Across the battlefield, communication officers found their snails abruptly crackling to life, an unauthorized voice broadcasting over the island. And to the shock of the officers, while the face and voice they relayed was certainly familiar, it was absolutely not the person they'd expected and feared.
"I said get off me, you flashy idiots! Someone has to do it, and seeing as everyone else is fighting for their lives, it might as well be me! Now cram it before I cram you into a coffin! GOT IT!?…good. Now then…"
Buggy the Clown cleared his throat, and any levity he might have shown before morphed into a truly uncharacteristic solemnity.
"My name… is Buggy. I was a Roger Pirate, I sailed with the King of the Pirates, so too did I know his great rival, Edward 'Whitebeard' Newgate! The two met on many occasions, as friends and enemies alike, and as such, I feel that it is only right that upon his passing, I say these words! That I make sure that none can refuse him the respect he is due! I speak to ensure that the world knows that even in death, his body did not fall. That in life, his figure, wading into the depths of war and hell, even as he was actively dying with every step, was truly monstrous."
-o-
In the seas of Wano, above the skies of Onigashima, a colossal dragon cursed up a literal storm. His mile-long length of sinuous, war-torn scales and coils tore through thunderclouds as fast as they formed, the lightning breaking against his armoured skin and failing to dull the feelings in his heart. Winds howled in time with the Beast King, thunder roared as he roared, and lightning screeched across the air with his every vocalization.
The damage wrought upon the island as the typhoon bore down was devastating, stripping buildings and sending objects flying, but to its inhabitants? It was merely an annoyance, albeit one that they very much wanted an explanation for.
And one that King, who had been with Kaido not long ago for his clash with Shanks, couldn't provide:
"Kaido was carrying me back after the fight, bearing his defeat at the hands of Red Hair with good grace when, once we sighted land, out of nowhere, he damn near dropped me into the ocean and went into a frenzy. I have no idea what's bitten him."
As the Beast King whipped about in a frenzy, the winds howled, thunder roared, and lightning screeched…
And throughout it all, the heavens wept.
-o-
"The total number of sword wounds he received in this battle was 402. He was shot by 96 bullets and was hit by 23 cannonballs. He died at the age of 72, with a kidney missing, several feet of scar tissue scattered across and throughout his body, failing vision, a bad lung and knee…" The testimony trailed off into a dark grumble, snails across the world glancing aside. "And a cast-iron liver that I don't doubt was still in perfect condition to this day, lucky old geezer…"
Even without the SBS, the broadcast continued through the government, displaying images of the hellish war in Sabaody. There, beneath the shade of the Grove where the screens had been installed, the gathered journalists attempted to take up where Cross had left off, to faithfully relay the end of the War to the rest of the waiting world. And while the person now relaying the information was a fair margin less reputable than Cross, the journalists endeavoured to record (nearly) his every word for posterity.
"BUT DESPITE ALL THIS! Despite all of it! His proud back… over the entire course of this day's events… over the course of his entire life as a pirate…"
Right on cue, the old man's coat fell to the ground, exposing the flawless skin beneath, and the proud, proud mark of a true Pirate Emperor emblazoned across it.
"Never, not once, received a coward's wound! He never received a single scar from running away!"
And in the shadows at the edge of the grove, a grizzled gray-haired man and black-haired bartender observed it all with small, solemn smiles. Without looking away from the screen, they clinked together the bottles in their hands and drained them after speaking in unison:
"To a life well-lived."
-o-
As tragic and terrifying as they were, Charlotte 'Big Mom' Linlin's constant rampages through her domain had taken on an air of predictability. Terrifying though they were, you learned to spot the signs in advance. Sacrifices had to be made if one expected to live in paradise, and in Totland, those sacrifices consisted of a month of life for every six, one's own bodyweight in food, and the random whims and rampages of their 'benevolent' overlord.
Ultimately (and depressingly), it was all quite routine, particularly for anyone who chose to live in the capital of Totland.
So when the matriarchal Emperor whipped herself into a frenzy, screeching high and low for the sake of it, her children and underlings alike leapt to their routine roles: half acted to mitigate and contain the damage of their ruler's madness, while the other half sought out her current cravings. For mercy, her present one was common enough, and a sufficiently sizable cask was filled and brought before her.
Totland heaved a sigh of relief as one as Linlin downed the liquid.
And that relief morphed into more panic when Linlin went right back to screeching, still demanding that sake be brought to her.
At the expense of no small number of lives, cask after cask was filled and brought within perilous grabbing distance of the titanic woman, and she downed them all, one after another.
But not one of them, no matter the vintage or the quantity, served to slake her unholy thirst.
And so, the inhabitants of Totland resigned themselves to drastic measures: Whole Cake Island was evacuated, and the citizens of Totland could only watch as their ruler—their mother, in many cases—burned herself out.
And in the days it took before she finally subsided, they could only listen as she cried out that the sake, for whatever reason, did not taste right. It didn't taste the same at all.
-o-
Teach huffed and wheezed as he finally managed to force his heart rate back down to acceptable levels. Honestly, that damn geezer, why couldn't he just keel over and die like he was supposed to?! Saying something like that at his moment of glory… and that fucking clown. Teach had been planning to assault and occupy Pirate Island first after getting his new powers, make it his headquarters before dismantling the rest of Whitebeard's little empire, but now? Well, honestly, he'd already won by this point, and what was life without a few diversions here and there?
But for now…
Teach shot a smirk at Lafitte, jerking his head at the massive corpse before him. "Hey, let's finish this."
"At once, captain, at once," the pale-faced hypnotist simpered, tipping his hat respectfully. He gave his cane a spin and tapped it on the pavement in signal. "Alright, lads! Time to draw the curtains!"
There was no small amount of grumbling from the haphazardly assembled pirates—every word of which Teach caught and noted in case he needed to act on it in the fragile days to come—but they all set about to carry out the order. With quick and clean movements, Burgess withdrew the tarp he'd been carrying since before they'd set foot in Mariejois—vantablack, and not a shade lighter—and passed it around the assembled 'crew'. One heave, and the curtain of sheer black rose and fell, encompassing Teach and the corpse. Gave Blackbeard the privacy he needed to retrieve his prize.
'This is it…' Blackbeard thought gleefully, his heart rate soaring back up, his grin growing wider and wider as the world was engulfed by the abyss. 'This is it, this is it, this is IT!'
The last inches of the curtain fell, the last slivers of light shrivelled and died…
And then…
FWOOSH!
It all went wrong.
"AAAAARGH!"
Blackbeard loosed a howl, a shriek of mythic proportions, when suddenly, his world was flipped upside down.
Pain, as a searing lash of heat, slapped him square in the face.
Confusion, as light, impossible light, branded itself in his eyes.
Outrage, because at the moment of his triumph, his TRIUMPH!, something was going wrong.
And when all of those emotions finally passed, Blackbeard was struck dumb by one final, overwhelming sensation.
Shock.
Shock at the impossible sight before him. Shock, at the sight of Whitebeard's corpse, HIS PRIZE, somehow set alight in a pillar of flames, and burning away to cinders before his very eyes.
That shock froze him for a moment, but once that moment passed, Blackbeard screamed in a final emotion.
"NOOOOO!"
Horror.
"PUT IT OUT!" Blackbeard ran up to the inferno before him and batted at it in a panic with his bare hands. It burned, oh how it burned and burned, but he didn't care, it didn't matter, no amount of pain mattered when HIS PRIZE was in the process of burning! "PUT IT OUT, PUT IT OUT, PUT IT—!"
FWOOOM!
"ARGH!" Blackbeard cried out again, the noise swallowed up by the bonfire's own roar, the intensity having redoubled and flung the pirate back off his feet. And little time he needed to sit up and refocus his eyes, it was too late. What was before him wasn't a 'corpse' anymore. Just a tower of flames with a pillar of charred bone at its core.
It was gone. His Prize… was gone.
