The light went out.
And the world of One Piece lit up in its place.
Elias Voss reappeared on the deck of a small merchant vessel moored in one of the ports of the Sabaody Archipelago — a clean, discreet boat whose neutral flag said nothing to anyone. Around him, the port roared with life. Voices, merchants' cries, the creaking of rigging, the smell of salt and tar and something sweeter beneath — the resin of mangrove bubbles, that particular scent he had never smelled but recognized immediately because he had read about it.
He remained still on the deck for a moment.
Not out of caution. Out of necessity.
Because it was real.
Not the pages of a manga in a wealthy family's library. Not the panels of a story read in place of a boy who preferred to sleep. The port of Sabaody, with its giant bubbles rising slowly toward a sky too blue, its loading cranes, its sailors shouting orders in a dialect he understood perfectly, its pirates slipping between merchants with that particular way of occupying space that belonged to people who knew they weren't really welcome but didn't care in the least.
He took a slow breath.
Real.
Then he looked around him with the eyes of someone who had just appreciated a landscape and remembered they had work to do.
Sabaody was beautiful. Sabaody was also one of the most dangerous places in the Red Sea — a crossroads where pirates, marines, bounty hunters and traffickers of all kinds intersected, a place where ordinary rules applied selectively and where violence could come from any direction without warning.
The beauty could wait.
Security could not.
He straightened his jacket, slipped his pocket square into his breast pocket with the care of a man who never presented himself in disorder, and went ashore.
The certificate was in his inside pocket.
He had read it on the boat during the few minutes before docking — a thick document, on paper of a quality that had nothing to do with what one commonly found, written in the ceremonial and slightly threatening style particular to Celestial Dragon correspondence. It certified that Elias Voss, designated representative of the High Family, was authorized to operate in its name in all territories under World Government authority, with power of requisition over marine resources and local public funds when necessary.
It bore a seal that Elias didn't need to understand to know what it represented.
The System had told him this document had been obtained in an exchange by one of the organization's founders, long ago. Elias had not asked for details. Certain things were better accepted without too many questions.
He walked toward the marine base.
The base building was immediately recognizable — the white facade with the Government emblem, the sentries at the entrance, that characteristic blend of apparent order and underlying tension he associated with all institutions that took themselves very seriously.
He entered.
The reception hall was occupied by a young marine behind a counter, focused on paperwork, who looked up when Elias approached with the expression of someone who had just been interrupted in an important task.
— What do you want? he said without standing.
— I'm looking for the commander's office, said Elias.
— We're busy. Come back tomorrow.
He had said it without even really looking at Elias — eyes already back down on his papers, the gesture of someone who had sent away dozens of visitors the same way that morning and saw no reason to change his method.
Elias looked at him for a second.
He thought of thirty-eight years spent waiting for people who weren't looking at him to deign to give him a moment. He thought of the difference between that life and this one. Then he calmly took the certificate from his inside pocket and placed it on the counter — not with arrogance, not with aggression, with the quiet precision of someone setting an argument on a table.
Beside the certificate, he placed the plaque — a metal disc engraved with the same seal, the kind of object that wasn't manufactured and wasn't forged because the cost of such an attempt far exceeded any potential benefit.
The marine looked up.
Looked at the certificate.
Looked at Elias — his suit, his posture, the way he stood before him with the calm of someone who didn't need to raise his voice because what he had just set on that counter spoke loudly enough on its own.
— Wait, said the marine. I... wait, let me verify.
He disappeared down a corridor.
Elias waited. He didn't look around with the impatience of an ordinary visitor — he waited the way he did everything, with that quality of quiet attention that didn't depend on what was happening around him.
The marine came back three minutes later. Behind him, an officer — older, visible stripes, the look of someone who had been pulled away from something important and wasn't yet sure if it was warranted.
He looked at the certificate. Turned it over. Examined the seal with the attention of a man who had seen enough official documents to distinguish authentic from imitation, and who had just confirmed this one was authentic.
He straightened.
