Here we are again! A few days ago I did some numbers and I think we're about 10 chapters away from the end – which means that, if I keep posting one chapter a month this year, too, we might be done by the end of the year. Weird.
The chapter that comes after this one will be pretty much a transition from this arc to the timeskip. I already have a good chunk written, but it's proving difficult to give it some consistence, so I'm not sure how long it'll take. I think it's pretty safe to say that it'll be ready by March 27th, though. I'm raring to get to the timeskip.
I'd like to give a special thanks to the people who've been reviewing during this arc. I'm aware that, by focusing so heavily on Marina, this has been a departure from the rest of the fic, and comments have been dwindling since Marineford, with last month's chapter being particularly disastrous, so really, thanks so much for taking the time to drop a few lines. It means the world to me.
34. A hill to die on
(Sometimes the only way out is through)
The Den Den Mushi had been ringing the moment Marina entered her room, and she left it again as soon as she hung up, her walk brisk, ignoring the fatigue that had taken hold of body and made her limbs feel like they were made of lead. The stress of the last days was catching up to her, but it wasn't anything she hadn't dealt with before. There would be time to relax after she confronted Flagel and…
And what?
What exactly was she going to do?
She didn't know, but sitting on the information she had now was not an option, not if her convictions still held any meaning. She hadn't joined the Marines for this. She had wanted to help people and right wrongs, and what she instead found was a wall of nonsensical politics that she ran into time and time again.
She went straight for Flagel's room, only a couple minutes away from hers, ignoring the alarmed looks she was getting from the people she passed by, and when she got there, she knocked insistently, but nobody answered.
"Flagel, we need to speak! Open the door!"
The ensuing silence didn't deter her, and tempting as it was to take down the door, she kept banging on it while pondering where else to go look for him, if he really wasn't there.
"Excuse me?" A maid she'd almost run over earlier said with a tiny voice. Marina turned the glare she'd been directing to the door towards her, and it wasn't until she saw the woman recoil a little that she noticed that she was probably intimidating her. "Are you looking for Commodore Flagel?"
"Yes, do you know if he's in here?"
"I saw him talking with the prince in the terrace, a bit earlier. They may be still there."
Marina released a sigh through her nose, annoyed that she had lost precious time. "Thank you." And without missing a beat, she ran in the direction the maid had indicated.
It was the same place where she had first met the royal family, and the scenery was as spectacular at night as it had been during the day. Moonlight reflected in the polished white marble to create the effect of actual lights being lit in the vicinity, and the sky, dark, clear and full of stars, was the only thing the eye could see unless she walked to the edge of the terrace, where the town came into view.
There was no one around. Marina took a moment to catch her breath, looking at the castle town for any signs of disturbance, but she didn't find anything there. Her gaze drifted further away, to the walls that secured the town, the storm clouds below, parting, and progressively letting into view… lights?
The dots of light were moving, climbing up the giant stairs that connected the castle town to the lower ground.
Howe had mentioned there being unrest in town, and while she had no idea if the image in front of her was related to that, she wasn't going to wait around to find out. Time was of the essence, and so, she resumed her search, but she had no more ideas of where Flagel could be, and she wasn't going to ask his soldiers and tip them off that something was wrong. For all she knew, they could have been as slimy as him, and it was a risk she didn't want to take.
Prince Ignatius would have to do, then. Not ideal, since she would have rather gone to the source of the problem and then to him if necessary, but he would have the authority to back her up in an argument, so it could still play in her favor.
Since they had spent the day together in the laboratory, he had probably been headed to his chambers when he had run into Flagel, and God knew that the man would need a rest after dealing with that asshat for more than five minutes.
For the second time that day, Marina found herself treading the path to the royal family's private wing, willing anybody that seemed unsure of her presence there to try and stop her with a glare that could freeze Alubarna.
Time to knock on a door again, and time to be met with silence all the same. She insisted with the same urgency as before, though with less aggressiveness, to no avail. She huffed, at a loss as to where she should go next, when on a hopeless, quick attempt, she tried turning the doorknob, only to find the room unlocked.
Marina hadn't expected that. Then again, it made sense, if access to that area of the castle was restricted and the staff had to get in and out of the rooms.
Once she got over her surprise, she tried calling for the prince.
Still nothing, not that she expected a reply. Through the crack of the door, she could see that there weren't any lights on.
Marina mulled over the morality of going into another person's chambers without them being there, but she couldn't very well wait for him in the middle of the hallway and expect to not be shooed away by a steward. Besides, this was an emergency, and Ignatius was an understanding man.
She went in, and left the door half open to signal that she was inside.
Unsurprisingly, the room looked the same as it had that morning, at least at first glance, but she didn't have to look very hard to notice something slightly out of place.
One of the doors to her right, the ones lodged between the bookcases, was open just a sliver, and a thin ray of light painted a discreet line at her feet, contrasting with the reigning darkness in the prince's personal library.
Perhaps she had been wrong and he was there, after all. It made sense that he hadn't been able to hear her through two walls.
"Your Highness?" She tried, walking towards the door. "Is someone there?"
Again, nothing. Marina started to worry. What if something had happened to him? She didn't think Flagel would be so bold as to attack the prince, but she also wouldn't put it past him, if it came to that. She pushed the door with her fingertips, and its creaking as it opened made her wince.
What she found inside, though, made her mind go blank, though she attributed the confusion to the stress. Fatigue was getting to her.
