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She was safe.
Bartholomew Kuma’s awareness, such as remained of it, was aware foremost of its own diminishing. For two years it had been comatose, believed dead by all including itself, but there came a day when he knew. Knew that she was not safe. That she would not be safe. At once, all else mattered not. His tortured flesh, his rusted metal, his failing implants. His mind which should no longer be. It was as nothing, because she was not safe. So he willed himself, with all that he had, to move. Out of the desperate embraces of his friends, up the sides of the Red Line, past the red dog who sat at the demons’ feet, through the air across two seas, into the hail of bullets and bombs and lasers from weapons made in his own image. He flew and he ran, and at long, long last he found her. The claw of the Deceiver’s servant thrust itself nearly a full foot into his back, but there was no pain that had any meaning. Because he had done it, had made it in time. Ginny’s last gift to the world, given at the very end of her life, her beautiful child, his precious daughter, was in his arms when once he’d thought that blessing lost to him ‘till the next life. Bonney was safe, and that was all that mattered.
Almost.
The remnants of his mind grew dimmer with each moment, hastened by the countless wounds he’d received. In mere moments he would be unable to do more than respond to instructions like his soulless counterparts, though he knew his body would obey none save the one person on Earth who had been able to awaken him one final time. She would be safe, in his arms for as long as his body could manage, and then in the company of Straw Hat, the boy whose incredible, world-defying will he could feel even in his fading state. With the safety of his life’s greatest pride and joy secured, there was but one thing left to do.
He stood, pulling out the claw and gripping it with the strength of a race who the beast had thought should be dead, the precision of an impossibly advanced science that the beast had thought had been under its control, the determination of a man who knew that the world the beast had wanted would never come to pass. He could no longer speak, he lacked his vestments, and even if recited mentally, his mind was whole enough for but a tiny fraction of the full prayer. But it would be enough. The Lord would provide.
Taking advantage of the very last of his implants’ power, he slowed his perception enough to allow him time to form the bare minimum of the words in his mind, as he pulled back his fist.
Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race. The Most High God commands you, the blood of the martyrs and all the saints commands you. Cursed dragon, we adjure you by the living God, by the holy God, by the true God. Begone Satan, master of all deceit, enemy of man’s salvation!
The black color of arms surrounding his fist was no crucifix or rosary, but the will it contained, the will of freedom against tyranny, of love against cruelty, of life against death, was more than enough to suffice. The red color of observation he would soon no longer possess told him only what he had already known-this blow against the Adversary’s minion would be but the first of many, and he himself would do no more than initiate the long and treacherous exorcism this demon would require. But it would be enough, for the endless color of the supreme king…no, of the supreme liberator, flowed so greatly from the boy he’d thrice saved, that there could be no doubt as to who would triumph in the end.
As the last of his conscious mind faded, as he tasked the last of his programming with obeying and protecting the infamous, gluttonous, beloved pirate Jewelry Bonney, he saw the false god laid low by his fist. It was done, at long last. His family now made proud, his friends now strong enough to sail and fight without him, his child now safe from the demon that dared harm her, Bartholomew Kuma departed from the world. He would always be there for his daughter, but in doing so would never be alone. In this world with his body aiding her friends and allies, and in the next his soul with her mother, watching her grow into whatever future she wanted, living as she was made to live.
Free.