Section 1 – "When Giants Stir"
Smoke clung to the horizon like a bruise.
Gunpowder stung the air, thick enough that sailors could taste iron with every breath. The fleets of the World Government cut through the gray haze in a spear-shaped formation—hundreds of white sails catching no wind yet somehow crawling forward, pulled by chains of Sea Kings the size of fortresses. In front of them stood a single black-hulled monster of a ship whose figurehead—an open-mouthed whale carved from ironwood—grinned as if it knew it couldn't sink.
Edward Newgate stood upon its prow.
Even at twenty-nine, the man already looked carved from myth: broad enough to blot out the stormlight, veins like ship-rigging, his crescent mustache gleaming white against the grime. When he inhaled, the sea inhaled with him. When he rolled his shoulders, the water trembled. His crew had long stopped pretending they understood how he did it.
"Distance, one thousand cables!" shouted a lookout.
Across the fog, a gold flare hissed skyward—the Marines' signal to fire. The first volley screamed over the water, turning mist to boiling spray.
"Brace!" roared Newgate.
He didn't move at first. He simply listened—to the groan of timbers, to the breath of the sea. Then his right hand rose, and invisible pressure warped the air around it. The world itself seemed to bend. The incoming barrage curved off course, cannonballs plunging harmlessly into the depths.
Crewmen cheered; Newgate only grunted. "Too loud," he muttered. "They're warning us instead of killing us. Sengoku's cautious today."
⸻
On the lead Marine vessel, Sengoku watched through binoculars, his expression calm but jaw tight. He wasn't yet the golden Buddha of later legends—just a man with sharp eyes, immaculate coat, and the unshakable will to match the monsters he hunted. He could feel Newgate's presence pressing against his own Haki like two storms grinding together.
"He's testing range again," said the officer beside him.
Sengoku nodded. "And I'm measuring patience."
He raised his hand. Dozens of cannons turned in perfect unison. "Fire pattern delta. Load seastone powder. No mercy."
The next barrage tore the sky open. Explosions bloomed across the waves, each shockwave strong enough to rattle bones. For a heartbeat, it seemed the pirate ship would vanish in smoke.
Then the sea itself rebelled.
A deep, resonant crack rolled outward—sound without thunder, violence without flame. The ocean surface dipped, forming a vast concave bowl as if some unseen giant had pressed its palm against the world. Water rushed back in a roaring wall that hurled Marine vessels sideways.
"Gura Gura no Mi…" Sengoku breathed, lowering his binoculars. "So this is how the legends begin."
Around him, men scrambled, shouting orders, hauling ropes, bleeding from ears where pressure alone had burst them. One ship snapped clean in half.
"Hold formation!" Sengoku barked. "He wants panic. Give him discipline instead!"
But even he felt the edge of awe—the rare thrill of meeting a foe who could crush continents and yet chose not to.
⸻
Far to the south, in the shadow of a coral ridge, a smaller craft rode the aftershock of that quake. Spray hissed against its hull. Two figures crouched in the lee of the mast: Shakky, calm cigarette glowing like a tiny star, and a boy no older than twelve, dark-skinned like the night sky after storm, eyes burning gold in reflection of distant fire.
Crow.
He'd been bloodied not an hour earlier, and still he stared into the horizon as if it were calling him back.
"That," Shakky said, flicking ash into the sea, "is what the world looks like when adults argue."
Crow didn't answer. His small hands clenched the rail until wood cracked. He could feel the pressure of those two titans even from here—Haki so vast it scraped the inside of his skull. His own aura leaked in response, wild and red, making the air shimmer with heat.
Shakky glanced at him sideways. "Breathe, brat. You leak like a cracked barrel."
He exhaled shakily. The crimson steam around him thinned.
"Good. You keep that up, maybe you'll live long enough to regret it."
⸻
⸻
Section 2 – "Whitebeard's Wrath"
The storm broke without rain.
Sengoku's second barrage landed dead center, the seastone powder detonating against the whale-headed ship's hull. Men were flung skyward like dolls. For a heartbeat even Newgate disappeared in the flash.
