back, face frozen in a look that was somewhere between rage and complaint. The idiot hit the ground with a dull thump, and Varin winced. "You'll live," he muttered, stepping over him.
The next two came down fast.
Nami fell first. Varin barely managed to get under her, arm hooking around her back and as she slipped out of the softening wax. His ribs screamed so violently his vision spotted, but he held on. She was limp, breathing shallow, but alive. Her hair was matted with wax dust, her face pale from lack of oxygen.
"Got you," he muttered, half to her, half to himself. "You're not dying on my watch."
Then Vivi came right after, straight to the ground. Varin's body moved before his brain did. He twisted, catching her with his free arm while Nami was still in the other, and the force nearly buckled him. His knees wobbled. His breath left him in a strangled gasp. For a terrifying second, he thought he was going down with them.
But he held.
Barely.
Pain rippled through his entire left side in a brutal wave, like something inside him had cracked a little more. He could feel warm blood seep out in larger droves. His vision blurred at the edges, dark creeping in.
But Nami and Vivi were safe. Necks intact. Breathing.
He lowered them gently into the grass, ignoring the sweat dripping down his temples and the shaking of his arms. "Would've been real embarrassing if you two died because I dropped you," he muttered, forcing out a breath that might've been a laugh. "Imagine the stories I'd have to hear."
He sank down onto one knee, bracing a hand in the dirt while his ribs throbbed in angry pulses.
Luffy rushed over, eyes wide. "Varin! Varin! Are they okay?! Did we save them?! Did you see, "
"Luffy," Varin said, holding up a hand and speaking through clenched teeth, "if you do not calm down, I swear I'm gonna pass out just to spite you."
Usopp skidded in right behind him, soot-covered and proud. "See! I told you the Fire-Based Strategic Melting Maneuver would work!"
Varin stared at him, face flat. "You threw burning leaves at it."
Usopp puffed up dramatically. "Yes. Strategically."
Varin just shook his head, let himself sink against a tree, and grinned weakly. "Whatever. They're alive. And I'm… well… not dead. So let's call it a win."
He closed his eyes for a second, letting the pounding in his head settle.
He'd live. His crew would live. And he'd deal with the rest of this mess once he could stand without feeling like his insides were rearranging themselves.
"One day," he muttered under his breath, "I'm getting a vacation after this. And you're all paying for it."
It didn't take long for them to free Brogy; giants were inconveniently heavy, but shockingly easy to melt out of wax once you knew what you were doing. Luffy kept cheering, Usopp kept swooning about "glorious giant heroism," and Varin… well, Varin mostly leaned on whatever tree or rock was closest and tried not to breathe too hard. His ribs still felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his side, which wasn't far from the truth.
And just when they thought they were done, they found Dorry, too, alive, grinning, and apparently annoyed that he'd been knocked out by "a pebble with attitude." Turned out the two giants had been fighting each other for so long, their weapons weren't even weapons anymore. Just enormous clubs of stone, worn smooth and cracked with age. The kind of things that looked intimidating until you actually got hit and realized it was more "ouch, that sucked" than "welp, guess I'm dead."
So sure, Dorry had taken a hit hard enough to send him sprawling, but lethal? Not even close. Painful? Absolutely. But giants were built like mountains; they didn't go down easily.
That night, the Straw Hats and the giants settled into the kind of exhausted, relieved rest only earned by surviving a day full of wax monsters, collapsing forests, bounty hunters with questionable fashion tastes, and Varin almost cracking himself in half catching people mid-fall. A fire crackled. The air smelled of cooking meat and melting wax residue. Luffy ate enough for three people. Usopp dramatically reenacted the day's events to the giants, adding at least five explosions that definitely didn't happen. Sanji cooked. Nami and Vivi sat close together, wrapped in blankets and exhaustion. Varin drank something strong enough to make his vision go sideways, mostly because the pain in his ribs wouldn't let him sleep otherwise.
By morning, they were on the move again, thanks to the very convenient log pose Mister 3 and Mister 5 had "donated" during their retreat. One person's retreat was another crew's free navigation upgrade.
The Merry sliced through the waves, the island shrinking behind them. The giants waved farewell, their booming voices echoing across the sea… and then the sea itself seemed to rise.
It started as a shadow. Then a ripple. Then Teeth.
A giant fish, no, a continent pretending to be a fish, with a mouth wide enough to swallow the ship whole and then some, surged up from the waters. Its scales shimmered like polished marble. Its eyes were soulless circles of hunger. Its breath smelled like rotten seaweed and bad decisions. Varin felt his blood run cold, not because he feared it, but because giant sea monsters before breakfast was really starting to feel like a pattern.
The Merry rocked violently as the beast lunged.
Nami screamed.
Usopp fainted mid-sentence.
Luffy looked thrilled, because of course he did.
But Brogy and Dorry? They didn't even flinch.
They had warned the crew the night before, told tales of the Island Eater, the sea demon that lurked around Little Garden, eternally hungry, eternally stupid. Told them that any ship who tried to leave without protection tended to end up as fish food.
So as the fish lunged, jaws wide, ready to snap the entire Going Merry in half,
Two shadows rose behind them.
Brogy and Dorry, in perfect unison, lifted their worn, stone-carved weapons high overhead. Their muscles tensed like coiled mountains. The air hummed with power, the way only giants could make it hum.
And then–
"Hakoku!"
Their strikes came down like thunder.
Two enormous, crisscrossing arcs of force sheared straight through the fish's body, carving it so cleanly in half that for a second it didn't even realize it was dead. The world paused, just long enough for awe to sink in, before the creature split, both halves crashing into the sea with a titanic splash that sent waves rolling for miles.
The Merry bobbed through the aftermath, perfectly safe.
Varin let out a low whistle. "Yeah," he muttered, leaning on the railing, "that'll do it. Remind me never to piss off either of those two."
The giants' laughter boomed across the ocean, shaking birds from the sky. They waved once more, their silhouettes fading back toward the island they'd called home for a hundred years.
And the Straw Hats sailed onward, the path ahead open, the sea glittering, and the promise of new madness waiting just beyond the horizon.
Varin exhaled slowly, watching the water part around the bow.
"Alright then," he murmured, settling in and bracing his aching ribs, "on to whatever insanity the Grand Line throws at us next."