The world had dissolved into a symphony of destruction. Behind Jannali, the chilling echoes of Marya's death knells mixed with the thunderous impacts of ogre weapons and the silent shrieks of dying reapers. The very air vibrated with conflict, each clash a potential trigger for the sleeping Hitotsume beneath their feet. Yet, in a pocket of this chaos, Jannali Bandler danced a desperate, silent waltz with a warrior queen.
Paula Cupcake Pope was a force of nature, her trident, Sharito, moving with the practiced ease of a conductor's baton, each thrust and sweep meant to end the performance permanently. Jannali was a darting hummingbird, her spear, Anhur's Whisper, clicking and extending to deflect blows she couldn't outright block, the sea-stone tip scoring faint marks on Paula's bronze armor.
"You're all footwork and no finish, girl!" Paula laughed, but the chuckle was growing tighter, edged with a simmering frustration. She swung horizontally, a blow that could level a mast. Jannali dropped flat to the ash, the trident whistling over her head, and kicked out at Paula's knee. It was like kicking a fortress tower. Paula didn't budge.
Jannali rolled backward to her feet, breathing hard. "Maybe I just enjoy the dance, mate! You're not a bad partner!"
"This ain't a dance floor," Paula snarled, her emerald eyes narrowing. The playful charisma hardened into something ancient and severe. "It's a gallows. Now stand and fight, or lie down and die. Your choice."
Jannali spun her spear, buying a half-second. "Nah," she said, a fierce grin on her face. "I don't think so."
Something in Paula Cupcake Pope snapped. The patience of a matriarch protecting her tribe ran out. "Fine," she said, her voice dropping all pretense of humor. "Let's see how you dance in the storm."
A brilliant, verdant light erupted from Paula. Her skin shimmered, transforming into a lustrous, deep emerald green. From her back, four additional muscular arms unfolded with a sound like unfurling sails, making six in total. A glowing, celestial ribbon of light—a hagoromo—wreathed her shoulders. The Mythical Zoan power of the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Tara, now fully unveiled.
Jannali's bravado faltered for a heartbeat. Crikey.
Paula didn't just attack; she became a tempest. Two arms gripped her trident, two more mimicked the motion with invisible weapons of pure force, and the final two began weaving complex hand signs. The "Seven Eyes of Wisdom" opened on her palms and the soles of her boots, granting her a sphere of perfect awareness. Jannali's dodges, which had been barely adequate before, were now anticipated before she even moved.
A backhand from a giant emerald fist caught Jannali on the shoulder. It felt like being hit by a rolling cannonball. She cried out, skidding through the ash, her spear flying from her numb fingers. Paula was on her in an instant, the trident poised for a final, plunging strike.
"The 'Wind' doesn't have much to say now, does it?" Paula taunted.
Desperation clawed at Jannali. The voices of the island—the screams of the rusted gears, the low, digestive groan of the Sanzu River, the deep, sorrowful sleep-song of the Hitotsume—were a deafening choir in her mind, muddling her own thoughts. She couldn't hear her own instincts. She was going to die listening to a cacophony of a world in pain.
No. The thought was clear and cold. Not like this. Not just listening.
With her good arm, she reached up and tore the stylish headscarf from her head. Her full afro shook free. And there, in the center of her forehead, a vertical eye opened.
It was not a physical eye like the others. It was a pool of deep, swirling cosmos, a window into a star-filled void. The Awakened Power of the Three-Eye Tribe flared to life. The "Voice of All Things" didn't just become audible; it became a tidal wave.
She didn't just hear the gears; she felt the metallic fatigue of every rust-flaked tooth, the despair of centuries of pointless spinning. She didn't just hear the river; she tasted its acidic bitterness, felt the burn of a thousand forgotten souls dissolved within it. The sleeping will of the Hitotsume pressed down on her mind like the weight of the ocean itself—a vast, hungry, timeless presence dreaming of consumption.
"A Three-Eye…" Paula murmured, genuine surprise cutting through her battle focus. Then she smirked. "A rare vintage. But a bottle that's already cracked."
The sensory overload was agony. Jannali screamed, clutching her head. Vesta, bound and gagged, writhed, a muffled "MMMPH!" of protest and fear tearing from her throat. Nearby, Jelly Squish was morphing his wobbly arms into a complex, key-like shape, trying to fit it into Vesta's locks. "Almost… bloop… got it…" he whimpered, his form straining with the effort.
Paula loomed over the stricken Jannali, all six arms raising for a final, combined strike. "Knowledge is a burden, kid. Let me relieve you of it."
In that moment, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness beneath the weight of the world's secrets, Jannali made a choice. She couldn't shut the voices out. She couldn't defeat this monster with strength. So she wouldn't stay the same Jannali who just listened.
She would invite her in.
With a gritted-teeth roar that ripped from her very core, Jannali didn't push the voices away. She expanded. She threw the doors of her perception wide open, not as a receiver, but as a destination. She focused every ounce of her will, every whispered secret from the stones, every churning thought in her own terrified mind, and she pulled.
Paula Cupcake Pope's smirk vanished. Her six arms froze. The emerald glow around her flickered.
The grey wasteland of Kamaten vanished.
They stood together in an endless, star-dusted void. Underfoot was not ash, but a shimmering, silent sea that reflected the constellations above. It was utterly, profoundly quiet. The only sounds were their own breathing and the soft, psychic echo of Jannali's thoughts, which hung in the air like visible strands of glowing mist.