Then came the roar.
A white halo erupted from the epicenter, an expanding sphere that turned sound into pain. The air cracked—not thunder but the splintering of reality itself—and the shockwave raced outward in concentric rings. Ships that had been pressing forward found their keels lifted clear out of the sea before shattering under their own weight. Masts snapped. Men screamed. The ocean went vertical, then dropped again in a deluge of salt and blood.
When the light cleared, Newgate was still standing, one massive hand braced against his bisento. The weapon's edge hummed with residual tremor energy, distorting the very horizon.
"Enough foreplay," he growled.
He swung.
The motion looked lazy, almost bored. The result was anything but. The very air warped, forming a visible fracture that streaked toward Sengoku's flagship. The impact lifted the three-hundred-ton vessel clear off the water and hurled it sideways through two escorts before the quake finally dissipated. The sea rushed in to fill the wound left behind.
"Holy—!" A young lieutenant clutched the railing, face pale. "That wasn't even—"
"Silence," Sengoku snapped. Blood trickled from his nose; his eardrums had burst under the pressure. He wiped it away, eyes never leaving the giant across the waves. "He's not using his full strength. Not yet."
He raised both palms. Golden light flared, coalescing into a vast spectral form behind him—the first, imperfect manifestation of the Buddha that history would later fear. The apparition caught the next quake with open hands; ripples of power rolled through its arms like liquid glass. The clash of energies boiled the surface of the sea into steam.
"Vice-Admirals, spread formation!" Sengoku's voice carried through den-den loudspeakers. "We fight the tide, not the man. Anchor the current!"
Cables flew, grappling hooks digging into reefs and wrecks to create a makeshift line. The fleet held—barely. But holding against Newgate was victory enough to write songs about.
⸻
Newgate laughed, deep and genuine. "You've got bite, Sengoku! Maybe next time they'll send the old man himself!"
His crew answered with a chorus of roars. They were killers and cutthroats, but organized ones—veterans of the New World who treated combat like prayer. Each wave of Marines that approached found itself shredded by rifle fire laced with Haki or dragged under by Sea Kings whose chains had mysteriously snapped. Newgate's subordinate captains—men who would one day lead fleets of their own—moved with grim coordination.
"Keep the big guns cool," barked his first mate, a scarred mountain named Doma. "He's enjoying himself—don't ruin the Captain's fun!"
They obeyed, laughing through blood and smoke. The Rocks era had taught them one truth: you survived by being useful entertainment to monsters.
⸻
A mile away, Shakky's smaller ship rolled in the backwash. Crow gripped the mast, watching the titans with a mixture of horror and hunger.
"Every strike breaks the sky…" he whispered.
"Of course it does," Shakky said. "They stopped being men years ago."
She exhaled a plume of smoke that the wind refused to touch. "You see the difference yet?"
Crow frowned, not looking away. "They don't waste motion."
"Good. You're learning."
She tapped his shoulder with the staff she'd been using to train him for weeks. "You think you're fast? You think all that Ki makes you special? Out there, speed means nothing without judgment. Look closer."
He did. And suddenly he saw it—the micro-pauses between attacks, the way Sengoku's aura dimmed an instant before he countered, the way Newgate rolled his hips to redirect the quake's return pressure. They weren't just hitting; they were listening to the world around them.
Crow's leaking energy began to mimic that rhythm unconsciously. The crimson haze softened, pulsing in time with the sea instead of fighting it. The heat coming off him cooled.
Shakky's lips curved. "See? Even wild dogs can learn manners."
He shot her a look. "You saying I'm a dog?"
"I'm saying you haven't earned a name yet. Rocks' sea doesn't care what you were. It only cares what you can become."
The boy turned back to the battlefield, jaw tightening. The quake's aftershock rippled through the water, washing against their hull. He raised a hand instinctively, letting his own Haki push back. For a brief second, the spray split around them like a parted curtain.
Shakky's cigarette froze halfway to her lips. "Well, I'll be damned."
Crow lowered his hand, panting. "I just… copied the rhythm."
