Marya turned her gaze from the mountain.
The distant sounds of battle echoed across the vineyards—crashes of steel, shouts of warriors, the sharp crack of gunfire and the strange SHRRRRT of Ozul Crow's power. But that fight was not hers. Not yet. Her team knew what they were doing. Tori would sing. Ataboy would protect. Jannali would curse in that thick accent of hers and throw those boomerangs until someone learned to duck. They would plant the flag.
She trusted them.
The dock below had become something else entirely in the moments she'd looked away. Marines had closed in around their officers like a living wall of white coats and drawn blades. Sailors moved in formation, rifles raised, cutlasses gleaming. The air smelled of sweat and gunpowder and the salt of the Fermentation Current.
General Zahi Rukun stood beside her, his massive frame casting a shadow that swallowed the rooftop's edge. His clouded left eye glowed faintly jade-green as he watched the mountain. Then he looked at her.
"Well," he rumbled.
Marya glanced at him, then back at the dock. "Our people are engaged."
Zahi's scarred face shifted into something that might have been a smirk on anyone else. On him, it looked like a crack in a stone wall. "Not going to run after them?"
"No." Marya's voice stayed flat, her golden eyes tracking the movement below. "They don't need me to."
She could feel her team up there—Tori's melodic hum vibrating through the stone, Mani's heavy footsteps shaking the earth, Ataboy's laughter cutting through the chaos like a knife. They were fine. They were fighting. They would win.
Zahi turned his attention to the Vice Admirals gathered on the dock like vultures waiting for something to die. His smirk widened.
"It doesn't look like your little trap is going to work," he called down, his voice carrying across the harbor without effort. "You're going to have to deal with us yourselves."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"It was a terrible plan, by the way. Which one of you toddlers came up with it?"
Vice Admiral Casimir's jaw flexed so hard the muscles stood out like cords. His pale blue eye—the one that wasn't hidden beneath that Seastone-weave eyepatch—narrowed to a slit.
"You talk too much, exile," Casimir spat.
Zahi's clouded eye glowed brighter. "I assume you the toddler then. We all have our burdens."
---
The civilians came from everywhere.
They poured out of side streets and alleyways, flooded from the doorways of shuttered shops, emerged from the vineyards that climbed the slopes behind the dock. Old men with farming tools. Young women with kitchen knives. Children clutching rocks. They were not soldiers. They were not trained. But they had heard the King's speech, and they had made their choice.
Vice Admiral Auricha Uzumati noticed them first.
His massive frame turned, the eagle feather behind his ear moving in the wind. He held up one enormous hand, palm out, and his deep voice rolled across the dock like distant thunder.
"People of Kushi. Go home. This is not your fight." His warm brown eyes swept across the crowd, and for a moment, something like pain flickered across his scarred face. "It will not end well for you."
The crowd did not move.
Then an old woman stepped forward. Her back was bent, her hands gnarled from decades of tending grapevines. But her voice was strong when she shouted.
"THE DOCK IS OUR ROCK!"
The crowd roared back as one voice:
"GET OFF OUR BLOCK!"
Auricha's hand dropped. He touched the eagle feather behind his ear, a slow, sad gesture.
"Ancestors forgive me," he murmured.
The civilians charged.
Marines raised their rifles. Sailors braced their cutlasses. And the dock became a battlefield.
---
Admiral Ryokugyu had run out of patience.
His green-striped jacket billowed as he threw his arms wide, and something dark and ancient woke inside him. His skin turned to bark. His fingers became roots. His body swelled, cracking the wooden planks beneath his feet as he drove himself into the earth like a seed that had been waiting for this moment for a thousand years.
The dock groaned.
Pilings snapped. Boards splintered. The foundation shattered as Ryokugyu's roots punched through stone and wood and sand, spreading outward in every direction. Buildings along the waterfront shuddered, their walls cracking, their windows exploding outward in showers of glass. The ground heaved, and sailors stumbled, and somewhere a child screamed.
"You will all suffer for your treason!" Ryokugyu's voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing through the branches that now reached toward the sky. "I will turn this island into a garden of bones!"
Ember bounced on the balls of her feet, her neon-pink space buns wobbling. Her mismatched eyes—one icy blue, one gold—went wide with something that looked like Christmas morning.
"Oh," she breathed. "OH. It's play time."
She didn't wait. Didn't look back. Didn't say goodbye.