For a moment, disbelief was all that Blackbeard felt. But that only lasted for moments before being overwhelmed by sheer wrath.
"How… HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?" Blackbeard raged, nearly every vein in his body throbbing with physical fury, his eyes bloodshot as his head snapped to and fro, his mere glance causing his shell-shocked underlings to reel back in terror. "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!? WHO DID THIS?! WHO DARED—!"
And then, it all snapped into crystal-clear focus.
His hopes had just gone up in flames.
In flames.
Blackbeard's head snapped around so fast he nearly had whiplash.
~o~
The eulogy that Buggy the Clown issued was the key that Ace had needed to snap out of his stupor. Even knowing that Whitebeard was going to die, and with no regrets, didn't prepare him for the stunning realization that the old man was gone. And Ace wasn't.
Absently, his hands snaked out to grasp his brothers on either side of him, the first people to ever love him despite all the conditioning saying he didn't deserve it—
Then he stilled and snapped his eyes to Luffy's back at the sensation of moisture on his hand. In the moment that he reflexively pulled his hand away and turned it so he could see his palm, his mind caught up to him and reminded him how much humidity was on the battlefield thanks to how much of the ice coating the battlefield had been melted and evaporated. By all rights, it was rather unlikely that his little brother had an injury on his back that he had missed.
…except that when Ace looked at his hand, it did come away red.
"Luffy!" Ace snapped, yanking up the fabric to look at his back. "When did you get hit from behind!?"
"What? I didn't! Let go of my vest, Ace!"
The cloth came easily out of Ace's hand, the fireman too confused by what he saw: his brother's unscathed back, the blood merely soaking his shirt.
"Geez, your Pops even told me not to get—oh, yeah," he said, wincing as he saw Ace's hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make him cough up blood."
No matter his present state, Ace was still a New World Pirate, the end result of the most ruthlessly Darwinian environment possible. It took only a second for him to read the unspoken in Luffy's words, and another for him to connect the dots to their current situation.
All at once, everything snapped into place. He understood his captain's plan.
Whirling about, Ace called out, "HEY, MAGIC MAN!"
"It's 'Magician' or 'Mage,'" Hawkins dryly answered.
"Whatever. I need a spell, now!"
Without missing a beat, Hawkins held up his hands—ignoring how his fellow Supernovas yelped and reeled away from him— to display a straw doll in his left and a shrunken head hanging from his right. "Hoodoo or Voodoo, and yes, there is a difference."
"Whichever does more damage."
"You got it, brudda."
Sabo couldn't help but boggle at the head that had just spoken. "Oh, that is not right."
A shimmer came to life around Ace's body. "It is for what I'm planning."
~o~
And then, far off on the battleground, he saw it.
Marco, Jozu, Vista, Blamenco, Rakuyo, Namur, Bienheim, Curiel, Kingdew, Haruta, Atmos, Speed Jiru, Fossa, and Izo. Tate, Iris, Hannah, Mila, Shion, Camellia, and Sayuri. And in front of them all, the rest of those wet-nosed, runty, weakling Rookies, Straw Hat, a blond-haired stranger, and HIM.
A small army of eyes glaring directly at him, filled with hatred and defiance. And in the bastard's hand, there it was. The key to his downfall. The one thing that had stolen HIS PRIZE from him.
A straw doll. That was currently on fire.
"No…"
The word was a mere whisper. In that moment, only in that moment, his anger took a back seat to horror. Horror that it was more than Ace leaping for revenge, more than some respect for his captain. Horror superseded anger because, looking into their eyes, he understood something.
They knew. They had planned for his plan. And that realization rocked him to his core.
"No! NONONO—!"
The eyes of the band of brothers said more than words ever could. And the next second, the fire in Ace's hand became an inferno.
Edward Newgate's body became a pillar of sky-reaching flame, scorching Teach and sending him flying back from the blaze. No sooner had he gotten to his feet than the fire went out, not even a corpse remaining of what had seconds ago been HIS PRIZE.
Something snapped in the back of Blackbeard's mind, and the fury of the abyss was set loose on the world. From that moment onward, there was one thing that was more important to Blackbeard than the Pirate King's throne: hate. Hate unyielding. Hate everlasting. Hate blacker than the darkest night, and deeper than the lowest abyss.
A hate that would not, could not, would never die before the death of one very dead man.
"ACE!"
The amount of hatred concentrated in that screech was more powerful than anyone present had seen in years.
-o-
"Hmm… I think we might have made him angry," Marco remarked, eyeing the pillar of darkness threatening to blot out the sun.
"I'm terrified, truly I am," Jozu drawled as if he were discussing the weather.
"Well, I don't know about you all, but I think we've just landed ourselves on the shitlist of a very dangerous and unstable individual," Law bluntly shouted up from the Polar Tang. "And all before we even hit the New World yet. We're really ahead of the curve now."
"I know, isn't it great!" Bege cackled so gleefully that the Supernovas around him inched away warily.
"Tcheh, worth it if you ask me," Kid declared. "Something about that rat-bastard's ugly face just pisses me the hell off."
"You and me both…" Luffy grumbled in a rare show of solidarity with the metal-studded pirate. An act which, itself, disturbed the Rookies even more than Bege.
"Hmph," Ace huffed, turning his back on the traitor. "If I can't kill him myself, it'll be vengeance enough for him to go down like this. We're done here. Let's go home."
The other Whitebeards turned as well. And as one side prepared to withdraw completely, it seemed as though the war was over.
"ACE! ALL OF YOU! I SWEAR THAT YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS! I'LL DESTROY EVERYTHING THE OLD MAN PROTECTED! HIS ISLANDS! HIS PEOPLE! HIS TREASURE!"
Ace did turn back at that threat. So did the remaining Whitebeards. And they looked at Teach as if he were a housefly.
"Go ahead and try," Ace called back, his tone utterly dismissive.
And that was the last straw.
"YOU… I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU! EVERYONE GET THEM! BLACK WORLD!"
The Blackbeard Pirates charged at their captain's command. Sanjuan Wolf was the most conspicuous, sneaking around the perimeter of the island in plain view of everyone. Nonetheless, he was closing in fast on the pirates and their ships. And Shiki and Lafitte's rapid advance through the air, Van Auger taking a perch on a nearby wall, Shiliew's fast and destructive advance, and everyone else charging behind them were all bad news in their own right.
Not to mention, of course, that darkness had spilled out of Blackbeard's body and had already spread widely enough to cover a small town - and it was still growing.
"DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY EVERYTHING!" Blackbeard screeched.
And it was at that point that the Whitebeard Pirates paused in their retreat, because it was becoming rapidly apparent that certain Marines weren't about to let Blackbeard proceed unopposed.
Magma and ice coalesced at different angles to Blackbeard while deadly light glittered high above the ground, resisting the pull of Darkness. And the magnitude of the attacks being charged up forced the Whitebeards to begin charging their own.
They may not have seen Punk Hazard as Cross did. But they knew that they'd never outrun this much firepower.
Ace grit his teeth as he disembarked the ship and slammed his hand to the ground.
"GREAT FLAME COMMANDMENT!" he roared, spiralling fire out from his palm and coalescing it into a ball big enough to cover half of the sky above the bay. "FLAME EMPEROR!"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ACE!?" Luffy demanded.
"The only thing he can, Luffy," Sabo said grimly, Haki blackening his hands and pipe. "One Logia putting out this much power can destroy an island. The Admirals aren't going to let him take down their last stronghold without dragging him down too. Against this much power, we either go all-out and parry it, and maybe survive, or run away and definitely die."
There was a pause as every Supernova and their crew in earshot processed that. Then the pause was ripped asunder by every bit of invective they could think of. With the Blackbeards approaching, they set to work preparing to deploy maximum force.
-o-
Grimly, Mihawk drew Yoru, gripping it with both hands. The air sliced itself to shreds as it blew against the black blade's edge.
