The vault door of Queen Ayana was a monstrous circle of engraved black iron, set into a sheer cliff of polished river stone within the fortress's deepest armory. The air here was still and cold, smelling of metal polish and old, dry wood.
A swirl of silvery-grey mist coalesced before it, reforming into Marya, boots hitting the stone floor without a sound. Dr. Zip H. Scatyl tumbled out of the vapor behind her, landing on his hands and knees with a choked gasp, his medical bag clattering beside him.
"Oh, I do dislike that mode of travel," he wheezed, his yellowish eyes wide.
Leaning against the wall beside the vault, one foot casually crossed over the other, was Archibald Winn Lima-Sabin. His multi-colored vest was a jarring splash of color in the dim light. His heavy spear, Shijito, rested in the crook of his folded arms. Two hulking Ogre guards, each sixty feet tall and clad in boiled leather armor, stood rigidly at attention by the door.
Archibald pushed off the wall with a theatrical sigh, unfolding his arms and spreading his own in a grand, welcoming gesture. "Brava! Welcome! I do appreciate you not keeping me waiting. And for being so… predictable." His smile was wide, showcasing his laugh-line scar.
Marya rolled her golden eyes, "You're blocking the door."
"What do you say," Archibald continued, cocking a hip and tapping Shijito's butt on the floor, "we cut this little escapade short? You return to your room, wait like a good little girl, and I won't have to get my clothes dirty." His tone was playful, but his dark eyes were as sharp and calculating as a chess master's.
Marya's lips twitched into a thin smirk. "That sounds terribly boring."
Archibald threw his head back and let out a booming, genuine laugh that echoed in the chamber. Marya glanced down at Dr. Scatyl, who was still on all fours, panting. "You may want to find someplace to hide," she said flatly.
The doctor didn't need telling twice. He nodded frantically, scrambled to his feet, and scurried behind a large, iron-bound storage trunk off to the side, peeking over the top with wide eyes.
Archibald chuckled, twirling Shijito in a smooth arc. "Sound advice! You know, I think I'm glad you escaped. Beats paperwork. Now I can kill some time—figuratively, maybe literally—until the Celestial Dragons arrive. They do so hate to be kept waiting."
In one fluid motion, Marya reached up and jerked the kogatana from its sheath around her neck. The short, sharp blade gleamed dully in the torchlight.
Archibald buckled over, pointing at the tiny dagger and laughing harder. "Oh, that's rich! What are you going to do with that? Give me a shave?"
Marya held the kogatana out in front of her, her stance relaxed but rooted, her golden gaze fixed on him with a calm intensity. A faint, side-eyed glance at the guards assessed their position. "Want to find out?"
Archibald's grin turned fierce. "Challenge accepted!"
He moved not with Ogre-like sluggishness, but with a shocking, darting speed. He crossed the space in a blur of crimson cloak, Shijito whistling through the air in a devastating horizontal bend aimed to cleave her in two. "I'll make this quick!"
Marya didn't retreat. She shifted her front foot a mere inch, pivoted her hips, and raised the kogatana. The movement was minimal, effortless. The edge of the tiny dagger met the thick, oncoming shaft of Shijito with a CRACK that split the air like thunder.
Archibald's grin vanished. A jarring vibration, as if he'd struck a mountain, shot up the spear and into his hands, numbing his fingers. He looked up, his eyes meeting Marya's bored, unimpressed expression.
His jaw flexed. "I will not be bested by some brat!" he roared, his voice losing its musicality.
He launched a furious onslaught: thrusts that could pierce stone, sweeping blows meant to crush, complex feints learned from a hundred battlefields. Marya flowed around each attack like mist around a rock. She leaned back, letting a spear-tip pass inches from her nose. She sidestepped a downward smash, the stone floor cratering where she'd stood. Her boots whispered on the flagstones, her movements a blend of serene dodges and microscopic parries with the kogatana that deflected impossible force with perfect timing.
"Stand still!" Archibald bellowed, frustration mounting.
"No," Marya replied, her voice flat and calm as she swayed under another wild swing.
She let out a small, weary sigh. "I'm in a bit of a hurry. If this is all you…"
The implication—that he was merely a delay—was the final spark. Enraged, Archibald leapt back. "Fine! Let's play with color!" In a flash, he drew Yajina, his wide-bore handgun, from his belt and fired.
The gun didn't roar; it thumped. It launched not a bullet, but a compressed ball of white powder. Marya twisted aside, but the ball struck the ground at her feet and exploded. Not with fire, but with an expanding, silent cloud of pure, fine chalk dust. It filled the vault chamber in an instant, a blinding, choking whiteout.
