Marcus was the first to make it back down to the pier, leading a confused group of islanders back up the hill to where everything had gone down.
By the time Luffy and the rest of the crew arrived, the fight was long over.
The islanders who'd come along stopped in their tracks when they saw the aftermath. The hilltop looked like it had been hit by a natural disaster.
Chunks of stone were scattered everywhere. Trees had been knocked over. And right through the middle of it all was a massive slash mark carved into the ground, deep enough that you could see layers of rock beneath the soil.
The young men who'd attacked the Straw Hats earlier went pale. Cold sweat started dripping down their foreheads. They'd actually tried to fight these people who could do this to solid stone.
If the Straw Hats had been serious back then, they'd all be dead right now. No question.
One of them swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes off the destruction.
The old woman stood frozen, staring at the scene.
As the former shrine maiden, she knew exactly how dangerous the Shichiseiken was. She'd spent her entire life learning to contain, seal, control it.
But now she couldn't find the cursed sword anywhere. Her eyes swept across the battlefield again and again, searching for any sign of that familiar purple-black energy.
Nothing.
"Where is it?"
Before she could search further, Maya, the current shrine maiden, burst out from the crowd and ran toward Saga.
"Saga! Saga!" She dropped to her knees beside him, shaking his shoulders frantically.
Zoro, who'd been standing guard over his fallen comrade, looked at the suddenly appearing woman with slight confusion. Then his expression shifted.
"Relax," he said. "He's not dead."
Maya's panic faded as she noticed Saga's steady breathing and strong heartbeat. Her shoulders sagged, and she lowered her head in embarrassment. "Sorry..."
Zoro waved it off with a small smile. "This guy's always been popular with girls."
Maya's face turned bright red.
The old woman pushed past them and started examining Saga's body, turning him over and checking for injuries. Her hands were shaking slightly.
"Grandmother?" Maya asked.
"The Shichiseiken, where is it?"
That's when Maya realized what was missing. She looked around the battlefield, but the cursed sword was nowhere to be seen.
Zoro noticed their panic but said nothing. He wasn't about to reveal Marcus' abilities to strangers, especially not when it came to something as dangerous as that sword.
Marcus walked over to stand beside the old woman. "You still need that thing?"
The old woman was silent for a long moment.
"It is our sacred duty. If the Shichiseiken is allowed to disappear completely, when the blood moon rises tonight, the seal will break. The curse will be released, and this island will drown in blood."
Marcus looked at her, and couldn't help smiling. "Then you've got nothing to worry about. I destroyed it, completely."
"That's impossible!"
Her eyes went wide, and she took a step toward him.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Why impossible? It's just a sword. Sure, it was hard and sharp, but at the end of the day, it's still just metal."
The old woman steadied herself, taking a deep breath. "I'm not joking. The Shichiseiken cannot be destroyed through normal means. Even if only a fragment remains, it will slowly regenerate over time. Please, you must return it to me so it can be properly sealed."
Marcus met her gaze directly. "I'm a Devil Fruit user."
He pulled out a shovel and dug a small hole in the ground. Then he produced a bucket and poured lava into the pit, the orange-red liquid bubbling and hissing as it filled the space.
He picked up a rock and tossed it into the lava. It disappeared instantly, consumed by the heat.
"That's how the Shichiseiken disappeared. No fragments left."
The old woman stared at the lava pit.
"That can't be... the Shichiseiken can't just..."
Her breathing was coming fast now, almost hyperventilating.
Maya stepped forward and placed a hand on her grandmother's arm. "That's enough. If it's gone... maybe that's for the best."
"You don't understand!" The old woman spun toward her granddaughter. "The Shichiseiken can't simply disappear! It—"
She cut herself off mid-sentence, as if realizing she was about to reveal something she shouldn't.
Maya's expression grew complicated. As the current shrine maiden, she'd inherited very little actual knowledge about the sword. There were secrets that her grandmother had never shared. The full truth would only be revealed during the century ritual.
She'd never been particularly curious before. The duty was simple: seal the sword when it awakened, maintain the shrine, protect the island. Generation after generation had done the same.
But seeing her grandmother's reaction now made it clear that the Shichiseiken's importance went far deeper than she had ever realized.
The old woman gradually calmed down, though her hands were still trembling slightly. She looked at Marcus, clearly understanding that she'd been played. She'd revealed too much in her panic, and now this stranger knew the sword was more important than a simple cursed weapon.
