Chapter Text
The Grand Line- reputed as the “pirate’s graveyard.” A place where the sea itself feels alive, whispering in riddles and groaning with secrets best left asleep. Out here, the waves twist and bend in ways no man can predict, islands shift like mirages, storms rise without warning, and currents snatch away entire fleets as if swallowing them whole. Sailors say the Grand Line is less a route and more a trial-one that punishes arrogance, rewards madness, and devours the unprepared.
Yet it’s the very unpredictability of these waters that draws countless pirates across the world, each hoping-delusionally or bravely-to do the impossible, sail the entire Grand Line. Its vast blue stretches, its violent winds, its monstrous waves… they call to them. Whispering. Tempting. Daring.
And somewhere in that endless chaos drifted a lone ship. A ship spoken of only in hushed bars and drunken corners. Rumors said it had no crew to take on an adventure. No captain to steer it. No one abroad. Only the wet sound of blood splattering across wood and the steady rhythm of blades carving through flesh could be heard at times. Its hull towered over other ships like a phantom,casting a shadow on those below it, its dark and sunken design sending chills down any spine foolish enough to witness it.
Its name- Dead Queen.
…
The waves crashed hard against the Dead Queen, making her creak and tremble beneath your feet. The wind screamed violently outside the tightly sealed windows,almost as if trying to distract you from your work. But you barely paid it any mind. You were too focused on finishing the final touches on the marine sprawled lifelessly before you-a man you’d been performing an autopsy on for the last hour.
Eager to finally be done, to finally send your report back to the Marines so you could-just this once-enjoy a rare sliver of free time. Relaxation wasn’t something you came across often in these cursed seas. You had just started putting your equipment away, your gloves slick with blood and tiny strips of flesh still clinging to the fingertips, when a sound rang out-sharp and shrill-cutting through the thick, metallic silence of the autopsy room.
“Pere pere pere pere.”You froze. Then sighed. Maybe if you ignored it, it would stop. You tossed another bloody tool onto the growing pile- they’d all need a thorough cleaning later anyway.
“Pere pere pere.”
Clank. You threw your Enterotomes aside.
“Pere pere pere pere pere .”
Thud. The autopsy hammer.
“Pere peree.”
Clank. Eye speculums.
“Pere pere.”
Thud, thud.
“Pere pereee.”
You groaned. It wasn’t going to stop. Of course not. The universe never allowed you that kind of mercy. The incessant ringing buzzed in your skull. Answering meant more work. More corpses. More chasing. Less relaxation. You truly, deeply didn’t want to give up the only moment of peace you had left, but not answering would cause even more trouble than you were willing to deal with.
Resigned, you grabbed the tip of your rubber glove’s middle finger and peeled it off slowly–almost savoring the last seconds of peace before the next inevitable assignment dragged you back into chaos. After stripping off both gloves, you reached for your blood-splattered black apron, ready to remove it.
“Pere pere.”
…Never mind. You’d take it off later. Just make the ringing stop.
You trudged over to the transponder snail, which–unhelpfully–was mimicking your exhausted expression.
You resisted the urge to flick it off the table.
Clung.
“..uh, here,” you muttered.
“This is Nive. I’m a representative of the World Government. We’re calling regarding an issue we’re currently facing. Based on your previous commissions–each extremely successful–we’ve decided you’re the best person for this job.”
The voice was gravelly, bored, and irritatingly self-assured. Middle-aged. Maybe late forties. No–more like early fifties. He spoke like a businessman addressing a colleague, not like a government official conversing with a young woman covered in blood.
You raised a brow.
“Uh-huh. And what issue exactly are we talking about here?”
Your curiosity sharpened. A secret assassination and you’re needed to examine a corpse? An internal betrayal that ended in some gruesome, mangled death? A poisoned village waiting for you to identify the toxin from whatever mushy remains were left inside the bodies?
“There’s an island located near Water 7 that’s currently in a state of emergency. We’ve received reports of a fast-spreading disease. We need to contain it immediately–before it spreads anywhere else.”You heard the man flip a stack of papers through the transponder snail. Its expression shifted, mimicking his stern face–lips pressed into a thin, unpleasant line, eyes hard and unblinking, staring straight into your soul.
You tilted your head, thinking.
“Can you provide me with more information? Where exactly am I supposed to get the eternal log pose?"
“We’ll provide additional information later on. For now, your priority is reaching the island. According to your last report, you’re heading toward Jaya. Stop by there and obtain an Eternal Log Pose pointing to Aurora Bloom. After that, contact me again and I’ll give you the rest.” His tone was clipped, final, and annoyingly dismissive.
