baby 5: in litus - "on a beach"
xxx
"So," they asked, "how'd it end, Miss Baby?"
He bristled at my right, arms crossed. "Don't listen to them." His face glowered. "We know how personal this all is. You don't need to tell us shit."
But I wanted to. At least the parts I knew about. It's hard to explain.
But this was for me. Like Cora-san said.
xxx
(The Family's ship didn't survive the last round of the long nines. It teetered to the side, leaning into the ocean like a body laid to sleep. The cadets sprinted on deck with grappling hooks. Sea stone chains and boarding planks lugged forward under the brisk note of the Vice Admiral's command. Captain Hoshi barked for the waters to be searched.
They frogmarched the executives first, then the officers and then the outer crewmen. Lieutenant Mio held her gun with steady knuckles this time. She'd served the Vice Admiral for years. Knew all the names of the Donquixote Family by heart and razed her eyes now over the soaked and drooping mops of dyed hair, the soggy fabrics they decked themselves in, as vibrant as costumes.
Several girls laughed. "Murderous freaks." They went silent when the Vice Admiral looked at them.
The outer crewmen were tied to the capstan, while the executives and officers would be dragged to the brig. Gladius the marksman, shouted and writhed as he was dragged across the deck. ("—I'll blast your headquarters sky high, you hear me? If you touch my captain, if you f-fucking even—I-I'll—") He was only twenty though, a whole five years younger than Mio herself, had grown used to protection under Doflamingo's wing and it showed.
Machvise and Jora were actively terrified too for that matter, mascara running down the latter's face in inky purple streaks. Only Senor Pink didn't utter a sound, taunt and downcast as they were led away. Impel Down awaited them, Mio was sure they were aware. And for their captain, the chopping block loomed.
The Vice Admiral had no reaction. She ordered a delirious Lao G to be wheeled to the med bay and then swept to the rail. Her eyes were hard as diamonds on the horizon. From their distance, the object seemed otherworldly. Delicate. The alien beauty of a fish's ribcage.
"He's dead," Executive Trebol said, "My master's diced your clumsy rat into itty pieces. He'll come for us too, behehe, and then you'll see what we've really got in store for North Blue."
Hoshi pistol-whipped him. Trebol squealed and cackled a second later when the captain drew back in disgust, weapon clogged with mucus. Mio's stomach flipped with revulsion. She radioed the other vessels and reported the capture.
Behind them, the last glimpse of the Donquixote Jolly Roger was dragged into the sea. A sickly blue light haunted the sky.
The Vice Admiral didn't turn around again.)
xxx
Doflamingo walked. There was no path he could see anymore, no direction he was pointed to, but the land sloped downwards and he followed it. The cage groaned, some of the bars creaking from the wind.
The bleeding wouldn't stop. With resignation, he beckoned the ruined stitches out of his arm and watched them tunnel out like worms from the earth. He let them float off into the wind and didn't bother trying to re-stitch again. Perhaps the arm would simply be lost.
Where are you going?
"Away," Doflamingo said and continued walking. The ghost drifted beside him. Studied him with its pensive, child gaze.
You still don't believe me.
Silence.
Why? After everything, Doffy, how can my intentions still be unclear?
"Maybe because you kept them in a file."
The ghost went quiet. It stopped a moment and Doflamingo limped past, breaking through a giant snowdrift. The new gouge in his side was hot.
"It was so well-documented. Such an expansive list of bedlams and lobotomies. All those lovely footnotes. You must've worked on it for ages." Doflamingo rasped out a laugh. "Fuck, what a read."
Brother…
"How am I to believe anything you say after what you wrote in there? You meant something else by coming back here? You had no intention of...doing all this to me? Why didn't I find any of that then? Hundreds of pages, not even a word." No reply came, though Doflamingo didn't care for one. He flagged a shaking hand through the air. "You're still a liar, but it's just as well. We do know where we stand now."
