Her vision blurred, but those crystal blue eyes remained wide open. She kept staring at the azure blue sky, her head lying on the cobbled floor, the blood bath around her long forgotten. The sky was the prettiest of blues that day, but even the clouds seemed to slow merge into the all-surrounding sky. Her life liquid slowly seeped out as the battle raged on and on, another body, another slowly dying soul forgotten and tossed aside in the hope for a greater good. What was she to the meaning of justice? Just another tool. No one cared if she vanished.
She sighed, as the edges of her vision started turning black.
All of a sudden, another blob appeared in her view, putting pressure on her severe, most likely fatal, wound, and shouting at her. What was it saying? All she heard were muffled shouts, and slowly, little by little, she was dragged under, down into the pit-less, endless black abyss, the blob becoming smaller and smaller as she fell deeper and deeper. Yet, those crystal blue eyes never once closed.
Where was she?
Floating about in the endless abyss, she felt light, nothing weighing her down. Nothing. Those crystal blue eyes were still open, but they were blank. Nothing reflected in them, not a shed of light. She didn't know how long she had been there. Minutes? Days? Time didn't pass here.
She felt herself grow lighter and lighter in all eternity, before she was rudely dragged back from the endless pit into the blinding light. How long has it been since she saw light?
Those crystal blue eyes flickered open in reality, and blinked several times, slowly readjusting to the white light shining directly above her. Why was it so bright? Could someone dim it? It hurt her eyes. Her mouth moved, slowly, silently. No words emerged at first, but little by little, the words came out. Her voice was rusty and raspy, as if it hadn't been used in a while. How long has it been?
A pink-topped figure was suddenly thrust into her view, and she blinked again, the sudden loss of light a surprise. There was some muffled shouting, but as she got use to reality once again, the words slowly became clearer. "… blink!"
Blink? She blinked. Those crystal blue eyes reflected uncertainty as her vision cleared, revealing a pink-haired boy, no older than eighteen, looking down worriedly at her, before disappearing from her line of sight. Painfully, gently, slowly, she turned her head to her side, those crystal blue eyes following the direction to where the pink-haired boy with round glasses was waiting desperately for an answer from what seemed to be a snail with a sleeping mask.
Those crystal blue eyes blinked, before finally closing relaxingly for the first time in an indefinite period of time. She fell into the wondrous world of dreams.
"Belo belo belo! Belo belo belo!"
The baby Den Den Mushi that sat comfortably on his side table hadn't stop ringing for the past few minutes. Usually by then, people would have stopped calling on the account that he was asleep. He had been, a few minutes ago, but this persistent pink-haired fellow by the name of Coby hadn't stop ringing. Finally awaken from his never-ending nap, he lazily stretched forward and picked up the tiny receiver. "Hello?"
The next few words had him shake off the drowsiness of sleep, and walking away with unusually large strides, his rarely worn white Marine coat flaring out behind him, and the Den Den Mushi in his palm.
"Admiral? She's up!"
She was rudely awoken from her beautiful dream by the same pink-haired boy, who had poked her side a few times too many. How long has it been? Can't he let her sleep? But another person seemed to have joined the boy. A tall man with a sleeping mask. He seemed familiar.
The admiral had rushed, or walked rather quickly, given his usual strolling pace, to the infirmary on the ground level from his office on the second top level, when Coby had informed him she was awake. The pink baby Den Den Mushi now laid on the mini-side table, next to her bed in the private room of the infirmary, next to his own personalized baby snail phone. Those crystal blue eyes stared blankly, slowly assessing him. He fiddled nervously with the small, velvet box in one of his infinite pockets. He finally cleared his throat after a few quiet moments, and her crystal blue eyes flickered off his face. "You're awake. How are you feeling?"
No response was given, and the beeping of the heart monitoring system was the only sound that echoed throughout the large room. Coby had moved a respectable distance away, dozing on the nearby couch in the private, enclosed room. The new pink-haired, round-glasses recruit had been friends with the light blue-haired female, and was exhausted from watching her day after day.
Admiral Aokiji moved his own large hand to gently touch her flawless cheek, and she visibly flinched at the contact of his ice-cold hand on her contrasting warm skin. But his eyes narrowed so very slightly when she didn't relax into his touch.
He knew he had his hopes up when she weakly moved his hand. His heart jumped when she jerkishly reached out to touch his ice-cold hand, before the fragile organ plummeted when she gave a light push to his hand, moving it away from her face. She smashed his heart mercilessly with her next few words. "I'm sorry, but I don't know you."
Aokiji felt his heart shatter there and then. The only woman that had managed to become the fire to his ice heart had turned into a knife to the thawed and tender organ. He could only watched, soullessly, as she turned to face away from him, puling the IV drip attached to her slightly looser before falling back asleep. Coby had jumped up sometime between her words, and was now hovering worriedly over the sleeping form, all tiredness forgotten. She can't remember? It was only a 13% chance that she would contract amnesia from her injuries. Were they that unlucky?
Aokiji pulled his wandering hand away from her, as if the air around her was solely enough to burn him. Standing up, he strolled out of the room. His heart burned. Even though he felt as if he couldn't hate anything or anyone more than her at the moment, her, who played with his heart and left him defenseless, he didn't have the heart to slam the door behind him. After all, it really wasn't her fault.
