Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

The murky puddle of dirty water trembled as three children sprinted through it without hesitation, their hurried footsteps churning the filth into swirling clouds of grit and grime. The reflection of flickering red sirens shattered in the disturbed surface, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

The industrial corridors of District 3 shuddered under the relentless, chaotic rhythm of the alarms, their crimson flashes cutting through the darkness like jagged bursts of a waking nightmare. Luffy led the charge, his movements guided more by raw instinct than by sight—his bare feet slapping against cracked tiles, each step a ticking countdown, a desperate race against time. Behind him, Ace surged forward, gripping a makeshift weapon—a rusted scalpel lashed to frayed copper wires, its edge still glistening with fresh blood. But it wasn’t his blood. Ace had always known how to dodge bullets. His face was smeared with soot, his amber eyes burning like embers in the dark, fierce and unyielding.

Sabo brought up the rear, his fingertips still crackling with residual static from hacking the surveillance grid. The acrid smell of burnt circuits clung to his clothes as behind them, a monitor exploded in a shower of sparking glass and thick, oily smoke. He didn’t look back—didn’t need to. The heat licked at his neck like a warning, but he kept running, his breath steady despite the adrenaline.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the whirring approach of a CP drone—its sleek, angular frame slicing through the haze. Instantly, his mind calculated: *Seventeen steps to the next turn. Factoring in the drone’s weight, its speed, the slight drag from the humid air— 2.4 seconds before the next camera sweep. No margin for error.

“LEFT!”

Sabo’s shout tore through the chaos a heartbeat before the drone smashed into the ground behind them, its rotor blades seizing in violent, lethal spasms. Above, the distorted voice of the facility’s AI droned, “System failure,” before cutting off into staticky silence. Ace didn’t break stride. A leap, a sharp kick—the emergency door’s lock groaned, then gave way with a metallic screech.

The door swung open, and the night swallowed them whole.

Beyond lay Calypso, drenched in relentless rain—icy water cascaded from broken ventilation ducts, carving paths down the city’s rusted skeleton. The cold hit them like a slap, the downpour washing soot and blood into the grates below. Luffy hesitated, just for a second, his usual reckless momentum faltering as the weight of the storm pressed down.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

A buzzing pierced his skull—

—and then the entire world began screaming at once.

The voices were back.

Not just the shouts of CP soldiers or the mechanical whine of drones. These were deeper, wronger—neural static crackling between his synapses, the ghost-echo of forgotten commands, the industrial groans of factories kilometers away. He heard the click-clack of polished boots on metal corridors, the hungry roar of distant fires—distance didn’t matter, nothing mattered, because the sounds weren’t outside him anymore. They were in him, chewing through bone.

Luffy slammed his hands over his ears, fingers trembling, his very skeleton aching as genetic modifications writhed under stress—like his DNA was trying to claw its way out of his skin.

“FOCUS, LUFFY!”

Ace's hands locked onto Luffy's shoulders—anchors in the storm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Blood streaked down his forearm from a gash, vivid red against sun-darkened skin. He swiped the back of his wrist across the white streak in his hair, smearing soot and sweat, but his voice was steel wrapped in fire:

"Breathe. Look at me. We're getting out."

Luffy nodded once, sharp, swallowing fear like a bitter pill. His eyes—wild, lost —snapped to Ace's. And for one fractured second, the world stopped.

No more screams. No more static.

Just Ace's heartbeat— too fast but steady, drumming against Luffy's ribs where their bodies pressed close. Proof. Real. Here.

Then they were running again, always running, but now Luffy's steps matched Ace's, their shadows a single creature slicing through the rain.

Sabo's mind ignited—

— neurons firing at adrenalized speeds as scenarios unfolded and collapsed in the space between heartbeats. Every variable snapped into place: alley widths, patrol rotations, the weight distribution of Ace's makeshift weapon, the hitch in Luffy's breath that meant his genetic modifications were still stabilizing.

"Service tunnel—next street! Dumps straight into District 5's industrial terminal!" he shouted, already pivoting.

It was a trap.

He knew.

Every goddamn inch of that cursed tunnel was watched.

Motion sensors buried in the walls like teeth—like the tunnel itself was some slumbering beast just waiting to bite. But still... it was better than the drones. Better than dying piecemeal under open sky, with the whirr-whirr-whirr of rotor blades descending like scythes from the heavens.

Ace yanked Luffy forward with brutal force, dragging his little brother under a corroded pipe that reeked of rust and stagnant water. His fingers dug into Luffy's shoulder—clawed, really, desperate—as if touch alone could tether him to reality.

"Luffy, goddammit, focus on me!" Ace roared, raw desperation cracking through each syllable. "Three hundred fucking meters! That's it! We can make it!"

But Luffy wasn't listening.

His footsteps echoed hollow — mechanical —like a puppet jerked along by invisible strings. Muscles twitched under skin, tendons contracting on their own. And his eyes...

Clouded. Glowing red.

Then— screeeeeeech—

The metal screamed before it shattered.

Years of rust and neglect had eaten through the structure, and now— now — it gave way beneath them. Luffy didn't even have time to yell. The fall was fast.

The landing was brutal.

They crashed straight onto a live industrial conveyor—a river of blades and scrap, churning teeth of steel, sparking cables snapping with blue-white electricity.

The air crackled with the sickening hum of charged plasma.

From the shadows, they emerged— Pacifistas.

Their obsidian-polished bodies drank in the city’s sickly glow, reflecting it back in distorted, jagged streaks. Red eyes —not just mechanical, but predatory —locked onto them with the cold certainty of targeting systems.

"Units 17-D, 55-S, and 07-A." The voice was a guillotine’s drop. "Surrender. Or be decommissioned."

There was no time to react.

No time to breathe.

Sabo struck first.

He spun—a steel hurricane—his boot connecting with the Pacifista's knee joint in a CRACK that echoed like gunfire. The machine staggered, its leg buckling as hydraulic systems screamed under the impact.

One second of vulnerability.

Enough.

His teeth sank into the exposed wiring at the machine's nape, the taste of scorched oil and copper flooding his mouth as he yanked the cable free with a jerk that split his lips. Blood and machine grease dripped from his chin in equal measure.

Ace didn't wait.

He was already moving, muscles burning from the inside as he launched himself at the second Pacifista. His fist—wreathed in fire —slammed into the fissure between neck plates where the titanium was thinnest. The internal explosion was near-instant: superheated oil erupted like lava, painting the ground black as the machine convulsed, systems failing in a cascade of sparks and violent, jerking spasms.

Sabo spat out the piece of cable, his eyes burning with defiance.The first Pacifist was still struggling to rise, its limbs trembling, the crimson glow of its vision flickering erratically. Without hesitation, he yanked a metal pipe from the nearby wall—rust-eaten, but heavy enough to do the job—and with a leap, drove it straight into the machine’s chest.

The impact reverberated through the alley.

Metal against metal. Lights flickering out.

By the time the dust settled, only the husks of the Pacifistas remained—motionless, their systems devoured by fire and corrosion.

The rain washed the oil from the streets, carrying away the last traces of battle.

The metal framework groaned beneath their feet—a low, shuddering sound, like a choked lament rising from the city’s gut. And then— the world gave way.

The ground vanished. Freefall.

The world flipped upside down before anyone could scream.

The impact was brutal. They crashed straight onto an industrial conveyor belt—a living river of jagged scrap, rusted plating, and sparking electrical cables. The sound was a symphony of metal tearing through flesh, of hungry machines spewing garbage, of bodies crushing iron beneath them.

Luffy tumbled uncontrollably, his skull cracking against a shattered control panel. Sound vanished. For a heartbeat, there was only the gray, throbbing void inside his own head.

Ace yanked him up before his body even stopped moving. His fingers dug into the soaked fabric of Luffy’s coat, nearly tearing it.

"Get up! They're coming!" he shouted, panic bleeding from his throat like fresh blood. His voice clawed at their ears, sharper than the broken shards around them.

Sabo surged upright in a single leap. His left arm bled in ragged strips, an open wound that splattered across the metal beneath him like crimson paint on steel. Yet his eyes never wavered. They scanned everything—exits, weak points, the ticking seconds left.

The metal pipe in his grip shuddered with the conveyor’s vibration— heavy, jagged, slick with oil. But it was a weapon. It was all they had.

His gaze was ice. Sharp. Lethal.

For a heartbeat, it flickered turquoise—an artificial spark that vanished as fast as it came, leaving behind only pale, pitiless irises.

They didn’t stop. Not when the putrid stench of burning trash clawed into their nostrils. Not when the city’s lights began to drown behind rust-eaten scaffolds and alleyways choked by fog.

The asphalt gave way to trails of corroded metal. Sporadic raindrops hammered the ground like bullets on steel. Around them, concrete surrendered to the skeletons of machines—cold, forgotten husks, discarded like carcasses. A graveyard of obsolete technology.

This was where they needed to be.

Ace kicked open an empty shipping container, and both men slipped inside.

The space was claustrophobic—a suffocating metal coffin. Mold-caked walls exhaled the thick stench of mildew and dried blood, as if time itself had frozen inside this chamber...

or festered.

Sabo was the first to break the silence. His voice came out low, but coiled with tension—like a spring about to snap.

"We split up here," he said, already mapping their paths with a sharp gesture. "I head east. You two—north."

Ace didn’t move. His hands gripped Luffy’s shoulders, iron-tight, as if the younger boy might dissolve at any second. Luffy trembled, his wide, bloodshot eyes too stark for someone so small. His skin was ghostly pale, lips cracked, his body barely able to stay upright. His irises flickered unnaturally—shifting between shades of brown and violent red.

"No." Ace's voice was a tense murmur, edged with something desperate. "I'll draw them off. You stay with Luffy."

Sabo’s gaze flicked to their youngest brother—and in that brief, silent moment, he knew Ace was right. Luffy wouldn’t survive another chase. Not another second of running. He’d already pushed past every limit his body had.

Sabo drew a sharp breath, then nodded. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them in two strides. Kneeling in front of Luffy, he spoke fast, his words an urgent whisper— as if every extra second they stood there was a death sentence.

Three rules." Sabo's voice was steel wrapped in fire. "One: Don’t get caught. Two: Destroy the chip the second you can."

"And remember who you are," Luffy finished, his voice raw but unwavering.

Ace hesitated at the threshold. Then—with a sharp tug—he ripped a button from his coat. Small, unblemished white, it fit perfectly in his palm.

"Keep this. For when we meet again."

Luffy stared at the offering, brow furrowed. He didn’t understand why this mattered—but if it came from Ace, it had to be important. His breath hitched. The white button was warm, as if it still held the last embers of Ace’s touch.

Luffy crushed it against his chest—right where his heart hammered, wild and defiant.

Ace pressed his forehead against Luffy’s, their breaths ragged and syncopated.

"Listen—when we meet again, I’ll teach you how to make those fireworks you’ve always wanted to see. Promise."

His voice was rough, but the words were soft—a secret tucked between them like a match waiting to ignite.

Then he gripped Sabo’s hand, feeling the faint tremor in his brother’s fingers. No more words passed between them; none were needed. The weight of everything unsaid hung heavy in the space between their locked gazes—a silent pact written in grit and fire.

Luffy bit back his tears, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

Ace, though—Ace let one tear fall.

Just one.

Then he turned away, footsteps swallowed by the fog before they even faded. He didn’t look back. No promises of return. No goodbyes. Just the quiet certainty of a lit fuse burning down.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

The world seemed to fall silent, even amidst the surrounding chaos.

Ace ran.

He ran until the soles of his feet tore against the jagged asphalt, until the muscles in his legs burned as if doused in acid. This was the price of modification—brute strength in exchange for living flesh. His tendons coiled like overheated springs, each step a stab of agony, each breath a warning: 'You're going to come apart at the seams.'

But he didn't stop.

They needed to see only him.
They needed to chase only him.

The Pacifistas, the hunters, the metal-voiced monsters—they all needed to fix their sights on his back. Never on them. Never.

"Follow me." The words tore through his clenched teeth with enough force to crack enamel. "Me. Not them."

If he had to die again, let it be with his bare hands ripping through steel plating—even if he had to use his own teeth to do it.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
If he was going to fall, he'd fall screaming their names like a battle cry.