Paula looked around, her six arms lowering slowly. She was still in her hybrid Tara form, a goddess of war in a sea of tranquility. After a long moment, she let out a low, appreciative whistle. "Well, I'll be damned," she said, her voice echoing strangely in the mental space. "You pulled me into your headspace. Kid, I am impressed."
Jannali panted, standing on the reflective water. She felt lighter here, the crushing external voices gone, replaced by the manageable orchestra of her own soul. She managed a wobbly smile. "Yeah," she admitted, wiping blood from her lip. "Me too."
The shock wore off for Paula, replaced by predatory curiosity. "Pretty place. Let's redecorate."
She lunged. Here, unburdened by physical limits, she was even faster. Her movements were pure intent, striking not at Jannali's body, but at the very fabric of the mindscape around her. A trident thrust didn't just aim for Jannali; it sent cracks radiating through the starry "sky." A swipe from a backhand dissolved a cluster of nearby thought-mists into chaotic, frightened static.
Jannali dodged and weaved, but this was Paula's element as much as it was hers now—a realm of pure will. A glancing blow from a celestial ribbon sent Jannali tumbling across the mental sea, her form flickering.
"What's the matter?" Paula taunted, advancing. Her voice was a sonic weapon here, making the water ripple. "This is your house! And you're letting me break all the crockery! Where's that clever tongue now?"
Jannali pushed herself up, frustration boiling over into anger. This was hers. Her memories, her fears, her dreams were the water and the sky. And this woman was stomping through them.
"Stop it," Jannali growled.
"Make me," Paula chuckled, forming a massive, emerald longbow—Yanagito—in two of her hands. She drew back, an arrow of condensed spite manifesting on the string. "Or are you just a tourist in your own mind?"
The arrow flew. And in her fury, Jannali didn't dodge. She looked at it.
And the arrow stopped. It hung in the air, quivering, an arm's length from her face.
Paula's confident expression flickered.
Jannali stared at the arrow, then at the crack in the sky, then at the rippling water. A slow, dawning understanding cut through her anger. The reflective sea… it wasn't just water. It was her will. The stars weren't just stars; they were her focus.
She looked at Paula, and for the first time, she didn't see an invincible monster. She saw a guest. An unwelcome one.
"You're right," Jannali said, her voice steadying, her accent crisp and cutting in the silence. "This is my house."
She focused. The water around Paula's feet ceased to be liquid. It became thick, clinging tar. Paula looked down, startled, as it seized her ankles.
"Hey—!"
Jannali raised a hand. The stars above—the points of her focus and memory—began to move. They swirled, not randomly, but with purpose, forming constellations she knew from her tribe's stories: the Endless Serpent, the Spear Hunter, the Karmic Knot. They began to pulse with a gentle, irresistible light.
Paula roared, tearing one foot free with a mighty heave. She fired another arrow, then another. Jannali simply willed them to dissolve into harmless starlight before they reached her. She took a step forward, and the tar hardened further, climbing to Paula's knees.
"You don't get to make a mess here," Jannali said, her third eye blazing like a miniature galaxy. She clenched her fist.
The constellations above fired. Not arrows, but beams of pure, concentrated memory—the joy of her first hunt, the sorrow of leaving her island, the fierce love for her hidden tribe, the stubborn hope of a free tomorrow. They slammed into Paula Cupcake Pope not as physical blows, but as emotional truths, overwhelming the warrior's single-minded focus with the sheer, vibrant weight of a life lived.
Paula's emerald glow dimmed. Her extra arms retracted. Her trident fell from her grip, dissolving into mist before it hit the mental sea. She looked at Jannali, not with anger, but with a stunned, weary respect. "You… you really can hear it all, can't you?" she whispered.
Then, the mindscape shattered.
Jannali gasped, stumbling forward on the real, ash-covered ground of Kamaten. The sounds of battle rushed back in—the tolling bells, the roars, the chiku-taku of the gears. She was drenched in sweat, her head pounding, but she was standing.
Before her, Paula Cupcake Pope lay sprawled on her back, eyes closed, her pipe smoldering in the ash beside her. The emerald hue was gone from her skin; she was simply a formidable woman knocked unconscious.
"Strewth," Jannali panted, wiping her brow with a trembling hand. The victory felt less like a triumph and more like a survived avalanche.
A frantic, muffled humming drew her attention. Vesta! Atlas and Galit were straining against their chains, eyes fixed on her. Jelly Squish was still fumbling with his key-arms. "Sorry… bloop… too wobbly!"
"I got it, Jelly," Jannali said, her voice hoarse. She rushed to Paula's prone form, her fingers quickly finding a heavy ring of iron keys on the matriarch's belt. She yanked them free.
The first key she tried fit the lock and Vesta's gag. As the cloth fell away, Vesta drew in a huge, shuddering breath. "Your eye…" she rasped, staring at Jannali's now-closed forehead. "That was… insane."
"Later," Jannali said, already moving to the sea-stone manacles. "Let's get you mob out of here before the real party starts." She fitted a key into Galit's collar, the lock clicking open with a sound sweeter than any music. The fight was far from over, but for the first time since landing on this cursed grey cradle, hope felt like something more than just a word.
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