Chapter Text
"I thought you'd come," he said.
Scylla stopped a few feet from the bars. Her face was hidden behind her reflective glasses. Her expression was unreadable.
"Did you," she said. Her voice was flat. Not cold, not warm. Just flat.
"I thought you'd try to talk me out of it. To convince me to stay. To tell me I was being foolish."
"I am not here to convince you of anything."
He stared at her. "Then why are you here?"
She was quiet for a long moment. The silence stretched between them, heavy and full.
"I am here because Garp asked me to come," she said. "He did not want to do this alone."
"And now?"
"Now I am here because I wanted to see you."
Dragon's jaw tightened. "To see me. To see what I've become."
"I have seen what you have become," she said. "I saw you at God Valley. I saw what you did."
"I saved people."
"You saved people," she agreed. "And you disobeyed orders. You threatened your superiors. You put a Celestial Dragon in harm's way. You put your own life at risk for people you did not know."
His eyes widened. "You think I was wrong?"
"I think you were reckless."
"I was trying to save lives!"
"And you did." Her voice did not change. "You saved some. You also jeopardized the mission. You made yourself a target. You gave them a reason to lock you up."
Dragon stared at her, his face pale, his hands shaking. He had not expected this. He had not expected her to be cold. He had not expected her to agree with the system.
"You sound like them," he said.
She did not answer.
"Was it all a lie?" His voice cracked again. "All those years. All those nights. You and me and the paper birds. Was it just training? Just preparation for—" He stopped. He could not finish the sentence.
Scylla looked at him through the bars. She did not move. She did not speak.
"Did you know?" he asked. "At God Valley. Did you know what they were doing? Did you know about the Celestial Dragons? The hunting? The slaves?"
She said nothing.
"I thought you were—,"
"Dragon—"
"You were the closest thing I had to a mother," he said. "And you're just like them. But you're the Idol of Absolute Justice."
The words hit her like a blow.
But she did not show it. She did not flinch. She did not raise her voice. She simply stood there, her face hidden, her hair still and controlled.
"If that is what you believe," she said, "then nothing I say will change your mind."
He stared at her. His eyes were red, his jaw tight. He was not crying—he was past crying—but the pain was there, raw and visible, a wound that had not yet begun to heal.
"Say it," he said. "Say you don't care. Say it was all for the mission. Say I was never anything but a tool."
She was silent for a long moment. Then:
"That is not what I am going to say."
"Then what?"
She reached into her pocket. Her hand emerged holding something small, flat, folded. She set it on the ground between them, just outside the bars.
It was a paper bird. Old. Worn. The folds creased from years of being opened and refolded.
Dragon stared at it. He had made it when he was four years old—the first paper bird she had ever taught him.
"You kept it," he said.
"I kept it."
He reached for it. His fingers were shaking. He picked it up, turned it over, felt the familiar creases.
"Why?" he asked. His voice was hoarse.
"Because it was yours," she said. "And because you were not a tool. You were never a tool."
His hand tightened around the bird.
"I did not know what you exactly saw at God Valley," she said. "But I knew what you had in you. And I knew that if you ever saw what I have seen, you would not be able to stand by and do nothing."
Dragon looked at her. His eyes were wet.
"It does not matter," she said. "What I did or did not know. It does not matter what I thought of you. What matters is what you believe. What matters is what you do now."
"And what I believe is that the Marines are wrong."
"Then leave."
He blinked. "What?"
"Leave the Marines. Follow your own path. Build your own justice." She tilted her head. "You have already started. Do not stop now."
Dragon stared at her. His face was unreadable, his eyes fixed on hers.
"Will you come with me?" he asked.
She was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, she shook her head.
"I cannot."
"Why not?"
"Because I am exactly what I becom," she said. "And I do not know how to be anything else."
"Then you could—"
"Do not ask me to change," she said. "I have changed too many times already. I am what I am. I will always be what I am."
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He looked at the paper bird in his hands, then at her.
"Thank you," he said. "For keeping it."
She did not answer.
She turned and walked away.
Scylla walked through the corridors of Marine Headquarters. Her steps were measured, her face composed, her hands still.
She did not know how she felt. She did not know if she felt anything at all.
She had done what she had come to do. She had supported Garp. She had seen Dragon. She had told him the truth—or at least, a version of it.
That was enough.
She reached her cabin. The door closed behind her. She stood in the darkness, her back against the wood, and let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding.
She thought about the paper bird. She had kept it for thirteen years, carried it with her from ship to ship, base to base. She had never looked at it, not really—she had simply kept it, because it was his, and because she had not been able to let it go.
Why?
She did not know the answer.
She looked down at her hands. They were steady. They were whole. They were the hands of a woman who had killed countless people, who had followed orders without question, who had become exactly what the system had wanted her to become.
She was something that Dragon had once loved—and something that he would leave behind.
She closed her eyes.
She thought about God Valley. About the chaos, the blood, the bodies. She thought about the Celestial Dragons, the ones she had seen and the ones she had not. She thought about the thought that had surfaced in the heat of battle—the thought that she had pushed aside, but could not forget.
No one will ask questions.
No one will know.
No one will care.
She had not killed them. She had not planned to. She had simply... not stopped. She had let her tentacles do what they did, and they had done what they did, and the bodies had fallen, and she had not looked back.
She had done what she had always done.
She had survived.
Outside, the sea was dark and endless, and the stars were hidden behind a veil of clouds. The ship rocked gently, and the waves whispered against the hull.
Scylla sat alone in her cabin, her tea cold in her hands, her heart a steady, even rhythm.
She thought about Garp, who loved and lost and did not fight when he should have.
She thought about Dragon, who had seen the truth and could not unsee it.
She thought about herself, who had seen the truth and had chosen to look away.
She did not know which of them was right.
She did not know if it mattered.