That’s what brothers did.

But the calm didn’t last.

Sabo sensed it first—the flicker of sensors activating in the dark, the muffled grind of metal joints shifting, the squelch of heavy boots stomping through bloodied puddles.

Instinctively, Sabo yanked Luffy close, crushing him against his chest.His back hit the freezing metal of the shipping container, their breaths syncing into one ragged rhythm— sharp with panic, sharp with survival.

He had to make a choice. Fast. Final.

They bolted like shadows through the storm. The rain fell in thin, needling streaks, turning the world slick and treacherous. Sabo knew they were being hunted. They always were. There was no erasing their trail completely— not with Luffy like this.

Sixty seconds. That’s all he had.

Sabo’s mind burned through possibilities like a wildfire—
discarding compromised routes, analyzing the terrain as if it were a living map. Then he saw it: an industrial dumpster, old and heavy with lead-lined walls. The kind that still scrambled signals.

Without hesitation, he pivoted hard.

“Trust me,” he muttered— more a vow to himself than to Luffy.

They reached it—one sharp kick sent the padlock flying. Sabo wrenched the heavy lid open and turned to Luffy, his movements precise, desperate.

"Here. It’ll be okay now." His voice was steel, but his eyes betrayed the weight of the lie.

With a quick jerk, he tore the button from his collar— the emergency beacon —and pressed it into Luffy’s palm. His fingers lingered a half-second too long before letting go.

"Don’t move until I come back. Or until you hear three quick knocks."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Luffy’s hand shot out, fingers grasping at empty air where Sabo’s sleeve had been—but he was already gone. With clinical precision, Sabo slammed the metal lid shut. The
thud echoed like a judge’s gavel— final, irrevocable.

Darkness.

Luffy was alone now, swallowed by the suffocating black, save for a single sliver of light slicing through the dented metal. The air hung thick— a toxic cocktail of rust, acid runoff, and the cloying stench of rotting garbage —each breath coating his tongue with the taste of decay.

The floor beneath him was uneven, blanketed in a slick, oily sludge that clung to his clothes and seared his skin with a faint, chemical burn wherever it touched.

He didn’t cry. Not yet.
But his eyes burned. His throat ached.

Through the narrow slit in the metal, he caught Sabo’s final movements— a silhouette sprinting straight into the void, the sudden flare of a targeting laser igniting in the dark like the eye of a prowling beast.

More lights ignited. A dozen. Twenty.

A swarm of metallic predators emerged from the shadows, their heavy footfalls sending tremors through the ground like the footsteps of giants.

Sabo dodged.

His body twisted midair like a ribbon caught in the wind —fluid, precise — narrowly evading the blade that sliced through his coat but not his skin.

He already knew where they nested.

He knew before the Pacifistas’ red eyes flickered to life—before their targeting systems could even lock on.

Bare feet slammed against corroded metal— one, two, three rapid steps along the container’s side. Then a sharp leap launched him onto a suspended pipe, his body a fleeting shadow against the floodlights.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

His hands seized a frayed high-voltage cable—weathered and exposed, like gripping the banister of a childhood home.

The scrap was his ally. Piles of industrial debris became makeshift staircases. Shattered girders transformed into gangways. Every movement was timed with surgical precision:

0.9 seconds until the next shot.
700 meters to the sewage creek—the only blind spot.
72% survival odds if he reached the water.

Then he ran.

The air hissed as a second blade grazed his neck— so close it parted the strands of his hair.

Almost.

Ahead, the drainage canal yawned open— a thick river of sewage and industrial waste, its surface gleaming under artificial lights like tarnished mercury.

But before he could leap—

CLANG.

A metallic crash shuddered behind him. Heavy. Relentless.

The fourth Pacifista.

Sabo glanced over his shoulder—and grinned. Breath ragged, clothes streaked with grime, body coiled like a spring.

Ready.

They were everywhere.

Luffy’s heart pounded like a war drum—too loud, too wild. It throbbed in his ears, his chest, even his teeth.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Breathed. Once. Twice.

No screaming. No calling out.

He had to listen.

Had to count the footsteps.

Had to measure the gaps between explosions and screams, between electric crackles and the *crunch* of metal on metal—until the chaos outside drowned out his own breathing.

Until it drowned out fear itself.
He couldn't scream, no matter how much he wanted to, his throat hurt and tears overflowed. ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Chapter Text

One. Two. One. Two.

Rhythmic. Metallic. Like iron claws piercing the asphalt, sending vibrations straight into Luffy’s skull. He always heard them first. Always felt them before they even touched the ground.

District 5 was a rotting corpse.

The rain slithered down rusted walls, painting black veins across the corroded brickwork. The air hung thick with the stench of burnt oil, rotting meat, and the acrid smoke of illegal engine fumes. Even the silence here was sickly—a hollow, rasping void, broken only by the constant drip of unknown liquids and the distant hum of surveillance drones.

Luffy curled deeper into the dumpster of electronic waste, his thin fingers tightening around Ace and Sabo’s white buttons. The smooth surface was warm against his palm, as if still holding the last traces of his brothers’ fading warmth.

The footsteps grew louder.

Two people? Three?

He didn’t know. He’d never been good at counting. Sabo would’ve known—Sabo calculated distances and escape routes like the world was a chessboard. Acewould’ve smelled them long before they stepped into the alley, his muscles already coiled, ready to—

"One. Two."

The words slithered through the air like a mechanized chant—cold, unfeeling, a countdown to something inevitable.

"Rhythmic. Metallic."

Each syllable was a hammer strike against Luffy’s nerves, each footfall a blade dragged over steel. The sound wasn’t just noise—it was an invasion. Like iron claws sinking into asphalt, tearing through the street’s decaying flesh, sending tremors up through the ground and into his bones.

District 5 wasn’t just dying. It was a corpse left to fester, its rot seeping into the very air.

The rain didn’t fall here—it oozed, thick and sluggish, carving black veins into the crumbling brickwork. The walls wept rust, their decay mirroring the sickness in the streets. The stench was a living thing—burnt oil, rancid meat, the acrid bite of illegal fuel burning in hidden engines. Even the silence was diseased—a hollow, wheezing thing, punctured only by the drip-drip-drip of unknown fluids and the ever-present drone of surveillance hovering just out of sight.

Luffy pressed deeper into the wreckage of the electronics dumpster, his body coiled tight, his fingers clenched around the only things left of them—Ace’s button, Sabo’s button, smooth and warm against his palm. Too warm. Like they still held some ghost of heat, some echo of the hands that had once worn them.

The footsteps grew louder.

One set? Two? Three?

He didn’t know. Numbers had never been his strength.

Sabo would’ve known. Sabo could’ve mapped their approach in seconds, could’ve calculated the exact distance between each step, the weight distribution, the threat level. Ace would’ve smelled them coming — gun oil, sweat, the sharp tang of adrenaline — before they’d even turned the corner. His fists would’ve been ready, his teeth bared, his body a weapon already in motion

But Luffy?

Luffy only listened.

That was what he was good at. Listening. Even when he shouldn’t.

And what he heard now was the wet squelch of heavy boots sinking into mud, the creak of leather as weapons shifted in holsters, the too-controlled rhythm of trained breathing.

"One… two… three…?"

His own voice scraped out of him—raw, fractured, barely human.

The pain wasn’t in one place anymore. It wasn’t something he could point to, could name. It was a ghost living under his ribs, curled around his spine, woven into the silence he’d carried since CP’s cell.

A silence that wasn’t the absence of sound, but the weight of everything left unspoken.

Then— CRANG.

The dumpster lid was ripped away, torn from its hinges with a shriek of tortured metal. The lead-lined steel wailed like a wounded animal, its cry cutting through the thick, poisoned air. Luffy didn’t need to see who stood above him—his body reacted before his mind could catch up, muscles locking, breath hitching. Some reflexes never died, not even after months outside the labs. Not even when the rest of him was breaking.

The stench surged in, thick and suffocating.

Rust. The kind that ate through steel and memory alike.
Mold. Black, creeping, the rot of things left to fester in the dark.
Sewage. Clogged, stagnant, a slow death in liquid form.

And beneath it all—acid.

Not just any acid. This was the kind that seared the lungs with every breath, that left skin blistering and raw. The kind that clung to the inside of his nostrils long after exposure, a phantom burn he could never scrub away.

He knew this smell.

It was the stench of CP’s "cleansing" tanks.

The stench of drowning awake.

Someone outside held their breath.

A sharp, deliberate pause—like the world itself had frozen mid-motion.

But no one slammed the lid shut.

The silence that followed was worse than the footsteps. It wasn’t empty. It was judging . Thick with hesitation and poorly concealed disgust. Luffy could feel it—the weight of foreign eyes scraping over him, dissecting him, cataloging every broken part:

— The tattered remains of CP’s white uniform , clinging to his frame like a second skin, stiff with dried blood and sour with old sweat.
— The mottled purple tracks of injection sites , standing out even beneath layers of grime, a roadmap of needles and betrayal.

— The emblem of Horizontes, half-faded on the fabric but still legible: PLOT 17-D.

One of the figures let out a sigh.

It wasn’t a sigh of pity. Nor of fear.

It was the sound of a hunter standing before a trap that had worked better than expected—and now faced the decision of whether it was worth dirtying their hands to dismantle it.

Their ears throbbed.

Not with pain—with a sound. A real sound. Directed. For the first time in months, they tried to focus. Tried to listen.

And the world responded by shattering into a thousand pieces.

The whispers pierced like splinters beneath the skin, sharp, metallic, cutting through the constant buzzing that lived inside their skull. The lead surrounding them didn’t muffle—it amplified. Made everything vibrate, as if the sound were being injected straight into their bones.

They were human voices. But cold.
Calculated.

"It's too much risk keeping him here."
"CP pays well for escaped experiments."
"Better to hand him over before Horizontes finds out."

Luffy blinked, slow. Each heartbeat ached behind his eyes.

They were so close. So clear.
Yet they spoke as if he were an item on a shelf.
As if this body, slumped between scorched panels and melted cables, were nothing more than a disposable artifact.

Recoverable property.
Misdirected resource.
Plot 17-D.

The metal beneath him was soaked in acidic water, and the stench of burnt electronics mingled with necrotic tissue—his own. Every breath was punishment. Every word spoken out there, a verdict.

They weren’t looking at him.
They were weighing what he was worth.

That—that cold calculation, the way they ignored him while deciding his fate—hurt more than the cell. More than the syringes. More than the abandonment.

And then—

SNAP.

Wet. Precise. Like a bone breaking under a baton.

A heavy boot splashed into the puddle behind the men, spraying mud and grease-stained sludge. The mist parted, revealing a tall silhouette—a black overcoat frayed at the edges by war, not time. Shanks appeared like a ghost who had chosen to materialize just for this moment.

"Mind telling me what’s going on here?" His voice slithered through the alley, sweet as poison.

Benn Beckman emerged behind him, lighting a cigarette with gunpowder-stained fingers. The smoke curled into a veil between them and the hunters—sweet and deadly, like the patience that was running thin.

The men by the dumpster stiffened. One of them swallowed hard, his hand slipping toward his holster.

Shanks didn’t even glance at him. His eyes locked onto the CP emblem—then onto the white button clutched in Luffy’s hand. He checked the boy quickly—none were missing from his clothes. He didn’t like dwelling on the possibilities.

"Well, well..." he murmured, crouching until he was level with the dumpster. His smile didn’t fade—it just sharpened. "You were really going to sell a treasure like this without even wiping off the blood first?"

"He’s just a CP asset," the dumber hunter spat. "Horizontes collects and pays—"

The crack of Beckman’s gun split the alley, a single warning shot cutting off his words like a guillotine. Luffy didn’t flinch. The gunshot echoed differently in his head—not the sharp snap of CP training drills, but a deep, rumbling growl, like an animal defending its territory.

"Who’s paying?" Shanks asked, leaning forward. "You... or CP?"

And these idiots were really thinking of haggling with the men who wrote the death sentences in this world? The two hunters didn’t wait for a second shot.

