You heard of reincarnation? What if you could purchase your next life? One particular girl decides the OP universe would be a great heaven. But what if it turned out to be...not so heavenly?
Sometime later Suijin had cried himself to sleep. His head was resting on Aniko's lap and the rest of his body curled into a tiny ball. He was rather sweet when he was sleeping. His expression was peaceful.
"What are you going to do about him?" Marica whispered as not to wake him.
The girl stood with Suijin in her arms. "For now I'm just going to let him sleep in my bed. This one's covered in glass. We'll talk seriously when he wakes up."
She took him up to her room, being as gentle as she could. Marica fluttered down onto the bed and heaved with all her might, trying to pull away at the sheets. "I wish I could be in my larger form here." She muttered.
"I can do it." Aniko pulled back the covers and placed the boy down, tucking him in after. She smiled as she saw him wriggle down into a cosier position, sighing contently. "It's hard to believe he's 23."
"I know what you mean." Marica said, settling on her wooden dressers. "But he still isn't actually a 23 year old fishman, you know? He is human now. Whoever his angel is just made a really big mistake."
"You don't think he asked to remember like me?"
"No, he didn't seem to remember choosing this life. I think his angel messed up."
"But then why would he choose to be human. He doesn't seem to like them a whole lot."
Marica shrugged. "Who knows? Every universe is full of its own wonders..."
Aniko pulled back her drapes, bathing the room in a warm orange glow. The endless sky was highlighted in shades of red, yellow and pink, very amiable colours that put her in a soporific mood. She curled up on the cushions of her window seat, her chin resting on her folded arms. Gazing out over the golden countryside of Tandora she thought of her first day in the One Piece world. It was not how she expected it to be. It's been busy. That's for sure...
She questioned if she had really made the right choice in opting for this universe. She had understood things weren't going to be perfect, but she never thought it would be as terrible as this. What she had seen in just one day, she could never take it back. It was all too haunting to forget. Was this really what it was to live in this world? To always live in suffering, even if you're fairly well off. Or was it the same on Earth? She deemed here worse. She had assumed it would be fun; to an extent it had been fun for her, being with Yona, her Dad. And surprisingly she felt very much in her element solving crimes. She had always blown off detective work as a carer because of its harsh environment, but now that Aniko was accustomed to this upbringing she enjoyed it.
Nevertheless, she would give anything to go back to being Hannah. Every time she visualized how she lived then Aniko gained an untold nostalgic sentiment that filled her very being to the brim. She had only been here on Tandora for a day and already she felt that her original homeland was so very far away. It was just a hazy memory to her now, with no true confirmation of its reality. Had she ever really been Hannah or were she and Suijin just feverish.
She voiced some of her worries to Marica who chirped cheerfully in reply, "If you want to be Hannah so badly then just buy back that life."
"I can do that?!" Aniko exclaimed loudly in surprise.
"Uh, yeah." The blonde answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"But before you said-"
"That was before, this is now. Now I say you can go back to that life."
Exhilaration pushed back the anger she felt at Marica, knowing that she could go home. Not this home. Her real home. "I can go back... What are you waiting for Marica? Please, send me back!"
Marica assumed an apologetic expression as she mumbled shamefully, "I didn't mean right now..." At the sight of Aniko's glowing features change to a disheartened mope (with no trace of anger) the angel gained a guilty conscience. This she tried to rectify without delay. "You will be able to one day though, just...just not now."
"And by 'one day' I'm sure you mean after an entire lifetime." Aniko grumbled, proving to be inconsolable by the celestial being's words.
"Yes, I do," Marica admitted. She adopted her usual smiling face. "But it could be reasonably quick. It depends when you die."
The detective motioned for her to continue. "Go on?"
The unmistakable leather-bound rule book appeared into Marica's lap, albeit in a much smaller form than before. It was opened to a bookmarked page and the content was read aloud. "It says here 'a costumer is strictly not permitted to live the same life over twice consecutively or in a loop, however if by a small chance the costumer wishes to enter that time after they have lived a separate life they can go back to the initial existence without problems.' Thus you can be Hannah again after being Aniko but there's just the tinie-tiny problem of you not having enough Virtue points to buy back that life. To be exact you're actually close to being in debt..."
"You let me spend that much?!" Aniko cried heatedly, smacking the window frame in anger.
"I thought you would be able to earn it back! I would have told you if you were going into debt, but you weren't, plus it didn't seem necessary at the time..." Marica squeaked.
"Aurgh!" The girl let out a frustrated shout. She turned her back on Marica, once again looking outside, to the darkening sky. Bat-like creatures wavered in the air, finding comfort in the dulled sun-light where they were sure to find prey. Aniko liked dusk too.
