Bastille did not answer immediately.
Sea wind whistled faintly through the holes in his mask as the enormous Vice Admiral adjusted the leather strap securing Shark Cleaver across his back.
In the relative quiet of the deck, the creak of leather sounded strangely harsh against the steady rhythm of the waves.
"What's strange isn't the man," he finally said. "It's the timing."
His gaze passed over Cobra and settled on the enormous roots of the Yarukiman Mangroves slowly rising above the horizon.
"At a moment like this, the World Government urgently needs another blade. Not merely one that obeys orders, but one sharp enough to do the job—even if that blade is dangerous to the hand holding it."
Bastille gave a slight shrug, weary cynicism entering the eyes behind his mask.
"As for whether it cuts that hand... that's something the important people upstairs can worry about. We're only responsible for getting you safely to the Reverie."
By the time he finished speaking, the Yarukiman Mangroves had spread across the horizon.
Roots thicker than buildings plunged into the sea beneath enormous canopies, while countless bubbles rose through the air and shimmered with rainbow light beneath the sun.
Sabaody Archipelago.
Their stop here would be brief.
Grove 1 had been temporarily placed under Marine control as a staging point for several royal delegations before they continued to Red Port, where the Bondola would carry them to the top of the Red Line.
The warship slowly entered the harbor.
Normally, Grove 1 was one of the busiest docking areas in the archipelago, filled with vessels belonging to World Nobles, wealthy merchants, pirates, and influential travelers.
Today, however, it was unnaturally quiet.
There were no dockworkers shouting instructions and no merchants hawking goods.
Only a pale mist drifted between the mangrove roots, carrying the odor of rotting vegetation mixed with something faintly sweet and unpleasant.
"Something's wrong."
Chaka sniffed the air.
As a user of the Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Jackal, his sense of smell far surpassed that of an ordinary human.
The faint earthy odor underneath everything else made the hairs along his arms rise.
"This place smells like a freshly opened grave."
"Prepare to dock!"
Bastille's shout cut off any further speculation.
The anchor crashed into the water, and the heavy gangway had barely settled against the pier when movement erupted around them.
Figures began staggering from behind stacks of cargo crates and the shadows between the enormous mangrove roots.
Vivi instinctively stepped backward.
"What... are those?"
They looked human.
At least, they had once been human.
Their clothes hung from them in rotting strips.
Some were missing limbs, while others still carried yellowed bandages around decomposing wounds.
Their skin had the dead gray of corpses left too long without burial, and meaningless groans escaped their mouths as they lurched toward the newly arrived warship.
A black-hulled vessel carrying Gecko Moria's colors sat partially hidden beyond the mist.
The Warlord had clearly arrived ahead of the other summoned pirates and brought part of his zombie force ashore with him.
"ROOOOAAARGH—!!"
A savage howl tore across the harbor.
Something enormous leaped from behind the horde.
A gigantic three-headed zombie dog, nearly two stories tall, charged directly toward the most conspicuous target on the deck.
Vivi.
"PRINCESS VIVI!"
Igaram raised his saxophone in panic, but Chaka moved first.
His body transformed as he launched himself forward, becoming a dark blur that collided with the three-headed beast in midair.
BOOM!
The impact shook the pier.
Chaka was far smaller, but the momentum of his diving tackle knocked the creature off course and sent it crashing sideways into the stone, blasting fragments of masonry into the air.
More zombies were already climbing the gangway and anchor chain.
"FIRE!"
"GET THOSE THINGS OFF THE SHIP!"
Marine rifles erupted.
Bullets punched holes through rotting flesh. Limbs were blown apart, and one zombie lost almost everything below the waist, yet it simply continued dragging itself toward the ship.
A chill passed through the Marines.
"Enough!"
Bastille ripped Shark Cleaver from his back.
One horizontal swing produced enough raw pressure to sweep more than a dozen zombies from the bow and send them tumbling across the harbor.
His furious gaze fixed on an enormous silhouette chuckling within the mist.
"GECKO MORIA!"
"If you don't want Headquarters questioning whether you deserve that Warlord title before you even reach the Reverie, call off these disgusting toys!"
A gigantic man slowly emerged from the fog, his bizarre body shaped almost like an onion and demonic horns rising from his head.
"Ki-shi-shi-shi..."
Gecko Moria lazily spread his arms.
"Well, well. If it isn't Vice Admiral Bastille."
He seemed completely unconcerned by the Marine officer's anger.
"No need to get so worked up. My adorable little pets haven't seen fresh people in a while."
Moria chuckled.
"You know how zombies are. Not much going on upstairs."
Even as he spoke, three fingers moved subtly within his shadow.
The three-headed zombie dog Chaka had pinned suddenly exploded with renewed strength.
All three heads twisted toward him, ignoring the cracking of their own necks as their jaws snapped for his shoulder.
Bastille's eyes hardened.
"This was deliberate."
"Deliberate?"
Moria's grin widened.
"The Government suddenly decides it needs every Warlord it can get its hands on, and you think they'll throw me away over a little misunderstanding?"
His tiny eyes shifted toward Vivi.
