The tension broken by Jannali's practical interruption, Marya gave a slight, acknowledging tilt of her head. Her golden eyes, now clear of the morning's grogginess, scanned the group. "We start at the ruins of the Tree of Knowledge," she stated, her voice calm and certain. Without waiting for further debate, she turned and began walking, her combat boots making soft impressions in the ash-strewn sand. It was not a suggestion, but a declaration.
Her crew fell in with an easy, unspoken rhythm. Galit, his long neck coiled in a thoughtful 'S', fell into step just behind her left shoulder, his sharp eyes already scanning the path ahead. Atlas cracked his knuckles, a feral grin playing on his lips as he matched her pace on the right. Jelly gave a happy "Bloop!" and bounced along in their wake, a spot of cheerful blue against the somber landscape. Jannali slung Anhur's Whisper over her shoulder with a sigh that was more habit than complaint, and Eliane, after quickly wiping her hands on her apron, skipped to catch up. Aokiji brought up the rear, his immense frame moving with a lazy grace, his presence a silent, chilling anchor to the procession.
They left the three members of the Consortium standing by the remnants of the campfire. Emmet, Zola, and Jax watched them go, a silent tableau of conflicted loyalty. The easy chaos of breakfast had vanished, replaced by the stark reality of Marya's purpose.
Zola hugged her elbows, her intelligent eyes wide with uncertainty. "Are we… going with them?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Jax did not answer immediately. He watched Marya's retreating back, the familiar leather jacket with the Heart Pirates' insignia a symbol of a past that now felt like a lifetime ago. He saw the way her new crew moved around her, a unit forged in a fire he hadn't witnessed. The woman who had decapitated a man with cold finality was the same one who had slept soundly through a food fight. The person he thought he knew was gone, her edges hardened into something formidable and distant. He pursed his lips, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a heavy, resigned acceptance.
"Yeah," he said finally, the word tasting of ash. He nodded, more to himself than to them, and took the first step to follow.
Emmet, ever the observer, let out a soft sigh, sensing the storm of frustration and heartache warring within his friend. He adjusted his vest, a futile attempt at order, and fell in step behind Jax without a word.
Zola looked to Emmet, her expression seeking guidance. The mathematician merely gave a small, resigned shrug, his usual confidence muted. There was no equation for this, no variable to calculate that would bring their old friend back. Together, the three of them followed, a reluctant shadow to the determined group ahead, walking into the ghosts of Ohara's past.
The air over Ohara was heavy, not just with the salt of the sea, but with the ghosts of incinerated knowledge. The group moved through the graveyard of scholarship, their footsteps muffled by layers of ash and moss-choked stone. At their head, Marya was a study in focused intensity, her combat boots leaving firm impressions in the soft ground, her gaze sweeping over the rubble that was once the heart of the world's greatest library.
They reached the epicenter of the devastation: the ruins of the Tree of Knowledge. It was a skeletal giant, its trunk a blackened, jagged stump clawing at the sky. Next to it yawned a vast, dark pit, a wound in the earth itself.
"Blimey," Jannali whispered, her voice unusually small as she stared at the gash in the ground. The rest of the crew fanned out, each reacting to the somber landscape in their own way.
Zola drifted to the pit's edge, her vibrant pink hair seeming too bright for this place of shadows. She peered into the depths, her sharp violet eyes distant. "They say the scholars threw the books down here," she murmured, more to herself than anyone. "A desperate attempt to save them from the flames. A logical, if tragically futile, preservation method."
A short distance away, Aokiji stood with his hands buried deep in his pockets, his massive frame a still monument amidst the ruins. The chill that always clung to him seemed to intensify, a subtle frost forming on the charred wood near his feet. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, but he wasn't seeing the ocean. He was seeing pillars of smoke and the desperate, terrified face of a little girl with dark hair, fleeing in a tiny boat. The memory was a physical weight, a cold stone in his gut.
Marya paid the pit little mind, her attention captured by a large, shattered fragment of dark stone half-buried near the tree's base. She knelt, brushing away decades of grime with a leather-gloved hand, her golden eyes scanning the ancient script carved into its surface.
Atlas, his rust-red fur bristling with restless energy, cracked his knuckles and ambled over. "Okay, boss. See anything?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.
