The cavern walls pulsed with a sickly bioluminescence, the ancient tribal glyphs writhing under Marya's touch like live wires. "Only the Chained Dawn may pass," she translated, her Void veins casting jagged shadows across the warnings. The air reeked of brine and decay, thick enough to clot in their throats. Ahead loomed the coral archway, its twisted spires strung with chains of blackened seastone—a mockery of the Gates of Lethe from Elisabeta's sketches.
Jelly pressed a gelatinous hand to the stone, his glow dimming to a nervous flicker. "Rocky words… mean?"
"Death," Mihawk said flatly, Yoru already drawn.
"Bloop! Friendly death?"
The answer came as a crackle of splitting coral. Knights clad in barnacle-encrusted armor peeled from the walls, their movements jerky, as if puppeteered by the parasites squirming in their eye sockets. They chanted in guttural unison, voices like drowning men gasping for air: "The elements… unaligned… the key… unwoven…"
Marya's blade hummed, its crimson runes reflecting in Mihawk's golden eyes. "They're not here to negotiate."
The Oathbound surged forward. Mihawk's first slash cleaved three knights in half, their hollow armor clattering to the floor—empty. More rose in their place, coral regrowing over skeletal remains. Jelly yelped, inflating into a bouncy barrier as a knight's rusted broadsword grazed Marya's shoulder.
"No stabby-stabby!" he squealed, trapping the sword in his gelatin. "Bad metal puppy!"
Marya darted past him, Eclipse carving a path through the horde. Black ichor sprayed where her blade met coral, the Void veins on her arms drinking the darkness. "Chained Dawn," she muttered, parrying a strike. Mother's notes… the ritual requires alignment—
A tremor shook the cavern. The archway's chains snapped, and the sea itself seemed to inhale before he emerged: Cerberon, three heads erupting from a serpentine body armored in World Government steel. Each maw dripped venom that hissed where it struck stone—Arrogance, Deceit, Apathy, their eyes burning with stolen Haki.
"Ah," Mihawk said, a flicker of respect in his tone. "Finally."
The center head (Arrogance) lunged, its bite shearing a chunk from the sub's hull. Marya rolled, mist-form dissolving just as Deceit's tail slammed where she'd stood.
"Distract the left," she ordered, rematerializing atop Apathy's spiked crest. "I'll blind the right."
Mihawk's smirk was a blade's edge. "Bossy today."
He leapt, Yoru carving a crescent of Haki that forced Arrogance to recoil. Cerberon's Deceit head struck at Mihawk's flank, but Jelly cannonballed into its eye, giggling as venom sizzled harmlessly in his goo.
"Bloop-bloop! Spicy eye juice!"
Marya drove Eclipse into Apathy's skull, the Void's hunger surging as the blade drank the creature's malice. "You're a guard dog," she hissed, twisting the sword. "Nothing more."
Cerberon roared, thrashing. The cavern trembled, stalactites plunging like spears. One grazed Marya's thigh, but she barely flinched—Void-corrupted nerves had dulled pain to a distant itch.
Mihawk landed beside her, Yoru gleaming with Abyssal Haki. "The heads share a core. Cut through the base."
"You're enjoying this," she accused, dodging a venom spray.
"It's adequate exercise."
They moved in tandem—Mihawk's slashes a storm of precision, Marya's strikes surgical and cold. Jelly, now a giant rubbery net, entangled Deceit's jaws. "No chompy! Bad puppy!"
As Cerberon writhed, Marya spotted it: a pulsating core lodged where the necks converged, glowing with the same green parasites that animated the Oathbound. The key is a lie. The core is the lock.
"Now!" she shouted.
Mihawk's Conqueror's Haki flared, gold against the abyssal dark. Yoru's edge met Eclipse's void-black steel in a cross-strike that split the core—and the cavern—in two.
