Fic post: Absence, chapter 6, 2/3
Sep. 17th, 2009 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesContinues from the first part of Chapter Six: see this entry for more information about the story. Warning for major angst and character death.
*
Robin heard the sound of the anchor and watched as Sunny dipped slowly back and forth only a few meters away from the rocky islet. Evidently there were no underwater peaks that reached higher than Sunny’s keel, at least not on this side. If the Strawhats wanted to disembark, they could simply leap down from there.
For now, Nami didn’t jump that far, only down to the lawn deck, where Zoro was already standing by the railing with an impassive look. He was holding that sword he liked the best, still unsheathed after its polishing, but he’d left the other two swords behind under the tree. Nami held her staff up high and put herself next to him, turning back towards the enemy. As for Robin, she stayed where she was up on third deck. And so did Franky.
Robin stood there and appraised the situation. There were forty-four of the enemy that she could see, but seven of them were apparently too weak to stand, and two might be asleep or unconscious. Perhaps there were more, hidden under those hatches in the middle of their rowing deck, but she doubted there was truly room for people there.
She also noted that most of the Marines had regulation rifles and some wore pistols, but she had to wonder if their gunpowder would have kept dry in the storm. There were, however, plenty of swords around, some spears, clubs and daggers; and the odd jitte and scimitar. But there were also plenty of broken arms.
She felt no anger.
She was aware of the existence of a great rage, just as she was also aware of trembling limbs, and sweat on her face and shoulders. But she did not feel any of those things; it was as if they were somewhere outside her.
She only felt hard and sharp and cold.
Intellectually, Robin realised that these men were exceedingly unlikely to pose an actual threat to the crew. That knowledge did not remove any of the hard, cold feeling in her. Just because she couldn’t sense the anger didn’t mean she felt the slightest inclination towards mercy.
*
Before, when the Sunny had still been a fair distance away from the islet, some of the Marines had been walking around on land, a few of them making desultory attempts at fishing. Now, however, all but two of them had gone back to their ship, where they watched the Strawhats in tense silence, arms at the ready. The remaining two were standing in front of the ship – not far from it, but given how thin the strip of rock was here, they were quite close to the Sunny as well. Close enough to be in speaking rather than shouting distance, in fact.
Robin studied the two men detachedly. She did not remember them from the battle, which was hardly surprising given how large that force had been, and the size of the island. They were both big and muscular, with one being taller and stringier, the other stockier and broader. The taller one had bushy black hair with the beginnings of sideburns and a small beard – or rather, one sideburn only, on his left side. On his right a big, ugly burn stretched from his ear down the side of his neck, disappearing under bandages around his shoulder and torso. His ragged, dirty shirt was open and nearly buttonless.
The stockier man had very wide shoulders and was practically bald, with what few hairs he had very light and wispy on his skull, though he did not look an old man. He had no shirt on at all – perhaps he’d torn it all up to bind wounds with, for he too, like most of them, had quite a few bandages. Like his comrade, he watched the pirates with a wary, closed hostility.
It was he who finally broke the silence.
“Strawhats,” he said in a hard voice. “Fancy meeting you here.” There was bitterness in his voice, and a certain dark restraint, but no humour. Above all, he sounded tired.
“And what might you be doing here?” said Nami coldly, no real question intonation in her voice. “Don’t think we don’t recognise you,” she added; Robin wondered for a moment if Nami might have met the bald man during the battle, then dismissed it as irrelevant.
“You could say we’re preparing to sell ourselves dearly,” said the tall man bleakly, answering in the other’s stead.
“In more ways than one,” added one of the men standing in the boat. Robin, glancing over there, noted it was one of those she had recognised earlier – a short man with a split nose and long arms, who’d tied his blue Marine neckerchief around his head. She vaguely remembered having used Ocho Fleurs Clutch on him, but that couldn’t have given him that head injury.
“Yeah? The hell are you doing on that thing out on open sea?” said Franky, glaring down on the Marines, face and voice more hostile than what he was saying. “Didja get swept away from the rest of the ships by the storm, or what?”
The two men on shore stared up at him, looking incredulous, even baffled.
“Other ships?” said the taller one. “You don’t think we’d be going around in a bloody gin-rower if we had a choice, do you?”
“Baggler,” muttered his stocky comrade.
“Gin-rower,” repeated the taller one, keeping his eyes on Franky. “And there ain’t any other ships, pirate. There’s just us.”
“So you say,” observed Robin.
“Well, if I was lying I’d have it the other way around, wouldn’t I?” retorted the taller man. “To make you think we’ve got back-up on the way.” His face twisted in a grimace. “As if anyone’d care what happened to us, even if we hadn’t…”
.
