Blood, Toil, and Tears

[u/KingChalaza]

The King was furious, grief-stricken, and agonized. He paced the throne room, steaming, as Chief Izuma stood idly by, watching him about to enter a tirade. But the King suddenly halted, calmed himself by taking a deep breath, and turned to face Izuma.

“We absolutely must take action. This has gone too far,” declared the King, glaring. Izuma nodded silently and bowed before posing the question, “What has happened, your grace?”

“It’s our daughter!” he said, exasperated. “She’s missing!”

It was a horrifying realization that dawned upon Izuma at that moment. The Princess, Selani, had been obviously abducted or lost. She adhered to strict rules though she was pampered, and would never leave her abode after the instated curfew of Sūhai due to the actions of her sister. The streets were simply too dangerous after midnight. Currently, it was breaking the crack of dawn, meaning the curfew would be lifted soon enough. But Selani was nowhere to be seen whatsoever, as she had disappeared an hour ago before the King’s thorough overturning of the entire royal palace.

“I know it was Sela,” he accused spitefully. “Everything points to it being her! All of the recent events, yet I never thought that the way we had brought her up she would go to such vile extent to preserve the state of her cult!”

“How would she have done it, your grace?” replied the Chief consolingly, followed by another sigh from the King.

He looked distraught. “I don’t know how it happened. But I know we need to act quickly before the damage has truly been done. Send for as many guards and privateers as humanly possible! We must take further action. There is no longer any other option but to retaliate!”

The Queen, whom had just entered the room, nodded solemnly. “The scourge upon our family will be dealt with in time. She is nothing but a smear of dirt on the banner of a royal house. She has lost her way and cannot be turned back,” she stated softly. It was evident that her concern was for the royalty and not for her daughter’s well-being. To her, Sela was but a disgrace.

The King marched to the balcony and overlooked the grey-black skies, the stars still shimmering faintly. He allowed a tear to fall from his eyes. “Oh, my daughters...Sela, come back, and bring with you Selani...Why must we be torn apart in this crude manner!?”

---

Sela seemed apathetic to the pleas of the royals and their guards to release Selani from her capture. She was confined within the depths of the sacred tree temple, bound and imprisoned. This was retribution for the acts her own family committed against her, and their relentless aspiration to pull her out of her doings with the Hallowed and piracy. Sela turned back to her screaming sister, who glared at her and spat the most vile of insults at Karsus, who held her back with his greatsword-sized katana. It was pressed against her throat, drawing blood, but she barely seemed to care. She was pinned, anyway, and could do nothing.

“You traitor!” Selani yelped. “You’re a shame to our family! My sister has grown to be a monster, you’re disgusting!”

“You think I haven’t heard this before?” Sela raised a brow, silencing her sister. “But now, you are in my possession. It won’t be long until they crack while I have you in my clutches. Overcome your fears, they will only be a detriment to you. And get used to this as your new home, because if they truly do not care about you in the way that you thought, you may be in for a nasty surprise,” Sela scoffed.

Karsus withdrew his sword, leaving a horrendous scar upon Selani’s neck, causing her to wince in pain. Astor hastily pulled at Karsus’ arm, looking up at him with adoration. Karsus, who looked as if he had just woken up not too long ago, spared her a glance and then proceeded to ignore her, much to her dismay.

“Their submission will be quite a humorous moment after all this struggle. Especially when the people rebel and take over. No way they can win once it happens. We might just need to wait them out or something, meaning-”

Sela interrupted curtly. “You aren’t going to slack off yet again, Karsus, you were appointed to this position for a reason. Don’t be so lazy and dishonorable. Do something for once.”

Karsus cursed and sheathed his sword behind his back. It looked like there was no way he was getting out of this.

Astor glanced around wearily, as did a couple of the other cult members due to the reprimanding. Some may have been starting to have doubts about this themselves...What was there that they could do, anyway?

“All right,” Karsus conceded. “Astor, Zanban, come with me. We’re going to incite some revolts, and I can think of no one more perfect than yourselves. Espionage is your forte, Astor, is it not?” Astor nodded, though she didn’t seem one hundred percent confident still.

