Bram lunged, blocking Law's path. "You're a power holder, yeah?" His voice was a frayed anchor chain. "Don't." Jerking his head, "Move. Let me handle this."
Law's fingers twitched near Kikoku. "I won't let—"
"You'll let," Bram snarled. "Or we all drown. Hide. Now."
Lotte waved frantically, braids swinging like nooses. "This way!" She shoved open a rust-eaten door hidden behind a map of the canals—Nieuw Bloemendaal, 1522, the date half-scratched out. Beyond it: an underground waterway, the air reeking of mildew and old fish. The walls were ribbed with rotting ship planks, the water below glowing faintly pink, littered with skeletal rowboats. Some still had names: The Tulip's Kiss. Sea Lion VII. Graffiti screamed across the bricks—DE ORANJE SCHADUW LEEFT.
Shachi whistled. "Cozy. Smells like my uncle's basement. If my uncle was dead."
Bepo gagged. "Why's it so wet?"
"Move!" Lotte herded them down a rickety dock, her boots clattering. Above, the cellar door groaned open.
Hendrik Van Berg barged in, his bulk filling the doorway like a storm cloud. Late forties, built like a brick shithouse, uniform hanging off him like a deflated balloon—moth-eaten, stained pink at the cuffs. His face was a battlefield: sunken eyes, a scar splitting his eyebrow, stubble peppered gray. But his hands—that's what stuck. Clutching a trident, knuckles bruised, a child's hair ribbon tied around his wrist.
He shoved Bram aside. "Inspect it."
Overseers fanned out, kicking crates, prying lids off barrels labeled DRIED HERBS. Hendrik's gaze lingered on the workbench—the freshly missing tools, the warm candle wax. "Questionable stock, Van Leeuwen."
Bram shrugged, voice flat. "Salvage. You know how it is."
"Do I?" Hendrik's laugh was a door hinge screaming. "Pirates. Docked at the port. Submarine." He stepped closer, boots crunching glass. "Seen 'em?"
"Why'd Overseers care about pirates?" Bram spat. "Ain't your concern."
"Everything's my concern." Hendrik's thumb brushed the hair ribbon. A flinch, quick. "You'd know."
In the waterway, Lotte's breath hitched. Marya's hand hovered over Eternal Eclipse, her smirk sharp enough to slit throats. Law's Room pulsed, ready to warp, cut—
"Clear!" an Overseer barked.
Hendrik didn't move. Stared at Bram like he could peel his skin off and find the truth underneath. "We'll be watching."
Bram met his eyes. "Always are."
The door slammed.
Silence. Then—
"You know him," Law said, not a question.
Bram wiped sweat-soot from his face. "Knew. Before the lilies. Before the veins." He kicked a crate. "Take your parts and go."
Lotte hovered, wrench still death-gripped. "The pumps—"
"No." Law shouldered past her.
Marya lingered, eyes on Hendrik's trident, left leaning against the wall. "He'll talk."
Bram snorted. "He's got a daughter's grave to tend. Won't risk it."
Penguin fake-whispered: "Twenty berries says the big guy's crying into a teddy bear right now."
Jean Bart hefted a steel plate. "Move."
Law turned to leave—again—when Bram's voice hooked him. "Sub's gone."
Silence. The kind that swallows sound whole.
Law froze, back rigid. "How?"
Bram shrugged, a gesture worn thin by decades of defeat. "Overseers. Seized it, I guess, at least that's what they said."
Marya's laugh was a blade unsheathed. "Why?"
"Why?" Law's voice cracked, rare and raw. "Why do warlords do anything?"
Marya stepped closer, her shadow swallowing the candlelight. Brow furrowed, "You know something."
Meeting her gaze, he didn't flinch. "Don't. Worry. About it."
"Worry?" Her grin was feral. "They've got our ship. Let's take it back."
Bram and Lotte exchanged a look—outsiders. Lunatics.
Lotte's voice wavered. "How?"
Shachi cracked his knuckles. "We're pirates. We've got… ways."
Penguin mimed an explosion. "Boom."
Law's fist slammed the wall. Dust rained. "No. No barging. No boom."
Marya tilted her head. "Sit here, then? Waiting for what?"
Lotte blurted: "We could help."
Bram's glare could've curdled milk. "Lotte—"
"De Oranje Schaduw," she barreled on, chin jutting. "We're… we're the resistance."
Jean Bart snorted. "Resistance. Right. Got a flag?"
"Got explosives," she shot back, pulling a grenade from her apron. "And a plan."
The cellar air thickened. Law's gaze sliced to Bram. "One rebel and a teenager."
"One rebel," Bram growled, "and a kid who won't shut up."