"That's how it starts," she murmured. Then, quieter, "That's also how it kills you if you don't respect it."
⸻
On the main field, Sengoku felt the shift—someone else's Haki blooming faintly in the distance, raw but unmistakable. A child's presence, undisciplined yet bright. His brow furrowed.
"What in the world…?" He pushed the thought aside. There was no room for distraction now.
"Admiral!" A messenger sprinted across the deck. "Vice-Admiral Garp reports heavy resistance on the eastern flank—Shiki and Wang Zhi have engaged!"
"Of course they have." Sengoku pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tell him to hold. If we can't break Whitebeard's line, none of this matters."
He turned back to the sea—and saw Newgate grinning at him from across the shattered waves.
The pirate captain raised two fingers in mock salute, then slammed them down.
The world cracked again.
This time, Sengoku answered in kind. Golden energy erupted from his hands, colliding with the quake midair. The resulting explosion consumed both attacks and everything caught between them. Dozens of ships vanished in a single blinding pulse.
When the glare faded, the two men were still standing, separated by a boiling wasteland of foam and flame.
Newgate's laughter rolled like thunder. "You fight tidy, Marine! Shame the world you're cleaning ain't worth saving!"
Sengoku's reply was quiet but sharp. "And you fight for a man who'll drown it in blood."
Newgate's smile didn't waver. "Then we'll see whose ocean it becomes."
⸻
By dusk the horizon was a graveyard of burning masts. The battle had no victor—only survivors.
Sengoku signaled retreat once his scouts confirmed Rocks' reinforcements moving in from the west. The Marines peeled away in ragged formation, leaving their dead to the tides. Newgate didn't pursue. He stood at the prow, watching the sun sink through smoke.
"Could've ended him," Doma muttered.
Newgate shook his head. "Could've ended myself, too. Balance, lad. The sea punishes arrogance."
He glanced toward the distant coral ridge, where a faint flicker of unfamiliar Haki had briefly brushed his senses. "And there's something new brewing out here. Small, but hungry."
Doma followed his gaze. "You think Rocks'll care?"
"He will when it starts eating his monsters."
⸻
Far off, Shakky's boat rode the red reflection of sunset. Crow sat cross-legged on the deck, eyes closed, breathing slow. Each inhale pulled stray threads of Ki back into his core; each exhale smoothed the wild ripples around him. The air above his skin shimmered faintly, like heat off metal but cool to the touch.
Shakky watched, arms crossed. For the first time since she'd found him half-dead and feral, he looked… centered.
"Keep that up," she said softly, "and maybe I won't have to beat you half to death tomorrow."
He opened one eye. "Maybe?"
"Don't push your luck."
She looked back toward the fading smoke of the battlefield, her expression unreadable. "Come on, kid. Let the gods kill each other. We've got work to do."
She turned the wheel east, into the gathering night.
⸻
Section 3 – "The Shadow and the Storm"
Night fell unevenly across the Grand Line. The smoke from Whitebeard's tremors still hung in the upper clouds, glowing faintly with lightning that refused to die. Beneath that bruised sky, Shakky's cutter slipped between reefs, its black sails soaking up the firelight from the distant wrecks.
Crow hadn't spoken in hours.
He sat cross-legged near the bow, the dried blood on his skin cracking whenever he breathed. Every few minutes his body twitched—the after-effects of forcing Ki through muscle too young to bear it. His eyes were open but unfocused, fixed somewhere between the stars and the memories clawing at the back of his skull.
Shakky watched him from the helm. She didn't ask what he saw. She could feel it: a churning undercurrent of grief, rage, and unspent instinct. Observation Haki painted it like heat in her mind, a living storm wrapped in the body of a child.
She sighed. "You're thinking about killing again."
Crow blinked slowly. "I'm thinking about not dying next time."
"Same difference at your age."
He turned his head, the motion stiff. "You let me watch because you wanted me to learn restraint."
Shakky's cigarette tip flared. "And?"
"I didn't feel restraint. I felt a world I'll never reach."
"Good," she said. "Now you know what the ocean really is."