Doflamingo, every tooth displayed in his grin, coalesced strings in his hands—reality dissolving into strings all around him—as he rose into the air. His mad cackling, sheer, honest glee at the madness about to transpire, would haunt the survivors for the rest of their days
As for Perona, ectoplasmic sweat coated her frame, the magnitude of destruction about to occur. The drops quickly coalesced into the biggest Special Hollow that she had ever created, pumping all of the energy she had left into the construct in a desperate bid to survive. It was stupid, it was panicked and frantic, and it was the only thing she could think to do.
Much like countless other people across the battlefield: Pirates and Marines, ability users and proficionados, anyone who had the strength to do more than stand and the brains to realize that retreating was futile, prepared to unleash their power. Prepared to kill everyone around them so that they might survive.
And in the center of it all, watching from every angle at once, Sengoku could only watch. He didn't have enough energy left to take his Zoan form again, and even if he did, he didn't have half of the power it would take to stop the madness about to occur.
And then someone else spoke.
Someone else on the battlefield with less strength, less power, less clout, and less likelihood to survive than Sengoku, than most anyone else present, yet with more desire to see the madness around him halted.
"PLEASE, STOP!"
And backed by the pirates, several people started.
"Who the heck?!" Sabo demanded.
"Oh, no…" Luffy groaned, one eye scrunched shut, and the other unable to look away from one speck of pink in the middle of the storm.
-o-
"PLEASE, STOP! STOP ATTACKING, STOP FIGHTING! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!"
Amidst the Darkness, beneath the Light, caught between the Magma, the Ice, and the Fire, caught between these unstoppable forces of nature, one single man could no longer keep silent. Allies and enemies alike gaped at his audacity, especially the one who had gagged him all this time, but overwhelmed by the chaos of the war—and subsequently, the chaos of his newly awakened Haki—Master Chief Petty Officer Koby still screamed.
"ALL THIS DEATH! ALL THIS PAIN! HAVEN'T WE DONE ENOUGH!? ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO FOUGHT AND DIED, AREN'T THEIR LIVES ENOUGH!?"
The wind howled and roared, black lightning danced and sang across the heavens. The forces of nature continued to grow, Armageddon moving inexorably closer.
"IF YOU DO THIS, IT'LL ALL BE FOR NOTHING! YOU CAN'T WASTE THEIR LIVES LIKE THIS! YOU CAN'T WASTE THEIR DEATHS LIKE THIS! THERE'S BEEN ENOUGH BLOOD, SO PLEASE, STOP!"
The pressure and growth continued, and his voice grew louder, screaming even over the raging flames and sound-sucking gravity.
"ALL OF THIS WAS ALREADY FOR NOTHING BUT POINTLESS PRIDE, AND THIS IS ALL STILL JUST FOR PRIDE! WE'VE ALREADY SHED TOO MUCH BLOOD ON EMPTY CAUSES, ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?!"
The air surged and heaved, the pressure reaching its breaking point, the world seconds from exploding into a madness on a scale not seen in decades.
And then out of nowhere, a hand clapped down on Koby's shoulder, the sudden action wrenching him out of his panicked despair.
"You all heard the boy."
Those words somehow, somehow caused the world to hiccup, the sheer energy and momentum that had built up grinding to an abrupt halt. The world held its breath, waiting in terrified anticipation for the action to restart.
Slowly, haltingly, Koby's head ground around so that he could look up at who had spoken. He almost collapsed into a gibbering panic when his eyes beheld a head of Red Hair.
"Enough."
And with that one word from 'Red-Haired' Shanks, an almighty pressure slapped down across the battlefield, striking each and every combatant, Marine and Pirate alike, in the deepest part of their souls. And everything ended.
With that one word, the almighty BANG! that everyone had been building up to, all the energy accumulating, the sheer rage suffusing everything, evaporated. All the air fled from everyone's chests in a quiet rush.
-o-
Blackbeard snarled viciously as he whipped his head back and forth around the suddenly quiet battlefield. What… What the hell were they doing!? Why wasn't anyone attacking? They couldn't stop! This wasn't over! This war wasn't over, NOT UNTIL EVERYTHING WAS ASH AND DUST!
And in an attempt to rectify that, Blackbeard called on the Dark again, started to ramp up his power, prepared to drop everything and everyone back into the Abyss where they belonged—!
And then he had to freeze every muscle in his body, particularly his throat, lest a single twitch rip his neck open on the cold steel the fucking Red-Haired brat had pressed against his jugular.
"That. Is. Enough," Shanks enunciated slowly, filling every word with his will. On some level, he wanted Blackbeard to try something; the Emperor wanted the debatably human scum before him to give him an excuse, but for now, he'd settle for making him put off whatever madness he had planned. "This war is over, Teach. And if you try to fight, then the only one who'll die is you, because nobody is going to join you."
Blackbeard ground his teeth at the statement, unwilling to believe it, to give up the vengeance he was due, but then Shanks jerked his head to the side. Blackbeard looked where he indicated and saw that, much as he'd love to reject it, he was telling the truth.
Saw Benn Beckman standing beside Akainu, his rifle trained on the Admiral's remaining hand.
Saw Lucky Roo's arm slung around Aokiji's shoulders, his trademark meat snacks white bones.
Saw Yasopp standing before the Whitebeards and the brats, one pistol aimed at the mass of light above the battlefield and another trained on the members of Blackbeard's own crew, Shiliew's limbs already disabled from shots to the joints and everyone else sensible enough not to try anything.
Or, well. Almost everyone else.
"I don't care who I have to go through if I can BRING DOWN THIS ISLAND WITH ME!"
WHAM!
A solid sucker punch from Garp sent Byrrndi World skidding back across the ice. The pirate promptly jumped back to his feet, but before he could move again, he was pinned in place not only by Shanks's glare, but also Blackbeard's. Even still, he made to charge forward—
BOOM!
Up until a cannonball blew up in his face. Shanks eyed a small package that floated down alongside it, coming to rest on his shoulder. Seeing the eyestalks within, Shanks half-smirked.
"Thanks for that, Buggy," the Emperor said to the snail.
"Tch, if only I'd had a few minutes alone in Level 6, I could have rigged his cell to blow sky high. But so long as I've got your ear, I've got some frustration to vent, Shanks. When you're done with Mihawk, we're finishing what I tried to start. And this time, the old man's not getting in our way."
"You're on. And thanks for reminding me," Shanks added, glancing at the back of the battleground.
-o-
"Of course he's here. Why wouldn't he show up as soon as I need to avoid him?" Mihawk fumed.
Doflamingo and Perona laughed. Doflamingo out of sadistic schadenfreude, Perona out of hysterical relief at being alive.
Though perhaps also with a hint of sadistic schadenfreude all her own.
-o-
Blackbeard's glare, meanwhile, remained on his underling.
"Enough, World. We didn't come here for a pyrrhic victory. We'll pay them back in the future," Teach grit out, unholy fury barely bridled. World glared back, but ultimately chose not to invite that anger upon himself. Satisfied his subordinate wouldn't try anything, Teach turned his gaze back to Shanks.
"I swear… I'll see the world tremble at my feet. I swear it," he promised, promised, with every ounce of strength he had.
"Maybe you will. But not today," Shanks replied.
"This is enough," another voice echoed over the battlefield. All eyes turned to see Sengoku, weighed down by every one of his years, his expression grim.
"The waters and land have been stained red. Countless lives have been lost and ruined. It's time to pick up the pieces of what's left. All Marines on the battleground, gather the injured and get them the necessary treatment. This war…is over."
And with that, the Fleet Admiral emeritus turned from the battlefield… and stepped down. Once, and for all.
And that was the end of it.
The Tragedy of Marineford had inflated and inflated, distending to the point of a positively—if not literally—earth-shattering bang, before all the air was let out in a sad, mournful whimper.
The pirates withdrew to their ships, boarding slowly and painfully as the loss of adrenaline left them all drained and exhausted. Those who were whole and less-injured carried who they could manage, either helping their injured comrades to safety, or carrying those less fortunate so that they could be given respect, one final time.