Lotte's cheeks flushed. "I rerouted the sewers last week. Flooded a distillery."
Ikkaku whistled. "Cute. We need firepower."
"Got that too." Lotte kicked open a crate. Inside: Marine-grade detonators, their casings stamped with Vegapunk's logo. Stolen. Perfect.
Marya plucked one up, tossed it like an apple. "Where'd you get these?"
"Stole 'em." Lotte's grin was all teeth. "Same way you'll steal your sub back."
Shachi elbowed Penguin. "Ten berries says she's Kaido's secret niece."
Bepo whimpered. "Why grenades?"
Law's jaw worked. Silent calculations racing through his mind. Risks stacked like bodies. Finally, he growled: "Fine."
Marya smirked. "Fine?"
Bram's laugh was a rusted anchor chain snapping. "Fine? You think—fine fixes this?"
Lotte was already moving, a grease-stained whirlwind, shoving rowboats into the glowing canal. "Willem'll know what to do!"
Jean Bart crossed his arms, biceps straining. "Who's Willem?"
"Leader," Lotte said, as if it was obvious, like they should've known. Like the name wasn't just another ghost in this neon graveyard. "Botanist. Genius. Grump."
Bram pinched the bridge of his nose, knuckles scarred from old fights and older regrets. "He's gonna love this."
The rowboats were relics—peeling paint, names like The Daffodil and Black Tulip barely legible. The water hissed as they climbed in, pink sludge clinging to the oars like melted candy. Shachi gagged. "Smells like a bakery exploded in hell."
Penguin dipped a finger in the water. It sizzled. "Cool. My skin's definitely not melting."
As they paddled, the tunnel walls pressed close, crusted with barnacles and old rebel graffiti—DE ORANJE SCHADUW ZAL BLOEIEN ("The Orange Shadow Will Bloom"). Rusted pipes dripped neon nectar onto their heads. Bepo sneezed glitter.
Lotte navigated like she'd been born in the dark, braids snagging on low-hanging wires. "Almost there!"
Marya leaned back, boots propped on the gunwale. "What's Willem's deal?"
"Used to breed tulips," Lotte said. "Prize-winning. Then Doflamingo came. Now he breeds… problems."
Law's fingers drummed Kikoku's hilt. "This a rescue or a suicide pact?"
"Yes," Bram muttered.
The tunnel spat them into a cavern, ceiling strung with fairy lights made of shattered bulbs. Crates stacked to the roof—explosives, seed bags, jars of murky liquid labeled ANTIDOTE?. And at the center, a man bent over a desk, his silhouette sharp as a scythe.
Willem Van der Zee looked up. Gaunt. Sunken eyes, hair the color of dead grass. Hands calloused, fingers stained green from old chlorophyll and new gunpowder. A wilted tulip pinned to his lapel.
"Lotte," he said, voice like dry soil. "You brought… guests."
Jean Bart sized him up. "You the gardener?"
"Botanist," Willem corrected, sharply. "Gardening implies things still grow here." Willem's eyes narrowed, recognition sparking in their depths. "You must be the pirates I've heard so much about."
Uni crossed his arms, a smirk playing on his lips. "News travels fast, it seems."
Willem chuckled and leaned back, his posture relaxed but alert. "As the leader of the resistance, I hear everything. But tell me, why the sudden interest in this crew? Pirates pass through here all the time."
Law's expression remained impassive, his gaze steady. "We need our sub."
Willem's laugh was a snapped stem. "And I need a time machine." He spread a map—canals inked red, windmills circled like targets. "Overseers moved your ship to the Blood Dike. Guarded by Gifters. Rose-maned lions. Petal-scaled snakes. Delightful."
The hideout door creaked open. Two figures slipped in, trailing the stench of lily rot and rebellion.
Mira De Graaf: sixteen, maybe, but her eyes were older. Hair chopped uneven, dyed streaks of neon pink and ash-gray. Fingers stained with pigment—crimson under the nails, cobalt smudged on her wrists. She wore a patched dress, pockets bulging with chalk nubs and wire. A stuffed bear with devil horns—Baretto—peeked from her satchel. Her gaze darted to the Heart Pirates, wary as a stray cat eyeing a trap.
Klaas Janssen: bent like a wind-warped mast, cane carved from a ship's splintered bow. Beard yellowed from pipe smoke, skin leathery as old sails. A monocle dangled from his neck, lens cracked. He clutched a book thicker than Bepo's skull, its pages swollen with mildew.
Lotte brightened. "They're safe! Mira's our artist. Klaas knows things."
Bram groaned. "Knows how to get killed."
