Happy new year! Cheers to a healthy year for everyone. A healthy body and a healthy mind. Clearly I need to work on both lmao
Lets work hard together to fufill our 2010 (yes, 2010) resolutions!
Also, I had a rough script that I was supposed to follow this chapter, and somehow 4 paragraphs in and I have already abandoned it. I just can't seem to plan anything ahead _(:3 」∠)_
dAmnIT i haTE WRITING
"Oi! You! Wake up!"
"I'm...awake...you stu...pid..." Yue Xin's head bounced against Ace's shoulder as he raced down the street, making her all the more nauseous. "St...stop bouncing...!"
"We're running," Ace panted, "Not like I can help it you shithead!"
"Hey, you okay?" Sabo's blurry face appeared before her, the concerned black sword floating beside him, "What happened?"
Yue Xin could see another rubbery head appear out of thin air but the body was nowhere to be seen. She must still be hallucinating.
The little girl ignored his question, rolled her eyes back and—
"Is she dead?" Came the worried question from the elongated neck of the raven-haired boy.
"Fainted," Sabo pushed against Luffy's head, "And if you stretch any further you're gonna fall."
As if on cue, Luffy faceplanted into the ground. Sabo ran ahead, chuckling at the pouting Luffy, "Come on Luffy! Just don't lose your balance next time!"
"...fever caused...poison...dange... can't extract..."
The Churian girl could hear snippets of conversation as she stirred from her blissful 'sleep'. Where was she? Familiar voices yelled at each other— the three brothers, and...the bandits? But the sweet voice didn't sound like Dadan's. Yue Xin tried to open her eyes, and promptly gave up as pain washed over her. She was suffering from repercussions of forcefully using her Qi.
"...CTOR! GET THE...SEIZ...!"
Was something happening? Yue Xin couldn't tell— her nerve endings had been alighted once more— her few seconds of consciousness already slipping back into the darkness. She was vaguely aware that her body was doing something, out of her control.
Whatever. And Yue Xin let her mind shut down.
A dull headache was the first thing Yue Xin noticed. And something stuck uncomfortably in her throat. The girl opened her eyes, spotting a small empty bowl beside her bed. For whatever reasons it was there, Yue Xin couldn't care less anymore, she grabbed it and coughed out a nasty black ball of blood.
Oh. The poison. Her Qi must have been slowly regaining during her rest and cleansed the rest of her body of the poison. Yue Xin made a face at the bowl, silently apologising to the owner.
But first, where was she?
She could remember Ace and the other two crashing into the house, and...then what happened?
Yue Xin suddenly realised she was wearing cotton.
Fear struck her as she looked down, expecting to see the same white dress. Polka dots printed on the shirt greeted her instead.
No. This isn't the same house. The little girl shook her head to get rid of the image of Ms Chicatory leering at her with knives in her hands. She distracted herself by trying to figure out where she was.
A plain bed, with simple green checkered sheets. The room wasn't decorated much, but there was a vase with a few daffodils. Yue Xin shivered, dragging her eyes away from the thing. She was going to avoid flowers of any kind for a while. And bugs, she thought. A small mirror stood on the wooden table, reflecting her pale pallor. She also smelt of scented soap. She must have been bathed while she was unconscious.
Clearly, it was a woman's bedroom. But it wasn't Dadan's bedroom. So it must be...someone's sister? Mother? Doctor?
The dull headache was becoming the opposite of dull the more she used her brain, so the little girl gave up and opened the door.
Something came flying at her and Yue Xin tried to leap out of the way, succeeding in knocking her head against the doorway, but still didn't manage to dodge the flying thing. It stopped abruptly before it punched her in the gut though— which Yue Xin appreciated— and snuggled right into her arms.
The UFO was Whitey. And the other IFO (Identified Flying Object) coming her way was Whitey's black, sharp sibling.
"Sorry, Vermillion." The stone tapped her arm, "And Whitey too."
The black sword wriggled anxiously, circling her from the bottom to the top.
"I'm okay." Yue Xin grabbed the sword by its red tassel, pulling it back from its dizzying circles. If the two were here and friendly, that means she was in no danger and her real saviour this time could be trusted.
"You're awake! I'll call Luffy and the others over! Oh, my dear, you had us worrying with all the poison in your body!" A green-haired woman fretted over the little girl as she guided her over to the table, "Are you hungry? You've been asleep for four days, I'll fix you some porr—"
"F-Four days?" Yue Xin interrupted the woman without meaning to, "I've been asleep that long?!"
