One Piece: Nocturne

Veilstead - The Hidden Winter Island

The snow had thinned.

A jagged sun hung low over the sea as the stolen pirate vessel carved a sluggish path through the Grand Line. The black sails were torn but functional, rigged by Eira herself after three hours of pure trial and error. The ropes still smelled of blood. The deck had been scrubbed until her hands blistered. Only the creaking of the hull and the endless sigh of wind accompanied her now.

She stood at the helm, pale blonde hair swept into a rough ponytail beneath the thick hood of her weathered coat. Her ears twitched against the cloth. The ship was hers now, though it felt less like ownership and more like possession. In the Devil Fruit sense.

She hadn't named it. She wasn't sure it deserved one yet.

But it carried her, for now.

As dusk painted the sky in gold and gray, Eira stepped away from the wheel and descended into the hold. She had barely explored the lower deck since taking it. The air below smelled of old smoke and stagnant rum. Her boots echoed hollowly down the wood steps.

She passed corpses of broken crates and torn canvas. The ship had clearly been part of something larger once. The pirate captain she'd consumed in mind and spirit had left behind very little that wasn't broken, rusted, or stained.

Until she saw the vault.

It was embedded in the ship's rear wall, low to the floor and half-covered in a fallen crate. The steel door was scorched, but intact. No lock. No dial. Just a palm scanner fused to the side.

Eira crouched, brushing frost off the edges. Her tail twitched.

The scanner lit up.

It flashed red.

Then green.

Click.

The door swung open on rusted hinges.

Inside was a bundle of dry parchment, sealed in a wax-stamped sleeve. Beneath that, a black leather-bound logbook, creased with age and water damage. She sat on the floor, pulling the book into her lap.

The first half was useless—ramblings, trophies, brutal nonsense about people the pirate had overtaken. But around page forty, she stopped.

"Neoterra Mandate - northern branch neutralized. Marine cooperation partial. CP-9 agent "Morrow" acquired Project Eidolon notes. Potential buyer: Cipher Pol. Price: priceless."

Her breath caught.

CP-9?

She'd heard that whispered in the labs before. Not often. Only when things were especially bad. A hidden branch of the World Government, terrifying enough that even her handlers kept their voices low.

She flipped further.

"They gave me the Mind-Mind Fruit for safe keeping. No one was supposed to use it. They said the experiments failed. That they were… broken. But that girl—the one they were afraid of? She lived. She escaped. She's out there. And if she finds this… run."

She closed the logbook slowly.

Her hands trembled.

She wasn't the only one they hurt.

And someone—someone in the government helped make it happen.

She stuffed the logbook into the inner lining of her coat, next to her pistol and whatever scraps of food she had left. Her thoughts buzzed, clouded by a mixture of fury and unease. The fused Devil Fruit inside her felt hazy still, harder to use than before. The ability to push her emotions onto others had faded for now.

But her own feelings? Those were painfully sharp.

The next day, she found the island.

It was barely a dot on the map—a trader's waypoint long since abandoned. No Marine presence. No living residents, either.

Just quiet docks, weatherworn cabins, and the creak of ice on wood.

She dropped anchor and stepped onto dry land for the first time since her escape.

And then she stopped.

Silence.

A silence so heavy it felt like it had grown roots in the snow.

Her boots crunched against frostbitten boards as she walked through what had once been a port town. Half the buildings were collapsed. One was charred completely, its frame swallowed by frozen ash. Her breath curled visibly. Her tail hung low.

It felt… forgotten.

Like her.

But here, she didn't feel watched. No screaming souls. No buried needles. Just the cold and her.

She moved through the remains of a tavern, brushing dust off a cracked bar. She found a single bottle of something sweet tucked behind a plank. She sniffed it. Shrugged. Took a sip.

It burned.

She took another.

A mirror hung behind the bar. Warped. Chipped. She caught her reflection in it.

A girl with tired eyes. Cat ears poking from her hood. Scars on her arms. Pale hair like moonlight.

She forced herself to smile. Just a little.

"You look like shit," she told herself. Then grinned. "But you're alive."

A breeze whistled through the hole in the roof.

Outside, she took the bottle and walked up the snowed-in path toward the edge of the village. There was a tree there—dead, black, split by lightning long ago. She climbed it with ease and perched near the top, her tail curling around the bark.

She watched the sea.

She drank. Just enough to warm her chest.

And for a few hours, she let herself be still.

Not planning. Not running. Not fighting.

Just existing.

When night fell, she built a fire in one of the crumbled cabins using debris. It crackled. She curled near it, half-wrapped in a canvas sail.

She missed warmth.

Not heat.

Warmth.

She missed touch. Laughter. She couldn't remember if she'd ever been hugged.

So she used her Devil Fruit—even weakened, it could still push a little. She pushed peace into herself. Not real, but soft. Enough to sleep.

She dreamed of snow that didn't burn. Of stars that didn't judge. Of a world where she could finally say her own name out loud.

"Eira."

She whispered it to the night.

A name she chose to keep.