The stockier man spat on the ground. “Of course we bloody well knew it was practically suicide, setting out on something like this. We’re not rookies. But we all agreed beforehand that it was better than staying back there.”
“Yeah? Care to say why?” That was Zoro, speaking for the first time. His words weren’t particularly tense, and there was no demon burn in his eyes. But his body was a little too immobile, his face a mite too carefully neutral. The two men on the ground turned their gazes towards him, even warier now than before. As well they might be, thought Robin. Clearly these soldiers were no fools.
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out, Lolonoa,” said the stocky man after a few seconds, his face even darker now. “We didn’t come there like normal Marines. It was a penal battalion. Sentenced for all kinds of reasons, not the least just pissing off some higher-up or other.”
“We know that already,” said Nami indifferently, spinning her weapon slowly in the air. “Your commander fairly bragged about it. Called it a suicide mission.”
“That at least he was fuckin’ right about, the bastard,” growled the stocky man. “Those guys even put fucking slave collars on some of us, like on Corp– like on Doscaballos here!” He pointed to his taller comrade next to him. “To make sure we behaved, see? Slave collars on Marines!” At this, there was an angry resentful murmur from the… the baggler, several of the men touching bandages around their necks and shoulders.
Robin raised an eyebrow, looking over at the taller man whose name might be Doscaballos. “Explosive ones, you mean? As on Sabaõdy Archipelago? And yet you’re still alive.” Presently, her tone conveyed clearly.
Doscaballos gave her a defiant glare. “You think I’m making this up? As if I care what you think, pirate.” Then he shrugged, and went on even so, “Most of them weren’t the exploding kind. They shocked you, if the brass wanted to hurt you, or if you tried taking it off.”
“Strong shocks, though,” interjected the short man with long arms on the baggler, talking loudly. He, too, shot angry looks Robin’s way, perhaps for her implying she didn’t quite believe his boss. “Enough to kill strong men at full effect,” he went on. “And we saw enough of that happen, back there.”
“Brass pretty much went crazy after the battle,” said the stocky man in a tired, heavy voice, still looking up at Zoro. “That’s what happened, Lolonoa. Not that I think you care. The deputy commander couldn’t handle having to step in when Strawhat took down the big guy. Musta realised he’d be left holding the bag after we couldn’t either capture or kill you guys, and that made him snap.”
Zoro’s eyes widened slightly, very briefly. He exchanged a look with Robin.
These people don’t even know, Robin thought distantly. She felt even colder and icier now. Her fingertips and her left foot felt numb. There was something off about her circulation. They don’t even know.
Disguising her reaction, she turned back to the enemy. “I see,” she said coldly. “Your own officers turned on you after your mission had failed. How like the World Government.”
Doscaballos flinched, then stared back at her heavily, face darkening. Criminal scum, she could read in his eyes, and she waited to hear him say as much, too. But then his closed his mouth, his expression calmer, wearier, broken. He looked away, muttering something she couldn’t catch.
“Yeah, let it go, Corporal – I mean, Doscaballos,” said the stocky man. “Like hell we’re going to stand up for those fuckin’ bastards anymore. They only want us dead now, anyway.” He looked up at the Strawhats again, anger and bitterness contorting his features. “But if you think we mutinied easily just ‘cause we were a penal battalion, well… I’m used to commanders that make bloody stupid decisions and let the other ranks suffer for it. But this time… we were still weak and bleeding after fighting you, and had only started patching each other up, when suddenly those fuckin’ collars went off all over the place and the top guy was yellin’ we should all just die like rats.”
Franky scowled. “Oh,” he muttered under his breath, so quiet only Robin could catch it. “That kind of officer.”
The stocky man didn’t notice or didn’t care. He just paused for breath and then went on,
“Some decent officers stuck up for us and tried to stop him, but they got cut down or shot for their trouble, most o’ them. Captain Fredericks over there happened to survive.”
He nodded towards the baggler. One of them, with greying black hair, an atrocious felt hat and one arm in a sling, shook his head. Robin recognised him from the battle.
“Not a captain any more, Villa, remember?” he said in a tired, patient tone, as if this was hardly the first time he’d had to point this out. “Just call me Fredericks. I’m just as demoted and condemned as you are.”
The stocky man – Villa, apparently – shrugged at the ex-Captain. “Even so, that don’t mean I can’t show respect for someone who stood up for his platoon and lost his grade and damn near his life for it.” He’d half turned around towards his crewmate now, but Robin got the impression he was at least half speaking for the Strawhats’ benefit, that he wanted them to know they had a decent officer among them. As if that little fact could change anything.
