The door closed with a heavy thunk that echoed through the stone room like a tomb sealing shut.
Bō-Zak stood in the center of the chamber, arms slightly out from his sides, staring at the wooden barrier with an expression of profound betrayal. The silence settled around him, thick as the mist outside, broken only by the faint jingle-jingle-jingle of the bells sewn into every conceivable surface of his ceremonial outfit.
He looked down at himself.
The robe was... a lot. Layers of deep crimson and gold fabric that draped and folded in ways that suggested the designer had never actually seen a human body. Geometric patterns spiraled across the chest and sleeves, depicting condors and pumas and serpents in endless combat. The pants—and he used the term loosely—were wide-legged and fell to his ankles, where more bells clustered like tiny brass grapes. A cape hung from his shoulders, heavy with embroidery, and on his head sat a headdress shaped like a condor's wings, complete with feathers that tickled his ears every time he moved.
Every. Time. He. Moved.
Jingle. Jingle. Jingle.
"Right," he said to the empty room. "Well. I am not waiting around here."
His head swiveled, yes locking onto the window—a narrow slit cut into the stone, just wide enough for a man of average build to squeeze through if he didn't mind losing a few layers of skin.
The bells announced his every step as he crossed to it. Jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle. He braced his arms against the frame, lifted one knee to begin the awkward process of climbing out, and—
Paused.
Behind him, someone cleared their throat.
Bō-Zak turned his head slowly, one leg still hooked over the windowsill, arms still braced, looking for all the world like a very ornate, very embarrassed bird attempting to migrate through the wrong exit.
Marya stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed over her Heart Pirates jacket, one eyebrow raised to an impressive height. Her golden eyes traveled from the feathered headdress down to the bell-covered pants and back up again, taking in every humiliating detail.
The silence stretched.
Bō-Zak's smirk flickered into existence—a valiant effort, given the circumstances. "I'm impressed." He lowered his leg from the windowsill, the resulting jingle-jingle-jingle filling the room like a brass orchestra tuning up. "How did you find your way here?"
Marya shrugged, the motion casual, unhurried. "I am gifted and talented."
He laughed despite himself. The sound was warm, genuine, and completely at odds with his ridiculous appearance.
She cocked her head, studying him with that calm, observant gaze that missed nothing. "You appear to be..."
Bō-Zak looked down at himself.
The full reality of the situation crashed over him anew. The feathers. The bells. The cape. The geometric patterns that writhed when he moved. He cringed—actually cringed, his whole face scrunching up with the kind of secondhand embarrassment most people only experienced remembering things they'd said in middle school.
Then he laughed again, awkward and self-deprecating, rubbing the back of his head with one hand while the other gestured vaguely at his entire existence.
"Yeah, well." Jingle. "You can see why I'm on the run."
Marya walked past him without comment, her combat boots silent on the stone floor. She found a low bench against the wall—plain, unadorned, the kind of thing monks sat on when they were done with worldly comforts—and settled onto it. Her legs crossed, one over the other. Her fingers intertwined in her lap. She looked like a queen holding court in a broom closet.
Bō-Zak, intrigued despite his embarrassment, found a seat of his own. The process involved a great deal of jingling, some creative fabric management, and a moment where he nearly sat on one of his own bells. When he finally achieved a stable seated position, he pulled out his pipe, lit it with practiced ease, and took a long drag.
The smoke curled toward the ceiling, mingling with the incense that lingered in every corner of the temple.
Marya watched him for a long moment. Then: "You mentioned that you hold the power of the Tori Tori no Mi: Kuntur."
Bō-Zak blew out a plume of smoke, his expression carefully neutral. "Did I?"
"It was implied."
He studied her over the rim of his pipe—this woman with the cursed sword and the void-dark veins and the golden eyes that saw too much. She didn't push, didn't prod. She simply... waited. Like the ocean waiting for the tide to turn.
He wasn't used to that.
Wanting to change the subject, his eyes dropped to her hands, resting intertwined over he crossed knee. The black veins that crawled up her wrists and disappeared into her sleeves were impossible to miss—dark as ink, deep as regret, pulsing with something that made his condor shadow stir uneasily.
"Looks like you know a thing or two about curses," he said.
Marya raised one brow. "You think your power is a curse?"
He nodded, tapping his pipe against his heel. The clink was familiar, comforting—a small piece of normal in a room full of feathers and bells.
"It's a devil that haunts me." The words came out rougher than he intended. "It's the reason I'm forced to wear this ridiculous garb and participate in this pointless ceremony. So yes." He met her eyes. "It is a curse. A devil bound to my soul."
Marya blinked. Once. Twice.
"Maybe," she said quietly, "it isn't the curse that haunts you. But something else."
The words landed somewhere unexpected—a place Bō-Zak hadn't realized was still tender after all these years. He covered it with a smirk, leaning forward, letting his voice drop into that register that had charmed its way through a dozen chambers.
"You want to know how you can help me with my curse?" He winked. "I've got a few ideas."
Marya sighed.
It was a very specific kind of sigh—the sigh of someone who had dealt with this particular energy before and was already exhausted by it. Her expression didn't change, but something in her eyes shifted, like clouds parting to reveal colder waters beneath.