The younger one took a step back—then another—before turning and bolting, boots slipping in the toxic sludge. The second hesitated, hand still twitching near his holster, until Beckman tilted his gun just one degree to the left.

That was enough.

He ran.

Shanks exhaled, the edge of his smile softening—just a fraction—as he turned back to Luffy. The boy’s breathing was ragged, his fingers curled tight around that single white button. A keepsake. A plea. A silent I survived.

"Alright, kid," Shanks said, voice low, "let’s get you out of this dump."

And for the first time in months, Luffy believed it might actually be true.

That was enough.

The hunter vanished into the thick fog, as if swallowed by an invisible maw. The mist had consumed everything—the jagged outlines of buildings, the dull glow of streetlights, even sound itself. All that remained were footsteps—uneven, growing fainter—echoing through the alley like the faltering pulse of a dying heartbeat. A desperate, erratic rhythm, more like a warning that something inside him—or perhaps the world itself—was failing.

Shanks didn’t move. He didn’t even turn his head to watch them flee. The man could run straight to hell, for all he cared.

The only thing that mattered was right in front of him.

—softened as they settled on the small, hunched figure in the corner of the dumpster. Luffy. Too small for this scene. Too lost to even hold himself together.

The redhead crouched down slowly, his knees creaking faintly against the damp ground, as if even his own body hesitated to get closer. It was a careful movement, heavy—not with physical weight, but something deeper. Like he was afraid of breaking something invisible, something already cracked inside.

The air here was thick, saturated with moisture and rust. Every breath carried a metallic tang, a reminder of blood, of pain. The fog swayed like a living curtain around them, muffling the sounds of the world beyond.

"Hey, kid."

Shanks' voice came out low, rough, unhurried. No urgency—just an invitation. A quiet attempt.

Luffy didn’t answer. Didn’t move. His fingers were still locked around the buttons of the control panel, clenched so tight his skin had begun to blotch red and white. His hands trembled—but they wouldn’t let go.

Shanks noticed.

Of course he noticed.
He let out a nearly imperceptible sigh as he stepped closer, his boots scraping carefully against the damp ground. His arms extended slowly, hands hovering in the air for a heartbeat—as if asking permission—before finally making contact. First, a light touch against the edge of the dumpster, then on the boy’s shoulders. The intention was clear: to pull him out. To take him far from this place, far from this moment.

But Luffy’s body reacted before his mind could.

It was like striking a match near gunpowder. A snap. A reflex. He flinched violently, shoulders hunching, eyes blown wide with wordless panic. A sharp, defensive recoil—unthinking, instinctive, the kind that came from someone who had been touched in the worst ways and could no longer tell threat from comfort.

And Shanks stopped.

There, kneeling in the mist with his hands still suspended in the air, he saw the shape of a wound that didn’t bleed—and because of that, cut even deeper.

Luffy froze.

It was as if all the warmth in his body had been leeched away by the fog, leaving nothing but hollow cold beneath his skin. The air left his lungs in a ragged, shuddering exhale—half-choked, as if even breathing—

had become a burden. His shoulders curled forward, collapsing inward as if trying to fold himself out of existence—to vanish into his own flesh, his own bones, his own silence.

"S-Sor...ry..."

The word stumbled from his lips, fractured, uneven, choked on the metallic taste still seeping from a split in his mouth. It came out as a cracked whisper—too weak for the world, too loud for himself.

He didn’t even know why he was apologizing. For flinching? For failing? For surviving? Maybe just for still breathing when Ace and Sabo... weren’t.

The memory hit like a blunt strike to the chest, stealing what little air remained.

Shanks didn’t speak—not at first. He just stayed there, motionless, watching him with eyes that seemed to see past words, past visible wounds. It was a heavy look—not pity, but understanding. Memory.

Then, with a near-ritual slowness, he lowered himself until he was level with the boy. His knees met the filthy ground, his coat soaking up the dampness pooled beneath them, and his gaze locked onto Luffy’s with a deliberate steadiness—as if that contact alone, was more than any gesture—it was the gesture of care.

His voice came soft, muffled by the fog.

"You don’t have to apologize for surviving."

Simple words. Warm. Meant only for him, as if the entire world had ceased to exist for that moment, leaving nothing but this: a whisper trying to stitch together a shattered heart.

"What’s your name, kid?" The question was firm but without harshness—like a stone carefully skipped across the surface of a lake.

Luffy didn’t answer. Just clenched the buttons in his grip tighter, tendons straining like violin strings about to snap.

But this time… he didn’t lash out.

The question burned like acid in Luffy’s ears, eating through an invisible layer of armor. At CP, names were for humans —identities were a luxury, a privilege. They had codes. Designations. Numbers and letters. Nothing that truly belonged to them.

His fingers trembled against the white buttons, as if they could somehow answer for him. As if they were programmed to resist the touch of humanity.

'Remember who you are.'

Sabo's voice came like a distant flicker, too faint to hold. A whisper drowned in the constant neural static—that ceaseless internal noise that had filled every silence since the day he'd been broken.

But there was still one certainty, small and cruel, lodged in his tongue like rust:

"Unit 17-D."

It was automatic. It left his lips with the bitter taste of burnt oil and dried blood, as if reciting a mantra the world had forced him to believe.

Shanks didn't move. But something in his gaze shifted. Darkened—as if, behind those crimson eyes, an old funeral was being relived.

"I meant a real name," he insisted, his voice lowering. Gentle, not demanding— inviting. He crouched down to the boy's eye level, knees sinking into the grime and metal scraps around the dumpster.

Luffy shuddered.

It was like an atrophied muscle twitching back to life inside him—something long forgotten now stirring, fierce and starving. His chest ached. The words were trapped, buried under years of shocks and commands.

He opened his mouth. Nothing.

Tried again, forcing air through vocal cords scarred by invisible burns, wounds no one could see.

"L... Luffy."

It came out as a breath of life. A name nearly forgotten, nearly swallowed by the system. But still his.

Shanks smiled. Not wide, not light. It was a weighted smile—like saying "I heard you" when the entire world had tried to silence him. But his eyes stayed grave, as if guarding that word like a precious secret.

"Nice to meet you, Luffy."

He said it quietly, each syllable like a gift offered with both hands.

Then he turned just enough to nod at the shadow behind him.

"That one there is Benn Beckman."

Beckman gave a slight nod with the barrel of his gun, a cigarette resting lazily at the corner of his mouth. His half-lidded eyes assessed the boy with sniper-like precision. He didn’t need to speak. The warning was there, implicit in the way he kept his aim low but ready—as if saying, without words: "Just give me a reason."

"Will they come back?"

The question was quiet, nearly swallowed by the sound of fine rain beginning to drum against the metal around them.

Shanks stilled. It wasn’t just the question—it was the weight behind it. His eyes, one alive and one dead, swept over the boy in silence, as if they could read what hadn’t been said.

They.

The hunters?
The brothers?
The men who had trained him into a weapon?
Or the ghosts that now walked with Luffy, inseparable, etched under his skin and into his bones?

Beckman’s breath became audible. A sigh caught between the slow burn of his cigarette. His finger tensed on the trigger—a reflex of someone who senses the shift in the air before the clouds even darken.

The silence stretched like a copper wire about to snap.

Shanks tilted his head slightly. When he answered, his voice was low, grave—not the tone of someone offering comfort, but of someone speaking a painful truth:

"The wrong ones always come back, kid."

He lifted his chin, his gaze pointing toward the alley's end—the dark path where the hunters had vanished. The shadows still bore their imprint like scars on the concrete.

"The ones who matter..."

Now, his eyes drifted slowly down to Luffy's fingers—still clutching the white buttons as if holding his own heart.

"...we carry those right here."

Luffy followed his gaze.

He saw the blood under his nails. The residual tremor in his tendons. The buttons, cold and smooth, fitted between his fingers like parts of a body he'd never chosen to have.

And then he saw the cuff of Shanks' coat.

A button was missing. Just like his.

The wind shifted. Thick, heavy, carrying the scent of rain and distant smoke—as if the whole world was holding its breath before the collapse.

Shanks didn’t offer promises.
He didn’t swear the hunters wouldn’t return with reinforcements.
He didn’t try to paint a clean future with pretty words.

He just crouched there, in the mud, until he was eye-level with the boy—like he always did. Like someone who refuses to stand above or below.

And then, he offered what he had.

"But today," he said, with the certainty of someone who faces monsters every night, "no one takes you."

It was a lie.
It was the truth.
It was enough.

The sound came after.

The drone arrived like an omen—swift, silent, lethal. Luffy heard it. He always hears first.

A high-pitched whine exploded behind his eyes, like a needle driving through the optic nerve. It vibrated in his bones. Tore his spine into alert. A sound most humans ould never perceive—but it made his altered nerve endings scream in unison.

And then he moved.

"Shanks!"

His body reacted on pure instinct. An electric impulse tearing through flesh. He slammed into the redhead's chest, the impact hard enough to knock the air from them both.

At that exact moment, the CP reconnaissance drone sliced through the space where Shanks' head had been.

ssSSCHiiink

The rotating blades cut the air with surgical precision, etching death into empty space.

Benn Beckman was already moving.

"Motherf—!"

The gunshot drowned the rest. The bullet struck the drone with brutal force, hurling the machine against the wall in a shower of sparks and loose parts.

But not before it transmitted a signal.

A red pulse sliced through the air like a sickly heartbeat—an alert, a summons. They knew. They would come.

The drone collapsed in smoldering pieces. Broken blades spun lifelessly across the oil-slicked ground.

At the center of it all, Shanks still knelt in the mud, Luffy shaking in his arms. The boy clung to his coat as if the fabric were the last anchor before being dragged back into the abyss.

"We have to move." Shanks' voice was sharp, leaving no room for hesitation. He was already on his feet, lifting Luffy with the ease of someone who forgets their own weight in urgency. "Nearest safehouse?"

Beckman finished reloading, his cold eyes scanning the perimeter.

"Makino's Bar. Two blocks. Basement."

Shanks nodded. He broke into a run. Luffy tried to speak. His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

A sound escaped—hoarse, almost animal—a groan trapped between pain and confusion.

His vision wavered. The world seemed to melt at the edges.

The modifications were failing. Locking up. Every muscle was an overstretched cord. His body refused commands, refused freedom. It was like he was drowning inside his own flesh.

As if the prison had never been the lab. But what they'd put inside him.

Benn glanced at Luffy. Then at the sky.

New buzzing sounds were already forming above them—more drones, more eyes, more claws.
He knew what came next. Knew what always came next.

"He can't handle running."

"Then we won't run."

Shanks' reply was calm. Terrifyingly calm.
With careful adjustment, he repositioned Luffy in his arms, holding him like something sacred—or too broken to be dropped. Like a father holding a child lost in silent dreams.

"Let's take a walk."

And then he stepped out of the alley. Not running. Not hiding. Just walking.

As if the world were still a place where one could walk with a boy in their arms without being targeted by machines.
As if there were no CP. No hunters. No crimson code echoing on military frequencies.

Benn cursed. Low, but audible.

"Motherfucker."

But he followed. Without hesitation. Walked with his body between them and the sky, the weapon concealed under his coat. His eyes scanning rooftops, corners, reflections in puddles.

"Sent a signal to Hongo," Shanks murmured, gaze fixed ahead. "We'll need backup."

The first civilians who saw them immediately recoiled. A woman yanked her child by the collar and crossed to the other side of the street.
A delivery man shut off his bike without looking back.

Others vanished into alleys, like rats sensing rain before the flood. No one wanted trouble. Too much trouble already walked armed through those streets.

In Shanks' arms, Luffy trembled. No longer the shiver of fear. Cellular exhaustion. It was the—

the contained convulsion of a body pushed beyond its limits, trying not to come apart under its own weight.

His fingers—clawing at Shanks' coat—dug into fabric and flesh like desperate roots in barren soil. As if he were trying to anchor himself to reality.
As if that were all that kept him there.

"Too loud..."

The voice came out in a breath, muffled against Shanks' neck. A fragile whisper, nearly swallowed by the wind—as if the world were speaking too loudly for him to remain there.

The bar appeared ahead.

A squat structure of weary wood and rusted metal sheets. Nothing worth noticing. Nothing worth a patrol. Not even a bullet. Exactly as it should be.

