The teahouse was a sanctuary of serene, almost mocking, calm. The distant fire on the east coast had been extinguished, but the rumours it had sparked now fueled the town's nervous energy. Whispers of Rorkaan's demise, of a new player in the game, of a ghost in a dark coat, slithered through the streets like snakes.
Madame Feng was waiting for him in the same private room, the koto silent, her hands resting in her lap. She looked like a patient spider, waiting for the next fly to blunder into her parlour.
"You are a man of... audacious results, Arima Koujiro," she said, her voice a cool, musical purr. "The leviathan is slain. Its pet has fled. And my former associate, Gash Crook, is now the captain of a smoking wreck. A most profitable evening, all things considered."
"A partnership requires honesty," Arima said, cutting through the pleasantries. He placed a heavy, lead-lined box on the table. It contained the remaining Sea Prism stones from Teach's cache. "This is my end of the deal. The Titan's Fist is yours to salvage. I want my ten percent. And the names of those buyers."
Feng's pale, grey eyes glittered as she looked at the box, a palpable wave of desire washing over her. "You have delivered beyond my expectations. The information will be sent to your ship. The salvage rights are already being processed. My man, Crook, is... persuading the former crew to sign over their claims. He is surprisingly efficient when properly motivated."
She slid a small, lacquered box across the table. "Twenty-seven million Berry. Your share of the convoy's prize, minus my finder's fee, of course. A significant sum for a man who was a castaway not so long ago."
Arima ignored the money. "Gash Crook is a problem waiting to happen. He's loyal only to himself."
"A loyal dog is a predictable dog," Feng countered, a small, knowing smile on her lips. "A treacherous one is a challenge. But even a treacherous dog knows when it is being watched. Crook will serve his purpose, for now. He is a useful, if unpleasant, tool."
She stood up, her movements fluid and graceful. "You have built your little kingdom on this island, Arima Koujiro. You have a ship, a crew, a master shipwright, and a secret knowledge that men would kill for. But this island is a puddle. The Grand Line is an ocean. You cannot stay here forever."
"Who said I was planning to?" he replied, a cold glint in his eyes.
"Then you will need a map," she said, her gaze dropping to the heavy box of Sea Prism stones. "The buyers for those... they are not on this island. They are in the Sabaody Archipelago. The lawless frontier where the world's scum and commerce converge. The perfect place to turn a pirate's treasure into a king's ransom." She slid a slip of paper across the table. On it was a name, a ship, and a dock number. 'The Coral Banker'. "A discreet financial institution that specialises in... difficult transactions. They are expecting you."
She glided towards the door, her part in the play complete. "Be careful, Yakuza. The monsters in the Grand Line are not like the brute Rorkaan. They are smarter. Faster. And they do not fight with honour. They fight to win."
He watched her go, a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air creeping down his spine. He left the teahouse, the lacquered box of heavy Berry coins a reassuring weight in his inventory, and walked back into the town. He was no longer just a survivor; he was a power player, with assets, enemies, and a clear, bloody path forward.
The days that followed were a blur of organised chaos. The island, without Rorkaan's brutal presence and the Collector's insidious network, was a vacuum, and Arima's crew was the most organised, ruthless force ready to fill it. Higgs, now effectively the harbormaster, ran the docks with a military precision, directing the flow of goods and extorting "protection" fees with a cold efficiency that would have made any Yakuza Oyabun proud. The Sea Serpent became the undisputed queen of the harbour, her black hull a constant, menacing reminder of the new order.
At the shipyard, a transformation was underway. Under the watchful, demanding eyes of both Silas and Higgs's men, the Queen Anne's Revenge was being reborn. The ancient galleon, once a skeleton of her former self, was now a hive of activity. New timbers, sourced from the island's forests, replaced the rotting ones. Kairi, no longer a terrified prisoner but a focused, intense artisan, became the heart of the operation. With the Wano Codex as her guide, she directed the work with a confidence that was breathtaking to behold. Her small, ink-stained fingers would trace the complex diagrams in the ancient book, then she would issue commands in a clear, authoritative voice that left the burly carpenters scrambling to obey. She and Silas would argue for hours, a clash of old-world experience and new, revolutionary knowledge, their voices a constant, passionate hum that was the true engine of the ship's rebirth.
