Author's Notes: I am so fucking tired. Work sucks. Have a chapter.

Also, make sure to check out my profile page for a heads-up on a change I'll be making soon, in regards to my work and this site. It's pretty important.

Chapter Thirty-Two:

A Song Heard Through The Centuries

KELLY

They arrived to chaos.

Kelly, Erin, Conis, and Nami were naturally the least affected by the trip, followed by Sanji, Usopp, and the Shandians. Robin and Chopper had nearly dropped to their knees, thoroughly winded. Shere and Gin curled up tight around them, allowing the two Devil Fruit users to rest against their backs.

They would be fine, but the way the magic (even neutral, protected sigils designed for usage around people with Devil Fruits) interacted with their bodies would leave them quite rattled.

But – as Erin explained it – it could have been much worse. Magic did not like most Devil Fruits as they existed now, after all.

In the beginning, Erin had explained to Kelly in a hurried tone, Devil Fruits had been created by the Gods to give certain humans the right to essentially take magic into their own bodies, granting them power akin to Magic, and making it so that their children would be open to inheriting actual magic as well. It was a gift to those who were loyal, or did great things.

But then Daemons got involved, and, well.

Magic stopped responding to those with Devil Fruits as Daemons corrupted the fruits and fed them to the willing (and those not so). The goddesses themselves withdrew their grace, with Jal delivering the greatest blow of them all – the banishment from the oceans. The curse of the Devil Fruits.

The waters will reclaim the corrupt.

Kelly shook her head, and focused on what lay ahead.

The Giant Jack was half-teetering on its hinges, and the snake lay dead – or near enough for it not to matter – before it. Lightning slashed across the sky, and the screams were just beginning. Enel was using the corrupted powers gifted to him by the Daemons to burn his bridges behind him, before he escaped to the moon.

Kelly looked to the sky, and saw the Ark slowly gaining height, raining lightning as it did. As she did, she caught sight a tiny figure pulling along an immense golden orb up the side of the half-broken Jack.

How in the hell had Luffy gotten up there so quickly? Canon had told her nothing about this-

She shook her head again, dispelling that useless thought. Hadn't she learned her lesson by now? Canon meant nothing, beyond a thin outline of each island the Straw Hats would land on, and what events might happen, and even that was unsure.

Luffy was going to face a still heavily corrupted Enel ahead of schedule – without Nami and the waver to get back up the Giant Jack if anything went wrong. She had wanted to stay out of it so that Luffy could get the pleasure of killing the bastard…but (and the sudden thought chilled her) could he?

Could he face Enel – a desperate, maddened Enel driven to escape the Daemons, with a Devil Fruit given corrupted power by Daemons – and win?

Nami was here – and so were Aisa, Wiper, Gan Fall, and Zoro and Gin as well she saw, as the Shandians converged on them – and help was a long way away from Luffy. There would be no lucky last minute save by a courageous girl in a waver now, if Luffy got blasted off the Giant Jack.

Tiny flickering sparks of wrongness emerged high above. Enel was working some sort of Daemon foulness, and it was headed right towards Luffy. A last resort. A last resort that would work, because Luffy did not know how to fight even the half-shades of a corrupted human – much less anything else Enel could pull out of his ass. Any other last last resorts.

Kelly didn't know for sure, but she doubted very much that Luffy could get past the wights and Enel's corrupted lightning. He was strong, yes, and in the world she had known he had been The Protagonist.

But this was not a manga.

She'd never considered the idea that Luffy could perish. In the world she'd remembered, it was unthinkable. Monkey D. Luffy, dead? The thought was ludicrous, if at least for the immense Plot Armor he wore.

But this was not the world she'd remembered. Here, Luffy could very well die.

And that…

Kelly tore her black t-shirt off and rolled her shoulders, sending magic coiling through them. She felt good, felt whole and healthy in a way she hadn't since well before Aratuck, though she would be careful to keep her Magic tucked away, so she wouldn't hurt Luffy. It would be hard.

What had Gin said, long, long ago, on the island where Shere had been born?