Shanks took a deep breath, his feet heavy in the mud.

He was about to enter the panther's den.

Chapter Text

The door groaned as it opened—a wet, dragging sound, like something too old to put up resistance. As if the entire building was protesting the intrusion.

Inside, the air was thick. It smelled of cheap alcohol, contraband tobacco... and something deeper. Burnt sugar. Gun oil. As though the whole place was ready to explode but still had the decency to wait for one last round.

Makino stood behind the counter.

A pen hovered over a stained ledger, frozen mid-motion, as if time had stopped in that exact second. Her eyes went to Benn first. Then to Shanks. And then—slowly—down to the human bundle in his arms.

Nothing was said. But the silence screamed.

No gasp. No startled reaction.

Just a sharp command, spat through clenched teeth as she jerked her chin toward the shadow-drenched hallway:

"Second door on the right. Trapdoor."

Shanks didn’t need more. He was moving before Makino even finished speaking. She slid toward the door with the precision of a sentinel, her body blocking the passage like a solid shadow.

The Panther lifted her eyes—cold, calculating.

A moment of heavy silence, as if the air itself held its breath. Her fingers traced the doorframe, finding the hidden switch beneath the rough wood.

She knew the trapdoor beneath the bar would already be open by the time Shanks reached it—she always kept escape routes ready for emergencies.

But before that...

She shut the door.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The click of the lock echoed like the snap of a breaking bone.

Makino yanked open the hatch with a sharp motion, sending bottles and contraband chips scattering across the floor. She laid Luffy’s body on the metal table, now bathed in the cold glow of an emergency hologram that painted his dirt-streaked skin in ghastly hues.

"What's the name?"

The question was directed at Shanks, but her fingers were already moving—ripping away the tattered remains of the CP uniform, exposing blackened veins snaking beneath the boy's skin like poisoned roots.

Shanks didn't hesitate. He knew she wasn't asking for a serial number.

"Luffy."

The knife in Makino's hand stilled for a fraction of a second.

"His name is Luffy."

She didn't reply. Just pressed two fingers to the boy's throat, feeling the chip pulsing beneath feverish skin.

Makino didn't ask for permission.

She was already in motion before Luffy could flinch—the syringe appeared in her hand like a blade, its amber liquid glinting under the bar's grimy light.

Luffy reacted.

Instinct. Raw and primal. His body tensed, muscles locking like a cornered animal. His eyes, glassy with exhaustion moments before, dilated in panic.

The memory surfaced before thought—his body already knew too many scars.

Shanks didn’t hesitate.

A firm hand cupped the back of Luffy’s neck, pressing his face into the rough fabric of his own shirt. Not a restraint—a shelter.

"Don’t look," he murmured, his voice warm against the boy’s ear. "Just listen to my breathing."

Luffy shuddered. The needle pierced, but the pain… never came.

Instead, a strange cold spread through his veins, slow and invasive. His muscles began to sink, like quicksand. Vision darkened at the edges, the bar’s noises turning distant, muffled.

He fought the effect, fingers clawing into Shanks as if the redhead were the only fixed point in a crumbling world.

Makino watched, unmoved.

"He's gonna hate waking up," she warned, already wiping his skin with a rag soaked in cheap alcohol. "CP chips have trackers. No telling when they'll trigger. And his own body… it's rejecting the modifications."

"Biotech?" Benn asked, his voice low but razor-edged.

Makino gave a murmured nod.

Shanks didn’t lift his hand from Luffy. Not when the tremors began to fade. Not when his breathing turned slow and heavy.

This wasn’t just a chip.
It was a collar.

"Take it out."

Makino froze.

The silence that followed was thick, punctuated—like coagulated blood. Even Benn, leaning against the door with his weapon drawn, arched a brow.

"Shanks…" Makino started, caution dripping from her voice. "It's a neuro-spinal chip."

"Take it out."

It wasn’t a request.
It was a verdict.

Shanks looked at Luffy—now unconscious, his fists still half-clenched, as if even in oblivion he remained ready to fight.

"Nothing of theirs stays in him."

Makino held his gaze for one second. Two. Then exhaled sharply.

"It's complicated. The chip's rooted in his spine. It interfaces directly with motor functions. If I slip... he could lose movement. Or worse."

Makino stood, moving with the precision of someone who'd done this before—far too many times. She gathered sterilized instruments and laid them out on the table with near-mechanical efficiency.

"The only viable option right now is reprogramming. Delay the mutation. Buy time."

Then she turned to Benn, flicking her chin toward Shanks in a silent command:

"Get him out of here. Hongo’s already on his way, isn’t he? He’s the only one cleared to enter."

Shanks hesitated for half a second, as if his body rejected the very idea of stepping away. His hand still covered Luffy’s chest—an anchor. A silent promise.

Makino noticed.

"Go. Now. I’ll keep him stable until Hongo arrives."

Shanks rose slowly. His soaked coat dripped mud and blood, yet he stood unnervingly calm—as if the chaos around him no longer registered.

"Will he wake up?" he asked, without turning back.

Makino didn’t answer immediately.

"If he chooses to."

The reinforced door sealed shut with a sharp clank, muffling the distant wail of sirens. The bar settled back into the silence of places that have seen more corpses than smiles.

The neon light flickered through the cracked window, bathing the makeshift operating room in pulses of blue and violet. Chemical coolant vapors seeped up from the floor cracks. Makino turned to the metal gurney where Luffy's body lay pale under the flickering lights.

She snapped on her polymer gloves with practiced efficiency, tied her hair into a functional bun, and took a deep breath. The laser scalpel trembled between her fingers—not from fear, but from the weight of a life resting between its beams.

"Poor child..."

With a single clean incision between two cervical vertebrae, she exposed a web of neuro-conductive cables threaded into the spine. A metallic glint stood out against the flesh—the neuro-spinal chip, embedded like some ancient parasite.

Luffy didn't stir. The synthetic sedative had plunged him into a darkness beyond pain.

Makino worked in silence. Each extracted component—connectors, fibers, sensors—was meticulously arranged on the sterile steel tray in order of removal. The primary chip pulsed with faint electro-luminescent signals, static yet stubborn, as if resisting shutdown. An extension of the brain, yet artificial, still trying to think.

Outside, Calypso never slept. Inside, Makino waged war against what the system had forced into a boy who only wanted to be free.

She connected the chip's wires to the makeshift combat terminal on the workbench—a technological reliquary from bygone eras, hidden from corporate eyes. The screen flickered, and lines of encrypted code cascaded into view. Symbols pulsed in erratic red and blue, like a neural network seizing.

It was meticulously engineered chaos—an organic-digital structure designed not to be removed, but to fuse with its host until there was no telling where flesh ended and machine began.

"This is a minefield..."

She barely finished speaking when the door hissed open on hydraulic hinges. Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs—someone was in a hurry.

Hongo entered with purposeful strides, his magnifying goggles still perched on his forehead and the emergency med-kit strapped securely over his shoulder. His lab coat bore stains of blood—still fresh—from another patient. There was no time for perfect sterilization when lives were being chewed up by megacorps and spat back out half-human.

"Status?"

"Active mutation," Makino replied without looking up from the screen. "Hair roots are depigmenting. The chip's core has fully fused with the spine. It's spreading through motor and cortical connections. He won't last another week without collapsing."

Her lips pressed thin. She keyed in a command sequence, eyes scanning the logs.

"Records show they started testing on him months ago. Second-gen implants. Self-integrating. Bio-programmable. But this one—" Her voice faltered. "This one's alive. It's learning from his nervous system."

Hongo stepped closer to the gurney, studying Luffy under the cardiac monitor's green glow.

"So they made him a test subject for a neural symbiosis chip."

Makino gave a silent nod. All that remained now was a race—against time, and against the machine.

Hongo's jaw clenched. He set his case down with a thud and wordlessly began assembling equipment: mechanical assist arms unfolded like spider limbs, their joints hissing as they locked into place.

The mechanical arms unfolded like steel spiders, multi-spectrum scanners humming to life with a high-pitched whir. Auto-injectors self-calibrated as they detected Luffy's bio-signature.

"Nanobots ready," Hongo announced, filling a reinforced glass syringe with a silvery fluid that seemed to move with a will of its own. "They'll suppress the mutation temporarily. Gives us a window to isolate the core code before it fully merges with the cerebellum."

Makino powered down the terminal and adjusted her magnification visor. The lens detected micro-thermal fluctuations and electromagnetic fields, rendering neural activity in precise real-time detail.

Hongo took position opposite her, and they began operating in perfect sync. The arms moved with clinical precision—a choreographed dance of laser scalpels, cauterizers, and neural clamps. As if they'd performed this grim ballet dozens of times before.

Black veins spiderwebbed beneath Luffy's collarbone, tracing circuitry across his skin. His muscles twitched in geometric patterns, like something rewriting his nervous system line by line.

The brain scanner's hum intensified as the nanobots spread—not a cure, never a cure, they couldn't undo what had already been done, but they could dull the collateral damage. And there, in the heart of the digital storm threatening to consume the boy from within, Makino saw it.

Even unconscious, the boy trembled.
As if, somewhere too deep for words, he knew.

"We can't remove it," Makino whispered, eyes locked on the monitor.

The scanner revealed the truth in cold blues and reds: the chip was no longer a foreign object, but an extension of Luffy's own body. Its neural filaments wove through his spine like metallic roots, pulsing in sync with every heartbeat. There was no dividing line anymore—just an integrated system where machine and flesh had merged into something new.

Hongo wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm and tossed the soaked cloth aside. His gaze fixed on the mutating code lines—"self-writing algorithms, layered over the boy's biological impulses."

"Then we make a new one," he said, matter-of-factly, as if it weren’t madness.

Makino turned slowly, eyes wide, her voice caught between shock and disbelief.

"What?"

"A new chip. A mirror. Same neural protocol, same base language—but tied to his will, not the corporation’s." He tapped Luffy’s forehead. "He can’t live without the original? Fine. We’ll overwrite it from the inside."

Makino blinked, processing. It was madness. Medical heresy. A reconstruction ethically and technologically damned.

Yet there the boy lay, suspended between collapse and hope.

And there they stood—once again—trying to outmaneuver a system that left no survivors.

"You’re talking about hacking his brain," she whispered.

Hongo smiled wearily.

"Reverse engineering."

He gestured to the monitors where lines of code cascaded—a digital river of commands rewriting itself in real time. His fingers traced a specific pattern across the screen, isolating a block of instructions pulsing like an infected heart.

"We analyze the pattern. Strip away the outer protocol."

The hologram reacted to his touch, highlighting corporate code fragments in venomous red.

"But the core... the core stays. We just purge the poison from it."

Makino watched as numbers realigned under Hongo's fingers, like puzzle pieces being reshaped by an invisible hand.

"We build a clean chip. A mirror. It'll mimic the original for his nervous system, but—"

Hongo turned, and for the first time, Makino saw something beyond exhaustion in his eyes.

"This time, the control will be his."

"You want to replicate the hell already inside him?"

Hongo shook his head.

"No. I want to forge a key."

Her jaw clenched. She looked at Luffy—his hair now white at the roots, as if burning from within. The veins beneath his pale skin darkened into metallic hues, like cracks making way for something that shouldn’t exist.

Silence stretched. One second. Maybe two.

Then Makino nodded.

"Then let’s pry open hell’s gates."

Six hours later.

Makino’s hands trembled—from exhaustion, not doubt.

The new chip—no larger than a neural coin—rested under the magnifying lens. Crude, ugly, hastily assembled from scavenged parts and last-minute reprogrammed circuits. But functional. A foreign body emitting the same bioelectric pulse as the parasites devouring Luffy from within—except this one answered to them.

Hongo administered the final nanobot infusion into the vascular system. The silver fluid spread rapidly, weaving a containment network through the veins—like artificial roots strangling the advance of corrupt code.

"Mutagenic levels stabilized," he murmured, scanning the readouts. "For now."

Makino connected the new chip to the spinal interface, slotting it beside the invader's core. This wasn’t a replacement—attempting to rip out the original would be murder.

It was a disguise. A mirror.

"Like fitting a mask on a beast," she said, securing the last micro-conductive wires.

