The volcanic winds howled as Marya, Vaughn, and Charlie stepped into Bootleg Island's ash-choked streets. The Flare Up Tavern's warmth vanished behind them, replaced by the sulfurous stench of magma and the low growl of a predator lying in wait.
Casimir stood at the center of the road, his silhouette backlit by the volcano's hellish glow. His gloved fingers flexed, the quarter from earlier now a molten droplet in his palm. "Elisabeta's daughter," he purred, his voice silk over steel. "And here I thought the sea had swallowed you whole."
Marya's hand tightened on Eternal Eclipse, the blade's void-black edge humming. "Funny. I thought the same about you."
Vaughn stepped forward, Light Bringer crackling as sound waves warped into searing light. "Back off. We're not here for a scrap."
"Lieutenant," Casimir snapped.
Teivel materialized from the shadows, his spear glinting as he twirled it with a lewd grin. "Aw, c'mon, boss. Let me peel the loud one first." Beside him, Onyx fumbled with her Gatling gun, heels sinking into the ash. "S-sorry! I'll try not to—oh no—" A misfire shredded a nearby fruit cart, spraying mango pulp like shrapnel.
Chaos erupted.
Vaughn lunged at Teivel, their clash scattering embers into the air. Onyx's bullets strafed the ground, forcing Charlie to dive behind a smoldering boulder, still shouting about "pre-war numismatics!"
Casimir moved like liquid night. One moment he was yards away; the next, his taloned hand slashed toward Marya's throat. She parried, Eternal Eclipse screeching against his Haki-hardened claws.
"Your mother begged too," he hissed, his breath reeking of iron and cinders. "Right before I snapped her pretty neck."
Marya's vision blurred—not from rage, but memory:
Fire. A burning villa. Her mother's hand, slick with blood, shoving her toward a hidden cellar. A boy with dark hair—sobbing as smoke choked the air. Then, the roof caving in. A shadow with golden eyes and leathery skin, laughing as claws tore through stone.
"Move!" Vaughn's roar yanked her back.
Too late.
Casimir's jaws—now elongated into a Velociraptor's maw—crushed her shoulder. Razor fangs punched through flesh, and bone. The pain was electric, paralyzing. Eternal Eclipse slipped from her grip as agony coursed through her veins.
Across the square, Vaughn froze. "MARYA!"
Teivel's grin widened, feral and unhinged, as Vaughn's momentary distraction became his opening. The spear hummed through the ash-thick air, its jagged tip glinting like a serpent's fang. With a wet, visceral crunch, it pierced Vaughn's side, tearing through leather, muscle, and ribcage in a single, brutal thrust. The force lifted Vaughn briefly off his feet, the spear's barbed edge erupting from his back in a grisly crescent of blood and splintered bone. Crimson arced through the air, spattering the volcanic stone like macabre paint. Vaughn gagged, his hand instinctively clawing at the shaft protruding from his torso, Light Bringer slipping from his grip as his knees buckled. The ax's radiant glow flickered and died, its hum fading into the cacophony of battle.
Onyx's scream tore through the chaos—a raw, shattered sound. Her Gatling gun slipped from her trembling hands, its barrel gouging the ground as it clattered to a halt. She staggered back, gloved fingers pressing desperately over her mouth, as if stifling the horror could undo what she'd witnessed. "N-no… No!" she whimpered, her voice a high-pitched thread. Tears blurred her vision, streaking through the soot on her cheeks. Her heels caught on uneven rubble, and she crumpled to her knees, dry heaving between ragged breaths. "I-I didn't… I didn't mean to distract him—!"
Above her, Teivel wrenched the spear free with a wet schluck, Vaughn's body collapsing like a marionette with severed strings. "Oops," Teivel drawled, licking blood from the blade with a theatrical smirk. "Guess chivalry is dead."
"Vaughn…!" Charlie scrambled forward, only to be pinned by debris from Onyx's wild shots.
Marya's world narrowed. Vaughn's ax dimmed, its light guttering like a dying star. His eyes met hers—apologetic, proud—before Teivel ripped the spear free.
