The Consortium's hidden harbor was bathed in the eerie glow of bioluminescent algae clinging to the cliffs as the battered submarine surfaced with a metallic groan. Its hull, scorched and dented from encounters with Beast Pirate cannons and Ace's accidental fireball, creaked against the docking platform.
Marya stepped onto the gangplank, her boots squelching with seawater, Eternal Night strapped to her back like a shadow. Behind her, Charlie clutches a waterlogged satchel of artifacts to his chest like a child, his glasses cracked and fogging with steam from the sub's overheating engine. Bianca trailed last, muttering, "Like, how does a bubble porter even malfunction into Beast Pirate turf? That's, like, statistically impossible!"
The trio's relief at seeing the Consortium's towering petrified tree stump—its windows glittering like a constellation—was short-lived.
"Welcome back, idiots!" Knox Penrose, the Captain of the Guards, stood arms crossed at the dock's edge, his handlebar mustache twitching in amusement. His daughter Anna peeked from behind him, clutching a Top 10 Worst Rescue Missions notebook. "Vergo, huh?" Knox said, eyeing the sub's mangled hull. "Heard the New World's been chewing you up."
"We spit him out," Marya replied coolly, though her muscles screamed for a bed.
Before Knox could retort, Vaughn shouldered past, his dreads half-unraveled from their tie, Light Bringer slung across his broad back. The usually easygoing team leader looked like he'd aged a decade. "You three," he growled, "had us scouring half the Calm Belt when you missed the rendezvous." His voice softened. "…Glad you're alive."
Bianca smirked weakly. "Aw, Vaugnnn, like, you do care—"
"Report to the Council tomorrow," he interrupted, cheeks reddening. "And fix your sub. Harper's already planning a 'survival makeover' for you."
As if summoned, Harper materialized in a swirl of silk scarves, his green hair practically glowing in the harbor's dim light. "Darling!" he trilled, grabbing Vaughn's face. "Look at these stress lines! We're doing a seaweed mask tonight. No arguments." Vaughn shot the trio a pleading look as Harper dragged him off.
The walk to the scholars' quarters was a gauntlet. Micah Ellington, the mayor's son, sprinted up demanding a "play-by-play" of Marya's duel with Vergo. Riggs, leaning against a wisteria-draped archway with his katana, barked a laugh. "She didn't just duel with Vergo!" he called. "She toppled a mountain and blew up an island!"
Celeste, lurking nearby, pressed her index fingers together. "U-um… glad you're safe," she stammered, before fleeing when Jax shot her a look.
By the time they reached the Library's Celestial Atrium—its astrolabe casting shifting constellations onto the marble floors—Charlie was vibrating with manic energy. "The carvings on that island!" he blurted to a group of passing scholars. "They predate the Void Century! If Ace hadn't distracted those pirates with his fire, we'd never have—"
"Ace," Marya muttered. The fire-wielder's carefree grin flashed in her mind. He'd been a storm of chaos—burning through Beast Pirate blockades, laughing as he pressed the wrong button and nearly sank their sub again. Yet, when he'd mentioned Blackbeard's location, his eyes had darkened like storm clouds. She wondered if she'd ever see him again.
Nanette Ellington intercepted them at the library's entrance, her crimson lips pursed. "Charlie. My office. Now." She tapped a scroll labeled Unauthorized Relic Acquisition. Charlie wilted.
Bianca collapsed onto a velvet couch in the scholars' lounge, groaning. "Food. Shower. Sleep. In that order."
"Not yet," a voice drawled.
Master Gaius Vesper sat cross-legged on a windowsill, smoking his weathered kiseru pipe. His grandson Dalton perched beside him, swinging his legs. "Heard you crippled Vergo," Gaius said, grinning. "Pops would've loved that."
Marya stiffened at the mention of Mihawk. "He'd have called it 'flashy'."
"Exactly!" Gaius chuckled, puffing smoke from his kiseru pipe. "Rest. Tomorrow, the Council'll grill you."
Marya nodded, her body swaying slightly as she turned down the winding corridor lit by floating orbs of soft amber light. The Consortium's residential quarters were carved into the petrified titan's inner walls, a honeycomb of efficiency apartments stacked like ancient vaults. Each door bore a unique emblem—a scholar's quill, a guardian's blade, an engineer's gear—marking the occupant's role.
Her apartment was tucked into a secluded alcove near the cascading waterfall, its door marked by a simple black lotus: the symbol of a rogue swordsman who answered to no banner. She pressed her palm against the wood, and the lock clicked open with a whisper of mist—a security measure only her Devil Fruit could bypass.