She sighed and nibbled on her thumb uneasily as she calmed her irrational thoughts. She tried to look at things in the big picture. "So all your saying is that I have to get more points, right?"
Marica took a moment before replying, unsure of the best way to respond. She chose to answer frankly. "Essentially."
Aniko breathed in a deep moan and tapped her head lightly, as if to clear her mind. "And if I don't get these points before I die I can't buy the life back... Right. Good. I can do this. I just have to do as many good turns as possible. Be nice..." She visibly deflated. "This is going to be hard."
Her angel radiated an almost benevolent aura as she spoke. "You're a decent person Aniko. You just have to let the goodness shine through your exterior. Do what you think is right and everything should turn out A-OK."
"And I ought to keep in mind you say 'should' here, hn?"
Marica laughed nervously. "Ah... Yes, you probably should."
"You know," Aniko began conversationally, "You really have to tell me as much as you can in future. You said yourself I don't have a full set of memories yet so I'll definitely need as a good deal of filling in."
"I will." Marica agreed.
The detective snapped her fingers in remembrance. "Hey, that reminds me. You never told me what type of Devil Fruit I have. And I forgot to ask about it as well..."
"I was wondering about that too." The two ladies swivelled around to face Suijin, who was now fully conscious.
"Umm, Suijin? How long have you been awake for?"
"Just since that thing said about 'letting your goodness shine through' or whatever." He answered, pointing a finger to Marica.
"Oh, good." Aniko breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't hear too much then. The girl smiled kindly at Suijin with her newfound compassion. "You feeling better now Suijin?"
"I'm all right... Thanks." Suijin grumbled in embarrassment, recalling the tears he had shed. He quickly changed the topic, once again indicating Marica. "What is that anyway?"
"I have a name you know." The angle groused, folding her miniature arms over her chest.
"This is... a fairy. Her name is Marica."
The 'fairy' (as she had been dubbed) shot like a bullet towards her costumer, setting her feet down on Aniko's head with more force than was necessary. She leaned towards her ear and hissed, "A fairy! Really? That's all you could come up with?"
"Well what did you want me to say?" Aniko bit back in the same hushed tone. "There's nothing wrong with fairies. They're sweet creatures."
"That's what you think." Marica nestled herself into the mess of hair she sat upon, turning herself into some kind of furry cocoon.
"It doesn't look like any kind of fairy I've seen before." Suijin eyed Marica suspiciously. The angel scowled in response and tugged at her self-made shelter in protest, making Aniko wince.
"She's a rare kind. You wouldn't have seen one like Marica before. And she doesn't like to be referred to as 'it' or 'thing'." Then it was added for good measure, "Please don't wind each other up."
"No promises." Marica said. Suijin wrinkled his nose in distaste at her response; he clearly was thinking the same thing. It seemed they had already developed a mutual dislike.
In an attempt to break the tension between the two Aniko asked again about her Devil Fruit. "So, what powers do I have Marica? I'm guessing it's to do with how I saw into Suijin's mind earlier."
"And I saw yours..." The child offered hesitantly.
Marica became shamefaced. "Aha aha... about that..."
"What have you done?" The girl spoke in a low measured tone.
"Well, it's more so what I haven't done... I didn't specifically choose your devil fruit. How should I put this? I picked one up at random."
"SOCKS!" Aniko exclaimed fearfully.
"No! No. No socks. I did see the name Aniko and I can assure you it has nothing to do with socks."
"Oh..."
"What was the name then?" Suijin interjected, trying to lead the discussion back to its purpose, away from going off on a tangent.
The angel frowned at the boy before deciding to respond. "The Māji Māji fruit."
"So that mean she has the ability to merge... something. Maybe memories." The dark haired child mused.
"I can merge memories?"
"Possibly."
"And it defiantly doesn't have anything to do with socks?"
"It's highly unlikely."
"So there's still a small chance?"
"Does it matter?"
"YES!"
Marica clicked her tongue irritably. She flew down to Aniko's eyelevel, taking up most of her field of vision. It was as if she was almost jealous of the amount of attention Suijin was getting. "Aniko~!"
"I'm still angry with you." Aniko deadpanned.
She smiled and chose to ignore the albino's cynical remark. "Since it's a power that will let you merge you will have to keep in mind that you will be fusing and uniting. Or maybe it will even act as a give and take type of thing, like you've just experienced with the memories swaps. Actually it might help if you ask the bratty kid what he saw."
"Like you have the right to call me that. I could squish you like a bug if I wanted." Suijin snarled in a hostile manner.