"How about you come with us?" she said.
Bō-Zak went rigid.
The smirk froze on his face. His pipe stopped halfway to his mouth. Even the bells became silent.
"Come... with you?"
Marya nodded, her golden eyes steady on his. "You clearly aren't happy here. Maybe you should consider another path."
He opened his mouth to respond—with deflection, with humor, with anything to push away the weight of those words—when another voice cut through the room.
"Maybe you should consider it."
Bō-Zak and Marya turned as one.
Kipa Shiru stood in the doorway, his tall, wiry frame silhouetted against the torchlight of the corridor beyond. His milky white eyes—blind to the physical world, seeing something else entirely—were fixed on Bō-Zak with an expression that might have been fondness. Might have been sorrow. Might have been both.
The lead monk's awayo hung perfectly still despite the faint breeze that always moved through these ancient halls. His staff of Fixed Salt rested lightly in one hand, and his presence filled the room like water filling a vessel.
Bō-Zak's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying, old man? You know I'm the only one who can—"
Kipa Shiru waved his hand—a small gesture, casual, dismissive. "Don't be ridiculous."
The words hung in the air.
Bō-Zak blinked. "I'm sorry, did you just—"
"The seals are not reliant on a single person or entity." Kipa Shiru moved into the room, his footsteps making no sound on the stone. "They have held for over eight hundred years. The Nigredo Vessel will hold." He stopped a few feet from Bō-Zak, those milky eyes somehow seeing directly into him. "You are not a prisoner here. And we are not your jailers."
Bō-Zak's jaw worked, but no words came out.
Kipa Shiru's lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "Go. Live your life. And if you so choose, return to us a more well-rounded man."
Bō-Zak took a long pull from his pipe, the smoke curling around his face like a shield. His eyes shifted between Kipa Shiru and Marya, searching for the trap, the catch, the hidden cost.
"And what if I don't want to leave?" he asked, his voice rougher than before. "What if I like things the way they are?"
Marya sighed again—the same exhausted sigh from before, but with something else underneath it. Something that might have been pity.
Bō-Zak pressed on, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. "Why do you want me to go with you anyway?"
Marya took a breath. When she spoke, her voice was calm, measured, stripped of everything but fact.
"You are correct to assume this is a curse." She lifted her hand, displaying the black veins that marked her skin. "In order for me to alleviate mine, I must open a door. Your power is part of the mechanism to open that door."
Bō-Zak paused.
Then the smirk returned—weaker than before, but hanging on with stubborn determination. "So you need me, then."
Marya's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Yes. I need you."
He leaned in, the bells jingling softly with the movement. "And what are you willing to do to—"
WHACK.
Kipa Shiru's hand connected to the back of Bō-Zak's head with a sound that echoed off the stone walls. The monk's expression hadn't changed—still that same serene, knowing calm—but there was something in the set of his mouth that suggested deep satisfaction.
Bō-Zak rubbed his head, glaring up at the lead monk with the outrage of a man betrayed. "What was that for?!"
Kipa Shiru ignored him completely, turning instead to Marya with a slight bow of his head. "Come. We have preparations to see to. You should accompany us."
Marya rose from the bench, fluid as water, and nodded.
Kipa Shiru moved toward the door, his silent steps carrying him past Bō-Zak without a glance. Marya followed, her combat boots making soft sounds against the stone.
Bō-Zak sat frozen for a moment, still rubbing his head, still processing everything that had just happened.
Then he scrambled to his feet.
Jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-JINGLE.
The sound filled the corridor as he hurried after them, his ridiculous outfit announcing his presence to everyone within a half-mile radius. Kipa Shiru walked ahead, silent and serene. Marya walked in the middle, her golden eyes forward, her expression unreadable.
And Bō-Zak brought up the rear, jingling with every step, glaring at the back of Kipa Shiru's head with the kind of murderous intent that usually preceded a very serious conversation.
But beneath the glare, beneath the embarrassment, beneath the jingling bells and feathered headdress, something else stirred.
A possibility.
A door, perhaps, that he hadn't known was there.
He looked at Marya's back—at the sword she carried, at the jacket with the insignia he didn't recognize, at the calm, steady way she moved through a world that had tried so hard to break her.
Then he looked at Kipa Shiru—at the man who had just given him permission to leave the only home he'd ever known.
Go. Live your life.
The words echoed in his skull, louder than the bells.
And for the first time in years, Bō-Zak Kaminosukei allowed himself to wonder what that might look like.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving Dracule Marya Zaleska a Power Stone! It helps the novel climb the rankings and get more eyes on our story!
Thank you for sailing with us! 🏴☠️ Your support means so much!
Want to see the Dreadnought Thalassa blueprints? Or unlock the true power of Goddess Achlys?
Join the Dracule Marya Zaleska crew on Patreon to get exclusive concept art, deep-dive lore notes, and access to our private Discord community! You make the New World adventure possible.
Become a Crewmate and Unlock the Lore:
https://patreon.com/An1m3N3rd?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Thanks so much for your support and loving this story as much as I do!