Chapter Text
“What have you done to her?”
Reiju stills at the anger in her mothers voice. She can feel her father’s imposing figure standing behind her, but still has to smother a flinch at the volume of his voice as he laughs.
She sits at one end of the dining room table, facing her mother sat across from her. The room is empty, save for the three of them. Three meals are served on the table, largely untouched — they hadn’t gotten far into their meal before the argument started.
”I’ve improved her,” he says, clamping a hand on Reiju’s shoulder. She resists the temptation to shrug out of his hold, knowing very well that he wouldn’t react well to any sign of disobedience from her.
”She is a child,” Sora seethes, though Reiju knows her mother well enough to hear the anguish in the words. Reiju wishes she could run to her — wishes she could press her face into her mother’s body and block out the world around her, to allow the comfort to protect her from the empty feeling Judge has placed in her chest.
However, her father’s hand does not soften its grip, and so Reiju sits still as her parents argue and the empty feeling in her chest slowly makes a home for itself.
Reiju hits the ground with a thud, biting back the tears that threaten to spill. Niji stands above her, grinning at their father, while Ichiji and Yonji watch from the sidelines, looking bored.
This has become another one of their daily routines — beating each other up until their father is satisfied. Normally, Reiju can stay clear of Judge’s ire by virtue of Sanji, but today Sanji’s isn’t with them, instead he’s holed up in the infirmary with a broken arm — curtesy of Yonji. Unfortunately for Reiju, that means that today, she’s the obvious weak link of he siblings.
Instead of acknowledging Niji’s success, Judge stares down at Reiju, disappointed.
”Reiju,” he sighs, hiding the anger she knows is there behind his mask of indifference. “You should not be trailing so far behind your brothers. I gave you the ability to succeed, and yet you consistently disappoint.”
”Sorry, Father,” she mumbles, getting to her feet and sweeping dust off her dress to avoid meeting his eyes. She doesn’t mention the fact that her brothers were always destined to be stronger than her — that she was just the prelude to Judge’s real masterpieces. In the face of her brothers, Reiju would always be too human.
”Go again,” Judge demands, and Reiju wishes the emptiness in her chest would consume all of the human parts left of her.
Reiju watches as Sanji unveils his latest creation for their mother. Sora holds back a grimace at the smell, smiling instead.
”Thank you darling, it looks delicious,” she says, putting the dish to the side to undoubtedly dispose of later. Sanji beams anyway, diving to curl up against her side. Sora lets him get comfortable, and looks to Reiju standing against the wall.
”Do you want to come sit, darling?” Her mother asks softly, patting the unoccupied side of the bed. Reiju thinks about the question for a moment, then walks over to stiffly sit on the bed.
Sora moves to put an arm around her as she gets comfortable, but Reiju flinches as her mother’s hand makes contact with her arm, the touch sending an electric current through her body. Sora pulls back quickly, her hand awkwardly hovering for a moment before it rests on the bed between them. Reiju watches as her smile shifts, becoming more strained at the edges.
She wishes to find a way to ask her to put her arm back — that Reiju wants to feel that small crackle of energy course through her, any feeling to fight against the overwhelming emptiness she feels everyday.
Instead, she watches as her mother turns to Sanji as he speaks, her smile losing the jagged edges that appear whenever she looks at Reiju. She counts all the points of contact between Sanji and their mother, and wonders if the two of them create a closed circuit, passing their own energy back and forth.
Reiju shifts slightly away from the pair, afraid of stealing any more of the little energy her mother has left — afraid of letting the empty parts living inside Reiju turn her and Sanji into monsters as well.
Reiju welcomes the vertigo as she looks down from her spot on the balcony wall. The biting wind typical of the North Blue was not deterred by the rising sun, and she closes her eyes as she let the breeze push her hair out of her face.
The vastness of the New World surrounds Germa kingdom, making their overly grand ship seem small in comparison. As she looks across the sea, she pictures a boat with a cartoonish masthead and a jolly roger wearing a straw hat flapping in the wind. Briefly, the Grand Line’s waters seem more vibrant, until she blinks and they’re the same sort of grey they always are.
Behind her, Niji and Yonji were arguing — again. Reiju had gotten good at tuning them out over the years, but since their retrieval from Cacao Island, the two of them had been particularly loud and relentless about it. Beside her, Ichiji remained unphased, flipping through reports of the disastrous wedding.
Her brothers had taken their losses against Sanji as hard as they possibly could, but their father was a different matter. Vinsmoke Judge had been scarce since their return to Germa Kingdom, and though Reiju would normally relish any time spent away from the man, he had yet to acknowledge the events of the past few days; Big Mom’s betrayal, Niji and Yonji’s kidnapping, and Reiju and Ichiji’s defiance in going after them all remained unpunished.
Reiju is not so deluded to think that NEO MADS had distracted Judge from his anger, and so the four of them wait for whatever Judge has in store for their transgressions.
A week later, Judge finally calls on them.
It was almost exactly as Reiju had expected — the four of them stand straight-backed in a perfect line as Judge lays into them, his voice slowly rising as he works himself up. Usually, after Judge got the initial anger out of his system this way, he would move on to whatever physical punishment he felt necessary.
Reiju holds her breath as he approaches, refusing to break eye contact as he looms over her. However, Judge reacts outside of her preconceptions.
He steps back.
Reiju resists the urge to look away as Judge slowly looks over the four of them and scoffs.
“I see where I’ve failed,” Judge says, turning his back to them. “All of you, bested by the Failure. I’ve spent the past week agonizing over how it was possible — you are marvels of genetic engineering, and the decades of work I've poured into you four have amounted to nothing.”
The room was silent; the four of them knowing Judge wants silence from them, and speaking would just anger him further, if even possible.
”Then, it occurred to me,” Judge continues, turning around to face them once more. Reiju swallows, suddenly nervous. “You don’t care. It doesn’t matter how many times I beat the failure out of you, you have no desire to better yourselves. In a way, it's my fault — I gave you four everything you have, none of it earned.”
Reiju bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood, focusing on the metallic taste spreading across her teeth. A small part of her — the only part that remains of a little blond girl who had everything ripped away from her — wishes to lunge forward and rip Judge’s tongue out of his mouth.
Instead, he continues speaking as Reiju chokes on her own blood.
”It’s my own fault, believing the work I did was enough to counter the natural insolence of children. I will rectify my mistakes, and we will move past this series of incidents as if they never occurred, understood?”
Her brothers nod their heads once, and Reiju follows after a beat of hesitation.
”Good. You’re dismissed.”