Prince Ignatius had a small laboratory of his own installed in that room. Marina wasn't the science-y type, as her interests leaned more toward all things mechanical, but the array of beakers and specimens on the working tables, as well as some devices she recognized from her earlier visit to the lab left no doubt as to what she was looking at.
That was all well and good, since Prince Ignatius doing overtime to help the specialists was more than reasonable.
What Marina couldn't explain at all were the four glass cages in one of the corners of the room that held something so small inside that she couldn't tell what it was until she was right in front of them.
Swarms of mosquitoes danced frantically in front of her eyes, only held in place by four thin, fragile, transparent walls. At the bottom of the cages, there were remnants of what looked like decomposed meat.
She backed away from them and tried not to jump to the worst conclusion. He was probably conducting an experiment. But if this had a sensible explanation, she couldn't figure why he would be keeping such a health hazard in his own chambers. Even if he wanted to keep whatever he was doing hidden from the rest of the team, surely he could have used many other rooms in the castle.
But no, he wouldn't keep investigation details from them. Up until that morning, he had believed in their innocence. The operation she was looking at had been going on for days, at the minimum.
Marina turned to the working tables in hopes of finding any convenient research papers that would confirm or deny her budding suspicions, but she supposed it was too much to ask, since real life didn't work like that, and, at any rate, she wouldn't have understood any technicalities.
She needed something, though. Just a hint, anything to push her in the right direction – and right when she opened a lonely drawer under a desk, inconspicuously tucked to the side of a stack of blank sheets, she saw it: a letter envelope with the seal of the World Government.
Her heart leapt into her mouth, or it would have if she had been carrying it, anyway, and suddenly it became very hard to breathe.
Marina reached for the letter.
The door creaked behind her.
"I must confess, I am very disappointed. With myself, mind you."
The lock of the door clicked at the same time Marina turned around with the letter in her hand.
"Is that some sort of excuse?"
"An excuse? I think you misunderstand." Prince Ignatius said, taking a few steps in her direction, "There's nothing to excuse about my actions, but I would have liked it better if you hadn't found out." He smiled warmly at her, yet it did nothing to soother the menacing vibes he was giving off. "I suppose it was too much to ask. You give your job the importance it deserves."
Marina was more perplex than before, if it was even possible. "What do you mean?" She asked, and then, because she didn't want to keep inferring when she could have a direct confirmation, she said, "What have you done?"
He gestured toward the cages with a hand and the same smile that he hardly ever dropped. "I found a cure."
"A cure?"
"Yes." A weight lifted from Marina's shoulders then, but his next words didn't allow her to breathe easy yet. "A cure for the plague this kingdom has been suffering for years."
"Didn't the plague start a few months ago?"
"Remember our conversation this morning, Captain?"
And with that, what little relief Marina had been holding onto, vanished. "What did you do?" She repeated, breathless.
Prince Ignatius was in front of her, and then the locked door was a sprint away. She had no doubt she could overpower him and unlock the door, but then there was the very real possibility that the door to the hallway would be locked with a key, and if it was as sturdy as it seemed, she'd waste critical time taking it down. Even if she did manage to do it quickly enough, she would have the castle guards on her in a minute.
Behind her, there was some sort of optical machinery that hid the better part of that wall, and a window from which there was a drop that could kill any regular human. How many stories up there were they? Five, six? Damn high ceilings.
"I suppose I owe you an explanation. I don't make a habit of making my motives clear, but you will not be going very far, I'm afraid. And it isn't a secret, not really."
That last part gave her pause. "It isn't?"
"Of course not. Everybody that matters knows. The cure hinges on that knowledge."
"Who…?"
"Your superiors, for one," replied before she could formulate a question. "My dear father, unhappy as he is about it. The government gave me their blessing, and in exchange for my work, a new trade deal and a sizeable compensation. Our island will flourish again."
Marina's worst fears came true at that moment. A bio weapon, sold to her superiors and kept hidden from the lower ranks of the chain of command. "Are implying – are you telling me that you caused the epidemic? You used your own citizens as test subjects?"
"I had to prove the weapon worked. And I took measures to secure the castle town, and the very least." His voice took on a sad edge as he said that. "Regrettable, but necessary."
Marina's blood began to boil. "You killed your own people."
"Death is an indispensable condition for rebirth to occur."
Marina had to stop herself form punching his face in. "Enough of empty philosophy! You murdered your citizens – entire villages – I have seen them! Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
She'd seen ghost villages and piles of bodies, and the tranquility with which he spoke of them reflected a disdain for human life Marina could not understand. As much as he tried to look affected, nobody with the slightest bit of empathy could think—
"And what do you plan to do about it?"
The question cut through her anger like a knife. Maybe she could escape the castle, but what then? Was she going to tell the citizens the truth? What would come off it? And by doing that, she would effectively be turning against the Marines and the World Government. She could run all she wanted, but she had nowhere to go. Nobody could outrun the government forever.
His smile was sad when he looked at her, and it felt like mockery, although it wasn't. "I really liked you, Captain. Your integrity and diligence are something your organization is in sore need of. And I was hoping you would leave safely, perhaps to meet in better circumstances, but today I realized this could not be."
"I hope you're aware of how many people you'd need to have a chance at silencing me," she said. It was one thing to be scared, and a very different one to show it. She wasn't sure if the bravado worked, but she had to try.
"I'm afraid it won't come to that." Prince Ignatius' tone was softer, eerie, and despite the heat building up in her chest and prompting her to act, a chill went up her spine. "You have not realized yet, have you?"
"What…?"
