The boys' side was a loud, clashing mess of personalities as the fleet continued its blind ascent. The darkness was suffocating, but the voices of the students and pirates acted like a shield against the silence of the void.
"I can't see a single thing!" Luffy shouted, leaning so far over the railing that he was nearly horizontal. "Is this a mystery hole? Hey! Is there any mystery meat hiding in the dark?!"
"Shut up, you rubber idiot!" Bakugo barked, sparks popping in his palms as he glared into the blackness. "There's nothing out there but a bunch of pathetic fog! If something tries to creep up on us, I'm blowing this whole sky to hell!"
"Hah! That's the spirit, but your explosions are too small for this darkness!" A booming, gusty voice roared over the wind. Yoarashi Inasa stood tall, his massive frame radiating an intense, hot-blooded energy. "We need more passion to blow this gloom away! Whirlwind!" He threw his arms out, and a localized gust of wind swirled around the deck, though even his powerful winds seemed to be swallowed by the heavy air. "Inasa Yoarashi, here to blow a path to justice!"
Eustass Kid scoffed, his metallic arm humming with a jagged magnetic resonance. "Typical brats. You think you can just blast or blow away the dark? My metal is vibrating... there's a pull coming from somewhere deep in this void. It isn't just 'fog'."
"He's right," Coby added, his voice tight with focus. "My haki is tingling. It feels heavy... like the air is filled with a sadness that's been trapped here for centuries."
Smoker exhaled a twin stream of cigar smoke that vanished instantly into the abyss. "It's the land of gods. Or what's left of it. A graveyard in the sky designed to swallow anything that doesn't belong."
"A graveyard?" Tamaki Amajiki whispered, his face pale as he stared at the floor. "I want to go back... I don't like places where the light just dies like this."
"Buck up, Tamaki!" Mirio Togata laughed, flexing his biceps to chase away the gloom. "If it's dark, we'll just have to shine brighter! Right, Midoriya?"
Izuku Midoriya was writing so fast his pen was a blur, though he could barely see his own notebook. "The atmospheric density... it's like a vacuum of information. If the Lunarians lived here, how did they perceive the world?"
"Does it matter?" Zoro grunted, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "If it has a neck, I can cut it. If it doesn't, I'll just keep cutting until the light comes back."
"Spoken like a true moss-headed brute," Sanji exhaled, adjusting his tie. "Though I agree on one thing—this place is a mood killer. I can't even see the beautiful ladies from here."
"Focus, Black-leg," Trafalgar Law said coldly, leaning against the mast. "We're 10,000 meters up. If the lift fails or the void decides to collapse on us, we're all dead. It's a tactical nightmare."
Killer crossed his sickle blades with a sharp clink. "The rhythm of the ship is changing. We're moving toward something... or something is waiting for us."
Kawamatsu adjusted his large hat and chuckled. "Gappa-pa-pa! The water spirits are quiet here, but my blade is ready for any ghost of the red line!"
Sabo and Ace stood at the very front, Ace's fingertips glowing with a small flame. "It's weird," Sabo mused, his eyes narrowing at the dark. "Adventurer Academy has files on the red line, but a 'void' this thick wasn't in the reports. Something has changed."
"Maybe the world just decided to turn the lights off on us," Ace grinned, flames dancing on his knuckles. "Keep the fire up, Sabo."
Shoto Todoroki looked at his frost-covered hand. "The temperature is dropping. It's draining the heat from the ship itself."
Monoma let out a high-pitched, mocking laugh. "Let it come! I'll copy the void itself and rule the nothingness! I'll be the king of the dark!"
"You're just the king of the losers," Bakugo snapped back.
Karasu's crows fluttered nervously, their caws muffled. "The birds... they're blind. They can't find the wind."
The boys continued their loud, messy debate, their voices echoing into the empty black. On the other deck, the girls listened to the chaos, the noise providing a strange distraction from the secret they were all holding.
As the ship moves through the absolute silence of the summit.
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To be continued