"Your condition was quite terrible," The kind lady explained as she poured a glass of water for Yue Xin, "The doctor said your body seemed to be quite different from others that he'd seen, and somehow your body was detoxing by itself. You ran a high fever, and it finally came down on the third day. Drink your water first, I'll tell you more while I make some porridge." She pushed the glass towards the girl, then turned back to the kitchen— which was all together in the same room as the living and dining.
Yue Xin quietly picked up the glass and downed it (after checking for poison). She deliberately ignored the question in the green-haired woman's tone when she spoke about her unique constitution. "What happened to Ms Chicatory then? Where am I now?"
"Ms...Chicatory?" Kind lady looked confused for a moment, "Is she the attacker? Sorry, the boys didn't tell us much, and they said they found you, and just brought you back."
"Oh," the girl fiddled with the empty glass, a small touch of disappointment within her answer, "I see."
"You can call me Makino, or Onee-chan if you like. We're at Foosha Village, and this is my house. I'm Party Bar's owner." The young lady poured another glass of water for the girl, "The three little troublemakers wouldn't call me Onee-chan even though I asked them to— said they only had each other as brothers and wouldn't accept anyone else. I was really sad they wouldn't call me their Onee-chan," said Makino in a way that really wasn't sad at all. "The boys came in panicking with you on their backs, asking us for the doctor and all that— oh, you should have seen their faces. Luffy was on the verge of tears, and even Ace was frowning a whole lot!"
"Ace-chan?" Yue Xin giggled. She had new material for teasing the freckled boy now.
Makino beamed at the endearment Yue Xin used, turning down the heat of the stove as she chopped up some vegetables for the bubbling porridge. "Luffy kept calling you 'mystery girl', Sabo was trying to pronounce your name but he couldn't, and Ace just said— " Makino coughed awkwardly, "—Now, I can't possibly call you that. I knocked a little sense into the two rude brothers for you. So how should I call you?"
The Churian girl's eyes slid to the small stone she was caressing.
Makino waited patiently.
"Vermillion..."
"Hmm?" The bar owner turned around to see the little girl holding up the black sword which had been floating anxiously around her house these past four days. It had scared Makino when it first came flying through the door with the deadly intent to make "fishball sticks", except instead of fishballs it would be human heads.
"This is Vermillion— " Yue Xin pointed at the black sword who bowed dramatically at Makino, "— and this is Whitey." She held up a white, engraved stone in her other hand. The stone glowed a little as a greeting.
"Mmm."
"You can call me...Tsuki."
Makino's eyebrows rose.
Yue Xin gave a sweet smile, putting a bit of effort into her big eyes, "My name is quite hard to pronounce, so you can call me Tsuki. It's easier."
"I see! Don't worry, Tsuki, I'll tell the boys."
Makino ladled a bowl of hot porridge for the girl. "Urm," She gestured at the sentient stone and sword, "Do they need anything?"
It was rather a silly question, but it showed Yue Xin exactly how thoughtful Makino was. Yue Xin giggled again, poking at Whitey teasingly, "Maybe some trash for Whitey? Very smelly ones."
The stone emitted a very negative glow.
The bar owner laughed, "Your two friends are very cute."
The sword and stone expressed their embarrassment at being complimented in a way only a sword and a stone could ever express it.
Yue Xin decided that she liked the green-haired lady. She was prettier on the inside and outside than Ms Chicatory could ever be. Still, she discreetly checked the porridge for any poison (even though she had watched the whole process of cooking and never saw her adding anything suspicious) before digging in.
Makino sternly ordered Yue Xin to go back to bed after eating, making sure she was tucked in with her two companions and well asleep before leaving to spread the good news that the new friend of the three brothers had awoken.
Chocolate-brown eyes opened when the front door clicked shut.
"Vermillion."
The sword beside her vibrated in response.
"...Should I go back to see Ms Chicatory?"
It was Whitey who responded instead.
Whitey: (＃＞＜)
"No?"
Whitey: (＃`Д´)
"But..."
Vermillion expressed its bloodlust with an excited tingle.
"You see, Vermillion agrees with me."
Whitey: (╬`益´)
"What if she lures in another innocent kid? Not everyone can escape like me. No one here has Qi." Yue Xin lazily counted the dust motes in the air, disturbing them from their trajectory with a puff of air, "It'll be quick."