"Fatigue. Heavy limbs. Fever. Random pains. Shortness of breath. They ring familiar, don't they?" He wasn't smiling anymore, and in his eyes, hidden behind his glasses, there was regret. "I have been observing you today. There is no doubt that you are infected."
And suddenly, all the symptoms clicked in place, and a cold, harsh dread took hold of Marina from the inside. If she was carrying the disease, had she spread it to anybody else? How many people had she interacted with? Her men, the doctor in town, Mack—"
"You likely contracted it the day you left the limits of the lower town, but if it will make you feel better," he said, as if he had read her mind, stepping closer to the cages, "it can't pass from human to human. Only these," he tapped lightly on the glass, "can." And after some thought, he added, "well, that's not entirely true."
"Where's the cure?"
"Hm?"
"If you keep them here, if you're risking infection, you have to have a cure."
"A smart assumption, but I'm not risking anything. If the cages break, the mosquitoes won't go far, as they cannot survive at this altitude. And there is no cure, obviously. That is the point."
"But even then, you'd be—"
"I can't become infected, because I am the source of the infection." He extended a hand towards her, and as he did, the skin turned a greenish white, and it looked as if something was bubbling under the skin of his palm. "I've always been sickly, Captain. Believe me, I know well what our subjects are going through. The Devil Fruit I ate made sure of that."
Marina's eyes widened and she backed away until she hit the machine behind her. She wasn't so sure anymore that she could overpower him through sheer strength, but she was going to take advantage that he was in such a talkative mood to find out all that she could.
The voice in the back of her head told her that, if he was so willing to talk, it was only because the clock was ticking against her, but there was nothing else she could do while she came up with something.
"And what Devil Fruit is that?"
"The Virus Virus Fruit. I can engineer any virus and pass it onto a living creature through touch. Saying it is not ideal is an understatement." With a sigh, he continued. "I am not a killer. It took me many years to come up with a way to use it for a good cause." Then he walked a few steps away from the cages, standing once again directly in front of her. "If you're thinking of going through me to unlock the door, I suggest you refrain from doing so. The result would be undesirable."
Marina swallowed a knot in her throat. "Does it matter? Am I not dying, anyway?"
"I would rather not kill you with my own hands, Captain. Truth be told, I would like nothing better than you to live, but it isn't going to happen. If the disease doesn't do it, your own organization will, and I won't insult you by asking you to turn a blind eye to this situation. That is not who you are. And it goes without saying that I have sacrificed far too much to allow you to stop me."
Hearing him sum up her non-options like that was chilling because he was mostly right. Not only did she not have anywhere to go, but she wasn't in a good state to put up a serious fight.
The door was out of the question, then.
"It's true. I won't turn a blind eye," she said. "But if you know me so well, I don't know where you got that I would simply lie down and take it."
"I don't see what else you could do."
He had the gall to look at her with pity.
"Then maybe you need new glasses, Your Highness."
"What do you—"
Marina didn't hear the rest of his retort at her insolence, because she was too busy breaking the window next to her and, without pause, jumping out of it.
Only one way out.
—
Despite everything she had been through, Saki kept underestimating the speed at which things (all the things) could go to shit. One moment she was sitting at a tavern with her friends, and the next one she was outside said tavern, trying to stick to the group and watching a frenzied mass of townspeople gathering weapons – blades, guns, work tools, name it and it was there – and heading toward the mountain at the far end of the town, the one whose top hid behind a thicket of clouds most of the time.
She registered a scarce few raindrops hitting her here and there, but for better or worse, the sky seemed to be clearing. A lucky break for the people trying to reach the peak, not so much for the people in the castle town.
With Law leading the group and Mack sticking surprisingly close for a guy who couldn't make very long strides, she, along with Jean Bart, Bepo, Shachi, Penguin and that Marine – Philip, was it? – ran as fast as their legs could carry them among the throngs of enraged citizens, so, predictably, they didn't get very far very quickly.
Saki decided that the best course of action was to stay close to Jean Bart, because he had the best pathway-clearing power out of all of them, and it was only thanks to that that she was able to see the guy standing on top of a bench, surrounded by people ready to march into battle.
"This is our chance!" He yelled, gesturing wildly, his long black curls snapping back and forth with every movement. "The time to seize power from the tyrants and give it to the people has come!"
She knew that face, despite the lack of ominous cape and hood. Crespo, was it? It was the guy who had stopped her and Law the first day she managed to drag him out of the Polar Tang, and he was in very high spirits for a dude who was essentially haranguing his comrades to commit suicide by castle guards. That had been his problem, right? They had to go through the castle town's gate no matter what. He'd tried to rope Law into helping to get rid of the security, and given that not many days had passed since that proposal, Saki doubted the guy had had enough time to come up with any brilliant plan. He'd probably figured that he had to balance the lack of strategy with numbers and throw as many people as he could at the problem.
It wasn't in the Heart Pirates' best interest to get caught up in a chokepoint because way too many people were fighting or dropping dead in the same place. What a mess.
She tugged on Jean Bart's sleeve to catch his attention. "Jean Bart, can you raise me up for a sec?"
"You sure that's a good idea?"
"No clue, but please do it!"
He complied, and while, true, perhaps it wasn't the brightest idea to stand out so much in the middle of an armed crowd, she had a message to convey.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Crespo?!"
The man immediately stopped to find out who was shouting at him, and Saki's friends stared at her too because they didn't understand a thing. Law, though, caught on pretty quickly when he saw the man.
And Crespo, too, realized very soon who he was staring at, and he directed a few quick words to the rest of his audience. "Don't fret, my friends! It seems that reinforcements have arrived!"