-… "Your Magic is strong, Mistress, but it is uncontrolled. Training – the Rokushiki will help – will give you some control over it, but you will need many, many years before you even begin to master a fraction of it."…-

Kelly did not think of that 'many, many years' Gin had spoken of, because at this moment she did not have them. Her magic was-

Her magic was not something of the mortal world, not like that of any Magi she'd met before (except possibly for Erin). Nephele had called her of Jal, and Kelly had never been religious, but she'd felt the touch of-of something on her, when she'd changed the pillars.

Her magic could very easily consume her.

…But she would control it.

Because Luffy needed her help.

Luffy needed her.

"Conis! Erin!" Her voice cut through the babbling of the Shandians and the Straw Hats, and her sister Magi turned their attention to her. "Watch them. Make sure Enel sends no mischief this way while I'm busy."

She would be very, very surprised if Enel did not have traps or ways of reaching new heights of that awful power. And now, at the very end of it, she had no doubt that Enel would use them, no matter the consequences.

"Busy?" Conis asked.

"Luffy needs some help to get past Enel's defenses," Kelly said, and the earth began to shake under her feet as magic rippled. "I'll be going to help. None of you are as fast as I, and none of you are strong enough, so don't argue."

Erin's hands were steady, even as her eyes shone with quick flashes of fear.

"Hold the line?" Kelly asked her, like they were just children again, playing videogames in her bedroom.

-…"You're such a nerd," Erin said, still a little clingy, still a little soft…-

Erin smiled, a little quirk of the lips. Then she nodded.

"Be careful," she said, and Kelly knew that Erin wasn't just talking about Kelly staying safe. The magic that curled under Erin's skin was tightly leashed, allowed to flow but at the pace of the Magi it inhabited.

Kelly's Magic was like oceans, and as deep as them too. Not once had she ever sought to control them beyond the techniques Gin had taught her. And even that hadn't been the Magic true and deep inside her, simply the Magic in the world around her.

Most Magi had shreds of magic in them, and could use that magic to call to what was in the world. Some Magi, like Erin, had even greater amounts of magic in them.

But Kelly had far, far more than what was in the world around her. Far more, now that she looked deep.

It was like looking into the ocean and watching the murky depths far below her toes and knowing that she wasn't seeing even a small shred of what the ocean truly was.

And that terrified her, even as she fought for calm. She felt young and scared, like the time she'd channeled lightning while fleeing the Daemons, leaving her with burns on her wrists that discolored even the scales that clung around that area.

She didn't like using her magic beyond shreds of it, because it could so easily consume her – without the barrier she'd been given when changing the pillars. She didn't like looking deep and pulling it free-

But.

Luffy.

Kelly breathed in, and out. In, and out. In with the tides, out with the ocean.

Gin and Shere pulled back and away from the roar of magic in her veins by instinct. Kelly opened her eyes, and felt them burn.

Then-

"Soru!"

The earth vanished, crumbling beneath her feet. When next she touched down, it was on the once-sturdy surface of the wobbling Giant Jack. Then she was gone again, landing only for the briefest of seconds before touching off again.

Magic poured through her like seawater through her veins, and she felt gloriously, wondrously alive-

She felt then other presences, twisted wights, take shape behind her, below her, but she had to trust that Erin and Conis and her familiars could protect the Shandians and the Straw Hats.

Her magic thundered in her veins as she slammed into the first of the wights coming for Luffy. It was a beastly thing, like a Thrall but ethereal, given substance only when her magic lashed out like a sword, slicing it into shreds.

"Ciel!" Luffy's voice was clear, even over the whistling wind.

"Need some help, Rubberband Man?" Kelly asked as Luffy dug his heels into the Jack's side, balancing beside her. His smile was etched at the edges with real anger.

She snagged her claws in the front of his shirt, and barely budged as the immense golden orb attached to his hand strained, nearly pulling him off his feet again.

"I'm going to kick Enel's ass," Luffy said, and his eyes were hard. "He made Aisa cry."

There was a story there, different from what she knew, but no time to get it out of him. "You'll need help getting up to him, and getting past those beasts of his," Kelly said, looking up at the capering ghosts, and the lightning beyond that.

Enel's laughter was faint on the rushing winds, faint and foul. He was cooking something.