“Way I see it, that makes you more of a captain than any of those bastard morons could be,” Villa added, to a general murmur of assent in his crew. Doscaballos only nodded, but it was a firm and definite motion, actually a bit reminiscent of Zoro.
“Exactly,” said the short man with long arms. “You stood up for us, Cap. We’re not gonna forget that.” He at least would have belonged to Fredericks’ platoon, Robin assumed, as they both had faced her in the fight. That made four deserters she could remember from the island. The rest were probably survivors from other units.
“Anyway...” Villa turned back to the pirates, looking mostly at Zoro. “We still didn’t do anything until they wanted to force some of us to count the others and kill every eighth man, no matter who it was. As is we’d already rebelled. So we figured enough was enough and refused to do it.” He stopped talking abruptly, looking away. Though he seemed to struggle not to show anything, there were clear signs of pain and rage on his face.
“Then what happened?” asked Robin in a flat voice. She spoke more from a lifelong habit of collecting information wherever possible than out of true interest. The story so far hadn’t done anything for her, and her inexpressive face was no mask, now, but simply a reflection of the blank emptiness inside her. Her hands were still trembling with that same alien unfelt rage.
Villa, composed again, gave her a sharp look. “Don’t you look interested,” he said drily. “Though… why should you be? You’re the Demon of Ohara. Still…” He considered a moment, then muttered slowly, “…still, someone ought to know this, even so.”
Let someone know what happened after we’re gone, even if it’s only our killers… Robin could follow that reasoning. She allowed him one nod.
Villa went on, fairly matter-of-fact, now. “Collars exploded, or doled out heavy shocks; everyone started shooting or slashing or running for cover… Many soldiers died pretty quickly.” Over on the baggler, the crew nodded, their faces darker and more distant while they listened.
“Some were just trampled,” said Villa. “Those who were able to jumped aboard a ship and lit out of there. At the same time, the seakings were going haywire as well.”
“That’s right,” said Doscaballos, taking over as Villa fell silent. He, too, seemed to make an effort to speak dispassionately. “Actually, they’d been doing that for a while,” he continued, “ever since you guys destroyed the commander’s whistle and killed their leader.”
He paused, then, his face briefly contorted in something like anger, or perhaps pain. He wasn’t looking at the pirates now, but off to the side. Lost in memories, perhaps – but he wasn’t trembling, Robin noted.
Villa cleared his throat and said in a hoarse voice, “Yeah, and then eventually we realised most of the high command were already gone – once they realised the tide wasn’t turning their way, they’d grabbed the biggest, fastest ship and left. But,” he remarked bitterly, “not before trying to sink or set fire to what remained of our ships.”
He went on, more quietly, “So there we were, left in that blood-drenched place, surrounded by the corpses of our friends. Also, by then we’d found out some of those monsters were amphibious.”
“Huh?” said Franky. “Whaddya mean? Seakings that can breathe in air ‘n’ stuff?”
Doscaballos nodded darkly, without looking up. “And crawl up on land… They crawl slowly, but they’re still fast with their long necks and fangs and their slicing fins.” His voice sank even more as he added, “Not to mention there seemed to be something else around in that place…” Then he blinked, shook himself and schooled his features before meeting their gazes again.
“Hn, so,” he said. “No point hanging around on that island any longer than we’d have to. Sooner or later they’d send new troops to secure the place and shoot us all down, anyway.”
He and Villa, with some more interjections from their crew, went on to explain how their small group of survivors had taken the only functional vessel left, which happened to be the baggler (or gin-rower, as Doscaballos insisted on calling it), loaded it down with food and fresh water, and had only waited to make a funeral pyre for their fallen comrades before leaving. As they spoke, they seemed to alternate between growing yet more angry and bitter, and shying away from that, making efforts to sound cold and in control again.
Robin listened and heard every word, but in her mind she was far away now. This was… this was, in one way, not too unlike that moment when she’d stood at the balcony of the Tower of Justice, as that utter fool of a Cipher Pol boss had kept going on about the Buster Call and relished throwing her childhood trauma into her face. In another way, it was not like that at all, because then she’d been burning with a sickening mix of anger, fear and despair: but now she was only hard and cold.
But still... it had all came back to her, then, as she’d looked over the abyss and seen not her crewmates there but Ohara, burning; she’d heard the nightmarish sounds and smells from her memory, just as powerless remembering as she’d been when living through it. Until Luffy’s clear voice had broken through the spell, and the sight of a burning flag had outshone the fires in her head…
Of course these men before her were nothing like Spandam. They might well have enjoyed some vengeful satisfaction, if they had known why these pirates had it in for them. But they didn’t know. Yet their words, as they told their story, were just as good at bringing back what had been buried. In her mind, the sights, sounds and smells of that terrible day and place were there with her again, as vivid as the worst of nightmares.
