The dim glow of the lanterns in the galley of the Polar Tang cast long shadows across the table where Marya sat, her raven hair falling over her shoulders like a dark curtain. Spread out before her were the pages of her mother's notebook, covered in the intricate, ancient script of the Poneglyphs. Her fingers traced the lines of the text; her brow furrowed in frustration. The words seemed to shift beneath her gaze, their meanings elusive as if the very ink were alive and resisting her efforts to decipher them.
Jean Bart, ever observant, noticed her troubled expression as he entered the galley. He paused, his large frame filling the doorway, and tilted his head slightly. "Something wrong, Marya?" he asked, his deep voice breaking the silence.
Marya looked up, her golden eyes reflecting the flickering light of the lantern. "The translation… it's changed," she said, her voice tinged with frustrated confusion. She gestured to the notebook. "I've been over this passage a dozen times. It was clear before, but now… it's different. The meaning has shifted."
Before Jean Bart could respond, a voice cut through the air. "Changed? How is that possible?" Law stepped into the galley, his presence as sharp and commanding as ever. His amber eyes narrowed as he approached the table, his gaze flicking between Marya and the notebook. "Did you misinterpret it the first time?"
Marya's lips tightened, a flash of irritation crossing her features. "No," she said firmly, her voice carrying a defensive edge. "I didn't misinterpret it. I know what I saw." She paused, her gaze dropping to the black veins that snaked across her arms, a permanent reminder of the void curse she bore. Her fingers brushed against them, and a thought struck her—a dark, unsettling possibility. "Unless… the void has something to do with it. Maybe it's manipulating my interpretation."
Law's expression grew thoughtful, his sharp mind already turning over the implications. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak, the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. More of the Heart Pirates began to filter into the galley, their chatter filling the room as they prepared for their next meal.
Penguin and Shachi were the first to notice the tension in the air. "What's going on?" Penguin asked, his eyes darting between Marya, Law, and Jean Bart.
Marya leaned back in her chair, her fingers still resting on the notebook. "Nothing," she said, though her tone suggested otherwise. She glanced at Law, her golden eyes meeting his. "We'll figure it out. But if the void is interfering… we need to be careful."
Law nodded, his expression unreadable. "We'll discuss this later," he said, his voice low. "For now, focus on what you can decipher. And Marya…" He paused, his gaze lingering on the black veins on her arms. "Don't let the curse cloud your judgment."
Marya's jaw tightened, but she said nothing. Instead, she turned back to the notebook, her mind racing with questions. The void, her mother's legacy, the shifting translation—it all felt like pieces of a puzzle she couldn't quite grasp. As the crew's laughter and chatter filled the galley, she couldn't shake the feeling that something far darker was at play, something that went beyond the pages of the notebook and into the very fabric of her existence.
The lantern light flickered, casting shadows that seemed to dance across the walls, and Marya couldn't help but wonder if the void was watching her, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Before the thought could fully settle, Bepo's voice crackled over the intercom, shrill and breathless. "C-Captain! Sea Kings! There's—there are so many—they're coming straight for us! The ocean, it's—it's—" The transmission dissolved into static, punctuated by the muffled roar of rushing water.
Law's head snapped toward the speaker, his amber eyes narrowing. "Bepo. Breathe. What's happening?" he demanded, but the only reply was the bear's panicked whimper.
Then the Polar Tang lurched violently.
Metal groaned as the submarine shuddered, tilting sideways like a toy caught in a child's tantrum. Marya's papers scattered into the air as she gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles whitening. Across the galley, Jean Bart slammed against the wall, cursing. "Hold onto something!" he roared, but his voice was drowned out by the deafening crunch of the hull buckling under pressure.
"Tsunami!" Shachi's scream echoed from the control room.
The world flipped.
Water roared against the outer hull, a primal force that sent the Polar Tang spinning end over end. Crewmates tumbled like dice—Penguin collided with a bulkhead, Shachi clawed at a bolted-down chair, and Law barely caught himself on a pipe, his tattoos glowing faintly as he summoned a Room to anchor his footing. Marya's sword, Eternal Eclipse, clattered to the floor, its obsidian blade humming as if awakened by the chaos.