⸻
The ship creaked. Below deck, the few Kuja sailors Shakky still trusted whispered about the battle. They'd ferried escaped slaves and run contraband through Paradise for years, but none of them had ever seen gods trading blows. They avoided the boy who radiated a warmth that wasn't heat—something heavier, like the weight of sunlight pressing through fog.
Crow rose unsteadily, barefoot on wet planks. "How many people died today?"
"Too many to count." Shakky's tone didn't invite guilt or pity; it was arithmetic. "Sengoku lost five ships. Newgate lost two. Everyone else lost their innocence."
He nodded, then leaned against the mast. "You fought in wars like that?"
"Fought? No." She smirked. "I profited."
The wind caught her hair, silver streaks glinting in the moonlight. "Every war is an investment. Rocks knows that. So do the Marines. The difference is who collects the interest."
Crow studied her. "And me?"
"You're the dividend nobody planned for."
He didn't understand, but the way she said it made him shiver.
⸻
For a while they sailed in silence, the only sound the hiss of waves sliding past the hull. Then Shakky spoke again, softer.
"Do you know why I dragged you through all that training? Why I let the Amazons beat you black and blue?"
"So I'd survive."
"No," she said. "So you'd remember surviving. Pain's a ledger. Every strike written on your body reminds you who you owe. You start enjoying it, you're already lost."
He lowered his head. "Sometimes I feel the Origin whispering to me. It wants me to let go."
"I know." She stepped closer, her Haki brushing against his like a hand to the forehead. "That's why I beat you down every time you listen to it. You start thinking you're unstoppable, you'll find someone who proves you wrong."
Crow swallowed. "Like Newgate."
"Exactly. Or worse—Rocks."
The name hung in the air like a curse. Even the waves seemed to quiet.
Shakky turned back to the wheel. "You're not ready for that world yet. That's why we're going to Vegapunk."
⸻
The boy frowned. "You trust a scientist?"
"I don't trust anyone," she said. "But Rocks gave an order, and even I'm not suicidal enough to ignore him."
She blew smoke toward the stars. "Vegapunk's the only mind alive who might understand what's inside you. The Ki, the fruit, that… thing sleeping in your shadow. If he can't stabilize it, no one can."
Crow stared at his hands. Faint lines of light pulsed beneath the skin, like veins filled with molten gold. "What if he tries to cut it out?"
"Then you kill him," she said simply. "Or I do. But you'll thank him first."
Her tone was casual, but he heard the edge under it—a promise, not a threat. For all her composure, Shakky feared science more than monsters.
⸻
Midnight. The last embers on the horizon sank into the sea. Shakky tied the wheel and walked to the boy, crouching until they were eye level.
"Close your eyes."
He obeyed.
"Now breathe like you did watching Newgate. Slow. Let the Ki move without pushing it."
He exhaled, and the deck hummed faintly. The air above his skin rippled like hot glass. For an instant Shakky saw what her Haki had hinted at for months: a translucent serpent coiled around his shoulders, its eyes twin suns staring back at her.
Her hand twitched toward her pistol before she forced it still.
The serpent flickered, then sank back into him as his breathing steadied.
"That," she said carefully, "isn't Haki."
Crow opened his eyes, calm now. "It protects me."
"It'll eat you if you let it."
He nodded once, the obedience of someone who'd learned that defiance hurt more than agreement.
⸻
The cutter drifted through a field of wreckage—splintered masts, corpses half-eaten by fish, the lingering smell of powder. Shakky didn't steer away. She wanted him to see it.
"Every name on these seas started as a story like yours," she said. "A survivor, a runaway, a miracle. The trick is living long enough to outgrow the miracle part."
Crow watched a shattered Marine banner slide beneath their hull. "Will they come after me?"
"They already are. CP 9, the elders, whoever ran that lab—none of them like loose ends."
He flexed his fingers, remembering the feel of a skull giving way under his grip. "Then I'll kill anyone who finds me."
Shakky's smile was cold. "That's your mistake, kid. You think killing solves things. It just makes better hunters."