The place the Strawhats were now sailing back to. Perhaps they were all just insane.
The two leaders stopped talking, having nothing more to say. There was a long, thick silence.
“Well, isn’t that a sad story.” Nami’s voice rang out, cold and harsh. She stood even more ramrod straight than before. “Do you expect us to be moved by that? Oh, sure, you may only be hapless grunts… but are we supposed to believe you had any trouble ambushing us? That you minded being asked to attack infamous pirates?”
“Of course not,” said Robin. “Marines will fight pirates: it is only to be expected. We are enemies, after all.” She turned her head a little, glancing at her crewmates. “I am in no doubt as to what these people would do to us, if our positions of strength were reversed.”
“But we’re not Marines any longer,” said ex-Captain Fredericks. He spoke gently, almost conciliatory – he spoke as someone who’s lost all hope, and therefore can afford to be kind, thought Robin indifferently. “We don’t have to act that way now,” he added. “Neither do you.”
“Never mind that, Captain Fredericks,” said Villa roughly. This time, he didn’t turn around but kept his gaze steady on the Strawhats, his face pale and set, mouth twisted. “These guys ain’t gonna listen to something like that,” he growled.
Zoro looked at his crewmates and said, slowly, “Might be kinder to cut them down now than to let them go as they are. They can’t survive long in that small, beat-up thing. I wouldn’t give them a fortnight.”
Robin frowned. I don’t see why we should be kind to these people. Although his assessment was no doubt correct. Maybe Zoro was also thinking something like, At least they’d die in battle - and with an honest enemy, at that, not stabbed in the back by their own officers. Zoro was likely to care about that.
And if they did kill them now, she thought suddenly, the four of them would be tied together with the weight of the deed – the guilt, perhaps.
Then she would not feel so alone.
She recognised that this was a rather strange way of reasoning, and not one Luffy would have approved of. The thought was still there, though.
“I don’t wanna let these guys go, just like that,” muttered Franky harshly, looking down at his hands on the railing. “The thought just sticks in my craw.” He looked up, over at the other three. Like all of them, he’d made no effort to lower his voice, not caring if the enemy heard him.
Robin, Zoro and Nami all nodded silently, but Robin wasn’t sure she liked where the shipwright might be going. His face seemed harder than she’d ever seen it.
“And I really don’t wanna help them,” he went on. He cast a quick look over at the beat-up baggler, his large fingers drumming on the railing. Robin wondered if, despite his words, there might not be an instinctive professional urge in him to patch up those holes, no matter who sailed the vessel.
“But doin’ something like that…” Franky sighed heavily. “Not sure if you guys could really handle that, Zoro-bro, Nami-sis. And…” A pause; his gaze grew more distant now, not really looking at anything.
Then, reluctantly, as if the words were dragged out of him, he said in a lower voice, “It’s just that… I just figure… it’s not what Captain Usopp would have done.” Another pause. “You know?” he added, almost apologetic.
Robin felt her face go white; she made a small, choking sound of dismay. No, no… Don’t say that… Below her, she caught Nami and Zoro both flinching.
“Ah… Th-that’s…” Nami stuttered, then stopped talking, eyes wide. Zoro closed his eyes and stood very silently for a while, one hand stretched out to grab the railing, muscle clenching.
Then Nami’s expression changed, her eyes filled up with an understanding Robin didn’t want to see there. And Zoro looked up again, now managing a very twisted smile in Franky’s direction. It looked just a little odd on Zoro’s face. “You turning into Chopper now?” he said to the shipwright.
“But…” said Robin, glancing down at the confused-looking and still very pale and practically hopeless ex-Marines. They took him away from us, she wanted to say. Forever. They may just be low-level grunts, but they’re still part of the side who did that. They broke our faith in ourselves. They may have broken our captain for good.
If we’re just content to let them go, how can we look ourselves in the eye, after that?
But she knew that Franky was right. She also knew that Chopper and Brook would have agreed with him, if they’d been awake (they’d have said the same much earlier, in fact). Likely Sanji, too – eventually.
“You’re right,” she muttered, not looking up. Part of her loathed having to admit that, but, she realised now, another part was relieved. The cold inside her was retreating, and so was the rage. She wasn’t trembling anymore.
Continued here with the end of Chapter 6.