"Wedding… peacocks…" Vaughn coughed, blood frothing at his lips. He collapsed, Light Bringer's glow snuffing out.
Something in Marya broke.
Her mother's journal tumbled from her coat. The pages fell open to a sketch of Mihawk—her father—his kogatana glinting at his neck.
Casimir's teeth dug into her collarbone like molten hooks, searing through flesh and sinew with a hiss that mingled with the acrid stench of burning sulfur. Marya's breath hitched, copper flooding her mouth as blood welled up from bitten lips—a metallic tang cut through the ash-clogged air. Her vision swam, blurring Vaughn's lifeless form crumpled a dozen paces away. His dreads fanned out like a dark halo, one hand still curled around the ghost of Light Bringer's handle, his face frozen in a wry half-smile that no longer reached his eyes.
The world narrowed to a single, white-hot point of fury.
Marya's scream tore through the battlefield, a primal roar that resonated in the volcano's molten heart. Stone cracked beneath her boots as the very island shuddered. With a vicious twist, she ripped the kogatana from its chain at her neck—the blade's edge, forged in the same shadowed fires as her father's, glinted like a shard of midnight. Casimir's eye widened, recognition flaring in its golden depths an instant before she drove the dagger upward.
The blade met resistance—a sickening pop as it pierced the gelatinous orb, then a grating scrape against bone. Black blood bubbled from the wound, sizzling as it hit the ground. Casimir's shriek was not human, not beast, but a cacophony of both—a sound that split the sky like thunder, sending fissures spiderwebbing through nearby buildings. "YOU WRETCHED LITTLE—"
Mist swallowed his curse. Marya's body disintegrated, molecules scattering into the charged air like smoke on a gale. For a heartbeat, she coalesced—a wraith flickering at Charlie's side, her spectral hand seizing his collar as her other arm hooked beneath Vaughn's limp shoulders. The weight was unbearable; her shredded collarbone screamed, agony from Casimir's bite coursing like liquid fire through her veins.
Then she dissolved again, the world fracturing into a kaleidoscope of pain and fog. Charlie's choked sob echoed in her skull, Vaughn's body a leaden anchor as Bootleg Island's molten rock blurred into streaks of orange and black. Somewhere behind them, Casimir's rage ignited the very air, his velociraptor form trashing and writhing in a hurricane of embers and ash.
But the mist carried her—away, away, away—until all that remained was the echo of her heartbeat and the void's cold embrace.
The submarine's hatch slammed shut. Charlie vomited over the controls, tears cutting through ash on his face. Marya collapsed against the bulkhead, her shoulder a ruin of blackened veins and teeth marks. Vaughn lay at her feet, his dreads matted with blood, a half-smile frozen on his lips.
Somewhere above, Casimir's roar shook the island—a vow, a requiem.
Marya stared at her reflection in Eternal Eclipse's blade. Her eyes, bloodshot and wild, mirrored the tempest that had enveloped her soul. Each breath she took felt like shards of glass scraping against her lungs. The world around her began to blur, the edges of her vision darkening. She knew she was slipping, the blood seeping from her veins claiming its toll.
"Charlie," she gasped through labored breathes. He turned, panic in his eyes at the sight of crimson pooling around her. "Emergency…." Her voice trailed just before passing out.
"No!" Charlie screeched, rushing to her. Shaking her as if it would bring her back. Sniffling, he wiped his tears with trembling hands. He forced himself to think, to remember his training. His eyes fixed on the control panel where a bright red button blazed. Without hesitation he stood, slamming it down.
The sub lurched to life, the autopilot taking over. Bypassing all the safety protocols, the bubble porter activated while still in Bootleg Island's harbor. Within moments they disappeared and reappeared at the Consortium's hidden dock.
"Report!" a voice called over the intercom.
"I need help!" Charlie replied through sobs.
The first thing Marya felt was the cold.