Inside, the space was sparse but deliberate. A narrow bed layered with linen sheets. A weapons rack for holding Eternal Night, a temporary hook where she can hang her twin daggers Celestial Decree and Celestial Devastation, and a whetstone still dusted with iron filings. A table buried under Poneglyph rubbings, her mother's cryptic notebook splayed open to a page scrawled with overlapping star charts. The only indulgence was a small shelf displaying trinkets: a sun-bleached seashell from the East Blue, a cracked teacup Mihawk had gifted her on her 10th birthday, and a pressed wisteria blossom from her first day at the Consortium.
She shrugged off her coat, letting it crumple to the floor, and collapsed onto the bed. The kogatana around her neck—her father's parting gift—dug into her collarbone. She didn't remove it.
Knock knock knock.
"Go. Away," she growled.
The door creaked open anyway. Himari, Nao Itsuki Makino's giggling assistant, hovered in the doorway, balancing a tray of onigiri and green tea. "Nao-sama thought you might be hungry!" she chirped, her voice melodic. "He also said to remind you that your translation session is at dawn! Don't be late!"
Marya didn't move. "Tell him dawn's canceled."
Himari giggled nervously, set the tray on the counter, and fled.
Alone again, Marya stared at the ceiling, where glowing rainbow moss cast faint constellations. Her mind flickered to Vergo's shattered bamboo armor, Ace's wildfire grin, and the exploding island. Sleep, she ordered herself. But sleep didn't come.
Instead, she dragged herself to the small bathing chamber—a stone recess fed by the waterfall's runoff. The water was ice-cold, jolting her awake as she scrubbed Beast Pirate grime and dried blood from her skin. She dressed in fresh linen clothes, then forced herself to nibble Himari's onigiri. The rice was bland. Nanette's rationing again, she noted.
Knock knock knock.
"I said GO—"
"Relax, Princess. It's just me." Riggs leaned against her doorway, shaggy blond hair still singed from the rescue mission. He tossed her a bottle of amber liquid. "Stole it from Knox's stash. Figured you'd need it after tangling with Vergo."
She caught the bottle, read the label—Sky Island rum, 100-year aged—and arched a brow. "Why?"
"So you'll put in a good word when I challenge your old man." He winked and sauntered off, whistling.
Marya snorted. As if Mihawk would spare him a glance. Still, she tucked the bottle beside Mihawk's teacup.
She sank back onto the bed, Eternal Night within reach, and finally let her eyes close. The Mist-Mist Fruit's power hummed beneath her skin, restless. Her last thought was of her mother's notebook, its pages bleeding into the stars on the ceiling—
Knock knock knock KNOCK.
"Mistress Marya!" The scribe's voice was panicked now. "The Council—they've moved the meeting to tonight! They say it's urgent!"
Marya's hand tightened around Eternal Night's hilt. Sleep, it seemed, was for people who hadn't angered the World Government.
The Celestial Atrium hummed with the soft rustle of parchment and the faint chime of rotating constellations above. Marya sat cross-legged atop a stack of weathered tomes, her mother's notebook splayed open beside her. Around her, the air shimmered with dust motes caught in the glow of floating lanterns, their light pooling over the fractured Poneglyph replica dominating the center of the chamber.
Nao Itsuki Makino paced behind her like a caged tiger, his silk robes swishing dramatically with every turn. "Focus, Marya! The third glyph in this sequence isn't merely 'sky'—it's a metaphor for the Celestial Dragons' tyranny!" He stabbed a finger at the inscription, his voice echoing off the marble floors. "Your mother understood nuance. Do you?"
Marya's jaw tightened. Three days home, three days of this. She traced the chiseled symbols with her fingertip, the ancient language's curves and slashes burning into her memory. The Mist-Mist Fruit's power prickled under her skin, as if urging her to dissolve the entire slab into vapor. "The glyph here," she said flatly, "isn't 'sky.' It's 'cage.' See the double serif?" She flipped open her mother's notebook to a dog-eared page, thrusting it toward Nao. "Her notes reference the same symbol in a Shandorian hymn. Context: imprisonment."
Nao froze. For a heartbeat, his theatrical bravado cracked. Himari, perched on a ladder nearby, nearly dropped her inkpot. "Oh! She's right, Nao-sama!" she squeaked, scrambling to compare Marya's findings to a scroll labeled Pre-Void Century Lexicons. "Look—this matches the Royale Kingdom's records!"