Cerberon's scream shook the ocean. The knights crumbled to dust, their chants dissolving into static. The archway's chains disintegrated, revealing a tunnel of spiraling water lit by drowned stars—the Primordial Current.
Jelly deflated into a puddle, panting. "Jelly… tired…"
Marya stared at the Current, her Void veins throbbing in time with its rhythm. The Chained Dawn. The bearer. Her mother's voice, unbidden: "You're the key. And the lock."
Mihawk wiped ichor from Yoru. "Regroup. The real fight's ahead."
She nodded, silent. But as they stepped into the Current, Jelly clinging to her boot, she glanced back. The Oathbound's dust swirled into a final glyph:
"Dawn Breaks Chains."
The Void laughed in her bones.
The Primordial Current roared around them, a maelstrom of drowned starlight and seafoam bile. Marya's Void-Mist coiled like a living thing, corrosive tendrils eating through the water as she struggled to stay afloat. The sea's hatred for Devil Fruit users clawed at her limbs, dragging her deeper. Above, the silhouette of a second Cerberon loomed—its three heads shrieking in dissonant harmony, each syllable warping the water into jagged ice.
"Impossible," she hissed, saltwater stinging her eyes. The first Cerberon's carcass lay mangled in the distance, parasites still writhing in its split core. Clones. The Oathbound's doing—
Mihawk's voice cut through the chaos, sharp as Yoru's edge. "Focus, girl!"
He surged past her, golden Haki flaring to deflect a torrent of venom. The second Cerberon's Deceit head snapped at him, but Mihawk pivoted, bisecting its left eye. Black ichor clouded the water. Marya forced her mist to thicken, the Void's corruption twisting it into a swirling abyss that dissolved everything it touched—including the Current itself.
"Stop—" Mihawk snarled, but it was too late. The Void-Mist met the cavern's Black Seastone walls, and the world shattered.
The explosion hurled them backward. Marya's ears rang as the sub—Jelly plastered to its hull—cartwheeled into the abyss like a drunk seagull. "Bloop-bloop-BYE!" his voice echoed, fading as the Current spat them into open ocean.
Mihawk grabbed Marya's collar, hauling her onto a jagged slab of floating coral. She coughed seawater, her Void veins seething under salt-crusted skin. The mist had destabilized into a toxic fog, devouring the remnants of the cavern and the Oathbound's glyphs. In the distance, Cerberon's clones circled, their roils churning the waves into froth.
"Your control," Mihawk bit out, "is lacking."
Marya wiped black-tinged blood from her nose. "Your feedback is redundant."
A shadow passed overhead—not Cerberon, but something older. A Titan-Sea King's skeletal tail breached the surface, barnacle-encrusted and longer than Marineford's walls. Its eye, a milky orb veined with bioluminescent algae, fixed on them.
Mihawk stood, Yoru humming. "Swim."
"I can't—"
"Then float." He dove into the water, Haki shearing through the Titan-Sea King's first strike. The creature's roar shook the ocean, sending shockwaves that cracked their coral raft.
Marya clung to the debris, her mind racing. The Void-Mist… it reacts to the Black Seastone. To Tartarus' energy. She pressed a palm to the water, pushing the last dregs of her power into the fog. It billowed outward, acidic and hungry, dissolving the Titan-Sea King's scales where it touched. The beast recoiled, giving Mihawk an opening to sever its spinal cord.
But the victory was brief. From the depths rose a dozen more Oathbound knights, coral armor glistening with fresh growth. Their chant reverberated through the water, warping the Current into a spiraling prison: "Elements… unaligned… bearers… unworthy…"
Mihawk hauled himself onto the raft, breath steady but his coat torn, blood mingling with seawater. "Plan."
Marya eyed the approaching horde. "The mist weakens them. Lure them in."
"And you?"
"I'll drown. Obviously."
His lip curled. "Dramatic."