Through a porthole, the abyss outside erupted. Dozens of serpentine silhouettes writhed in the dark, their scales glinting like armor under bioluminescent light. Sea Kings—massive, ancient, and furious—surged around the sub, their tails thrashing in unison. The water itself seemed alive, coiling into a monstrous wave that swallowed the Tang whole.
"They're herding us!" Law barked, his voice cutting through the cacophony. "Bepo, stabilize the ballast! Now!"
But the tsunami was relentless. The sub pitched upward, throwing Marya against the ceiling before slamming her back to the floor. Pain flared through her ribs, but she barely registered it—her eyes locked onto the porthole. Beyond the glass, the tsunami's crest loomed, a wall of black water studded with the glowing eyes of Sea Kings. Their jaws gaped, teeth like shipwrecks, as the wave hurled the Tang into its maw.
"Brace!" Jean Bart bellowed.
The impact was apocalyptic.
The Tang crumpled inward, alarms wailing as pipes burst and rivets sheared off like bullets. Saltwater sprayed through cracks in the hull, drenching the crew. Marya's vision blurred as she crawled toward Eternal Eclipse, the void veins on her arms pulsing with an eerie, hungry light. "This isn't natural," she hissed, more to herself than anyone. "They're… angry."
Law staggered toward the control room, his Room flickering as he fought to maintain it. "Bepo! Status!"
"B-Ballast systems failing!" Bepo wailed. "The Sea Kings—they're not attacking! It's like they're… pushing us somewhere!"
The sub plummeted suddenly, free-falling through the water as the tsunami's current dragged it deeper. Marya grabbed her sword, its crimson runes blazing, and for a heartbeat, she swore the void in her veins answered the darkness outside—a silent, terrible resonance.
"Captain!" Penguin screamed. "We're heading straight for a trench!"
Law's voice was ice. "Full reverse. Now."
But the ocean did not obey.
The Tang spiraled downward, swallowed by the tsunami's wrath, while the Sea Kings circled like sentinels. And in the chaos, Marya's fingers tightened around Eternal Eclipse, its blade humming with a power that mirrored the storm—and the cursed void that bound her to it.
The Polar Tang groaned like a wounded beast as the tsunami's fury raged unabated. Hours bled together in a cacophony of screams, clanging metal, and the relentless roar of water. Law's Room flickered in and out, his face streaked with sweat as he sliced through flooding pipes and debris to keep the crew alive. Jean Bart muscled through knee-deep water to reinforce buckling bulkheads, his shouts drowned by the sub's shuddering protests. Bepo, half-drowned at the helm, fought to reroute power to the thrusters, his paws slipping on the controls. "C-Captain, the engines—!"
"Just keep us upright!" Law snarled, but the Tang was no longer theirs to command.
The Sea Kings' silhouettes loomed beyond the portholes, their gargantuan forms weaving through the blackness like living chains, herding the sub deeper into the abyss. Marya staggered through the tilting corridors, her sword's crimson runes casting jagged shadows on the walls. The void veins in her arms throbbed in time with the blade's pulse, as if the curse itself were guiding her toward something—or being drawn to it.
Then came the impact.
A deafening crunch reverberated through the hull, throwing the crew forward as the Tang ground violently against something unyielding. Metal screamed, sparks erupted from severed cables, and the sub listed sharply to starboard, throwing Penguin into a wall. "We're stuck!" Shachi yelled, clawing himself upright. "Like a harpoon in a whale's hide!"
Law lunged for the nearest porthole, wiping away condensation to peer outside. The beam of a dying searchlight revealed a nightmarish sight: the Tang had been hurled into a colossal, jagged structure—a labyrinth of obsidian stone and staggered structures. The ancient edifice loomed like a forgotten god's temple, its narrow corridors snaring the submarine in a skeletal grip.
"Where the hell are we?!" Jean Bart barked, heaving a fallen crate off a groaning crewmate.
Marya's breath caught. "This isn't a reef," she whispered, her voice trembling. "It's a ruin. A man-made one."
The sub shuddered again, its hull scraping against the stone as the current pinned it deeper into the structure. Alarms blared—"Hull breach in Sector 3!"—as seawater gushed through a rent in the floorplates. Law slashed his hand, deploying a Room over the breach, but the water merely slowed, refusing to fully obey. "Bepo! Status!"