— Mister Voss. — His voice had changed entirely — no more bureaucratic impatience, a sudden and clear attention, the way one spoke to someone whose status one had just realized. — Please forgive us for this welcome. We are at your service. What can we do for you?
— I need an escort for the day, said Elias simply. A reliable man who knows the archipelago. And operational funds — I'll give you the precise amount in a moment.
— Of course. Immediately.
The escort's name was Petrov.
A man in his thirties, of average height, with the quiet solidity of someone who had spent enough time in active service for caution to have become a reflex rather than an effort. He spoke little — which was a quality — and observed a great deal — which was another.
He walked two paces behind Elias with the regularity of a man who had done this hundreds of times, and whose presence told others, without needing to say it, that the person in front of him was not to be approached without good reason.
— You know the archipelago? said Elias as he walked.
— Stationed here for four years, said Petrov.
— Good. I'm looking for several things. First, people to employ — house staff, high-level service personnel. Do you know where I might find some?
Petrov thought for a moment.
— There are a few agencies that place staff with nobles staying on the archipelago. I can take you there.
— Please do.
They walked in silence for a moment. Then Petrov — with the discretion of someone who knew that asking direct questions was inappropriate but who couldn't help trying to understand — said :
— If you'll permit me, Mister Voss. Which family do you serve, exactly? I don't recognize the seal.
Elias kept walking without changing pace.
— The family I represent prefers discretion, he said. That's not unusual among great families.
— Of course. — A pause. — And your organization — Marshall, Carter and Dark, is that right, on your certificate — what exactly is it?
Elias smiled slightly — the smile of someone who had been waiting for this question.
— An organization for the elite, he said. We offer services and acquisitions that no one else offers. To people that no one else approaches. — He allowed a calculated pause. — If you know someone who fits that profile, feel free to mention our name.
Petrov didn't respond immediately. But something in his silence said he had registered it.
The placement agency was a quick disappointment.
The building was decent, the manager professional, the files apparently organized. Elias went through the available profiles with the method of a man who knew exactly what he was looking for and recognized immediately when it wasn't there.
Ordinary domestic staff. Competent people in their field — cleaning, cooking, serving — but without that additional quality he sought. That way of holding themselves in a room that indicated training in contact with the elite. That capacity to disappear into the background when needed and to exist fully when necessary. That discretion that was not servility but chosen presence.
He went through the last files. Closed the last one.
— Thank you, he said to the manager with the sincere politeness of someone who didn't hold others responsible for his own high standards. This isn't what I'm looking for at the moment.
The manager watched him leave with a slightly perplexed expression — the expression of someone who had just met a client whose standards exceeded what she was able to offer and wasn't entirely sure if it was a compliment or a criticism.
In the corridor, Petrov was waiting.
— Not what you're looking for? he said.
— Not yet, said Elias. Let's continue.
He paused.
— Where can one hire reliable muscle on this archipelago?
Petrov hesitated a fraction of a second — the kind of hesitation of a man wondering if the question was what it appeared to be or something more problematic.
— There's a house, he said carefully. Legal. Specialized in close protection and escort. It's not... it has a decent reputation, let's say.
— Take me there.
The house was in a secondary alley of the commercial district — a neutral facade, a discreet sign, the look of a place that preferred not to attract the attention of ordinary passersby.
Inside, a large common room.
Elias entered. Stopped.
He surveyed the room with the same silent method he used to read an auction room — postures, gazes, what each person's body language said about what they were and what they were worth.
Mercenaries.
Men — and a few women — who clearly had experience in combat, physical resilience, probably real skills in their domain. But not what he was looking for. People who hired themselves out to whoever paid the price. People whose loyalty was a renegotiable commercial transaction at each job. People who, for the most part, stared at the bottom of their glass or the walls with the particular boredom of people waiting for something to happen.
A man in the back corner was reading.
Elias noted it — not the profile he was looking for either, but the only detail that stood out in the room. He filed that information away and continued his observation.
Most probably couldn't read.
He left without having said a word.
In the street, Petrov looked at him with the expression of someone awaiting a verdict.