"Luffy," Kelly said, and Luffy looked at her. Just barely shy of seventeen, with eyes like iron, and that hat hanging around his neck. His was a look that could conquer kingdoms, if he set his mind to it.

Huh, she thought.

And the fear inside her calmed, as her magic did.

"Luffy," she said again. "He has to die, for all that he's done."

He nodded and something settled in her stomach.

"Piggyback, Luffy, but make sure not to touch my bare flesh. I'll get us past the ghosts, and we'll deal with Enel. Permanently."

Luffy's smile was just as wide and just as physics-breaking as it ever was in canon. But Kelly had to admit that she'd never thought the same gesture in canon so resembled a shark's grin, as it did now.

But strangely enough, it was a comfort all the same.

WIPER

Wiper fought, feeling Conis's and Erin's magic coiling around his weapon as he did. His arms burned.

The wights and reanimated dead things Enel had called to kill them screeched, desiccated teeth clacking with hunger. Distantly, he could still hear the screams of the people on Angel Island and the other towns as lightning poured from the skies.

He did not like the land-stealers.

But they did not deserve to die like that.

He heard their screams. Maybe there were even some of his kin among the land-stealers, from those who had been taken from them like Aegle's daughters had, forced to sire children.

Children like Conis.

He beheaded a cackling skeleton as the Blue Sea dweller with a foot of flame smashed through a second, dancing alongside the two of the Snake's familiars. Wiper corrected his thoughts when he saw how protective the two Familiars were over the man, and how he seemed to move in unconscious concert with them.

A mate to the Snake Magi who'd gone to confront Enel, then? Perhaps not married yet, but certainly bound in some form or fashion. Or did Magi of the Blue Sea have different customs than the Magi of the Sky?

He dismissed the thought as frivolous when Laki's back met his, his fellow warrior shuddering for breath as she danced with her spear. Focus, he could almost imagine Agda saying to him.

Normally he would have hated that a Blue Sea Dweller and a Magi not of his own kin were taking his own vengeance from him, but-

The Snake Lord had given back Erin to them. The Snake Lord had saved Conis's life when he could not, even it burned his pride to know that he could not have done the same. And the Blue Sea Dweller – that Monkey Aisa had spoken of, who'd fought tiny wights of Enel in the belly of the dead snake to protect her - had promised to kill Enel not only for Aisa, but to do so in such a way as to send word to the seas below.

To the descendant of Nephele and Noland.

-…"Montblanc Cricket, Wiper," Erin had said when she'd drawn him aside, before the Snake Lord had taken to the skies. "That's his name. The son twice times over of Noland and Nephele. Luffy comes as his messenger, seeking the truth of our people."…-

Noland had never stopped searching for them. Neither had his daughters, nor their daughters, nor their sons. And now these pirates had come to find them, at the behest of Noland's blood, bringing a Magi of unparalleled strength to seek vengeance and the truth.

He could forgive the Blue Sea Dwellers for taking his vengeance in light of that, Wiper thought.

He could.

ENEL

Enel watched the world burn, and laughed and laughed and laughed-

"You're a fool," said a voice behind him, and his head whipped around.

A woman stood there, blond hair flying free. She wore simple white robes that fluttered in the wind.

"You're dead," he whispered, still chuckling.

She looked at him, with dark eyes that had been once been like his.

"Maybe so," she said, still calm. "But you are still a fool. And you will still fall."

The laugh that bubbled up in him was no longer one of triumph, but desperation.

"No one can stop me," he hissed, biting it down. "Not even you!"

Lightning cracked out, through the space where the ghost's head once was. The light faded, leaving only a scorched mark on the wood.

"So foolish." Enel whirled, to see the ghost now sitting on the railing of the Ark.

He breathed heavily, shaking and failing to hide it.

"Do you hear the screams?"

"Be quiet!"

She turned to look at him, and he thought wildly that this was how she had looked before him. Proudly the daughter of ancients. Proudly a cursed Magi, even as weak of one as she had been.

"Do you see them coming? The Magi and the King?"

Then she was there, right in front of him, and he staggered back-

"Do you see your death? Because I do."

