The air in Saint Jaygarcia Saturn's chamber hung thick with the sterile chill of absolute power. Mary Geoise's eternal night pressed against the arched windows, their stained glass depicting Imu's shrouded visage in hues of gold and shadow. Saturn sat ensconced in a throne of black seastone, his spidery fingers steepled as holographic reports flickered before him. The sudden screech of an alarm shattered the silence—a sound not heard in decades. His ancient eyes narrowed at the pulsing red glyph on the screen: Karathys.
He tapped a bony finger on the armrest, activating the transponder snail embedded in the stone. The creature's shell morphed into the face of Commander Orpheus, its features strained by static.
"Explain," Saturn hissed, his voice a serrated whisper that could flay flesh.
Orpheus stood amidst the lab's chaos, his Starfall Trident dripping mercury onto cracked tiles. Behind him, a monitor displayed Mihawk and Marya descending into the catacombs, their figures stark against the pyramid's bioluminescent decay. "A minor incident, Your Excellency. Contained."
Saturn's lips peeled back, revealing teeth yellowed by centuries of command. "Minor?" He leaned forward, the hologram trembling as he rerouted the feed to his own screen. Mihawk's golden eyes glinted like twin blades in the gloom; beside him, Marya moved with her mother's lethal grace, Eternal Eclipse devouring the light. "Who. Is. She?"
Orpheus hesitated—a fatal mistake.
"The Dracule girl," he gritted out. "Mihawk's daughter."
Saturn's fist clenched. The transponder snail squelched under the pressure, ichor oozing between his fingers. "Elisabeta's whelp was extinguished. You assured me."
"A miscalculation. Mihawk hid her. She's… connected to the Titan's Chaos."
The words hung like a curse. Saturn's mind raced—visions of Elisabeta's defiance, her laughter as she'd burned her research rather than surrender it. The gate isn't locked. It's hungry. His jaw tightened. "End them. Now. Before they reach the Poneglyph."
"I've dispatched a contingent—"
"HANDLE IT YOURSELF." Saturn's roar shook the chamber, dislodging a centuries-old cobweb from the rafters. "If they uncover Karathys' truth, your screams will echo through Tartarus."
The feed severed.
Orpheus stared at the dead snail, his reflection warped in the trident's mercury-coated prongs. Proto-Mono's cackle erupted from the intercom, her voice sing-song: "Sparkle King's in trooouble!"
"Silence her!" he bellowed, slamming the trident into a console. Sparks rained down as he stormed into the hallway, his armor clanking with the weight of impending failure. Soldiers scrambled aside, their faces pale under the flickering emergency lights.
In the catacombs, Marya paused, her Void veins prickling. Above, the pyramid groaned—a sound like the island itself waking.
Mihawk glanced back, Yoru's edge humming. "Trouble."
"Expected," Marya replied, calm as the mercury pooling at their feet.
Above, Orpheus' voice thundered through the PA system, warped by rage: "You'll burn for this, Dracule."
But Marya's gaze was already fixed ahead, where Jelly's bioluminescent glow pulsed like a beacon.
*****
The mercury lake churned beneath the causeway, its surface fracturing into star-shaped ripples that mirrored the constellations painted across the pyramid's vaulted ceiling. Jelly bounced ahead, his gelatinous body pulsing with bioluminescent urgency, casting eerie blue shadows over the petrified mangrove roots that clawed upward from the depths. The air reeked of burnt copper and brine, a metallic tang that coated Marya's tongue as she adjusted the scarf over her nose. Beside her, Mihawk's stride remained measured, Yoru's obsidian blade slicing through tendrils of mercury vapor that reached for them like spectral hands.
They emerged into the apex chamber, a cavernous space where the pyramid's gold-leafed dome had collapsed, allowing moonlight to spill over the ruins. At the center lay the Poneglyph—half-submerged in a pool of quicksilver, its surface cracked and weathered, yet the ancient glyphs still glimmered faintly, as if carved from starlight. Marya halted, her Void veins prickling in recognition.
"What… is this?" she breathed, her voice barely audible over the lake's low, resonant hum.
Mihawk stepped forward, his shadow stretching long and sharp across the glyphs. "Your mother's unfinished symphony. This was her final discovery—the key to unraveling the Void Century."