— Not what you're looking for either? he said.
— Not yet, said Elias.
He stopped in front of the house of mercenaries and said to the manager — a square, taciturn man who had come out to see who was leaving without having bought anything :
— I may return. Or someone will return in my name. Remember the name Marshall, Carter and Dark.
The manager raised an eyebrow.
— And if someone asks who that is?
— Say it's an organization for those with the means to want better, said Elias. They'll understand or they won't. Those who understand are the ones who interest me.
He left.
The Sabaody auction house had a reputation.
Not a good reputation — a reputation, which was different. Elias knew it in broad outline : an institution that sold things no one else sold, under conditions that most official organizations preferred to ignore, to buyers who had in common more money than scruples.
He had asked Petrov to accompany him to the entrance then wait outside.
— Are you sure? Petrov had said with the tone of someone who felt caution recommended otherwise.
— Certain, Elias had said.
The VIP room was upstairs — a private balcony overlooking the main room, separated from the other boxes by opaque partitions. The darkness was almost total. Below, under the spotlights, the stage where the lots would be presented.
Elias settled in. Looked down.
The main room was full — buyers of all types, pirates and merchants and intermediaries of all kinds, each in their own space of dimmed light. He could see their silhouettes without seeing their faces, which gave him a strange and familiar feeling at the same time.
Like home, he thought with quiet irony.
The bidding began.
The first lot made him sit up straighter in his chair.
A sword — presented by the auctioneer with the care reserved for quality weapons. A blade forged in a steel whose slightly bluish tint said something about its origin and its forging method. Not one of this world's legendary great blades — nothing historically charged enough to be a museum piece. But a high-quality weapon with its own history, of a craftsmanship that spoke for itself.
Elias raised his number.
Below, someone bid against him.
He raised his number again.
Someone else bid.
He raised again, with the regularity of a man who had decided the outcome before the bidding began and was simply raising the price until the others understood the conversation was over.
He obtained the sword.
From the room, in the darkness, a voice — which he couldn't precisely locate — said something fairly unflattering about government dogs.
There were a few laughs.
Elias noted the reaction with professional interest. The tension in this room was not ordinary animosity — it was the kind of tension found in spaces where very different interests crossed without really seeing each other, each convinced of having more legitimacy than the others. An auction room, in short. Just with different parameters from his own.
He continued to bid.
The jewelry came next.
Rings, necklaces, bracelets — pieces of varying quality but all of interesting origin for his purposes. Not for their decorative value, not to display in the hotel — too ordinary for that. But as guide objects for the syntonization system, each had something to offer. A piece of jewelry that had belonged to someone powerful, forged in a particular material, carrying the history of its former owner in its very mass.
He bought the most interesting ones.
The discontent below grew proportionally each time he raised his number — comments that traveled through the darkness of the room without ever finding a visible target, insults murmured between neighbors with the frustration of people watching lots pass under their noses.
Government dog.
Parasite.
Someone should teach him some manners.
Elias sipped his glass of wine — served by a lounge staff member who had materialized discreetly at the moment he needed it — and listened to these comments with the detached amusement of someone hearing a concert from a private box while the audience fought over the best seats.
He was not their enemy.
He was simply someone with more means than them, in a place where means decided everything. There was no malice on his part. Just method.
The paintings. The rugs. The furniture — a few pieces of local craftsmanship that had their own quality, not luxury in the sense he understood it but a formal interest that could serve as a basis for something.
He bought.
The insults below became more creative.
He bought again.
The wines came toward the end of the session.
Bottles of diverse provenance — but among them, three cases that immediately caught his attention. New World wines, from a producer whose name the auctioneer presented with the care reserved for important references. And among these cases, something even more interesting : confectionery — pastries of a recognizable mastery, whose label bore a name Elias knew perfectly.
Big Mom's cakes.
He stopped for a second on that information.
Big Mom's cakes. Made by one of the cooks of Whole Cake Island, perhaps by her own children or by the finest craftsmen of her territory — objects that carried in their very composition the imprint of one of the four Emperors of the New World.
