The sky was a sickly, uniform grey, the color of old bruises and damp ash. From this height, the Kamaten Island looked less like land and more like a colossal, fossilized skull half-submerged in a leaden sea. Its surface was a monochrome nightmare of jagged rock and swirling mist, punctuated by the countless, spinning specks of rusted clockwork gears that emitted their constant, whispering chiku-taku rhythm. The air here tasted of cold stone and something faintly, unsettlingly sour, like metal left on the tongue.
Through this desolate firmament, a path of impossible beauty unfurled.
Each step appeared as a burst of light and geometry—a luminous, emerald-green lotus blossom, larger than a ship's wheel, materializing on nothingness before dissolving into motes of light a heartbeat later. Running across this fleeting, blooming road was Paula Cupcake Pope. Her fiery hair streamed behind her like a battle standard. The blue war-paint around her eyes was stark against skin flushed with effort. In her Hybrid form, her skin held the lustrous, deep green sheen of polished jade, and four additional muscular arms flexed at her sides. A glowing, celestial ribbon of light—her hagoromo—swirled around her shoulders, leaving a faint, sparkling trail in the damp air.
She wasn't flying. She was walking on enlightenment, each emerald step a defiance of the grey world below. As she ran, her six eyes—the two in her head and the four that glowed softly on her palms and the soles of her feet—scanned the bleak landscape. The Seven Eyes of Wisdom saw the flows of energy, the deep, sluggish pulse of the island itself, and the two familiar, dense concentrations of will standing near the jagged shore.
There. A figure of monumental stillness, wrapped in a tattered leather cloak like folded bat wings. Beside him, a smaller, multi-limbed form gesticulating wildly. Grutte Pier Dorian and Ekkoo Ara Hyakushu.
Paula adjusted her course. With a series of rapid, dancing pivots, her path angled downward. Each descending step blossomed into existence, creating a spiraling, floating staircase of ephemeral lotuses that led from the grey sky directly to the ash-strewn ground before the two men. As she descended, she cupped her hands around her mouth.
"Boss Man!" her voice cut through the low grind of the gears and the hiss of the nearby acidic river, the Sanzu. It was a hearty shout, laced with its usual ironic melody but underlined with an urgency that stripped away her typical casualness. "Heads up! Company's coming!"
On the ground, Pier had been listening to Ekkoo's frantic report about supply delays, his arms crossed, a statue of patience. The voice from above made him pause. He looked up, his violet eyes narrowing in a mix of recognition and profound confusion. The sight of his fiery-haired commander descending a staircase of green light onto the most somber island in his territory was… incongruous.
"Captain?" he rumbled, his bass voice flattening the ambient sounds. "What are you…?"
Paula didn't bother with the final few steps. She leaped the last ten feet, landing in a crouch that sent up a small puff of grey ash. She straightened, panting slightly, her emerald skin glistening. The lotus path behind her winked out. For a moment, she just breathed, the scent of sulfur and cold stone filling her lungs, replacing the clean, open-sea air.
"Pier," she said, dropping the nickname, her tone turning grim. "I had to come. To inform you. Personally. The Prisoners…"
Pier's already stern expression hardened into something granitic. He uncrossed his arms, the motion slow and deliberate. "What about the prisoners?" he asked, each word a carefully placed stone.
Paula met his gaze, her mischievous eyes now deadly serious. She braced herself, the bones in her six hands flexing. "They escaped."
The silence that followed was thicker than the island's mist. The chiku-taku of the gears becoming menacingly louder, more accusatory.
Pier's eyes, usually sharp as cut gems, bulged slightly. A vein pulsed in his thick neck. "What do you mean, they escaped?" he asked, his voice dropping into a register that vibrated in the chest. "They were in Metz-Oni. Under two Captains. They were…"
"Gone," Paula finished for him, her voice firm but laced with a sharp frustration aimed inward. She shook her head, her red mane swaying. "I don't have a good excuse for you. No clever lie. We underestimated a kid with a famous last name and a two children of the lost races. We failed. Straight-up incompetence." She didn't blink, owning the failure completely.
Pier's jaw flexed, the muscles knotting under his beard. The gold coins woven into the braids clinked softly with the tension.
Ekkoo, who had been staring with his mouth slightly open, found his voice. It was a high-strung, stressed rasp. "Why are you here and not out turning the sea upside down looking for them? The logistics of a search grid—I can mobilize the Black Heap scouts in three hours, but the coordinates—"
"Because her crew is here," Paula interrupted, pointing a jade-green finger past them, toward the island's grim interior where the monstrous form of the Grand Chrono-Anchor pierced the sky. "The ones we took from Agashima. She's not running for the horizon. She's coming here. She won't leave without them." A fierce, approving smirk touched Paula's lips for a heartbeat. "Gotta respect the loyalty, even if it's suicidally stupid."
Pier's furious confusion began to melt, replaced by the cold, grinding gears of his strategic mind. He saw it. The escaped prisoners, armed with new information and a ship, wouldn't flee. They'd charge straight into the beast's mouth to retrieve their own. He gave a slow, single nod, his big hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his hooked nose.
"Yes," he murmured, more to himself than to them. "Yes, of course she is." He lowered his hand, his violet eyes sweeping from Paula's determined face to the bleak, gear-dotted plains of his prison-island. "We can… we can set a trap."
Paula's smirk returned, wider now, edged with the thrill of a coming fight. "Those were my thoughts exactly. We don't need to hunt. We just need to make the bait sweeter and wait by the nest."
Pier nodded again, a decisive motion. The initial shock had been absorbed, transformed into cold purpose. He turned on his heel, his heavy boot crushing a fossilized rock into powder. "Come," he commanded, his voice back to its normal, ground-shaking bass. "Let us plan. Ekkoo, alert the Jizo Guardians. Triple the silent watch on the Anchor's capstan. But tell them to make it look slack. I want the prisoners to see a weakness."
He began to stride toward the low, stone huts of Sa-To-Shi, his cloak billowing. Paula fell into step beside him, her multiple arms disappearing as she spoke, sketching potential approaches in the air. "We'll need to pull the patrols back from the eastern ash-fields. Make it look like we're lax. Leave a path open right to the labor pens."
"A path that funnels them into the killing ground between the Sanzu River and the Gear Fields," Pier grunted in agreement. "Where the acid mist is thickest and the 'white noise' is weakest. If the chiku-taku stutters there, the disorientation will work for us."
"Ooh, nasty," Paula chuckled, a genuine, dark glee in her voice. "I like it. Let the island itself fight for us." She glanced over at him as they walked. "You're not mad?"
Pier didn't look at her, his gaze fixed on the distant, grim silhouette of the Anchor. "I am furious," he said plainly. "But anger is a luxury. It is a storm. I am a mountain. The storm will pass. The trap will not." He finally glanced at her, a flicker of something almost like concern in his ancient eyes. "You used the Emerald Step all the way from Agashima. That's a long run. You're pushing it, Cupcake."
The old nickname, one he'd given her years ago, made her grin. "What, worried about me, you big rock? Save your concern. I've got plenty of fight left. Enough to welcome these little mice properly when they come knocking."
Behind them, Ekkoo scrambled to keep up, already muttering into a small communicator, his fingers fiddling with his pocket watch and a map. The grey mist of Kamaten Island closed around the three figures, the rhythmic chiku-taku of a million gears swallowing their voices, a relentless lullaby for the slumbering Hitotsume, and the steady heartbeat of a trap being patiently, meticulously laid.
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