Marya's gloved hand trembled as she withdrew Elisabeta's notebook, its pages brittle and stained with saltwater. The sketches inside matched the Poneglyph's spirals and slashes, her mother's frantic annotations crowding the margins: Primordial Current… gate… Naylamp's tears… She knelt, her reflection warping in the mercury's mirrored surface, and traced a glyph with her fingertip. The stone vibrated faintly, a dormant song stirring beneath her touch.
"The gate hungers," she read aloud, the words slipping from her lips in the ancient dialect, rough and melodic. "Its chains are forged in the tears of gods, its lock a blade born of eclipse…"
Mihawk turned sharply, his golden eyes narrowing. "You read the Poneglyph tongue?"
Marya didn't look up, her focus locked on the glyphs. "Nao Itsuki Makino taught me. Relentlessly."
A beat. Then Mihawk's smirk cut through the tension. "I bet that was… educational."
She shot him a sidelong glare, memories flooding back: Nao's pretentious silk robes swishing as he loomed over her in the Consortium's library, his voice dripping with theatrical disdain. "The ancient dialect is not a child's nursery rhyme, girl. It bleeds. Breathe it." She'd spent nights tracing glyphs until her fingers cramped, fueled by equal parts spite and desperation.
"He was insufferable," she muttered, flipping to a page in her notebook. "But thorough."
Jelly oozed closer, morphing into a wobbly stool. "Sit-sit, stabby friend! No ouch knees!"
Marya ignored him, her finger pausing over a glyph shaped like a serpent swallowing its tail. "This symbol… Mother circled it in her notes. It's repeated here—'Yggdrasil's root pierces the veil, where shadow drinks the sun.'"
Mihawk crouched beside her, Yoru's tip grazing the mercury. "The Void's origin. Elisabeta believed it was a prison, sealed by the Ancient Kingdom using blades like keys."
A droplet of mercury splashed onto the Poneglyph, hissing as it etched a tiny scar into the stone. Marya's gaze flicked to her father. "And the World Government killed her for it."
"They feared what she'd unleash." His voice softened, almost imperceptibly. "As they fear you."
The chamber shuddered, dust cascading from the dome as the mercury lake surged. Jelly whimpered, flattening into a puddle. "Scary glowy water!"
Marya stood, Eclipse humming at her back. "Then let's give them a reason."
As she transcribed the glyphs, the Void's whisper coiled through the chamber—a chorus of half-formed words, hungry and ancient. Mihawk watched her, pride and dread warring in his silence. Somewhere above, the fractured moon bore witness, its light slicing through the ruins like a blade.
And deep within the Poneglyph's cracks, something stirred.
*****
The lab's alarms wailed like wounded beasts, mercury vapor curling through the air in toxic spirals. Dr. Lysandra leaned back in her chair, boots propped on a crate labeled "Fragile: Titan-Sea King Embryos," and flicked a switch on her desk. A hidden panel slid open, revealing a transponder snail with a shell polished to an oily sheen, its spirals etched with Syndicate cipher runes. She dialed the sequence Elisabeta had once joked was their "bat signal," her thumb absently tracing the brittle mangrove leaf pressed into the journal's spine.
The snail's eyes glowed crimson as it connected, its shell morphing into the featureless golden mask of a Syndicate overseer. A voice emerged, distorted by static and disdain: "You risk much, contacting us directly."
Lysandra swirled her rum, watching the liquid catch the hologram's sickly light. "Oh, relax, darling. Encryption's tighter than Imu's corset." She took a sip, savoring the burn. "Your little island's about to implode. Mihawk and his brat are knee-deep in Naylamp's secrets. Sound familiar?"
The mask's hollow eyes narrowed. "Elisabeta's daughter… alive?"
"And thriving. She's deciphering the Poneglyph as we speak. You remember how that ends, don't you?" Lysandra leaned forward, her monocle catching a shard of light. "One wrong glyph, and poof—your precious 'Primordial Current' becomes public knowledge. Imagine the headlines: 'Secret Syndicate Revealed!'"
A pause. The snail's mucus bubbled angrily. "What do you want?"
"Straight to business! I adore efficiency." She twirled a mercury vial between her fingers, its surface swirling with stolen Haki. "First: full access to Black Seastone reserves. Second: a dozen unredacted Poneglyph rubbings from Mariejois' vaults. And third—" she smirked, "—Casimir's head on a pike. Preferably before he ruins my lab again."
"Absurd." The overseer's voice sharpened. "You overestimate your leverage, alchemist."