The Admirals, with varying degrees of reluctance, moved to coordinate the Marines as they returned - and to ensure that none of Akainu's volunteers upheld their honour by attempting to stab their retreating enemies in their backs. For a measure of mercy, the Marines' own rank and file were more than willing to help preserve the peace: they'd already seen their island—their headquarters to all, their home to more than a few—razed to damn near its bedrock. Any taste for blood that the Marines had once held, now devoid of their rage, had long since evaporated.
And as for the Blackbeards, more than a few of the combatants on both sides of the law attempted to follow them as they retreated, intent on finishing what they had started away from prying eyes, but their endeavours were all for naught. To hear the would-be pursuers tell the tale, the universally abhorred outlaws simply slipped into the darkness and vanished. And yet everyone knew for certain that this would not, could never be the last they saw of the monsters who had so thoroughly scarred the world.
Perhaps, most stunning of all, was how all of this took place in near silence. Not total, there was too much debris, too much damage, too many men crying out for water or their mothers for something like that. Neither pirate nor Marine spoke a word that they didn't have to.
But there was one instance of speech that stuck in the minds of those who heard it.
"There's still a silver lining, you know."
Shanks said these words, if only to himself, as he turned his gaze towards the pirate ships that had already begun sailing away. On the deck of a submarine, he saw Ace and a blond-haired stranger looking at him with soft smiles and eyes filled with gratitude. And between them, Luffy had his back turned to him. But at a nudge from one of his brothers, he raised a single hand in a thumbs-up.
Shanks kept watching and smiling until his protégé disappeared beneath the waves. Even after ten years, he shouldn't have had the power to be half as much of a menace as he was. And the man he came to save was alongside him, safe once again.
And once more, Shanks was reminded that the world was an incredible place: filled with horrors and tragedies of uncountable magnitude - and yet, dotted with honest miracles.
"Nobody won, but that doesn't mean everyone lost."
~Present~
"…of the 50 battleships deployed for the war, 13 were destroyed, 7 more damaged, and 9 more stolen. Out of 90,000 Marines mustered for the war, confirmed casualties are north of 30,000 and still climbing. Pirate casualties have been estimated at 50,000; several confidential sources have described the accuracy of such estimates in ways not fit to print.
Marine casualties do not include the nearly 8000 mutineers, among them multiple officers up to the commodore level, whom the Marines have failed to apprehend. Several thousand more claimed to have been hypnotized and are undergoing strict interrogation. Preliminary damage estimates run into the billions. Banks globally have reported runs on their holdings, and the maritime insurance industry teeters on the brink of collapse.
With the resignation of "Knight of the Sea" Jinbe, the dismissal of "Pirate Empress" Boa Hancock, and the outright mutiny of Marshall D. "Blackbeard" Teach, the Seven Warlords of the Sea now number at merely four. The Government deployed numerous prototypes of their erstwhile secret Pacifista and BioMEGA projects for the war, which were destroyed one and all by the combatants. The sole exception is the now roboticized "Tyrant" Bartholomew Kuma.
All of these costs are nothing short of catastrophic, yet the cold statistics fail to convey the true tragedy of this calamity.
The amount of blood spilled as a result of pride cannot be undersold. The number of lives sacrificed, knowingly thrown away, was a travesty. And the death of the Emperor Edward 'Whitebeard' Newgate is hardly a consolation. The number of crimes he and his have committed is incalculable. But compared to the modest stability they brought, the imbalance left by his death, his dying words, and the very man that the Navy tried in vain to kill stepping up in his place to lead them is unlikely to improve the state of the world…"
The horrors of the war were depicted in black and white, glorifying neither side and ensuring it would be remembered as the tragedy it was. Yet amidst it all, the readers had eyes for only one small detail.
"…they're alive…" Cross breathed weakly. The paper slowly slipped from his fingers, his eyes staring through his hands, but the words were freshly branded on his mind. "The war happened, but they're still alive… Ace is… is…"
"He's alive," Lassoo woofed softly, before quickly gaining energy, his tongue lolling out and his tail wagging frantically. He nudged his head against his partner's side. "He's alive, they're alive, you did it! Cross! We won! You won!"
Funkfreed shook his head, letting out a quiet chuckle as his trunk reached out to flick the back of Cross's head. "Hundred to one odds, blindsided in the clutch, and you still manage to pull a miracle out of your hat? Remind me, why do we ever bother doubting you again!?"
The Zoan weapons continued to congratulate Cross on this ultimate victory, but two individuals in that alley didn't share that good cheer: the human, who was still staring at nothing as his brain processed, and the gastropod who was staring up at him just as blankly.
"…how?" Soundbite asked, softly at first but with increasing incredulity, silencing his partners' cheer. "How is this not enough for you!? WE. WON! ACE IS ALIVE! AND LUFFY, AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO MATTERED, ALL ALIVE! So why, in the name of every PSYCHOTIC NUTJOB IN THIS HELLHOLE, DO I STILL HEAR YOU HAVING DOUBTS!?"
"…I just… gnrgh…" Cross let out a miserable groan, slowly sinking his face into his hand. "I don't know… this is good. And I'm happy. I'm so… so happy…" His companions relaxed slightly, but still remained tense for the but.
"But. Look at… at what it cost. At what it came down to. The last second, the most unlikely of miracles… Every ally that I could gather, every warning that I could give, every trick… we could pull. And it still took the one ally that I couldn't guarantee showing up to save both of them from getting killed."
His head slowly tipped back, and he stared into the starless abyss that loomed above.
"And more than that… I haven't let myself focus on anything but helping in the war since the fight with Kizaru. Now that it's done and Ace is actually saved… I still have to process that… that monster literally stringing me along in Sabaody. I thought… I thought I had his number. I thought I knew… his every trick, and that I was ready for everything that was coming, when really, I didn't have a single clue. And I'm supposed to try again in two years, two damned years… and it's going to be on his turf, his terms…"
Cross's head slammed back against the wall, and he let loose a bark of laughter, uncaring for the volume or how it made his partners flinch.
"And I'm. Supposed. To do better. Always do better, always win. Supposed to have faith in my ability to win, to make the right calls, this time, each time and every time… But…" Cross flung his arms out incredulously. "What 'faith'!? What 'ability'!? Nearly a fucking year I've been on this waterlogged rock, and I've been flying by the seat of my pants this entire time. I've been lucky. But as we've all seen and experienced, luck. Runs. Out. And in our lives… a bust doesn't mean going bankrupt. It means people getting hurt. Or worse."
"Before, the consequences were… a possibility. There, but never real. But now. Now, I know they are. I know that I can, and will lose, and that when I do…" Cross slowly ground his jaw back and forth. "And all the while, this world… crazy, beautiful, but most of all cruel, just keeps grinding on. And I can fight, and fight, and fight… but against the full weight… against all of time and space and fate… how am I supposed to compete? How am I supposed to keep marching forwards, head held high…"
Cross slowly curled in on himself, his hands clutching at the back of his skull. "When I've got as much chance at shrugging off the sky as fucking Atlas…"
And with those words, the alley lapsed into a heavy silence. Cross's words weighed heavily on every being present, and try as they might, his partners couldn't find a counterargument. Because he made a fair point. A logical, terrible, tragic point, but a point, and one they couldn't refute.
"Now, I wouldn't say it's that bad."
And then everything stopped. The unnatural nature of the stillness and silence themselves may have gone unnoticed for a time in such a place as they were.
But the sudden burst of light nearby, coupled with a mechanical whirring, triggered the company's fight-or-flight response. Before they could bolt, however, the group actually saw the reason for their panic. Or, at least, what little there was to catch sight of.
A pane of light, illuminated against one of the alley's walls without any logical point of origin.
A pane of light… with a smiley face on it.
Gif stared in awe. Soundbite, Lassoo, and Funkfreed stared in apprehension. Cross had his eyes shadowed beneath Luffy's hat.