⸻
A sudden vibration rippled through the air—the faint echo of a quake far off to the west. Whitebeard testing the sea again. Shakky tilted her head, listening.
"Your would-be teacher's still showing off."
Crow tilted his head too, feeling the disturbance in his bones. "He could sink islands if he wanted."
"He could," she agreed. "But notice he doesn't. That's the difference between power and control."
He breathed out, trying to match the rhythm. The faint glow around him dimmed further until it was almost gone. Shakky's Haki sensed the change—the wild pressure tightening, folding inward. For the first time since she'd met him, his Ki wasn't leaking like a bleeding wound.
A distant thread somewhere—one she couldn't feel but another girl could—thinned as well.
Shakky nodded, satisfied. "That's enough for tonight."
Crow opened his eyes, confusion flickering there. "You mean I did it?"
"You copied it. There's a difference. Copying's the first step to understanding."
He smiled faintly, and for a heartbeat he looked his age.
⸻
When dawn came, the sea was glass. The cutter glided across it silently, the wake fading almost before it formed. In the distance a chain of islands rose out of the mist, each crowned with dense jungle.
Shakky studied them through her spyglass. "Paradise. First half of the Grand Line. You'll remember this route; it's where all fools go to die before reaching the New World."
Crow shaded his eyes. "We're landing?"
"Briefly. Supplies, information, and a ship to borrow."
"Steal?"
She grinned. "Semantics."
He looked at the jungles, then at the blood still crusted on his hands. "What if someone recognizes me?"
"Then we see how much restraint you really learned."
⸻
⸻
Section 4 – "Lessons in Power"
The island looked harmless from the sea—emerald cliffs, white-sand beaches, a lazy crescent bay where gulls circled over the wreckage of older dreams. Up close, it smelled of rot and liquor.
"This place," Shakky said, tossing a coil of rope onto the pier, "is where the weak pretend they're pirates."
Her tone made it sound like a diagnosis. The Kuja sailors lowered the gangplank, eager to touch solid ground. Crow followed, bare feet silent on the warped wood. His eyes darted from stall to stall along the wharf: gambling dens, flesh markets, tattoo parlors that doubled as poison shops. The laughter that floated from the taverns wasn't joy—it was desperation set to music.
Shakky lit a cigarette and started walking. "Keep your head down. Breathe through your mouth. And if anyone touches you, break their arm quietly."
He nodded.
They threaded through the bazaar. Even in disguise—cloak drawn, hair hidden—Crow drew stares. Something about him, the faint shimmer of Ki under his skin, announced danger louder than any bounty poster. A drunk reached out, slurred something obscene. Before he could blink, the boy's hand caught his wrist and twisted; a soft crack followed. The man crumpled without a scream.
Shakky didn't even slow. "Too loud."
⸻
They reached a tavern whose sign was nothing but a knife nailed through a skull. Inside, the air was a soup of rum and gun oil. Tables overflowed with coins and dice. On one wall, a group of bounty hunters argued over charts of Marine patrols; on another, two women arm-wrestled while a third sharpened a cutlass the length of her leg.
"This," Shakky said, sliding into a booth, "is what Rocks calls recruitment."
Crow sat opposite her, shoulders tense. "They don't look like soldiers."
"They're not. They're dreamers who haven't died yet."
A dealer passed by; Shakky snagged his tray, plucked a glass, and downed it in one motion. "Now listen carefully, brat. You think the battlefield teaches you strength. It doesn't. It teaches you habits. Right now your habit is to fight anything that breathes. That's going to get you killed."
He frowned. "Then what should I do?"
"Watch."
She nodded toward the arm-wrestlers. The smaller woman—barely half her opponent's size—was losing slowly, deliberately. When the larger pirate leaned forward to finish it, the smaller shifted her grip, snapped her wrist sideways, and slammed the other's hand through the table. Wood splintered; blood spilled; cheers erupted.
"See that?" Shakky said. "She never fought for power. She fought for timing. That's what separates killers from corpses."
Crow absorbed the scene silently. The lesson sank deeper than any lecture.
