The air aboard the Going Merry thickened with the scent of salt and impending violence.
"Don't move," Sanji's voice was a low growl, the barrel of his stolen pistol unwavering as it aimed at the woman who called herself Miss All Sunday. She stood at the center of their deck, surrounded, yet her posture remained that of someone enjoying afternoon tea.
Beside Sanji, Usopp's hands trembled only slightly as he pulled back the band of his slingshot. "Y-You heard him! Hands where we can see them!"
Vivi's voice cut through the tension, sharp with panic. "Wait! We don't even know what she—"
Miss All Sunday smiled. It was a small, pitying thing.
"Dos Fleur: Clutch."
Two slender arms, blooming from nothingness, sprouted from Sanji and Usopp's own shoulders. Before either could react, their own limbs were used against them—a brutal, graceful twist—and they were hurled across the deck like discarded dolls.
Thud. Thud.
The sound was sickening.
"SANJI! USOPP!" Nami screamed.
Luffy's straw hat shadowed his eyes, his jaw set in a hard line. Zoro's three swords were already drawn, a low snarl rumbling in his chest. But they were frozen, caught in the shock of a power that defied reason.
"What… what was that?" Chopper whispered, hiding behind the mast.
Miss All Sunday didn't answer. She simply stepped forward, her heels clicking softly on the wood. Her gaze fell on Luffy, and with a casualness that was itself a weapon, she reached out and plucked the straw hat from his head.
Luffy didn't flinch. He just watched her, a storm brewing in his dark eyes.
"A memento," she said, turning the hat in her hands. "But more importantly, a warning. Your Log Pose is set for Little Garden, yes?"
Nami, clutching her own wrist where the Pose was fastened, gave a tight nod.
"A charming name for a hellish place," Miss All Sunday continued, her voice a melodic poison. "An island trapped in the primordial age, where giants still walk and predators from a forgotten time feast. It is so… inconveniently dangerous that not even Baroque Works bothers with it. A perfect graveyard for naive pirates."
She produced a small, glowing orb from her coat—an Eternal Pose, its needle locked steadfastly on a single, unchanging destination.
"Consider this a kindness," she said, offering it to Nami. "This will lead you to a safer route. Away from Little Garden. Away from certain death."
Nami's hand twitched toward it. The navigator in her screamed to take it, to avoid the unknown terror this woman described.
"Is it a trap?" Vivi asked, her voice hollow.
Miss All Sunday's smile returned. "It might be. That is for you to decide. Accept my guidance, or cling to your chosen path. The choice, ultimately, is yours."
The weight of the decision pressed down on the deck. Nami's fingers inched closer. Sanji pushed himself up, blood trickling from his lip. Usopp groaned.
Then, a hand shot out.
Not Nami's.
Luffy's.
He snatched the Eternal Pose from the air, his eyes never leaving Miss All Sunday's.
"Luffy, wait!" Nami cried.
"That thing could save us!"
"I don't care," Luffy said, his voice quiet but carrying across the sudden silence.
He looked at the glowing orb in his fist, then at the woman who had bombed Igaram's ship, who had attacked his crew, who now held his hat.
"You don't get to tell us where to go."
His grip tightened. A web of cracks splintered across the glass.
"And I hate people who hurt my friends."
CRUNCH.
The Eternal Pose exploded into glittering dust in his bare hand, the light dying instantly. The fragments rained down onto the deck, a final, irrevocable refusal.
Miss All Sunday's smile finally faded. She looked at Luffy, a flicker of something unreadable in her obsidian eyes. Then, she placed the straw hat gently back on his head.
"As you wish," she said softly. "Die as you like, Straw Hat Luffy."
With a graceful leap, she was over the railing, landing on the shell of a waiting giant turtle, Banchi. It began to glide away, leaving the Going Merry and its stubborn crew behind in a wake of silence and sparkling dust.
*
The danger passed, but the air remained charged. As Nami set a course for the foreboding needle-point of the Log Pose, Sanji and Usopp—now bandaged—were finally given the full, horrifying story of Baroque Works, of the rebellion in Alabasta, of the bomb on the Miss Love Duck.
Luffy listened, but his gaze was distant, fixed on the horizon where the sky met a strange, greenish haze.
"Hey," he said, interrupting Usopp's dramatic re-enactment of his own bravery. "Is it gonna snow again?"
The non-sequitur hung in the air. Nami frowned at the perfectly clear, warm sky. "Snow? What are you talking about?"
Luffy just shrugged, but a chill that had nothing to do with weather traced its way down Vivi's spine.
*
Days later, after a voyage that was deceptively calm, the island appeared.
"Little Garden," Nami announced, her voice thin.
It was a wall. A colossal, living wall of prehistoric trees and twisted vines that rose from the sea, swallowing the sky. The air that rolled off it was hot, thick with the scent of damp earth and raw, rampant life. Unfamiliar, deafening roars echoed from within the jungle, sounds that belonged in nightmares, not on maps.
Vivi stood at the bow, her knuckles white on the railing. The carefree laughter, the shared meals, the easy camaraderie of the past few days—it felt like a dream now, shattered by the primordial reality before them.
"They have no idea," she whispered to herself, watching Luffy stretch with excitement, Zoro sharpen his swords, and Usopp try to convince a petrified Chopper that his "Usopp Spell" would protect them. "They're walking into a world that doesn't follow their rules."
Nami joined her, the Log Pose on her wrist pointing relentlessly, insistently, into the heart of the green nightmare.
"We have to go in there," Nami said, not a question.
"We do," Vivi replied, the weight of her kingdom heavy on her shoulders. "But please, Nami. Don't let them underestimate this. This isn't just another island. This is…"
Her warning died in her throat.
Because from the dense, shadowed treeline, a figure emerged.
It was not an animal.
It was a man, but he stood taller than the Going Merry's mainmast, his skin like weathered leather, his beard a wild tangle of red. In his hand was a sword the size of a ship's keel. He raised a horn to his lips, and the sound that blasted forth shook the very sea, a challenge that echoed across millennia.
And as the terrifying call faded, an identical, answering blast erupted from the opposite side of the island.
The giant before them lowered his horn, his ancient eyes locking directly onto the tiny ship below. A slow, battle-hungry grin split his face.
On the deck of the Going Merry, all motion ceased. All breath held.
The first giant hefted his colossal sword, its point aiming directly at them, and spoke in a voice like grinding continents.
"WELCOME, LITTLE VISITORS," he boomed. "TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS."
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