She leaped off the rooftop, her tattered black-and-crimson dress flapping, her boots already finding purchase on a falling beam. The Helltide slingshot was in her hands before she hit the ground, and she was firing before her feet touched anything solid.
Sparkler rounds tore into Ryokugyu's branches, exploding in bursts of blinding white light. Splinters flew. Sap bled from the wounds. But the Admiral's voice only laughed.
"Is that all you have, little firefly?"
Ember giggled. "Nope!"
She fired again. And again. And again.
Mani Lucheres hit the ground beside her, his boots cracking the splintered wood. Suley was already in motion, the massive axe carving through a branch thick as a man's torso. The limb crashed down, and Mani spun, sweeping the axe in a wide arc that cleared a circle around him.
"Good iron," he grunted.
Ryokugyu's roots reached for him. Mani didn't dodge. He planted his feet, dropped his center of gravity, and swung.
The axe bit into wood. The root split. And another one grew in its place.
Mani's eyes narrowed. "This is going to take a while."
---
Alejandro Fuego inhaled.
The air around him shimmered, heat rising from his red-black mane, his amber-yellow eyes glowing like embers. He would burn them all. He would turn this rooftop to ash, and then he would find Kuzan, and then—
Marya appeared in front of him.
No warning. No sound. Just a black-haired woman in a leather jacket, her golden eyes calm and empty, her sword already moving. Nisshoku's obsidian blade whistled toward his ribs, the crimson runes along its edge humming to life.
Alejandro moved.
His Haki-infused tonfa—Alchimia in his left hand, Fuegora in his right—came up in a cross-block that caught the killing blow. Steel screamed against steel. Sparks flew. The force of the impact drove him backward, his boots scraping grooves into the rooftop.
Marya straightened, watching him slide. Nisshoku rested against her shoulder. Her expression hadn't changed.
Alejandro stopped. His amber eyes blazed.
"Where is he?" he growled.
Marya raised one eyebrow. "Who?"
"KUZAN." The name tore out of Alejandro like a curse. "Where is that traitor?"
Marya blinked. Her golden eyes showed nothing—no recognition, no curiosity, no care. She looked at him the way someone might look at a fly buzzing against a window.
"I have no idea."
She lunged again.
---
Casimir saw Marya move, and something inside him snapped.
His body twisted, scales erupting across his skin, his bones reshaping with a sound like breaking glass. The Velociraptor came roaring out of the man, obsidian-black scales gleaming, sickle claws extending, that long muscular tail whipping behind him. He charged toward the rooftop, his voice a reptilian shriek.
"DRACULE MARYA!"
Zahi Rukun dropped.
The Jade Lion met the Gilded Raptor in mid-air, their bodies colliding with a sound like a mountain falling. Green vitriol clashed against obsidian scales. Claws raked against fur. The two of them crashed to the dock, shattering what remained of the planks, sending sailors scattering.
Casimir threw Zahi off, skidding backward on his raptor legs. The Jade Lion landed in a crouch, his mane of green energy crackling, his clouded eye blazing.
"Your fight is with me, lizard," Zahi growled.
Casimir's slit pupils contracted. "You are nothing. A footnote. I will kill you and then I will kill her."
Zahi's lips peeled back from his teeth. "Try."
They charged.
---
Auricha Uzumati had almost reached Ryokugyu's roots when the red blur hit him.
Atlas Acuta moved like lightning wrapped in fur, his rust-red coat bristling with Electro, his blue sapphire eyes glowing. The dual chui—Stormclaw and Thunderfang—swung toward Auricha's chest.
Auricha's tomahawks came up.
Mato's Claw caught Stormclaw. Nuniyan's Edge caught Thunderfang. The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, knocking Marines off their feet.
Atlas grinned, his sharp teeth white against his dark muzzle.
"Don't hold back on my account, old man."
Auricha's warm brown eyes hardened. His body began to swell, fur spreading across his shoulders, his jaw widening, his bones cracking as the Short-Faced Bear emerged. He grew to fourteen feet, his obsidian claws extending, his breath fogging in the air.
"That's more like it." Atlas cracked his knuckles, Electro dancing between his fingers. "I was worried I was going to get bored."
Auricha's voice dropped an octave, rumbling like stones grinding together.
"Don't worry, cub." He rolled his shoulders, the ritual scarification across his chest stretching. "I intend to put you to sleep."
Atlas's grin widened. "I'd like to see you try, old man."
They circled each other, predator and predator, and the air between them grew heavy with killing intent.
---
Ember blew up another branch.