Whitey: ٩(╬ʘ益ʘ╬)۶ NO
┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┴ (⌐■_■)
you hide and watch the show
＼(▽￣ \ (￣▽￣) / ￣▽)／... _φ(．．)(．．)(．．) ... (҂` ﾛ ´)(҂` ﾛ ´) (҂` ﾛ ´)︻デ═一 ＼(º □ º l|l)/
Get Ace, Sabo, Luffy...make a report to the police...police arrest Ms Chicatory
(￣^￣)ゞ(￣^￣)ゞ(￣^￣)ゞ
mission complete
(Subtitles available for subscribers of this work only)
"...I don't get it. Are you telling me about Ace and the others?" Yue Xin turned to look at the white stone. She was going to make them learn how to write, no matter what. Charades had become her most hated game of all time.
Whitey confirmed with a nod.
"So, you're telling me to hide and watch, get Ace and the others to write something, and a whole bunch of ruffians show up at Ms Chicatory's with guns, kill her, and the end?"
Whitey nodded, then shook no.
"What? Yes and no?" Yue Xin violently huffed at the innocent dust motes, "I hate you. This is not fun."
Whitey: (╥_╥)
A few hours later, when Makino had delivered the good news together with the monthly booze order to the bandits, and came back in tow with three children, a couple of worried bandits, and the village doctor, all they managed to find was an empty bed.
And a note saying she would be back soon.
"You said you remembered the way," Yue Xin shook the stone in her hand impatiently. She was somewhere in the Town Center, trying to find the same quiet street that the trio had ran down with her on Ace's back.
Whitey: 〜(＞＜)〜
"Hurry up. I want to get back in time for dinner you know. Or else I'll throw you back in the trash mountains to rot forever."
Whitey: ...
The stone suddenly felt that rotting under the trash was a better life than working under this slave driver.
There was a flurry of panic at Makino's house.
"Did the attacker come back— wait, how did—"
"Where did she go? What happened?!"
"How long has it been? We should go aft—
"Makino! Wasn't the mayor supposed to keep an eye on her?! And her condition is not yet stable! "
"Oh no, oh no! She was sleeping before I left!"
"I'm going to ask the Neko and Inu-chans!"
"Wait! Luffy!"
"Ace! Get back here! Don't run off— Ah, for god's sake!"
After a few pointers (literally) from Vermillion, they found it.
"Knock knock," sing-songed the little girl as she knocked on the door.
There was no "Who's there?", nor was there any noise from the inside.
Yue Xin threw out her Willpower, covering the house with it and scanned the inside for any life signature. One. A weak signal, a dim colour.
Good. The woman wasn't dead.
Using her Qi, Yue Xin pushed against the door, slowly but surely, bending the lock while ensuring it didn't make a sound. When the metal yielded beneath her strength, Yue Xin then turned the doorknob, and let herself in. The first floor was another...living room? The little girl had no idea how these houses worked. Why were there so many living rooms? Was the one at the bottom the main living room and the one on top a small living room? She didn't want to explore though, and just made her way up the stairs and back to the familiar room which previously crawled with black insects.
Now that she wasn't hallucinating, the room wasn't covered in little critters anymore. The sweet scent of flowers had decayed to a sickly scent, which made her heady. It was clear that Ms Chicatory hadn't been in the mood to care for her flowers in the past four days. The couches were ripped up in places, stuffing falling out of them, some strewn across the floor. The walls were bare, paintings crushed and angrily pushed underneath shelves. Shredded paper littered the floor in front of the bookshelves, the books empty and bare of the knowledge that they used to contain. The precious flowerpots were shattered in pieces, soil pouring and staining the carpet brown. Even the white couches and walls weren't spared from the dirt.
Heh. This looked like what Yue Xin would call: a tantrum.
Memories of the incident flooded her, and the little girl's legs shook as she forced herself to step over the carnage. It was over. She was well-rested, her Qi was back, she could use her Willpower again. Ms Chicatory couldn't hurt her in her weakened state. Yue Xin let herself take a good look at the destroyed room to squash out the niggling fear left in her. She stomped her foot on the floor, chasing out the black creepy crawlies out from the corners of her mind, smothering them underneath her foot.
She took a deep breath to steady herself— which was a big mistake, really— and ended up choking on the dying smell of flowers. Well, at least she was (kind of) over the whole incident now.
The Churian girl knocked on Ms Chicatory's bedroom door. "Hellooo~" she called casually, as if she was paying a visit to a neighbour.
Scuffling noises sounded from the bedroom, but Yue Xin didn't bother to check with her Willpower to see what the woman was doing in there. This time, the little girl just punched through the lock, and kicked the door open.