Marya didn't look up, her finger tracing a peculiar spiral glyph. "Don't really know right now," she admitted, her tone even and calm. "Just look around and see if you find something."
Atlas's lynx-like face wrinkled in frustration. "Find something? I don't even know what I'm looking for. I'm not exactly the scholarly type."
Nearby, Eliane and Jelly provided a stark, cheerful contrast to the gloom. The young Lunarian, her silver ponytail flying, was chasing the wobbling blue jellyfish-hybrid around the rubble. "I'm gonna get you!" she giggled, while Jelly responded with a happy "Bloop!" and bounced over a collapsed wall, leaving a faint, glittery trail.
Meanwhile, Emmet and Galit had found a different point of interest. Partially buried under a collapsed archway was the rusted, intricate remains of a Celestial Compass, its brass rings twisted and its crystal face shattered.
"A fascinating instrument," Emmet mused, his tall red hair a flame in the muted light. He tapped a complex rhythm on his handheld interface. "Its alignment suggests a navigation system based on fixed stellar bodies, not magnetic fields. A more… philosophical approach to charting the seas."
Galit, his long neck coiled in a thoughtful 'S', nodded, his emerald eyes analyzing the device. "My people navigate by the currents and the whispers of the Maw. The stars are just distant lights to them. It begs the question, Mathmatician—is a course plotted by cold equations more true than one felt in the water?"
"A course plotted by equations is reliable," Emmet countered. "A course felt is subject to the mood of the ocean. I know which one I'd bet my life on."
Jax ignored their intellectual sparring. He stood a few paces behind Marya, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his serious brown eyes fixed on her. He was hovering, a silent, brooding guardian struggling to reconcile the woman he knew with the one who now commanded such a strange and powerful crew.
The playful chase came to an abrupt halt when Eliane, not looking where she was going, ran straight into Jannali's back. "Oops! Sorry, Jannali!" Eliane chirped, rubbing her nose.
But Jannali didn't respond. She was frozen, standing before a massive, intricately knotted weave of ancient roots that had stubbornly survived the fire. Her large brown eyes were wide and glazed over, staring at nothing.
Eliane paused, her cheerful expression fading. "Jannali?" she asked, tugging gently on the huntress's arm. There was no reaction.
Jelly bounced back, sensing the shift in mood. He waved a wobbly, mitten-like hand in front of her face. "Bloop? Stuck!"
"What is wrong with her?" Eliane's voice rose, sharp with a child's panic, and it carried just enough for the others to hear.
The atmosphere shifted instantly. The philosophical debate ceased. Jax's focus snapped from Marya to Jannali. Marya rose from the Poneglyph fragment, her curiosity piqued. Everyone converged on the frozen huntress.
Eliane, now truly frightened, shook Jannali's arm more insistently. "She isn't moving!"
Marya stepped forward, cutting through the group with her quiet authority. She looked directly into Jannali's unseeing eyes, waving a hand slowly before her face. "She's in a trance of some sort," Marya observed, her voice low and analytical.
Aokiji's deep, resonant voice cut through the tension. "She must be listening." All eyes turned to the former Admiral. He stepped closer, his gaze thoughtful. "Legends say her people, when fully awakened, have the ability to hear things. All things. The very voice of the universe. It is why they were—or are—hunted." He looked at Jannali with a mix of pity and fascination. "I wonder what it's telling her."
"How do we wake her up?" Atlas demanded, his nubby tail lashing impatiently.
Zola pushed her way forward, her expression a mixture of scientific curiosity and alarm. "Should we interrupt her? We don't know what could happen! The neurological feedback alone could be catastrophic if severed improperly!"
Before anyone could answer, Jannali's head snapped around with an unnatural swiftness, her neck bones cracking audibly. Her unseeing gaze locked directly onto Marya. When she spoke, her voice was not her own; it was a layered echo, as if a chorus of whispers was speaking through her.
"The umbra seeks what has been forgotten."
The words hung in the air, charged and ancient. Then, Jannali began to move, her steps stiff and deliberate, heading straight for the knotted wall of roots.