"Do I?" Lysandra tapped the journal open to Elisabeta's final entry, the words "gate hungers" glaring like an accusation. "You lot erased her, but I kept her notes. Every equation, every chant… enough to unseal Tartarus myself. So ask: do you want a partner… or a martyr?"
The silence stretched, broken only by the drip of mercury from a ruptured pipe. Finally, the overseer hissed: "The rubbings. Nothing more."
Lysandra laughed—a bright, venomous sound. "Try again. Or shall I forward 'Beta's research to Morgan's Gazette? I hear they pay extra for apocalyptic scoops."
The mask trembled. "…The Seastone. And the rubbings. Casimir… will be handled."
"Pleasure doing business." She severed the connection and tossed the snail into a drawer clattering with Sican artifacts. Her gaze fell to Elisabeta's portrait in the journal, the toddler Marya grinning obliviously in her mother's arms.
"Still saving your legacy, 'Beta," she murmured, tucking the mangrove leaf into her coat. "Even from the grave."
Outside, Proto-Mono's laughter echoed through the vents, mingling with the Titan-sea king's hungry whisper. Lysandra raised her rum in a toast to the chaos.
"Bon appétit."
*****
The mercury lake seethed, its surface fracturing into jagged silver shards as Commander Orpheus stormed into the chamber, his Starfall Trident carving arcs of golden Haki through the toxic mist. Behind him, a contingent of Celestial Vanguard soldiers fanned out, their seastone rifles humming with charged energy. Marya didn't look up from the Poneglyph, her gloved hand steady as she transcribed another glyph into Elisabeta's notebook.
"Tick-tock, little Dracule," Orpheus sneered, his voice a graveled rumble that shook dust from the crumbling dome. "Time's up."
Marya's pen paused. "I'm not finished," she said flatly, her gaze still locked on the ancient script.
Mihawk stepped forward, Yoru's obsidian blade humming as it cleaved the air. His hand brushed her shoulder—a fleeting, almost imperceptible gesture. "Continue. This nuisance is mine."
Orpheus laughed, the sound echoing like a landslide. "Still playing daddy, Hawkeyes? How quaint." He hefted his trident, mercury dripping from its prongs. "The World Government's erased better legends than you."
"And yet," Mihawk tilted his head, golden eyes glinting, "here I remain."
The chamber erupted.
Orpheus lunged, his trident screaming through the air in a crescent of corrosive Haki. Mihawk parried, Yoru's edge meeting the strike with a shockwave that cracked the stone underfoot. The force sent Vanguard soldiers stumbling, their rifles misfiring into the mercury pool. Jelly oozed between them, his gelatinous body ballooning into a wobbly barrier.
"No pew-pew!" he chirped, absorbing a seastone round that sunk into his form like a stone in pudding. "Bouncy time!" He launched the bullet back, smacking a soldier's helmet with a clang.
Marya's jaw tightened as the Void's whispers crescendoed, the Poneglyph's glyphs pulsing in time with her cursed veins. Focus, she commanded herself, her mother's notes blurring as another explosion rocked the chamber.
"You think your blade can cut history?" Orpheus roared, hammering his trident downward. Mihawk sidestepped, the strike gouging a molten trench in the floor.
"No," Mihawk said, his voice a velvet blade. "But it can cut you."
Yoru flashed. Orpheus staggered, a line of dark blood welling across his chest plate. He grinned, madness glinting in his eyes. "Good. I'd hate this to be boring."
Jelly, now a giggling wrecking ball, plowed through two Vanguard agents. "Glitchy bowling!" he crowed, leaving them stuck to the wall in a quivering heap.
Marya's hand trembled—not from fear, but fury. The glyphs swam before her, Elisabeta's annotations a lifeline. The gate hungers. The key is the bearer. She traced a spiral, the Poneglyph's stone flaking under her touch.
"Enough games!" Orpheus bellowed. He slammed his trident into the ground, mercury geysering upward in a scalding curtain. Mihawk sliced through it, the black edge of Yoru devouring the light, but Orpheus was already moving—a Haki-inflected kick aimed at Marya's back.
Jelly surged, morphing into a shield. "Protect stabby friend!"
The impact sent him splattering across the wall, but Marya remained untouched, her focus unbroken. "…tears of Naylamp, blood of eclipse…" she murmured, the words slipping into the air like smoke.
Orpheus froze. "You dare speak the chant?!"
Mihawk's blade pressed against his throat. "You've lost."