"You're sending untrained civilians to assault a castle, you fuckwit!" And from her vantage point, Saki was seeing even kids who couldn't be older than her sister.
"Do you have any better ideas? Because this is the last chance to hear them!"
"We need to get to the castle town! What are you going to do when you get to the front gate?" Law intervened. Saki was grateful for it, because she was really feeling the murderous rage at that point and the only thing stopping her was that she understood the need of not making things worse for everybody. Unlike somebody else.
"We'll tear it down by force!" After this, the crowd around him roared in agreement, and he added with a shit-eating grin. "But we'd have a better chance if your crew could lend a hand."
"I'll do it," Law said, and Saki had never seen a man so freely offer something he obviously did not want to do. The urge to pat him on the back and pull a blanket around him was strong, but it was neither the time nor the place, and it would never be, because by the time they were back in the Polar Tang the moment would be long gone and it would just be awkward. "I'll help you get through the gate."
"Excellent!" Crespo clapped his hands. "We're in your debt, Mr. Trafalgar!"
"Whatever," he said, and then in what was barely a whisper that only his crew could hear, "it's not like I'm trying to help you."
But Crespo wasn't paying attention anymore, too busy rallying the rebels. "Show our pirate friends the way, my people! Tonight we'll achieve our freedom!"
"Some freedom they'll get," Saki heard Shachi mutter. "Bet ya half of them won't get to see the sunrise."
"I'm not taking you up on that one," Penguin replied.
"That's why we need to help!" Philip said, full of determination, drawing the attention of the Heart Pirates to him, who stared at him with a mix of skepticism and confusion.
"Kid," Penguin said, putting an arm around his shoulder just to be extra patronizing. "Priorities. Get some new ones."
"B-but—"
"We are here to help one of us. You're here to help one of yours, right?"
"…Yeah."
"Good!" He released him and gave him a pat. "Remember that and don't get sidetracked."
Saki didn't get to see his reaction, because she asked Jean Bart to put her down, and once the crowd started moving, their entire group followed suit. Saki wondered for the entire trek how was that amount of people supposed to go up the mountain at once, but then she reached the base of the stairs and understood.
It was wider than any staircase she had ever seen, each step made of cut grey stone that time and travelers had worn down just enough to not be a very secure foothold, and that, compounded with the remnants of the rain that had been falling that evening, made them slippery enough that she had to mind every step she took. Not that she would get very far if she fell, with Jean Bart so close by, but she was more worried that someone bigger and farther up ahead than them would trip and cause an avalanche of people.
This wasn't safe. Enraged, untrained people with pointy things in their hands were a hazard in a best case scenario, and who knew how things would shake out once they actually encountered resistance? Law had offered his help, but there was only so much a single person could do. If the guards up there were smart, they would start shooting soon, and the rest of them who didn't have actual superpowers would be sitting ducks until they were on flat terrain once again.
And she had a lot of time to worry about all these things, because the stairs just did not want to end, and to make matters more annoying, they passed so close to a cluster of clouds that the cold humidity went straight into her bones. Judging by the faces of her companions, the only one who wasn't bothered by it was Bepo, the lucky furball.
Then she heard the first shots, followed by a pained scream, and the action was on. Sort of.
"Stay behind me!" Law told them as he summoned his Room, and though the crew already knew it was never a bright idea to stand in front of the captain and an enemy, only a handful of rebels heeded the advice and moved. Most of them, though, were too focused on pushing forward or confused about the dome that had just swallowed them.
When the next burst of gunfire came, the bullets changed directions, and the ensuing shouts came from where they had been fired. Law took advantage of the momentary confusion to advance some more, and his Room expanded even further, until it reached even the gate. Saki knew he had been training to make it wider, but it was even bigger than it had been in Sabaody, and that sort of thing required a concentration that he would likely not be able to maintain for long, not to mention they'd be picking him up from the ground if he overexerted himself.
Bepo's thinking must have been along the same lines, because he said, "As soon the way is clear, we rush in!"
He received a few unhappy acknowledgements, not because they didn't want to join in the action, but because it was immensely frustrating to stand back and watch while Law did all the heavy lifting.
"Jean Bart!" Law shouted. "I'll cut the gate! You push it down!"
"Understood!"
The huge metal doors were slice in two swings of Kikoku, as well as some unfortunate limbs of people who had been in the way.
Saki wasn't sure how Jean Bart managed not to step on anybody as he stomped to the gates, but there wasn't a lot of time to wonder between the rush of getting there before the guards could properly react and the toll that running up a wildly long stairway had taken on her aching legs. She was going to get killer calves from this one.
With a push from Jean Bart, the pieces of the closed gate fell, and the rebels started to pour into the walled town.
—
The moment she turned sixteen, Marina walked into the nearest recruitment office to join the Marines. It was the scariest thing she had ever done, and from a young girl's point of view, probably the bravest.
Freefalling from a sixth floor wasn't even comparable, even if she was regretting extremely hard that she had never learned Geppou during her time in training. Leave it to Cipher Pol agents to be the only lucky ones who got to learn the six forms.
From that day onwards, she had spent the following decade in naval academies, several ships, and fighting pirates with increasing levels of efficiency. The latter could be attributed to the strict training regime every sailor went through, and most importantly, to becoming Rear Admiral Curtiss' favorite, which meant she got put through the wringer with far more intensity than her comrades because better things were expected of her.
She wondered, in the scarce few seconds she had before hitting the floor, what would he think if he saw her now and how she was about to put to use his teachings.