Arima divided his own time between the shipyard and the Sea Serpent. He was a restless, brooding presence, his arm now a mess of tight, pink scars that ached in the damp sea air. The regeneration was powerful, but it wasn't perfect. It left reminders. He spent hours in his cabin, cleaning and maintaining the Sword of Triton, the dark blade a silent, malevolent companion. He also spent hours with the repeating crossbow, the weapon a perfect extension of the Yakuza's brutal, pragmatic philosophy. He practised until he could load and fire it in the dark, until the thud, thud, thud of the bolts was as familiar as his own heartbeat.
One evening, as the sun set, painting the shipyard in a fiery orange glow, he stood on the deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, watching Kairi and Silas work. They were examining a newly installed main mast, a massive spar of common wood that was, for now, a temporary measure.
"It's a travesty," Silas grumbled, kicking the mast with a scuffed boot. "This piece of pine will snap in a real Grand Line storm. We need the Adam Wood. Without it, this ship is just a pretty coffin."
"It's the best we can do with what we have," Kairi retorted, her hands on her hips, a smudge of grease on her cheek that gave her a fierce, almost defiant look. "The techniques from the Codex, they reinforce the structure, but they can't change the material's fundamental properties. The resonance... it's muted. Muffled."
Arima listened, a cold, calculating thought forming in his mind. He had the money. He had the contact. And he had a destination. Sabaody.
He left the shipyard and found Takeshi on the deck of the Sea Serpent, the swordsman engaged in his evening ritual of maintenance, the whetstone moving in a slow, rhythmic stroke over the katana's perfect edge.
"We're leaving," Arima said, without preamble.
Takeshi didn't look up, the rasp of the stone against steel a steady, meditative sound. "The ship is not finished."
"We're not leaving for good," Arima clarified, leaning against the rail, the setting sun a bloody smear on the horizon. "We're going on a supply run. A shopping trip. Sabaody."
The whetstone stopped. Takeshi looked up, his grey eyes as sharp as the blade he held. "Sabaody. Feng's web extends there. The buyers she mentioned. It is a nest of vipers, but also a market of infinite opportunity. It is the logical next step."
"It's the only step," Arima said, his gaze fixed on the distant, darkening sea. "I have the cash. I have the product. I'm going to turn one into the other, and then I'm going to buy the wood that will turn this hulk into a legend."
He pushed himself off the rail. "You'll be in command of the island while I'm gone. Higgs will handle the day-to-day, but you're the Oyabun. Your word is law. Anyone steps out of line, you handle it. Kairi and Silas keep working on the ship. The twins and Miller stay with you. I'm taking Rizzo and Lefty. And Stumps," he added, a grim afterthought.
"The navigator and the thugs," Takeshi stated, not a question. "A minimal crew for a dangerous voyage."
"A fast ship doesn't need a big crew," Arima countered. "The Sea Serpent is a wolf. We'll be in and out before anyone realises we were there. You'll have the Queen and the shipyard. The foundation of our territory. Hold it."
Takeshi gave a single, curt nod, the conversation over, the decision made. He resumed the rhythmic, meditative stroke of the whetstone, the sound a steady heartbeat in the quiet evening.
The next morning, the Sea Serpent prepared to sail. The atmosphere was a strange mix of grim determination and a burgeoning, dangerous confidence. This was no longer a desperate escape; it was an expedition. Higgs stood on the dock, a pillar of stoic professionalism, giving a crisp salute as Arima boarded. Silas and Kairi were watching from the skeleton of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the old shipwright with a proprietary scowl, the young shipwright with an unreadable, almost academic curiosity in her eyes.
Arima stood on the quarterdeck of the Sea Serpent, the wind whipping at his coat. He looked back at the island, the port town, the shipyard. It was a small kingdom, but it was his. A toehold in this strange, brutal world.
"Rizzo," he commanded, his voice a low growl that carried across the deck. "Set a course for the Sabaody Archipelago. Full sail."
The navigator, still a bundle of nerves but tempered by a new, hard-edged purpose, scrambled to obey. The Sea Serpent slipped her moorings and moved out of the harbour, a dark, predatory shape cutting through the morning mist, heading for the horizon, for the lawless frontier of the Grand Line. They were planning to cut straight through the calm belt to cut short their travel time. With the Sword of Triton ability, they can bypass the dead sea of the calm belt.