A collective gasp rippled through the group as the roots themselves began to writhe. It wasn't violent, but a slow, groaning retreat, like a great beast uncurling after a long sleep. The tangled mass pulled back, peeling away from the hillside to reveal a stark, stone archway that had been hidden for centuries. The opening was dark, and from within seeped a cool, damp air that smelled of wet stone and ages past.
Galit let out a long, slow breath, his flexible neck uncoiling slightly. "Oh, look," he said, his tone utterly flat. "Another door."
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched Marya's lips. She gave a slight, acknowledging shake of her head. The inside joke, a testament to their shared history of finding trouble behind strange doors, was not lost on her.
At that moment, Jannali blinked. The eerie, distant light in her eyes vanished, replaced by her usual sharp intelligence. She looked around, her head swiveling on her neck, taking in the stunned faces of her crew and the new, mysterious archway. "What's everyone staring at me for?" she asked, her tangy accent thick with genuine confusion. "Did I miss the party?"
Jelly bounced enthusiastically. "You were stuck!"
Eliane rushed forward and grabbed her hand. "Are you okay?"
"Okay? 'Course I am," Jannali said, looking baffled by the question. "Bit of a headache, though. Why?"
Aokiji studied her. "You were in some sort of trance. Do you remember anything? Does that happen often?"
Jannali shrugged, rubbing her temples. "If it does, I don't remember. Happens sometimes. The wind just… talks a bit too loud, and I lose the plot for a minute."
Marya was already moving, her attention wholly captured by the door. She approached the dark stone, her boots silent on the suddenly clear ground.
Emmet, ever the analyst, followed her gaze. "Can you read the inscription?"
Aokiji placed a large, bare hand against the stone of the archway. A faint layer of frost spread from his fingertips. "This was here the whole time?" he murmured, his mind racing, connecting this hidden place to the World Government's frantic, absolute destruction of the island. The implications were staggering.
"It appears that way," Galit confirmed, his sharp eyes already scanning for potential threats around the new entrance.
Marya traced the carved symbols with her fingers, her brow furrowed in concentration. The language was even more ancient than the Poneglyph script, but something in her blood, in the curse that threaded her veins, resonated with it.
"I think so," she murmured. Then, reading it aloud, her voice clear and steady in the hushed clearing, she spoke the riddle etched in stone:
"The threads of time are tangled here. To pass, you must pull the thread that does not belong to this age."
Aokiji raised a brow, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his usually impassive features. "You can read this."
Marya gave a single, short nod. "Yeah."
Aokiji let out a soft, thoughtful breath, his gaze lingering on her. "You are full of surprises, kid."
The archway stood before them, a silent challenge. The air hummed with unasked questions and the weight of a history the World Government had tried, and failed, to completely erase. The next step into the darkness awaited only the right key—a thread out of time.
Atlas cocks his head, crossing his arm over his chest, "What does it mean?"
A heavy silence fell after Atlas's question, broken only by the whisper of sea wind through the ruins of the Tree of Knowledge. The stone archway offered no further clues, its ancient surface a stoic mockery of their confusion.
"I am not entirely sure," Marya admitted, her golden eyes narrowed as she took a measured step back from the door, her head tilted in assessment.
"Excuse me—pardon me—" Zola's voice, sharp with intellectual urgency, cut through the stillness as she gently pushed through the small crowd. She came to a halt beside Marya and Emmet, her sharp violet eyes darting over every inch of the stonework. She made an audible, drawn-out "Hmmmm," the sound of a mind whirring through complex equations.
A faint, knowing smirk touched Marya's lips. She recognized the cue; a breakthrough was simmering in the physicist's mind.
Emmet gave Zola a playful side-eye, the red flame of his hair seeming to bristle with curiosity. "What is it?" he asked, his tone lightly teasing. "You've got that 'I've-solved-the-universe' look. Care to share with the rest of the class?"
Zola tapped a finger to her chin, never looking away from the inscription. "Marya. Read it again. Please."
Marya's voice was clear and steady, the words seeming to hang in the air like a spell. "The threads of time are tangled here. To pass, you must pull the thread that does not belong to this age."
Zola's gaze intensified. She pointed a slender finger toward the very edge of the archway, where the stone met the ancient, knotted roots. "See there?" she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "It's fluctuating."
Everyone's gaze followed her finger. Jannali squinted, her third eye hidden but her normal two straining. "Fluctuating? I don't see a bloody thing! It's a rock."