The angle smirked smugly as she flew circles around his head, as if to tempt him into taking a swipe at her. "I'd like to see you try~." She sang.
"Don't fight." Aniko commanded. She sat down on the edge of her bed next to Suijin. She addressed him in a way she hoped would not seem so assertive. He gave the impression he did not like to be directed without good reason. Just like her.
"But she is right Suijin. It would be really helpful if you could tell us about what you saw." She spoke as sincerely as she could.
His young face scrunched up, his brows coming together because of mental conflict. He seemed reluctant to share his experience, most likely because of the traumatizing images of his dead parents; nevertheless he informed them of his visions. "I saw you, as you are now. I saw things through your eyes since you were born up till when we made contact. But there was something else before that... It was blurry and it jumped around a lot but I saw some really strange things."
"What did you see?"
"Don't think I'm weird, okay?"
"Too late."
Aniko hushed Marica's witticisms and returned her attention to Suijin. "I won't think you're weird."
"So...I saw gigantic stone buildings; they were as tall as the sky. And metal machines that carried people places. There weren't any pirates or marines either. I didn't see them anywhere." Suijin depicted.
Marica and Aniko exchanged nervous looks. He had seen the events of Hannah's life as well as Aniko's. "Perhaps it's hallucinations. A side effect of the devil fruit." The detective suggested, unable to tell the boy the truth.
"That's definitely a possibility!" Marica agreed hastily and nodded in concurrence.
Suijin seemed unconvinced. "Maybe..."
Fortunately, at that moment, Yona burst into the room, driving Marica to pop into nonexistence but also forcing them to drop the topic. "Really Yommers, haven't you heard of knocking. This is a lady's room. I might not have been decent."
Yona flushed and apologized profusely, however the stream of regret fizzled out as he saw Suijin. The boy's expression had returned to his original indecipherable guise (the same face he had worn when he had first met Aniko).
Maybe it's a defence mechanism. The detective contemplated. She deliberated over how he might act indifferent to strangers, whose motives he has yet to fathom. If he were to feign apathy he would be able to keep the unfamiliar person at arm's length until he decided on the way he should behave around them. Very shrewd. But also an affliction.
"So this is the boy!" Her assistant smiled crouching down to Suijin's level. "You've been very brave." Yona reached out to ruffle his brown tufts, but his hand was batted away.
"Don't treat me like a child." Suijin said coldly.
Aniko sniggered at Yona's startled expression and jested with good humour. "Careful Yommers. This one is pretty skilled with sharp objects." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Suijin's appearance almost become guilty. He knew that she was alluding to when he had nearly impaled her with a shard of glass. "What was the sudden infiltration of my room about? Not that I mind but I'm presuming there's a reason."
"Oh yeah! You reminded me." He scratched the back of his neck bashfully and then found his confidence, grinning gawkily. "You asked for something suspicious, now you've got it." He threw a small object down onto the mattress. Aniko scooped it up and raised it to the light.
In her hand the small translucent gem flashed charmingly, as she twisted its shape to create great sapphire shadows that danced across her bedroom wall. She was rather enthralled with the object until she had the sense to tap it against her bed frame. Its sound was flat against the wood. Darn. Just plastic. Who would want junk like this? Then she reminded herself. Well Hannah did have a whole shelf full of junk exactly like this. Most of them from Christmas crackers. She stared at it broodingly, subsequently puckering her brow sulkily as she pocketed the pretty plastic. She had yielded to a tendency she hadn't wanted to keep.
"And your here to tell me the cruel, degenerate murder left his pretty little trinket lodged in one of the corpses." She heard Suijin's quick intake of breath as she spoke. Aniko winced at her brazen epigram. She seemed to be making a lot of paradoxical remarks lately.
"That's right. It wasn't lodged in a corpse though." Yona replied.
"Ah... Yeah." Her grimace became more pronounced as her gaze flicked to the boy beside her. He didn't seem shaken by what she had said. Or at least he didn't show it. "It seems kind of out of character for them to have something like this. There must be some significance to it. Care to enlighten me?"
The redhead glowed happily at the confidence Aniko had in him. It was not misplaced either. There was a reason she had chosen him as her assistant after all. "I looked through some files-"
"Naturally." The detective nodded in approval.
"-and discovered who on the Grand Line would carry fake gems around. He's a certain pirate captain who's Jolly Roger is a dragon skull with two jewels for eyes-"
"Barbossa! It's that nutter!"
"Yeah. That's him. Barbossa Bane, captain of the Bane pirates. It must have been a member of the crew who dropped the crystal. I've heard he gives out different coloured plastic charms to his crew as a status symbol. I think sapphires are for fairly high positions in his ranks."