"We're at the Calm Belt now, Captain," Rizzo reported, his face pale as the sea turned into a flat, motionless mirror, the wind dying to an oppressive, suffocating stillness. The air was thick and heavy, and an unnerving silence descended upon the ship, broken only by the creak of the timbers and the frantic, slithering sounds of the Sea Kings moving in the depths below. A massive, shadowy shape passed beneath them, a leviathan of impossible size, its presence a silent, crushing weight.
Arima drew the Sword of Triton, the blade humming with a faint, dark energy. He placed the flat of the blade against the helm, a gesture that felt both absurd and strangely right. "Move," he commanded, not to Rizzo, but to the ship itself.
A strange, tingling energy flowed from the sword, through the wood of the helm, and into the very bones of the Sea Serpent. The ship shuddered, as if waking from a long sleep. The ropes began to move, untangling and coiling with a life of their own. The sails, hanging limp and useless in the dead air, suddenly filled with an unseen wind, snapping taut. The ship began to move, cutting through the unnaturally placid water with a purposeful, unnatural grace.
Lefty and Stumps, Gills Malone's thugs, stared with wide, terrified eyes, their faces pale with a mixture of awe and a superstitious dread that was far more profound than any fear of cannon fire. They were simple men, and this was magic, a power beyond their comprehension. They looked at Arima not as a captain, but as a sorcerer, a figure of terrifying, supernatural authority. Rizzo simply gripped the wheel, his knuckles white, his face a mask of intense concentration, trying to rationalise the impossible, to find a pattern, a system, in the madness.
Arima stood on the quarterdeck, the Sword of Triton a channel of power, a connection to the very soul of the ship. He could feel the Sea Serpent's response, a willing, eager obedience. He could feel the water sliding past her hull, the tension in the rigging, the subtle shifts of her timbers. He was not just steering the ship; he was being the ship. It was a heady, intoxicating power, a feeling of absolute control that appealed to the very core of his Yakuza nature.
The oppressive silence of the Calm Belt was broken by a sound that made the blood run cold. A low, guttural moan, followed by the sharp, explosive crack of wood. A Sea King, drawn by the unnatural movement of their ship, was rising from the depths. A colossal, serpentine head, larger than the Sea Serpent herself, broke the surface, its scales the colour of ancient jade, its eyes like two yellow, malevolent moons. It opened its mouth, a cavernous abyss lined with teeth like ivory daggers.
"Captain!" Rizzo screamed, his control shattering, the navigator's professionalism dissolving into primal terror. Lefty and Stumps simply gibbered, clawing at the deck, useless in their fear.
Arima didn't flinch. He held the connection with the Sword of Triton, focusing his will. He pushed the image, the feeling, of evasion, of a sharp, impossible turn, into the ship. The Sea Serpent responded instantly, pivoting on her axis with a grace that defied physics, the rudderless turn as smooth as a knife slicing through silk. The Sea King's jaws snapped shut on empty water, the force of its miss creating a wave that lifted their ship and slammed it down, the timbers groaning in protest.
"Rizzo, keep her steady!" Arima barked, the command a lash of sheer, unadulterated authority that cut through the navigator's panic. "Lefty, Stumps, to the swivel guns! If that thing gets close, you give it something to chew on!"
The thugs, jolted into action by the sheer force of his presence, scrambled to obey. They were not soldiers; they were street thugs, but the will to live was a powerful motivator. They manned the small swivel guns, their hands shaking as they loaded them.
The serpentine Sea King circled, its immense body cutting a furrow in the placid sea. It was intelligent, testing them, looking for a weakness.
Arima's mind, a Yakuza's mind conditioned to find pressure points and exploit weaknesses, seized on that information. He couldn't outrun it forever. The Calm Belt was its hunting ground. He had to fight it on his own terms. He maintained the connection with the Sword of Triton, forcing the ship to execute another impossible, hairpin turn, dodging another lunge. The manoeuvre was violent, the ship groaning in protest, the men thrown to the deck.
"Get the bow guns ready!" he yelled at Rizzo. "Not to fire. Just get them ready." He was manoeuvring, a matador trying to position the bull, searching for an opening.
The Sea King, frustrated by the elusive prey, reared back its massive head, preparing for a final, crushing dive. For a split second, its colossal yellow eye, a soft, unshielded target, was exposed and angled directly towards their bow.
"NOW!" Arima roared, putting every ounce of his will into the command, not just to his crew, but to the ship itself through the blade.