The bear's voice wavered. "Engines dead! Ballast tanks ruptured! And… Captain, the Sea Kings—they're gone."
Silence fell, heavy and unnatural. The tsunami's roar had vanished, replaced by the creak of settling metal and the drip of seawater. The crew exchanged uneasy glances, their panting breaths the only sound. Marya stepped toward a cracked viewport, Eternal Eclipse humming louder in her grip. Beyond the glass, the ruins stretched into darkness. "They didn't destroy us," Law said coldly, joining her. "They delivered us."
A low, metallic groan echoed through the Tang as the sub shifted again, its hull buckling under the weight of the stone.
For hours, the Polar Tang bucked and groaned under the tsunami's fury. The crew fought desperately—Law barking orders through gritted teeth, Bepo frantically recalibrating dead systems, Jean Bart hauling broken machinery like a beast of burden. But the ocean was merciless. The sub shuddered as it scraped against unseen forces, metal screaming like a wounded animal, until—
CRUNCH.
The Tang jolted to a violent stop, throwing the crew forward. Sparks rained from ruptured conduits as the lights flickered and died. For a moment, there was only silence, broken by the creak of stressed metal and the drip of seawater. Then, slowly, the emergency lamps flickered on, casting the interior in a sickly red glow.
"Status," Law rasped, wiping blood from a gash on his temple.
"Hull breaches on decks three and four," Penguin coughed, clutching a dislocated shoulder. "Engines dead. Navigation… gone."
"Where the hell are we?" Shachi muttered, staggering to a porthole. He wiped condensation from the glass, then froze. "Captain… you need to see this."
As the water receded, the Polar Tang lay lodged in the center of a vast crater lake, its black waters still bubbling as if freshly boiled. Around them rose an island of nightmares—a jagged fusion of teocallis grandeur in an ashen tomb. Stepped pyramids, their surfaces etched with faded glyphs of suns and serpents, loomed like broken teeth. Volcanic ash coated everything, draping over collapsed colonnades and petrified trees in gray veils. Streets paved with obsidian cobblestones snaked through the ruins, preserved under layers of pumice, frozen in the moment of some ancient cataclysm.
But it was the mummies that stole their breath.
Hundreds of them—Lunarians, their once-majestic wings reduced to skeletal frames crusted in ash—stood petrified in poses of terror. Some clutched at their throats, mouths frozen in silent screams; others huddled around altars adorned with charred offerings. Their skin, though cracked and desiccated, still bore faint traces of fiery tattoos, their eyes hollow sockets staring eternally at a sky choked with swirling ash. Above, colossal birds circled—featherless, their wingspan rivaling warships, with beaks like scimitars and eyes that glowed like molten gold.
"This… isn't on any map," Bepo whispered, pressing his paw to the glass.
Marya shouldered past him, Eternal Eclipse in hand. The sword's crimson runes pulsed faintly, but she ignored it, her gaze locked on the ruins. "Look at the frescoes," she said, pointing to a half-collapsed temple wall. The artwork depicted a towering volcano erupting, its lava consuming a city while winged figures fled—or fell. "This wasn't just an eruption. It was a massacre."
Law stepped beside her, his expression grim. "Lunarians. They were said to wield fire like a birthright. But this…" He gestured to the ashen corpses. "Something ate their flames."
A sudden screech tore through the air. One of the giant birds dove, its shadow blotting out the sunless sky. It slammed into the lake with a geyser of water, reemerging with a thrashing eel the size of a mastiff in its beak. As it took flight, ash rained down, peppering the Tang's hull like gunfire.
"We need to move," Jean Bart growled. "If those things decide we're prey…"
"The Tang isn't going anywhere," Law said flatly. "We repair what we can. But until then—" He glanced at Marya, noting the way her fingers brushed the black veins on her arms. "Stay sharp. This place is a graveyard. And graveyards… rarely stay quiet."
Outside, the wind howled through the ruins, stirring ash into phantom shapes. Somewhere in the distance, a low, resonant hum began to rise—like a chant, or a dirge, echoing from the throats of long-dead priests.
The island was alive. And it was watching.