The knights attacked in unison. Mihawk leapt to meet them, Yoru a blur of lethal grace. Marya focused on the Void-Mist, her veins burning as she forced it to coalesce into a shield. It corroded the first wave of knights to sludge, but the effort left her trembling. The sea's weight pressed harder, her vision spotting.
Weak. You're weak, the Void taunted. Let me in. Let me—
A hand gripped her wrist—Mihawk's, calloused and unyielding. He dragged her onto a larger debris cluster, his other hand still swinging Yoru. "Stay. Conscious."
"Not… trying… to faint," she spat, though the world tilted.
Jelly's voice suddenly bubbled up from below, his gelatinous form ballooning to the surface with the sub in tow. "Found stabby friends! Bloop!" He'd molded himself into a makeshift anchor, seaweed hair askew. "Jelly… sticky rescue!"
The sub—now more dented metal than vessel—listed dangerously, but it floated. Mihawk threw Marya aboard before severing the last knight's spine with a final, brutal strike.
As the Oathbound's remnants sank, the Void-Mist dissipated, leaving the ocean eerily calm. Marya lay on the deck, gasping, her Devil Fruit weakness ebbing as Jelly oozed over to pat her cheek.
"No drown-drown! Jelly's sticky hero!"
She batted him away, too exhausted to scold. Mihawk stood at the prow, scanning the horizon. The Titan-Sea King's carcass floated nearby, parasites already picking its bones clean.
"The Current shifted," he said. "We're near the Red Line."
Marya sat up, wincing. "Then Tartarus is close. The gate… it's here."
He glanced at her, golden eyes unreadable. "Rest. You're useless half-dead."
She smirked, though it lacked its usual edge. "Yeah, well… you lost your hat."
A beat. Then, grudgingly, he tossed her a canteen. "Drink. The Void's not done with you yet."
Jelly inflated into a wobbly hammock, singing off-key: "Stabby friends~ don't drown-drown~!"
As the sub drifted toward the Red Line's shadow, Marya closed her eyes. The Void's laughter had faded to a whisper, but the glyph's words echoed louder:
Dawn Breaks Chains.
The storm struck like a divine tantrum—sky bruising from indigo to black in seconds, waves heaving as if the ocean itself sought to vomit them into the abyss. The sub groaned, its hull buckling under the assault, mercury-laced seawater sloshing ankle-deep as Jelly frantically morphed into a wobbling plug for a ruptured pipe. "Bloop-bloop! Stabby boat leaky!"
Marya braced against the control panel, her Void veins flickering like faulty wiring. "Seal the vents!"
"We vented the vents!" Jelly wailed, stretching into a gelatinous tarp over a crack in the viewport. Rain slashed through gaps, stinging like needles.
Mihawk stood at the prow, Yoru sheathed but his Haki a live wire in the air. "Brace."
The wave hit.
The sub capsized, throwing Marya into a wall. Saltwater choked her lungs, the sea's curse leaching her strength as the Devil Fruit's weakness clamped down. She clawed for the surface, but the current dragged her deeper, the sub's corpse sinking like a stone. Above, lightning fractured the dark, silhouetting Mihawk's dive—a blade cutting through chaos. A shadow sliced through the bedlam—Mihawk's hand closed around her wrist, hauling her upward just as the storm's fury tore the sub from their grasp.
He seized her collar, hauling her upward. They breached just as the sub exploded, debris rocketing skyward. Jelly clung to a spinning propeller blade, screaming, "Wheeeee!" as it catapulted him into the storm's maw.
They breached into howling wind. The submarine—Jelly's azure form splayed across its hull like a startled octopus—pitched away on a rogue wave. "Stabby friends! Wait!" he squealed, his voice tinny over the gale as the vessel vanished into sheets of rain.
Marya gagged on saltwater, her muscles leaden. Mihawk dragged her onto a splintered hatch cover, his breathing steady despite the maelstrom. "Alive?"