With a long sigh, she turned and started walking toward the shrine at the top of the hill. "Maya, you should come. There are things you need to know."
She'd only called for Maya, but Marcus naturally followed anyway.
The rest of the crew exchanged glances. Luffy immediately started walking after them. And once he moved, everyone else followed.
The islanders who'd come up the hill hesitated, looking at each other. Should they try to stop the pirates from entering the sacred shrine?
But then they remembered the massive slash mark, and decided that stopping these people would probably end with them dead.
So they stayed behind.
The Straw Hats climbed the rest of the way up to a stone altar built into the hillside. Under the old woman's hands, hidden mechanisms clicked and shifted, and a stairway opened up in the center of the altar, descending into darkness.
When she turned around and saw the entire crew following, she looked briefly annoyed but didn't protest. These people had already proven they could do whatever they wanted. Trying to stop them now would be pointless.
She led the way down in silence.
Robin paused at the entrance, running her hand across a ruined mural carved into the rock behind the altar. This was where she'd used her Devil Fruit powers earlier to scout ahead, and where that mysterious slash had nearly killed her.
"Robin?" Nami called back, noticing her friend had stopped.
"I'm coming."
The group descended the stone stairs. The air grew cooler and damper as they went deeper underground. After what felt like several minutes, they reached the bottom.
A single beam of light shone down from above through a narrow shaft, illuminating a stone coffin in the center of the chamber.
Inside lay a skeleton, surprisingly well-preserved despite obviously being centuries old.
"What is this?" Usopp asked.
The old woman walked over to stand beside the coffin. "She was once the Queen of the Asuka Kingdom."
"She?" Marcus blinked in surprise. "A woman ruled that kingdom?"
The old woman ignored his comment and continued her story.
"The Shichiseiken was once her personal blade, known then as the Guardian Sword of the Kingdom. It was forged to protect the royal line and the people of Asuka."
She paused, placing one hand on the edge of the coffin.
"But during the Great War, she was defeated. The enemy forces slaughtered everyone in the kingdom. Men, women, children... They showed no mercy. With her last strength, she managed to protect a handful of survivors and lead them away from the burning capital. But she was mortally wounded. She died here, on this island, far from her home."
"Later, those survivors returned to this place and built the shrine to honor her memory. They thought that would be the end of it. But something went wrong. Perhaps it was her lingering will, unable to accept defeat. Or perhaps it was the resentment of all those innocent souls who'd been slaughtered. Either way, the Guardian Sword changed. The Shichiseiken became a cursed blade."
The old woman finished her explanation, leaving the entire group with the same thought: That's it?
Usopp blinked. "That's the whole story? Shouldn't there be more? Like, way more? Epic battles, betrayals, dramatic last stands?"
The old woman turned to look at him, but her gaze eventually settled on Marcus instead.
"Tonight is the blood moon. It's when the Shichiseiken's seal weakens. If you truly wish to understand the sword's history... place it here. It still has a mission to fulfill. That ancient war... it's not over yet."
Robin spoke up before anyone else could respond. "According to what you've told us, the Asuka Kingdom existed over a thousand years ago, before even the Void Century, correct?"
She'd been reading the ancient text carved into the murals around the chamber while the old woman talked, and the stories matched up... mostly. But there were differences.
The carvings told of a queen who freed slaves. Countless inscriptions praised her achievements and kindness. But nowhere in the murals was there any mention of a war.
The only thing that stood out was a final prayer, a wish for her return.
"Before the Void Century?!" Nami's eyes went wide. "But the World Government was only founded eight hundred years ago!"
The timeline was making everyone's heads spin.
Marcus was studying the murals with a thoughtful expression. He'd read enough One Piece theories online to have some idea of what might be going on here.
According to those theories, the One Piece world had gone through multiple cycles of civilization, essentially different "worlds" rising and falling.
The First World had been the age before Devil Fruits existed, when humanity was still primitive. Then came contact with beings from beyond, whether aliens or something else. They'd made a deal: humans would mine resources, and in exchange, they'd receive advanced technology.
That had led to a slave society where people worked themselves to death extracting materials in exchange for scraps of knowledge. As technology advanced but society remained stratified, the system became increasingly unstable.
Eventually, the oppressed had begun to pray for salvation, for someone who could free them from slavery.
And their prayers had been answered.
