The drive to the coast was a long one, the hum of the Urus's magical engine a steady, rumbling counterpoint to Cana's relentless, cheerful flirting. After driving on the road for two days, they reached the coast at the desolate, rocky cliffs of the southwest of Fiore.
"End of the road," Blake said, parking the massive vehicle in a hidden grove. "From here, we go the old way."
Once they reached there, Cana, now only slightly tipsy and surprisingly focused, pulled out a deck of her magical cards. She tapped the Urus. "Right. Arca Venia!" The vehicle shimmered and was stored inside a single, two-dimensional card, which she expertly shuffled back into her deck. They loaded their gear onto a small, seaworthy boat Blake had arranged.
Once on the boat, Cana uncorked a small flask of rum. "So... just wondering. If I weren't present, what would you have done with your car? You can't just leave a war-machine on a random beach."
Hearing that, Blake, who was unfurling the sail, gave a shrug. "I would have parked it in the nearest village, paid the mayor a storage fee, and would have taken the boat."
Cana whistled. "Right. Mr. Moneybags." She took a sip, then looked at him with a sly, sideways glance. The sea breeze was whipping her hair, and the post-kiss tension was thick and electric. "So... is this a date? Because, you know. It's just us. A boat. A mysterious, romantic destination. Sounds like a date to me."
Hearing that, Blake rolled his eyes, though a small smile touched his lips. "It's an S-Class inspection quest, Cana. To an island of spatial anomalies."
"So? You can't inspect anomalies on a date?" she teased.
He sighed, the wind catching the sail. "It might be, if you want it to be."
CANA.EXE stopped working. She had spent years taunting the unmovable object, and he had finally, casually, just... moved. Cana showed a surprised look on her face, which quickly melted into a wide, beautiful, and genuinely happy smile. She nodded vigorously. "Okay! It's a date!"
She spent the rest of the journey in a state of bliss, a complete one-eighty from her usual drunken chaos. She was helpful. She read the charts, she managed the ropes, and she didn't flirt once. She just... was. It was, Blake found, even more distracting.
After riding the boat for a day, they reached Shadow Island in the morning. It was a jagged, ugly black rock that seemed to drink the light. The air was heavy, and the sea was unnaturally calm. Once they reached there, they started moving to the location from the quest map.
The island was dead. No birds, no insects. Just the sound of their boots on the black, volcanic rock.
"This place gives me the creeps," Cana muttered, her good mood fading, her hand instinctively going to her cards.
"It's worse than that," Blake said, his Observation Haki on high alert. "The air is... thin. I feel...it. The source of the malevolence from the center."
When they reached there, in a high, secluded caldera, they saw it. It wasn't a cave or a temple. It was a tear in reality. It looked like a shimmering, vertical pool of liquid shadow, a wound in the fabric of the world.
"That's the spatial fluctuation," Blake said grimly. "We're supposed to inspect, not engage. I'm getting a bad feeling—"
"Blake, look!" Cana yelled. "The pull!"
But as soon as they reached near the rift, it pulsed. The "thin" air became a "hungry" air. The force of a hurricane erupted from the tear, pulling both of them inside it.
Blake was trying to fight the pull, but it was a spatial vacuum. He grabbed Cana's waist, pulling her into his chest.
"Hold on!"
They were sucked into the rift. The world dissolved into a screaming, chaotic vortex of light and shadow, and then, silence.
Blake and Cana landed hard on a floor of cold, polished obsidian.
"Ugh..." Cana groaned, disentangling herself from Blake. "Worst. Date. Ever."
They stood in a vast, dark chamber. A colossal obsidian door carved with screaming faces stood before them. Ghostly whispers swirled around, echoing in their minds.
"...this way, the key is this way..."
"...a false path, trust me... I know the secret..."
"...she will betray you, mage..."
"...he will leave you, card-master..."
"Shut up," Blake growled, his Conqueror's Haki flaring for a second, silencing the whispers around them.
Cana looked up at the riddle carved above:
"The tongue that speaks truth does not move."
Below it, three sigils glowed: a Moon, a Crown, and a Serpent.
"It's a puzzle," Cana said, her mind, surprisingly sharp after her day of sobriety, kicking into gear. "A test of... truth?"
"Let's try the Crown," a voice whispered in her ear. "You are a queen."
Cana flinched, then looked at the sigils. The Moon and Crown were shimmering, "chanting" with a faint, magical hum.