"As long as we hold the leash," Hongo replied, activating the neuro-synaptic restraint with a tap on the display.

Luffy twitched slightly. A nervous impulse shot down his spine, and both paused for a moment.

The beast will feel the mask.

Thirty seconds. That’s how long it took for the vitals to begin stabilizing on the monitor. Steady waves, pulses within range. A thread of artificial hope.

"Neural rhythm consistent. Let’s close, Hongo murmured. "He’ll need constant monitoring. And he won’t wake up anytime soon."

Makino didn’t answer immediately. Her hands still hovered over the boy’s body as if he were glass about to crack.

Slowly, she removed the surgical mask —the elastic snapped free with a damp twang, stained with sweat and blood.

She only noticed the metallic taste when she felt the cut on her lip. She’d bitten down too hard at some point during the surgery. She didn’t know when. Or why.

She lifted her gaze and, for a second, stared at her own reflection in the smeared glass wall behind her.

And flinched back.

Eyes red from exhaustion and artificial light. Skin grayed under the toxic glow of monitors. Her cheeks etched with tiny nanocauterization marks—spatter from the ordeal.

She looked more like a ghost than a doctor.

She looked away. Drew a deep breath, but the air was thick—laden with the stench of ozone, scorched antiseptic, and the bittersweet sweat of a body that had barely survived.

“It’s not over yet,” she said, more to herself than to Hongo.

Luffy slept. But the beast, somewhere inside him, still breathed.

“He’ll come back in waves,” Hongo said, wiping the bloodied gloves. “His brain is rewriting its pathways. It’s going to hurt.”

She didn’t answer. Leaned her back against the wall before letting her body shut down. She gripped her wrist—where two parallel marks ran along her forearm, left and right, nearly hidden under the rolled-up sleeve. She sighed. No tears fell. She allowed herself to slump.

The mark of someone who’d once worn a leash. A low-risk chip. Hongo saw it but stayed silent, granting her the dignity of no reply. Not his problem.

The room fell quiet, save for the rhythmic beep of monitors—until—

“I was a Unit once too.”

The words came out mechanical, as if forcibly wrenched from her. Her eyes—usually so sharp, so cold—were locked on a distant point on the wall, where the paint peeled in dark flakes.

As if staring at it hurt less than remembering.

"Unit 09-F." The whisper scraped her throat raw. "They called me Viper."

She clamped her mouth shut. Her breath hitched for a second, shaky, trapped between clenched teeth. When she swallowed, the sound was dry, rough—like ground glass in her throat.

She looked away.

Then, with precise movements—too precise, as if her body still obeyed old commands—she rolled up her lab coat sleeves to the elbows.

The scars were all there.

The white marks weren't just scars—they were signatures. Fine lines like fiber-optic threads beneath the skin, some precise as laser cuts, others jagged, hastily made by hands that saw flesh as hardware to be adjusted.

"Third-gen tactical chips." Makino's voice sounded mechanical, as if reading an autopsy report. "Integrated ocular tracking. Neuromuscular tuning... and a precision module." A pause.

She clenched her fists, the scars tensing like circuits under load.

"I wasn't a sniper, Hongo. I was an elimination algorithm."

The cigarette between Hongo's fingers snapped in half. Imaginary smoke still hung in the air for a second—a ghost of the addiction not even war had managed to tear out of him.

The air thickened. No longer the silence of having nothing to say, but of knowing too much. The entire room seemed to hold its breath, monitors blinking like a red alert on a control panel.

Hongo saw. Not the Makino standing before him, but a glimpse of what she had been—a shadow of calculated movements, cold as the steel of a sniper barrel, her crosshatched scars gleaming under spotlights that were no longer there.

Wet.

Not from sweat, nor spilled alcohol. But from a single tear that refused to fall, clinging to Makino’s lash like the last bullet in an empty magazine.

Hongo said nothing.

Neither did she.

Makino didn’t look at Luffy. She couldn’t. Instead, she fixed her gaze on her own hands, where the tremor of old killer instincts still sometimes stirred in the night.

"That kid...
...won’t become another weapon they forgot to unload."

Chapter Text

Your eyes snapped open with a start, as if waking from a nightmare still clinging to your skin. The air was thick, razor-edged. Luffy felt the cold marble-like floor beneath his bare feet, and a shiver raced up his spine. The acrid stench of antiseptic, old blood, and chemicals saturated his nostrils—too familiar to ignore, a smell that brought back memories like blades, sharp and burning.

CP.

The acronym exploded in his mind like a gunshot, and then came the sound: the high-pitched metallic whir of a drone hovering nearby, its propellers vibrating like a swarm of ravenous insects. Luffy reacted before he even understood—his body moving on autopilot, desperate to survive. His muscles tensed, primed to flee, to fight, to do *anything*. Conditioned reflex. Pure instinct, forged by electric shocks, deprivation, and pain.

He tried to stand, but something held him down. For a moment, he thought he was shackled again. But no—it wasn’t chains. It was his own body. His flesh was failing him, limbs heavy as if they didn’t belong to him. Every movement was a desperate struggle against paralysis.

He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the sterile room’s bluish gloom. The artificial lights flickered above his head, casting jagged shadows across the brushed metal walls. He was slumped in a corner— that corner. He recognized the scuff marks on the floor, the cracked tiles, the exact spot where he’d be left. Alone again.

And then, the memory came.

The day he’d arrived in that place. Before the screams. Before the scars. Before Ace and Sabo. Before they’d turned him into what he was now.

*Who had he been before all of it?*

That question hurt worse than any needle.

The memory came softly at first, like mist seeping through forgotten cracks—but soon it thickened, suffocating. The day he’d met Ace.

Ace had been wild, feral as a cornered animal. His eyes burned with ancient rage, his fists always clenched, ready to strike. Luffy remembered it vividly: the first thing Ace did was try to kill him.

A punch—straight, fast, merciless. Any other kid would’ve flinched, would’ve felt fear. But Luffy just stood there, cheek throbbing, grinning crookedly. He didn’t care. He wasn’t afraid of Ace. If anything, he felt something close to relief.

After so long surrounded by cold, sterile faces hidden behind masks and white lab coats, seeing someone with eyes so *alive*—even if filled with hate—felt almost like a gift.

Ace was the first person who didn’t want to *experiment on him*. Who didn’t measure his reactions like he was some test subject. Who didn’t speak to him as if he were just a number or a "special case."

Luffy hated the white coats. They lied with honeyed voices and rehearsed promises, told him *it’ll only hurt a little*, that *it’s for your own good*. Smiles like scalpels. Pretty words to mask the stench of iron and antiseptic. He’d learned early: the kinder someone was in that place, the more dangerous they usually were.

But Ace wasn’t kind. He was rough, loud, and distrustful. And maybe—just maybe—that’s why he felt *real*.

The memory of that first day was a blur of pain and discovery. They fought. Over and over. But Ace never tried to put him to sleep with syringes. Never whispered fake comforts in his ear. Never smiled while they strapped him down—he just *existed*. Furious, bitter… but *alive*. And for the first time in forever, Luffy wasn’t alone anymore.

It didn’t take long before Ace started protecting him.

He never said it out loud—Ace wasn’t the kind of boy who talked about "protecting" anyone. But when Luffy cried in the dark, muffling sobs into the rough mattress, it was Ace’s warmth that pressed against his back. It was the steady silence of another body there, unmoving but *present*, that made the world stop spinning for a few minutes. When the cold of the cell seeped deep into their bones, Ace would yank him closer without a word, and Luffy learned that care could exist without permission.

Ace didn’t care about tears. Only survival.

But that morning, something changed.

They woke up together, both curled under the thin blanket—a rare thing—and the cell they were in felt… different. The ceiling was higher. The floor, too clean. The walls, not as close. It was more spacious. Three beds instead of two. One of them, a bunk. In the center, a table bolted to the floor, white plastic with rounded edges, like a recreation area in disguise.

There was silence. The kind of silence that held breath. Expectation.

Ace was the first to rise, his eyes scanning the space with suspicion. Luffy stretched slowly, still drowsy, forehead furrowed—trying to figure out if this was a reward or punishment.

Then came the footsteps.

Heavy. Methodical. The sound of the door being thrown open. Voices—three in total. Guards.

"MOVE IT!" one of them barked, the voice cracking like a whip against the walls.

Luffy flinched instinctively, and Ace stepped in front of him, already on his feet.

The new boy entered.

No—he was *shoved* in. Fighting with his entire body. About Ace’s height, lean but wiry. Blond hair chopped unevenly, as if someone had hacked at it in a hurry. Pale eyes. Almost silver in their sharpness. And *rage*. Pure, unfiltered rage, glinting in his gaze like a wet blade.

He spun on reflex, fists already clenched, and drove a sharp crack of a punch into the first guard’s nose. A satisfying sound—*brutal*—that filled the cell for one suspended second.

The blood sprayed hot. Luffy’s eyes widened—it was the first time he’d seen red stain a white coat. For a heartbeat, there was no sound. Just the blur of blood spreading across the pristine fabric. A rupture in their controlled, clinical world where everything was too clean, where pain came colorless and voiceless.

The second guard lunged, and the blond boy dropped to his knees as an electric shock tore through his spine. His body jerked, convulsing before collapsing like a broken doll.

Ace didn’t move. Just watched, eyes narrowed with bottled fury. Luffy’s breath came fast, his heart hammering against his ribs as if trying to escape without his body.

"One more move and you’re going to solitary, you little shit," the guard snarled, spitting on the floor.

The boy didn’t answer. Didn’t scream. Just lay there, face turned to the wall, chest heaving in silence, fists still clenched.

The guards left. The door locked with a wet, metallic thunk. Silence returned, now thick and charged.

Ace was the first to step closer, still wary, his guard never dropping.

"You got a name?" he asked, voice low and steady.

The blond boy turned his head slowly. His face was smeared with blood, nose still dripping. He laughed—a rough, dry sound, utterly humorless.

"Yeah. But it ain't free."

Ace let out an irritated grunt. Luffy, still sitting on the bed, watched with wide eyes. Fear was slowly giving way to silent fascination, something almost like awe.

The new boy was different. Like Ace. But sharper. As if the world had left splinters where there should've been skin.

Luffy didn’t know it yet, but this was the moment—exact, fragile, inevitable—when Sabo entered their lives.

And nothing, after that, would ever be the same again.

Silence returned—thick and suffocating—like an invisible gas that had seeped into everything, compressing thoughts, pressing down on bones, making it hard to even breathe. Ace took a step back, hesitant, eyes still locked on the blond sprawled across the floor. There was something there he recognized. Something that hurt just to look at.

Luffy remained still on the bed, but he could feel it. He felt everything. The tension in the air was like an electric current about to snap—and for some reason, he couldn’t look away.

Then the boy took a deep breath. A tired sigh? Slowly. Like someone testing if they still worked. His muscles still trembled—echoes of the shock. But his eyes… his eyes were clear. Sharp as glass. Cold as calculation. He pushed himself up, first on his elbows, then sitting with cautious, deliberate movements, as if measuring every gesture by the millimeter. As if even standing up was part of a larger plan.

"You two new?" he asked, wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. His voice was rough, but calm. Refined. Intentional.

Ace didn’t answer. He just narrowed his eyes—trying to figure out what this guy wanted.

Luffy felt his stomach twist. There was something in the way that boy spoke—like he was testing variables. Like he already knew more than he let on.

He turned to look at Luffy. And smiled. It was a gentle smile, and that terrified him. Because here, kindness was bait.

Here, if someone was kind... they either wanted something from you, or they'd be the first to die.

"You're shaking," he said, with a voice so soft it felt like an older brother. "First time switching cells?"

Luffy didn’t reply. He hugged his knees to his chest and looked away, trying not to breathe too loudly. That smile wasn’t like Ace’s—wild and blunt. It was... polished. Calculated. Warm on the surface, but with no real heat behind it.

Like the promises of white coats.

The boy — he hadn’t given a name, and no one had asked — stood up fully, walked to the edge of the table, and sat down.

"They tested pain response today," he said like someone commenting on the weather. "Direct stimulus to the spine. I want to believe they’re still calibrating. The pulse was irregular."