"I mean, Atlas is really just a big sore loser who got stuck once he failed," continued the same androgynous voice. "You, though? A bad situation, to be sure, but unlike him, you can just climb higher. So to speak, anyway."
"…shut up."
Cross's response was barely muttered, his body shaking with rage, and his voice let out a huffy sigh.
"Oh, I know where this is going. Look, can we skip the rant for once? I'm actually—"
"Why don't you just shut the hell up and enjoy the show, damn it!?" Cross spat furiously, whipping his head up to stare at the screen with bloodshot eyes. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?! The whole human experience, there for you to observe and enjoy, start to finish?! Well, here it is! I've had my highs, my victories, and now I'm paying for it! This is the end of the line, depth of despair! Where we all end up eventually! So why don't you get it over with and laugh already!? That's what you've been doing this entire time, isn't it? Man plans, god laughs, so these past few months must have been hilarious to you, haven't they! Knowing that I was so confident, so sure of myself, and so very, very doomed. Well, congratulations: Joke paid off, and I'm left in the ashes."
Cross sank back to the ground.
"So why don't you just shut the hell up and move on to your next fleeting fancy, huh? THE SHOW'S OVER!"
Cross's words echoed through the city of the damned, not one soul able to notice the sound. No answer came for a solid two minutes.
And then, the screen glitched slightly, and the vapid smile became a frown.
"…you're wrong."
Cross didn't react to the declaration.
"What you do does matter."
But he did twitch at that, indicating he was at least listening.
"But earlier… You were also right. When I did what I did… You weren't wrong. I dropped a mortal ant in a big pond to watch it drown. I've done it more times than you can count, for longer than you can imagine. And every time it's been funny, and every time, it's been the same. Human flails, human dies without purpose, I get a laugh. The end. And you? Weren't meant to be any different."
Cross snorted and waved his hand dismissively. "And lo, I turn out not to be."
"For the love of—you are not hearing me. The fact that you are still speaking to me, right here, right now, proves that you are!"
And that, right there, pierced through the skulls of every three-dimensional being in that alleyway. "W-What are you—?" Cross stammered out.
"Loguetown. You were supposed to get your skull caved in by a certain cigar-huffing bloodhound. You mouth off to him, say the wrong thing, gray matter paints the pavement. I get a laugh, and then I move on. Except that. Didn't. Happen."
Cross's jaw worked fruitlessly, trying and failing to come up with a response. "I… t-that…"
"Was it an impossibility? No. But it was stupidly lucky, like a natural 20. So I thought, 'hey, fluke and a bit more fun, what the hell', so I settled in and waited to see when you would finally bite it, so that I could get my laughs and move on. Except that clearly didn't happen."
The pane of light angled forward, the entity looming over a dumbstruck Cross.
"You catch Primal Cholera, your innards don't melt out through your bowels. You fight the Marines and the Wax-Man at the same time without becoming a museum exhibit. You fight the Unluckies head-on and don't become roadkill. Time and time again, the odds stacked against you, and time and time again, you managed to overcome them. Which led to me deciding 'hey, what the hell', and I doubled down."
Cross's hand jerked, clamping down on his bag.
"I multiplied your odds into an entirely different factor, and you somehow still keep succeeding. Your words did touch the people, and somehow, so many other long odds start to cascade. And slowly, piece by piece, inch by inch, the world starts to change. And honestly? You were right earlier. Not enough for true change, not enough for anything particularly significant. So, your overall worth? Improved from a mere 'laugh' to 'interesting', but that's it."
"And then. You did it. You went. And did it."
"What are you—?"
"Saving that oversized bath toy shouldn't have been possible."
Cross's heart stopped.
"For the small stuff, the stuff that ultimately doesn't matter? There's wiggle room. There's doubt. But not for this. Not for something like that. 'Going Merry dies', that's how that day should have gone. And yes, it only became possible because you appealed to me. But that still shouldn't have changed anything; what I did shouldn't have been enough. Nothing but a blatant intervention should have been enough. But you made her spirit manifest after the first time. You persuaded Galley-La to fix her. You found the spare Devil Fruit and stole it before it was lost to the abyss, and kept it safe long enough to feed her. And you supercharged the furball's growth rate so they could fix her fast enough. I didn't save her. You did."
Lassoo, Funkfree, Gif, Soundbite… all were silent. No wild expressions. Just… silence. Cross's brain seemed to be short-circuiting, but his attention didn't leave the screen for a moment.
"Still, since I helped, anyone could doubt that. Things should be completely impossible without that. So I knew that I couldn't expect this time that this person would have a different fate. When I tuned into this time-space, it was to watch 'Fire-Fist' Portgas D. Ace die in his brother's arms. Because that's what happens to him, every time."
The pane jerked forward, mere inches from Cross's face, and the world around him rippled with power.
"And now it didn't happen. You want proof that this goes beyond 'luck'? Then read the paper I crammed down your throat again. Those words are proof. You did the impossible. You changed this world. YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE."
The mire of Cross's mind, threatening to eat him alive before the tree did with the endless insistence that he hadn't, wouldn't, and couldn't make a difference, blew away in the hurricane of his patron's revelations. The doubts fell to weak whispers. It was really only shock that kept him from responding, and B.R.O.B. likely knew it, but it was still the one to break the silence.
The pane paused for a moment, and then the 'expression' on it 'glanced' aside. "You know, I really can't believe I'm going this far. But if the only alternatives are being 'O, Mighty Smiter' or staying stuck in self-doubt? Well, take it from me: there isn't a lot to watch nowadays, so either I salvage you, or I go numb with boredom until the next evolutionary turnover, and I don't have the attention span for that, so here goes."
The para-causal entity's focus snapped back to Cross, somehow appearing hyperfocused, even without any actual features. "Let me hammer this home for you: Kronos and the Norn and the Moirai and every other fate-weaver and clock-keeper there is, they're all tightasses who have tight grips on the reigns. You, mortals, can talk about fighting fate all you like, but at the end of the eon, that doesn't actually happen. When it comes to any story that bleeds into your world's subconscious? Everything is supposed to be predetermined, A to B to C, and that's how it goes, and how it went… until now. Until you. Don't ask me how, but you've managed to loosen their grips, but good. It's not perfect, but damn it, you've done more and come farther than anyone in existence has ever thought possible. Even me. Especially me. And if you don't believe me? Well, first, fuck you. And second, look at this."
The face faded, and in its place, images began to appear.
Images… of Cross.
Cross talking to Smoker and Bartolomeo in Loguetown—
Cross giving a 1000-berry note to a News Coo—
Cross yelling at the sky with a flour-covered snail—
Cross kneeling beside Bellamy—
Cross smirking as he stood before Enel—and Aokiji—and the gates of Enies Lobby—and Spandam—and Garp—and Hogback.
Cross livid as he stood before Robin—and Aokiji again—and Shiki—and the very world itself.
And the images fanned out from there, the pane growing to cover the entire wall he was looking at. Chains linking from the most insignificant events to his best efforts and spiralling into outright insane results, people he had never seen and some he barely recognized, events he couldn't have imagined and places that had never existed. Several images leaped out at him for things he knew he had caused—
A town-sized carnival-like base with giant cacti in the background—Alabasta roaring in agreement as they seceded—Water 7 as a massive ship, giants manning the rigging—Skelter Bite beneath the dancing Obelisks—Grove 77 thriving with smoke rising ever close by—an unfamiliar royal court of animals with Pappug speaking animatedly.
