The air at the base of the Grand Chrono-Anchor didn't just smell of sulfur and ash; it tasted of exhausted will. It was a cavernous space, open to the grey sky, built around the colossal, spiraling iron screw that plunged into the murky, acidic waters of the Unreflecting Lake—the Hitotsume's open, slumbering mouth. The chiku-taku of the surface gears was a distant whisper here, drowned out by a deeper, more terrible song: the groan of metal under impossible strain, the rasp of countless Ogre breaths, and the rhythmic, soul-deadening thud of bare feet on stone.
This was the heart of the machine. The Capstan Turn. Dozens of Silent Saviors, their faces gaunt and aged beyond their years, leaned their massive bodies into wooden spokes as thick as ancient trees. They pushed in a perpetual, mind-numbing circle, walking a trench worn deep into the volcanic rock by generations of their kin. With every labored step, the gigantic screw turned a fraction, its threads biting deeper into the dreaming flesh of Era, the Hitotsume, pinning the "Now" in place.
Roco Vultion, Juni Vexwell, and Maki Nazigai were islands of defiant consciousness in that sea of grim resignation. Their seastone shackles clanked with each shove, a bitter counterpoint to the rhythm. Roco pushed with a tiger's stubborn strength, his tiger-striped skin slick with sweat, his jaw set against the life-draining torque. Juni, even here, attempted a strut in his step, his flamboyant coat traded for a sweat-stained smock, his eyes calculating behind a mask of theatrical weariness. Maki pushed with a deep, maternal solidity, her lips moving in a silent hymn of endurance, her four horns dipping with each effort.
Overseeing this symphony of suffering was Dimitri Robben. "Deep-Freeze" stood on an observation platform of black iron, a frost-rimmed king on a glacial throne. He sipped from a chalice of iced tea, his polished horns and wide, shark-like grin a stark contrast to the grime and despair below. "Keep the rhythm, my frosty friends!" he boomed, his Shannon Sharpe-esque cadence echoing in the vast space. "A steady pace! Think of it as a long, slow victory lap for the fate of the world! Don't let your form get sloppy—the baby downstairs has a sensitive stomach!"
Then, a new stain appeared against the perpetual grey of the sky. From the direction of Sa-To-Shi, a thick, black plume of smoke began to billow, rising like an angry exclamation mark.
Dimitri's grin faltered. He straightened up, his frozen-yellow eyes narrowing. The transponder snail on his belt chirped to life, its face contorting into a mimicry of panic. A tinny voice, crackling with alarm, spat out: "—fire in the main kitchen! Structural breach in the dry goods storage! All available personnel not on critical Anchor duty, report to assist containment! Repeat, kitchen is—kzzzt—engulfed!"
Roco, Juni, and Maki didn't stop pushing. But their eyes met across the sweating, straining bodies between them. A single, lightning-fast exchange. No smiles, no nods. Just a hardening of resolve. The signal.
Dimitri leaned over the railing, shouting down. "You heard the snail! A minor culinary rebellion! Nothing to disrupt our beautiful, chilly momentum here! You keep pushing, I'll just—urk!" He was cut off as the snail chirped again with another, more frantic report about spreading flames.
In that moment of distraction, Roco acted.
He stepped away from his spoke with a grunt, not toward the exit, but deeper into the grinding circle. He marched up behind a large, dull-eyed Ogre from a different work gang, a stranger lost in the fog of exhaustion. Roco's fist, still sheathed in the faint, stubborn remnant of his "Black Stripe" Armament Haki, drew back and connected with the Ogre's jaw with a sound like a splitting rock.
CRACK.
The struck Ogre stumbled out of the line with a bellow of shock and pain, breaking the sacred, unbroken rhythm. The spoke he was leaning on jerked backward. The Ogre behind him, thrown off balance, crashed into the next one.
The perfect, grinding circle fractured.
A roar went up—not of revolution, but of immediate, confused conflict. The struck Ogre's friends turned on Roco. Shoves became swings. A bucket of drinking water was upended. The deep, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of labor stuttered, then died, replaced by the chaos of shouted curses and the meaty sound of fists on flesh. The great screw's constant groan rose in pitch, protesting the sudden uneven pressure.
"HEY!" Dimitri's voice cut through the din, all charming pretense gone, replaced by glacial authority. He vaulted over the railing, his 68-foot frame landing on the stone floor with a tremor. "Break it up, you overheated bolts! This is a finely tuned engine, not a barroom brawl!"
He took two long strides toward the burgeoning riot, his hands already chilling the air around them.
Then, from the other side of the capstan, a voice cried out, high and trembling with dramatic flair. "Oh! The light! It's too bright… the world is spinning… the audacity of it all!"
Juni Vexwell clasped a hand to his forehead, his other arm flung out as if beckoning a final curtain. He swayed magnificently, his eyes rolling back in his head. "I fear… the artistic burden… is too great…!" With an audible, sighing gasp that somehow carried over the noise, he collapsed in a carefully arranged heap of limbs, his head lolling away from the worst of the flying debris.
"Juni!" Maki's deep voice rang out, layered with genuine-sounding panic. She abandoned her spoke and lunged toward him, her heavy chains clattering. "Someone, help! It's the time-sickness! He's fading!" She knelt, cradling his head, throwing a look of sheer, imploring desperation toward Dimitri. "The drain—it's taken him! We need a medic!"
Dimitri skidded to a halt, his head whipping between the two crises. The small riot was spreading, threatening to destabilize the entire push-team. And now a potential casualty—a high-value, troublesome one at that—was down, which would look terrible on his brother's efficiency reports. His polished composure cracked. A vein throbbed in his temple.
"You've got to be kidding me!" he snarled, grabbing his transponder snail. His voice, usually so full of performative confidence, was tight with fraying control. "This is Deep-Freeze at the primary Capstan! I have a mechanical disturbance and a medical emergency! I need backup down here, now! Send Stanislav, send a medical team—just get someone here before this whole operation goes into the cooler!"
He barked into the snail, his back momentarily turned to the cunning, closed eyes of Juni Vexwell and the grim, satisfied set of Roco Vultion's jaw. The cradle was rocking. And high above, the spinning gears chattered just a little faster, as if sensing the fraying edges of the lullaby meant to keep Era asleep.
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