The Thousand Sunny docked at the desolate pier of Akasha Island, the wooden boardwalk groaning in decay beneath their feet. As they stepped onto this land, a musty, dusty, and slightly moldy smell assaulted their senses. The city was eerily silent, as if even the wind had been absorbed, with only their own footsteps echoing in the empty streets.
Most of the buildings are constructed of a grayish-white stone, with a simple and unified style. Many have collapsed, and the remaining ones are covered with cracks and moss that emits a ghostly glow. This moss is the only source of light on the island, providing a weak and eerie illumination.
"Is there really no one here?" Usopp's voice trembled as he followed closely behind the main group.
"I can't even sense a single insect..." Chopper, being a doctor, was very sensitive to the signs of life, and at this moment he only felt an emptiness.
Luffy around curiously, poking the wall of a half-collapsed house next to him with his rubber arm, causing a lot of dust to fall.
Nami looked at the dilapidated buildings, trying to find something of value, but it seemed that there were only stones.
Sanji vigilantly observed his surroundings, protecting the ladies.
Zoro, holding his sword, scanned every shadowy corner with sharp eyes.
Franky studied the building's structure and the glowing moss. "Super~ solid stone, but the energy response of this moss is very peculiar."
Brook hummed a melody softly, her voice sounding particularly abrupt and lonely in the deathly silent city.
Robin carefully examined the occasional, blurred reliefs and carvings on the wall, trying to decipher their history.
Jinbe, sensing the barely perceptible tremors in the ground and the extremely slow movement of the air, said in a deep voice, "Time seems to have frozen here."
The flames in Ace's hands stood out conspicuously here, but they also made him feel somewhat uneasy, as if he had broken some kind of forbidden tranquility.
Allen walked slightly ahead of the group, his senses like the finest comb, combing through the remaining "information" of the city. He could "hear" the whispers sealed in the walls, and "see" the marks left by long-vanished footprints on the ground. Countless fragments of memory, like dust, settled in every inch of this land and every stone.
"It's not that there are no 'people'," Allen spoke again, breaking the suffocating silence, "But rather that 'their' form of existence is different from ours. Their individual consciousness has long since dissipated, but their memories and emotions... have become the city itself, have become this mist."
As if to confirm his words, when Robin's fingers brushed across a wall engraved with an intricate star map relief, the glowing moss on that wall suddenly brightened!
Immediately afterwards, a blurry fragment of thought, filled with awe and reverence, spread out like ripples into everyone's minds:
"Look!... The stars guide us... The coordinates of the other shore..."
The image flashed by, showing several figures dressed in ancient robes gazing up at the starry sky, discussing excitedly.
"What... what was that just now?" Usopp was startled.
"It's residual memories!" Robin's eyes gleamed with excitement. "Touching these objects with strong markings might activate the sealed fragments of memories within them!"
Luffy immediately became interested, ran to the other side, and slapped a broken stone statue.
The moss on the stone statue glowed, releasing a fragmented message filled with fear and despair:
There's no escape... The mist has swallowed everything... There's no going back...
The image shows a crowd running in panic, with an endless, engulfing fog behind them.
"Wow! How scary!" Luffy quickly withdrew his hand.
Chopper also tried to touch a special stone slab on the ground with his hoof, and a series of cheerful fragments of children playing came out, but it was quickly covered by a huge, bell-like sadness.
As they explore and accidentally touch things, more and more fragments of memory are activated. Laughter, crying, prayers, roars... fragmented memories surge in like a tide. Although they cannot piece together a complete history, they make this dead city seem to "come alive" in an instant, filled with all kinds of contradictory and intense emotional Echo.
However, this feeling of "coming back to life" is not comfortable; instead, it brings a heavy mental burden. The forced influx of countless other people's memories and emotions makes Usopp and Chopper feel dizzy, and even Nami and Sanji feel somewhat uncomfortable.
"This won't do," Nami, pressing her temples. "The information is too chaotic and will interfere with our judgment."
"And, I always feel... a little sad," Chopper murmured.
As Allen sensed the surging torrent of memories, his gaze turned to the very center of the city. There, the vast and stagnant aggregate of consciousness seemed to be experiencing extremely subtle fluctuations due to the disturbance from the surrounding fragments of memory.
"These fragments are just scattered ripples," Allen said. "The real core, all the answers, probably lie in the heart of the city. What sleeps there might be the 'source' of this city... even this fog."
To unravel the mystery of Akasha, they must confront the sleeping "past".