The Sea Serpent responded with a surge of unnatural speed, a burst of kinetic energy that shot the brigantine forward like a crossbow bolt. Rizzo, acting on pure instinct, screamed a command and the two forward-facing twelve-pounders roared. The timing was a work of violent, chaotic perfection.
The iron balls flew true, not as separate projectiles, but as a coordinated strike. The first shot struck the creature just below the eye, glancing off its tough hide with a shower of scales but diverting its attention for a critical fraction of a second. The second shot, fired a heartbeat later, slammed directly into the centre of the colossal yellow orb.
There was no grand explosion. Just a sickening, wet pop, like a melon being crushed by a sledgehammer. Dark, viscous fluid erupted from the shattered eye. The Sea King convulsed, a cataclysmic, involuntary spasm of pure agony. Its roar was no longer one of predatory fury, but of high-pitched, mind-shattering pain. Its massive body thrashed, the movement sending a mountainous wave towards the Sea Serpent.
"Hold on!" Arima barked, slamming the Sword of Triton into the deck housing, channelling every ounce of the ship's own resilience into the structure. The wave crashed over them, a wall of water that threatened to tear the ship apart. For a terrifying moment, they were submerged, the world a churning, dark chaos of timber and screams. Then, with a groaning shudder, the Sea Serpent broke the surface, battered but intact.
The Sea King, blind and maddened with pain, was no longer a hunter. It was a dying beast lashing out. It dove, its colossal, serpentine body slamming into the seabed, the impact creating a vortex that threatened to suck them down.
"Rizzo! Full sail! Get us out of this death spiral!" Arima commanded, his mind a cold, calculating engine of survival.
Rizzo, pale and trembling but holding onto a thread of professional duty, spun the wheel. The sails, animated by the Sword's will, filled with the same impossible wind, and the ship surged forward, climbing the wall of water created by the dying monster's convulsions. They crested the wave, teetering for a heart-stopping moment on the precipice, then slid down the other side, leaving the thrashing, dying leviathan behind them.
They sailed on, the wind returning with a sudden, welcomed rush as they left the oppressive stillness of the Calm Belt behind. The world snapped back into focus. The sun was a brilliant, unforgiving glare in a sky of pure, deep blue. The sea was alive, a vast, heaving expanse of possibility.
Arima leaned against the helm, the adrenaline leaving him drained and shaky. His arm, the one bitten by the jackal, throbbed with a deep, insistent pain, the regenerated tissue a tight, angry network of scars. He looked at his crew. Rizzo was gripping the wheel as if it were the only solid thing in a world gone mad. Lefty and Stumps were on their hands and knees, retching over the side, their faces ashen. They had survived. They had faced a monster and lived. The awe and terror in their eyes had been replaced by something new: a hard, dangerous loyalty, the kind forged in the crucible of shared, impossible survival. They were no longer just thugs; they were men who had sailed through hell with a sorcerer at the helm.
"You killed it," Rizzo breathed, the words a hoarse, reverent whisper. "You... you killed a Sea King."
"I killed an obstruction," Arima corrected, his voice a low growl that was rougher than usual. "Get us to Sabaody."
"Aye, Captain," Rizzo replied, a new, unshakeable conviction in his voice. He turned the ship towards the distant, shimmering horizon, the Sea Serpent moving with a newfound, almost sentient purpose, a loyal steed eager to please its master.
Days melted into one another, a monotonous expanse of blue sky and heaving, endless ocean. The routine of the ship became a strange, trancelike rhythm. Rizzo, with a navigator's obsessive focus, plotted their course assisted by the log pose, his constant muttering of bearings and drift angles a strange, soothing litany. Lefty and Stumps, their earlier terror sublimated into a frantic, hyperactive diligence, scrubbed the decks until the timbers shone and polished every piece of brass until it reflected the sun with a painful intensity. They worked with a desperate energy, as if by making the ship immaculate, they could impose order on the chaotic, terrifying world they now inhabited.
Arima spent the long, empty hours in a state of focused, introspective violence. On the open deck, under the vast, indifferent sky, he trained. He would draw the Sword of Triton and move through the stark, brutal forms of a Yakuza enforcer's kenjutsu, not the graceful, flowing katas of a samurai, but a series of direct, economical movements designed for one purpose: to end a confrontation with brutal, final efficiency. Each thrust, each parry, each cut was a statement, a reminder of the world he came from, a world of rules, respect, and ruthless consequence. He practised with the repeating crossbow until loading and firing it was a single, fluid motion, the thud of the bolts into a distant barrel a grim, percussive beat to the solitude.
