Chapter 534: Pluton Surfaces
The earth shook without stopping.
Zunesha circled the length of Wano's borders, smashing through the encircling walls section by section until not one stone remained standing. The inland sea had nearly finished draining, leaving behind only waterlogged earth and scattered pools of standing water. Scattered among the silt and mud, the exposed ruins of ancient structures began to emerge from their long burial.
"Are those Wano's buildings from eight hundred years ago?"
Yamato had sharp eyes. As Brett carried the group across the sky above, she spotted them immediately - structures half-drowned in mud, their shapes still recognizable despite the centuries.
"Eight hundred years ago, Wano had no encircling walls," Brett said, "and no inland sea elevated above the ocean. It was an ordinary island - people lived on wide, flat plains that stretched to the coast."
"But then the walls went up and everything was cut off from the outside world," Yamato said.
Brett nodded. "And all of it was done to hide something. Sealing the country was never about protecting the people. It was about making sure what was buried here was never found."
"Something that needed this much concealment?" Kawamatsu looked genuinely stunned. "What could possibly be worth all this?"
Brett didn't hesitate. "It's Joy Boy's gift to whoever came after. A weapon built to change the world."
"One of the three ancient weapons. Pluton."
The Wano retainers were their allies now. There was no reason left to keep this from them.
"Pluton?"
Dogstorm and Cat Viper went pale.
They'd spent their lives on Zunesha's back, far from most of the world's affairs, but they knew what Pluton meant. Every sailor who had spent enough time on the sea did.
A weapon out of legend. One said to be capable of destroying the world.
"Pluton? What's that?"
The people who had grown up on Wano's soil were less informed. Ashura Doji, Kawamatsu, and Denjiro all looked equally blank. Even Yamato had only a vague idea.
Wano had begun opening up since the Beasts Pirates' occupation ended, but the country's isolation had left lasting gaps. The global propaganda war between Brett and the World Government had captivated the entire world's attention - except Wano, which had remained apart from all of it.
"Think of it as a weapon capable of destroying an entire country in a single shot," Dogstorm said, keeping the explanation short. Then he turned to Brett with wide eyes. "Brett, it's truly here? Buried under Wano?"
"Most likely the real reason Kaido was so determined to hold this country," Brett said. "And it's something I need. Without Pluton, we cannot win the war we're heading into."
Dogstorm and Cat Viper exchanged a look. The weight of the word "war" had just grown considerably heavier.
"The old man wanted this weapon too?" Yamato let out a short laugh. "Now I really want to see it."
"You won't have to wait long."
Zunesha had nearly finished his work. The last sections of the outer walls were collapsing around the country's perimeter.
But that wasn't all. Once the walls were down, Zunesha plunged his trunk into the water, drew an enormous breath, and began to spray it across the mudflats and exposed land below. The force of it washed the silt away in broad sweeping waves, and the terrain of the old Wano - the one that had existed before the sealing - began to emerge from underneath.
One-stop service.
Without Zunesha's help, the people of Wano would have spent years clearing the mud on their own.
"It's completely unrecognizable!"
Looking down from above, Yamato couldn't hold back a shout of wonder.
What she could see now, with everything exposed, was that the land Wano's people had been living on was only a fraction of the island's actual surface - terraced fields cut into the flanks of the central mountains, cramped and limited. The true land of Wano was far larger. Wide plains stretched from those central heights all the way to the new coastline. Wano finally had a proper shore.
"The rest I'll leave to Zunesha. I'm going to retrieve Pluton."
"Wait, Brett." Yamato looked at him curiously. "You know where it's buried?"
"Of course."
He was already gone, a streak of lightning diving toward the earth.
He had touched it with his own hands once before.
Pluton lay in a chamber of magma deep beneath Flower Capital - a place Brett had reached once already, back when he was considerably less capable. The current version of himself would have no difficulty.
Joy Boy's original plan had presumably involved Zunesha draining the lava and extracting Pluton once Wano opened. Brett saw no reason for that level of complication.
First, he needed to locate it precisely. Even from the coast, his Observation Haki reached easily to the enormous presence buried in the depths. The pulse of power coming from below was unmistakable.
Position confirmed. Now he needed a way in.
He made one himself. In dragon hybrid form, Brett wrapped his body in a sheath of flame and drove headfirst into the earth. Soil and rock melted and parted before him - he bored downward at an angle, carving a wide passage as he went.
He reached the magma chamber faster than expected. The underground space was enormous - a vast lake of churning lava, lit from within. He followed the direction his Haki pointed him and crossed to the right location.
He stopped. Looked down.
Pluton was directly beneath his feet.
Brett steadied himself, exhaled slowly, and released his flame clouds downward. The shining tendrils of cloud spread through the magma lake, found purchase, and pulled.
The lava churned violently. Something vast and dark shifted in the depths below.
It rose slowly at first, then faster as more of it cleared the molten rock. Burning magma cascaded off it in sheets as it emerged.
It was a ship.
A black metal warship, enormous beyond any scale Brett had imagined from description alone. Eight hundred years submerged in magma, and not one scratch. Not one sign of corrosion.
The gun barrels jutting from its sides were dense and heavy and looked every bit as ferocious as they had the day they were forged.
This was Pluton.
Brett felt the corners of his mouth pull upward.
He could feel the power thrumming through it just from the sound of the metal settling. The sound of something that had waited a very long time.
Now. The only question was how to get it out of here.