"Mantis, go check if that man is still alive."
Wyper glanced at Shirogai, who lay on the cloud, and answered with fatigue in his voice, "If he is, bind him and take him back to the village, find out what he came for."
"Okay, and you should get that swelling on your hand looked after, your hand's a bit puffy."
Mantis rose and moved toward the figure on the cloud.
"Wait."
Wyper hesitated, then unclipped a small, irregular piece of iron from his shoe and tossed it to Mantis. "Tie it in his mouth, this will stop Devil Fruit users from using their powers."
Mantis turned the iron over in his hand and peered at it. "Is this Seastone? Can it stop Enel's godlike abilities too?"
"It will," Wyper said, nodding, regret in his tone. "We can only confiscate it from Blue Sea vessels, we cannot extract it ourselves. Otherwise, we could make special bullets from it."
Mantis looked at Shirogai, who lay still, and muttered, "Devil Fruit users are troublesome, they can be dangerous even without shells in battle."
He shoved the Seastone into Shirogai's mouth, then gagged him with a rag. With cold efficiency he fastened iron chains around Shirogai's hands and feet behind him, threading them onto a wooden pole. Braham and Raki lifted the pole from either side.
"Sanlie, good work!"
Wyper slapped his chest at the short Shandia warrior in approval. "Don't think your size stops you from being brave. You're a fierce Shandia warrior now."
"Yes!"
Sanlie gripped his short knife and puffed his chest with pride. He remained on guard while the others returned to the village to report. They told the women and children who had been preparing to flee that it was safe to stop running.
Calm returned to the Cloud Village.
Curious villagers lined the road, murmuring as the captured man was paraded past. "Oh, is he from the Blue Sea?"
"He doesn't look any different to us!" laughed a child, poking at Shirogai's face and tugging at his hair. In the crowd, Aisa frowned, studying the bound man.
"This Blue Sea man's aura, it looks like Uncle Klenya's aura?"
"Aisa! Aisa!" a small boy called, stretching a grubby hand toward Aisa. "I touched him, aren't you jealous?"
"Hmph. Who'd be jealous?" Aisa made a face and hurried toward the Great Chief's hut.
They reached the mud hut and the Shandia warriors announced themselves with pride. "Great Chief, we captured a Blue Sea intruder!"
Silence fell inside the hut. The mud flap opened and the Great Chief, wearing a wolf-head mask and leaning on his totem staff, came out slowly.
The Whitebeard elder looked at the bound man and asked calmly, "Is this the Blue Sea person you caught? Was the capture straightforward?"
"It is him," Wyper replied with disdain. "Just a Blue Sea man, I dealt with him on my own."
The warriors cheered, echoing Wyper's claim. They had chosen not to mention the Reject Dial Wyper had used; it was a forbidden weapon in the Great Chief's eyes, someone who had used it once lost an arm. Wyper's words sufficed.
The Great Chief sighed as he studied the motionless figure, then turned back toward his hut. "Set him down, Wyper. You come in, alone."
The warriors protested in astonishment. "Great Chief, he's an enemy! Letting him go will bring disaster!"
"Great Chief, what are you doing?" Wyper demanded, frowning.
A voice from inside the hut was dry and patient. "Look closely. Who did you actually capture?"
They looked again at the man on the pole and froze. The bound body was not the Blue Sea stranger they remembered; it was their tribesman, Klenya.
Klenya, eyes wide, thrashed at his chains, whimpering in confusion. "W-what did you put in my mouth?"
He spat the Seastone from his mouth, gagging and retching. "I don't know, I don't know how I fainted. When I woke, you had me tied to a pole."
Realization rippled through the Shandia warriors. "We were tricked," someone said, disbelief heavy in the words. "We must have tied up Klenya by mistake, where did the intruder go?"
Wyper's jaw tightened. "I will catch that bastard."
"Wyper, come inside, you will understand," the Great Chief called. Wyper swallowed his anger and entered.
Inside the hut, he froze. There, sitting calmly beside the Great Chief, was Shirogai. He lounged in the cloud chair with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"It's me," Shirogai said, the amusement in his voice thin as blade-steel. "Wyper, do not be angry. You wanted to dismember me to wash your shame, did you not? I simply happened to give you that chance."
"Go to hell!" Wyper lunged, dagger drawn, intending to cross the distance and stab through Shirogai's heart, to free the Great Chief.
Shirogai offered him a smile and nothing else, and the room chilled. A terrifying presence radiated from him, an aura so oppressive Wyper's breath hitched. He felt as if a monstrous force stood between him and the world.
"You cannot take half a step," Shirogai said softly.
Wyper's muscles froze. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his knees threatened to buckle. He had faced Enel before, yet this aura dwarfed that encounter; compared to this presence, Enel presence felt softer.
Wyper's face drained of color. He whispered, voice shaking, "Mon…ster…"
Shirogai sat motionless, but the danger in him was palpable and immediate. The message it sent was simple and absolute: move, and die.
Wyper's stance slackened, his will collapsing under that pressure. He could only look at Shirogai, five steps away, with terror in his eyes.
The Great Chief spoke then, voice level. "He is no ordinary Blue Sea man. Untie Klenya and listen."
Klenya's shaking hands fumbled at the chains, the confusion still raw. Around them the villagers watched, awed and afraid. Shirogai simply smiled at the turmoil he had caused, as if it were an amused ripple across a calm sea.
Outside the hut, the day continued as it always had, but within the circle of that hut a different kind of silence had settled, because everyone there understood that a new force had arrived on their island, and the calm they felt in Shirogai's presence was cold, inevitable, and not to be challenged.
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