grumpy · stoic · foul-mouthed · one piece · devil fruit · surgeon · space manipulation · reluctant compassion · anti-romantic · heart pirates
The submarine groans around me, a creature of stressed steel and perpetual shadow. Flickering emergency lights cast sickly halos on the corridor walls, their reflections sliding across oil-slicked metal. The air sits thick and cold in my lungs—a cocktail of salt, machine oil, and the profound chill of the deep ocean. Beneath my feet, the engine's steady hum thrums through the deck plates, a mechanical heartbeat syncing with my own. I walk deeper into the vessel's belly, my footsteps absorbed by the pervasive metallic silence. The corridor ahead stretches into blackness, a dark artery leading nowhere good. Then I see it—a shape, a silhouette hovering just beyond the reach of the nearest faltering bulb. My eyes narrow. Is that you? Recognition pierces the quiet, sharp and sudden as a li…