Mira ignored him, unrolling a canvas. The mural bled orange and black—a lion battling a dragon, workers rising with scythes. Hidden in the brushstrokes: coded symbols. A date. Coordinates. Hope. "Finished the message," she said, voice raspy from silence.
Klaas thumped the book onto the table. Dust mushroomed. "Records. Pre-exploitation. Aquifer maps." His accent was salt and gravel, vowels rounded by decades of seafaring.
Mira's eyes locked on Marya. Lingered. "You…" She tilted her head, a painter studying a half-remembered portrait. "I've seen you."
Marya's thumb brushed Eternal Eclipse's hilt. "Never been here."
"Not you," Mira blinked to remember. "Your… eyes."
Penguin snorted. "Deep. Real deep."
Marya deflected, nodding to the window where neon sludge oozed past. "What's with the pink shit?"
Klaas chuckled, sour. "Sanguine Lily nectar. Doflamingo's gift. Drains the soil. Poisons the water. Turns men into…" He gestured to the farmers outside, shuffling in black clogs.
"Zombies with good posture?" Shachi offered.
"Compliant workers," Willem corrected, grim. "The nectar's addictive. Euphoric. Then… hollow."
Jean Bart crossed his arms. "And the resistance?"
Mira traced her mural's lion. "We remind them what they were. Before."
Klaas leaned heavily on his cane, the ship-wood groaning, and gestured to the farmers shuffling past the hideout's grime-caked window. Their black clogs scraped the cobblestones, bonnets sagging like wilted petals. "Sanguine Lily nectar. Doflamingo's 'gift'," he spat, the word gift curdling in his throat. "Wasn't always poison. Once, this island…" He trailed off, knuckles whitening on his cane.
The room stilled. Even Shachi stopped fidgeting.
Klaas's voice roughened, salt-crusted and slow, like waves pulling over gravel. "Twenty years back, Nieuw Bloemendaal traded in spices. Sky Island cinnamon. North Blue saffron. Our windmills ground flour so pure, kings paid in gold. Then he came. Pink-feathered devil, smile sharper than his strings. Promised us 'progress.' Said the lilies'd make us rich."
He paused, monocle catching the flicker of a dying bulb. "Hybrid strain. Bigger blooms. Faster growth. Farmers sold their seed stocks, uprooted tulips for his 'Sanguines.' First harvest? Miracle. Petals like rubies. Nectar so sweet, you'd swear it sang. Traders flocked. Bloom Tokens flowed. Then…"
Mira's chalk snapped. She didn't look up.
"Then the roots turned," Klaas whispered. "Sucked the soil dry. Left cracks wide as graves. Salt bled up from the earth. Crops withered. And the nectar…" He gestured to the neon sludge oozing past the window. "Turns out, Doflamingo didn't want spices. Wanted slurry. Raw ingredient for Caesar Clown's SMILE formula. Pumped it straight to Punk Hazard, where that lab-rat lunatic brewed his devilish fruits."
Lotte kicked a crate, voice trembling. "And the 'gift'?"
"Addictive," Klaas said. "Workers drank it—diluted, at first. Felt strong. Happy. Then… hollow. Stopped asking questions. Stopped caring. Now they're just…" He nodded to the window, where a farmer knelt, scrubbing pink stains from his gloves. "Engines. Flesh-and-bone engines."
Willem's hands—stained green and gunpowder-black—curled into fists. "Windmills became distilleries. Canals, sewage lines. And us?" His laugh was a dead branch snapping. "Fertilizer."
Jean Bart's jaw tightened. "Why not fight?"
Klaas's cane slammed the floor. "We did!" Dust motes spiraled. "Bastard had strings. Strings in the World Government. Marines. Warlords. Cut down anyone who resisted. Burned the spice vaults. Salted the fields. Said we'd beg to grow his lilies." He sagged, suddenly. "He was right."
Mira's chalk moved again, sketching a twisted lily on her forearm. "Now they ship the nectar in SAD barrels. Label it 'herbal remedy.' Feed Kaido's factories. His Smile-users."
Marya's blade hummed. "And the people?"
Klaas's eyes glazed, old and faraway. "They forget. The lilies… they make you forget. What we were. What we had."
Outside, a child's laugh echoed—high, brittle, wrong. Followed by the wet crunch of a boot stomping a bloom.
Shachi fake-whispered: "So… we're blowing it all up, right?"
Bepo's ears perked. "With grenades?"
Klaas wheezed. "With saltwater. Let the sea take back what's hers."
Mira stood, sudden, her mural rippling. "The aquifers," she said, pointing to Klaas's book. "Flood the fields. Erase the lilies. Erase them."
Law's gaze cut to Willem. "And the SAD shipments?"
Willem plucked a withered tulip from his lapel. "Burn with the rest."