It seeped into her bones, sharp and unrelenting, as if the infirmary's sterile white walls had leached all warmth from the world. Her eyelids fluttered open, greeted by the blurred glow of enchanted lanterns overhead—soft orbs of light trapped in glass, their hum a distant, mocking lullaby. She tried to move her right hand, but her fingers refused to obey. A bandage, thick and suffocating, bound her shoulder, the fabric stained faintly crimson where the wound beneath still wept.
Where…?
Her thoughts slithered like smoke, fragmented and fleeting. The last thing she remembered was the roar of her scream, the acrid sting of gunpowder, and Vaughn's voice—"MOVE!"—before the world dissolved into shouts and shadows.
"She's awake."
The voice was brittle, frayed at the edges. Marya turned her head, the motion sending a jagged spike of pain down her neck. Harper sat slumped in a chair beside her bed, his flamboyant green hair dulled under the infirmary's harsh light. His hands trembled as they clutched a crumpled wedding invitation, its gold filigree smeared with dried blood. Vaughn's blood.
"Three days," Harper whispered, not meeting her eyes. His flamboyance had been hollowed out, replaced by a shell of a man. "You've been out for three days."
Three days.
The words slithered into her chest, coiling around her heart. Marya's throat tightened as the memories surged—Vaughn's ax, Light Bringer, shattering mid-swing; the glint of Casimir's raptor claws; Teivel's spear tearing through Vaughn's chest in a spray of crimson. She could still smell the metallic tang of his blood mixing with the damp earth, still hear his choked laugh as he his life slipped away. "Wedding….Peacocks….."
"Where's Charlie?" Her voice cracked, raw from disuse.
Harper's laugh was a broken thing. "Alive. Bruised. Guilty. Like the rest of us." He finally looked at her, his eyes red-rimmed and accusing. "He said you froze. That you just… stood there."
Marya flinched. The accusation was a blade, twisting. She had frozen—when Casimir's haki had crashed over her like a tidal wave, when Teivel's spear had pinned Vaughn to the stone, when the world had narrowed to the sound of her own panicked breaths. Her fingers twitched, phantom sparks of the Mist-Mist Fruit flickering uselessly beneath her skin. She'd failed.
A shadow loomed in the doorway—Nao Itsuki Makino, his pretentious silk robes rustling as he swept into the room. "Ah, the prodigal daughter awakens," he drawled, though his usual theatrics fell flat. His gaze lingered on the black veins snaking up Marya's arms, the curse of Yggdrasil's void throbbing like poisoned roots. "How… quaint. Your mother would be so proud."
"Get out," Marya hissed, her good hand fisting the sheets.
Nao's smile was razor-thin. "Still playing the martyr, I see. Elisabeta died for her research, Vaughn died for your recklessness, and yet here you lie, cradling your—"
"I said get out!"
The shout tore from her throat, raw and guttural. Mist erupted from her palms, corrosive and uncontrolled, eating through the bedside table in a hiss of dissolving wood. Harper lurched back, the wedding invitation slipping from his grasp as Nao retreated with a mocking bow.
Silence pooled in their wake, thick and suffocating. Marya stared at her trembling hands—the hands that couldn't save her mother, couldn't grasp her sword in time, couldn't pull Vaughn away. Across the room, Eternal Eclipse leaned against the wall, its obsidian blade devouring the light. The crimson runes along its edge pulsed faintly, a hungry echo of the void in her veins.
Harper stood abruptly, his chair screeching against the floor. "He loved you, you know," he said, voice trembling. "Like a sister. And you got him killed."
The door slammed behind him.
Marya didn't cry. She couldn't. Instead, she reached for the kogatana around her neck—her father's gift, its edge still stained with Casimir's blood from the day she'd taken his eye. The cold steel bit into her palm, anchoring her to the pain, to the guilt, to the promise burning in her chest like a star.
Somewhere in the library, her mother's notebook waited. Somewhere in the world, Casimir was laughing.
And somewhere in the void, Vaughn's ghost whispered: "Finish it."