"I see it," Nai snapped, though his cheeks flushed. He leaned closer to the Poneglyph, his ashen hair slipping from its ornate tie. "…Adequate. For a novice."
Marya smirked. Novice. Three weeks ago, he'd called her "hopelessly obtuse."
Himari clasped her hands, stars in her eyes. "Marya-san, you've improved so much! Nao-sama's teachings are so effective!"
"My teachings," Nao muttered, "and her mother's ghost." He straightened abruptly, snapping his fan open to hide his face. "Regardless, this… progress… means you're finally ready to translate Section 17-B." He gestured to a towering shelf across the atrium, where a cracked stone tablet pulsed faintly with embedded sea prism crystals. "It details the 'Weapon of the Stratosphere'—a folly even the World Government fears."
Marya's pulse quickened. Weapon. The Consortium's forbidden archives whispered of it—a force tied to the Void Century, buried beneath the Library itself. Her mother's notebook had sketches of winged shadows and shattered moons…
"But first!" Nao clapped his hands. "Tea. Himari!"
"Yes, Nao-sama!" Himari scurried off, nearly tripping over her own feet.
Alone with Marya, Nao's bravado dimmed. He stared at the Poneglyph, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. "Your mother… she believed these words could unmake empires." He traced a glyph shaped like a descending blade. "She'd be…" Proud. The word hung unsaid, swallowed by his pride.
Marya studied him—the man who'd loved her mother, who'd buried his grief in arrogance and ancient texts. "She'd tell you to stop hovering," she said dryly.
Nai barked a laugh. "Undoubtedly."
Himari returned with a lacquered tray, her giggles echoing as she poured tea into cracked cups. Nao launched into a lecture about "interpreting subtext through post-Celestial dialects," but Marya barely listened. Her eyes lingered on her mother's notebook, its margins filled with sketches of Mihawk's kogatana and a single, recurring phrase: "The Library's heart holds the key."
As dusk painted the atrium's astrolabe in hues of indigo, Marya finally deciphered the 17-B tablet's first line: "Beneath the roots of knowledge, the Stratosphere's wrath sleeps—"
"Enough!" Nao snatched the notebook from her hands, his earlier vulnerability replaced by theatrical scowling. "You'll exhaust yourself, and then where will my research be?"
Himari nodded fervently. "Rest, Marya-san! You've earned it!"
Marya stood, Eternal Night's weight grounding her. "Fine. But tomorrow, we finish this."
"We finish nothing," Nao huffed, though he didn't stop her from taking the notebook. "And don't think this means you've surpassed me!"
As Marya left, Himari sighed dreamily. "She's just like her mother, Nao-sama."
"…Unfortunately," he murmured, staring at the glyphs long after Marya had gone.
The Consortium's floating bridges swayed gently underfoot as Marya cut through the mist-drenched evening. Aurélie's apartment loomed ahead, perched on a jutting balcony of the petrified titan's ribcage, its entrance veiled by cascading wisteria. Marya's steps quickened—she needed answers about her mother's notebook, and Aurélie's stoic wisdom was the closest thing to a compass she had left.
"Marya!"
She froze. Leaning against a mossy archway, Master Gaius Vesper puffed lazily on his kiseru pipe, smoke curling into the shape of a grinning skull. His grandson Dalton snoozed nearby, sprawled over a stack of shogi boards. "Sneaking off to Aurélie's, eh?" Gaius's eyes glinted beneath the shadow of his carelessly swept gray hair. "Last time you came home without tellin' her, she chased you through three training halls. With Anathema unsheathed."
Marya scowled. The memory stung—Aurélie's cursed katana had nicked her shoulder as she'd hissed, "I'm not 'sneaking,'" she said. "I'm informing her in person."
Gaius chuckled, tapping ash onto Dalton's head. The boy mumbled, swatting at it sleepily. "Good luck with that. Heard she's… busy."
"Busy?" Marya's hand drifted to the kogatana at her throat. "Busy how?"
"Ah-ah." Gaius wagged a finger, his pipe smoke twisting into a lock-and-key symbol. "A guardian's mission's a guardian's secret. Even from prodigies." He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. "But if I were you… I'd check the armory. Maybe practice your misty escapes."
Marya's jaw tightened. Aurélie's long absence—the one no one discussed—was tied to Darius Rhea, the traitor who'd kidnapped a Consortium engineer. But Aurélie's apartment light was on, flickering faintly through the wisteria. "She's home," Marya insisted.
Gaius snorted. "Kid, you're never home here."
Before she could retort, he tossed her a dried persimmon from his sleeve. "For the road. Aurélie's cranky when she's hungry."
