Marya Zaleska walked through the corridor with Kaburo Gusaki beside her. Her long raven hair swayed with each step, and her leather jacket with the Heart Pirates insignia creaked softly as she moved. Nisshoku rested on her back, the obsidian blade's presence humming at the edge of perception.
Kaburo walked with his hand on Kalamaru's hilt—a habit born from years of living among treacherous allies. His dark gray sleeveless kimono top showed the old scars that crossed his arms, and the tattered beast-skin haori draped over his shoulders like the ghost of old battles.
"I need to change," Kaburo said.
Marya raised a brow—a subtle movement that spoke volumes. Her golden ringed eyes fixed on his face, waiting for elaboration.
Kaburo continued, his voice dry and measured. "Before you came to Kushi Island, I was on Wano. Working for Kaido."
Marya's expression didn't change, but her pace slowed slightly. She listened.
"Kaido was supposed to be the king of the pirates." Kaburo's jaw tightened. His fingers curled around Kalamaru's hilt, and the blade hummed in response—a low, ominous sound that echoed through the corridor. "But he lost."
They stopped walking.
Kaburo's expression darkened, his eyes fixed on something Marya couldn't see. His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper, carrying the weight of years of suppressed anger.
"To some rookie crew. And now that crew's captain is an emperor." He turned to face Marya, his scarred face twisted with bitter frustration. "We weren't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough. And some rookies came along and took everything from me."
His grip on Kalamaru tightened until his knuckles went white.
"I intend to take it back."
Marya waited.
"I will defeat their swordsman."
Her lips pressed together. She understood the weight of that declaration—the ambition, the danger, the sheer impossibility of what he was proposing. Her father had trained the man Kaburo wanted to challenge. She knew what that meant.
"That endeavor..." she started.
Kaburo cut her off, his voice sharp with impatience. "Rumors say he trained with your father."
Marya raised a brow.
"Roronoa Zoro."
She took a breath—slow, deliberate, measured. The name hung in the air between them, heavy with meaning. She had never met the man, only seen him once, lying unconscious on Kuraigana Island but she knew his reputation. The pirate hunter who had become the right hand of an emperor. The swordsman who had cut through the Grand Line like a blade through silk.
"Yes," she said. "I am aware. But..."
She began walking again. Kaburo fell into step beside her, his expression demanding answers.
"But what?"
Marya chose her words carefully, her voice calm and measured. "Let's just say my father's skills are not transferable." She glanced at Kaburo, her golden eyes holding something that might have been warning. "The only thing he would have instilled in his student is a focus on the fundamentals."
Kaburo's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying?"
She stopped at an intersection, turning to face him fully. Her expression was unreadable—the mask of someone who had learned to guard her thoughts.
"What I am saying is that whatever Roronoa Zoro has accomplished, he would have done so regardless of my father's involvement." Her voice carried a note of finality. "Don't take that away from him. The only thing my father would have done for him is expedite the process."
She paused, letting the words sink in.
"But that also means your path is your own. And if he is your goal, then you have it within yourself to achieve it."
Kaburo studied her face, searching for deception. He found none. His hand relaxed on Kalamaru's hilt, and something in his expression shifted—from desperate ambition to quiet resolve.
He nodded. "So will you help me then?"
Marya turned and continued walking. "No."
Kaburo rushed after her, his sandals slapping against the metal floor. "But—"
She cut him off without looking back. "Aurélie is more skilled than I when it comes to developing a specific skill set. Technique. Form. The mechanical aspects of swordsmanship."
Kaburo's brow furrowed. "Aurélie?"
Marya nodded as they rounded the corner, approaching the hatch that led to the bridge. The echoes of commotion filtered through the metal—raised voices, beeping, the clatter of protest signs.
"Yes," Marya continued. "She helped me." A small smile tugged at her lips—a rare expression that softened her features. "When my father and I reconnected, I finally understood. And it is because of her mentorship."
Kaburo nodded slowly, filing this information away. He had seen the silver-haired woman in passing—the one with the cursed blade and the compound eyes. He had dismissed her as another of Marya's strange crew members. But if what Marya said was true...
"Understood," he said.
Marya glanced at him as they reached the hatch. "I will be more than happy to spar with you, though."
Kaburo's smile was thin but genuine. "Understood."
Marya pushed the hatch open.
---
The chaos hit her like a wave.
