The endless white condensed, swirled, and resolved into a nightmare of noise and fire. The quiet was obliterated by a cacophony of screams, cannon blasts, and the grinding of stone. The air turned thick, acrid with the smells of salt, burning timber, and something coppery and hot. Marya stood, boots planted on shattered plaza flooring, in the middle of the War of the Best at Marineford.
Chaos erupted around her, yet she was a ghost in it. Marines and pirates clashed in a furious, blurring tapestry of violence. Before her, the scene unfolded with horrific, slow-motion clarity. Admiral Akainu, a figure of molten rage, pulled back a fist dripping with magma that hissed and spat, burning the very air. Firefist Ace, back turned, defiant and desperate, stood in its path.
Marya's golden eyes, always so observant, locked onto the moment. The molten fist thrust forward. It pierced clean through Ace's chest in a burst of steam and terrible, final light. A choked gasp, not her own, echoed in her ears. She watched, a stone statue amidst the storm, as Portgas D. Ace fell, and a young man with a straw hat—Luffy—scrambled forward, his face a mask of world-shattering despair. Jinbe lunged, a blue blur of desperate rescue.
"What the…" Marya breathed, the words lost in the war's roar.
A voice, warm and easy, cut through the din right beside her. "Hey, Marya."
She spun, her long black hair whipping around her shoulders. Leaning against a fractured chunk of wall that wasn't there a second before was a man in orange shorts, a cheerful hat tilted back on his head. Freckles dusted his smiling face, untouched by the soot and agony around them. He tipped his hat with a grin that was all reckless, brotherly affection.
"How's it going?"
Marya's brow furrowed deeply, her guarded nature slamming up walls against the impossible. "Ace."
"That's my little brother, Luffy," Ace said, nodding toward the heartbreaking scene, his own eyes following it with a soft, proud sadness. "You're gonna meet him soon."
Marya blinked, her analytical mind scrambling. "What are you…"
Ace cut her off, his grin fading into a seriousness that looked foreign on his usually lively features. "You have to stop him."
Marya cocked her head, a dry, incredulous scoff escaping her. "What?"
"He must be allowed to break the will of Mu," Ace said, as if it were obvious. His form began to soften at the edges, blending with the rising smoke and screams.
Marya pinched the bridge of her nose, the leather of her fingerless gloves cool against her skin. "What are you talking about?"
Ace's image grew faint, his voice echoing as if from a great distance. "Don't let him…"
The fire, the smoke, the screaming plaza—it all fractured like broken glass.
The pieces reassembled into a biting, silent cold. The roar of battle was replaced by the howl of a winter wind scouring a bleak, snow-dusted mountainside. The smell of blood and sea became the clean, sharp scent of pine and frost.
Marya stood ankle-deep in fresh powder, her combat boots leaving perfect impressions. Before her, under the skeletal branches of a lone tree, a drama of betrayal played out. A tall, blonde man in a feathered coat and ridiculous sunglasses—Donquixote Doflamingo—held a smoking pistol. A man in a black hat and spotted scarf lay sprawled in the red-stained snow, a gentle smile on his face. A small, furious boy with amber eyes was being shoved, crying out, into a large wooden trunk by the dying man.
Marya's eyes bulged. She knew this story. Law had told her fragments, in the quiet hours on the Polar Tang. The sacrifice. Corazon.
A plume of warm breath, smelling of tobacco, clouded the air next to her. "Hey."
She spun again. A lanky man leaned against the very tree the scene centered on, taking a long drag from a cigarette. His spotted scarf was tidy, his yellow feathers pristine. Donquixote Rosinante looked down at her with a tired, kind expression.
"Who are you—?" Marya started.
He didn't let her finish, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "You can't let Law wake Pluton."
Marya blinked, the barrage of cryptic commands from beyond the grave beginning to wear on her stoicism. "What?"
Rosinante blew out a slow, thoughtful plume of smoke that hung in the frozen air. "The sleeping giants must not wake."
"Who are you?" Marya demanded, her curiosity now fully engaged, slicing through her confusion.
He smirked, a genuine, warm thing that reached his eyes. "When you see Law, tell him I'm still smiling."
The name, the smile, the spotted scarf—it clicked. Law's hushed, reverent tone when he'd once spoken of the man who gave him a future. Marya's head snapped up, her golden eyes meeting his. "Donquixote Rosinante." Her gaze flicked down to the heart stitched on her own jacket, then back to him. "Corazon."
He nodded, pulling another drag from his cigarette. His eyes, crinkled at the corners, looked her up and down, and the smirk returned, softer now. "I see why he likes you."
Before she could process that—the implication, the gentle tease from a ghost—his image began to fade, dissolving into the swirling snowflakes. The last thing she saw was the glow of his cigarette ember, a tiny, warm star in the white cold, before it too winked out.
Marya was left alone in the silent, frozen clearing, the echoes of war and whispers clinging to her like the mist she could command. The warnings hung in the air, heavier than the mountain snow: Break the will of Mu. Don't wake the giants. They were pieces of a puzzle she didn't have the board for, delivered by ghosts who knew her path. She stood still, the cold finally seeping into her boots, her breath clouding the space where two men who changed the world had just stood, leaving her with a task only the living could complete.
Marya's eyes snapped open in the physical world, to the grim reality of captivity on Agashima. But on her brow, the scarab beetle symbol faded last, leaving behind the taste of iron and the deep, resonant hum of a lost kingdom and ghostly demands echoing in her bones.
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