"The tongue that speaks truth... does not move," Blake murmured, his Haki analyzing the magic. "Cana. The Moon and the Crown. They're speaking magic. They're loud. But the Serpent..."
Cana looked. The Serpent sigil was silent. It was just... there. It was not moving. It was not chanting.
"That's it!" she said. "The Serpent! It's the only one not lying!"
She reached out and touched the Serpent sigil. The obsidian door ground open, revealing a dark, shifting hallway.
"Good work," Blake said, impressed.
"See?" Cana smirked, elbowing him. "You handle the punching. I'll handle the thinking."
The next level was a nightmare. Floating corridors suspended in void-like darkness. The floors rearranged with every few steps. Worse, time magic was thick in the air.
"Blake!" Cana shouted, pointing at his face. "You... you have a beard!"
Blake touched his chin. A thick, black stubble had instantly appeared. "And you..."
Cana looked at her hands. They were wrinkled, aged. "I'm old!"
Then the magic shifted, and they were children again, nine or ten, for a brief, disorienting second, before snapping back.
"This... this place is Veyra'kul's," Blake said, his eyes scanning the void. His Haki was going haywire. He sensed four elemental guardians. "It's a labyrinth."
"A riddle!" Cana said, running to a central dais.
"When the winds cease, the earth calms. When the fire fades, the waters sleep."
"An order," Blake said, already moving. "Air, then Earth, then Fire, then Water. Let's move."
The Air Elemental was a screaming tornado. Blake simply flew into it with Geppo, found its 'eye', and cut the magic binding it with an Anti-Magic slash. The winds ceased. As it died, the letters "Vey-" appeared in carved runes.
The Earth Golem rose. "My turn!" Cana yelled. She threw a card. "The Lovers: Bondage!" Magical chains erupted, binding the golem. Blake then shattered it with a single, Haki-infused punch. The runes "ra-" appeared.
The Fire Atronach was a being of pure plasma. "I hate fire," Blake muttered. He couldn't cut it, so he just... ran past it. "Cana, use your water card!"
"I don't have one!" Cana yelped. "Fine!"
Blake turned, coated his entire body in Armament Haki, and tackled the fire, his Anti-Magic aura snuffing it out like a candle, though it seared his cloak. The runes "kul" appeared.
"Vey... ra... kul," Blake said, putting it together. "Veyra'kul. That's the Lich's name."
The final Water Elemental was easily dissipated by Blake, who punched a hole through its magic source. The way forward opened.
The third level was disgusting. A chamber of molten rivers and iron cages. Beating hearts floated in the air, pulsing.
"I'm definitely not kissing you in here," Cana said, her face green.
Blake used his Observation Haki. "It's a machine. A combat puzzle. See the central crystal? The hearts are synced to it. We have to keep the three 'living hearts' beating in rhythm."
As he spoke, Flesh Golems and Blood Wraiths shambled into the room, their movements erratic. They started striking the hearts, trying to break the sync.
"More pests," Blake snarled. "I'll keep them off you. You focus on the rhythm!"
Blake was a black blur. He activated his Conqueror's Haki, the weaker undead freezing in their tracks. He moved with Soru, Tensa Zangetsu erasing the Golems in sprays of bone dust.
Cana focused. "It's... thump... thump... pause..." A Wraith flew past Blake, its claws aimed at the first heart. "Oh no you don't!" Cana threw a "Sleep" card, the Wraith falling unconscious in mid-air. "The rhythm is off! Blake, I need to hit all three hearts on the next beat!"
"Do it!"
Cana drew three cards. "Card Magic: Tri-Force Arrow!" She shot them, the cards striking all three hearts at the same moment, in perfect time.
The crystal pulsed, and the molten river solidified into a bridge. A new clue was etched into the stone.
"He bleeds not—find the one without a pulse."
"A tell," Blake noted. "Good. I hate guessing."
The fourth level was a cathedral-sized mirror hall. Hundreds of Veyra'kul illusions stood, all chanting, all looking real.
"Okay, this is a problem," Cana said, her head spinning.
"Not really," Blake said. He closed his eyes. His Observation Haki washed over the room.
"They're all fake... all of them... wait." His Haki, refined by years, wasn't just sensing power; it was sensing life. "They're all illusions, but one... one of them... it feels real. It has a magical core. Back, left, by the cracked mirror."
