The wind battered the high windows of the Wyrmsreach Marine garrison, rattling iron shutters against stone. Rain whispered across the slate roof tiles in waves, thick and unrelenting, turning gutters to rivers and alleys to veins of running darkness. The night felt suspended, swollen with weight, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Lieutenant Marella Graves sat on the edge of her desk, unmoving, eyes fixed on nothing. A single oil lamp flickered nearby, throwing her silhouette in long, jagged waves against the wall. Her Marine jacket lay in a heap over the back of a chair, damp with sweat and streaked with dried blood. Beneath her rolled sleeves, her right arm was bound in fresh bandages, skin still angry and red beneath, the burn still throbbed from weeks ago.
A flame had done this.
His flame.
She hadn't seen anything like it since Eluma Isle. Not since the wreckage of that temple and the whispers of winged shadows cast against shattered stone. Not since the old tongues had been spoken aloud, and something had answered.
And now a boy, bruised, soot-streaked, barefoot, was walking the slums of Wyrmsreach like the sun itself had chosen him. Lunarian wings outstretched. Not hiding. Not begging.
Claiming.
She opened the top drawer of her desk, reached inside, and retrieved a small, lacquered black case. It clicked open with a whisper of precision. Nestled inside was a transponder snail, smaller than standard issue. its shell worn, its stalks twitching even before she touched it. Its eye glimmered with awareness, too sensitive, too awake.
This wasn't official equipment. This was Intelligence Division stock, the kind that didn't log records. This was the voice beneath the voice.
She placed it gently on the desk and exhaled.
"Graves," she said softly. "Theta Seven protocol. Priority report."
The snail blinked. Its shell began to shift, groaning like rusted armor, twisting until it settled into the hard set face of a man. Square jaw. Trim beard. A single monocle perched on one eye, lenses glinting like a cold sun. Fur lined collar visible beneath the mimicry of a high-ranking Marine coat.
Rear Admiral Titus Drake.
West Blue Intelligence Division.
One of the men who operated in margins, beneath the Admiralty, behind the Cipher Pols, beside shadows that never touched official record.
His voice came through like gravel dragged across iron.
"You're two days late, Lieutenant. I was beginning to think you'd gone native."
Marella folded her arms, ignoring the slow throb in her side.
"There were complications," she said. "The situation moved faster than anticipated."
Drake's mimic face didn't flinch. The snail's stalks twitched in tandem with unspoken tension.
"The crypt," he said.
She nodded once. "He found it."
His voice sharpened. "The boy?"
"Yes. The Lunarian I spoke of before. I tailed him into the Vortan estate ruins. The hidden chamber below the old manor. It was sealed ancient, sacred. And inside… there was something. A Devil Fruit. But not one like I've seen before."
Drake leaned forward slightly, as if his projection could close the distance.
"Is it the Solis Solis?"
Marella hesitated. Just for a second. Then shook her head.
"We don't know. That's the problem. The records you sent me, they spoke of celestial emblems, solar glyphs, a theoretical Mythical Zoan once tied to Lunarian folklore. But what I saw… it matches pieces of that. Not perfectly. There are inconsistencies. Unknown variables."
"Define."
"It wasn't just a fruit sitting on a pedestal. It was entombed. Surrounded by guardian constructs, Lunarian golems. Carvings that suggest divine rites. As if the fruit wasn't just powerful, it was dangerous. Forbidden. He survived the trials. Consumed it. And now, "
"He's changed, not normal... A zoan type?" Drake finished.
Marella nodded grimly. "Stronger. Faster. Flames active. Wings fully functional. His aura affects people. I watched a thug drop his blade in the street and kneel. They call him Ashwing in the alleys now. Beggars light candles. Dockworkers whisper his name like a prayer. And he, he walks through it like he was born for it."
A long pause.
Drake's tone was low and unreadable.
"They think he's holy."
"They need to," Marella replied. "The people here are starving. Broken. The moment someone shines, they chase the light."