As much as you didn’t want to do anything right now, refusing the World Government wasn’t a wise life choice. Accepting the job was the easier path. At least you were lucky you had no set destination at the moment–otherwise turning around after getting so far would have been a nightmare.
“Okayyy, got it. Contact after getting the Log Pose, yes, okay. I’ll head over now then. By–”
Clink.
He hung up.
That asshole didn’t even wait for you to finish. Acting like you wanted the conversation more than he did.
“Ughhh…” You fell backward into your chair, limbs dangling, head hanging upside down over the back as you stretched your legs in defeat. You stared at the ceiling blankly. Your free time lasted what–three minutes? New personal record.
You groaned again, louder. Sinking even more into your chair, wishing it could swallow you up.
…
A loud THUD rattled through the ship, echoing down the metal halls. The Dead Queen had finally hit shore.
Startled, your body jerked awake and you tumbled off the dissection table–your makeshift bed–along with all your sheets, pillows, and one blanket that wrapped around your ankle like a snake wrapping around its prey. You groaned into the floor.
You knew the trip wouldn't be long, but this was much faster than expected. What kind of shortcut had the ship taken? Straight through a storm? Over an island?
Pushing yourself up with a sleepy scowl, you glanced around the morgue. Right. You fell asleep here again. Not unusual. Walking all the way up the narrow stairs half-conscious was a health hazard, so you started keeping spare blankets in the autopsy room. It was colder down here anyway, which helped you sleep… or maybe you were just used to the smell of disinfectant and dried blood at this point.
Yawning, you stretched your arms overhead and shuffled toward the hallway, still half-asleep. Your footsteps echoed softly as you climbed the stairs, mind already planning what to grab and how fast you could get this over with.
Once in your room, you headed straight to your closet.
You didn’t need to look fancy for this errand. It was a quick in-and-out situation. You grabbed a pair of dress pants and a simple loose men’s dress shirt–comfortable, clean enough, and forgettable.
Last but not least you adjusted your black eyepatch in the mirror, the edge slightly skewed from your restless sleep. You wore it at all times, not daring to take it off even in your own presence.
Beginning to climb up the stairs leading to the deck the boards creaked under your boots as you pushed open the tightly sealed door. A soft salty breeze greeted you instantly, brushing against your face with small whispers of sea air. Inhaling deeply, the freshness was almost strange after days locked inside your office.
You walked to the railing. Instead of waiting for the rope like a normal person–or using the ramp made for more comfortable cargo carrying –you simply jumped. A small cloud of dust puffed up where you landed.
The port was quiet since it was middle of the night. You started walking toward the city with your usual unbothered stride, already mentally mapping what to do next.But the moment you turned onto the main street, you noticed it: a cluster of people gathered tightly around something. A fight, by the sound of it–cheers, shouts, the unmistakable thud of someone getting punched in the face.
Oh well. Not your problem.
Better to avoid that direction entirely. You didn’t want to get dragged into whatever idiotic mess the locals were dealing with. All you needed was a store that sold Log Poses and Eternal Poses. Easy. Those shops were everywhere, usually open 24/7 because young pirates kept breaking theirs on reckless adventures.
Perfect for you, since you absolutely did not want to wait until morning–mornings meant people, and people meant explaining why you were carrying multiple surgical blades on you.
You scanned the area, searching for the shop.
Nothing.
Narrowing your eyes, you squinted past the heads of the rowdy crowd.
Ah. There it was.
A tiny, rundown booth-like store behind the mob–wood peeling, lantern flickering weakly–yet definitely open. Someone sat inside, barely awake.
Of course it had to be behind the crowd.
A long sigh left your parted mouth.
To reach it, you’d have to walk through the cluster of shouting idiots. Something you were very much not looking forward to. But you had no choice. Even if you embarrassed yourself or bumped into the wrong drunk sailor, it wouldn’t matter. You’d leave the island soon enough, never to cross paths again.
…Right?
The murmurs and shouts of the gathered crowd echoed through the harbor street, bouncing off the stone walls in a chaotic mess of voices. You couldn’t tell whether the yelling was angry or encouraging–every tone blended into one loud, disorderly roar. It felt like the kind of noise you’d expect from a drunken bar fight spilling onto the street.
You squeezed past clusters of bodies, most of them too invested in the spectacle to notice you pushing through. The shouting rose and fell like waves, but there was something else mixed in with it–something sharper, heavier.
The stench of blood.
Thick. Strong.