Lightning smashed out, but still the ghost lingered, and Enel turned away (ran away).

He could feel it now, that rolling strength and deadly rage. No, no, no, he thought. Not now. He could hear the screams, and they were so loud, so piercing, such a distraction, the damned ants-

The bell that rested in the depths of the Ark gleamed as he went to it. He pulled the black stones embedded in its surface off (the gifts he had been given to cement his power, once he'd come here after his conquest) and carried them up to the deck, not seeing how the bell turned from a dull brass to its gleaming gold as he did.

Where were the ants, they should have done this instead of him–the ants were dead, to satiate his own hunger, or they screamed below, so loud and annoying.

Six black stones, still shining with power. The backbone of his family's dominance in the skies. There had once been sixteen, though most of the rest had shattered in the Magi's rage. But six would be enough to make the noise stop.

Maybe the ghost would be quiet then, too.

"So foolish, my son," his mother whispered, and he dug his fingers into the surface of the pulsing hearts.

Lightning - white and jagged and smelling like blood and gore - consumed him.

And then the world was gone.

(But not her voice. No, never her voice.)

KELLY

There was a flash, the smell of ozone – "Luffy, close your eyes!" – and then a noise.

Kelly would never forget that noise as long as she lived.

It was like thunder, like the squelching of a drain lifted, like a thousand screams suddenly silenced, like the crumbling of earth, the sound of the void of space.

Lightning flared, brighter and more deadly than the sun, and when Kelly's vision cleared-

Gods be good, she thought, horrified. Luffy made a pained sound, and she did not question how he knew what had happened just as she did.

Angel Island was gone.

It was a missing space in the recovering magic of Skypiea. The Magi could feel the magic screaming, the space where the people of Angel Island had once been was seeping raw, a bitter wound that made her stagger.

There was more laughter now, twice as loud and twice as mad, and more lightning began to fall, and things began to stalk the island, awoken from deep, things that had been hidden from the range of the blast Kelly had unleashed. They were like wights, but not. They walked, they consumed, they feasted, on everything that lived and breathed.

Where the hell did he get that sort of power? Kelly thought, terrified. I thought only Daemons could wake those sort of twisted golems!

There were other islands burning now (the ones surrounding where Angel Island had once been), other settlements collapsing, and more people who were dying. She could hear their screams as Enel burned the last of his bridges.

Only the Shandian encampment was not in flames by this point, but Kelly could feel the slow, inexorable march of that relentless hunger towards the shields.

Luffy snarled like a wolf in her ear, and that pulled her out of her horror.

They couldn't do anything for the people of Skypiea, not now. Well, maybe she could, but that would leave Luffy alone to face Enel, and that wasn't an option.

She couldn't help Angel Island. It and its people were beyond whatever help she could have given. But if she could kill Enel, maybe she could keep the rest of the humans on Skypiea stay alive. Maybe.

"Luffy, hold-"

There was a screeching noise, another sound of corrupted thunder. Her Magic shuddered up and out, a blue-white sphere winking into sight just as the bolt of lightning sheered through the air towards them-

-And bypassed them completely?

What?

Kelly blinked as her shield faded away. What had Enel been-

The Giant Jack groaned, and her heart leapt up into her throat as it lurched and began to fall.

Stupid! The Magi thought, as Luffy let out a screech of his own. He was aiming for the beanstalk!

She lost her footing as the Jack began to drop, pinwheeling desperately. Her magic shot out in wild instinct, and she only just managed to drag it back before it lashed out at Luffy.

Fuck, control, control, control!

It was like trying to use a pair of paper reins to control a tidal wave. The full depth of her Magic loomed up like the endless ocean, threatening to swamp her.

Fuck, do something, do something!

They needed to fly, but she had her hands full with keeping the relentless tide back.

Because if she let go, even for a second, Luffy was as good as dead. Her magic would snap out and turn him to ash.

The Jack dropped, and they were falling, toppling through the air. And here, there was no courageous girl with a waver for a last minute rescue. And even if there'd been, Nami never could have reached them in time.

Enel's laughter rang in the Magi's ears, and Kelly wanted to howl with fury.

No!