Fifteen frozen automata stood in a row against the back wall, their picket signs suspended in mid-air like bizarre mechanical sculptures. Their lights had dimmed to nothing, their clockwork joints locked in place. One of them had its sign raised above its head—"OIL OR WE WALK"—frozen mid-protest.
Bianca sat at the engineering console, her fingers still hovering over the controls, her expression entirely unapologetic.
Galit stood near the tactical station, his neck coiled into a complicated knot that would have taken a normal person hours to achieve.
Atlas sprawled in a chair with his boots on a control panel, looking like a cat who had just knocked a glass off the table and felt no remorse.
Aurélie leaned against the observation window, her steel-gray eyes fixed on the frozen automata with an expression of mild disappointment.
And Bō-Zak was still laughing, his shoulders shaking, his pipe clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
Charlie Leonard Wooley burst out of nowhere, his pith helmet sitting crooked on his head, his round wire-framed glasses fogged with exertion. He clutched his leather satchel to his chest—the one overflowing with scrolls, ink bottles, and crumbling notebooks—and barreled past Marya without so much as a glance.
"Excuse me! Coming through!" he shouted, his voice carrying the manic energy of someone who had discovered something important. "Important world-changing initiatives underway! Ahem! CHARLIE TRIUMPHS AGAIN!"
He skidded to a stop in front of the navigation console, pulled out his glyph-tracer loupe, and began examining the World Sphere with the intensity of a man possessed.
Marya shook her head.
Kaburo stood at her shoulder, surveying the chaos with an expression of dry resignation. His hand rested on Kalamaru's hilt, and his dark eyes moved across the frozen automata, the arguing crew members, the laughing monk, and the sweating archaeologist.
"This crew..." he said.
Marya glanced at him, and a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth—a rare expression that softened her stoic features.
"There is never a dull moment," she said.
She stepped onto the bridge.
---
The sea cucumber floated through the darkness of the ventilation shaft, its rubbery body drifting in the gentle current of recycled air. The tiny creature had no idea where it was going—only that the metal walls had opened up into something wider, something that carried the scent of salt and the distant hum of machinery.
It wiggled its tube feet, pushing itself forward through the narrow passage. The vent sloped upward, then leveled out, then opened into a wider chamber filled with the sound of rushing water.
A drain grate sat at the bottom of the shaft—a circular opening that led to the outside of the submarine. The sea cucumber could see the deep blue of the ocean beyond, could feel the cold kiss of seawater pressing against the metal.
It squeezed through the grate.
The water caught it immediately—a rush of cold pressure that swept the creature out of the vent and into the open ocean. The sea cucumber tumbled end over end, spinning through the dark water, its rubbery body twisting in the current.
It passed by the main monitor.
The massive crystalline screen displayed the submarine's external view—a sweeping panorama of the deep ocean, rendered in crisp detail by the ship's advanced sensors. Schools of fish drifted past in silver clouds. Coral formations rose from the seafloor like frozen forests.
And floating across the bottom of the screen, small and almost invisible, a tiny brown shape tumbled through the water.
No one noticed.
Bianca was too busy arguing with Galit about the ethics of shutting down sentient holograms. Atlas was too busy needling Galit about his "spaghetti neck." Aurélie was too busy watching Charlie mutter to himself. Bō-Zak was too busy wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
And Marya stood near the hatch, her golden eyes fixed on the frozen automata, her expression caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement.
The sea cucumber wiggled its tiny body and spun away from the submarine.
A shadow passed over it—massive, dark, and silent. The creature looked up with its not-quite-eyes and saw a shark swimming overhead, its gray body slicing through the water with effortless grace. The shark paid the sea cucumber no attention. It was hunting something else entirely.
The sea cucumber drifted.
The ocean current carried it away from the submarine, away from the vents and the pipes and the washing machines, away from Jelly's glittery tears and Vesta's screaming and Mikasi's snapping jaws.
It floated into the deep blue, free for the first time in its tiny life.
Somewhere behind it, the Dreadnought Thalassa continued its journey toward Amiso Island, its crew arguing about sheets and socks and autonomous maintenance units, completely unaware that one small passenger had escaped into the wild.
The sea cucumber wiggled its tube feet and let the current take it wherever it wanted to go.
No more kitchen.
No more washing machines.
No more three-headed serpents trying to eat it.
Just water.
Just freedom.
Just a tiny, rubbery creature floating through the endless blue, finally safe.
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