⸻
They spent the rest of the day drifting through the city's veins. Shakky gathered whispers the way other people gathered shells: which Marine convoys had gone missing, which scientist was rumored to be hiding under government protection, which warlord-to-be was bribing judges. Crow followed, memorizing everything.
At sunset they climbed a hill overlooking the port. From there, the whole island looked like a wound—ships bleeding smoke, neon signs flickering through the dusk.
"Why bring me here?" he asked.
"Because paradise is honest," she said. "The New World dresses its monsters like kings. Here, they still look like monsters."
She crouched beside him. "What do you see?"
"Fear," he said after a moment. "Everyone's pretending not to feel it."
Her smile was small but genuine. "Good eye."
She pointed toward the distant horizon, where faint flashes of battle still scarred the clouds. "Out there is power. In here—" she gestured to the city "—is everything people trade for it. Family, honor, sanity. If you ever forget that, you'll become one of them."
⸻
Night deepened. They returned to the docks to find their sailors nervous. A rumor had spread: two masked men had been asking about a boy with "sun-burned skin and strange eyes." Shakky's jaw tightened.
"CP agents," she said. "We move now."
Crow's pulse quickened. "We can fight—"
"No," she snapped. "We vanish. Fighting them is exactly what they want."
But fate, as always, ignored strategy.
The first bullet missed Shakky by an inch, burying itself in the mast with a hiss of seastone. She dove sideways, drawing her pistol. The second agent dropped from a rooftop, blade flashing. Crow met him mid-air.
The impact drove them both through a crate of rum. Splinters tore his arm, blood mixing with liquor. The agent's mask cracked down the middle, revealing half a smirk.
"You should've stayed in the lab, specimen."
Something in Crow snapped.
The street vanished in a wash of gold light. Heat shimmered; air twisted. The man's smirk froze as a hand closed around his skull. For one breath, Crow's eyes weren't gold—they were burning white. The sound that followed wasn't a scream so much as the absence of one, flesh and bone erased in a single motion.
When he looked up, the second agent was gone. Shakky stood at the alley mouth, gun lowered, expression unreadable.
"Feel better?" she asked.
He trembled. "No."
"Good," she said, stepping past him. "Monsters who enjoy it are harder to train."
She kicked the ruined mask aside, then shoved him toward the pier. "Get on the ship. You just told the whole world you're still alive."
⸻
They left the island before dawn. The crew worked in grim silence; even the sea seemed cautious. Shakky didn't speak until the shoreline was a thin bruise behind them.
"You think that was strength back there?" she asked.
"It was survival."
"It was stupidity wearing strength's skin."
She took a long drag, exhaled toward the stars. "Every time you lose control, you prove the lab was right to fear you. You want revenge? Fine. Learn to live first."
He didn't argue. The faint crimson haze returned around him, weaker this time, like embers cooling after rain.
"Sit," she ordered.
He did. She crouched behind him, pressed two fingers to the base of his neck, and let her Observation Haki seep into him. What she felt made her stomach twist—his life force boiling like magma, veins thrumming with energy no human should contain.
"Too much," she muttered. "You burn from the inside just standing still."
"I can handle it."
"You can endure it. Different thing." She withdrew her hand. "Until you learn restraint, you don't fight unless I say so."
His jaw clenched. "And if someone comes for you?"
"Then you watch how a professional dies."
Her tone left no room for argument.
⸻
Later, while the others slept, Crow sat on deck alone. The moon reflected off the water in a perfect circle. He stared into it until his reflection blurred and shifted—until he saw another face behind his own, older, sadder, eyes heavy with memory.
Lee Shioon.
The whisper wasn't sound. It bloomed directly in his mind.
You burned your life once to save others. Do not burn it now for pride.
Crow exhaled shakily. "Who are you?"
The reason you're still breathing.
The reflection faded, leaving only his own wide eyes staring back. The sea rolled beneath the hull, calm for the first time in days.
Behind him, Shakky watched from the shadows. She'd seen the faint golden flicker on the water, heard the boy speaking to no one. She didn't interrupt. Whatever ghost lived in him was beyond even her reach.