Do we?
His fingers curled.
"You can go fetch the boy. Give him the fruit even, if you haven't already. Stay out of my sight for the rest of our lives. It's a fair trade."
I won't be leaving this island.
The Den Den Mushi rang.
It's not a trick, it said, Not a lie.
...are you going to let me die here alone?
The ghost belled into smoke.
Doflamingo stared ahead. The ringtone droned on. He slid the snail from his inner pocket and the number on the shell flashed at him.
Vergo.
The Den Den's features grew urgent. "Doffy, where are you?"
Doflamingo half-swayed as the snail talked at him. Vergo had been trapped in the cage while unloading a wine crate from his boat. He'd spent the past hour monitoring the activity out at sea, an ear glued to the marines.
Tsuru had captured the Family.
Routes were being drawn for the Calm Belt and more navy were inbound. The news jumbled together in Doflamingo's head, collapsing down the row like dominoes. Machvise with his flat tail and Lao G's flopping ears. Pink's pacifier and bib ensemble. They would be laughed at. Ridiculed.
Tsuru would take Baby away forever.
"Doffy." The snail leaned in. "We will break them out later. Before they reach Impel. Escape has to be our priority."
Priority? A part of Doflamingo found the word almost unfathomable, wanted to shout that he had no priorities left. Nothing, nothing. It took immense effort for him to block it out. Vergo was right. He couldn't risk being caught here. Any and all routes to the Calm Belt required weeks of travel. He would retrieve his family then.
"Alright."
The snail nodded, scanning him.
"And Rosinante?" it asked, "Did you kill him?"
Radio static tore through the connection, warbling voices materializing on the other end. The eyelids of the transponder snail rose, before slowly creasing into a furrow.
"Sengoku has entered the triangle." It looked at him. "I'm on the south beach. Can you get here?" Doflamingo didn't feel himself nodding, but he must have since the creature's eyes narrowed.
"Hurry, Doffy, we need to go."
They hung up. Doflamingo returned the Den Den to the damp and stained breast pocket. Shadows hung in the hollow of his collarbone, clustered like bats off a steeple. The white form shimmered and reappeared at his hip.
You won't survive me. You can survive anything and everything, but not me.
Doflamingo resumed walking.
You're gonna break apart, brother.
He tripped over a rock. A burst of pain ripped through his side and shocked a grunt out of him. His hand planted over the wound and when his palm lifted again, it was seeping—rich blood steaming in the frosted air.
The ghost peered over, mournful brick-dust eyes.
Oh, Doffy, it said, Where are you going?
xxx
(She found a few of the Young Master's strings wavered from a piece of scaffolding. Glinting threads that twisted in the shattered skylights and wood beams, dancing in the wind as though with their own minds. Baby Five had always wondered if they did hold a remnant of him still enclosed inside them, a consciousness, a flicker of recognition.
When she crouched down, they seemed to approach her, fluttering against her hair, gently brushing her cheekbone. Baby smiled.
"You should be careful."
The older boy had walked up, hands shoved in his pockets. He was almost as skinny as Law and had an 'X' scarred on his chin. 'Dory,' he'd said his name was, though Baby didn't know why he had told her it or why he had followed her.
It was a giant island of snow and shadows and too many dead things though. Maybe that was why.
He pointed at the strings.
"Those things'll kill you."
Baby frowned. She shook her head.
Then the wind knocked the scaffolding over. It collapsed into the wreckage with a sharp smack. Baby jumped harder when Dory screamed. He dropped to the ground, his hands flying to his hair, arms trying to shield his face.
"No! N-No, please!"
She hurried over, staring as he curled tighter and tighter into a quaking ball. After a beat, she knelt beside him, curious and large-eyed.
On the other side of the courtyard, the strange old man stood. He hefted a very long, very broad rifle over a shoulder and ambled down the manor trail. He was still singing.