"But that means... No. That can't happen. But maybe I should just in case..." Aniko expressed her thoughts vocally, her face scrunched up in concentration. Yona and Suijin watched her perplexed, as she mumbled to herself, not quite making sense to anyone but herself.
"Right!" She genially clapped her hands together, startling the young man and boy. "Yommers, are Papa and Pepper are still downstairs ogling pictures of the boss?"
"Uh... Yeah. I think so." Yona answered, slightly thrown.
"Great! I want you to sleep with me tonight."
"W-What!" He spluttered, his cheeks blazing and jaw involuntary dropping. Even Suijin appeared shocked into some sort of immobilization seeing that he sat with taut muscles and eyebrows that nearly reached his hairline.
Aniko looked between the two in confusion, baffled by their reactions. Then it dawned upon her, her mouth forming a cat-like grin, as she realized the possible implications to what she had said. "How lewd." She drawled impishly. "You two boys couldn't be thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?"
Yona and Suijin's expression were both of a similar calibre, exchanging looks of joint embarrassment while they shook their heads violently. The display was downright hilarious given that it was utterly unconvincing, causing Aniko to crack up, giggling hysterically. It was one thing to see Yona loose his cool but seeing Suijin's aberrant reaction was the icing on the cake.
She ignored the testy contradictions they spewed as she guffawed boisterously. "I can't believe you thought I would ask you to sleep with me Yommers! And you thought so too Suijin!" She snorted in an unrefined manner, subsequently slapping a hand over her mouth as to stem her fits of laughter.
The glares she received were enough to bring her back to a calm state, yet she continued to titter quietly from behind her hand. Yona breathed an agitated sigh, visage still painted Aniko's favourite shade of red. "I thought you were going to tell me something important but instead you just fool around! I've told you, you need to act more-"
"It was important. I need you and Pepper to stay here tonight."
"Why?"
"That's because... Listen, I can't-you just-argh!" She became frustrated with herself as she struggled to find the right words. She closed her eyes in resign. "It's important..." She finished lamely.
A fleeting look of sympathy passed over Yona's face before it was wiped clean and replaced with a mellow smile. "I get it. It's important."
Despite herself, Aniko lips curled into her naive omniscient smirk. "Frankly speaking Yommers, if I was the boss right now, I would have kicked your ass for trying to order a superior around. 'You need to act more serious!'" She imitated her apprentice in an authoritative tone, waggling a reprimanding finger through the air, purposely directing this to Suijin, some truth to her clowning. The child frowned disapprovingly and shuffled away, to a point further along the length of the bed.
Aniko pouted, not quite content with Suijin's constant glumness, nevertheless she would cut him some slack for now. His parents have just died. But if he wasn't spritelier in a few days she promised herself she would boot him into the sea. He had been saying that he wanted to swim after all.
She huffed and flopped back onto the mattress, using an outstretched arm to trace the contours of the ceiling into the space above her as she proposed, "I have a plan, Yommers. Tomorrow morning we will set out and search any areas around the island where pirate ships could be hidden. I know most of the coves, inlets and sea caves on Tandora. We should find them with relative ease."
"Really?" Yona expressed his obvious surprise to her declaration. "Shouldn't we prepare first?"
"We'll be fine." Aniko dismissed this heedlessly, smiling at her assistant goofily. He exhaled noisily, shaking his head in amusement at her usual frolics, but he failed to notice the strengthened gleam in her eyes. It was a subtle aspect to the detective Suijin had picked up on and it made him wonder if she was partaking something much more underhand.
Suijin stared at her deep in thought, questions arising that couldn't be answered. There was so much more to her than it had first appeared to him. She was unfathomable, bizarre and strangely intriguing. He hoped he would be able to begin unravelling this mystery.
"Suijin?" He was snapped out of his trance by the said source of his mystification. "You'll be coming tomorrow too, right? We'll find those bastards and give them what they deserve!"
"Ok." He said unsurely, although agreeing to join her on the expedition.
Aniko continued to talk cordially to Yona and Suijin, doing her best to appear completely at ease. She could not let what caused her heart to beat rapidly and her palms to turn damp with sweat notice even the slightest trace of her discomfort.
It would seem as if her gaze was fixed upon the two she interacted with, but using her peripheral vision she stared hardily. Her jaw clenched. There! Out beyond her window she saw a land now enveloped in the obscurity of night and a figure veiled in shadows flit out of sight. For now the sinister presence had gone. But it persisted to stalk its prey.
Sorry for not updating in a while. I've been very busy with school and I'm afraid I will be for a while yet. Its going to be difficult for me to update often because of a lot of very important exams coming up. But I'll try my best!