So strong it hit your nose even though you were nowhere near the center of the fight. It wasn’t the faint metallic scent of a scraped knee or a drunken brawl gone wrong. No–this was the suffocating, almost sweet heaviness of real blood. Blood from deep wounds. Blood from someone who was either already dead or close enough to taste it.
The scent curled around you like a siren’s call, drawing you toward the source. Inviting you. Tempting your curiosity with its warm, familiar pull.
But you forced yourself to resist. Getting involved in other people’s business was strictly prohibited in your personal rulebook. So you kept your head down, determined to simply pass through the crowd unnoticed.
But something else didn’t escape your eyes.
A flash of bright flamingo-pink.
A feathered coat–vibrant and loud and almost glowing under the dim street lamps. It stood out like a flare in the night, impossible to ignore even among dozens of people. Whoever wore it stood with a presence so loud it practically screamed for attention, as though the coat itself was a declaration:
"Look at me."
Your gaze lingered despite yourself.
Because no normal person would wear something that flamboyant in the middle of a bloody street fight.
No normal pirate, no normal marine, not even a bored noble would dress like that at this hour in this place.
This felt deliberate.
An invitation to be seen… or a warning to stay very, very far away.
But the crowd shifted, blocking your view, and the coat disappeared behind the sea of screaming bodies. You blinked and exhaled, forcing your attention back to the small rundown booth where your Eternal Log Pose supposedly waited.
Reminding yourself–firmly–that you had no time for distractions. No time for flashy coats, mysterious figures, or bloody street entertainment. You needed your Eternal Log Pose, you needed to get to Aurora Bloom, and you needed to make sure the World Government didn’t throw you into something worse while you were still half-asleep.
Still…
The coat, its color and that unsettling aura of someone far too calm in the presence of bloodshed.
You shook the thought away and stepped forward, pushing deeper into the crowd, hoping–just for a second–that the sea of bodies might swallow you whole. That you could disappear into them, vanish from the night, from the world, from responsibilities.
But fate had other plans.
It always had.
…
Later, in the quiet belly of your ship, you held the newly obtained Eternal Log Pose high in the lamp’s white glow, watching the glass chamber shimmer softly. The arrow inside floated with an unnerving stillness, pointing unwaveringly toward your next destination.
Aurora Bloom.
The light flickered, reflecting against the curved surface like a tiny trapped star. You turned the device slowly between your fingers, the way one might examine an insect pinned under glass.
“So this is it…” you whispered to yourself.
Behind you, the Dead Queen groaned as the waves embraced her hull. The ship had already departed from the island a while ago–smoothly, silently, like she was eager to leave the crowded streets and bloody stench behind.
Now you were back in motion, cutting through the night sea.
And all that was left for you to do… was wait.
Wait while the Dead Queen sailed toward Aurora Bloom.
Wait while the Eternal Pose pulled you toward whatever crisis the World Government was hiding.
Wait while the wind scraped against the deck, and the boards creaked beneath you like whispers from restless ghosts.
Lowering the Eternal Pose you rested your elbows on your worktable, letting the rhythmic sway of the ship carry your thoughts.
You couldn’t help but wonder,
What exactly was waiting for you on Aurora Bloom?
A disease?
A massacre?
Or something far worse the government conveniently forgot to mention?
The questions gnawed at the edges of your mind, each one adding a new stone to the weight already pressing on your shoulders. It felt like that burden–one you’d been carrying for years–had suddenly doubled. People expected too much from you.
They always did.
They expected miracles.
Expected you to cure the incurable, to identify an unknown toxin based on a half–rotted corpse, find the culprit behind the slaughter of twenty marines using a single severed limb.
To do the impossible, over and over again.
You exhaled slowly, watching the Eternal Pose’s arrow remain as still and merciless as ever, pointing toward a future you didn’t yet understand as the Dead Queen continued carrying you into the dark.
Into whatever awaited you on Aurora Bloom.
…
A quiet snore drifted through the autopsy room, echoing faintly across the cold, sterile room where, in any other place, activity and urgency would have been the norm. Stainless steel tables gleamed under the harsh overhead lights, each one holding a still, silent body swathed in white sheets. Refrigerated drawers lined the walls, their frosted handles glinting in the dim light, and the faint hum of the cooling units provided a low, constant background noise.
There were no assistants moving briskly from table to table, no doctors examining their subjects with urgent focus. Instead, the entire room held only a single person sprawled across one of the metal tables, sleeping far too soundly to notice the persistent ringing of the increasingly annoyed transponder snail nearby. If the creature had the ability to speak on its own, it would probably be cursing at her by now, furious that she had the audacity to sleep so peacefully while it suffered through its fifteenth unanswered call.