It all begun with that stupid order for her to join the base on Sugarcandy Island, located right smack in the middle of the New World. The island was dangerous beyond words, with strong pirate crews that have survived the torrent of the New World, including Yonkou crews, docking there to have their supplies refilled. He had begged Sengoku himself not to send her there, and had even offered to take her place. But that stupid man refused, insisting that the admiral was needed in HQ, and that it was her duty, as a Marine of Justice, to protect the residents on the island.
The frame of the door started to crumble under the strength of his clutch, and yet, he ignored it, continuing in his angry memories.
Reluctantly, he had allowed her to leave HQ for Sugarcandy Island, of course, not before giving her one of his private Den Den Mushi so she could stay in contact with him no matter where she was. That teasing smile she threw at him before she and her crew disappeared beyond the horizon was unknowingly, his last. The next thing he heard, a bloody war had broken out between the Marines and the Whitebeard pirates. He had ignored all orders, vetoed all missions, grabbed his bike, and cycled as fast he could to the island. He was too late. The war had already ended, and his beloved was losing her life fast, the life liquid rapidly draining out of her from her multiple wounds. She had come up against the Commanders, the First and the Fourth, judging from the many bruises and the stab and slash wounds littering her body and her limbs. Those crystal blue eyes were fading as he applied force onto one of her more fatal ones, the slash at her neck, while shouting at her to stay awake and for medical attention.
By the time they got to her, she was in a coma for blood loss.
The ice spread slowly, but thickly across the wooden door, the Marines in the general infirmary looking curiously on.
Aokiji suddenly straightened to his full height, brushed his rarely worn jacket, and pulled out yet another baby Den Den Mushi, this one, a direct line to the highest power in the Marines.
Sengoku sighed as he picked up yet another phone call from one of his multiple snail phones on his desk. These calls have been never-ending since the fight with the Whitebeards, and the paperwork seemed to have an infinite source, with the end target of drowning him. But his attention was grabbed from whatever he had been doing when the voices of one of the three admirals came through. "Fleet Admiral. You had better come down to the infirmary. She's awake."
The top dog immediately re-thought his decision to ignore the call after the last word was practically growled through the phone. "Now."
He had never heard Aokiji this mad before. Saints above, could Aokiji even get mad?
Sengoku quickly shuffled all his paperwork one side, switched off all his phones, before hurrying down the many flights of stairs to the infirmary from his top floor office. He thought and rethought his conversation with his Admiral as he eventually reached the ground level. What had made the usually laid-back officer growl?
The Fleet Admiral, with the question in mind, wandered mindlessly into the infirmary, under the shower of one-handed salutes from the injured soldiers, who felt honored that their Fleet Admiral had taken his precious time off to visit them. But Sengoku completely ignored them, instead choosing to stroll quietly through the half-frozen, half-crumbling door of the private room, and closing the door gently behind him, leaving the injured confused. Who exactly was in that room that was so important?
The girl didn't stir an inch from her sleep, and neither did Aokiji from his nearby seat, as Sengoku slipped in, unnoticed. He took one look at the girl lying innocently on the bed, and at the depressed Admiral, before he took a deep breath, and sighed, announcing his previously unknown presence in the room. Aokiji looked up, acknowledging his arrival, standing up and walking to his side next to the enormous bed. "She woke up, but her condition… isn't that great."
With Aokiji looking on, Sengoku took his time to carefully analyze the girl's more visible injuries, being the great and famous strategist he is. Pulling the white comforter slightly off her, only for Aokiji to flinch, he ran two fingers from her unmarred face down to her bruised and brutally scarred neck. He could roughly guess what the rest of her would look like. According to his information, she had been fighting with the Whitebeard First Division Commander, Marco the Phoenix. They had been on par with each other, both receiving and dealing damage of their own, before the Fourth Division Commander stepped in to help. It was then that she could no longer cope, and down she went.
Removing his hand, he watched intrigued as the ice Admiral gently pulled the white sheet back over her small form, tucking her in, and eyeing her slightly as she tossed, sighed and slept on, hardly moved from her dreamland. He readjusted his cap before speaking again. "She seems pretty fine. Healing up nicely."
The temperature of the already cool room seemed to drop even further, as Aokiji redirected his eyes from Sengoku back down at the sleeping girl, those usually sleepy eyes zeroing in on a spot on the blanket. His voice trembled as he begun to spoke, and he knew he didn't sound much like himself, the bitterness too evident.
"She has amnesia." He mumbled to himself, under his breath.
Sengoku had already opened his mouth, prepared to ask the admiral to speak up, when Aokiji suddenly looked up, his eyes cold, hard and hurt. "She has amnesia, damn it! She doesn't remember anything! None of those three years we spent together! Not even me! And it's all your damn fault!"
The hot tears streaming down his face scotched his icy skin for the first-time in many years, plopping like grief-filled raindrops down onto the untainted blanket, struggling to compose himself. He reached down, forcing one clenched fist open to brush his fingers gently over her cheek. Suddenly, he straightened, redrawing a small, velvet box from the depths of his pocket. "I was planning to ask her after she returned."
He forcibly hurled the box at the ground, causing it to bounce a few times and open as he disappeared in a swirl of ice, the plain platinum ring rolling out off its box and finally dropping at the feet of the Fleet Admiral.
The sleeping girl didn't respond.