⸻
By morning the sun rose blood-red, painting the deck in color that looked too much like guilt. Shakky stretched, cracked her neck, and handed him a flintlock rifle.
"What's this for?" he asked.
"Practice. You're useless at range."
"I thought we were visiting Vegapunk."
"We are. But until then, you'll learn to shoot. Observation Haki means nothing if you can't kill what you sense."
He accepted the weapon. It felt heavy, older than he was.
She smirked. "John's rifle. Stole it back from the bastards who killed him. Consider it a family heirloom."
Crow traced the worn initials on the stock—J.R.—and nodded.
"Load up," she said. "Next island's worse than this one. If we're lucky, we'll reach the doctor before the world notices you're missing."
He shouldered the rifle, stance instinctive. The sun caught his eyes, turning them briefly to molten gold.
Shakky's own Haki flared unconsciously in answer. For a heartbeat she saw him not as a boy but as a shape half-formed—wings of light and shadow unfurling behind a human frame.
She blinked, and the vision was gone.
"Let's move," she said quietly. "Before the sea remembers we exist."
⸻
⸻
Section 5 – "Whispers of Genius"
The Grand Line slept uneasy.
The quake-storms from Whitebeard's duel had flattened half the trade routes; wreckage drifted like coffins. For three days, Shakky steered through a graveyard of masts while Crow kept the sails trimmed, his rifle always within reach. The sea was quiet—but not peaceful. It felt like a lung holding its breath.
On the dawn of the fourth day a fog rose, dense and silver, swallowing horizon and compass alike. Shakky didn't curse or slow; she simply tapped the wheel twice. A faint metallic ping answered somewhere ahead.
"Signal buoy," she murmured. "We're close."
Crow peered through the mist. "Vegapunk hides here?"
"Under it." Her voice was low. "An island no chart lists. Government calls it a research reef. Rocks calls it leverage."
Lightning flickered in the fog, not from sky but from machines humming beneath the water. As they approached, shapes surfaced—towers of glass and iron, half-submerged, crusted with coral. The smell of ozone bit their noses.
Crow's Ki prickled. "Feels wrong."
"Everything brilliant does," she said.
⸻
A metal dock extended from the mist like the tongue of a beast. Guards waited—no uniforms, just lab coats and pistols. Shakky strode down first, cigarette balanced between her lips, every inch the pirate queen even in a scientist's den.
"Tell your master," she said, "that Shakuyaku of Rocks' fleet brings his miracle."
The nearest guard swallowed. "You mean — the child?"
"Smart," she said, brushing past him. "You'll live five more minutes."
Crow followed, uneasy. The corridors beyond smelled of sterilized salt. Fluorescent crystals lit the path, humming with the same rhythm as the sea. He counted five sealed doors, each marked by a different symbol: an eye, a serpent, a sun, a skull, a broken crown.
"What are these?" he whispered.
"Projects," Shakky answered. "Failures, probably. Don't touch anything that breathes."
⸻
At the corridor's end, the door opened before they could knock. A tall, narrow man stepped out, spectacles gleaming in the artificial light. His hair was slick, his coat immaculate, and his eyes carried the kind of curiosity that had forgotten morality.
"Madam Shakuyaku," he said pleasantly. "The ocean itself must envy you; even Whitebeard's tremors didn't delay your schedule."
"Keep flattering me, Vegapunk," she said, "and I might start charging interest."
His smile didn't reach his eyes. "And this must be the patient."
Crow met his gaze. For the first time since the lab, he felt truly seen—not as prey or weapon, but as an equation.
"Interesting …" Vegapunk's Observation Haki flickered, feather-light but surgical. "Two heartbeats out of phase. One human. One … other."
Shakky flicked ash onto the floor. "He's alive. Rocks wants him to stay that way."
"Then you'll get him back breathing," Vegapunk said smoothly. "What happens to his soul isn't in the contract."
Her pistol was in her hand before the sentence finished. The scientist froze, staring at the barrel now touching his chest.
"Listen carefully," she said, voice like winter. "You go one step past stabilization, and the next bullet you study will be through your skull."
