The deck of the Dreadnought Thalassa thrums beneath Marya's boots—a low, steady pulse that climbs through the obsidian hull and settles in her bones. Across the water, Elegia howls, a ragged, ceaseless noise the salt wind flings against the ship in gusts.
Marya Zaleska turns her head.
"Luffy—"
He is gone.
Her golden-ringed eyes rake the deck. Bare planks mark the spot where the rubber-bodied idiot stood seconds ago. Somewhere off the bow, a joyful whoop dwindles to nothing, drowned beneath the pounding surf.
Marya frowns.
Galit steps up beside her. His impossibly long neck folds into a tight S-curve, the geometric kelp-scars along his olive skin glinting in the overcast glare. His emerald eyes linger on the vacant spot by the rail. When he speaks, his tone is bone-dry, worn smooth by years of watching plans go sideways.
"I am not confident he understood the plan."
Marya raises a brow.
Bō-Zak saunters over, grinning around the stem of his pipe. Lazy coils of smoke drift upward, sweet with Tawantin herbs. "It appears he decided to change it up a bit."
Marya takes stock of who remains.
Howling Gab looms at the railing, his massive frame cut black against the washed-out sky. Rockstar slouches next to Howling Gab, arms folded, face giving away nothing. Penguin and Jelly crowd the hatch, Jelly quivering with excitement, his translucent blue body rippling like a tide pool stirred by a fingertip.
Everyone else—Atlas, Ember, Shachi, Lucky Roux, Bonk Punch, Monster—is gone.
Marya rolls her eyes—slow, deliberate, bone-tired. Half her crew has just tossed her orders overboard in one cheerful stroke.
"So much for having a plan."
Bō-Zak tells her, "It will be fine. All we have to do is keep the thing entertained while we wait for the signal."
Galit sighs, long and low. Several sleepless nights of careful planning lie in pieces, and the battle hasn't started yet.
---
Elegia's beach curves in a crescent of black sand strewn with jagged driftwood. Waves slide ashore with a soft, unhurried hiss, as though nothing on this island could possibly be wrong. Overhead, bruise-purple clouds sag so low they nearly scrape the treetops.
Fifty Uta clones descend onto the sand.
Fifty Gordon clones follow.
Each stares skyward with identical eyes—the left void-black, the right slashed by a red cross. Each mouth splits into the same manic grin. Not one of them makes a sound. The dream speaks for them.
And then—
Laughter.
It rings out overhead—wild, unhinged, gleeful. Screams trail behind it, but not from terror. These are shrieks of pure, stomach-flipping thrill.
Luffy arcs across the sky, one rubbery arm looped around Atlas, Ember, Shachi, Lucky Roux, Bonk Punch, and Monster like a bundle of laundry. His straw hat snaps against its cord. His grin takes up half his face.
"GUM! GUM! GATLING!"
He tosses his passengers.
They tumble free—a tangle of fur, pink hair, and windmilling limbs—while Luffy's fists multiply into a blur. Blows pound the beach in a rolling barrage, each one gouging a crater in the black sand. Twenty-five clones fold before the rest even think to dodge.
Atlas, Ember, Shachi, Lucky Roux, Bonk Punch, and Monster plummet toward the shore. Lucky Roux tucks into a tight ball mid-fall, hits the sand, and rolls straight through a knot of clones, flattening them. Atlas lands on his feet with his chueys already in hand and lays into the nearest clones, each strike landing with a sharp crack. Ember and Shachi are less graceful: they cartwheel across the beach, end up in a sprawled heap, and lie there groaning, too dizzy to tell sky from sand. Bonk Punch and Monster hit the ground at a sprint. Bonk Punch wades into the ranks, dropping a clone with every swing, while Monster vaults from one clone's shoulders to the next, using them as stepping-stones.
Atlas stops mid-swing and rounds on the sky, fur bristling. "What the hell? This is not the plan! And why the hell did you drop us like that?"
Luffy rubs the back of his neck, contrite for roughly half a second before the grin creeps back. "Sorry, sorry."
Lucky Roux pops back upright, mouth already open to speak—
The clones speak in unison.
Their voices stack on top of one another—hollow, overlapping, subtly off-key.
"The Sing Sing Fruit will never leave this island! The eternal dream is all there is!"
Luffy plants his fists on his hips and bellows loud enough to rattle the driftwood.
"I AM THE KING OF THE PIRATES! GIVE UTA BACK!"
One Uta clone lifts off the ground.
Her toes trail free of the sand. Her arms spread wide. Her lips part.
She sings.
What pours out of her is nothing human: a thousand throats singing through one mouth, warped and lovely enough to make the skin prickle. Light drains from the beach. The clones melt into shadow. And above the island, Tot Musica takes shape—colossal, blotting out the clouds, a living storm of noise.
The demon rises in black spires and buttresses, built like a ruined church. Its eyes are two bottomless pits. Its mouth gapes wide, crowded with jagged, glinting fangs.
The music swells.
Beneath it, the real Uta's voice slices through the din, bent out of shape and soured.
🎵 "One for the flag I folded small..." 🎵
The words seep across the beach. Under Luffy's sandals, the sand stays put, yet something beneath it slides loose, as if the world has lost its grip on what it's supposed to be.
🎵 "Two for the laughter down the hall..." 🎵
Atlas staggers. His ears pin flat. His pupils swell until the blue nearly vanishes.
🎵 "Three for the sleepers, one, two, three..." 🎵
Ember's mismatched eyes widen as she claps both hands over her ears. "Make it stop—"
🎵 "Four for the table with no chair for me..." 🎵
The beach comes apart.