The princess herself was not a great fighter, but she was royal blood from one of the World Government's founding kingdoms.
A royal hostage—and the shadow of one—would make a very entertaining trophy.
Moria had apparently decided the current crisis gave him more political protection than common sense should have allowed.
"If you can't control your dogs," Bastille growled, lowering Shark Cleaver, "then I'll put them down for you."
The deck exploded beneath his feet.
He launched himself from the warship like a cannonball, Armament Haki coating Shark Cleaver as the enormous blade came down toward Moria with enough force to split the pier.
Moria did not move.
His smile remained.
"Not yet..."
He lazily snapped his fingers.
"Stop him."
CLANG—!!
The shriek of metal against metal exploded over the harbor.
Bastille's strike stopped less than half a meter from Moria's forehead.
Violent pressure burst outward and tore apart the nearby fog, revealing what had intercepted Shark Cleaver.
Not Moria's shadow.
A black blade.
Old, but meticulously preserved despite the corpse carrying it.
The hand gripping the weapon belonged to a tall zombie wrapped almost entirely in bandages, ancient samurai armor covering its body.
Bastille stared.
"Ryuma...?"
He barely had time to process the name before tremendous force surged through the crossed blades.
His arm jolted.
The strength behind the corpse was enormous, but that was not all. The technique carried through its borrowed movements was precise enough to make the impact feel far more dangerous than simple brute force.
The clash threatened to tear Shark Cleaver from Bastille's grip.
...
That monstrous force traveled straight up Bastille's arm.
The Vice Admiral had always taken pride in his physical strength, yet the corpse in front of him possessed a body whose raw power had once belonged to one of Wano's greatest legends.
Shark Cleaver gave a shrill metallic groan.
A hairline fracture appeared near the point where the weapons met.
'Damn it!'
Cold sweat formed beneath Bastille's mask.
'Is this thing really just a zombie?'
It was not only strong. The swordsmanship flowing through the body was controlled and efficient, despite the obvious mismatch between the ancient corpse and the shadow currently animating it.
Bastille tried to pull his weapon free, but Ryuma's black blade held firm.
"Ki-shi-shi-shi!"
Moria no longer bothered watching him.
His eyes were fixed on Vivi.
"For someone with so little combat strength, you've got quite a useful name."
His smile widened.
"Nefertari Vivi. Princess of Alabasta."
Moria's shadow churned beneath his feet.
Black bats spilled from it and merged into an enormous dark hand that raced across the ground toward Vivi.
The hand itself could not steal her shadow.
That required the massive pair of scissors already hanging ready in Moria's grip.
But it could certainly pin her long enough for him to cut the shadow away.
"N-No...!"
Vivi's face went white.
The black hand was almost around her ankle.
"PRINCESS!"
Pell and Chaka reacted at once.
Chaka desperately tried to break away, only for two General Zombies to wrap their arms around him and drag him back.
Pell spread his wings to launch himself into the air, but several zombies leaped onto him and pulled him violently down.
Moria lifted his scissors.
Then a slash came across the harbor from the sea.
It was almost colorless, little more than a razor-thin distortion through the mist, with faint dark-gold pressure tracing its edge.
Shhk!
The shadow hand separated before it could close around Vivi.
The severed manifestation collapsed into shapeless darkness and began retreating toward Moria's feet.
At almost the same instant—
Crack!
A chip broke from one of Moria's enormous scissors.
The slash still had enough force behind it to sweep across the harbor afterward, blasting a cluster of ordinary zombies into the sea.
Saltwater washed over the corpses.
White vapor rose as the stolen shadows were forced from their bodies and shot away to return to their original owners, leaving the purified corpses inert in the water.
"WHO?!"
Moria staggered backward.
The lazy amusement vanished from his face.
"I was wondering why this place smelled like rotting corpses."
A familiar voice drifted through the mist.
"Turns out an old bat like you has been making a mess again."
Everyone looked toward the sea.
A large Marine warship was entering the harbor.
Oni Slayer.
At its bow stood a black-haired young man with a Marine coat hanging loosely across his shoulders, half a rice cracker still held in one hand.
His expression suggested he had arrived at a particularly boring circus.
"ZARAKI-SAN!"
Vivi's eyes reddened immediately.
The tension holding her upright loosened enough that she had to grip the railing.
"It's the War Demon!"
"He's here!"
The Marines' morale changed almost instantly.
Zaraki dropped from the bow and landed on the pier.
He stuffed the rest of the rice cracker into his mouth, brushed the crumbs from his fingers, then looked toward the bandage-wrapped samurai standing opposite Bastille.
His golden eyes paused on the weapon.
A black blade with an unmistakable wavy hamon.
"One of the twenty-one Great Grade Blades."
Zaraki spoke its name.
"Shusui."
Then his gaze rose toward the corpse carrying it.
"To find that sword attached to a samurai corpse..."
A grin appeared.
"Wano's dragon-slaying samurai. Sword God Ryuma."
The name changed the atmosphere immediately.
Bastille retreated several steps, still flexing his aching hand.
"You recognized him from that?"
"Something like that."
Zaraki had no intention of explaining that his knowledge had nothing to do with Marine intelligence.