Story Quote: "The Grand Line buries its history in silence. Those who dig deep enough only wake what the sea tried to forget."
-The Ship Graveyard-
The fog finally thinned to a pale silver haze.For the first time in days, the Fumigator drifted through still waters. The shattered remains of the battle with the Sea King creaked as the crew worked to repair the damage.
Jett hammered a bent railing back into shape while Mira sorted through supplies below deck. Rumi cleaned blood and soot from the walls near the gas vents.
Kairo stood at the bow, arms folded, watching the graveyard of wrecks around them.Hundreds of ships — pirate vessels, merchant galleons, Marine cutters — lay strewn in every direction.
"A whole century of failure," Kino said beside him."No," Kairo replied softly. "A century of stories. And every one of them ends here."
By noon, the crew began scavenging the wrecks. They rowed out in small boats, hauling back planks, nails, ropes, anything usable.
Aria kept her rifle slung but ready. The silence of the fog pressed on all of them. Even the waves seemed muted.
"This place gives me chills," Mira said quietly as she pried open a half-sunken crate. "Feels like the sea's watching.""That's because it is," Rumi replied, peering into the murky water. "Currents here don't move naturally. Something's… wrong."
Jett snorted.
"If the sea wanted us dead, it's had plenty of chances. We beat a Sea King, didn't we?""You punched a corpse," Mira corrected."Still counts."
Kairo smirked faintly but said nothing. He could sense it too — the faint, pulsing thrum of something beneath the calm.
Alive? No… resonating.
Deeper among the wrecks, they found signs of civilization — carved stones and metal tablets bound to broken figureheads. The markings were indecipherable, but Rumi carefully packed samples into cloth wraps.
"They're not Marine," she murmured. "Maybe pre-Government era?""Or pirate symbols older than the World Nobles," Kino offered.
Kairo examined one slab: a crest depicting a ship wreathed in spirals of wind, crowned by a skeletal sun.
He frowned.That symbol… I've seen it before.In a history book that was never supposed to exist.
But he said nothing.
By dusk, the fog thickened again. The air turned damp and heavy.Kairo called for the crew to return to the ship, but before they could, Mira froze mid-step.
"Did anyone… hear that?" she whispered.
A faint creaking echoed across the wrecks — not wood, but joints.Then came the sound of dragging chains and soft splashes as something climbed onto the nearest hull.
Aria aimed her rifle toward the noise.The shape that emerged wasn't alive — not truly.
It was a man's corpse, long rotted, clothes in tatters, eyes hollow. Barnacles clung to its limbs, and water poured endlessly from its chest cavity.Yet it moved.
"Oh gods," Rumi whispered. "It's—""Moving," Jett finished grimly, picking up his hammer.
The corpse turned toward them, jaw creaking open as it let out a wet, gurgling hiss.
More emerged behind it — dozens of them, crawling over the wreckage. Pirates in decayed uniforms, sailors with rusted cutlasses, merchants still gripping ledgers turned to pulp.
"Back to the ship!" Kairo ordered. "Now!"
They sprinted across the rotting decks, the dead following in staggering waves. Aria fired shot after shot, each bullet punching through skull and rib, but the corpses didn't bleed — they simply collapsed, then rose again.
"They're not alive!" she shouted."Then they can't die twice!" Jett roared, slamming his hammer into one, sending it spinning into the sea.
Mira flung oil flasks, igniting them with a spark. Flames spread across the wood, momentarily halting the horde. The smoke burned thick and black, the firelight turning the fog red.
"Rumi!" Kairo called. "Gas vents, now!"
She nodded, tossing a small capsule into the wind. It detonated, releasing a cloud of noxious vapor that ate through the air like acid. The corpses nearest her disintegrated, their bones collapsing into dust.
But for every one that fell, two more clawed their way out of the sea.
"There's no end to them!" Kino shouted from the rowboat, pulling the others aboard.
Kairo swung Kusanagi, slicing through three in one motion. His Haki-clad blade shattered ribs and bone, but he could feel it — they weren't attacking blindly.
There was intent.Something was commanding them.
They reached the Fumigator, but as the crew climbed aboard, Kairo froze mid-step.Out in the distance, through the densest part of the fog, a faint glow shimmered.
A ship — massive, ancient, and spectral in outline. Its hull was blackened, its sails tattered but still full of wind.
It moved without sound, drifting among the wrecks like a phantom.
The undead shifted toward it, their movements suddenly coordinated — as if answering a call.
"Captain…" Aria whispered. "What is that?"
Kairo's jaw tightened.
"Something that shouldn't exist."
The ghostly ship's bow turned toward them. For a heartbeat, Kairo swore he saw eyes — cold, lifeless, yet aware — burning in the sockets of its figurehead.
Then it vanished into the mist, leaving only the echo of creaking timbers and the faint glow of the dead retreating after it.
The crew stood in silence, panting, bruised, and covered in grime.Mira broke it first.
"They… they stopped.""No," Kairo said quietly. "They were called back."
Rumi looked pale.
"By what?"Kairo stared at the fog where the ghost ship had vanished."That's what we're going to find out."
He turned toward the others.
"We patch the hull, resupply, and rest. No one leaves the ship until sunrise."
"Captain," Kino said, "if that thing comes back—""Then we'll send it back where it came from," Kairo said, sheathing his sword. "But not before we learn why it's here."
The sea was silent again.Too silent.
Above them, the moon hung low — pale and distant — while deep beneath the waves, something ancient pulsed once, like a heartbeat echoing from a forgotten century.