Marya caught it, glaring, and stalked off. Behind her, Gaius's laughter followed like a challenge.
The climb to Aurélie's balcony left her palms scraped on petrified wood. Marya paused at the entrance, the scent of ink and steel biting the air. She knocked once. Twice. No answer.
She pushed the door open. Aurélie's apartment was immaculate, as always—her katana rack hung, empty, above a desk cluttered with star charts and bad poetry drafts. But the bed was untouched, the tea set cold. A single note lay pinned to the wall by a dagger: "Tracking Darius. Do NOT follow. —A."
Marya crumpled the note. Gaius's words echoed: "You're never home here."
*****
The Consortium's subterranean lab smelled of burnt ozone and bad decisions. Charlie, goggles askew and hair frizzed from static, squinted at the relic—a hexagonal slab of Sky Island stone etched with glowing blue glyphs. Zola loomed over him, her pink hair tied into a frazzled ponytail, wrench tapping impatiently against her thigh.
"It's clearly a two-tap activation," Charlie insisted, jabbing a finger at his manual's faded diagram. "See? The third-century Shandorans used ritualistic percussion to—"
"Preposterous!" Zola snapped, her tone sharp enough to slice sea king hide. "The core requires kinetic overclocking. Observe the obvious energy matrix here!" She stabbed her wrench at the relic's pulsating center.
"You're ignoring the cultural context!" Charlie shoved his glasses up his nose, sending a cascade of parchment scrolls sliding off the table. "This isn't a toaster—it's a sacred artifact!"
"And you're ignoring basic physics!" Zola countered, her finger pointed skyward like a prosecutor delivering a closing argument.
"Fine!" Charlie threw his hands up. "We'll do both! Tap and overclock!"
"A compromise," Zola said, as if the word tasted foul. "How… democratic."
The lab hummed with tension as Charlie reverently tapped the relic twice. Nothing. Zola rolled her eyes, wedged her wrench into the core, and cranked it like she was starting a warship's engine.
"Wait—" Charlie began.
Too late.
The relic flared neon pink, a shockwave blasting outwards. The air crackled, papers tornadoed into the air, and the ground… rippled.
"Uh," Charlie said, floating upward. "Zola?"
"Gravity inversion!" Zola gasped, her wrench spinning lazily toward the ceiling. "Fascinating!"
"FASCINATING?!"
The Consortium's floating bridges trembled as the gravity pulse rippled outward, turning the tranquil evening into a carnival of airborne absurdity.
Harper's Salon of Sublime Beauty erupted first. Shelves of hair tonics, conditioners, and "volumizing mousse for the adventurous soul" rocketed skyward, corked bottles popping like champagne celebrating the apocalypse. Harper, mid-haircut on a terrified scholar, screamed louder than his client. "MY DRAGONFRUIT DETANGLER!" He lunged for a floating bottle, only to be clotheslined by a rogue hair dryer. The pièce de résistance? A jumbo bottle of Lavender Dream Conditioner burst overhead, drenching Nanette Ellington—raven-haired, crimson-lipped, and mid-stride—in a glistening purple cloud.
"UNACCEPTABLE!" Nanette hissed, wiping mist from her lashes with a lace handkerchief. "This is LITERALLY why I vetoed your salon's budget!"
Across the atrium, Knox Penrose, Captain of the Guards, hung upside-down from a bridge railing, his prized handlebar mustache defying physics by curling upward like a rebellious caterpillar. "PENROSE LAW #47: NOBODY MOVES UNTIL GRAVITY'S FIXED!" he bellowed, though his command lost gravitas as his epaulets flapped in his face. "AND SOMEONE CATCH MY DAMN HAT!"
Meanwhile, Micah and Dalton, the Consortium's youngest chaos agents, straddled a runaway bookshelf careening through the air. "YAHOOOOO!" Micah whooped, brandishing a stolen quill as a cutlass. "WE'RE THE SKY PIRATE KINGS!" Dalton, clinging to a shelf strap, giggled maniacally as they plowed through a flock of startled messenger birds. "TAKE THAT, LANDLUBBERS!"
High above, Master Gaius Vesper clung to the ceiling like a barnacle with a grudge, his kiseru pipe still clenched between his teeth. Smoke curled downward, defying the laws of his own predicament. "WHICH GENIUSES ACTIVATED THE LEVITY STONE?!" he roared, kicking off a lantern to float closer to the chaos. "I'LL FEED YOUR SPLEENS TO THE SEA KINGS!"