She wasn't sure if it was going to work, because she'd never had a habit of jumping from tall buildings, but if this wasn't the moment to try, there wouldn't be another one.
Marina didn't quite manage a three point landing, but the Armament haki covering her arms and legs prevented the impact from shattering any bones, and when she got up with wobbly legs, the only sign that someone had fallen from a window were the small craters she had left on the pavement.
Looking up one last time to make sure Prince Ignatius didn't have any other cards up his sleeve and could somehow fly after her, she stuffed the balled up letter in her hand inside her pants' pocket, examined the castle grounds, and proceeded to stealth her way through the gardens. There were a handful of guards in the distance, but they didn't seem to be looking for anybody – yet.
Her legs were made of lead, and she wasn't sure she could fault the fall for it.
Taking a moment to compose herself behind a bush, she stepped into a pathway that was well illuminated and walked with purpose, saluting the men on guard duty. They didn't stop her as she went on her way, and with a feeling of trepidation building inside her, she crossed the grounds to the castle gate.
"Captain!"
She nearly choked with her own saliva when one of the guards at the gate called out for her.
"Yes?" She said, voice strangled.
"Are you heading out to help with the uprising?"
She took too long to register what he had said, so she couldn't reply before he continued. "We just got a report from the town's gate. Insurgents have broken through. The castle guard is getting ready to head out and fight, and I believe Commodore Flagel is sending out his soldiers, too."
Her brain finally decided to connect. "I'll go ahead and scout, in that case," she replied, more eager than ever to leave. "I'll order my men to assist, depending on the situation."
"Thanks, Captain." He bowed. "We're in your debt."
"Don't mention it," she said breathlessly, and practically ran the handful of steps that separated the courtyard from the town proper, hiding in the shadows as fast as she could.
Her mind was foggy, and it took her longer than it should have to recap the situation:
Many of her subordinates were caught in the middle of an insurrection in the lower town that was about to reach the upper level. She had no way to communicate with them, and every second she was less sure that she would be able to make it to them, much less help. Besides, any further involvement with her would put them in danger, too, when all was said and done and the higher-ups started to assign the blame, not to mention the immediate, physical threat they'd face, and from which she would not be able to protect them. Flagel would be out hunting soon, and she had no doubt that she was going to be his top priority – if he had negotiated the deal with the prince, then he was not going to allow Marina to tell a word to anybody about it.
And then there was Mack. Mack, and the promise to see him again, and why the fuck had she thought that not taking her heart back was a good idea? Was she going to die without one? That's an autopsy she would have loved watch.
The people of the island needed to know the truth. Or perhaps… perhaps they already did? Didn't Prince Ignatius mention that the rebels believed there was a conspiracy?
Marina would have appreciated the irony if she didn't have one foot in the grave because of it.
Whatever the case, the decision had been made the moment she jumped off the window. If she lingered inside the castle town, she'd get caught. She had to fight or die trying.
Following the noise coming from the main gate, she advanced through darkened streets, running at times past scared townsfolk and telling them to lock themselves in their houses without sparing a glance at them, which proved to be a terrible idea when she ran into a small well she didn't see and fell in it, only to get a hold of the edge at the last second.
In regular circumstances, it would have been extremely easy to lift herself up and get out of the hole. As she was, she struggled to maintain a hold even using both hands at once.
She didn't know how she was able to hold on. She didn't know how long it took to pull herself up, but it felt like an eternity, and when she fell onto firm ground again and rolled flat on her back, with an arm covering her eyes as she breathed heavily, her lungs on fire, fate didn't have the small decency of allowing her to feel relief for a moment.
"That lousy personality of yours was bound to get you in trouble one day," someone sneered.
"You're one to talk." She lifted her arm to see Flagel standing near her, and she pulled herself up immediately, unsteadily. She tried not to think of how pathetic she must have looked.
"But I'm not the one thinking my opinions are above good or evil. Justice is independent from morals, Marina."
"You can't divorce one from another."
"Speak for yourself. Everybody's moral compass is different. You are a cog in a machine, and every piece must work toward the same end. But then again, we wouldn't be having this conversation if you did your job properly, would we?"
Marina's smoldering glare didn't faze him.
"And I am so glad to be the one who gets to excise this faulty cog."
Flagel lunged at her, and though she tried to dodge, the punch directed at her face landed on her neck, leaving her breathless for a second. Reflexively, she grabbed one of her chisels from her belt and swung it at his midsection, knowing that she wasn't going to hit, but at least would allow her to get some distance between them.
With a quick glance, she ascertained that he had come alone, but there was no telling when his men would show up. She didn't have the luxury of relying on reinforcements, since most of her soldiers should have been in the lower town, and she wouldn't have dragged them into this, anyway. This was a battle she had to fight alone, as much as she doubted she'd be able to.
"I'm only going to ask this once to follow protocol," he said. "Will you surrender? I won't have to kill you if I can bring you in."
"Not a chance in hell."
Flagel grinned like that was the answer he wanted to hear, to begin with. "You never disappoint."
He ran towards her again, and this time she was quicker to move, but one of his arms transformed into a whip and took hold of her forearm. She took out another chisel with her free hand and swung it at the stretched out flesh, drawing some blood and making the limb retreat.
In better circumstances, she would have tried to escape at this point, but she knew her legs wouldn't carry her very far before she had to take a break, and Flagel wasn't going to be satisfied until he had her head. Instead, she went on the offensive, throwing both chisels at him as she took out more. While he dodged, she closed in, drawing an arc in front of her that managed to graze his uniform.