"Regrettably," she rasped, squinting at the blackened horizon. Lightning lanced the sky, revealing the Red Line's jagged silhouette—and the storm's true prey. A whirlpool churned at the continent's base, its throat swallowing ships and seabirds alike. "Jelly—!" Marya croaked.
"Focus," Mihawk snarled, dragging her onto a fragment of random hull plating. The sea roiled, waves vaulting higher than Marineford's execution platform.
Jelly's voice echoed faintly through the gale, his gelatinous body now a fluorescent flag tied to the sub's mangled rudder. "Stabby friends! Float-y Jelly incoming—" A rogue wave swallowed him whole.
Marya gripped the plating, her knuckles white. "We need—"
"Quiet." Mihawk's gaze locked on the horizon, where the storm's eye swirled like a gyre into hell. "The Current's pulling us toward the Red Line. Hold on."
Another wave detonated against them, splintering the plating. Marya plunged under, the sea's hatred pressing her deeper. Shadows writhed below—not sharks, but Oathbound knights rising from the depths, coral swords gleaming.
Mihawk's Haki flared, a golden burst that vaporized the nearest knight. He seized Marya's wrist, kicking toward a floating crate. She gagged, her vision spotting, the Void's whisper a venomous curl in her ear: Drown, little key. Let me in.
They breached again. The crate—painted with World Government insignia—bobbed like a cork. Mihawk shoved her onto it before decapitating a knight whose blade grazed his shoulder. "Breathe. Now."
Marya spat seawater, her Void veins seething. "Jelly's gone. The sub's gone. Your plan?"
"Adapt." He parried a coral spear, his coat plastered to his frame, blood mixing with rain. "The storm's not natural. Tartarus is close."
Lightning lanced the sky, illuminating the Red Line's sheer face ahead—and the colossal whirlpool churning at its base. Sucking the sea into a throat of froth and broken ships.
Marya's laugh was razor-thin. "Of course. The gate's mouth."
A knight lunged from the waves, rusted gauntlet snagging her ankle. She drove Eclipse into its helm, but two more replaced it. Mihawk bisected them mid-leap, his breath steady, relentless.
"Climb!" He hauled her onto a drifting mast, its sails shredded to spectral rags. "The whirlpool's the path in."
"Suicide," she hissed, but clung as the mast bucked toward the vortex.
Mihawk yanked Marya, his grip on her arm tightened—a father's reflex, fleeting and fierce. "Not today." He pivoted, using Yoru's flat to deflect debris—a barrel, a snapped mast—as the current dragged them away from the maelstrom. The storm's wrath turned its ire elsewhere, leaving them adrift in sudden, eerie calm as the water fell still.
The sea sighed, spent and sullen, as Mihawk dragged Marya onto the crescent-shaped beach. Sand clung to her Void veins like ash, the grains shimmering faintly with embedded bioluminescent algae that pulsed in time with her ragged breaths. The island ahead loomed like a petrified giant—tiered temples swallowed by serpentine roots, their sandstone spires clawing at a sky bruised purple by retreating storm clouds.
Two small figures darted from the tree line, their shadows elongated in the eerie glow of the beach.
"Look, Kiri! Drifters!" A girl, no older than ten, skidded to a halt, her bare feet kicking up iridescent sand. She wore a tunic stitched from repurposed sails, her hair braided with luminescent fungi that cast a soft blue halo around her freckled face. Beside her, a boy clutched a wooden sword carved with crude Lunarian sun symbols.
"Are you pirates?" the boy demanded, poking Mihawk's boot with his sword. "Where's your ship? Did the Sea Devourer eat it?"
Marya rolled onto her knees, seawater sluicing from her coat. The Void veins beneath her sleeves writhed, reacting to the island's energy—a low, resonant hum in the air, like a struck gong. "Children," she muttered, more to herself than Mihawk. "Just great."
The girl crouched, tilting her head. "You're all… crackly. Like the old statues in the jungle when the moon's angry."