"...we play our parts from our hearts...finish always what we start...")
xxx
(Time was moving exceptionally slow.
Vergo had triple-checked the fuel gauges, throttle and emergency sail lines. He entered the coordinates for their closest island hideout and flipped open the physical maps in case of malfunction.
Huge tufts of clouds were gathering overhead. Snow, it looked like. Doffy was late.
He brushed sea salt from his cloak. Set his bag on the bench top. For the purpose of a marine stakeout, he had once sat motionless on a bough for over six hours, but now he paced without control. Stern to bow. Bow to stern. The plunk of his boots vibrated over the metal plates.
It was sixteen more minutes before he appeared, a vivid drop of color among cold white-blue.
"Doffy?"
Vergo was on the beach within seconds, arms shooting up to steady his master as he wobbled. The left lens of Doffy's glasses was broken. The smell of metal leveled the air.
Doffy squinted at him, brows drawn down. After a beat, his hand rose gently towards the left side of Vergo's jaw.
"What happened to your ear?" he said and Vergo guided him on board with due haste.
He was in horrible shape. The left sleeve so stiff with blood Vergo had to slice him out of it. Two bullet holes in his left arm and shoulder puffed with infection, while a ravine of a gash across his torso still sluggishly bled. Vergo was stunned. He couldn't recall the last time Doffy had even been struck, let alone reduced to such a state.
Doffy was unmoved by his own condition. He picked at his fingers. When Vergo asked why he hadn't simply sewn up his wounds, he merely showed his hand, trembling erratically with withdrawal.
Vergo pulled a bottle of Caesar's wine from the crate.
"I will get you something better when we make land again," he promised.
Doffy accepted the bottle. He twisted it by the neck in languid circles instead of drinking it. Vergo did not push. The shots had been partially embedded. He moved for the first aid kit.
"No. Sit down a moment, Vergo."
"The bullets are still in—"
"I said sit down."
Vergo sat. Doffy crossed his legs. Blood dripped onto the metal decking, hollow plunks like wet leaves after rain. Three minutes passed before Vergo couldn't endure the sound anymore.
"What did you do with Barrels?"
"I killed him."
A pause.
"As expected of you, Doffy."
The bottle spun another circle in the silence.
Stars slanted across Doffy's face and welled shadows beneath his bones. His left eye hung among the pink shards, milky like a corpse's, gazing into unseen places. The wine was set down and nudged aside with a foot.
"It was on a cliff."
Vergo's skin went peculiarly cool.
"I left him there," Doffy muttered, turning towards the island, "On the other side of the hills."
No fool in existence could've thought he meant Barrels. Vergo's pulse thrummed. There was a startling beat in which his mind drew blank, almost unable to process the thought, before the full breadth of it hit him.
It had been done.
Rosinante was dead.
Finally.
Finally, finally, finally.
He nodded, just once and slow. He did not smile, because it was oddly distasteful to him then. Rosinante...there had been persistence in him. Determination. A morsel of respect was due.
"Traitors pay the price," he said and after another moment, added, "There was no other way."
Doffy did not reply at length. He sat there hunched on the bench, features depleted and shoulders slack.
Then he reached over and touched Vergo's left ear again.
"You never told me who did this," he said, nails skimming the bandages.
"No need," Vergo said, "They've been taken care of."
The hand was still another moment, before shifting to rest along his jaw, fingers curved and light over the bone. Per the unspoken command, Vergo leaned in. He savored that old taste of fire and gold. Of newly unfettered power, sweet as honey.
It was as Trebol had always predicted. The chains had been snapped, the weaknesses cut open and scooped out.
"I've had enough of this place," Doffy said after they parted and Vergo told himself the pale, knife-deep grief in those words did not unnerve him. He expected grief. Doffy would overcome it. He could overcome anything. Even death. Even Rosinante. Even himself.