Flagel didn't waste any time to wrap a rope-like limb around her arm again, and by the way it snapped and the heat suddenly pooling in the area, Marina knew she had to be bleeding. She drove a knee into his stomach that didn't do much, but once again, made him take a few steps back, and his grasp on her slackened enough to free her arm.
She felt the hold on her chisels weaken, and with horror realized that her hands were trembling. Her head felt light, she was struggling to breathe in deep, and all in all, it wouldn't have surprised her if she fainted in the spot.
"You aren't aware of how ridiculous you look. Really, I'm almost sorry for you. It's sad to see my archnemesis reduced to this."
"Your what?"
He tossed his hair back. "Oh, please, our rivalry has been a thing since the academy."
"Flagel, you're at best a footnote in my life, and one I wish I had to never read again."
Flagel flushed at her comment; whether because of embarrassment or anger, it was hard to tell. But it prompted him to attack again, and this time his whip aimed at Marina's legs.
She jumped backwards to avoid it, but while she was doing so, he extended his other arm and caught her by an ankle in mid air. She was suspended upside down for a split second before she flung a chisel at him and stabbed the tendril with another while he was distracted dodging. When he left go, Marina landed on the ground head first with a crack, and she didn't need to reach into her hair to tell, by the searing pain, that it was her skull and not the gravel under her what had made the sound. She should have used haki as she was falling, she realized too late, and if she'd had the time for it, she would have lamented not having the ability to activate it on reflex, since her job in the North Blue had never required that level of finesse, and she had not been strict enough with her training.
But she knew better than to stay down, and, ignoring the pain, she stood back up at once, taking Flagel by surprise, who surely had expected her to take more time to recover. He had always underestimated her like that.
He wasn't far off the mark, though. Marina knew she couldn't keep up. If she was to win, she had to do it now.
Reaching for her last two chisels, she threw one at him while he was still getting over the surprise of her not keeling over and dying, and lunged at him to directly stab him.
She closed in in less than a second, ready to strike, victory at her fingertips.
Right at that moment, one of the tendrils wrapped around her wrist, immobilizing it and squeezing so hard that she dropped her weapon, something that would have never happened if she hadn't been sick, and the other shot forward towards her chest.
Piercing through it.
Marina forgot how to breathe as she stared in shock at the satisfied grin of the bastard who had just murdered her. Who was complicit in the future murders of many innocent people.
Dying hurt less than she had assumed. One would think that getting stabbed in the heart would—
Her eyes widened again at the realization, and she couldn't help the smirk that spread on her lips as she grabbed the whip-like limb with her left hand and summoned strength out of nowhere to pull it out, and the euphoria building up inside her only grew when Flagel's expression turned from glee to pure horror.
The sound of her blood boomed inside her ears, pumped by an organ that wasn't there.
"Why—why aren't you—?!" He stammered.
Excited or not, Marina had trouble getting the words out. "As if I'd… let myself be… killed by the likes of you."
He took one hesitant step back. "You're a monster."
She would have laughed if she'd had the energy for it.
She stepped forward, not letting him put a comfortable distance between them. She was barehanded now, but as long as he kept backing away from her, and she kept pressing on, she had one last chance.
"Whatever it takes to not share species with you."
Flagel shook his head nervously and kept walking backwards. "But how—What's going on?"
Marina said nothing as she kept taking steps toward him.
"I-I don't understand! What did you do, you should be d—?!"
The back of Flagel's legs hit the stone well Marina had stumbled into before, and when his balance was upset, Marina wasted no time in giving the final push.
Flagel fell into the well, but she didn't have the energy to stand up anymore, and, deflated, fell to her knees.
So exhausted she was, that she didn't notice one of Flagel's limbs holding onto the edge of the well.
But, through hazy eyes, she thought she made out a familiar figure approaching, and she would have recognized anywhere the voice of the man who kept yelling 'Mari.'
—
"Will you move?"
"But—!"
"Did you come here to save her or to solve puzzles?"
Trafalgar Law had left a decent amount of disassembled body part in his wake, and Philip, the bleeding heart, hadn't spared a second to start putting together the pieces of the innocent townsfolk caught in the way of his attacks.
It went against his principles to abandon civilians in trouble, but the lady pirate had a point. They had bigger fish to fry.
He apologized profusely to the very afraid people he had to leave disassembled and prayed that somebody took pity on them soon, or at least they didn't get caught in the crossfire of the battle again and got gravely injured. He knew by experience that being split into pieces by the Ope Ope no Mi hurt one's pride and not much else, though properly putting the pieces together had been a royal pain.
He couldn't have dreamed then that one day he'd depend on that man to save his captain, but at that moment, he would have done anything to get to her, and he wasn't the only one.
Until then, Philip hadn't seen much of Captain Marina's brother, but he had assumed he was how he assumed all pirates to be: rough and uncaring and disregarding of human life. And while he certainly wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, the only thing he could see was a man worried sick about what little family he had left, leading the charge right behind his captain.
Philip had a little sister, too.
The group had to fight their way through city guard and some soldiers he recognized as Flagel's, and at some point Philip had picked up a discarded short sword that someone had dropped. He didn't want to hurt anybody, no matter if they were friend or foe, since in his mind every citizen was a victim of circumstance, but he couldn't afford be naïve. He had a mission to complete, and Howe was waiting for him to report back and bring Captain Marina with him.