Vegapunk raised both palms. "Understood. My curiosity is bound by fear. As it should be."
She lowered the weapon slowly. "Good. Do your job."
⸻
The procedure lasted days. Crow remembered flashes: cold metal under his spine, the smell of sea salt and copper, voices speaking numbers instead of words. He felt his body burning, then cooling, then burning again. Each time he surfaced, Shakky was there, cigarette glowing in the dark.
"You still breathing?" she'd ask.
He'd nod, too weak for sarcasm.
When it ended, Vegapunk looked ten years older. "He's stable—for now. The fruit and the Ki coexist, barely. His cells rebuild faster than they decay, but it drains energy at a terrifying rate. He'll need constant fuel: high-density protein, Sea-King marrow, maybe solar exposure."
Shakky exhaled. "So he eats like a god."
Vegapunk smiled thinly. "Or dies like one."
She grabbed his collar. "You finished?"
"For today."
"Then he's coming with me."
He hesitated. "The readings — if I could monitor —"
The hammer of her pistol clicked. "You can monitor your pulse."
He stepped aside.
⸻
They left that night, fog closing behind them like a door. The Kuja ship waited, repaired and restocked by unseen hands. As the engines hummed, Shakky looked back once. The island was already gone.
Crow slept below deck for two days straight. When he woke, the world felt heavier but quieter. The raging Ki inside him had settled into something almost peaceful, like a sun behind clouds.
He climbed to the deck. Shakky sat on the railing, reading a weather log that wasn't a log at all but coded messages from Rocks' informants.
"Alive again?" she asked.
"I think so."
"Good. Rocks will be pleased."
Crow frowned. "Why does he care?"
"Because you're proof," she said simply. "Proof that the World Government's bloodline can be broken—and rebuilt stronger."
He didn't answer. The words meant nothing yet.
⸻
By afternoon they reached open sea. A pod of Sea Kings shadowed the hull at a respectful distance, drawn to or repelled by the boy's aura—Shakky couldn't tell which. The sun glinted off the water; Crow stood bare-chested at the bow, breathing slow, Ki pulsing in time with the waves.
"Don't start glowing," she warned. "People talk."
He smiled faintly. "Feels… calm."
"Enjoy it. The Calm Belt's the last quiet place left."
She joined him at the prow. "From here we head east. Rocks wants you off the grid until he calls. Amazon Lily's warriors owe me a favor. You'll train there until your bones stop squealing."
He turned to her. "You're not coming?"
"I've got to go pick a fight with the Marines," she said dryly. "Make it look like I'm escorting someone else."
He hesitated. "You'll come back?"
"Maybe. If you're still worth the trouble."
⸻
That night the stars returned, sharp and cold. Shakky set the course, then stood beside him one last time.
"You ever wonder why men like Rocks, Newgate, and Sengoku fight so hard?" she asked.
"Because they want to win?"
"No," she said. "Because the sea doesn't let them rest. Every generation births something worse. You? You're what comes next."
He didn't know whether to feel proud or afraid.
She clapped his shoulder. "Remember what I taught you. Restraint keeps monsters alive longer."
He nodded. "And if I forget?"
Her smile was faint. "Then pray I'm not around to remind you."
⸻
At dawn, the Kuja ship split their courses. One vessel veered toward the Calm Belt; the other, smaller and faster, angled west into the rising sun. The pirates aboard saluted silently.
From a distance the scene looked almost peaceful—a boy watching his teacher fade into the light. No one seeing it would have guessed that history had just turned a quiet, bloody page.
Far to the north, in a Marine flagship still under repair, Sengoku stood at the rail, reading the latest ciphered report. Behind him, Tsuru's voice was steady but grim.
"Vegapunk confirmed alive. Rocks' fleet moving again. And the child…"
She didn't finish. Sengoku folded the report, eyes on the horizon where the sky still bore faint cracks from the quake.
"Five years," he murmured. "God Valley's five years away. And already the pieces are moving."
Tsuru glanced at him. "You think the boy will matter?"
"He already does," Sengoku said. "Even monsters have heirs."
⸻