*
Robin heard the sound of the anchor and watched as Sunny dipped slowly back and forth only a few meters away from the rocky islet. Evidently there were no underwater peaks that reached higher than Sunny’s keel, at least not on this side. If the Strawhats wanted to disembark, they could simply leap down from there.
For now, Nami didn’t jump that far, only down to the lawn deck, where Zoro was already standing by the railing with an impassive look. He was holding that sword he liked the best, still unsheathed after its polishing, but he’d left the other two swords behind under the tree. Nami held her staff up high and put herself next to him, turning back towards the enemy. As for Robin, she stayed where she was up on third deck. And so did Franky.
Robin stood there and appraised the situation. There were forty-four of the enemy that she could see, but seven of them were apparently too weak to stand, and two might be asleep or unconscious. Perhaps there were more, hidden under those hatches in the middle of their rowing deck, but she doubted there was truly room for people there.
She also noted that most of the Marines had regulation rifles and some wore pistols, but she had to wonder if their gunpowder would have kept dry in the storm. There were, however, plenty of swords around, some spears, clubs and daggers; and the odd jitte and scimitar. But there were also plenty of broken arms.
She felt no anger.
She was aware of the existence of a great rage, just as she was also aware of trembling limbs, and sweat on her face and shoulders. But she did not feel any of those things; it was as if they were somewhere outside her.
She only felt hard and sharp and cold.
Intellectually, Robin realised that these men were exceedingly unlikely to pose an actual threat to the crew. That knowledge did not remove any of the hard, cold feeling in her. Just because she couldn’t sense the anger didn’t mean she felt the slightest inclination towards mercy.
*
Before, when the Sunny had still been a fair distance away from the islet, some of the Marines had been walking around on land, a few of them making desultory attempts at fishing. Now, however, all but two of them had gone back to their ship, where they watched the Strawhats in tense silence, arms at the ready. The remaining two were standing in front of the ship – not far from it, but given how thin the strip of rock was here, they were quite close to the Sunny as well. Close enough to be in speaking rather than shouting distance, in fact.
Robin studied the two men detachedly. She did not remember them from the battle, which was hardly surprising given how large that force had been, and the size of the island. They were both big and muscular, with one being taller and stringier, the other stockier and broader. The taller one had bushy black hair with the beginnings of sideburns and a small beard – or rather, one sideburn only, on his left side. On his right a big, ugly burn stretched from his ear down the side of his neck, disappearing under bandages around his shoulder and torso. His ragged, dirty shirt was open and nearly buttonless.
The stockier man had very wide shoulders and was practically bald, with what few hairs he had very light and wispy on his skull, though he did not look an old man. He had no shirt on at all – perhaps he’d torn it all up to bind wounds with, for he too, like most of them, had quite a few bandages. Like his comrade, he watched the pirates with a wary, closed hostility.
It was he who finally broke the silence.
“Strawhats,” he said in a hard voice. “Fancy meeting you here.” There was bitterness in his voice, and a certain dark restraint, but no humour. Above all, he sounded tired.
“And what might you be doing here?” said Nami coldly, no real question intonation in her voice. “Don’t think we don’t recognise you,” she added; Robin wondered for a moment if Nami might have met the bald man during the battle, then dismissed it as irrelevant.
“You could say we’re preparing to sell ourselves dearly,” said the tall man bleakly, answering in the other’s stead.
“In more ways than one,” added one of the men standing in the boat. Robin, glancing over there, noted it was one of those she had recognised earlier – a short man with a split nose and long arms, who’d tied his blue Marine neckerchief around his head. She vaguely remembered having used Ocho Fleurs Clutch on him, but that couldn’t have given him that head injury.
“Yeah? The hell are you doing on that thing out on open sea?” said Franky, glaring down on the Marines, face and voice more hostile than what he was saying. “Didja get swept away from the rest of the ships by the storm, or what?”
The two men on shore stared up at him, looking incredulous, even baffled.
“Other ships?” said the taller one. “You don’t think we’d be going around in a bloody gin-rower if we had a choice, do you?”
“Baggler,” muttered his stocky comrade.
“Gin-rower,” repeated the taller one, keeping his eyes on Franky. “And there ain’t any other ships, pirate. There’s just us.”
“So you say,” observed Robin.
“Well, if I was lying I’d have it the other way around, wouldn’t I?” retorted the taller man. “To make you think we’ve got back-up on the way.” His face twisted in a grimace. “As if anyone’d care what happened to us, even if we hadn’t…”
.
The stockier man spat on the ground. “Of course we bloody well knew it was practically suicide, setting out on something like this. We’re not rookies. But we all agreed beforehand that it was better than staying back there.”
