The darkness pressed against them like an infection of endlessness.
Jannali's chest heaved as she stood her ground, spear extended, the black tendrils of the Yami Yami no Mi curling at her feet like hungry serpents. Beside her, Kipa Shiru and Clarissa Belote channeled their Haki in waves, pushing the darkness back inch by inch, their faces drawn with effort.
Catarina Devon circled the edge of the light, her vulpine grin never wavering. She lunged.
Jannali's spear met her blade—CLANG—the impact sending shockwaves through the shrine. They traded blows, steel singing, neither giving ground. Then Devon's free hand hooked something—fabric—and yanked.
Jannali's headscarf fluttered to the stone floor.
For a frozen moment, everyone stared.
The third eye sat in the center of Jannali's forehead, fully exposed, its lid half-lowered as if blinking in the sudden light. The skin around it was smooth, unmarked—as if it had always been there, waiting.
Catarina Devon's grin widened into something predatory.
"Captain!" she called, not looking away from Jannali. "Look what we have here."
Blackbeard's attention snapped from the seals to the woman before him. His eyes lit up—literally, with the greedy fire of a man who had just found treasure beyond his wildest dreams.
"ZEHAHAHAHA!"
The laugh filled the shrine, echoing off ancient stones, rattling the offerings on the Kankiten statue.
"This is my lucky day!" He spread his arms wide, darkness pulsing around him. "We'll take her AND the seals!"
Jannali's eyes narrowed to slits. Her grip on her spear tightened until her knuckles went white.
"Like hell you will," she spat, her accent thickening with fury. "You absolute galahs think you can just waltz in here and—"
Catarina chuckled, cutting her off. "So much spirit. This will be fun."
Blackbeard waved a hand. "Don't rough her up too much. Make sure she's still alive when we leave."
The casual dismissal—the assumption that her capture was already decided—lit a fire in Jannali's chest that had nothing to do with her third eye.
Her teeth ground together.
"I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE WITH YOU!"
The words ripped from her throat with a force that surprised even her.
And the shrine vanished.
---
Darkness.
Not Blackbeard's darkness—something else. Something deeper. Older.
Jannali stood on solid ground that she couldn't see, surrounded by a space that stretched in every direction without end. And then, slowly, shapes began to emerge from the void.
Mountain peaks. Jagged and ancient, their slopes covered in forests that had turned to stone. A sky without stars. Air that moved like breath.
Her mindscape.
Blackbeard and Catarina appeared across from her, their forms solid in this impossible space. They looked around, confusion flickering across their features for the first time since this battle began.
Blackbeard's brow furrowed. "What is this?"
Catarina's hand went to her blade, her eyes darting left and right. "Where are we?"
Jannali watched them from atop a tree branch that hadn't existed a moment ago. She stood above them, looking down her nose with the judgment of peaks that had watched empires rise and fall.
Blackbeard's confusion shifted to understanding. A grin spread across his face.
"So this is the power of the Three-Eye Tribe." He looked around with new appreciation. "A world inside her head. ZEHAHAHA! Amazing!
Jannali didn't give him time to admire the view.
She reached into the mindscape and pulled.
An ominous howl echoed through the petrified forest—low at first, then rising, multiplying, becoming a chorus. Eyes glowed in the darkness beneath the trees. Shapes moved between the stone trunks.
Wolves.
Not ordinary wolves. These were made of mist and shadow and ancient memory, their forms translucent, their jaws lined with teeth that had never touched living flesh. They descended from the high peaks like the wind itself, silent and terrible.
They circled Blackbeard and Catarina.
Blackbeard's jaw flexed. Catarina took a step back—just one, but Jannali saw it.
"You are coming with us, girl," Blackbeard growled.
Jannali's eyes narrowed.
The wolves lunged.
Blackbeard moved.
His fist connected with the first wolf—and it shattered, dissolving into mist that scattered across the mindscape. He spun, punching another—shatter. Another—shatter. Each wolf fell, its form breaking apart under the weight of his Haki.
But more came. Always more.
A bead of sweat rolled down Jannali's face.
Blackbeard planted his feet, drew back his fist, and punched the air.
The shockwave of Haki erupted from him like a bomb—a spiderweb of force that spread across the mindscape in every direction. Mountains cracked. The petrified forest groaned. The sky itself shudders.
And then everything shattered.
---
Jannali gasped.
She was back in the shrine—on her feet, but barely. The world swam around her, colors bleeding into each other, sounds echoing strangely. She swayed, her knees buckling.
Clarissa caught her before she hit the ground.
"That was impressive," the monk whispered, her raspy voice soft in Jannali's ear. "But you need more practice."
Jannali nodded weakly, murmuring something that might have been agreement. Then her eyes fluttered closed.
Clarissa laid her gently on the stone floor, then straightened, her expression hardening as she turned to face the pirates.
Blackbeard belted out a laugh.
"ZEHAHAHA! That was—"
The laugh died in his throat.
Footsteps.
Slow. Steady. Rhythmic. Each one landing with the weight of a judgment long delayed. They echoed from the corridor outside the shrine, growing louder with each step.
And behind them, the cry of a condor.
Blackbeard's head snapped toward the entrance. His eyes went wide—for just a moment, just a flicker—as the Haki washing over him registered in some primal part of his brain.
This was not ordinary.
This was immense.
Kipa Shiru stood tall despite his exhaustion, his milky eyes fixed on the Emperor, his staff jabbing the ground with a thump that echoed like a gavel.
"Take your leave while you are able."
Blackbeard's shock shifted to something else. A grin spread across his face—not the greedy laugh from before, but something harder. Something that welcomed the challenge.
"I will show you who is able."
He raised his fists, darkness gathering around them.
The footsteps grew closer.
---
In the corner of the shrine, pressed against the wall with his notebook clutched to his chest, Charlie had stopped shaking.
It wasn't courage that stilled him. It wasn't faith in his companions.
It was the inscription on the wall.
The light had shifted—just slightly, just enough—and suddenly the carvings he'd been staring at for the past hour resolved into something recognizable. Not just decoration. Not just ritual marking.
Words.
His eyes traced the symbols, his mind automatically reaching for the frameworks he knew. The language, passed down through centuries, encoded in stone on an island that should never have known it.
Ahem.
His throat-clearing was automatic, a reflex born of decades of academic presentation. No one heard it over the chaos.
He didn't notice.
His pencil moved across his notebook, copying, translating, his entire world shrinking to the space between his eyes and the wall.
This was it.
The way to win the battle.
This—this—was why he had come.
The symbols resolved into meaning, and Charlie's eyes went wide behind his fogged glasses.
"Oh," he breathed. "Oh my."
The words on the wall were not a prayer.
They were a warning.
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