The sparkler round detonated against Ryokugyu's wood, sending splinters flying, and she giggled as she vaulted over a root that tried to grab her ankle. Her space buns bounced. Her tattered dress flapped. She was having the time of her life.
Then the shadow moved.
Aloka materialized from nowhere—silver hair, obsidian skin, featureless white mask. Their hand shot toward Ember's throat, fingers extended for a Shigan strike.
Ember dropped.
She hit the ground, rolled, and came up firing. The sparkler round passed through where Aloka had been, but they were already gone, dissolved back into the shadows.
"Oh, we have more players!" Ember clapped her hands, delighted.
Aloka didn't reply. They never did. They simply appeared again, this time behind her, their Umbra Thorns already flying.
Ember squealed and threw herself sideways, the needles shredding her sleeve instead of her skin.
"That's rude!" she shouted, firing blindly. "I'm trying to have a conversation!"
Aloka tilted their head—a slow, curious gesture—and vanished again.
---
Vesta Lavana had found her rhythm.
Mikasi hummed in her hands, the living guitar vibrating with power, its strings glowing faintly as she played. The coyotes that danced around her were almost solid now—rainbow-colored, sharp-toothed, their eyes burning with mischief. She threw her head back, her rainbow hair streaming in the wind, and struck a chord that made the air itself shimmer.
Then the mirrors closed in.
Marcellus appeared at the edge of the rooftop, his kaleidoscope eyes shifting colors, his glass hair clinking like wind chimes. He raised one hand, and mirrors erupted from the ground around Vesta—tall, gleaming, endless.
Vesta blinked.
Her coyotes had multiplied. No—not multiplied. They were reflections. The mirrors showed her a dozen dancing coyotes, a dozen Vestas, a dozen Mikasis, and she couldn't tell which ones were real.
"Confused, little songbird?" Marcellus's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "Let me help you find your harmony."
Reflections of Marcellus stepped out of every mirror—smiling, laughing, their kaleidoscope eyes spinning. They attacked the coyotes, and the coyotes attacked back, and Vesta couldn't tell who was winning.
"Come on, Mikasi," she muttered, her fingers trembling on the strings. "Let's do this!"
The guitar hummed uncertainly.
---
THE ROOFTOP SNIPER
Cleo Grahisto didn't look up.
Her bronze eye stayed pressed to Sashito's scope, her breathing slow and even, her finger gentle on the trigger. She fired, and Ryokugyu's branch exploded. She cycled the bolt, fired again, and another branch shattered. But the Admiral grew them back just as fast, his forest spreading, his roots tearing the dock apart.
She kept firing.
The sound of boots on stone made her move.
Captain Beatrix Fern swung her backhoe—Trevor, the massive garden hoe—in a horizontal arc aimed at Cleo's ribs. Cleo dropped Sashito, caught it with her left hand, and used the rifle's stock to parry the blow. Steel clanged against steel.
Beatrix's emerald eyes narrowed behind her wide-brimmed straw hat. Her voice cool and professional. "Step away from the Admiral."
Cleo's bronze eyes didn't blink. "No."
She fired.
Beatrix sidestepped the bullet, brought Trevor around in a rising arc, and Cleo was already moving, Sashito spinning in her hands, the butt of the rifle swinging toward Beatrix's temple.
The Captain blocked with the hoe's haft.
"A sniper who fights close," Beatrix observed. "Unusual."
Cleo's expression didn't change. "An archaeologist who fights at all. Unfortunate."
They broke apart, circled each other, and the rooftop became their arena.
---
Smoke filled the dock. Blood soaked the planks. The civilians fought with farming tools and kitchen knives and rocks, and the Marines fought back with rifles and cutlasses and Rokushiki techniques. The old woman who had shouted the first chant now lay bleeding against a crate, but she was still shouting, still fighting, still refusing to fall.
Ember screamed with laughter as she chased shadows that weren't there.
Mani swung Suley until his arms burned, cutting roots that grew back faster than he could destroy them.
Marya's sword clashed against Alejandro's tonfa, and neither of them spoke, and neither of them yielded.
Zahi Rukun and Casimir tore into each other, Jade Lion against Gilded Raptor, their roars shaking the sky.
Atlas and Auricha circled like wolves, Electro crackling, claws gleaming, both waiting for the other to make the first mistake.
Vesta played her heart out, trying to find the real Marcellus among the mirrors.
Cleo fired and parried and fired again, Beatrix matching her shot for shot, blow for blow.
And Ryokugyu's forest grew.
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