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[Next Night] Reiju's Death
Oct. 3rd, 2020 08:20 pmReiju dances in battle.
For once -- a blessed relief -- she does not need to have any qualms or second thoughts about fighting to her utmost. She does not need to conceal distaste. They aren't slaughtering ragtag villagers trying to defend their homes, or doing the bidding of distasteful clients. She was willing to accept her death this day, but she feels no guilt in fighting for her life -- in fighting to protect Sanji's escape from the trap he willingly walked into so he could save the family who never, ever deserved him.
(Those witnessing this memory will see no specifics, but will feel, with a dim awareness that rides constantly in the back of Reiju's mind, the bitter regret she feels over the past, and over her brother's pain.)
In this battle, she fights for her life, and she fights against a strong pirate foe. Their hands are just as dirty, as bloody, as despotic as are the Vinsmokes'. She knows what Big Mom does to stay in power, and sees little or no difference between the pirate Empress and her own father, the mercenary king.
And there is a joy in battle. She was bred for it, designed for it -- engineered from conception to excel in a fight for her life. Her Raid Suit enwraps her, lending her power, speed, strength beyond her own already highly enhanced strength. She is a devil's fruit eater, condemned to the ocean's eternal enmity, but she dances above the waves, the jets in her boots letting her hover and flicker through the air as fast as a thought. Her mouth is full of the acid bitterness of her poisons, and to her, it is delicious. A favored flavor, strong and complex and constantly changing as she exhales weapons and draws arrows of pure acridity from her lips.
Her leg aches slightly -- a reminder of the gift from her would-be sister-in-law, although the wound has almost fully healed. That, too, is a gift from her father's hands, a part of her engineering. A bullet to the center of her thigh would have crippled a normal human, but she is barely off her fighting peak. And the small pain is a welcome reminder that she cannot dismiss the guns of the Big Mom Pirates; her exoskeleton is not strong enough to withstand the bullets they engineered specifically to kill Vinsmokes.
She is aware of her brothers' positions in the running battle to escape from the trap laid for them; they flicker above the water as she does, Niji with his bright flashes of lighting and the miniature thunderclaps that result, Yonji with the creaking of ropes and winches as his extended arms snake across the battlefield, and Ichiji's explosions send shock waves rippling across the water.
Those shock waves are getting closer. As she darts around a group of pirates armed with strange, soft-looking candy weapons (they might look soft, but she knows they are deadly), an explosion blasts seawater into the air all around her, a shower that is not enough to down her entirely but leaves her soaked, her skin tingling unpleasantly with the contact.
She is a devil's fruit eater. The sea hates her.
A rain of arrows spun from pure poison impale the pirates threatening her, but one casts a weapon in the instant before he dies. She dodges away from it, not trusting to her exoskeleton to protect her -- and as she is mid-dodge, her balance off-center and her jets sideways rather than directly under her, another shock wave, closer and stronger, strikes her --
Bowls her over, sends her plunging down into the cruel waves.
The instant she hits the water, her body goes limp. All the genetic engineering, all the power of the Raid Suit, none of it avails her. She cannot move. The ocean paralyzes her, grabs her and drags her down into its darkness.
Where are her brothers? Where is her father? Did none of them see her fall? Have none of them noticed her sudden absence from the battle? Her brothers did not receive devil's fruits. They can swim. They could come get her, haul her out of the water and into the light. But she watches the surface recede, the wavering sunlight grow dim as she sinks, and feels the crushing weight of the ocean's waters and enmity suffocating the life from her.
She thinks back to her words to Sanji, when she encouraged him to leave the Vinsmokes behind to die and save himself.
I'm an accomplice. My hands are covered in blood. I deserve to die too.
Her only regret as the darkness takes her is that she will be the only Vinsmoke to die today.
For once -- a blessed relief -- she does not need to have any qualms or second thoughts about fighting to her utmost. She does not need to conceal distaste. They aren't slaughtering ragtag villagers trying to defend their homes, or doing the bidding of distasteful clients. She was willing to accept her death this day, but she feels no guilt in fighting for her life -- in fighting to protect Sanji's escape from the trap he willingly walked into so he could save the family who never, ever deserved him.
(Those witnessing this memory will see no specifics, but will feel, with a dim awareness that rides constantly in the back of Reiju's mind, the bitter regret she feels over the past, and over her brother's pain.)
In this battle, she fights for her life, and she fights against a strong pirate foe. Their hands are just as dirty, as bloody, as despotic as are the Vinsmokes'. She knows what Big Mom does to stay in power, and sees little or no difference between the pirate Empress and her own father, the mercenary king.
And there is a joy in battle. She was bred for it, designed for it -- engineered from conception to excel in a fight for her life. Her Raid Suit enwraps her, lending her power, speed, strength beyond her own already highly enhanced strength. She is a devil's fruit eater, condemned to the ocean's eternal enmity, but she dances above the waves, the jets in her boots letting her hover and flicker through the air as fast as a thought. Her mouth is full of the acid bitterness of her poisons, and to her, it is delicious. A favored flavor, strong and complex and constantly changing as she exhales weapons and draws arrows of pure acridity from her lips.
Her leg aches slightly -- a reminder of the gift from her would-be sister-in-law, although the wound has almost fully healed. That, too, is a gift from her father's hands, a part of her engineering. A bullet to the center of her thigh would have crippled a normal human, but she is barely off her fighting peak. And the small pain is a welcome reminder that she cannot dismiss the guns of the Big Mom Pirates; her exoskeleton is not strong enough to withstand the bullets they engineered specifically to kill Vinsmokes.
She is aware of her brothers' positions in the running battle to escape from the trap laid for them; they flicker above the water as she does, Niji with his bright flashes of lighting and the miniature thunderclaps that result, Yonji with the creaking of ropes and winches as his extended arms snake across the battlefield, and Ichiji's explosions send shock waves rippling across the water.
Those shock waves are getting closer. As she darts around a group of pirates armed with strange, soft-looking candy weapons (they might look soft, but she knows they are deadly), an explosion blasts seawater into the air all around her, a shower that is not enough to down her entirely but leaves her soaked, her skin tingling unpleasantly with the contact.
She is a devil's fruit eater. The sea hates her.
A rain of arrows spun from pure poison impale the pirates threatening her, but one casts a weapon in the instant before he dies. She dodges away from it, not trusting to her exoskeleton to protect her -- and as she is mid-dodge, her balance off-center and her jets sideways rather than directly under her, another shock wave, closer and stronger, strikes her --
Bowls her over, sends her plunging down into the cruel waves.
The instant she hits the water, her body goes limp. All the genetic engineering, all the power of the Raid Suit, none of it avails her. She cannot move. The ocean paralyzes her, grabs her and drags her down into its darkness.
Where are her brothers? Where is her father? Did none of them see her fall? Have none of them noticed her sudden absence from the battle? Her brothers did not receive devil's fruits. They can swim. They could come get her, haul her out of the water and into the light. But she watches the surface recede, the wavering sunlight grow dim as she sinks, and feels the crushing weight of the ocean's waters and enmity suffocating the life from her.
She thinks back to her words to Sanji, when she encouraged him to leave the Vinsmokes behind to die and save himself.
I'm an accomplice. My hands are covered in blood. I deserve to die too.
Her only regret as the darkness takes her is that she will be the only Vinsmoke to die today.
