The silence in the west wing of Kaya's mansion was a living thing, thick and suffocating. It pressed down on her as she stumbled through the grand, empty hallways, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Usopp's heartbroken, furious face flashed behind her eyes. *Pirate blood.* The words were a poison in her veins. She had to find Klahadore. He would explain. He had to.
"Klahadore?" Her voice, barely a whisper, died in the cavernous space. "Merry? Is anyone…"
Her question choked off as she rounded the corner into the servants' antechamber.
Merry lay sprawled on the polished floor like a discarded doll, a dark, ominous stain blooming across his chest.
"MERRY!"
Kaya fell to her knees beside him, her hands fluttering uselessly. A low groan escaped his lips. His eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain.
"M-Miss Kaya…" he rasped.
"Merry, what happened? Who did this?"
He tried to sit up, collapsing back with a grimace. "Klahadore," he breathed, the name a curse. "He… he tried to kill me. The boy… Usopp… he was telling the truth. Klahadore… he's the pirate captain. Kuro of a Thousand Plans."
The world tilted. The floor fell away. Klahadore's gentle smile, his careful hands adjusting her blankets, his patient voice—all of it shattered, revealing a monstrous, grinning skull beneath.
"No," she sobbed, the denial a weak, broken thing. "He… he cared for me."
"A lie," Merry coughed, gripping her wrist with surprising strength. "All of it. A three-year lie. And we… we chased away the only one who tried to warn us. We chased away our protector."
The weight of her guilt was a physical blow. Usopp, standing alone on that cliff, shouting his warnings to a jeering crowd. She had dismissed him. She had called him a liar.
"The others," she whispered, a new dread dawning. "The staff…"
"Gone," Merry said, his voice fading. "Paid vacation. All of them. We're alone, Miss Kaya. He's emptied the house."
Alone. The word echoed in the vast, hollow mansion. A gilded cage with a wolf inside.
Merry's grip tightened. "Listen to me. He wants the treasure. Your family's vault. Give it to him."
"What? I can't just—"
"You MUST!" The force of his outburst cost him, and he winced. "Give him the gold. Let him take it and go. Your life… the village… it's all that matters now. Nothing has happened yet. We can still stop this. Please, Miss Kaya. For everyone."
Tears streamed down her face, hot and shameful. To surrender to the monster who had played her for a fool? But Merry's pleading eyes held the stark truth. She was a heiress in a house of cards, and the wind had finally come.
Numb, driven by a survival instinct she didn't know she possessed, Kaya nodded. She helped Merry prop himself against the wall, her mind a whirlwind of fear and resolve. The treasure. It was just gold. It meant nothing.
She turned and ran, not toward safety, but toward the heart of the deception. She ran to give a pirate what he wanted.
***
Outside Syrup Village, on a hill overlooking the peaceful, ignorant rooftops, the Usopp Pirates sat in a miserable huddle.
"Captain's not coming back, is he?" Carrot sniffled.
"He always lies about lying," Pike said, kicking a pebble. "But this time… I think he was just lying."
"So… no pirates?" Onion mumbled, disappointment and relief warring in his voice.
Their doubt hung heavy in the salt air. Then, Onion pointed a trembling finger.
"Look!"
Coming down the main road, walking with a determined, shaky gait, was Miss Kaya. Her face was pale, set in a mask of grim purpose. She carried a large, ornate iron key in both hands, holding it as if it were a holy relic—or a weapon.
She was leaving the village. And she was heading straight for the coast.
***
The coast was no longer a serene vista. It was a battlefield waiting to ignite.
Zoro stood, a lone sentinel before the beached ship, the sun glinting off the single sword in his hand. The air prickled with malice.
"Come on out," he growled. "I don't have all day."
Giggling echoed from the ship's deck—a high, nervous titter. Two figures slunk into view, moving with a strange, twitchy syncopation. The Nyaban Brothers. One was tall and lanky with long hair (Sham), wringing his hands. The other was shorter, muscular, and bald (Buchi), cracking his knuckles.
"Ooh, he looks mean, Buchi!" Sham squealed, hiding behind his brother.
"Just do it, coward!" Buchi barked.
Sham let out a terrified wail and scampered down the gangplank, his movements awkward and stumbling. He tripped over his own feet, rolling to a stop at Zoro's boots in a cloud of dust.
"P-please, don't hurt me!" Sham blubbered, covering his head.
Zoro looked down, unimpressed. "Pathetic."
In a blink, the cowering vanished. Sham's head snapped up, his eyes sharp and cruel, a wide, toothy grin splitting his face. "**Got you to lower your guard!**"
*Shing! Shing!*
Before Zoro could react, two swift movements, and the scabbards at his back were suddenly, devastatingly light. Sham sprang back, now holding Zoro's other two swords crossed in his hands.
"My swords," Zoro's voice dropped to a deadly calm. The annoyance was gone, replaced by a glacial fury. "Give them back. Now."
"Finders keepers!" Sham sang, tossing the prized Wado Ichimonji and Sandai Kitetsu carelessly over his shoulder. They landed in the sand, out of reach. "Let's fight fair! One sword each!"
Rage, hot and pure, surged through Zoro. To disrespect his blades like that… "You're dead."
He moved like a lightning strike. *"**Oni Giri!**"* The demon slash was a blur. Sham stood frozen for a second, then his striped shirt fluttered to the ground, sliced cleanly in two.
Zoro turned, already striding toward his discarded swords. "Waste of my time."
A giggle stopped him cold.
"That tickled!"
Zoro looked back. Sham stood there, shirtless, completely unharmed. His torso was so unnaturally thin and bony that Zoro's blade had passed through the empty space between his skin and his shirt without drawing a drop of blood.
"What the…?" Zoro muttered.
"My turn!" Buchi roared, a human cannonball of muscle suddenly airborne, his fist aimed at Zoro's head.
Zoro dove sideways. Sham pounced, his bony limbs wrapping around Zoro's arm and torso from behind, pinning him for a crucial half-second.
*BOOM!*
Buchi's fist cratered the ground where Zoro's head had just been, rock and sand exploding outward. The shockwave buffeted Zoro as he ripped himself free from Sham's clingy grip, rolling to his feet.
He was breathing heavily now. One sword. Against two fighters with bizarre, complementary styles—one unbelievably skinny and tricky, the other pure, brute demolition. His other swords glittered tauntingly in the sun, ten paces away. An impossible distance.
Sham circled, giggling, retrieving a pair of cat's-claw gloves. Buchi cracked his neck, heaving his fist from the crater.
Zoro raised his single sword, his mind racing. One clean hit from Buchi would shatter his bones. Sham was too fast and slippery to pin down. The math was brutal, inescapable.
He was at a severe disadvantage. And as Buchi lunged again, a mountain of murderous intent, and Sham darted in from the blind side, claws gleaming, Zoro realized with cold, crystal clarity the terrifying truth:
If Buchi's punch connected, **it wouldn't just break his guard—it would break every bone in his body.** And there was nothing he could do to block it.