Not like this!

Luffy's scream burned her ears as she grappled desperately, reaching, reaching-

Then, a sound.

Kelly would never have been able to precisely describe that sound – maybe like a spoon tapping the edge of a glass, only the ringing was drawn out for an impossibly long note? Maybe the wind whistling through a series of empty hallways?

But it was there, growing louder and louder, backed by a rumble that was not the twisted sound of the thunder and lightning Enel commanded.

She heard a voice in her head, magic she recognized.

Get a shield up around Luffy!

It was Erin's voice, but with the winds twisting through it, it was like she was standing on a hilltop and listening to Erin speaking in her ear-

Kelly reacted instinctively, letting the magic that wasn't hers (wasn't it?) snap out. Signs and sigils flashed out around her eyes, blinding her, and-

Something roared.

Endless and everlasting, something awoke from the depths of the Vearth and Skypiea both. Something rose, magic deep and all-consuming.

Kelly's feet hit something that felt like clouds, Luffy grunted, but he kept his grip around her. The golden ball hit something and bounced, and slowly they began to rise.

Luffy made an awed sound.

"Ciel! Look!"

Kelly's eyes shot open – when had she closed them? – as they began to move both forward and still higher. They stood on the palm of a hand made of solid wind and magic.

She looked even further up, and saw a giant's head looming high above.

"Gods be good," she breathed.

A giantess, ethereal but rendered solid by the beating hearts twinned within it and the magic they had called, loomed tall and unyielding above them. The giantess was burning with a warm golden light – no, she was the golden light, with black eyes that shone with the light of a thousand stars, space illuminated with the very hints of what might have been the Big Bang.

Kelly knew she was crying, as Magic and light and something warm, like a mother's love, reached out and wrapped around them both. Luffy giggled helplessly in her ear.

"Forward, Giant!" he yelled, sounding like a little boy commanding a toy soldier.

"Luffy!" Kelly gasped out, trying for a reprimand and falling short in her helpless joy.

Laughter rang through the skies, Erin's and Conis's both, twined together like they had twined together to provide the foundation for Skypiea's final defense.

We march, the giantess sang to them.

"Forward!" Luffy cried out, still laughing. Kelly didn't bother to wipe her tears away.

This was Magic beyond her, but was also so intrinsic to some deep part of her, some part of her hidden by that murky ocean that was her power, that she couldn't help but know what it was.

It was a call to the gods for help given form. It was a binding promise to the land of Skypiea itself in return for the power to protect it, to protect every person on that island, even if it meant their lives.

This was magic that could consume Erin and Conis both, Kelly knew. And it likely would.

So make it count, she thought.

Luffy's grip tightened around her, and Kelly turned her gaze up, towards the Ark. Where Enel was.

Make it count, Kelly.

WIPER

The new monsters Enel's madness had summoned marched inexorably towards them, and Wiper could feel Conis's and Erin's magic beginning to waver as the ever-encroaching tide of enemies refused to be turned back. The Familiars of the Snake Lord were wavering as well, panting for breath in between each snarl of fury.

Wiper could hear the people screaming on the islands surrounding the gaping wound where Angel Island had once been, and the horror would have consumed him if he was less disciplined.

They were fighting a losing battle.

Agda had taught him well. Wiper had his pride, but he knew when there was a fight he could not hope to prolong without losing not only his own life, but the lives of all of his warriors and comrades as well.

Your pride is nothing compared to the lives of your family and your people, she'd told him. Do not carelessly throw your pride away, but do not cling so tightly you would sacrifice those you will one day protect for it.

Had this been any other fight, any skirmish against Enel's monsters, any other raid that brought them up against a foe with superior numbers, he would have taken his warriors and retreated.

You are worth more to your tribe alive than you are dead, Agda had whispered in his ear two days before the monsters had killed her. You are worth more, and so are your fellows.

But there was nowhere to go now. If they ran, the monsters would simply follow, all the way to the very borders of the great island. They would follow their hunger until the humans and Magi alike collapsed.

He could not protect his people, Wiper knew. They could not retreat, and they could not win.