Ace crossed his arms, finally speaking:

"You one of those people who narrate everything out loud?"

The blond smiled again. This time without pretense.

"No. Only with those who can understand."

It was a challenge. But spoken politely, like everything else he said. Luffy still didn’t move. He could feel the boy’s gaze on him and tried to shrink. Disappear. But it was impossible not to feel his presence—like the air got tighter whenever he moved.

He didn’t look strong like Ace. But he looked... inevitable.

"My name is Sabo," he said, without looking directly at either of them. "I’m Number 55-S."

Luffy curled in on himself even more. Ace shot him a look, something like don’t get close yet. But Sabo already knew. He had already measured the distance between them. The degrees of fear. The weight of silence.

He was smart.

Too smart.

And for the first time, Luffy missed the kind of danger that came with fists and shouting. Because Sabo didn’t yell. He thought.

And that was so, so much worse.

When Sabo reached out a hand to help him up, Luffy recoiled like it was fire. Ace growled. And Sabo… Sabo smiled. Exactly the way they expected him to.

The lab always smelled like alcohol and lies.

Luffy had learned early that kindness was just another form of violence in the CP. The techs smiled while administering shocks. The doctors hummed while drawing spinal fluid. The soft voices always came paired with scalpels, syringes, or obedience protocols.

That’s why, when Sabo showed up — all “please” and “thank you” — Luffy’s instincts screamed louder than any siren.

That boy was dangerous.

Not like Ace, who shattered bones and walls with the same raw fury. Ace burned from the inside out, unfiltered. He was chaos refusing to die.
Sabo wasn’t like that. He was dangerous like a freshly sterilized scalpel: precise, cold, inevitable.

During the first Week:

Luffy faked stomachaches whenever Sabo got close. Pretended to be asleep when he spoke. Watched him from the corner of his eye, fingers dug into his thighs — a new habit, just to keep from shaking.
Ace noticed, but said nothing. He stayed close, more protective than ever, like the simple act of existing was a barrier between Luffy and the new kid.

Sabo noticed, too. Of course he did.

He timed Luffy’s reactions with eyes that never blinked.

- 37 seconds to back away when I approach.
- Pupils dilate 0.5mm at the sound of the word "test."
- Mimics my posture after 3 minutes of interaction.

It was like studying a living experiment. He found it fascinating—but he didn’t say that out loud.
Ace hated that analytical gaze. Wanted to punch him more than once, but Luffy always said, “Not now.” And Ace respected that. Always respected.

By the third Month:

The turning point came on some random early morning.

Luffy woke up to find Sabo sitting half a meter away, watching him like he was trying to solve an unsolvable equation.
The cell was dark, but his eyes shone with the same intensity as the monitoring screens.

“You fake it so well even I almost believe it,” Sabo murmured, half robotic.

Luffy didn’t breathe.Didn’t blink, then did something unthinkable: he smiled for real. A small, crooked smile, showing the broken teeth from the last “neural adjustment” session.

Sabo froze. And for the first time, he looked away.

Ace saw everything from the bed beside him.
He said nothing — but his clenched fists over his chest betrayed the tension. He was paying attention. Recording every detail.

At the CP, empathy was a coding error. A bug to be eliminated.

Sabo learned that early — too early to remember his own name. The first rule was to observe. The second, to imitate. The third, to survive.

Ace learned differently. The first lesson was that screaming didn’t change anything. The second was that he would scream anyway.

Sabo listened. Paid attention. Took notes on patterns. Copied smiles that never reached the eyes, tones of voice that calmed while injecting needles into someone’s spine. He learned the most efficient violence was the one that smiled before it bit.

Ace didn’t listen. Didn’t copy. When hands rose, he bit back. When syringes came, he spat.
When Luffy cried for the first time, he stormed through the cell with clenched fists and broke the nearest scientist’s nose. Three days in confinement. Worth every second.

Sabo became a mirror — polished, precise, empty. Nothing in him was truly his: not the voice he used, nor the way he blinked, nor the eyes that never looked away. Reflecting was safer than existing.

Ace was a shard of glass. Shattered from the start, too sharp to fit any mold. They tried to shape him and only ended up cut.

And then came Luffy.

Unstable. Fragile. Just another number in corridor 17-D.

This is how Sabo saw him at first: just another variable. Another body to be measured, studied, ignored. But he didn’t break the right way. The body failed — yes — trembling, bleeding, almost shutting down. But there was something there that simply... wouldn’t die.

Sabo started watching him more closely. Measuring his silences. Trying to understand why someone who’d lost everything still fought like they had something to protect.

Ace didn’t need analysis. He felt it. Knew it. Luffy was his — not in possession, but in urgency. Like a living memory of who he once was. Or who he still could be.

Sabo noticed patterns. Ace noticed cracks.

Sabo watched how Luffy pretended to sleep, fists clenched, his whole body trembling beneath the sheet. And he said, almost without thinking, “You fake it so well I almost believe it.”

Maybe he was talking to Luffy. Maybe to the reflection he hated.

Then, Luffy smiled.

Not the smile Sabo had learned to mimic. It was something broken, imperfect. Painful. Real.

And for a moment, the mirror cracked.

Ace saw it too. Not the smile — but the impact. Sabo quickly looking away, as if that eye contact could corrode his armor. Because maybe it could.

Luffy was dangerous.

Not for strength. Not for endurance. But because he was still himself — and that was something neither Sabo nor Ace knew how to be anymore.

Sabo began to stay. To stop repeating the scientists’ lines. To speak like a person, not a report. Ace noticed.

He hated trusting. Hated even more admitting he trusted. But there was Sabo, taking off his glasses just to wipe them for the third time on a dustless night. His voice faltering, just for a second, before declaring something “acceptable.”

It wasn’t redemption. Not yet. But it was a crack in the mirror.

Ace didn’t know how to spy on feelings. Didn’t know how to hide behind logic or protocols. But he knew how to burn. Knew how to love until he consumed himself. And if one day he had to burn for the two of them to get out of there, he had already made his choice.

Because Sabo was control. Ace was chaos.

And Luffy was the meeting point — the flaw in the system that, by some miracle, kept them whole.

It should have been a normal day, but nothing was very normal in that place. Chess was one of the “recreational activities” allowed by the system, but really it was just another way to test them. Luffy knew it, Sabo knew it, and Ace thought it was ridiculous.

The chessboard was made of white plastic, but under the cold lab lights it gleamed like clinical porcelain — sterile, symmetrical, merciless. The pieces stood perfectly aligned, still as soldiers ready to die under orders they didn’t understand.

Sabo adjusted the black knight with steady fingers, but his eyes were on Luffy — always on him.

Luffy leaned over the game with a rehearsed, theatrical enthusiasm. The smile he wore was so wide it almost shook — the same smile he used with the CP technicians when they showed up with syringes hidden in sweet promises.

From above, lying on the top bunk with his body stretched out and eyes half-closed, Ace feigned disinterest. But his fingers drummed on the metal frame, in a subtle rhythm, like the beat of barely contained anxiety.

“Should I start?” Luffy asked, as if it were just a game.

“Sure,” Sabo said, watching.

The white pawn advanced two spaces. Quick. Sure. But the fingers hesitated. Just for a moment. Then came the laugh — sharp, exaggerated.

“I captured a piece!” he exclaimed, taking a black pawn with apparent excitement.

Ace said nothing. But the tapping of his fingers stopped. For a second. Then started again, slower. Heavier. He saw it. Always saw it.

Sabo saw it too. Saw everything. The slight tremor in the shoulders. The way the hand clenched around the knee, as if bracing for impact. The pause in breathing. The way Luffy looked away from the rook — the real move — as if knowing too much was dangerous.

He didn’t want to win. Couldn’t. Because here, victory wasn’t safety. It was exposure.

“Check,” Sabo murmured, his voice low like a warning.

Luffy furrowed his brow, putting on a show of confusion.

“Huh? How did you do that?”

Above, Ace turned his face away, as if not wanting to watch. But he didn’t leave. Didn’t sleep. He just stayed there, listening. His body stiff, caught between the urge to get up and the duty to let Luffy fight in his own way.

“You forgot to protect the queen,” Sabo said, almost kindly.

“Ah! I’m terrible at this!” Luffy laughed, too loud. Too fast.

A lie.

Sabo had seen. Ace too.

Still watching from above, he took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if looking for an answer there. But there was none. Only muffled voices, the dry sound of pieces being moved. And a stomach burning with the silent rage of someone who doesn’t know whether to protect… or let him learn to survive on his own.

The white king fell. A dry, final sound.

Sabo began to reset the board, gathering the pieces like someone collecting shards of glass.

“Want to play again?” he asked.

Luffy hesitated. His body was already shrinking, eyes watering, shoulders tense. But before he could answer, Sabo moved the case and, with a slow, meaningful gesture, pulled the black pieces towards himself.

“This time...” he said. “...I’ll play black.”

A metallic snap came from above — the sound of Ace lightly banging his head against the wall, just once. A wordless gesture, heavy with understanding. He understood. Maybe even before Luffy did.

Sabo didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes on Luffy, the youngest, who now watched the pieces as if each one had thorns.

It wasn’t just a choice of color. It was a promise. A warning.

If needed, he would be the villain.

He would play on the dark side. Make the moves Luffy couldn’t make. Bear the guilt, the blood, the shadow.

Because on that board — as in life — someone had to face the other side.

And Luffy had already fought enough. When the Sixth Month Passed:

Over time, the three developed an unspoken code:

1. Sabo stopped touching Luffy’s scars without warning.
2. Luffy stopped trembling when Sabo came near.
3. Ace stopped threatening Sabo every five minutes — though he still looked at him as if calculating the most effective spot for a punch.

They pretended not to notice the strange dance forming between them, but it was there: in the long silences, in the exchanged glances, in the small gestures.

One particularly cruel afternoon, when the technicians left Luffy bleeding on the cold floor, it was Sabo who blocked the door before they dragged Ace off to "containment."

"You..." Luffy choked, spitting blood.

"My calculation is that you’re worth more alive," Sabo replied, wiping the blood off his face.

A lie.

They knew. And Ace did too. But in that moment, he just knelt beside Luffy and held him as if he could stop him from breaking completely.

They had been together for a year.

Luffy didn’t celebrate birthdays. Ace used to remember — even there, even with the world falling apart. He was the one who marked time, who counted the days, who whispered old stories so they wouldn’t forget who they were.

But that night, it was Sabo who slipped something under Luffy’s pillow.

A report, it was fake, handwritten.

“Unit 17-D: Behavior Patterns — Final Edition.”

All the pages were blank. Except the last one, a small paragraph scribbled in blue colored pencil.

“Final hypothesis: subject learned to play better than the researcher. Study concluded.” Luffy lifted his eyes. Sabo was turned away, pretending to sleep. But he didn’t need to see his face to know he was smiling too.

Ace, lying between them, said nothing. He just let out a soft sigh, as if tired of their game, but didn’t say a word. He pulled the two closer, as if wanting to remind everyone — including himself — that despite everything, they were still there.

Together.

Sabo didn’t pull away. He just gave in — his body relaxing, surrendering to the touch, as he melted into Ace’s arms like someone finally letting out a breath. Luffy, curled up between them, clutched Ace’s shirt with trembling fingers and buried his face in his neck, as if wanting to disappear there.

And for a moment, everything was okay. Just that. Just them. Just now.

The light flickered — once, twice — before going out completely.

The world slipped through Luffy’s hands like warm blood flowing from an open wound. Sounds echoed distantly: the creak of a rusted door, whispers of voices that might have been real—or just ghosts from the CP still stuck inside his mind.

He didn’t struggle when the darkness swallowed him whole.

When he came back to himself, time seemed to have folded in on itself.

The lights fixed to the ceiling cast a cold glow over the room, heavy with the smell of cheap alcohol, aged tobacco, and machine oil—nothing like the sharp, antiseptic sting that used to burn his nostrils inside the CP.

Luffy tried to move his fingers.

His body responded sluggishly, weighed down by a thick lethargy, as if his muscles had completely forgotten how to work. There was no pain, only the heavy emptiness of someone who had been turned off and on again against their will.

A faint creak.