The regeneration was a slow, maddening process. The deep punctures from the jackal's bite, now a constellation of puckered, angry scars on his forearm, ached with a dull, persistent fire, especially in the damp night air. The pain was a constant, grounding presence, a reminder of the cost of power, a map of every mistake etched into his flesh.
He rarely saw the others, content in his isolation. But in the dead of night, when the ship was a ghost sliding through a black sea under a ceiling of cold, distant stars, he would sometimes hear a faint, rustling sound from the lower deck. A small, dark shape, furtive and silent, would slip out of the galley. A cat. A small, sleek, black cat with eyes like polished obsidian. It would watch him from the shadows, a silent, unnerving observer, before vanishing as silently as it appeared. Now he remembered that he had left Sysara or Kuro in the inn before all of those events that happened in the last few days, he didn't think much about it until now, since she's been talking inside his head, but now she was in her cat form and managed to board the ship without his notice.
One evening, he sat on the deck, cleaning the Sword of Triton with a meticulous, almost reverential care. The black cat appeared, trotting towards him with a confident, un-cat-like purpose. It stopped a few feet away, sat down, and began to wash its face with a dainty paw.
"You're a long way from the inn," Arima said, not looking up from his work.
The cat, Kuro, finished its grooming and padded closer, rubbing its side against his leg, a low, rumbling purr vibrating through him. It was a strange, disconcerting intimacy, a gesture of domestic affection from an entity that was, by its own admission, a tool. He reached down and scratched the cat behind the ears, the fur softer than it looked. The purr intensified.
"He's less likely to piss himself in a crisis. That's good," Arima grunted. "What about the other two? The meatheads."
"Yakuza 101," Arima said, setting the now-gleaming sword aside. He flexed the muscles in his scarred forearm, the tight, puckered skin a dull, aching reminder of Rorkaan's pet. He pulled a small, flat flask from his coat and took a long swallow of the harsh, fiery rum. The burn was a welcome distraction.
A sudden, sharp change in the air caused him to look up. The quality of the light shifted, the clear blue of the sky taking on a hazy, opalescent quality. The sea changed, too, the deep blue turning into a churning, chaotic mix of colours, with strange, bubble-like formations rising to the surface. The wind picked up, no longer a steady breeze but a series of erratic, swirling gusts.
"Captain," Rizzo called out, his voice tight with a new kind of anxiety. "The log pose... it's going haywire. The needle is just... spinning."
Arima walked to the railing and looked over the side. The water was no longer water. It was a viscous, shimmering substance, like oil and rainbows mixed together. Strange, gelatinous creatures drifted past, pulsing with soft, internal lights. They had entered a different kind of sea.
"Resin," Lefty muttered, poking a cautious finger at the shimmering substance. "We're sailing in tree snot."
"Keep your eyes open," Arima commanded, his gaze sweeping the bizarre, alien landscape. A forest of massive, impossibly tall trees was rising from the 'sea', their colossal, interwoven roots forming the very landmasses of the archipelago. Bubbles, some large enough to hold a ship, drifted up from the depths, their surfaces shimmering like soap bubbles, carrying the scent of damp earth and chlorophyll. "This place is a maze. There's no telling what's hiding in it."
"Caution is for people who can afford to lose," Arima grunted, a grim smile on his face. He drew the Sword of Triton, the blade humming in his hand. He placed it against the helm, feeling the now-familiar tingle of the connection spreading through the ship. The ropes and sails responded to his will, navigating the viscous, unpredictable currents with an ease that defied the chaotic environment. He was not a sailor; he was a puppeteer, and the Sea Serpent was his eager, lethal marionette.
They navigated the twisting waterways for hours, the Yarukiman Mangrove a cathedral of twisted wood and strange light. The sun was a hazy, diffused glow, filtered through the dense canopy of the colossal trees. The silence was profound, a stark contrast to the constant roar of the open sea.
Then, they saw it. Looming ahead, like a cluster of massive, man-made flowers, were the islands of Sabaody. Each one was the top of one of the mangrove's colossal roots, a disk of land covered in a chaotic jumble of buildings, piers, and bustling, screaming crowds. The air was thick with the smells of cooking food, cheap perfume, sweat, and the faint, acrid tang of gunpowder. It was a city built on chaos, a monument to unbridled commerce and ambition.