"And you believe it's the Solis Solis?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I know this, whatever that fruit is… it isn't ordinary. It's not just power. It's a legacy. The old bloodlines. The fire we tried to bury. The boy isn't just a threat, he's a symbol. And symbols burn hotter than men."
Drake's mimicry tilted, as if weighing something unseen. The snail's eye stalks quivered.
"My superiors want answers," he said. "Not fables."
"Then tell them to dig up a thousand, year-old god and ask it directly."
He ignored the sarcasm.
"We've sent researchers to half a dozen sites across West Blue with matching iconography. Fragmented reports. Celestial motifs. Solar themed prophecy. We believe this fruit was part of a lost pantheon of Devil Fruits, remnants of a pre Great Age myth cycle. The fact that it appeared here, on Vortan's land, no less is no coincidence."
Marella's jaw clenched. "You knew."
"We suspected," he corrected. "The higher ups want results. And they're tired of watching this flame flicker unchecked. The Central Council doesn't care about mystery. They care about control."
She stepped forward, voice rising. "You asked me to observe. To guide. To see if he could be molded. You said he might be useful."
"That was before he became worshipped," Drake snapped. "You've had years, Graves. You were embedded in Vortan's operations for this exact possibility. But now you've let it slip into folklore."
"I can still fix thi-"
"No," Drake said coldly. "You won't."
Her breath hitched. Something cold settled behind her ribs.
"Who are you sending?"
Drake's lips curled, thin and cruel.
"Captain Hina."
The name landed like a blade across her spine.
"'Black Cage' Hina? She's not an investigator, she's a weapon. A mass containment specialist. You know what she'll do to Wyrmsreach. She won't distinguish between rebels and the hungry. She'll seal the entire island in iron. No survivors."
"Good," Drake said. "That's exactly the point."
"You'll turn him into a martyr!" Marella warned. "You'll turn this island into a story that spreads across the Blue like wildfire."
"Then we bury the ashes. We've done it before."
"You don't understand," she growled. "The boy glows. You kill him in front of the people, they'll follow the next light that rises. You're not stopping a soldier. You're trying to strangle a myth."
"And you're hesitating," Drake said flatly. "I warned them this might happen. You've seen his face. Heard his voice. He's getting into your head."
"No."
"Yes. And if Captain Hina uncovers your off book intelligence leaks behind Vortan's back? If she finds the cipher logs I was forced to erase for you? You're finished."
"I did what I had t-"
"And so will I."
The transponder snail clicked off.
Just like that, the room plunged back into silence.
Outside, the storm cracked the sky wide open. Thunder rolled across the sea. Somewhere far below, in the alleys and gutters of Wyrmsreach, small fires burned in secret places. Steel met steel in forgotten basements. Eyes turned skyward.
Riven.
She whispered his name like an anchor.
Then she crossed the room, fastened her coat, and reached for her twin daggers. As the wind howled through the shutters, she unlatched the window and flung it open.
Salt and rain lashed her face. Below, lanterns glimmered through the downpour. And above, lightning split the sky in a jagged scream of white.
And for a heartbeat, outlined in fire and stormcloud, she saw them.
Wings.
Burning.
Alive.
The storm had come.
"Damn!..."
------------------------------------------------------
Rear Admiral Titus Drake sat in his darkened office, the faint glow of the transponder snail fading as it returned to its dormant, twitching form. His fingers, gloved in fine black leather, tapped once against the carved mahogany of his desk.
The room around him was silent save for the tick of a brass plated chronometer above the fireplace and the distant creak of the airship moorings tethered to the Intelligence Spire's upper decks. Rain fell against the high windows in even sheets, barely audible through walls nearly a meter thick. A fire crackled, throwing long shadows against rows of scroll racks and locked iron cabinets. Behind him, mounted on the wall, was the long, serpentine skull of a Sea King, its jawbone cracked from battle.
Titus did not move.