"Then we shall go," Vergo said and stood.)
xxx
We went down from the mansion. Me and Dory.
xxx
A large transponder snail dozed in the cabin of Vergo's boat. It was an intercom system, judging by the number of antennas sticking from its shell, the twenty channel buttons visible in the open latch panel.
Doflamingo's flesh prickled. It occurred to him then that the marines had likely used one of these snails to coordinate Dellinger's capture all those years ago. He turned weakly in his seat, the memory of that wriggling bundle of hair and horns breathing over him. The little thing must've been five by now.
"You shouldn't move." Vergo set down an eternal pose. "You'll open your wound again."
It was already open. Small crimson blotches spreading across the gauze like spring buds. To be expected. It needed intense stitching. A quick rinse and bandaging wasn't going to help much. Doflamingo didn't bother mentioning it.
"What are you looking at?" Boots plunked towards him. There was a thoughtful sound as Vergo's shadow drew to his side. "It's one of their main communication methods here in the New World. Intel shared between the channels and Headquarters. It's how I learned Barrels had planned to sell the Ope Ope on Rubeck."
"That so?" Doflamingo said, quietly and with indulgence, "You always were instrumental."
Vergo smiled. "The marines are connected to all sorts of projects actually," he said, "Weapon tech. Underground bases."
His voice bounced in and out of focus, cracking across Doflamingo's vision in strange dry bolts. Rubeck had vanished along the horizon behind him. He wondered what it looked like now. If he'd succeeded.
"...in fact they transmitted something interesting just a few days ago…"
He didn't think he could return there again.
"...about the properties of Conqueror's Haki."
It made him beyond sick now.
"Apparently..."
Made him wretched and twisted tight.
"...there's a study out linking it to heart damage."
What a waste it'd been.
"Doffy?"
"Interesting," Doflamingo replied.
xxx
That old man. I don't even know if he'd been able to recognize where he was by then. He must've sang all the way down from the hills. His name hadn't been said a lot in the Barrels crew apparently.
When I ran into Dory again a few years back, he told me the guy had been recruited by his cousin and that the whole process of it sorta became his branding. Even Barrels' logs put him down as just Isaac's cousin.
Dory went through the rest of his father's effects for a name too. He was real diligent about it, keeping a record and combing it all twice. He must've felt like he owed me.
Nothing ever turned up though. The guy was faceless. Unimportant, unknown. He was a nobody.
A ghost.
xxx
Vergo discovered the bleeding wound on his own. He re-bandaged it hurriedly. "Why didn't you say anything?" He studied him with perplexity, but Doflamingo didn't look back at him and didn't respond either. Tiny metallic butterflies were flaking off the cabin roof. The ghost sat on the ledge, kicking its legs.
"You took the fruit back from Barrels, I assume," Vergo ventured after a moment.
He shook his head. "It'd been stolen by then. I'm sure Law's already eaten it."
"Then we will find the boy," Vergo said immediately, "and take him back instead."
Doflamingo leaned against the bench.
"No." His eyes were cool and tired upon the stars. "The boy can go."
The vessel bobbed, water pushing and pulling the keel. He licked his lips. Felt hooks pull at his chest and skull. Vergo stared at him, almost shuffling from foot to foot.
"What about Dressrosa? You will feel better once you become king."
"I don't want Dressrosa."
"What?"
Everything was silver-lined and flickering and slow and ugly. He licked his lips again.
What he wanted was gone, he realized then. Gone the moment he'd set off for the celestial city alone. He hadn't held onto it tightly enough and there was no undoing what had been done.
Vergo turned him by the chin. An alarmed crease had formed between his brows.
"Never mind," he said and pressed a canteen to his mouth.
xxx
(They left the mansion together, Dory pretending not to be extremely embarrassed the whole way down from the hills.
It had taken him quite a while to pull himself together again, the flashing fists and boots of his father rising out of the depths like phantoms. The girl had rubbed his back as he shook, patting his spine like he was a traumatized baby animal.