As a guide object for a syntonization ticket —
He raised his number.
No one seriously opposed him. Big Mom's cakes were not something one contradicted lightly in an auction room, even anonymously.
He obtained them without a fight.
The session ended.
The lots he had bought — Petrov had asked, with a slightly dumbfounded expression, where to have them delivered — simply disappeared. Cleanly, discreetly, without fanfare. Removed from the world of One Piece and deposited in the hotel's storage room by the System, with the same fluidity as everything else that fell under the organization's purview.
Petrov watched them disappear.
He looked at Elias.
He said nothing for a long moment.
— Is that... normal? he said finally.
— For us, yes, said Elias.
They stood there a moment, in the street in front of the auction house, with the noise of the archipelago around them.
Petrov said, carefully, after a silence :
— This organization. Marshall, Carter and Dark.
— Yes.
— You have... sales like that? Regularly?
Elias looked at him.
— Sales, he said. Not quite like that, no. — He allowed a pause. — More... sophisticated.
Petrov nodded slowly, with the air of someone filing that information into a category he didn't yet have a name for.
— If someone wanted to know more, he said. About the organization. About how to access it. Would that be possible?
Elias looked at him again — this time with the particular attention he reserved for moments that deserved to be read carefully.
Petrov was not asking a question for himself. He was asking a question for someone else — or perhaps for several others. Someone had asked him to find out, or he had overheard conversations during the day and had decided the information had value.
— Someone who deserves to be invited will know how to find us, said Elias simply. That's always how it works.
He didn't elaborate.
He didn't need to.
Evening was falling over Sabaody when Elias stopped at a waterfront café — a decent place, not luxurious, with terrace tables looking out over the sea and the mangrove bubbles rising slowly into the orange sky.
He ordered something to drink. Sat down. Looked at the port.
It was beautiful.
He had thought it on arrival and he still thought it now — not despite the danger, not by abstracting away what this place really was, but with it. Sabaody's beauty was inseparable from its tension, its contradiction, that way it had of being simultaneously a place of commerce and adventure and violence and freedom and injustice, all at once, without any of those things canceling the others.
He thought of his hotel.
The two hundred empty seats. The red curtains. The bedroom that disappeared when he didn't need it.
He preferred that.
Not because Sabaody was unpleasant — it wasn't. But because the hotel was his, with that particular quality of spaces one inhabited completely, in which one knew exactly where every thing was and what every thing meant.
He took out the System.
[ SYSTEM — REQUEST ]
How long before the next invitations will be available?
[ SYSTEM — RESPONSE ]
Invitation availability based on current MC&D renown :
World
Current renown
Status
One Piece
8%
Progressing — invitations available soon
Marvel
6%
Insufficient — invitation required for progression
Harry Potter
3%
Insufficient — invitation required for progression
Note : in worlds where renown is insufficient, an invitation will need to be obtained via session rewards to allow progression.
Elias read the table.
One Piece at eight percent — and with the SCPs already sold to Doflamingo and Robin operating in this world, that figure would probably rise on its own. He didn't need to worry about it. The consequences of a mind-reprogramming book in the hands of one of the most dangerous men in the New World, and an archaeologist regularly crossing into a parallel dimension full of unknown creatures — that would make noise. The kind of noise that spread.
Marvel at six percent. Harry Potter at three.
Those, he would need to visit. Not now — he didn't have the means tonight, not without an invitation obtained as a session reward. But eventually. An invitation to each world, a trip, the organization's name spoken in the right circles by someone who knew how to speak a name so that it stayed.
He closed the interface.
Finished his drink.
Looked one last time at the port of Sabaody — the rising bubbles, the moored ships, the silhouettes coming and going with that particular urgency of people who lived in worlds where the next adventure or the next danger was on the permanent horizon.
He stood.
Straightened his jacket.
— That was pleasant, he said quietly, for no one in particular.
Then he asked the System to bring him back.
The light was white and clean.
And the hotel welcomed him with the elegant silence of a place that existed only for him and that had been waiting.
End of Chapter 9