In the corner of the room, a still silhouette.

Benn Beckman.

Seated on a crooked chair, bathed only in the amber glow of a rusted lampshade, he read a crumpled newspaper with the calm focus of someone watching the world move outside the window. The shotgun resting by his side looked more like a prop than a threat. The cigarette, stubbed out between his teeth, completed the picture — a habit, or perhaps a silent warning.

He didn’t look at Luffy.

His ears buzzed faintly, adjusting to the sounds of the outside world.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid.”

Chapter Text

Luffy blinked.

The ceiling light sliced through his vision like a blade, leaving white spots floating in his sight. He was wrapped in a haze—not the haze of Calypso, the kind that reeked of burnt oil and rain slithering over asphalt, but an internal fog, thick and sticky, as if his brain were still trapped somewhere between sleep and death.

His eyes were blurry. Dry.

How many days had passed?

The man seated in the corner—Benn Beckman—had left minutes ago. Or hours? Time bled through his fingers like blood, impossible to grasp. He’d heard Benn mutter something before leaving, something about "fetching someone."

He tried to move, but his body answered with a dull ache, as if his bones had been disassembled and hastily put back together. The skin beneath his bandages throbbed, and when he took a deep breath, he felt something strange—a metallic cold slithered down his spine, solid and invasive. The sensation was an old acquaintance; he recognized it even before the shiver racked his vértebras. That cold in his spine dragged him back to that fateful day. Suddenly, he was no longer in the room.

The memory dragged him back to that gray day, to the moment when gloved hands had wrenched him from the saddle with enough force to leave finger-shaped bruises on his shoulders for a week.

Ace and Sabo had fought. He remembered their muffled shouts, their desperate punches against armor lined with thin layers of titanium. Sabo calculating impossible angles, Ace snarling curses. But it had never been a fair fight.

When he woke, he was lying on something cold, the room’s whiteness so absolute it hurt. It wasn’t just white—it was the absence of everything, a vacuum that leached away color, sound, even time itself. The fluorescent lights buzzed like mechanical insects, their harsh glare making his already parched corneas burn.

His body wouldn’t respond. Pale, stiff, he looked less like an eight-year-old boy and more like a corpse prepped for autopsy. The AC cycled in steady intervals, each gust stealing another fraction of his warmth. This wasn’t a cold that came from outside—it was inside him, as if his blood had been replaced with refrigerant.

When he finally managed to blink, the world had warped. The ceiling stretched kilometers away, the machines around him were stainless-steel monsters, their cables like tentacles poised to coil around him. Even the tubes snaking from his arm looked like thick, translucent serpents.

But the true horror came later.

The whispers.

First, it was the technicians’ voices from the hallway—too sharp, as if they were speaking inside his skull. Then came the sounds no human should hear: the electric hum of the lights, the near-inaudible creak of gears in the ventilation shafts, the distant echo of footsteps three floors below. Each noise was a knife twisting in his eardrums.

He tried to cover his ears, but his arms weighed tons. Everything amplified—the ticking of a clock became hammer blows, the scrape of a chair sounded like an earthquake. Even the blood in his own veins roared too loudly.

At the peak of his panic, he realized the worst part: the whispers weren’t external. They were the newly implanted chip’s circuits awakening in his spine, talking to each other in a language of electric pulses only he could understand.

And they were saying his name. Not "Luffy." Never Luffy.

"Unit 17-D. Activation report."

Luffy clenched his fists, trying to wrench himself back into reality. That wasn’t his name. And for a second, the infirmary walls bled like a waterfall of code. Luffy gritted his teeth. His brothers had always told him "numbers aren’t names"—but the metallic voice insisted.

Something warm and liquid trickled between his fingers. The smell of blood on his hands dragged him back to the infirmary; the sound of the door opening yanked him into reality—metallic, alive, so unlike the sterile cold of the labs he’d associated with pain for so long. When he looked down, he saw red seeping through the lines of his palms, mixing with the white scars left by CP’s tubes.

"Luffy."

A voice, soft but firm, cut through the room like a thread of lucidity. It didn’t shout. Didn’t even whisper.

It spoke with a calm that seemed impossible in that world of razor-edged noise. Luffy saw her feet first—worn leather boots stained with oil and herbs. She smelled of medicinal alcohol and rosemary, a grotesque contrast to the iron stench of blood.

The clatter of utensils against a metal prototype rang like an alarm inside Luffy’s skull. The tray was set aside on a corner table. Every clang was a knife twisting in his eardrums, every vibration an electric shock racing down his spine. He flinched instinctively.

She didn't grab his hands. Instead, her fingers slid beneath his like someone turning over an injured bird without startling it. Her touch was warm—but it didn't burn like the technicians' copper wires. This was the warmth of living skin, not machines; strange yet painless.

"Doesn't look serious," Luffy saw Makino's jaw muscle tense for just a second—that tiny tell the CP technicians could never control. She was lying. He could taste the deception, metallic on his tongue. His body shuddered; in the labs, those words always came with more needles, with eyes scanning his cuts with the precision of those who'd seen far worse. "I'll bandage this. Then you'll eat."

The offer of food sounded like a coded command. At CP, "eating" only came after "obeying." Luffy swallowed dryly, his throat rough as sandpaper—how many days without water? How many screams had been swallowed by darkness?

When he finally spoke, his voice came out fractured, barely audible:

"Who...are you?"

Makino smiled. Not the scientists' perfect-toothed grin, but something frayed at the edges—like the worn pages of an old book, strangely comforting and warm. What does she want from me? Luffy wondered.

"You can call me Makino."

As she wrapped gauze around his fingers, Luffy heard the buzz of the overhead lamp, the creak of the rusted door, the whisper of the chip in his spine attempting to recalibrate. But for a moment—just a moment—the loudest sound in the room was Makino's steady breathing.

Makino trimmed the excess gauze with scissors, her deft fingers adjusting the bandage until it was snug but not constricting. Luffy had barely believed her when she mentioned food earlier, but now, with the steaming plate before him—a thick stew and dark bread, their buttery aroma saturating the air—his lips trembled.

This was a test. It had to be. At CP, meals only came after "adjustment" sessions, or worse, as bait for compliance. His fingers twitched against his knees, the scars on his wrists throbbing like silent reminders.

The door creaked open.

A man strode in unceremoniously, bringing with him the scent of acid rain and cheap tobacco. His red hair stuck up in sleep-mussed spikes, his unbuttoned shirt revealing grimy bandages across his chest. He rubbed one eye with his fist, yawning widely—but when his gaze landed on Luffy sitting on that makeshift infirmary cot, all exhaustion seemed to evaporate.

Shanks.

Luffy didn’t know why that name sent a shiver down his spine. Maybe it was the way Benn—still leaning against the wall—muttered a muffled "Finally," or how Makino arched her brows and crossed her arms, tension rolling off her in waves.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," she remarked, not bothering to hide the edge in her voice.

Shanks ignored her. He moved slowly, with the precision of someone approaching a wounded animal. He took a seat on a chair a meter away—close enough to show presence, far enough not to seem a threat.

"Hey, brat," he said, his voice sleep-rough but oddly steady. "Sleep well?"

Luffy didn't answer. His eyes darted from the plate of food to Makino, then landed on Shanks' empty hands—no weapons, no syringes, no shock prods. Nothing that screamed immediate danger, yet his body remained coiled tight.

Shanks seemed to notice. Without hurry, he reached over and took a piece of bread from the plate. He bit off half in one go, chewing slowly like he was proving there were no tricks.

"Pretty bad, huh? Almost as dry as Benn's rum stash," Shanks said around a mouthful, laughing. He swallowed lazily, then with exaggerated flair, held out the remaining bread to Luffy. "Go on, try it. If it's really that awful, I'll eat yours and you can have mine. Fair trade, yeah?"

Makino released a controlled sigh—the sound of surgical scissors being placed with other supplies, her hands counting medications three times over.

Luffy hesitated. He stared at the bread, then at Shanks' open grin—no promises, no threats, just an almost silly challenge.

Shanks tilted his head and whispered like he was sharing a secret:

"If you don't eat, I'll think you're rejecting me. Then I'll cry. Like, actually cry. It'll be embarrassing for everyone."

The laugh nearly escaped Luffy’s lips—a fractured, foolish reflex of what had once been joy. But it died in his throat, smothered by the ingrained fear that even happiness could be a trap.

Instead, his hands—thin, marked by needle scars and shackle burns—reached out with the hesitation of someone approaching a sleeping beast. His fingers trembled as they closed around the bread; his joints, too fragile, could barely support even that small weight. He had to use both hands, like a child.

Like he should have, in another life.

The bread reached his mouth slowly, as if time itself hesitated with him. One bite.

And then—

Soft.

Faintly sweet.

Something inside him shattered.

His eyes widened, pupils dilating as if trying to absorb every nuance of that moment—the pillowy texture, the subtle taste of caramelized honey, the lingering warmth in the center. The bread was soft as clouds, but the flavor on his tongue was guilt. Luffy didn’t know why he was crying—whether it was from hunger, or from having forgotten what it felt like to not be hungry.

It was so simple. So normal. And that’s why it hurt.

Not the pain he knew—physical, predictable—but something deeper, crushing, rising from his chest into his throat like a scream that couldn’t escape.

Tears.

They came before he even realized—hot, salty, mixing with the bread in his mouth.

"S-Sorry—"

His voice splintered into sobs, weak and frightened. He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. For crying? For soaking the bread in tears? For still being capable of something as stupid as happiness?

His shoulders shook. He curled inward, arms tightening around himself like he was trying to hold himself together—or crush himself into nothing. The sweet crumb became a knot in his throat, tangled with the metallic taste of blood from his cracked lips.

He didn’t understand.

His eyes flickered. For a split second, a crimson flash crossed his irises—sudden, vivid, unnatural. The spoon slipped from his fingers and shot across the room like a projectile.

Makino dodged on reflex, medicine bottles still clutched in her hands. The spoon clattered against the wall before hitting the floor with a hollow clink.

She paused. Looked first at the fallen spoon, then at Luffy. One eyebrow arched, thoughtful.

"...Good aim," she said aloud, her tone dry but laced with humor that floated just above the tension.

Shanks turned immediately. His gaze swept over Luffy, then Makino, before settling on where the spoon had landed. His expression didn’t shift much—but the way his shoulders stiffened spoke volumes.

Luffy dropped his eyes again, shame flooding his chest, his breaths coming short and ragged. He didn’t know what had just happened. Didn’t know what that was. Only knew that he was terrified.

Makino knelt calmly, retrieving the spoon from the floor. No impatient sigh, no sharp remark. Just the quiet swish of a cloth from her apron pocket as she wiped the rim clean before stepping forward again—offering it back with steady hands.

Luffy reached out as if the spoon were made of glass or fire. His trembling fingers curled around it with exaggerated care, his breath hitching with the effort of not letting it slip again.

But the spoon slid from his grip anyway. It dropped straight into the bowl with a metallic clink—small, harmless, but to Luffy’s ears, it rang out like a gunshot.

He flinched instantly.

His shoulders hunched in a reflexive curl, head bowed, eyes locked on the floor. His entire body braced—tense, coiled—waiting for impact. A slap. A shout. A yank of his hair. The punishment that always followed failure.

But there was only silence.

No shock. No reprimand. Just the quiet steam rising from the stew and the faint creak of a chair shifting across the room.

Then, with a patience that seemed to belong to another world, Makino leaned in and spoke, her voice low and steady:

"Like this, Captain."

She took his hand carefully, her slender fingers adjusting his grip around the spoon. It wasn’t an invasive gesture, nor a hesitant one. There was certainty in her touch, but no force—just humanity.

"S...orry," he mumbled, the word splintering on its way out. Not just for the spoon, but for existing. For taking up space. For needing help at all.

Makino didn’t say "it’s okay." Didn’t dismiss his shame. She just tilted her head, her dark eyes reflecting a silent understanding.

"None of us held things right at first," she said, and something in her tone implied she wasn’t just talking about spoons. Then she turned away—back to her tasks, back to giving him room.

Shanks didn’t speak. Just stood there, close, as if his presence alone were enough—solid, quiet, there. No urgency in his hands. No judgment in his gaze. Only the calm patience of someone who knew some wounds needed time to breathe.