—and people that he knew he had changed the lives of—
Bartolomeo setting out to sea, burning a discarded mainsail with hourglasses on it—Apis lambasting a laughing dragon for flying her through a cloudbank—Wiper and Montblanc Cricket clasping hands—Jonathan openly smirking as a pair of South Birds lambasted a weary Drake—Vivi bringing down Captain Gorilla with her Lion Cutters—Conis and Su blasting Captain Sharinguru—Merry hugging the crew as she became human—Dorry and Broggy hugging and sobbing in joy as they were freed—Vivi offering Don Accino an Eternal Pose—T-Bone triumphing over Rob Lucci—Princess Shirahoshi out of the Shell Tower with her family—Lola as Governor-Captain of Skelter Bite—Perona ruling over Merveille—Trafalgar Law smiling honestly—Rob Lucci fighting alongside Luffy and Jinbe—Magellan accepting an alliance with Smoker—Hancock and her sisters kneeling, their backs exposed to the Kuja Pirates, as three Amazons approached with new branding irons.
—and all finishing with two solid pictures at the bottom.
One of the crew's last parties before they separated.
And the other of Luffy, Ace, and Sabo—at 17, 20, and 20—exchanging saucers of sake once more, tears of joy and bittersweet smiles on their faces.
Cross's breath caught in his throat, a choked sob escaping him.
"You've gone further than even I thought possible, fought harder than I thought possible, than I've seen most humans fight," The extra-dimensional being declared. "I wanted fun, and instead, I got a spectacle. I chose you for shits and giggles, kid. I chose you, thinking you were one of infinity, and instead, you turned out to be one out of infinity. I wanted ordinary, and instead, I got you. So… know that I'm not using my vast knowledge when I say this. Know that I'm not calculating the odds or looking ahead or… whatever. I'm just telling you what I know. Me. And what I know is… that you can do this. You can go the distance. You can give them hell. You can do things none—none even up here—have ever contemplated. You. Can. Do this."
The blatant encouragement left all of them thunderstruck.
"There's a quaint little saying your carbon-based specks have: 'You miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don't take'. Well, that's true here. You have a chance. It's small. Microscopic, really, beyond the smallest quark your kind has ever perceived… but hey, what's that matter to you? After all… you're a Straw Hat."
The face returned, its eyes locked on Cross's.
"So. It's time you get the hell up, wipe the bitch off your face, and get to it. There's work to be done. After all…"
The face slowly rotated until it was completely upside down, its subtle frown turned into a subtle smile.
"I'm starting to get bored here : P"
Then the mouth literally stuck out its tongue at him.
And Cross?
"Get back in your seat. I don't see any credits rolling here, do you?"
"Now, that's more like it. Good thing, too, now I don't need to pay a king's fortune to that literally pickled drunk bastard. Alright, back to it, walking petri dish! I'll take care of my stage prop. Everything else is on you. I'm out!"
The pane winked out of existence like a television's display, and Coo vanished as well, most likely to somewhere safe. In the moment before time unpaused, Cross smirked.
"'Break my will'… points for effort, but I've never been one to oblige before."
Cross's movements were slow and jerky, his muscles weak from a prolonged lack of use, but he managed to brace a hand on the wall behind him, and with that hand, he hauled himself to his feet. His other hand reached up, slipped Luffy's hat off his head, and replaced it in his bag, then withdrew his own cap and crammed it down on his head, his defiant grin directed at the world.
"And I sure as hell am not about to start now."
Soundbite gaped at Cross for a second before hastily shaking what little head he had and re-donning his typical, if shaky, grin. "Well… alright, that just happened. GOOD. HAPPY YOU'RE PARTICIPATING AGAIN! SO… current situation: we're still locked up in hell, we have minimal supplies, LITERALLY EVERYTHING THAT MOVES WANTS TO KILL US, AND YOU HAVEN'T BATHED IN OVER A WEEK. SO…" One of Soundbite's eyestalks dipped down. "WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO NOW?"
Cross didn't answer, though at least this time his partners could tell it was the result of careful thought rather than catatonia. He didn't seem any closer to coming out of it when footfalls and crashing came from just outside the alley. Funkfreed immediately reverted to his sword form while Lassoo swallowed the flame down his gullet and swapped back to his cannon form.
Stowing his partners back in their proper sheaths and holsters, Cross carefully edged towards the corner of the alley, and once he had a view on the street, he spied a figure collapsed in the middle of the street.
A familiar, feminine, feral figure that had all of his partners hissing.
A figure with seven other prisoners of various sizes had circled around her, with roiling hate and vicious pride in their stances, as though they had just brought down a shark.
The scene sank in quickly. And for a few seconds, Cross just stood there, staring.
CRACK! "AAAAAAGH!"
And then, at the sight of one of them dislocating her shoulder with a solid kick, he began to move. Immediately, Soundbite piped up.
"Ah... Cross, I know that you were out of it at the time, but you're headed towards the maniac who tried to eat us. YOU INCLUDED, WHICH, MUCH AS IT PAINS ME TO SAY IT, MAKES IT A LOT WORSE!"
Cross nodded in acknowledgement, not stopping his march down the center of the street. "Yup."
Soundbite's eyes widened, and he started to retract into his shell. "… I feel the need to point out that this is a very unwise decision. AND THIS IS ME SAYING IT!"
"Maybe." Cross cracked his head to the side, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. "But it's mine to make."
"COULDA SWORN WE WERE A DEMOCRACY…" Soundbite rolled his eyes with a grumble… but his jaws were set in a fond smirk.
"Still, we'll have to watch our backs more than usual after this," Lassoo muttered.
"That won't be a problem."
Cross's tone was matter-of-fact and cold, and something unspoken seemed to pass between the small group.
Cross stopped a half-dozen feet away from the attacking inmates and cleared his throat. He was definitely disturbed by how the men's heads all snapped around to stare at him in a distinctly bestial manner, but he didn't let it show. Instead, he just glared at them through the gloom, his back straight, his stance firm, and his hand resting on Funkfreed's hilt.
"Step. Away. From her."
The tallest of the group—its leader, most likely—let out a growling scoff as he jerked his head to the side. "Fuck off, toothpick, and we'll give you a head start before ripping your tongue out through your eyesocket."
"Hey, I'll leave," Cross acquiesced, before pointing past them, at the bewildered, dishevelled person they'd surrounded. "But I'll be taking her with me when I do."
Everyone present—the woman, the thugs, and even his own partners—looked at Cross in disbelief.
"You're protecting this... thing?!" the leader snarled, swinging his arm back at the person his gang were ready to lynch. "Do you know how many people this monster's killed? And eaten!?"
Cross paused for a moment, staring past him. Taking in the woman's dishevelled form, the sheer amount of filth caked over her body. Of blood and worse spattered and dried across her clothes, on her collar and sleeves. Examination done, he grit his jaw and redoubled his glare, staring the man dead in the eyes. "Yeah, I know. I was almost one of them. And I also know that I'm not going to let you kill someone right in front of me without saying something. Might be crazy and even a little… a lot stupid, but that's who I am."
"Well, here's a newsflash, brat," the man bit out, his every word heavy with bloodlust. "People with that mindset don't get to live long. And you look like you're about to run out the clock, so take the last friendly piece of advice you're ever going to hear before you roll over and die: leave it alone, and find somewhere to curl up and die."
Cross was silent, considering. Then he took a slow, patient breath and reached up to tip the brim of his hat down, staring through the shadow of it at the men. "You boys ever hear of the river of truth?" he drawled in a low tone. A second of incomprehension later, he shrugged. "…didn't think so. Here's the summary of it: Move, now, and you'll live to see tomorrow."
Sighing in exasperation, the leader raised one of his hands and waved it impatiently. In response, one of the thugs charged out of the circle and lunged at Cross, sword raised to split his head in two. His mouth opened, likely so he could say something that would undoubtedly be witty, cutting, sophisticated...
SHLK! "GRKL!"
But instead, all that came out was a mouthful of blood. The thug dropped his blade and clawed at his throat, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but considering how Cross had opened his neck in one swing, all he managed was a pitiful gurgle before keeling over to finish bleeding out.
Cross stared down at the rapidly draining body before him, a myriad of emotions flashing over his face as he took in the blood on his body, on Funkfreed's blade, on his hand…
And then he took a long, deep breath, and his expression cooled as he resumed glaring at the far warier thugs.
