Those familiar faces—Hody Jones, Vander Decken, Manboshi, Dosun, Zeo, Daruma, Ikaros, Hammond—one after another drifted toward the ocean's depths as if in a trance.
No matter how loudly people shouted at them, they would only glance back once, never stopping their advance.
Their forms floated upward in the seawater like banners caught in the current, or like a dense school of fish, before swimming toward the faraway seas and vanishing completely from sight.
The horrifying sight left both those within and outside the Dry Zone utterly silent.
No one knew how to even put their feelings into words.
Some were on the verge of screaming, just to vent the suffocating dread building inside them.
Never had anyone imagined that death itself could lead to such a nightmarish fate.
Madam Shyarly was once again stunned into silence—she had lost count of how many times it had happened today.
From the corner of her eye, she glanced at the others and noticed their expressions mirrored her own: confusion, shock, disbelief.
It seemed clear that there were things Captain Davy Jones had not told even his own crew.
Clack, clack, clack—
She heard unhurried footsteps approaching from behind. Turning her head, she saw the face that until now had only ever appeared in newspapers and wanted posters emerge from the shadows.
The "Deep-Sea King of Hell/Undersea Hades"—Davy Jones.
He drew on his pipe, wisps of smoke venting from the hollow tentacles on the left side of his face.
His crew snapped to attention, all turning to face him.
Jones spoke to them in a calm, simple tone:
"Without my guidance, the souls of the dead can only wander before the Gate at the 'End of the World.' They become drowned wraiths of those waters—drifting endlessly through the sea, never knowing peace or rest."
A chill ran through the crew and through Madam Shyarly alike.
Crocodile's mind stirred. He tossed aside the crimson trident still skewering Hody's severed head and asked:
"By 'End of the World,' do you mean the end of the Grand Line?"
Buggy jolted, whipping his head around in alarm.
"Raftel?!"
"No," Jones replied, his words both unexpected and strangely fitting.
"If you mean the place Roger reached, then no. The Gate to the afterlife lies beneath Hachinosu—Pirate Island. But it is sealed shut. The dead who reach it cannot pass through."
Crocodile froze for a moment.
He recalled that Hachinosu was once the stronghold of the Rocks Pirates.
After Rocks' fall, the island came under the control of his remnants—now ruled by Wang Zhi, a pirate of immense power.
Though Wang Zhi was no "Emperor," he was still one of the New World's most ruthless figures.
Crocodile smirked inwardly. So it's only a matter of time before Jones extends his dominion to Hachinosu. He committed that thought to memory.
Jones, meanwhile, had noticed an unfamiliar figure among his crew: the upper body of a woman, but below the waist, a full, voluptuous blue mermaid tail.
He immediately guessed she hailed from Fish-Man Island.
These merfolk, though, were not the same as the ones from his own memories.
At the very least, these did not crave human flesh.
>"Who are you?" Jones asked curiously. "And why are you here?"
Kuro stepped forward, removing the bladed "cat claws" from his hands.
"Captain, this is Madam Shyarly, a mermaid from Fish-Man Island. Before he died, Vander Decken claimed she had foretold our arrival."
"Prophecy?" Jones turned his gaze on her, thoughtful.
Madam Shyarly bowed respectfully to him before straightening her posture.
She had intended to fob Kuro off with the same evasive answers as before—but the sight of Hody and Vander Decken's wandering, masterless souls had rattled her to the core.
She dared not risk provoking such a terrible fate.
"Captain Davy Jones, sir," she said.
Her mind was made up: better to expose her own secret now than to let someone else drag it into the open.
Especially since Hatchan was here—he would give her away regardless.
"I am Shyarly, Arlong's half-sister. And yes, as your crewman said, I do indeed have the ability to foresee fragments of the future."
Kuro, Alvida, and Buggy all froze at the name "Arlong," then looked shocked.
Hatchan, however, simply nodded—it was natural to him, nothing strange.
As for Jones, he barely remembered the name of the fish-man he had slain over half a year ago.
It was only after Alvida leaned close and whispered a reminder in his ear that he recalled.
"So then, by rights, I ought to be your mortal enemy?"
Jones' gray-blue eyes lingered on the portion of her face left visible beneath her hood and bangs.
Madam Shyarly bit her lip before replying:
"I knew long ago what fate awaited Arlong. Back when he sailed with Fisher Tiger in the Sun Pirates, he still knew how to restrain himself.
But after the Sun Pirates disbanded, he grew deceitful, violent, extreme. Hody and the others were all molded by his example.
I tried to dissuade him many times—Jinbe did too—but he wouldn't listen. He lashed out at humans without distinction, bringing endless trouble upon Fish-Man Island.
Eventually, Jinbe lost patience and exiled him to the East Blue. The next I heard of him… was news of his death."
Her feelings toward Arlong were complicated.
Blood ties made it impossible to ignore him completely—yet she despised his reckless hatred of humans and the chaos it brought down upon their people.
Years ago, Arlong had tried to recruit her into his crew, eager to exploit her prophetic gift.
She had refused, and from then on avoided him as much as she could.
Seeing she would not bend to his will, he eventually gave up on her, and their already-strained relationship grew colder still.
Jones pondered her words, then asked:
"You claim to see the future… So are you a Devil Fruit user?"
"No… not at all," Shyarly answered quickly. She caught the scent of his pipe smoke and felt her own craving stir, but dared not draw out her own pipe. Instead, she clenched her hands inside the folds of her cloak.
"This is an ability I was born with."
Jones thought of Observation Haki—particularly those rare cases able to glimpse the future. True or not, it marked her as gifted from birth, set apart from ordinary folk.
"In fact," Shyarly added, "I cannot always divine at will. It is more accurate to say that major prophecies come to me of their own accord. For the same event, one reading may yield trivial answers—another, terrifyingly precise visions.
Such great prophecies occur perhaps once or twice a year, but when they do, they are strikingly clear."
The only exception was her recent vision of Jones himself—she had glimpsed only the beginning.
Jones was no stranger to seers. He had known witches who could foretell events—and one incarnation of the sea goddess Calypso herself still lingered vividly in his memory.
So her gift did not strike him as implausible. He accepted it without fuss.
Drawing again on his pipe, Jones asked:
"Then tell me—what have you seen, most recently?"
Shyarly hesitated, but then resolved to speak.
She began with her fragmented prophecy, then the deaths of the two Ryugu princes, Hody's speech, and finally the great battle now raging before them.
"I see," Hatchan murmured, as if awakening from a fog. "No wonder they treated me like an enemy—wanted me dead. But… we were here all along! We never assassinated Aladine and Ryuboshi!"
Shyarly found herself almost convinced.
The Davy Jones Pirates had no need to lie about such a thing—not with the strength they wielded. And what Hatchan said matched the suspicions she had carried in her heart.
Crocodile, master of conspiracies and coups, removed his cigar and chuckled darkly:
"Heh. It must have been Hody and the New Fish-Man Pirates who murdered the princes, then pinned it on us. That way, they could play heroes of Fish-Man Island, rally support, expand their ranks, and finally overthrow King Neptune of the Ryugu Kingdom."
He had walked this very path once before—though his scheme had failed at the final step.
The memory soured his smirk, as it always did.
Why was it that whenever he mocked others, the blow always circled back to him?
"Ohhh!" Hatchan exclaimed, slamming his three left fists into his three open right palms in sudden realization.
Jones pressed further:
"Do you have any other prophecies?"
Shyarly did not hide it.
"Yes. I foresaw a war soon to come—a great battle between the Whitebeard Pirates and Marine Headquarters. It will be called the 'War of the Summit/Marineford War.'"
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