IT RETURNS. Thank you for your patience, everyone!
Goji forgets.
He doesn't know how Reiju does it, manages to keep her head held high, even in the face of war and murder and people are dying and he is killing them he never wanted this-
So he forgets it. The modifications do half the job for him anyways. Somehow, he had managed to escape with some of his empathy intact (a boon Goji is fairly sure is due to his past life), but even now he can feel the gaping difference.
He embraces it. Sucks it in, holds it like a breath of air. Suffocates.
(After all, emptiness hurts a little less than regret, doesn't it? Better nothing than something.)
His hands take life after life after life in the name of his father (no, just judge, that monster is not his father), and he lets himself fall. There wasn't any point. His goal had been accomplished. There was nothing left to do. A future? He doesn't want one. He can still remember the first rebellion his father had sent him to put down, back when he was around nine years of age. He's ten and sent off- not to fight, but-
massacre.
He was only nine.
She was only 24, now.
The raid suit on his back flares with both a deep purple and a sticky, sticky red. Warm iron and copper clings and pools in his mouth, clogging the back of his throat. It drips into his stomach with a viscosity that makes him want to puke.
Ah, He had thought back then, numb to the world and the war around him. So this is how it is to take a life.
(Ah, she thought, I don't want to feel this anymore.)
The knot in his chest tightens, and he drowns it under waves and waves of water instead. He washes that caring away, and the only thing he leaves behind is Live and Sanji will return.
Sanji will return, and then-
maybe-
At first, it's the little things he gives up on. The amount of time it takes for him to step in front of the victim. The seconds it takes for him to protest the abuse of their staff. The amount of time he contemplates rebelling against his father.
(The frequency he visits his mother's grave.)
Everything inches forward in margins. Seconds. Days. Years.
Tick. Tock.
Faster, faster, faster. Please.
He trains, kills, falls asleep. Wakes up, repeats. He's still the strongest, still the fastest, still the most skilled. He had to be. Won't let himself falter. Not until the end, when he could be free from Germa 66 and free from his father and free, free, free.
(… Does he really deserve freedom?)
Once, Goji wonders why he tries. It takes him a minute to place Sanji's name to the face to the importance, and that scares him deeply.
"The first issue I would like to order as commander," He speaks gently, voice carrying across the salty breeze, "Is to ban any and all attempts to save me from blows that would be lethal to your own person." A pause. He can feel the stare of his father burning into his back, even from so far away. "I would prefer to train my own reflexes, and I require realistic scenario in order to do so. A commander cannot become to reliant on minions, lest they lose their own skill. I must continuously endeavor to further my limit of power, and I refuse to let anything interfere."
It's the least he can do, really. At least a few deaths would stay off his conscience. He could protect his own.
Rebellion after rebellion, battle after battle, Goji wins war after war and loses more than he could have ever thought he could. Reiju doesn't interest him anymore, his brothers are only a mild annoyance. Everything turns blank, stained only with the purple they had placed upon his shoulders.
Not that he lets himself mind. He chose this path. Minimize damage. Do what he has to. A balance. Protect and obey. Which one to do? He doesn't know. It's so much easier to obey, after all.
Eventually, he grows sick and tired of watching enemies turn to stone and crumble away, tired of watching red splash on his suit, tired of violet in his hair. Waking up is a nuisance, and training is the only relief.
His Raid Suit is ugly.
Like, really ugly.
Why the hell Oda tried to make a power-rangers fusion was beyond him, really. The powers were nice, he supposed, feeling his eyes burn from inside his skull. Strong. Easy to match up with his brothers. Easier.
He had always trained harder than them, after all. Besides, he didn't rely on weird technology half as much, so he liked to think he was better at fighting without. Though they were quite helpful. Modifications to his 'Life Map' (or whatever they called it, Goji didn't really care) really did seem to maximize a lot of his fighting efficiency. Cost? Empathy.
Well, he had always wanted to be strong. Here was his wish. A wish of power. Running and fighting and pushing, mixed now with something akin to Medusa and purple and lack of emotional pain.
(Goji was, of course, going to use it all to kill people.
...
… Let's not think about that.)
One afternoon, washing up after spending half his day swimming, he catches a glance of himself in the mirror. It's strange, even now, to see something so different than what he had seen for more than half his life.
Goji studies his own face for a long minute, drinking in the sight of his reflection with a rare thirst for something from the past. Well, that wasn't meant to be. Not even a girl, not anymore. Sad.
He had the same curly eyebrows as most of his family, he notes absentmindedly, with a strong jaw. How eyebrow shape managed to stay spiraled through hereditary genes, he'll never know. Annoyingly enough, his eyes are small and beady, so different from Reiju's larger pupils. Ugly. The blond hair his mother had loved is gone. Instead, it's long and shiny and violently purple. Ugly.
… Which scientists decided on these aesthetic choices, anyways?
He looks…
… Goji doesn't like it.
The next morning, he ties a blindfold over his eyes. He doesn't take it off.
Judge is not happy. Goji just barely manages to bullshit his ass out of that one. Something about honing reflexes and shit.
Training is hell for the next few months. His father literally does not seem to understand the words of going easy and getting used to it. So he ends up spending the first three months being ruthlessly beaten up the entire time, whee. His brothers in particular, they enjoy playing Try to Kill the Blind Man.