Mihawk rose, Yoru still strapped to his back, his gaze sweeping the treeline. "Is there a village here?"
"Haven of the Eclipse!" The boy jabbed his sword northward, where bioluminescent mangroves curved like rib bones around a hidden bay. "But you gotta pay a toll! Captain Veyla's rules!"
"Toll?" Mihawk's voice could've frozen the tide.
The girl grinned, missing a tooth. "A story! Nobody gets to Haven without telling how they survived the Phantom Straits!"
Marya staggered upright, her legs trembling not from fatigue, but from the island's oppressive aura. The sand beneath her boots hissed, Black Seastone dust reacting to her Devil Fruit presence. "We're not here to entertain—"
"You're hurt," the girl interrupted, pointing to Marya's arm. The Void veins there pulsed angrily, tendrils of shadow creeping toward her fingertips. "Old Man Nara says cracks like that mean you've been dancing with Tartarus ghosts."
Mihawk's hand twitched toward Yoru. "Enough. Take us to the village. Now."
The children exchanged a look, then burst into giggles. "Grumpy and cracked!" The boy twirled his sword. "Follow us, then! But don't step on the singing stones—they bite!"
They darted into the mangroves, their fungal braids leaving faint trails of light. Mihawk gripped Marya's elbow, his touch impersonal but firm. "Can you walk?"
She shook him off. "I don't need a nursemaid."
The path twisted through a gorge of petrified trees, their branches frozen in mid-sway, leaves turned to stone. Bioluminescent sap oozed from cracks in the rock, pooling in grooves that formed Ancient Kingdom numerals—coordinates, Marya realized, or warnings.
"Hurry!" The girl called from ahead. "The tide's turning!"
A low groan reverberated through the gorge. The sap rivers suddenly reversed flow, slithering backward like retreating serpents. The mangrove channels shifted, water draining to reveal a submerged archway crusted with coral and World Government iron.
"Eclipse Gate," Marya breathed, recognizing the design from Elisabeta's sketches. "It's a prototype… a failed Tartarus seal—"
"Move," Mihawk snapped, shoving her forward as the tide rushed back in.
They broke into a clearing where stilted huts perched above tidal flats, rope bridges swaying in the salt-tinged wind. The air reeked of smoked fish and molten seastone. A trio of fish-man blacksmiths paused their work, eyes narrowing at the strangers.
"Found 'em, Captain!" the boy shouted toward a tavern built from a gutted Marine galleon.
A woman emerged, her Marine coat bleached by sun and defiance. Captain Veyla's left eye was a milky orb, but her right gleamed with sharp curiosity. "Mihawk Dracule. And… your shadow." She nodded at Marya. "The Eclipse Trials have foretold your coming."
Marya's Void veins flared. "Trials?"
Veyla smiled, gesturing to the central temple where a Poneglyph's edge peeked through vines. "The island tests those who seek its secrets. But first—" She tossed Mihawk a flask of glowing rum. "—you'll need this. The moss here… whispers."
The girl tugged Marya's sleeve, her earlier bravado softened. "Your cracks… they're like the stone guardians. Did you… did you see the Maw?"
Before Marya could answer, a tremor shook the ground. The mangroves parted, and a Three-Eyed Tribe elder stepped into the clearing, his third eye lidless and glowing.
"The Veil of Ginnungagap thins," he intoned, staring at Marya's arm. "You carry Tartarus' key. And its curse."
Mihawk's hand settled on Yoru's hilt. "Speak plainly, elder."
The third eye blinked. "The Eclipse Gate stirs. What you seek here will either seal the Void—or unleash it."
Marya met his gaze, her voice steel. "I've dealt with worse."
The girl whispered, awed, "Are you a god-killer?"
"No," Marya said, striding past her toward the temple. "Just a woman with a blade."
Behind her, Mihawk's shadow stretched long and sharp across the singing stones, a silent promise to the island's ghosts: Whatever stirs—we'll cut it down.