"Wait!" Cana said, her eyes on the reflections. "The clue! 'Seek the eyeless king!' Look at that one's reflection! Its reflection lacks eyes!"
They both pointed at the same illusion.
"You're getting good at this," Blake said.
"I'm a card reader. Symbolism is my specialty," Cana replied smugly.
"Right," Blake said. He didn't bother fighting the illusions. He used Soru and Geppo, zipping over the entire hall, ignoring the mind-control traps and magical blasts. He appeared in front of the real Veyra'kul illusion and swung Tensa Zangetsu, coated in Anti-Magic.
The lich didn't even have time to scream. It was erased. The hundreds of other illusions shattered like glass.
An echo whispered: "He hides where blood and mirror meet—seek the eyeless king."
"We know," Blake said to the empty room. "Let's go."
The final room. A throne room surrounded by undead soldiers. Ten copies of Veyra'kul sat on ten identical thrones. The arena was unstable, lava erupting one moment, ice the next.
"Pest control," Blake said, drawing his sword. "Cana, find the real boss."
Blake waded into the undead horde, his Anti-Magic blade a whirlwind of black destruction, erasing the skeletons faster than they could rise.
Cana stood on a raised platform, dodging the arena-shifts. "Okay, ten of them... 'He bleeds not'...'find the one without a pulse'..."
She pulled a card. "Card Magic: The Seeker." She held it up, her magic scanning the ten liches.
"That one!" she shouted, pointing. "The seventh one! It has no... 'life-force' pulse! The others are just... constructs!"
Blake, having cleared the horde, used Geppo to land in front of the seventh lich.
"Clever... clever..." the Veyra'kul hissed, its voice real.
Blake plunged Tensa Zangetsu straight through its chest.
The Veyra'kul laughed. "Did you really think it would be that easy?"
The corpse dissolved. And then... the labyrinth itself became his final form. The walls groaned, growing stony arms. The floor rippled. The voice of Veyra'kul echoed from every surface.
"I AM THE LABYRINTH! I AM VEYRA'KUL! YOU ARE TRAPPED INSIDE MY SOUL!"
"Oh, crap!" Cana yelled as a stone tentacle smashed where she'd been.
Blake looked around, his mind racing, putting the clues together. "Wait. 'He hides where blood and mirror meet.' 'Completing the cycle.' He's not just the dungeon... his soul is the dungeon. Which means his heart... "
"What?!" Cana yelled, dodging.
"His heart isn't here! It's at the beginning! We have to shatter the Heartstone hidden under the Gate of Whispers!"
"The beginning?! How do we get back?!"
"We make a new door," Blake said. He grabbed Cana, throwing her onto his back. "Hold on. And shield yourself!"
"FOOLS!" the labyrinth roared.
Blake didn't run. He blasted. He used Soru and his Advanced Armament Haki, smashing through the walls. He was a cannonball, punching holes through the Blood Furnace, shattering the Shifting Halls. He was a living meteor.
They burst back into the Gate of Whispers. The original door was sealed.
"The Serpent Sigil!" Blake roared. "Under it!"
He raised Tensa Zangetsu high, pouring every ounce of his power—Armament, Conqueror's, and Anti-Magic—into the blade.
"This date," he panted, "is over!"
He swung the blade down. "DIVINE DEPARTURE!"
He struck the floor. The obsidian shattered, and there, beneath it, was a pulsating, black Heartstone. The dungeon screamed—a real, psychic, agonizing sound.
Blake struck it again. The Heartstone cracked.
He struck it a third time, and the entire world shattered into white light.
Victory
Blake and Cana were thrown violently from the rift, landing hard on the black, volcanic rock of the Shadow Island. The rift behind them convulsed, shrank, and then snapped shut, leaving only silence.
They lay there for a long time, panting.
"Okay," Cana finally managed, her voice hoarse, her body covered in dust. "New rule. You pick the dinner spot. I pick the S-Class quests."
Blake just groaned.
On the ground between them, two items shimmered into existence: The Hourglass Heart, a small, swirling-sand-filled crystal, and The Crown of Null Light.
Blake picked them up, his mission finally, finally complete.
He looked at Cana, who was looking at him with a tired, exasperated, but deeply fond smile.
He sighed, a rare, genuine smile cracking his own face. He stood, his cloak in tatters, and offered her his hand.
"Come on. Let's go home. And for the record... I am definitely not paying for that date."
"Too bad," Cana said, taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet. "You already did."