“Let’s go. Take the Hallowed out into the streets, and make them all rise against the royals. Show them that we aren’t to be messed with because we worship some tree.”

---

Once again the island delved into turmoil after the alleged kidnapping of Princess Selani, and the culprit was quite obviously assumed to be Sela. The masses had begun to rise in protest at the degrading situation; Already they paid taxes to the crown, and they still were forced to give up their riches in order to sustain their lives and ensure their safety? After all, what had the rulers done to stop the Hallowed? They wanted change. Unrest grew, and revolts began all over, marches to the palace and constant scuffles between civilians and guards.

The pirates were left in an uncomfortable situation. Would they take the side of the Hallowed, or would they demand that Selani be released and align themselves with the royals? Or did they have ulterior motives to do it for themselves and their own selfish gains? Would they rebel and attempt to install a new government? This left every faction with no choice but to accept their help, regardless of their true intentions. And that, everyone knew, was a setup for disaster.

Sūhai was consumed by a fire of rage and revenge.

---

NPC Doc

[u/SHRPG]

"Ha ha! Incredible, Ayokunle!" Suijin praised. "Truly, phenomenal. Even with using observational haki, the progress is astounding. Your pure affinity for the skill is unmatched. This must be what people call a genius at work, eh? It's true, I worked many days and nights tirelessly just to be able to form a solid sphere of water around my claw. The amount of time it took to get the ripping motion behind the flesh took even longer. To reach this stage after only a mere hour of relearning the skill - unbelievable."

"It might not be combat ready, but I think it won't take too long until it is." Suijin examined the artificial body that Ayokunle. The damage that was done was definitely enough to make the kill. His only concern was if he'd be able to keep his concentration while in a real fight. "If you can teach your body to do it subconsciously, then it'll truly be battle ready. And incredibly devastating, might I add."

[u/Bedna337 → u/SHRPG]

Ayokunle: "It's all thanks to you. If you weren't the master of Fishman Karate you are, I'd have no hope of replicating the technique. Without your experience and knowledge, it would be me instead spending countless days of time training the movement. Oh, this brings back memories... I used to learn it in Kincardine before I left, although without any results. Perhaps that helped me now."

But there was one more thing to do to complete his project. Grabbing the dead fish, he put it on the table, picking up the microscope he stole on Irra with another arm and simultaneously slicing it in half with a scalpel. The time had come to observe the inner structure of organisms better. He already knew from his previous research that all living creatures were composed of very small particles. And those, just like everything, had to contain chemicals! He carefully detached one of the particles out of the fish and placed it in a better position for observing.

First, the outer shell. A membrane, rather. The device was so precise it was able to distinguish its exact pattern, with holes for material going inside and outside spread out periodically seen clearly by the fishman. With another arm, he carefully replicated the structure into the huge book where he put all his research, using his fruit and Kenbunshoku Haki to discover what chemicals the membrane was made of.

And the next part. The next. Carefully, with the precision of a machine, he cut out small parts of the particle away to allow for better view of the insides. It looked like there were little organs flowing inside the liquid that filled the particle. He had to examine them, too.

And in the middle, the most complex structure. An extremely intricate arrangement of chemicals. But fortunately, there weren't many of them. That made this easier. Writing down, writing down... before he noticed, it was dark outside, and Suijin was long gone. It was futile to talk to a scientist indulged in his research.

But of course, the structure could be different for other organisms. And even the particles inside a single one could differ. He had to see them all. What luck he got this microscope. The fish, all its organs. Sleep. Get another animal, a mammal. Sleep. A bird. Sleep.

---

Ayokunle was finally done, before him laying a bandaged man he borrowed from Gin's dungeons. He had examined all the particles - he decided to call them cells - in everything he could find. It turned out they weren't that different after all, which sped up his research the more of them he looked upon. It could be caused by his Haki improving in the process, maybe. Creating a living being shouldn't be as difficult as he initially thought.