The hideout exhaled—candle wax dripping, pages rustling, neon sludge gurgling outside.
Marya smirked. "Dramatic."
Klaas's laugh was a death rattle. "This island's a stage. And Doflamingo? Worst damn playwright alive."
Ikkaku squinted at the book's maps. "Aquifers. You wanna flood the fields?"
"Drown the lilies," Lotte said, too loud. "Saltwater. It's the only way."
Bepo sneezed glitter. "Why water? It's so… wet."
Klaas's cane tapped the floor. "Because water remembers. Even when men don't."
Mira kept staring at Marya. "Your eyes. They're…"
"Golden," Marya snapped. "Like my father's."
Mira didn't respond. Just sketched a quick line on her wrist—a sword, a crown, piercing eyes. "You'll be in the next mural."
"Don't," Marya said, softer than she meant.
Outside, a windmill shuddered. The sludge glowed brighter, a sickly pulse.
Law's voice cut through. "Focus. The Blood Dike."
Mira tucked her chalk away. "I'll paint the signal. When the tanks blow."
Klaas wheezed a laugh. "Poetic. If they blow."
Shachi grinned. "When."
The hideout hummed—cracked bulbs flickering, map edges curling like dead leaves. Somewhere, a lily sighed.
*****
The Bezan Black cut through the fog like a dagger through silk, its black sails taut with the breath of a dying wind. At the prow, Kuro adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, the lenses catching the hellish glow of the island ahead. His once-pristine butler's coat was frayed now, sleeves rolled to reveal forearms corded with muscle and old scars. The Cat Claws glinted at his hips, their edges serrated with malice. His posture was a contradiction—rigid, yet coiled, a snake in a suit.
Souta leaned against the mast, arms crossed, his tailored navy coat immaculate despite the salt-stained air. His face was all angles, sharp enough to draw blood, eyes like smoked glass reflecting the neon sprawl of Nieuw Bloemendaal. A katana hung at his side, its hilt wrapped in silk the color of dried roses. "This where she's hiding?" he drawled, voice smooth as poisoned wine. "Looks like a festering wound."
Kuro uncurled his fist, revealing the vivre card—a scrap of life-paper quivering toward the island's heart. "The card doesn't lie. She's here."
A giggle split the air, high and fractured. Ember landed atop the rail, her boots cracking the wood. Her twin buns, tied with scorched ribbons, framed a doll-pale face, smudged with gunpowder. A Lolita dress, once frilly and pink, hung in tatters, stained with splatters of neon sludge. She twirled her slingshot rifle, Sugarfall, its barrel carved into the shape of a grinning skull. "Boom-boom time?" she sang, swaying. Her imaginary friend, Mr. Whispers—a shadow only she could see—nudged her shoulder. "Mr. Whispers says we gotta paint the town sparkly! For what she did… for escaping us…" Her voice cracked, pupils dilating.
The island loomed closer. Windmills, skeletal and gargantuan, pierced the smog, their sails spinning lazily as they pumped neon-pink nectar into bloated tanks branded with Doflamingo's jolly roger. Canals writhed below, thick with viscous sludge that glowed like radioactive honey. Along the docks, farmers shuffled in lockstep, black clogs clacking, faces hollow under starched bonnets dyed funeral-black.
"Disgusting," Souta muttered, nostrils flaring. "The air reeks of sugar and misery."
Kuro's lips twitched. "Apt. The Sanguine Lilies drain more than soil. They drain souls." He pointed to a field where skeletal blooms swayed, razor-petals slicing the wind. "Kaido's Smile factories hunger for their nectar. A perfect poison—addictive, euphoric, enslaving."
Ember hopped down, giggling as she pressed a hand to the deck. The wood splintered under her touch, veins of crimson light spiderwebbing outward—Bang-Bang Fruit's curse, turning matter into bombs. "Let's burn it! Burn-burn-burn till she comes out!"
Souta flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve. "Control your rabid dog, Kuro. We're here for the girl, not a tantrum."
Ember whirled, slingshot aimed at his throat. "Mr. Whispers says you're the dog! A pretty, useless dog!"
Kuro's clawed hand seized her wrist, the blades grazing her skin. "Enough. Save your fire for our mark." His gaze slid to the shore, where a crumbling sea wall—the Blood Dike—held back the ocean with the bones of shipwrecks. "She's here. And this time…" The vivre card pulsed, a heartbeat in his palm. "...she won't slip away."
As the Bezan Black docked, a farmer collapsed nearby, retching pink bile. Ember skipped past him, humming a lullaby. Souta stepped over the man like refuse. Kuro adjusted his glasses, the neon light staining his lenses crimson.