Across the room, Makino finished putting away the medicines, carefully slotting each vial into the cabinets. The supplies were nearly in order now, and she tallied them silently in her mind—as if keeping her hands busy could loosen the knot in her chest.

She cast a quick glance at Benn Beckman, now seated in a nearby armchair, pretending to read a weathered hardcover—some ancient tome salvaged from a forgotten library—though his eyes never truly left Luffy.

The two exchanged a look. Brief. Weighted. Makino sighed. Turning, she murmured:

"Shanks..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Come with me a moment?"

He held her gaze for a beat, then looked back at Luffy—still hunched over his plate, small shoulders trembling silently. Shanks hesitated a moment longer before pushing up from the chair with deliberate slowness.

"Be right back, brat," he murmured, forcing lightness into his voice.

As he passed Benn, he added:

"He'll keep an eye on you for a bit, yeah?" No reply needed. Just the swish of the door as he followed Makino into the hushed hallway.

Luffy's eyes trailed after him briefly before flickering, wary, toward Benn. He peered through his lashes—suspicious, testing—as if trying to decipher whether it was safe to even breathe around this quiet giant. This stranger with his unread book whose pages never turned.

The hallway was narrow—the kind of place where echoes whispered old stories but never quite faded. The walls, stained with damp and soot, seemed to swallow the weak light from bare bulbs hanging like bones from a body too weary for another war. The air carried a bittersweet tang of mildew, old gunpowder, and spilled rum—as if every inch of that passage were steeped in memories no one dared bury.

Makino walked ahead, her steps measured, unhurried. Shanks followed in silence, his hand still carrying the scent of the rag he’d used to wipe dried blood from the trapdoor’s handle. Neither spoke until they emerged into the kitchen, where the light was cleaner but no lighter.

The silence here was different. Not tense, not hostile. Just… full.

Makino stopped near the sink, arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze locked onto Shanks' with surgical precision. There was no anger—just cold, unwavering resolve, the same expression he'd seen on her when stitching wounds too gaping to wait for anesthesia. The face of someone who knew some damages never heal; you just learn to carry them.

She spoke first, her voice low and sharp as a well-honed razor:

"I know what you're thinking."

Makino didn’t need mind-reading to spot the quip ready on Shanks’ lips—that crooked smile he’d worn as armor since he was twenty. Before he could speak, she drove the kitchen knife into the table between them. The handle vibrates on impact, burying the blade halfway into the wood.

"You. Can’t. Keep him."

Each word was a surgical strike. Precise. Relentless. No anger here—no room for it. Just truths. Facts. Sharp as the scalpel that would now divide Shanks’ life into before and after the 09-F brand still burning, invisible, beneath his sleeve.

"You're a criminal, Shanks." Makino's voice was low, but it cut like cold steel to the bone. "One of the greats. Your head has a bounty in three continents. Three factions, two governments. And now—" She inhaled sharply, crossing her arms again as if physically holding herself back. "Now you want to paint an even bigger target on that boy’s back?"

Shanks didn’t look away. Not because he was brave. But because he knew she was right.

Shanks laughed.

It was a dry, broken sound—like rotten wood finally snapping under the weight of something that should’ve collapsed long ago. Not a trace of humor. Not a spark of relief. Just the exhaustion of a man who’d carried the world on his shoulders too long… and now barely had the strength to keep pretending it was worth it.

He lifted his gaze at last. Red-rimmed from sleepless nights, from choices that still burned inside him like embers.

"Can you?" The question came out low, barely a whisper.

But it had weight. It had venom, each word hitting the ground like crushed glass, scraping the air between them.

"Ex-Viper." He spat the codename like a curse, a reminder. "With hands just as filthy as mine?"

The silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was a threat. Like the exact moment before a gunshot. Like two stray dogs sizing each other up in an alley, breaths held, waiting for the first one to move. Worse—a territorial standoff between wolf and panther.

Shanks didn’t need to shout. His anger was cold. Old. And whoever stood across from him knew: this wasn’t just a taunt.

It was a warning.

The silence that followed seemed to double the weight of the kitchen pressing down on her shoulders. The old fridge hummed in the corner. The light above the sink flickered with an irritating buzz, casting jagged shadows across the walls stained with soot and grease.

Makino didn’t move. Didn’t frown. Didn’t fight back. Just pulled up her sleeve with a slow, deliberate motion—like someone uncovering an old grave.

On her wrist, the skin was paler, puckered around the faded black mark: 09-F. Branded by iron. There was no drama in the gesture. No theatrics. Just a fact—a dry reminder of where she’d come from. And all the things she never said aloud.

"I know what it’s like to be a weapon." Her voice was quiet, weightless, but firm. She felt the brand burning on her arm as if it were fresh. As if she were speaking more to the musty air than to him. As if she were saying it to herself.

The damaged lights buzzed between them like a taunt. Outside, the city carried on—distant horns, brief sirens, the muffled noise of a world in constant collapse.

She lifted her gaze and struck without raising her voice:

"You only know how to break them."

It was like dropping ice into a boiling drink. The tension cracked the air, leaving a metallic taste on the tongue. Shanks didn’t reply. Because there was no defense against that. Not here. Not with that brand seared into her skin.

The smell of old copper and cheap liquor thickened between them. Makino doesn’t flinch when Shanks’ fingers twitch toward his holster.

"Saving a child doesn’t redeem you, Shanks."

She says it slow, like driving in a knife and twisting. Her eyes don’t waver. Scorpion-gray, the color of the sky before a hurricane.

"It just makes you more dangerous to her."

Shanks smiled. A broken thing, the smile of a man who'd lost so much he'd forgotten how to cry.

"You've pushed someone into the abyss before too."

This time, he flinched.

It was nearly imperceptible—just a tremor in the muscles around his eyes, like he'd taken a gut punch. His fingers twitched faintly, replaying that failed motion from years ago when he'd stretched his arm till the joints cracked and still couldn't reach Buggy in time—

Maybe he never really tried.

Makino stepped forward. One step.

Enough for the stench of gunpowder and cheap rum on him to collide with the medicinal herbs and dried blood on her.

"You're saving Luffy to clean your conscience."

She spat the words like bullets, a final calculated blow between the eyes:

"You really wanna play hero now? After everything?"

The bar creaked around them. The rotted counter groaned under the weight of empty bottles. Somewhere, a pipe dripped like a rusted metronome. Shanks swallowed hard but didn’t dare look away.

"Either you face what you've done," —she raised her hand, wrist upturned, the 09-F brand throbbing under the sickly light— "or you’ll drag him down with you."**

Silence. Then—

A cough.

Muffled, ragged, from just a few meters below. Luffy.

Shanks closed his eyes. For a second, he wasn’t in the bar. He was back on that cliff’s edge, wind howling in his ears, Buggy screaming his name. When he opened them again, Makino saw the abyss in them.

"And you?"

His voice was shredded, like he’d swallowed glass. "Betrayed CP-11 Squad to escape. How many died for you, Makino?"

Makino didn’t hesitate.

"Twelve."

She said the number like reciting a gravestone. "And I carry every name here." Her hand touched her chest, where a bullet pendant hung hidden beneath the fabric. Shanks knew what was engraved on it. CP-11. 12 NAMES. 1 SURVIVOR.

Makino didn’t smile. Didn’t cry. Just held his gaze.

"But I look at them every day." She tilted her chin up, defiant. "Can you say the same?"

Shanks didn’t answer. The flickering window light cast shadows that stretched like skeletal fingers between them.

Makino sighed, the weight of decades bowing her shoulders for just a moment. "Raising a child takes more than good intentions, Shanks. It takes being whole. And you... you're still on that cliff's edge, deciding whether to jump or turn back."

She turned to leave but threw one last glance over her shoulder—and in it, there was something dangerously close to pity.

"When you finally decide who you really are, then you can try to be what he needs. Until then... don't lie to him. He's suffered enough already."

The hallway door creaked shut behind her, leaving Shanks alone with the drone's buzz outside—and the echo of a question he still couldn't answer.

Downstairs, the silence hangs thick as smoke. The slightly ajar window lets in a thin stream of cold wind that plays with the curtains and makes the old house's wood groan. On the couch, Luffy remains pale—his pupils dilated from sedatives, his skin marked by freshly closed stitches. The bandages wrapping his abdomen look like poorly disguised war trophies. He doesn't cry. Doesn't moan. Just breathes, slowly, as if even that hurts.

In the armchair a meter away, Benn Beckman turns another page of a grimy book with the same precision he'd use to disassemble a rifle. The leather cover is cracked, the title long gone. But he doesn't need the spine.

He knows this particular hell by heart.

His voice cut through the silence with grave weight:

"Per me si va ne la città dolente.
Per me si va ne l’etterno dolore.
Per me si va tra la perduta gente."

The foreign tongue seemed to scrape against the very walls. Luffy lifted his gaze—he didn’t understand the words, but the cadence tightened his chest. It was the kind of sound that came before pain. Training sessions. Screams muffled by concrete. His fingers twitched toward the half-eaten bread, still suspended mid-air, his lips parted as if the metallic taste had returned. He drew his hand back slightly.

"Is that... Latin?" he asked, his voice threadbare.

"Italian," Beckman corrected. "Old. Ancient as dust. But sharper than most knives."

Luffy turned his face toward him. Eyelids heavy, but eyes alert. Dark. Too deep for someone so small.

"What's it mean?"

Beckman recited with a calm that cut deeper than any shout:

"Through me you enter the city of suffering.
Through me you enter eternal grief.
Through me you walk among the lost."

Luffy stared at the ceiling, where the flickering light of a weak bulb danced like an exhausted flame. The soup spoon lay forgotten in the bowl, though his fingers never left its handle. Then, barely audible:

"Is it a warning?"

Beckman didn’t answer right away. Closed the book with a soft *snap*. Pulled the cigarette from the table’s edge but didn’t light it—just held it between his fingers like a habit too old to break.

"It’s a door."

"Door to where?"

"Hell."

Luffy took a deep breath. The air hitched—stitches pulling taut. He closed his eyes for a beat, then asked in the only way he knew how:

"Is it like the place I came from?"

Beckman studied him. Not sizing him up—more like staring into a cracked mirror.

"Maybe worse."

"Are there monsters there?"

"Yes."

"Humans?"

Beckman doesn't answer. But his eyes say yes. Luffy turns his head sideways, sinking deeper into the pillow.

"You've been there?"

"Few times," Beckman says. "Dante thought hell had nine layers."

"Like an onion?"

Benn huffs a half-laugh, rough as sandpaper.

"Yeah. Just like that. 'Cept instead of making you cry when you cut it... you cry when you peel it."

Luffy frowns, thinking hard.

"What if... someone eats hell?"

"What?"

"Like an onion. One piece at a time."

Beckman stares at him. The kid’s dead serious. No mischief in those eyes—just survival-logic, honed by scraps and unanswered questions.

"Think it’d work?"

Luffy shrugs, slow. "I’ve eaten worse."

Beckman’s mouth quirks at the corner. Not a smile. A sadness in disguise. He picks up the book again, flips to a faded illustration—a robed man standing before a spiraling abyss.

"This is the first layer. Where the descent starts."

Luffy peers at it. "Looks... deep."

"Yeah. And the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Tighter. Harder to climb back out."

Luffy stays quiet for a long moment. Then, barely audible:

"Ace... he'd wanna go all the way down. Just to see what's at the bottom."

"And you?"

"I..."

"You wanna get *out*?"

The silence lasts longer than the question. Until Luffy slowly turns his head, eyes dull, and whispers:

"I just wanna sleep without hearing the world scream."

Beckman gives a single nod, rising carefully. The floorboards groan under his weight. He crushes the unlit cigarette between his fingers, leaving the book beside the couch like an invisible pillow.

"Then start there, brat." Benn closes the book, meeting Luffy’s gaze. "Tomorrow, I’ll read more—if you finish everything Makino left on that plate."

Luffy looks down at the off-white porcelain, then back at Beckman. His eyes—still holding a spark of that stubborn fire that keeps him alive—lock onto the plate.

And for today, hell waits outside.