He had lost track of how long they had been fighting and searching for signs of his captain or any friendly faces from his squad that had lingered behind when they saw her. Well, Lucky Clover saw her, and she immediately screamed bloody murder and directed Captain Marina's brother in the right direction.
Philip followed suit, somehow managing to get ahead of the rest of the pirates. Priorities, as one of them had said.
Her brother kept yelling her name. The only other person he'd ever heard calling her 'Mari' was Rear Admiral Curtiss.
The closer they got to her, the more Philip started to panic, and the people fighting in the street weren't making it easy to reach her. Captain Marina was getting up from the ground and her movements were uncharacteristically slow, and she was bloody and beaten up and oh God oh God what happened to her—?!
He got a clear view of the scene just in time to recognize that her opponent was Commodore Flagel, and to watch him stab her through the chest with one of his arms.
Her brother froze in his tracks for a second, and so did Philip, trying to process what he had just seen. A superior officer had killed her. He'd just seen—he'd been too slow and now—
Philip didn't come to his senses until Penguin caught up with him and clapped on his back. "That was close. C'mon, let's go!"
Even then, it took a few seconds to let it sink that, inexplicably, Captain Marina was still moving, and Flagel looked now terrified.
Philip had no clue what was going on, but he knew he had to help, so he ran. He ran faster than he had in his life, and he even pushed people out of the way without any regard to their wellbeing. Soon he was next to his captain's brother, and both of them got there in time to watch her push Flagel into a well and drop to the ground.
"Mari! Mari!"
Philip ran the last stretch to her, and her brother sunk to his knees right away and held her so she could still sit up.
"Mari, it's all right, we're here!"
"Mack…"
"Stay with me, Mari, you're safe now."
Philip would never know if it was cosmic irony or simple luck what made him notice at that moment that something was holding onto the well. His sudden movement alerted Captain's brother too, who tried to shield her with his body from whatever was coming out of the well.
Philip knew what it was.
He knew what he had seen moments before.
And, above all, he knew who Captain Marina was.
He brought down the short sword on the tendril holding onto the well, severing it, and the action was followed by a long scream and a muted splash.
Marines existed, above all things, to help people. Philip knew his duty well.
As the rest of the pirates got there, Philip also knelt down. "Captain, you can rest now. There's nothing to worry about."
She was pale, and bloody, and somehow she still found the will the smile a little at him. "Never thought you had it in you." She took a strangled breath. "I'm proud of you. Of you two."
Philip found himself unable to speak, and her eyes started to close then.
"Captain," his brother said with urgency. "She's boiling, I think she's sick."
"Shit," Trafalgar muttered, reaching for her neck to examine it. "Her injuries are look bad enough, but everything at once—"
"Can you save her?"
The pirate captain hesitated for a moment. "I'm not sure. I—"
"But Captain, didn't you find something?" The polar bear intervened. "You brought something to the doctor in town."
"Do you still have some in the sub?" Hurried to say.
"No, it's not that ea…" He trailed off, and suddenly, like hit by a revelation, looked at Capatin Marina's brother. "Do you know your sister's blood type?"
"It's X, like mine."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I fucking am."
"There's a chance," he said, and turned to Philip, who jumped when he found himself at the center of attention. "But she may have an objection."
At this point, Captain Marina was fully unconscious, and in no state to reply. Philip understood with no need for an explanation.
"You want to take her with you."
"Not want. Need. I can't treat her here."
Philip took a deep breath, and he felt wetness in his eyes that he tried to hold back with all his might. "Then—"
The pirate, who seemed to be as tactful as a wrecking ball, hammered the point in before Philip could have a say. "You understand that if she comes with us, she'll never be able to go back to the Marines, do you?"
He knew. Of course he knew. If fighting with a commodore and messing somehow with their superiors' deal wasn't been bad enough, associating with pirates would brand her a traitor right away.
It wasn't fair. She had worked so hard. She had trained them so well. Of all the people this had to happen to, she was the last one who deserved it.
"Take her," she said with a barely audible voice, and then, with tears cascading down his face and trying to hold back sobs and failing, he said louder. "Please, take her with you! Save her!"
Philip didn't think well of pirates. How could he, in his line of work? But he thought he had a good grasp on people, and when Trafalgar Law stared at him in the eye, he had the feeling that he was leaving Captain Marina in the best hands possible, and that was all he could ask for.
"Bepo," he said, "carry her, and try not to shake her too much. I need my hands free if we're going to make it to the docks in time."
It was a thing of wonder, how a creature as imposing as a polar bear was able to take the unconscious woman in his arms so gently, almost cradling her.
"Everybody ready to go?" Trafalgar Law asked.
And though Philip knew he was doing so for the benefit of his crew, and that he'd have to part ways with them before as soon as they arrived at their destination, he nodded too, intent on following Captain Marina for as long as he was able to, and to give Howe the report he deserved.
—
Everything hurt.
She was lying somewhere soft, and every single muscle and joint in her body radiated a dull ache, like she hadn't moved in days. Her clothes felt cool to the touch, as if soaked in cold sweat. All sounds were muffled, far away. Her mouth was dry, her chest felt like someone had placed a stone slab on it, and her eyelids were fighting hard to stay closed, but in the end, she won. Small victories.
There was a ceiling and it was metallic. She didn't remember anywhere like that. What was…?
"You're awake! Wait, don't move, you need to—"
Marina tuned out the voice as her eyes regained focus and she registered her new surroundings.
She'd been fighting. There was Flagel, and then Mack and Philip had appeared and—
She sat up far too quickly, and a muscle cramp made her fall forward, gritting her teeth and clutching the sheets with a pitiful lack of strength. She noticed she could move her hands well because they were bandaged.