He's in the infirmary a lot, to say the least.
Well, at least he knows how Sanji felt. God, his brothers are fucking assholes.
"Goji, I must insist you see sense in taking that thing off," Reiju sighs in exasperation, pinching the bridge of her nose. That was Reiju-speak for 'stop being a goddamn idiot'. "I truly don't understand why you continue to keep it on."
A soft laugh, hoarse and tired. "Sorry, Rei-nee. I… Just like it." Sure, it's hard now, but. Surely it would get a little better. So he didn't have to watch himself doing whatever Judge ordered him to do. Doesn't have to watch himself see the blood he's spilling. Selfish, but just a little thing like this-it didn't matter, did it?
And if it didn't get better, maybe he wouldn't have to go back at all (As if Judge would let that happen).
Goji is glad Reiju bears with him so much throughout the years; She's kind in a way his brothers could never be. He would never be able to stand it, if he was surrounded by sociopathic robots. As much as interest fails him now, they've been through a lot together.
"Reiju."
"Goji."
"..."
"Are you happy now? I warned you not to go through with the surgery, you know. It's not what Mother would have wanted."
"I know."
"Do you."
"... I just. Need to be stronger. For when. For when I can leave. Or… For something. I want to survive." He sucks in a breath. "... Just. I… H-have to wonder. Though. Does… Being so empty always fe-feel so bad?" A crack. He doesn't know why. It feels so muted.
He hates it.
Reiju sneaks into his room that night, rocking him to sleep. She's gone by daylight.
His older sister eyes him, disbelief flickering through. More open than she'd be with anyone else. "Easier? I'll remind you this is the seventh time you've landed in the infirmary bed. In the span of a month."
"... I know. It's… just… Hmm, it's just lighter. I think."
(He likes to think he is mysterious. Reiju is just concerned.)
Another month into narrowly avoiding the daily fratricide attempt at the hands of the 1-through-4-Ji (not including number 3) mgang, things get weird. And, of course, not in his immediate favor. Why, one might ask?
Guess who forgot that Haki was a thing!
He's an idiot, you know. Had he really gotten that out of touch with his memories? Nobody really talked about Haki much, considering it could really just be replaced with all the technology they had around here-And due to the fact that science was not his forte-but still. Really.
But hey! No more getting his ass beat by his brothers. No more seeing blood. Being able to predict attacks was really helpful, as well.
… This was better, wasn't? Carefully, carefully. Less blood on his hands. Less blood. Not nearly as bad, right?
Wrong, he discovers, on his first night back on duty. Wrong, he finds, when he can see so many more people so clearly, everywhere and all the time and always. Wrong, he sees, when lights flicker out like candles without so much a pop.
It is so hard to spare people. The chasm in his gut grows.
… Life moves on, no matter how many he takes.
Sanji.
Come back to take me away from here, come back to kill me.
I want to meet you one more time. Maybe then-
Maybe then, I can remember why I cared so much.
Do you think your captain could pull a miracle on someone like me?
(Of course he can. He's Luffy.)
The bounty papers lining his walls become a lifeline, despite how ugly Sanji looks in his. (... Isn't it the wrong guy?)
...
He'll make it. Goji will make it. He'll see them. Real life anime characters, how fascinating! It would be fun, to have a real adventure. A real, real adventure, where he can smile freely and not have to feel Judge looming down on him.
Ah, wouldn't it be nice to join Luffy's crew? A real-life fantasy. A real-life dream. Kind of sad, to be pining after your disowned brother's crew from however many miles away. But from what he remembers from the show, they were all having so much fun, weren't they? He liked to fantasize, just a little, what life on the Sunny would be like.
Brook would sing songs, make skull jokes, and probably would have asked to see his underwear, if he had still been a girl. Zoro would spar, drink some sake, grin and be his weird self with his grumpy naps and undying loyalty. Usopp would tell some tall-tale, Goji could tell another. Share stories from their home-her real home. Chopper would probably freak out over his Exoskeleton being dented in the first time, and then melt in the praise Goji would inevitably dump him in. He was, of course, adorable. Nami would extort the hell out of him, Robin would smile mysteriously (she was probably a lot better at it than he was), and Franky would do something involving cola-powered ships and transformers and the raid suit.
Sanji would smile at him, wide and bright and still with that stupid dumb cancer stick of his, and be happy.
And Goji? Goji would smile and laugh and cry and forget about everything that had happened and finally have his stupid happy ending. The end.
It would be happy. So warm and happy.
Luffy solved everything, one way or another. He wondered if he was worthy enough to get that stupid-meaningful hat schtick.
Probably not.
Well, either way, Goji wants to have that dream, if nothing else. It's a nice thought, something more than him. A fantastical dream life, one just for him. Selfish and quiet as it was, it was so nice. He couldn't stop thinking about it, sometimes.
Selfish, selfish.
Maybe Reiju could come with him. Maybe they could find a way to fix his brothers. Maybe they could leave their Germa days far behind them. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Dream a dream of happiness, dream a dream of freedom.
Goji might not have a future, but he'll make it there anyways.
… Please don't hate me, Sanji.
He's off putting down another rebellion when the news arrives.
"Prince Goji. Your long-lost brother has been recovered. Prince Sanji, he's coming back!"
He's days away from home, right now.
(Reiju always found ways to sneak around Father's orders.)
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