“Yeah? Care to say why?” That was Zoro, speaking for the first time. His words weren’t particularly tense, and there was no demon burn in his eyes. But his body was a little too immobile, his face a mite too carefully neutral. The two men on the ground turned their gazes towards him, even warier now than before. As well they might be, thought Robin. Clearly these soldiers were no fools.
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out, Lolonoa,” said the stocky man after a few seconds, his face even darker now. “We didn’t come there like normal Marines. It was a penal battalion. Sentenced for all kinds of reasons, not the least just pissing off some higher-up or other.”
“We know that already,” said Nami indifferently, spinning her weapon slowly in the air. “Your commander fairly bragged about it. Called it a suicide mission.”
“That at least he was fuckin’ right about, the bastard,” growled the stocky man. “Those guys even put fucking slave collars on some of us, like on Corp– like on Doscaballos here!” He pointed to his taller comrade next to him. “To make sure we behaved, see? Slave collars on Marines!” At this, there was an angry resentful murmur from the… the baggler, several of the men touching bandages around their necks and shoulders.
Robin raised an eyebrow, looking over at the taller man whose name might be Doscaballos. “Explosive ones, you mean? As on Sabaõdy Archipelago? And yet you’re still alive.” Presently, her tone conveyed clearly.
Doscaballos gave her a defiant glare. “You think I’m making this up? As if I care what you think, pirate.” Then he shrugged, and went on even so, “Most of them weren’t the exploding kind. They shocked you, if the brass wanted to hurt you, or if you tried taking it off.”
“Strong shocks, though,” interjected the short man with long arms on the baggler, talking loudly. He, too, shot angry looks Robin’s way, perhaps for her implying she didn’t quite believe his boss. “Enough to kill strong men at full effect,” he went on. “And we saw enough of that happen, back there.”
“Brass pretty much went crazy after the battle,” said the stocky man in a tired, heavy voice, still looking up at Zoro. “That’s what happened, Lolonoa. Not that I think you care. The deputy commander couldn’t handle having to step in when Strawhat took down the big guy. Musta realised he’d be left holding the bag after we couldn’t either capture or kill you guys, and that made him snap.”
Zoro’s eyes widened slightly, very briefly. He exchanged a look with Robin.
These people don’t even know, Robin thought distantly. She felt even colder and icier now. Her fingertips and her left foot felt numb. There was something off about her circulation. They don’t even know.
Disguising her reaction, she turned back to the enemy. “I see,” she said coldly. “Your own officers turned on you after your mission had failed. How like the World Government.”
Doscaballos flinched, then stared back at her heavily, face darkening. Criminal scum, she could read in his eyes, and she waited to hear him say as much, too. But then his closed his mouth, his expression calmer, wearier, broken. He looked away, muttering something she couldn’t catch.
“Yeah, let it go, Corporal – I mean, Doscaballos,” said the stocky man. “Like hell we’re going to stand up for those fuckin’ bastards anymore. They only want us dead now, anyway.” He looked up at the Strawhats again, anger and bitterness contorting his features. “But if you think we mutinied easily just ‘cause we were a penal battalion, well… I’m used to commanders that make bloody stupid decisions and let the other ranks suffer for it. But this time… we were still weak and bleeding after fighting you, and had only started patching each other up, when suddenly those fuckin’ collars went off all over the place and the top guy was yellin’ we should all just die like rats.”
Franky scowled. “Oh,” he muttered under his breath, so quiet only Robin could catch it. “That kind of officer.”
The stocky man didn’t notice or didn’t care. He just paused for breath and then went on,
“Some decent officers stuck up for us and tried to stop him, but they got cut down or shot for their trouble, most o’ them. Captain Fredericks over there happened to survive.”
He nodded towards the baggler. One of them, with greying black hair, an atrocious felt hat and one arm in a sling, shook his head. Robin recognised him from the battle.
“Not a captain any more, Villa, remember?” he said in a tired, patient tone, as if this was hardly the first time he’d had to point this out. “Just call me Fredericks. I’m just as demoted and condemned as you are.”
The stocky man – Villa, apparently – shrugged at the ex-Captain. “Even so, that don’t mean I can’t show respect for someone who stood up for his platoon and lost his grade and damn near his life for it.” He’d half turned around towards his crewmate now, but Robin got the impression he was at least half speaking for the Strawhats’ benefit, that he wanted them to know they had a decent officer among them. As if that little fact could change anything.
“Way I see it, that makes you more of a captain than any of those bastard morons could be,” Villa added, to a general murmur of assent in his crew. Doscaballos only nodded, but it was a firm and definite motion, actually a bit reminiscent of Zoro.