"I told you not to move!" A woman said, exasperated. "You're that kind of patient, aren't you? But really, don't move around too much, you've still got an IV."
Slowly, she glanced at her left hand to see it was true, then up, to the source of the voice. "Clover?" She rasped out.
The woman snorted. "Is that your nickname for me? Not very original. Whose idea was that, anyway? I've been meaning to ask. Was it a dumb coincidence?"
Marina's thought process was still too slow to understand what she was saying.
"Take this," she said, holding a glass of water her way, and when Marina took it, she also shoved a thermometer at her. "And this."
She was too thirsty to consider poisons, and drank the glass in one sitting. She traded it for the thermometer, but instead of using it, she took a moment to look around. "Is this your ship?"
"Yeah. My room, in fact. Welcome to my humble abode."
Marina noticed the bed to her right, which must have been Clover's. Whose was she occupying, then? There was a desk with books and a picture frame shoved against the wall in front of her, a chest sitting between the two beds, and two doors. The room was kind of cramped.
And it was clean. Pristine. Most sanitary pirate ship interior she had ever seen.
"Have I been out for long?" She asked at last.
"A whole week."
"What?!"
Unfazed by her outburst, Clover lifted an eyebrow and took a step back to sit on the other bed. She was very expressive. "Count your lucky stars. You were actually dead by the time we got here, you know. Captain had to resuscitate you. Good thing he always has a defibrillator on hand."
Clover snorted like she had just said something very funny, and Marina didn't share the sentiment.
Since there was no reply, she continued. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I…" Her gaze fell down to the bedsheets, lost as she tried to dig up the memories of what had happened. They were hazy and distant, like they were very old, or the protagonist had been somebody else. "I fled the castle. Jumped from a window, escaped to the town and Flagel caught up with me there. We fought. What happened to him?"
"One of your guys was a badass," she beamed. "It's always the quiet ones."
Marina blinked. "Oh… I think I remember Philip. I said something to him? I think I did. Is he all right?"
"Yeah. Kid didn't leave your side for a second until we got you on board."
Marina shook her head slowly, as if to clear the fog. It didn't help. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you save me? Was it because Mack asked you to? What's in it for your captain?"
She supposed she sounded accusatory and ungrateful, but she couldn't help it. She was confused. All of a sudden, nothing in her life made sense.
For the first time in the conversation, Clover looked troubled. Her brow was furrowed and she scratched her head as she thought. Not one for concealing her feelings, Marina, thought.
"Philip asked us to. I think Mack wanted to, but was afraid to make the call. Your life in the Marines would be over the moment we brought you here. Making a decision that important without your consent would be… well."
"Philip did, huh?"
A few seconds later, Clover continued. "As for Captain, he isn't really like that."
"What do you mean?"
"He may be a pirate, but he's also a doctor. A damn good one. And Mack would've been devastated if something happened to you." She paused, and added. "Not that I know what goes through his head, but I can guess."
"And you?"
Her head tilted in confusion and dark green eyes bore into Marina. They contrasted with the red-orange hair strands that fell on her cheek. "Me?"
"I nearly killed you. Why are you chatting with me as if nothing happened?"
Clover seemed perplexed at that, and it took her a moment to recover. "I honestly forgot."
"You—you—?" Marina was at a loss for words. Was the woman in front of her a complete idiot?
"Oh, I remember it all right, but I wasn't thinking about it. That was months ago," she said like it had been decades since then, "and not the most traumatizing thing that has happened to me lately by any stretch. Pirates and Marines fight. It's a thing that happens. And you care about Mack and Mack cares about you. That's all I need to know you're okay."
"…Really? Is that it?"
It had to be a trap of some sort; it couldn't be so simple. And yet, she'd been thinking the same every time she had interacted with a Heart Pirate, and she had been proven wrong every time.
…Mack seemed to care about Clover, too.
"I'm not much for holding grudges and let me tell you, this entire year has been wild."
"I know. I've read your file."
"And I'm sure it doesn't cover half of it." Then, she sat on the bed with her legs crossed and Marina regained her full attention. "So, what happened in the castle?"
She felt awful just thinking about it. Ashamed for being so naïve and frustrated at her powerlessness. What would become of Pavis now, with Flagel out of the picture? Would the deal between the prince and the World Government go ahead? She could only assume so, if the rebels hadn't somehow stopped it. "Your captain was right happened."
Clover smirked. "He tends to do that. Infuriating, isn't it?"
Marina sighed. "I would agree if I had the energy to get mad at all."
She laughed. Did she really think nothing of her presence in her room? "Happens to the best of us. Anyway, I should tell your brother and the doctor you're awake. Are you ready?"
She was very much not. "Sure, go ahead."
Clover nodded and got up from her bed, and she had already reached for the doorknob when she stopped and turned around to face Marina. "Hey, if you don't mind me asking, do you know what you're going to do from now on?"
Marina raised her eyebrows at her.
"I mean, we can drop you off at the next island if you want, but then you'll be all alone. Are you ready to start from scratch? New life and identity and all that?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"Nothing." She shrugged. "Talk to Mack about it, maybe? He's been pretty happy since your condition stabilized. If you want to consider a career change, it sounds like it's the right time."
And before Marina could think of what to reply, she left, closing the door behind her like she hadn't just made the absolutely preposterous suggestion that she became a pirate, and like Marina wasn't, actually, starting to give it some decent consideration.