"Oi, Sanji."
He glanced up, taking his eyes away from the skyline as the Mary floated along the water.
"Yeah, Luffy?" he asked, pulling the cigarette from his mouth to flick the ash from the end into the water below.
"Why d'you always keep your hair in your eyes?"
Sanji smiled a bit at that. "Stupid question, Luffy. Boring answer."
"So, what's this deal about anyway?"
Sanji plodded along, hand in his pockets. It was clear his early age by the sloppy way he dressed; over-sized, short sleeved button up in a faded pink and baggy jeans. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the slightly spike, short-cropped hair up a bit more.
The pirate at his side chuckled to himself. "So impatient, Sanji, but we're glad to have you." The man next to Sanji was tall, thin, and wiry. Mst of his face was covered by bandages, only fully revealing his nose, his left eye, and the slightest corners of his mouth. He wore a long red coat and black shirt and pants underneath. His look was almost casual for a pirate.
"Ah, just get it over with, eh?" Sanji said, smirking. "I'm kinda lookin' forward to it, y'know?"
The taller man laughed again. "Right this way, then." He gestured to the pirate ship a few feet away.
Sanki and his companion walked inside, down to the underbelly of the ship. Three more pirates waited for them there. One was female, the other two male. It was too dark to make out many details other than the glinting colors of their eyes.
"So, this deal. What's in it for me?" Sanji asked, crossing his arms.
The lead pirate laughed to himself. "Well, if you accept, I can promise a great deal of power." He said.
"Oh yeah? What's the catch?"
"Your right eye."
Sanji went rigid. "My what?" he asked, almost horrified. "What exactly do you want with my eye?" he demanded. "What kind of freak are you?"
The pirate in the red coat tugged at one of the ends of his bandages. Instantly, they fell, falling around his shoulders and onto the floor. Where his own right eye should have been was a solid white orb with a black pentagram where the pupil would have normally been.
"You see, I wanna finish off this human body. I need one last thing—"
"Keep your hands off me, you weirdo!" Sanji exclaimed, stepping back. One of the pirates behind him stuck out their foot and he fell to the ground. He patted his sides for his gun and then realized he'd left it in his coat in the hotel he'd been staying at. "Shit…"
The red-clad pirate above him grabbed Sanji by his chin and yanked him upwards. "Now then, let's finish this."
Sanji couldn't react for a moment, the white-hot pain of a finger in his eye socket paralyzing him for a moment. When the other's hand twisted, he shrieked in agony and started grabbing at the taller man's hand, begging for him to stop as tears poured from the eye that wasn't in unimaginable pain.
When it was over, Sanji dropped to the floor, hands clamped over his now empty eye socket as he screamed and writhed on the floor in pain. He could feel blood mixing with tears and stinging his good eye as he tried to calm himself. He barely registered the red pirate's groaning as he pulled out his own white eye and replaced it with Sanji's.
"Move your hand, Sanji."
"N-no!"
"Move it!"
"No!"
"Damn it, Sanji, MOVE YOUR HAND!"
Another of the red-clad's comrades grabbed Sanji by the shoulder and yanked him to a sitting position and pulled his hands from his face.
Sanji was a mess. He was shaking like a leaf, sobbing uncontrollably as blood poured from his right eye. Small bits and flecks of flesh streaked his cheeks and dripped from his chin with the dark blood.
"Please…" he begged. "D-don't kill me, p-please…"
"Oh, I'm not gonna kill you, Sanji." The pirate said, jamming two fingers into Sanji's empty socket, grinning when he screamed. "I just wanna give you your end of the deal."
Sanji shrieked again as the man above him shoved the white eye into Sanji's empty socket. Once it was in, he was released to scream on the floor again. After a moment or two of him sobbing in agony, Sanji sat up, crawling to the back of the room. He carefully pulled his hand from his face.
What he saw was horrifying.
It was somewhere between this world and the one below. There was no way to describe it in full, but the horrors he witnessed made Sanji cover the new eye immediately.
The red pirate smiled and pulled a rifle from his pocket.
"N-no, please—"
He fired. One of his subordinates fell, but no one reacted. Another shot, another pirate, a third shot, and the final body went down.
"Please don't kill me." Sanji begged.
The red pirate grinned and fired a fourth shot—
- into his own skull.
Sanji screamed at the shot, feeling the bits of the man's brain spatter onto his face along with his own blood. He was panting, feeling like he was going to throw up, and God—
"Why… Why me?" he muttered before screaming again.
"Boring story?" Luffy repeated.
Sanji nodded. "Yeah. You wouldn't enjoy it, probably."
"Bad hair day?"
"Heh… You could say that."