“Exactly,” said the short man with long arms. “You stood up for us, Cap. We’re not gonna forget that.” He at least would have belonged to Fredericks’ platoon, Robin assumed, as they both had faced her in the fight. That made four deserters she could remember from the island. The rest were probably survivors from other units.
“Anyway...” Villa turned back to the pirates, looking mostly at Zoro. “We still didn’t do anything until they wanted to force some of us to count the others and kill every eighth man, no matter who it was. As is we’d already rebelled. So we figured enough was enough and refused to do it.” He stopped talking abruptly, looking away. Though he seemed to struggle not to show anything, there were clear signs of pain and rage on his face.
“Then what happened?” asked Robin in a flat voice. She spoke more from a lifelong habit of collecting information wherever possible than out of true interest. The story so far hadn’t done anything for her, and her inexpressive face was no mask, now, but simply a reflection of the blank emptiness inside her. Her hands were still trembling with that same alien unfelt rage.
Villa, composed again, gave her a sharp look. “Don’t you look interested,” he said drily. “Though… why should you be? You’re the Demon of Ohara. Still…” He considered a moment, then muttered slowly, “…still, someone ought to know this, even so.”
Let someone know what happened after we’re gone, even if it’s only our killers… Robin could follow that reasoning. She allowed him one nod.
Villa went on, fairly matter-of-fact, now. “Collars exploded, or doled out heavy shocks; everyone started shooting or slashing or running for cover… Many soldiers died pretty quickly.” Over on the baggler, the crew nodded, their faces darker and more distant while they listened.
“Some were just trampled,” said Villa. “Those who were able to jumped aboard a ship and lit out of there. At the same time, the seakings were going haywire as well.”
“That’s right,” said Doscaballos, taking over as Villa fell silent. He, too, seemed to make an effort to speak dispassionately. “Actually, they’d been doing that for a while,” he continued, “ever since you guys destroyed the commander’s whistle and killed their leader.”
He paused, then, his face briefly contorted in something like anger, or perhaps pain. He wasn’t looking at the pirates now, but off to the side. Lost in memories, perhaps – but he wasn’t trembling, Robin noted.
Villa cleared his throat and said in a hoarse voice, “Yeah, and then eventually we realised most of the high command were already gone – once they realised the tide wasn’t turning their way, they’d grabbed the biggest, fastest ship and left. But,” he remarked bitterly, “not before trying to sink or set fire to what remained of our ships.”
He went on, more quietly, “So there we were, left in that blood-drenched place, surrounded by the corpses of our friends. Also, by then we’d found out some of those monsters were amphibious.”
“Huh?” said Franky. “Whaddya mean? Seakings that can breathe in air ‘n’ stuff?”
Doscaballos nodded darkly, without looking up. “And crawl up on land… They crawl slowly, but they’re still fast with their long necks and fangs and their slicing fins.” His voice sank even more as he added, “Not to mention there seemed to be something else around in that place…” Then he blinked, shook himself and schooled his features before meeting their gazes again.
“Hn, so,” he said. “No point hanging around on that island any longer than we’d have to. Sooner or later they’d send new troops to secure the place and shoot us all down, anyway.”
He and Villa, with some more interjections from their crew, went on to explain how their small group of survivors had taken the only functional vessel left, which happened to be the baggler (or gin-rower, as Doscaballos insisted on calling it), loaded it down with food and fresh water, and had only waited to make a funeral pyre for their fallen comrades before leaving. As they spoke, they seemed to alternate between growing yet more angry and bitter, and shying away from that, making efforts to sound cold and in control again.
Robin listened and heard every word, but in her mind she was far away now. This was… this was, in one way, not too unlike that moment when she’d stood at the balcony of the Tower of Justice, as that utter fool of a Cipher Pol boss had kept going on about the Buster Call and relished throwing her childhood trauma into her face. In another way, it was not like that at all, because then she’d been burning with a sickening mix of anger, fear and despair: but now she was only hard and cold.
But still... it had all came back to her, then, as she’d looked over the abyss and seen not her crewmates there but Ohara, burning; she’d heard the nightmarish sounds and smells from her memory, just as powerless remembering as she’d been when living through it. Until Luffy’s clear voice had broken through the spell, and the sight of a burning flag had outshone the fires in her head…
Of course these men before her were nothing like Spandam. They might well have enjoyed some vengeful satisfaction, if they had known why these pirates had it in for them. But they didn’t know. Yet their words, as they told their story, were just as good at bringing back what had been buried. In her mind, the sights, sounds and smells of that terrible day and place were there with her again, as vivid as the worst of nightmares.