The first Devil Fruit had been born from those desperate wishes, the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika, the Warrior of Liberation, the Sun God.
That was supposedly the origin of all Devil Fruits: objects born from humanity's deepest desires made manifest.
The Second World had ended because of something called the Mother Flame, or more accurately, to advanced technology that gave its wielders godlike power. The original twenty kingdoms, ancestors of the Celestial Dragons, had united to claim that power and rule the world.
But then the Nika Fruit had appeared again, carried by someone willing to lead a rebellion against the new order.
Joy Boy had failed in that rebellion, leading to the creation of the World Government and the erasure of the Void Century from history.
Now they were living in the Third World.
And the story of the Shichiseiken seemed to date back to that First World, to a queen who'd tried to lead her people from a slave society into something better.
She'd failed. Or been defeated by those with superior technology.
The others were still confused, and honestly, he wasn't sure how much of this theory was actually true versus just internet speculation.
The old woman looked shocked when she heard Robin could read the ancient text. "You can understand the writing on these walls?"
Robin nodded. "Most of it praises the queen's virtues and accomplishments. But like I said, there's no mention of any war."
The old woman sighed. "Of course not. The queen saved women and children when she fled the capital. How would they have known the details of that war? Or what was truly being fought over?" She looked directly at Marcus. "But if you place the Shichiseiken in the coffin, you'll understand everything."
She was clearly certain he still had the sword.
Marcus shrugged helplessly and pulled the Shichiseiken from his inventory.
The sword appeared in his hands, but this time it was strangely calm. None of the violent cursed energy from before. That was... unexpected.
The old woman visibly relaxed when she saw the blade intact. "Thank god it's still whole."
"I've got a question," Marcus said. "Why did this thing go berserk the moment it sensed me? Before I showed up, Zoro and Saga were having a perfectly normal conversation. Then I arrive and suddenly the sword breaks its own seal and goes full murder mode. What's that about?"
It had been bothering him. The Shichiseiken's reaction to his presence had been extreme, like it personally hated him.
The old woman gave him an odd look but didn't answer. Instead, she took the sword from his hands and carefully placed it on top of the skeleton's chest.
"It's time."
She looked up at the narrow shaft of light coming from above. As they watched, the sunlight faded away completely, replaced by crimson moonlight.
The blood moon had risen.
The Shichiseiken began glowing with a blue aura. Under that ghostly light, something started happening.
The skeleton in the coffin began growing flesh. Muscles formed over bones, and skin covered these muscles. Black hair sprouted and grew. Her face took shape.
When the transformation finished, a woman over two meters tall lay in the coffin, looking as alive as anyone in the chamber.
"What the hell?!"
Everyone stared in shock. A pile of centuries-old bones had just turned into a living person right before their eyes.
"She's been revived?" Marcus' eyes widened.
Chopper pressed his hooves against the edge of the coffin. "How is this possible? The cellular degradation alone should make this impossible!"
"It's not resurrection," the old woman said calmly. "It's an illusion. But if you wish to see what she saw, to understand the truth... reach out and touch the image. You'll experience everything."
She gestured to Maya, who stepped forward nervously. This was apparently something every shrine maiden had to go through.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He reached out toward the woman, and his hand passed right through her.
The image recoiled violently, as if his presence disgusted it, actively avoiding his touch.
"What the..."
Meanwhile, the others were having no trouble at all. Luffy, Zoro, Nami... one by one they touched the image, and their eyes immediately glazed over, turning violet as they fell into some kind of trance.
Marcus pulled his hand back and stared at it. Then he tried again. Same result, the image flinched away from him like he was covered in acid.
"Oh, come on! Are you seriously discriminating against me right now?" He looked at the old woman in frustration. "Why can't I touch it?"
The old woman looked surprised. "You weren't accepted?"
"Accepted? What does that even mean? Why am I the only one who can't—"
He tried one more time, attempting to catch the image off-guard. It dodged him again.
"Screw this."
If the illusion wouldn't let him touch it, he'd go straight to the source.
Marcus reached for the Shichiseiken.
"Wait, don't!" The old woman lunged forward, but she was too slow.
Too late.
Marcus' fingers closed around the sword's hilt.
The cursed energy hit him, pouring into his body. For a split second, he felt the sword trying to overwhelm his mind.
Then everything went white.
When his vision cleared, he was no longer in the underground chamber.