"Allow me to demonstrate," Zola declared, that familiar, confident energy returning. She stepped forward and, with a deliberate motion, knocked three times on the stone surface.
The result was instantaneous. The entire door shimmered, the solid stone momentarily becoming a mirage, a fleeting glimpse of something insubstantial. A soft, low hum vibrated through the soles of their boots.
"You've got to be kidding me," Jannali cursed, her twang thick with shock.
Aokiji, who had been a silent, chilling monument to the past, finally spoke, his deep voice laced with rare intrigue. "What just happened?"
"The door is out of phase with our temporal reference frame," Zola explained, turning to face the group, a triumphant glint in her eyes. She pointed again to the edges. "The edges are slightly illuminated, indicating a localized power source of some sort—an energy field maintaining the temporal displacement. The inscription was the theory; the visual and auditory feedback is the empirical data."
Galit, his long neck uncoiling slightly as he leaned in for a better look, interjected. "Fascinating. But how were you, able to deduce a temporal anomaly from a poetic riddle?"
Zola gestured vaguely, as if the connection were obvious. "The 'threads of time' are tangled. It's not a metaphor for history, but a literal description of its current physical state! It exists microseconds in the past, a temporal anchor keeping it out of sync with our present."
Marya, who had been quietly processing this, finally spoke. "Alright, genius. What does it mean, then? How do we open a door that isn't entirely here?"
Zola tapped her finger to her chin again, her brow furrowed in deep thought. She began to mutter, almost to herself, "...you must pull the thread that does not belong to this age." She looked up, addressing the air. "What, in this entire context, does not belong to this age?"
A contemplative look crossed Marya's face. "I wonder…" she murmured, her hand moving to the hilt of the massive sword on her back.
Emmet caught the motion. "Well? Don't leave us all in suspense. A hunch?"
"Maybe," Marya said, her tone noncommittal. In one fluid motion, she unsheathed Eternal Eclipse. The obsidian blade seemed to deepen the shadows around them, the crimson runes along its length glowing with a faint, inner fire.
Aokiji raised a brow. "You intend to cut it open? I doubt a door that can slip through time fears a sharp edge."
Marya shook her head, a few strands of her raven hair brushing her cheeks. "If it's out of time, then I don't think force is the key." Both Emmet and Zola nodded in agreement, the mathematician and the physicist united on the logic. "But this blade," Marya continued, her voice dropping, "is well… I'll just show you."
She didn't swing the sword. Instead, she slowly, deliberately, pressed the edge of the dark blade against the center of the archway. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the impossible occurred: the stone surface of the door rippled like dark water, and the tip of Eternal Eclipse was absorbed into it, swallowed whole without a sound.
A deep, grinding tremor ran through the earth beneath them, a vibration that felt old and powerful. With a roar that seemed to come from the depths of the island itself, the massive stone archway slid sideways into the earth, revealing not darkness, but a corridor that glowed with a soft, ancient light. The air that washed over them was dry and carried the faint, clean scent of stone dust and ages long past.
Everyone stood in awe, the sudden revelation stealing their words.
Aokiji's eyes slid from the glowing passage to Marya, a new, profound wariness in his gaze. "I know you said it wasn't a typical curse," he began, his voice low, "but does this mean…"
Zola interrupted, her scientific mind already racing to categorize the phenomenon. "The entity that occupies the blade—or perhaps the very material it's forged from—is a relic from another time. It doesn't belong to this age. It was the key. The ultimate anachronism." She stared at Eternal Eclipse with a mixture of terror and fascination.
Aokiji rubbed the back of his neck, a surprisingly human gesture from the former Admiral. Thousands of questions about the Void Century, the World Government's true fears, and the nature of Marya's power bubbled in his mind, but now was not the time to voice them.
Marya sheathed her sword, the runes fading back into dormancy. She turned to face the group, her expression once again the picture of calm stoicism, though a faint light of excitement glittered in her golden eyes. She looked from Aokiji's solemnity to Atlas's eager grin, from Jannali's stunned face to Zola's thrilled one.
"Shall we?" Marya asked, and without waiting for an answer, she took the first step into the heart of Ohara's greatest secret.