But the sleep wasn’t quite as deep as it looked. The young woman’s fingers twitched at the sound, her eyebrows scrunching as she slowly began to stir. Drool clung to her cheek, her work clothes were hopelessly wrinkled, and her hair, that was a disaster all on its own, sticking out at awkward angles like it hasn't been brushed in decades.
She let out a soft, disgruntled noise as awareness seeped back in, eyelids fluttering open only to squint immediately against the bright surgical lights overhead. Her head throbbed dully, the kind of ache that came from too little rest and far too much thinking, and her neck protested the moment she tried to move it, stiff from having been curled at an unnatural angle for hours. The ringing of the transponder snail cut through the fog in her mind again–louder now, she winced, lifting a hand to rub at her face in a lazy attempt to chase the sleep away.
Slowly, she pushed herself up on her elbows, the metal dissection table cold even through the layers of fabric beneath her. One of her legs had fallen asleep completely, pins and needles flaring as she swung it over the edge and let her feet touch the floor. She sat there for a moment, hunched and unmoving, staring blankly ahead as her brain caught up with her body.
The morgue room greeted her with its familiar sterility–the faint smell of disinfectant, the neatly arranged instruments glinting dully under the lights, the shadows stretching long and thin across the walls.
Another insistent ring from the snail finally dragged her fully back into the present. She glanced over at it, eyes narrowed in irritation, as if offended that it dared disturb her rest.
The creature mirrored her expression perfectly, antenna twitching impatiently as it continued to cry out for attention. With a tired sigh, she slid off the table and trudged toward it, shoulders slumped and movements slow, already bracing herself for whatever fresh problem awaited her on the other end of the line.
Picking up the transponder snail, she finally answered the call, only to be met with nothing but distortion.
“Bzzzt–bzzzzt–Name–bzzzt–bzzzzzt–find–bzzzt–”
“Huh?” Her brows knit together as she pulled the snail closer to her ear. She recognized the voice immediately–official, clipped, unmistakably Nive–but the signal sounded like it was barely holding together.
The snail’s face twitched erratically, struggling to mimic something it clearly couldn’t understand.
“–bzzzt–and–bzzzt–”
“What?!” Her voice rose, irritation bleeding through the lingering sleep in her tone.
“Bzzzzzzzzzzzt–”
Before she could try again, the Dead Queen suddenly lurched violently to one side, as if struck by an unseen force. The floor tilted beneath her feet, sending her balance spiraling out of control.
“Augh–!”
She stumbled, barely managing to grab onto the transponder snail as she fell, instinctively clutching it to her chest. The ship groaned loudly, wood and metal protesting as another powerful wave slammed into the hull–this time from the opposite direction. The sudden shift sent her tumbling again, her grip slipping at the worst possible moment.
Her fingers slid across the smooth shell of the snail, and with an accidental press–
Click.
The line went dead.
She lay there for a moment, sprawled across the cold floor, staring at the ceiling as the ship slowly steadied itself. The transponder snail sat beside her in silence now, its expression blank and mildly offended, as if blaming her entirely for the abrupt end of the conversation.
“…Great,” she muttered, exhaling sharply.
Whatever Nive had been trying to say–whatever warning or order he’d failed to get through–it was gone now, swallowed by the sea along with the signal.
And judging by the way the Dead Queen still creaked uneasily beneath her, something told her this disturbance wasn’t over yet.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows. Pain screamed through her muscles at the sudden movement, every ache flaring at once after her body had slammed into the floor more times than she cared to count in the span of a few seconds. It felt less like rough seas and more like she’d just gone a round with a Sea King and lost. Her jaw tightened as she sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.
The ship didn’t look much better either. The Dead Queen continued to rock heavily from side to side, lanterns swaying overhead and chains rattling softly, as if the vessel itself was trying to regain its footing. Water thundered against the hull in uneven rhythms, no longer the steady beat of open sea waves.
She forced herself upright, gripping a nearby table until the floor stopped tilting beneath her feet. Slowly, she made her way toward the upper deck, boots thudding against the stairs as the smell of salt grew stronger with every step.
When she finally pushed the door open, the sight waiting for her made her pause.
A port.
Jagged rocks jutted out of the water ahead, slick with sea spray, while beyond them stretched a shoreline far too close for comfort. The waves here were wild and chaotic, crashing violently against the coast as if the sea itself were trying to spit the ship back out. Yet behind the hostile surf an island could be seen.
The Dead Queen lurched one final time before settling into an uneasy stillness, anchored just far enough from the rocks to avoid being torn apart. She let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
So this was it.