But he forced his spear to move faster, as a bleeding and staggering Mayushika was dragged out of Genbo's grip and pulled screaming into the maw of a beast with a hundred eyes. He kept fighting.

What else could he do?

"Erin!" Coni's voice drew him out of the battle-fury he'd sunk into, and a shield made of ethereal power sprang into life between the remaining fighters and the monsters capering outside.

Wiper spared a look towards the two Magi of his tribe huddled together, speaking furiously in the language of their people. Erin's eyes were wide as Conis whispered to her, and her protests died away as Conis clasped her hands.

"Is there no other option?" Erin asked her, closing her eyes.

"Can you think of something? Because I cannot," Conis replied, her mouth trembling. But her spine was straight, and her bearing proud.

There was another sound of Enel's lightning, like the sound that had preceded the annihilation of Angel Island and the march of the monsters. One of the Blue Sea Dwellers cried out as the Giant Jack began to fall.

The Snake Lord's Familiars screamed as, far in the distance, the two specks that denoted Snakeman and Blue Sea Dweller began to topple alongside the immense plant.

Grief struck through him, with rage and horror alongside it. They had lost the city of their people, the Vearth upon which they had lived.

Now the Jack would fall, the tree before which Nephele had asked Calgara to watch over Aegle.

"Conis, with me!" Erin said, her voice full of fear.

He turned again, to see Conis watching him.

She looked at him, and Wiper felt the breath inside his lungs freeze to solid ice as she smiled, weary and determined and apologetic all at once.

-…Agda smiles at him, as though asking for his forgiveness in the same motion as she asks him to understand. Then she turns, and walks out to the first of the totems protecting their village, even while the horde approaches…-

Then she pressed her forehead against Erin's and Magic flared.

And Wiper knew.

"No," he said. "Conis, no-"

Hands wrapped around him, and he was dragged back by the eldest of the women who had come from the Blue Sea, the one with the Devil Fruit. She held him as easily as she might a small child, with the mutant limbs halting his movement as Conis and Erin began to speak in their ancient language.

"Damn you, let me go!" he barked.

"It is her choice," the woman said quietly. "It is her choice, to defend her home and her hearth and the one she loves, even if it means her death."

Terror spiked through his blood.

"Conis!"

Again and again he would fail. Again and again he would lose all that he loved.

-…"Are you going to give it to her?" Braham asks, as Wiper holds the bracelet up to his eye, looking carefully at the work he has done. He glares at his friend, and the larger man smiles, holding up his hands.

"Just a simple question, Wiper. You know no one in this village would raise a brow at you seeking to court the last daughter of Aegle."

Wiper turns his attention back to the bracelet. Conis and he have gained something of a friendship, in the years after her mother died. She is strong, far stronger than he ever thought she was. She was given no choice in the matter.

"It is a present, for her nameday," he says, stubborn. "That is all."

Braham sighs, but says nothing to contradict him…-

Magic surged and keened, and the shield around them buckled. Magic twined between the two Magi, while the reindeer cowered behind the Snakeman's familiar, and the woman helped hold Wiper back.

He could hear Laki crying in Kamakiri's arms, even as he struggled. Conis and Erin spoke, their edges blending into each other, their Magic melding and becoming stronger, curling inescapable roots into the ground below their feet.

More and more magic came at their call, dancing and singing around the two Magi.

Wiper could see right through Conis's body.

For a single moment, Conis looked at him. Her mouth formed the words forgive me.

"Conis!"

The Magi vanished beneath a wave of magic. The shield shattered. The world went sideways.

And something roared.

KELLY

The giant marched, with the two of them still balanced on its palm.

"Ready, Luffy?" Kelly asked, and heard his laugh.

His grip around her tightened, and she could feel his heart beating a steady tempo, where his chest was pressed to her back. And for a moment, a single dizzying moment, she could feel every vein in his body, the flow of his blood, all the way to a pulsing second heart somewhere in his belly.

She saw - again for the quickest of seconds – lights dancing around that strange second heart inside Luffy. Lights that were as blue and endless as the ocean, lights that sometimes danced for her, when she went deep inside herself.

Luffy laughed once more, and she was pulled away from the strange vision. His cheek pressed against hers, and she was struck by how strangely right it felt.