"I would give you all one last chance to run…" Cross slowly drawled, his left hand reaching over his shoulder and drawing Lassoo into place, a round loudly clicking into position. "But I'm guessing you don't have the survival instincts to do something like that, do you now?"
"KILL HIM!" the leader bellowed, leading the five of them to rush him at once.
They were bigger. They outnumbered him. They had been in Serpent for far longer, and were far more brutal and vicious than anyone could ever humanly expect for it.
And against a Straw Hat with a new resolve?
They were completely outmatched.
"Beast Blitz."
Fire and ice spilled from the weapons in Cross's hands, and a Demon lunged at the monsters arrayed before him.
Cross's first move was to swing Lassoo's bulk at the leader, knocking him aside and allowing him to lunge at the nearest of his underlings, shoving Funkfreed into the chest of the first one he got to. The blade managed a few inches of penetration before halting, the blood and muscle around the point freezing solid and leaving the man wheezing pitifully.
"I will not die in this place," Cross declared, his visage cold and determined. "And if this is the only way to stay alive? So be it."
And with that declaration, he ripped his sword out—the swing dislodging the flesh frozen to the blade in the process—and snapped Funkfreed up to catch another goon's swing in a hilt-lock. It only lasted long enough for Cross to wrench his arm and his enemy's weapon to the side, so that he could swing Lassoo up—
FWOOSH! "ARGH!"
And scorch off most of the flesh on his torso.
Attempting to learn from their comrades' fates, the other two goons tried to split up and take Cross from two sides at once. After all, he was alone, and if they could get in his blind spot, then he'd be dead.
The one thing they didn't count on, however, was that Cross was anything but alone. A fact he demonstrated by throwing his weapons in their faces. It only took Lassoo and Funkfreed a second to transform. The same amount of time the men took to transition from murderous fury to mortal terror.
The lucky one was immediately squashed under eight tons of elephant. The unlucky one got two hundred pounds of angry dog in his face. He did not die fast.
That left two. The leader, and one shaking, trembling underlying. Who took one look at his "buddy" getting mauled by Lassoo, and turned around and sprinted the other direction.
"Hey, where the fuck do you think you're going?!" the leader demanded.
"Away!" the underling fired back, right as a writhing mass of something popped down from the ceiling and closed its jaws around his chest before dragging him screaming away.
"Idiot!" the leader spat, before turning back to Cross. "Useless weaklings, the lot of them! I'm not dying here! NOT TO YOU!"
With that, he wound up and threw a punch that would have shattered a wall. A haymaker that Cross caught on his palm without so much as a tremble. The leader tried to pull his hand back, but the action only prompted Cross to squeeze, drawing a cry of pain from the man and sending him to his knees.
"You feel that?" Cross intoned. "That's just a taste of the pain you've inflicted in your time in this pit of misery." Pulling on the arm, he steadily wrenched it back, drawing a further cry as the movement threatened to yank the leader's arm out of his shoulder. "And believe me, I'd love to give you a bigger taste of it. But I'm already crossing one line today, so I'll make this quick."
With that, Cross reached up and plucked Soundbite off his shoulder, placing it on the leader's.
"Gastro-Blast."
There was a deep whump, the kind of bass you feel with your chest more than hear. The leader's eyes rolled up in his head, a bare second before blood fountained out of his mouth, and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground with a splat.
Silence fell as the fight ended. Cross took the time to breathe and shake off the feeling. Something that suddenly became easier when Soundbite nudged him, and he saw the erstwhile victim crawling away in obvious fear.
"Wait right there," Cross said, stalking toward her. She flinched before trying to double her pace. But even with a head start, her dead arm and overall state meant that she couldn't outpace someone on two uninjured legs.
Once he caught up, Cross grabbed the back of the rags that were covering her torso and shoved her face to the ground while his other hand landed on her injured shoulder, inviting a hiss of pain and fear. He felt around for a bit, and then…
"Funkfreed, numb the area."
The elephant's trunk extended, exhaling a small cloud of icy mist. The cold seeped through her skin, leaving her shivering. When Cross poked against the skin, and she didn't hiss again, he gripped her shoulder carefully—
SNAP! "GYAGH!"
And jerked it back into its socket. She shrieked and bucked fiercely, forcing Cross to move back. She flailed for a moment with her new freedom, but slowly stilled as she discovered that she wasn't in anywhere near as much pain as she'd expected. She gingerly raised her other hand to her injured shoulder and moved it tentatively, but the pain remained mercifully numb for the moment.
It was as the woman was testing her limb that Cross took the time to take stock of more than her injuries, and realized that she was definitely not a woman. With her stature, visibly a head shorter than Cross himself, it was possible that she was a diminutive adult. But the likelier truth was an answer that Cross didn't want to contemplate any longer than he had to. And on that note…
"Now you can go," Cross said, walking backward several paces before turning his back on her. The second Lassoo and Funkfreed fell into stride alongside him, the pirate spun his finger and jerked his head back, which they both responded to with nods of their own.
It was a precaution that appeared to pay off when moments later, Cross heard footsteps behind him, and the group tensed to attack…
"W…Wait, wait!"
Before relaxing—marginally, anyway—and turning around as the ex-victim and ex-attacker hobbled up to them, still massaging her shoulder. Her face was shadowed by her tattered hood, but there was just enough visible to see her eyes staring up at Cross, an earnest- innocent confusion in her gaze, and her toothy maw in a frown.
"W-Why… why did you… h-heeeelp… me…?" the girl got out, her voice vacillating between a low hiss and a rasping growl.
Cross stared at her once more, taking in her filthy demeanour, the sheer amount of blood that she was coated in, and finally, he responded with a question of his own. "What's your name?"
The woman's mouth opened slightly, and her eyes widened. Her head tilted, a look of honest confusion visible—Cross had to strongly beat back the implications of that reaction, and instead gestured at himself.
"My name is Cross." He then waved his hand at his companions one at a time, including the smaller pair of gastropodal eyes peeking out of his jacket. "And these are Soundbite, Lassoo, Funkfreed, and Gif."
The girl's jaw worked for a moment. "…it's… I don't—" Her eyes abruptly widened, and she let out a sound of understanding. "B-Ben-e-dia. My name is Benedia."
Cross winced at how she definitely sounded unsure as to how to pronounce her own name, but nodded. "Alright then, Benedia. And… you want to know why I helped you?"
Benedia's head jerked up and down erratically. "Y-You… s-saved me. He-elp-ed me…" Her head snapped side to side, her eyes darting about and searching the darkness with an age-deep wariness. "P-People don't 'help' people… 'sa-ave' them…not here."
Cross chewed on his lip as he joined her in carefully scanning their surroundings. He then stared her dead in the eye. "I did it because… You needed it. You might have tried to hurt us—" He politely ignored how she flinched at that reminder. "—and I know that this place has stolen a hell of a lot from me, and it's going to take a hell of a lot more…" He steeled his expression, giving his head a firm shake. "But there's no way in hell that I'm going to let it take my humanity, too."
That comment caused Benedia's head to slowly tilt to the side. "Hu…hu-man-ity?"
The comment triggered something in Cross's mind, and he slowly lowered himself onto one knee so that he was more on her level. "Are you… human yourself? It's just a bit hard to tell, so—"
Benedia lurched back from Cross, jerking her head back and forth almost fearfully, as if he'd spoken taboo. "N-No, no, no, not human." Cross started to open, but she plowed on. "I… m-may-be was… once… but not here. Humanity… not allowed here. Humanity dies here. Me… you… everyone." She slowly angled her head back, staring up and off into the abyss above. "This place… is all I've ever known… some p-people… they say things, about a blue sky…" Her head snapped back down, and she shook it even harder. "But I've never seen it… it's not real, it doesn't exist… only black…"
And then, she went very still, and her head inched back around to stare at Cross, eyes blown wide.
"It'll take yours too…"
A chill crawled down Cross's spine at the certainty in her declaration. It was promptly shoved aside by a flame that raged its way from his stomach into his head.