The infirmary's antiseptic sting clung to the air, sharp and unyielding. Marya sat propped against the cold metal headboard, her right arm a dead weight in her lap, swathed in bandages that reeked of medicinal herbs and decay. The black veins from Yggdrasil's curse had spread, clawing past her elbow like ink spilled across parchment. She flexed her left hand, watching the mist swirl faintly around her fingertips—a cruel reminder of what she still had, and what she was losing.
The door creaked open. Natalie stepped inside, her blond hair pulled into a severe bun, her blue eyes shadowed by sleepless nights. She carried a tray of fresh bandages and a mortar of pungent salve. Her footsteps were brisk, purposeful, but her lips—usually quick to snap or scold—trembled faintly.
"Let's get this over with," Natalie said, her voice clipped. She set the tray down with a clatter, avoiding Marya's gaze.
Marya said nothing. She'd stopped speaking hours ago, maybe days. Words felt hollow, like echoes in a tomb.
Natalie unwound the soiled bandages with practiced efficiency, her fingers steady but her breath uneven. Beneath the gauze, the wound was a grotesque mosaic—angry red flesh interlaced with blackened fissures where the void curse had burrowed deep. The skin around it was corpse-pale, lifeless.
"Infection's worse," Natalie muttered, more to herself than to Marya. She dabbed the salve onto the wound, the paste sizzling as it met dead tissue. Marya didn't flinch. She'd long since stopped feeling pain there.
"You'll need another blood transfusion tonight," Natalie continued, her tone fraying at the edges. "And whatever you did to piss off Nao, stop. His theatrics are giving me a migraine."
Silence.
Natalie's hands stilled. She stared at Marya's arm, her jaw tightening. When she spoke again, her voice cracked like split ice.
"The nerves are gone. Permanently."
Marya's head snapped up.
Natalie met her gaze now, tears glistening but unshed. "The curse… it's eating you from the inside. Even if we amputate, it'll spread. Your right arm—" She swallowed. "You'll never hold a sword again."
The words hung in the air, heavier than sea stone.
Marya's left hand twitched, mist curling into the shape of a blade—Eternal Eclipse's silhouette, jagged and hungry. She could still feel its weight in her dreams, still hear the void's whisper. But her right hand… her sword arm…
"No," Marya rasped, the first word she'd spoken in days. It scraped her throat raw.
"You think I want this?!" Natalie exploded, slamming the salve jar onto the tray. Her composure shattered, revealing the tempest beneath. "You think I enjoy telling you that your stubbornness got you crippled? That Vaughn died for nothing?!"
Marya recoiled as if struck.
Natalie froze, her chest heaving. Regret flashed across her face, but she didn't apologize. Instead, she yanked a fresh bandage from the tray, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "You're not the only one who lost him. He was my friend too."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Natalie finished wrapping the bandages with rough, hurried motions. As she turned to leave, Marya's left hand shot out, mist-solid fingers gripping her wrist.
"Fix it," Marya hissed, her gray eyes wild, desperate. "You're a doctor. Fix it."
Natalie stared at her, pity and fury warring in her gaze. Slowly, she pried Marya's hand away. "Some things," she said quietly, "can't be fixed."
The door clicked shut behind her.
Alone, Marya turned her head toward the corner where Eternal Eclipse leaned against the wall. The blade seemed to pulse in the dim light, its crimson runes taunting her. She reached for it with her right hand—her hand, the one that had first gripped a sword at Mihawk's knee, the one that had carved her name into the world.
Nothing.
Her fingers brushed the hilt, limp and unfeeling. The sword clattered to the floor, its edge slicing a gouge into the marble. The sound echoed like a funeral bell.
In the reflection of the fallen blade, Marya saw her father's face—cold, disapproving, alive. She saw Vaughn's smile, bright and fleeting. And she saw herself: a prodigy brought to her knees, her legacy reduced to ashes and ink-black veins.
The mist around her left hand thickened, swirling into a jagged mimicry of a sword. She slashed it at the wall, the construct disintegrating on impact, leaving no mark.
Nothing.
For the first time since her mother's grave, Dracule Marya Zaleska wept.