"Surprise!" exclaimed Yue Xin, sarcasm dripping from her tone, "Aren't you glad I'm back to let you chop me up into little pieces?"
The woman collapsed in front of her bed seemed to have years of her life whittled away in the four days she hadn't seen her. Parched, cracked lips moved silently, eyes sliding to the little figure in front of the door; not even surprise could light up the dead expression on her. She was surrounded by another carnage similar to that of the one in the living room.
"Why...are you...here?"
"To kill you." Yue Xin offered up a bloodthirsty smile.
Ms Chicatory laughed slightly, the sound dry and terrible from the lack of water lubricating her vocal cords. "...Do it then."
"Oh, but I was just kidding though?" Glass crunched into powder, paper crinkling underneath her shoe. "I'm here to talk. I'll get you some water."
No way was Yue Xin going to waste her healing circle on this woman.
Ms Chicatory didn't move from her spot when Yue Xin came back with a three glasses of water, placing it within the reach of the woman. Ms Chicatory still didn't make a move to take the water.
Yue Xin cleared out a space for herself to sit and took a cup of water, making herself comfortable. The long journey, even with her Qi boosting her speed, had made her thirsty.
The girl's eyes roved across the destroyed bedroom as she sipped on the water. There was not a single clock in sight, even when she was first brought here by Ms Chicatory.
Yue Xin spoke first. "My condolences."
The woman's eyes were fixed on a piece of shattered glass at her foot, which reflected the sunlight into seven colours. She looked like she was admiring the colours, but Yue Xin knew she wasn't.
Ms Chicatory's eyes were still half lidded. "I've heard that. Many times."
"I haven't heard it yet." Yue Xin took another sip, "But I don't want to hear it."
A small, derisive snort from the lady in front of her. "Your family, friends, must still be alive. You don't need to hear it."
"I don't want to hear it." Yue Xin placed her cup down, tone darkening, "Others might think that I need it now."
Ms Chicatory breathed in slightly, eyelids drooping down in understanding. "You..."
"Mm. So all your crazy ramblings, actually, and all your plans, wouldn't have had the effect you wanted." Yue Xin recalled the grin Ms Chicatory had on her face when she screamed all her plans to cut and maim her in ten thousand ways, finding it a little funny now. If she had the energy to tell Ms Chicatory back then, the look on her face would have been incredible.
"What about the three boys? A heroic rescue— " A series of dry coughs cut off the rest of her sentence, prompting Yue Xin to push the cups closer.
Ms Chicatory seemed to understand that it would be a long talk, and picked up a cup of water with shaking hands as Yue Xin answered her question. "They'll forget about me soon. We were never friends to start with."
"Then..." If you have nothing here, "...why did you come back?"
Some words didn't need to be spoken to be understood.
"To talk."
It sounded like a silly excuse to the woman who tried to murder the little girl just four days ago. Ms Chicatory coughed more, clearing her throat of the itchiness that had developed in the past few days. She pulled her eyes up to meet Yue Xin's, voice still weak, "I'm not stupid. I know you would have killed me back there if you had the chance."
The little girl stared back at the ice-blue eyes that held not a single shred of light. "Not now," she said, her words holding a tone of finality.
Because she knew she didn't need to.
Ms Chicatory's eyes searched hers, finding the answer they both already knew. Then she laughed in self-mockery. "You don't seem like a child."
Yue Xin wet a finger and traced around the rim of the glass cup, creating the resonance of a musical note. She avoided those blue eyes. "Sometimes, I wish I was. Other times, I am glad I'm not."
"How about now?"
Yue Xin turned her gaze to the cracked window, her voice soft and earnest, almost like a prayer, "I wish I was."
They sat in companionable silence.
Unexpectedly, Ms Chicatory was the first to speak: "When do you need to hear it? Others might think you need it now, but you don't want it now."
It took Yue Xin a moment to realise she was continuing their first conversation topic.
"When I..." The Churian girl trailed off. When does she need to hear it? When she finds her parents' bodies? When she kills the Wu Zun? When she joins them six feet underground?
"...I don't know. I don't even know who I want to hear it from." Yue Xin sighs, "I will find out soon enough." She turns the empty cup over and over in her small hands and instead begins to lead the conversation. "How about you? Did you accept them when your...ex-husband and his new lover...died?" She emphasized on the last word, bringing out another meaning to it.
"How did you know?"
"I didn't know. I was guessing. But now I know."
The broken woman before her cackled, the maniacal grin stretching her cracked lips wide open injected her with a brief moment of vitality. "I accepted them. Joyously. Their pity, their empty words of grief. Wept beside his coffin like I wasn't the one who drove the knife into their hearts."