Cross shot back to his feet, causing Benedia to snap back fearfully, but he ignored her as he slammed his fist into his palm with a rebellious snarl.
"Sorry, but I have other plans. Insanity and demonhood on my own time and dime, and there's no way that this hell is going to make me late!" An outright madcap grin blasted across his face as an idea roared to life in his head. "And as a matter of fact, I think it's time I make this fact perfectly clear to any and all who it concerns, and even those it doesn't! Soundbite!"
"ROGER-ROGER!" the monochrome snail replied, slipping his head out of his shell with an eye-to-eye grin.
Cross spun his finger in a circle, even as he ripped his mic out of his bag.
"Gastro-Amp, to 13. But keep it local, would you? Don't want to disturb the good people of the world… just yet."
"HEEHEEHEEHOOHOOHOO! ON IT!" Soundbite chortled in agreement, and moments later, the abyssal sky sang with a static whine. "AND YOU! ARE! LIVE!"
"HELLO, SERPENT!" Cross roared, his voice booming and echoing from border to border of the prison and scaring what little daylight there was out of the prisoners, one and all.
-o-
"So sorry to bother everyone's fine… what, evening, morning, noon? WHATEVER time it is, I'm just going to go right ahead and say my piece, and then let the vast majority of you all go back to being RAVING LUNATICS! Alright? Alright!"
A massive silhouette, easily ten feet in height, slowly tilted its head at the voice from nowhere.
"Now then, for those of you who don't know, which I can only imagine is a lot of you, my name is Jeremiah Cross, Third Mate of the Straw Hat Pirates and co-host of the Straw Hat Broadcast Station, or SBS for short! It's a name and voice that carries quite a bit of weight out there in the rest of the world, the world under that big, beautiful blue sky, buuuut I'm guessing that in here, that name means less than spit to you all, doesn't it? Well, that's fair!"
Its head tilted to the other side, reacting as much on instinct as emotion to the voice. It raised an arm to scratch its head, not noticing the arm tearing through bricks in its path as easily as water. An entire building crumbled down beside it, all without anyone even giving it a glance.
-o-
"Now, in case it weren't perfectly obvious, I'm rather new to this hell on earth, only been here about a week or so, and let me tell you… I am already SICK OF IT! This place is truly horrible, awful, just an absolute negative-hundred out of ten, truly it is! And me, well, I've got sensitive tastes, a delicate bearing, all that, and most importantly, I've got places to be and stuff to do, SO! So… I've come to a decision, which is thus: I'm not terribly fond of this place, so I am going to leave."
Strung between two protruding branches that nearly matched skyscrapers in scale, numerous threads criss-crossed to bind anyone who came near. In its center, a gargantuan figure with eight legs and eight eyes clicked her mandibles together at the words she heard, her blood racing at the message. Normally, she'd dismiss the person who declared such as a soon-to-be-dead lunatic. And he still was, probably, most likely, definitely. But his voice was reaching everyone. That was enough to pique her interest…
"Now, you all probably think that's a pretty common thing to hear, a plea for mercy, a last gasp of sanity. Well, let me tell you: that's not what this is. This? Is a promise. A FACT. I, Jeremiah 'Voice of Anarchy' Cross, am going to leave this hellhole. I don't care how long it takes; I don't care what I have to do. AM. LEAVING. Now, I imagine that more than a few of you are going to take issue with this, probably going to try and stop me from doing just that, maybe because it's your duty, maybe out of spite, whatever. And you know what? I invite you to go ahead and do just that. Because you know why?… In the end, it won't matter."
The entire web trembled from the arachnid's shaking. It was a testament to her skill and decorum alike that it didn't even fray.
-o-
"Because, you see, here's the thing: I have people waiting for me, on the outside. I have unfinished business waiting for me on the outside, I have THE WHOLE DAMNED WORLD! WAITING! Right out there, past the borders of this… godforsaken evil place. And I… don't intend to leave anyone, not one person, waiting for one second longer than they have to. So. I don't care who or what you are, or how strong you think you are, but I'm leaving. Through you, if necessary. Over you, if it comes to it. I'm leaving… and there's nothing any of you can do to stop me. So instead, ask yourself this: why stop me? Why not join me?"
Deep in the labyrinth, one man's hands glowed like the sun. A pitiful light, not enough to cause harm, but enough to illuminate his position like a lantern. And enough to show a fresh spark burning in his once-dull eyes.
"Because here's the thing, folks: When I leave this place, I intend to take the gates off their hinges, and burn this place, darkness and all, to ashes and cinders. So rather than sticking around and getting caught up in the blaze, why don't you come with me instead? Open offer, to anyone, anything, anywhere, at any time! Doesn't matter who you are, who you were, what you've done, none of it! In here, we're all sinners. And none of us can afford to be picky if we really, really want to live one. Day. More. So you all tell me then… who wants to come out of the night?"
This man, perhaps the only person in the world who could long for the sun more than any victim of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit, was the first to move. The first to be moved by the Voice of Anarchy, the first to choose to put his life on the line to escape. But… he was the second prisoner in Serpent to join Cross.
-o-
"I know…" I swore, my voice dropping into an almost reverent fervour, as I stared up into the lack of sky. "That a lot of you are likely going to ignore me. More are going to laugh. And others are going to curse, and try to put me in the ground. Squash me like any other insect. But to those of you who've heard me. Listened to me. And are sick and tired of letting this place grind your faces into the dirt… find me. Find me, join me, and trust me. Trust me, with your lives, because I make this promise to you, here, now and forever."
I stared up into the abyss, and through it at the beautiful blue sky I knew lay beyond.
"We. Are. Leaving. And none of us will ever. Ever come back here again? So until then… stay safe and hold on to hope. Because this night. Is done."
I hung up the transceiver, my blood racing for what I had just brought down on my head. This would be the hardest thing I'd ever done. But I would do it. Dying was not an option.
And so I turned to the girl I had saved. The girl, who was looking up at me with shock, awe, and even, I dared to dream, a little bit of hope, all her own.
I dropped to my knee again and put my hand on her shoulder. "Benedia, do you want to eat people all your life?"
She was silent for a moment before jerking her head… in a nod. "…yes."
…and now all that determination was bemusement and a bit of anxiety.
"Uh…/∑(O_O;)" all five of us hedged, sweatdropping as I hesitantly started to raise my hand from her.
"But," she forged on in a rasp, determination blazing in her hooded gaze. "I waaaant to do… it under the b-blue sky."
The sweatdrops doubled, I'm pretty sure.
"Is…this progress?" Soundbite asked, an eyestalk twitching.
I heaved a heavy sigh as I levered myself back to my full height, running my hand over my forehead in an effort to knead away the migraine I was already starting to nurse. "For the sake of my sanity, we'll call it a start…"
"So, to confirm, we're taking in the savage animal who was trying to outright kill us less than a week ago, and making her a friend?" Lassoo whined, tentatively pawing up to Benedia and sniffing her, his ears flattening as she gave him a way too sharp grin. "I gotta express some doubt here…"
"I don't agree with the mutt on much, but…" Funkfreed waved his trunk side-to-side.
That prompted me to shoot them a flat stare. "Why not? I took in all three of you, and the third still makes my life a living hell to this day."
I swear that Soundbite was sweating bullets as he glanced aside, chuckling sheepishly. "AHEH, w-well…"
"…well, he's got us there," Funkfreed shrugged. He then swiped his trunk forwards, encircling me, Lassoo and our new friend and effortlessly lifting us onto his back. "So! We've got the five of us, plus a cannibal lunatic. Where do we start?"
I smirked softly, planting my foot on Funkfreed's head and leaning on my knee. "Simple. We head for where the most chaos is… and then, come hell, high water, or anything in between, we stand our ground. No matter what…"
Funkfreed began moving forward, and as the darkness fell over us once more, swallowing us into its depths… I stared into it and refused to blink first.
"We will stand our ground."