"Forward, Ciel!"

Go, Erin and Conis's voices said. End this. End the abomination.

"Hold on, Luffy," Kelly said, her voice just barely heard over the roaring wind.

She closed her eyes, pulled the Magic up and through her, and breathed deep. She did not worry that Luffy would be affected any more. Her Magic wouldn't hurt him. It had no reason to hurt him.

Not any longer.

Kelly opened her eyes, and the Magic sang.

"Give me a boost!"

Wind rushed past as the giant brought the arm Kelly and Luffy were standing on back. And with a throw that a major league pro would have been proud of, the giant tossed them towards the Ark in a single, smooth movement.

"WOOHOO!" Magi and pirate screamed in unison, their voices both brimming with sheer vicious joy.

ENEL

He brought the lightning.

What else could he do?

Enel heard his mother's laughter behind him, ringing through his ears, even as he became the lightning.

He watched them come, the Magi and the King.

His sisters had spoken of this Magi, he remembered now. Had spoken of a Magi that had been talked about all across their world, for the potency of its blood and the newness of its mind. A godblooded Magi, without the protection one would have normally been afforded.

He brought his hand out, now yellow-black like an infected wound, and a trident appeared, constructed entirely of the same lightning he was now made of.

The Moon awaited. A new place to rebuild his empire, away from any cursed Magi. It would be safe.

It's not meant for you, his mother said, still laughing.

The Magi batted away his strike as though it was an errant wind. The lightning that got past the Magi simply bounced off the pirate on its back.

"Luffy!" The Magi called.

There was a laugh from the pirate, and it merged eerily with the laughter coming from behind Enel.

Desperately, he reached out to the bell and what power remained in it. The pirate twisted the arm stuck to the giant gold sphere.

"Gomu Gomu no…"

He would not lose. He could not lose. Not when he was so close.

Enel remembered standing in a dark room, while his mother screamed. Enel remembered bowing his head before the beauty of the Queen, and hearing her praise him. Enel remembered the feeling as she reached her fingers into his chest and turned his lightning black-yellow-gold, and made him stronger than any Devil Fruit user.

Make me proud, little one, she'd said, her face terribly beautiful.

Then he remembered what his mother had said, in a flash that pulled away the edges of the beauty the Queen had worn.

His mother had died with blood on her lips…And an apology. He remembered now.

I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to be your mother, she'd whispered. Forgive me.

He faltered. Just for a second, but it was enough.

"…Ougon Rifle!"

Then his world was pain, as both the golden ball and magic slammed into him, knocking him back and down into the bell that awaited in the darkness where he'd kept it.

In the last few moments, he could hear the sound of the Ark splintering, and he could see his mother.

She was no longer laughing. Just watching, framed by the sunlight that reflected off the gold.

Her eyes were the last thing he saw as the Magic ripped him asunder.

WIPER

The bell rang as it fell.

The giant held up its hands, and washed the sky clean for true.

And the sun shone.

His knees hit the ground as the magic faded into the rays of light, into the very ground around him. He could hear people cheering far away. He could hear Kamakiri and Laki mourning as the giant faded, it and those who had created it, bound to the land.

Conis, he thought. Conis.

He remembered the two of them sitting together, before the statues of Aegle and Calgara. It had been a peaceful night, with the stars shining and their troubles not so prevalent.

She had reached out her hand to tangle with his, and he had wondered if this was what peace was.

Conis, he thought again.

He remembered thinking that when they were free, he would ask her. He would do things properly. And they would make a life for themselves in that future that would now never come.

The bell's ringing note sang through the air, all the way down to the sea where Nephele and Noland's descendants lived.

He hoped they heard it. He hoped they knew that Shandia had never forgotten them.

-…"For once in my life, I wanted to do something that showed I was worthy of you."…-

He closed his eyes, and the burning in them grew agonizing. He clung to the fur of the panther Familiar as it rested its head on his knees, offering comfort. The tiger was doing the same for Kamakiri and Laki.

The payment had been made to Noland and Nephele's blood. Enel was dead. The sky was free.

Conis, he thought. Agda.

I'm sorry.