Marya vanished from sight. The two Ogre guards, following pre-set orders, gave gruff shouts and charged into the cloud, their massive clubs swinging at where she'd last been.
From within the cloud came Archibald's voice, echoing and directionless. "Can't dance if you can't see, little ghost!" The chalk wasn't just obscuring; it was his element. He could feel every particle. He dissolved into a swirling stream of chalk himself, reforming behind the vague shape of one of his own guards to deliver a crushing kick to the Ogre's back, sending the giant stumbling forward—a living projectile through the dust.
Marya wasn't idle. She closed her eyes. She didn't need to see. The air currents on her skin, the displacement of the chalk, the grunt of the Ogres, the faint, dry whisper of Archibald's particulate form shifting. She felt the battlefield.
As the first Ogre blundered past, she dropped low, her leg sweeping out in a crisp arc. Her boot connected with the back of the Ogre's knee with a sickening pop. The giant roared and crashed down. The second guard swung his club at the sound of his comrade's fall. Marya didn't rise. She pushed off the floor, sliding on the dust like a serpent, and drove her kogatana up and into the guard's inner thigh, where the leather armor gaped. He bellowed in pain, collapsing.
Archibald materialized above her, Shijito hardening from chalk to a glistening, black obsidian-point as he poured Armament Haki into it, driving it down like a piston. "Got you!"
Marya's body dissolved. The spear stabbed through empty mist that swirled around the weapon. The mist didn't retreat; it surged forward, up the spear, coalescing into Marya's form directly in front of a wide-eyed Archibald. Her hand, reformed and solid, was already swinging.
The pommel of her kogatana cracked against his temple. He staggered, the chalk-dust cloud flickering.
He snarled, rallying. "Heat!" he yelled, and the cloud around them grew hot and searingly dry. The moisture was ripped from the air, from Marya's lips, from the eyes of the groaning guards. It was a crippling, desiccating wave.
Marya gasped, feeling her skin tighten. This was his Logia's true power: a kiln. He became a vortex of drying heat, rushing at her, his body glowing with a fierce, parching light. "You're just a puddle waiting to evaporate!"
He was right. In this dry inferno, her mist would vanish. So she didn't use mist.
As he closed in, Marya didn't back away. She raised her left arm, the one laced with the inky black veins of Igutoshi's Void curse. The veins pulsed against the white light and heat. She didn't understand the power fully, but she knew its hunger. She met his charge not with evasion, but with a grasping, clawed hand that seized the front of his vibrant vest.
A different kind of cold erupted—not the chill of mist, but the nullifying, consuming cold of the Void. Where her cursed fingers touched, the brilliant, drying heat of his chalk-logia form didn't just cool; it was eaten. The light died. The heat vanished into a gnawing, silent nothingness that raced up his body.
Archibald's eyes bulged in genuine shock. "What is this?!"
His triumphant charge stalled, his power guttering out under the corrosive touch of the Void. In that heartbeat of stunned vulnerability, Marya struck.
Her right hand flashed. The kogatana wasn't aimed for his heart or his eyes. It was a flicker of pragmatic, final mercy. The flat of the blade connected with crushing force to the side of his neck, right over the carotid artery.
Archibald Winn Lima-Sabin's eyes rolled back. The heat vanished entirely. The remaining chalk dust in the air lost its cohesion and settled like a gentle, silent snow, coating everything in white. He crumpled to the floor in a heap of colorful silk and crimson cloak, out cold.
The chamber was silent, save for the pained groans of the two guards, who were in no shape to continue.
Marya took a deep, steadying breath, the normal damp air feeling sweet. She walked to the nearest conscious guard, knelt, and plucked the heavy iron key ring from his belt. She fitted the largest key into the vault door. With a grinding shriek of ancient mechanisms, the great black iron wheel turned, and the vault door swung open.
Inside, on a simple stone pedestal, lay Nisshoku. The obsidian blade was an obelisk in the dim light, its crimson runes a dormant glow. As her fingers wrapped around the grip, a deep, resonant hum vibrated up her arm, a sound felt in the bones more than heard. Igutoshi was pleased. She slid the blade into the sheath on her back, the familiar, terrible weight a comfort.
A shuffling sound came from the doorway. Dr. Zip H. Scatyl peered out from behind the trunk, his face pale. "Is… is it over?"
Marya didn't answer. She strode over, grabbed him firmly by the collar of his white coat, and ignored his startled "Zi-hi—oof!"
Together, they dissolved into a swirling stream of silvery-grey mist that flowed away from the chalk-smeared battlefield, past the fallen commander, and out into the dark, winding passages of Metz-Oni, leaving only settling dust and the blaring, unanswered alarms in their wake.
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