"You had your revenge. Wasn't it enough?" The little girl leaned forward, interested in learning her answer, "They killed your baby. You killed them back. Didn't it sooth your pain?"
Why did you still want to kill?
"Sooth?" Her maniacal grin turning into laughter, bubbling out of her throat until it threatened to pour out of her eyes as tears, "Sooth?"
Yue Xin turned wide-eyed. She didn't understand.
"Dear girl," Ms Chicatory suppressed her laughter, and pointed a finger at her chest, where her heart lay beneath her finger, under the white cotton and flesh and bone, "I'm sure you're asking me this because you are experiencing the same thing. But, even if I tell you, you wouldn't understand now."
"I would." Yue Xin replied firmly.
Ms Chicatory's smile only stretched wider at her answer. "I thought I would too, until I watched them bury the coffins and smooth over the soil. Then I realised we are illogical beings." She tapped the finger against her heart. "You're not thinking with this now."
"The heart cannot think," Yue Xin blinked, "It is not capable of thinking."
"It is. It has always been, and will always be capable of thinking. Thinking for itself. Wanting for itself."
"I always use my head."
Ms Chicatory shook hers, "Not always."
The woman in white watched a frown form on the little girl's forehead. "You will understand it when you the coffin of the one you seek is buried."
"There won't be a coffin for him," Yue Xin calmly crushed another glass shard underneath her finger into sparkling powder, anger seeping into her tone, "There will be nothing left of him."
Ms Chicatory didn't answer.
"I don't want to become like you." Yue Xin didn't stop in her mission to crush every shard of glass surrounding her into tiny pieces, "Tell me, will I become like you?"
The debilitated Ms Chicatory turned to face the little girl, aware that this was the question she had came to ask. Her smile turned into something else, something which Yue Xin couldn't understand even with her unusual deduction skills. There were many things Yue Xin couldn't understand today.
The woman continued to smile her undecipherable smile.
Yue Xin waited. And tried her best to wrap her head around it.
"You're asking the wrong person."
The little girl's eyes widened.
"Ask," Ms Chicatory tapped at her heart again, "yourself."
Yue Xin's frown deepened. "I already know the answer. I don't want to become like you," she repeated.
That same smile again. It was irritating. Yue Xin couldn't understand it. It was annoying.
"Do you regret what you have done?" The little girl asked another question, a little harsher than needed. The irritation needed an outlet.
"Killing that bastard and that vixen? No. I don't. Trying to kill you? I don't regret that too."
"Why?"
"You know why."
Yue Xin's remaining baby teeth ground together. "I don't."
Ms Chicatory held her gaze for a moment longer, then she leaned back against her bed frame, eyes back to tracing the iridescent colours reflected by the glass shards.
It was over.
Yue Xin stood up, brushing off feathers and glass. Just as she turned to leave, Ms Chicatory's scratchy voice stopped her in her tracks.
"I too, hope you won't become like me."
The little girl moved towards the door once again.
Ms Chicatory watched the warm sunlight turn darker, deeper in hue, until golden light of the sunset spilled into her room, staining the glass piece with the same golden, replacing the reflected rainbow with yellow.
No regrets.
Maybe, just one.
"Ed, my baby..." Ms Chicatory picked up the glass piece.
The sunset evolved from golden to a swatches of red, orange and pink.
The glass piece turned red.
"You— Why did you— Do you know— " Ace switched from one question to the next, unsure of what to say to the little girl staring up at him with an apologetic smile on her face.
"I'm hungry." Yue Xin patted her stomach, walking past Ace to her favourite of the three. "Hey Luffy, do you think we will make it in time for dinner?'"
"Yeah! Of course!"
"No, wait, where did you go? Why did you leave the village?" Sabo held up a hand, bringing the conversation back on the right track.
"Yeah, where did you go?" Luffy echoed, "Everyone was worried!"
"I'm hungry." Yue Xin pointed at the market stalls around them. She was found by the three brothers here. "Isn't that why I'm here?"
Ace and Sabo's eyes narrowed at the obvious lie.
Luffy: "Yeah, makes sense."
Ah, there was no hope left for their little brother.
The kaomojis have some serious formatting problems because of how FF always deletes spaces and limits repeating symbols. *&% *(#":#*&^#( ":#+_damn you ff^% ":+_$#
If you want to see how the kaomojis should REALLY look like, you can find this fic on Archive on Our Own, under the same name and author (lol obviously). I should paste a link on my profile...