The stone walls of the Level 6 transfer antechamber hummed with a low, deep-seated vibration that seemed to travel directly through the soles of the boots. Behind the thick, reinforced glass observation screen, the senior custody supervisor stood at his heavy metal-framed desk with a reinforced mahogany top, sorting through the tall piles of transport manifests and cross-referencing prison intake logs with methodical precision. Two armed guards flanked the iron reinforcement plates of the doorway outside the booth, while a third guard stood stationed directly inside the screened enclosure near the desk, watching the secure perimeter. Dangling in plain sight from the supervisor's belt were the numbered Seastone restraint keys needed for Renji's Seastone ankle restraints, wrist cuffs, and collar.
Further down the low-ceilinged hall, Shanks and Giovanni moved to intercept any interference. When the two doorway guards caught sight of movement in the shadows and snapped their rifles upward, a sharp command echoed down the corridor, and one of the guards jerked his weapon forward, firing a single warning shot toward the approaching pirates.
The round sparked off the stone floor inches from Giovanni's boot, sending a sharp spray of jagged concrete chips against his greaves.
Before the guard could rack the bolt for a second shot, Giovanni closed the distance with startling speed. His right hand caught the barrel of the rifle, forcing the muzzle upward just as the second guard lunged forward with a truncheon raised to cover his comrade. Giovanni wrenched the rifle hard to the side, leveraging the first guard's own momentum to spin him out of position, while using his shoulder to block the second defender's advance. The clash of heavy boots and steel echoed hollowly down the stone corridor, but Giovanni kept his movements tight and controlled.
Beside him, Shanks stepped into the expanding fray with a fluid, unhurried motion. When the first guard tried to recover his balance and angle his weapon toward the open observation wing, Shanks drifted effortlessly into his line of sight. Gryphon stayed undrawn at his hip, but Shanks's hand rested casually on the crossguard as he stepped directly into the guard's path. The sheer, overwhelming weight of Shanks's presence forced the man to stumble backward, his rifle wavering as he struggled to maintain his footing against the silent, suffocating pressure bearing down on him. Every time the guards attempted to shift their weight, raise a weapon, or angle toward the observation booth, Shanks or Giovanni met the movement instantly, neutralizing their angles of attack while keeping the surrounding stone completely intact.
A few paces back in the deeper shadows of the corridor, Hongo kept Robin firmly shielded behind a recessed concrete door frame, his fingers resting near his medical case to brace her if needed, while Limejuice maintained a steady, quiet stance near the secondary maintenance shutter to safeguard their retreat route.
Robin closed her eyes for a brief moment, breathing evenly against the biting cold of the lower level. Through the observation window, she could clearly see the layout of the desk and the specific belt loop where the metal ring hung. Focusing her mind past the glass panel, she sprouted a single, disembodied eye along the upper corner of the supervisor's desk where the shadow line kept it out of immediate notice.
Using that clear visual angle to guide her, two pairs of hands bloomed silently against the underside of the heavy wood-and-metal desk.
Her fingers brushed the cold metal ring hanging from the belt. She verified the serial markings stamped into the brass against Renji's movement record, confirming the exact keying sequence. Slowly, meticulously, the sprouted hands began to lift the heavy ring upward, inch by inch, sliding the metal free from the leather loop.
Inside the supervisor's booth, however, the third guard stationed near the desk shifted his stance, his eyes catching a sudden, unnatural shadow flicker in the upper corner of the room. He swung his rifle upward, aiming directly at the remote hands lifting the keys beneath the desk.
Before she could process the movement visually, a sharp, cold prickle of hostility brushed against her consciousness. For one fleeting heartbeat, she felt the hostile intent of the guard locking onto her position before she even saw the muzzle alignment.
The sensation triggered a memory of Shanks's quiet instruction back on the upper decks to notice the shape of a presence rather than chasing the false certainty of what eyes could see.
Robin did not wait to verify the aim. She instantly retracted the sprouted hands and closed the eye just as a deafening crack echoed through the room. The round punched straight through the wooden edge of the desk, splintering the exact spot where her fingers had rested a heartbeat earlier.
The hostile sensation vanished the moment the limbs disappeared.
A sharp spike of adrenaline hammered through her ribs, leaving her palms trembling as she stumbled back against Hongo's chest. Hongo caught her elbow instantly, steadying her stance while checking her face for signs of deeper strain.
The keys remained securely on the supervisor's belt, and the single guard inside the booth was now on high alert, his rifle sweeping the corners. Robin drew in a slow, deep breath, forcing the sudden tension out of her frame.
Taking a deliberate step back into position, she repositioned her focus. She sprouted a new visual angle higher along the ceiling duct, safely out of the guards' immediate line of sight and shielded behind an overhead conduit box.
She signaled Limejuice with a sharp nod of her head.
At the far end of the corridor, Limejuice struck his electrified staff hard against a loose iron conduit box. A sharp, crackling arc of electricity detonated down the metal line, echoing loudly toward the security post and showering the floor with sparks.
The two doorway guards, now pulled out from their initial static positions, flinched at the sound, their heads snapping toward the sudden noise at the end of the hall, while the guard inside the booth turned his head toward the reinforced door.
Taking advantage of the split-second distraction, Robin bloomed a relay of hands along the interior wall. Seizing the ring with fluid motion, she unhooked the Seastone restraint keys from the supervisor's belt, passed the metal through a chain of sprouted hands across the room, and slipped them through the narrow inspection hatch in the glass partition. The final sprouted hand in the chain dropped the heavy brass ring directly into Robin's waiting real hand in the corridor.
Robin withdrew her powers entirely, leaning back against the cool stone wall. With trembling fingers, she checked the identification stamp one last time to ensure the sequence was intact before physically handing the heavy metal ring over to Giovanni.
Her hands shook slightly from the lingering tension, and she immediately reached inward, trying to grasp at the sharp, intuitive clarity she had felt a moment before. But her mind found only ordinary fatigue and the dull ache of concentration. The flash was gone, unsummonable on command.
As Giovanni caught the keys, a tired, rasped voice echoed from the deep, shadow-choked cells beyond the corridor.
"Who's... making so much noise... outside my cell?"
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