"Those bats are so annoying!"
"Yeah, yeah, will they come out again in a few days?"
"So annoying!"
A few squirrels were chattering inside a tree hollow, while pigeons above on the branches echoed their complaints. Using the "Voice of All Things" and her sharpened Observation Haki, Vivi couldn't interpret every word perfectly, but the emotions and general meaning came through clearly.
She was thrilled—finally, a real lead!
Under the roots of a tree, she'd discovered an underground cave.
With a torch in one hand and Huazhou in the other, she jumped in without hesitation.
Her entrance stirred the cave like a stone dropped into still water. A wave of bats erupted, rushing wildly toward the flame in her hand.
There weren't even this many bats in video games. Reflexively, she raised her blade to slash—but stopped.
She hesitated. Her instincts sensed no malice. Her haki confirmed it. She lowered her weapon, trusting that intuition.
Crouching low, she listened.
All she "heard" was fear—panic. These bats were more terrified of her than she was of them.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered.
Though the "Voice of All Things" only allowed her to receive the emotions and meanings of other creatures passively, after awakening her Haki, Vivi found she could sometimes send back simple intent—somehow, in some mystical, intuitive way.
"Don't be afraid…"
She closed her eyes and slowly stood. No Conqueror's Haki, no Weiguo, no intimidation—just quiet trust. She let the bats fly freely. The air filled with the rhythmic fluttering of hundreds of wings. She extinguished her torch, and stood with head raised, radiating calm and goodwill.
The bats flew in tight circles around her, dense as a wall of shadow, just centimeters away. A minute passed like this. Her expression grew increasingly serene. Slowly, the bats calmed, their panic giving way to cautious curiosity.
Then they all dispersed, flooding out of the cave entrance into the night.
Beneath the tree's roots, Vivi had discovered something far older—an ancient underground labyrinth.
She knelt at the labyrinth's entrance, palm against stone, listening.
It whispered of blood cults and forgotten sects. This underground maze once belonged to a mysterious group that worshiped vampiric powers. The Bat-Bat Fruit, a Mythical Zoan of the Vampire model, had been their sacred treasure. But the sect had long since crumbled into dust. The main section of their underground stronghold had broken off and drifted at sea, eventually becoming part of Torrance Island, carried by the ocean currents.
Vivi returned to the inn and summoned Karoo.
The sudden exodus of bats had stirred a few townspeople, and she couldn't afford to be interrupted. She instructed the duck to stand guard. If anyone came too close, he was to alert her immediately.
Then she grabbed a shovel and began to dig.
The core of the labyrinth remained mostly intact. Damaged, yes, but stable enough. Vivi had no intention of wandering through it blindly. She dug from above, using her superior strength and stamina to burrow through in two hours. Eventually, she opened a vertical passage that led straight to the lowest chamber of the labyrinth.
By then, it was nearly dawn.
Karoo was still diligently keeping watch as Vivi arrived at a massive steel gate.
The door was constructed in a curious 3x3 grid pattern—nine square panels that shifted every ten minutes. Each tile presented a question. To unlock the door, she would need to answer three questions along the top row, and do it within the shifting interval.
Back when the sect was alive, its members would have known all the answers. Any sequence of questions would have been trivial to them.
But this was no ordinary lock—it was a final guardian for something sacred.
The detonator traps embedded behind the gate were likely still functional. Vivi didn't dare brute-force her way through. Her only hope was knowledge.
She examined the questions.
They were all based on obscure historical facts—so obscure that 99% of people in the world of One Piece would be clueless. Even the Reverie nobles likely wouldn't know them.
But Vivi was no ordinary girl. She was the princess of Alabasta. She'd grown up with elite court tutors, immersed in politics and history. Still, even with her education, she couldn't be confident about every answer.
She activated her trump card: the "Voice of All Things."
Touching the gate gently, she tuned in. Occasionally, faint impressions filtered through—the ghosts of long-dead sect members stepping through the door, whispering, murmuring answers. With those fragments, plus her own knowledge, Vivi scribbled answers in the mud, cross-referencing what she knew with the echoes of the past.
Some questions she was certain of. Others, maybe 70%. She waited, watching the tiles shift.
An hour passed. Finally, three questions she felt confident about lined up across the top.
The dial under each tile resembled a combination lock—rotate it to the right answer, and it would click into place.
The first question:
"Country on the Bridge—when was the founding of Tchira Wolff?"
She smiled. "Easy. Year 820 of the Sea Circle Calendar."
The second question:
"When did the 20 nations unite to form the World Government?"
"Year 720. That's common knowledge among scholars—wait… what?"
Just as she finished inputting her second answer, the third tile suddenly shifted out of the top row. It was replaced by a new question—one she didn't know as well.
"When did tree fever break out in the North Blue kingdom of Rubnir?"
She blinked. Why did the question change mid-sequence?
There was no time to ponder. She had to answer what was in front of her.
But this question was far less certain. The vision from the gate had been faint. Two possible answers came to mind—1050 or 1060. Both had appeared in different books she'd read. But which was canon? Which did the sect recognize?
She bit her lip. This disease had spread over a long time; defining it by one year felt meaningless. But that didn't matter—what mattered was what the historian who designed the puzzle had written.
Time was ticking. Five minutes left.
She hated to do it, but she wasn't willing to take the gamble.
She reached for her last resort—someone with historical knowledge even deeper than hers.
She called her "plastic sister," Nico Robin.
Half-asleep on the other end of the Den Den Mushi, Robin answered groggily. "...Miss Wednesday? What are you doing? Why are you asking me about historical outbreaks in the middle of the night?"
"This is important!" Vivi whispered frantically. "I'm in front of a sealed gate. I've answered two questions already. I just need this last one—please help me!"
Robin, now fully awake, sighed. "You really haven't changed, have you…"
Vivi's voice was tense. "Come on, Robin! It's tree fever in Rubnir! What year?!"