The place the Strawhats were now sailing back to. Perhaps they were all just insane.
The two leaders stopped talking, having nothing more to say. There was a long, thick silence.
“Well, isn’t that a sad story.” Nami’s voice rang out, cold and harsh. She stood even more ramrod straight than before. “Do you expect us to be moved by that? Oh, sure, you may only be hapless grunts… but are we supposed to believe you had any trouble ambushing us? That you minded being asked to attack infamous pirates?”
“Of course not,” said Robin. “Marines will fight pirates: it is only to be expected. We are enemies, after all.” She turned her head a little, glancing at her crewmates. “I am in no doubt as to what these people would do to us, if our positions of strength were reversed.”
“But we’re not Marines any longer,” said ex-Captain Fredericks. He spoke gently, almost conciliatory – he spoke as someone who’s lost all hope, and therefore can afford to be kind, thought Robin indifferently. “We don’t have to act that way now,” he added. “Neither do you.”
“Never mind that, Captain Fredericks,” said Villa roughly. This time, he didn’t turn around but kept his gaze steady on the Strawhats, his face pale and set, mouth twisted. “These guys ain’t gonna listen to something like that,” he growled.
Zoro looked at his crewmates and said, slowly, “Might be kinder to cut them down now than to let them go as they are. They can’t survive long in that small, beat-up thing. I wouldn’t give them a fortnight.”
Robin frowned. I don’t see why we should be kind to these people. Although his assessment was no doubt correct. Maybe Zoro was also thinking something like, At least they’d die in battle - and with an honest enemy, at that, not stabbed in the back by their own officers. Zoro was likely to care about that.
And if they did kill them now, she thought suddenly, the four of them would be tied together with the weight of the deed – the guilt, perhaps.
Then she would not feel so alone.
She recognised that this was a rather strange way of reasoning, and not one Luffy would have approved of. The thought was still there, though.
“I don’t wanna let these guys go, just like that,” muttered Franky harshly, looking down at his hands on the railing. “The thought just sticks in my craw.” He looked up, over at the other three. Like all of them, he’d made no effort to lower his voice, not caring if the enemy heard him.
Robin, Zoro and Nami all nodded silently, but Robin wasn’t sure she liked where the shipwright might be going. His face seemed harder than she’d ever seen it.
“And I really don’t wanna help them,” he went on. He cast a quick look over at the beat-up baggler, his large fingers drumming on the railing. Robin wondered if, despite his words, there might not be an instinctive professional urge in him to patch up those holes, no matter who sailed the vessel.
“But doin’ something like that…” Franky sighed heavily. “Not sure if you guys could really handle that, Zoro-bro, Nami-sis. And…” A pause; his gaze grew more distant now, not really looking at anything.
Then, reluctantly, as if the words were dragged out of him, he said in a lower voice, “It’s just that… I just figure… it’s not what Captain Usopp would have done.” Another pause. “You know?” he added, almost apologetic.
Robin felt her face go white; she made a small, choking sound of dismay. No, no… Don’t say that… Below her, she caught Nami and Zoro both flinching.
“Ah… Th-that’s…” Nami stuttered, then stopped talking, eyes wide. Zoro closed his eyes and stood very silently for a while, one hand stretched out to grab the railing, muscle clenching.
Then Nami’s expression changed, her eyes filled up with an understanding Robin didn’t want to see there. And Zoro looked up again, now managing a very twisted smile in Franky’s direction. It looked just a little odd on Zoro’s face. “You turning into Chopper now?” he said to the shipwright.
“But…” said Robin, glancing down at the confused-looking and still very pale and practically hopeless ex-Marines. They took him away from us, she wanted to say. Forever. They may just be low-level grunts, but they’re still part of the side who did that. They broke our faith in ourselves. They may have broken our captain for good.
If we’re just content to let them go, how can we look ourselves in the eye, after that?
But she knew that Franky was right. She also knew that Chopper and Brook would have agreed with him, if they’d been awake (they’d have said the same much earlier, in fact). Likely Sanji, too – eventually.
“You’re right,” she muttered, not looking up. Part of her loathed having to admit that, but, she realised now, another part was relieved. The cold inside her was retreating, and so was the rage. She wasn’t trembling anymore.
Continued here with the end of Chapter 6.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 10:11 am (UTC)I think in the end they're going with what Usopp would have done because they're not sure what Luffy would have done, if Luffy was, well... better.
And the marines...I almost feel like the Straw Hats because I DON'T want to sympathize with them but I DO anyway, which is so very Oda-esque of you.
That's a terrific compliment. Thank you VERY much.