He was thinking of the boy.
A Lunarian. Still alive.
'Where did he come from?'
He reached for the folder beside him, flipping it open with a slow, deliberate motion. Grainy photographs. A blurred figure darting across a rooftop trailed by smoke and light. Notes in ink, some smudged, some in coded script, scrawled by operatives too nervous to write clearly. At the bottom of the stack, an artist's sketch of a boy with dark skin, soot streaked chest, and wings edged in flame.
They called him "Ashwing." Already the name had spread beyond Wyrmsreach.
But it wasn't the wings that haunted Drake.
It was the heat signature.
He turned to a second folder, sealed with four wax insignias, each from a different hand in the Central Cipher Command. Even opening it without authorization would have cost most officers their lives.
But Titus Drake had long since stopped worrying about rules.
Inside, a copy of the ancient carving retrieved from the ruins of Eluma Isle. Two figures. One with blazing wings. The other, towering and indistinct, crowned by a halo of concentric suns.
In Lunarian, the glyphs beneath read:"Caelus Titanus, Flame Unbound. The Sky's Last Judgment."
The World Government's historians had suppressed the discovery. Burned the village that found it. Even the scholars that deciphered the glyphs were "reassigned."
But Drake had kept a copy. And now, the name whispered in that tomb beneath Wyrmsreach "Caelus" had come back. Not confirmed, not proven. But the shape matched. The flame matched. The anomaly fit.
A Mythical Zoan, maybe. Or something older. Maybe even a prototype, a relic from the pre Void Century world, when gods walked in flesh.
He leaned back slowly, eyes narrowing.
"What are you?" he murmured, as though the boy himself might answer from the photos.
He didn't believe in prophecy. He believed in power. And right now, the balance was shifting.
The door creaked.
Without turning, Drake spoke, "Enter."
A young Intelligence officer stepped into the room, soaked from the rain, posture stiff.
"Sir. Cipher Pol Nine has submitted their findings on the artifact in the crypt. Preliminary analysis suggests the fruit was not listed in any official Zoan registry. Not even the Mythical class. They've flagged the energy readings as anomalous, solar in nature, possibly celestial."
Drake didn't look away from the fire.
"No clear identification?"
The officer hesitated. "No, sir. The working theory is that the fruit may be... dormant. Or incomplete. Perhaps a graft or experiment. The only certainty is that its energy signature is unlike anything recorded. Cipher Pol Zero has been informed."
Drake smiled faintly.
Of course they had. The vultures were circling already.
"Anything from the Central Council?"
The officer stiffened. "Only a directive, resolve the anomaly. Quietly, if possible. But resolve it."
Drake finally turned, eyes sharp behind his monocle.
"And if not quietly?"
"They recommend scorched earth, sir."
Drake dismissed the man with a wave, and the door shut quietly behind him.
So. The Council had lost patience.
This wasn't just about Riven Caelum anymore. It wasn't even about Marella Graves or Lord Vortan's failures. It was about the memory of fire. The last surviving flame of a bloodline that had once scorched the skies. The Lunarians were supposed to be extinct, purged, rewritten, and buried.
But one had survived.
And now he was a boy who defied bullets, breathed solar flame, and walked unafraid in the heart of rebellion.
Titus reached for a bottle on the side table, dark rum, aged, sharp with molasses, and poured himself a half glass. He didn't drink often. Only when history turned.
He raised the glass to the air. "To endings," he muttered. "Or new beginnings. Either way, the sky will burn."
He stood then, walked to the window, and looked out over the storm. Lightning cut across the clouds, momentarily illuminating the sprawl of the West Blue far below. In that flicker, he imagined a boy with burning wings standing atop the ruins of everything the World Government had tried to bury.
Drake's hand clenched around the glass.
He would not allow it.
He would break the boy, or bury him beneath the weight of the world.
And if Captain Hina failed?
Then it would fall to Titus Drake himself to descend into the fire.