The air in the underground tomb was thick with the smell of dust and ancient stone. Vivi's breath came in ragged gasps as she pressed her back against a cold pillar, the sounds of her pursuers echoing through the labyrinth.
"Princess!" Pell's voice was a strained whisper from the shadows. "Stay behind me."
"They're everywhere," Vivi hissed, her knuckles white around her peacock slashers. "Baroque Works… they've infiltrated everything."
A figure dropped from the ceiling—a man with scorpion tattoos. Then another. And another. Five agents of Baroque Works surrounded them, their smiles cruel in the flickering torchlight.
"The little princess and her loyal bird," the lead agent sneered. "Crocodile sends his regards."
Pell moved like lightning. His wings unfurled, sending two agents crashing into walls before they could blink. Vivi spun, her blades catching a third across the chest. For a moment, they fought as one—guardian and heir, defending their kingdom even in this sun-forsaken tomb.
But as the last agent fell, a slow, mocking applause echoed through the chamber.
"Bravo."
Miss All Sunday stepped from the darkness, her footsteps silent on the stone. Her expression was unreadable, a calm mask that made Vivi's blood run cold.
"You," Vivi snarled, her voice trembling with rage. "You killed Igaram."
"Did I?" Miss All Sunday tilted her head. "Or did he simply… disappear?"
Vivi didn't wait. She lunged, peacock blades aimed straight for the woman's heart. But before she could connect, a hand sprouted from her own chest—a disembodied, graceful hand that seemed to bloom from her sternum like some terrible flower.
Vivi gasped, staring down at the impossible limb protruding from her body. No pain. No blood. Just cold, shocking violation.
"PRINCESS!" Pell's roar shook the chamber.
He transformed in a burst of feathers and fury, the great falcon of Alabasta diving toward Miss All Sunday. But more hands bloomed from the walls, the floor, the air itself—dozens of them, catching his wings, his talons, his throat. They held him suspended, helpless as a fly in amber.
"The Hana Hana no Mi," Miss All Sunday explained calmly, as if discussing the weather. "A devil fruit that lets me blossom limbs anywhere I please. Quite useful, really."
She closed her fist.
Pell crashed to the ground, his transformation shattered, his body broken.
"No more time to waste," Miss All Sunday said, turning away as if they were already forgotten.
Vivi tried to move, but the hand still protruded from her chest, holding her in place. She watched, helpless, as the woman walked into the shadows. The hand dissolved into petals. And Vivi was running before the last one hit the ground, leaving Pell bleeding on the stone.
---
Crocodile's lair was not what she expected. It was a throne room of sand and shadow, deep beneath the city. The Warlord stood before a massive hourglass, the last grains of sand trickling down.
"Princess Nefertari Vivi," he said without turning. "You're just in time."
"For what?" Vivi demanded, her blades raised. "What have you done with my father?"
"Your father?" Crocodile finally turned, his hook glinting. "He's playing his part. As are you."
She attacked. A whirlwind of blades and desperation. But her weapons passed through him as if he were made of smoke, sand scattering and reforming.
"The Suna Suna no Mi," Crocodile said, his voice dripping with contempt. "I am sand itself. Your struggle is as meaningless as a desert mirage."
He gestured to the hourglass. The final grain fell.
"It's past seven," Miss All Sunday's voice came from the entrance. She held a den den mushi. "The broadcast has begun."
Crocodile's smile was a knife in the dark. "Let the performance commence."
---
Above ground, in the palace, Captain Chaka's world was unraveling.
"The king is gone!" a guard gasped, bursting into the war room. "His chambers are empty!"
"Impossible," Chaka snapped. "There were twenty guards at his door!"
"They're all unconscious! No signs of struggle!"
Chaka's mind raced. Cobra wouldn't abandon his post. Not now. Not with the rebels at the gates and the kingdom hanging by a thread.
Another guard stumbled in, his face pale. "Sir… we found him. The king. In a way."
"What does that mean, 'in a way'?"
Before the guard could answer, a soldier rushed in. "Sir! Kohza is riding toward the city square! He's heard something—he's out of his mind with rage!"
---
Kohza rode like a man possessed, the desert wind tearing at his clothes. The message had reached him minutes ago—The king is in Nanohana. He's going to destroy it.
No, Kohza thought. He wouldn't.
But memories assaulted him:
His father's hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up on the king, Kohza. He's a good man."
The rebel count swelling to 100,000. The thirst. The dying.
His father's unwavering faith, even as his lips cracked from dehydration.
That final, terrible argument in the palace. Cobra's cold eyes. "The drought is not my concern."
The moment Kohza decided the king had to fall.
Now, as he galloped into Nanohana's central square, he saw the nightmare made real.
King Cobra—or a man wearing his face—stood on a raised platform, surrounded by royal guards armed not for ceremony, but for war. The citizens of Nanohana cowered before them, confusion and terror on their faces.
"People of Alabasta!" the false king's voice boomed, amplified by den den mushi across the square. "I come before you with a heavy heart and an apology!"
Kohza reined his horse to a stop, his blood freezing.
"For years, I have watched this kingdom suffer," the king continued, his voice dripping with false sorrow. "The drought. The poverty. The despair. And I have done… nothing."
A murmur ran through the crowd.
"But today," the king said, his expression hardening, "I will make amends. Today, I will end your suffering."
He raised his hand.
The royal guards leveled their weapons—not at the rebels, but at the buildings. At the homes.
"By erasing this blight from our kingdom," the king said, his voice cold as stone. "By destroying Nanohana and every soul in it."
"NO!" Kohza screamed, leaping from his horse.
But he was too late.
The first shot rang out. A market stall exploded into splinters. People screamed, scattering like leaves in a storm.
A child—a boy no older than six—ran forward, tears streaking through the dust on his face. He stopped before the platform, looking up at the king with bewildered betrayal.
"Your Majesty?" the boy whispered. "Why?"
The king looked down. For a moment, Kohza saw something flicker in those eyes—something that wasn't Cobra at all. Something cold and alien.
Then the king kicked the child.
A brutal, merciless blow that sent the small body tumbling through the dirt.
The world stopped.
Kohza's breath vanished. The screams faded to a distant roar. All he could see was that small, still form in the dust.
The king looked up, his eyes meeting Kohza's across the square. And in that moment, Kohza saw the truth—the cruel, impossible truth.
This wasn't his king.
But as the royal guards raised their weapons again, as the people of Nanohana stared in horror at their monarch turned monster, Kohza knew the terrible reality:
It didn't matter if it was really Cobra.
Because in thirty seconds, the rebellion would see this broadcast.
In thirty seconds, 100,000 rebels would believe their king had just ordered a massacre and kicked a child in the street.
In thirty seconds, the war would begin.
And Alabasta would burn.
---
In the tomb below, Vili stared at Crocodile's smiling face as the den den mushi broadcast the screams from above.
"Why?" she whispered.
Crocodile leaned close, his breath hot against her ear.
"Because, little princess," he murmured, "some gardens only grow from ashes."
Behind him, the wall of sand began to shift—and a figure stepped through, a figure Vivi knew better than her own reflection.
Her father. King Cobra. His eyes empty. His movements mechanical.
And a knife in his hand, aimed at her heart.
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