"Thanks," he grunted as they trudged towards the beach.
She looked quizzical.
"For earlier. I needed it."
He startled back a second later, when she beamed. Pure naked elation blossoming scarlet on her cheeks. She clutched her face and nodded at him demurely, eyelashes batting.
Dory's brow rose a fraction.
"Uh…?"
The girl skipped ahead, light as a bird.
Over them, the cage bars groaned.)
xxx
Vergo was rushing around in the cabin. He had said something about blood loss. About shock. Doflamingo watched him boredly, his gaze drifting. A halo of vibration encircled every object on board. Their colors dripped like one of Jora's fresh paintings. The stars were dotted gray. The billowy snow clouds a dark red.
A folder stuck out of Vergo's bag, white and smudged.
The title shimmered like fish scales. It took a moment for Doflamingo's vision to properly focus on it.
Marine Code 01746.
Doflamingo sat up. A pang of humiliation and disgust lifted through his rib cage. Why Vergo still had another copy of that wretched thing was mystifying. He snatched it out, teeth bared, ready to hurl it into the sea.
It couldn't be identified what stopped him really. A feeling. A ripple in him that could've been anything from hatred to contrition. Maybe it was that ancient shadow of himself still standing on an old island's beach, unable to leave.
Who could say.
Doflamingo lowered his arm. One more time, he thought, to strengthen his resolve. To remind himself. He was finished with all of this. He was ready to be shut of it.
When he cracked open the addenda, the first thing he saw was a paper he didn't recognize.
xxx
(And it was such a funny and confounding thing, what people chose to do in the end.
That the ensign of Vale had used the marine code he'd received on that bird-abandoned eve and made a file request to Saobody.
That he would receive a white folder from a scatter-brained archivist. That he would die on the same day, skull cracked open, body lost in the flames.
And that Vergo would've gathered up all his papers and taken that last true copy of Marine Code 01746 back across the seas.)
xxx
(Vergo turned the key and the engine revved to life. He detached the anchors and steered the prow around to face the bars. "Doffy," he said, turning, "I'm ready. Open the…"
Papers had spilled across the deck. Yellowed parchment, faded ink. A handful blew past his feet like old leaves. Doffy looked up at him. Between his fingers hung a white folder.
Marine Code 01746 reflected in Vergo's shades.
It had still been in his bag.
"Vergo…" Doffy said softly.
He had forgotten.
"What are these?"
The letters, in their winding child's handwriting, were clutched in Doffy's hand. The cover sheet had fluttered beneath the bench. On the floor was the transcript with the Gorosei, the words large in an ocean of black lines.
I'm going back for what's mine.
Doffy stepped over the papers and was then in front of him. "Why do you have them?"
He said nothing.
Doffy's hand was around his collar. It was shaking and white-nailed. His lips were bloodless.
"Vergo?"
This whole fucking world can't stop me.)
xxx
(On the crest of the last hill, they saw the path descend towards the beach.
The girl paused, a breath of wonder at the glittering sea. Dory stopped next to her and took in the view. The cage bars stood like needle-thin columns in the waves. A boat swayed just a few meters out from the rocks.
"Oh," he said, glancing further down the trail, "that's where he went." He pointed again when the girl looked at him, questioning.
Isaac's cousin was a stringy smudge on the path. His gait was odd, his back bent like he was creeping through the bush. Big Chacko's large game rifle was poised in his hands.)
xxx
He was so far away on the edge of that shoreline. The distance just never managed to close.
Time is a genuine god. It can't see you or hear you. It can't want you or hold you. It will never falter or regret things or come back looking for you.
xxx
It fell upon him so fast. Every missing piece. Like a punch, a bullet. It was Trebol and Vergo, Law had shouted across the snow, It was them.
Vergo touched his hand. His thumb trailed a gentle arc over his knuckles.
"He may have loved you, Doffy," Vergo said, "but he was dead weight."
xxx
(There were distant figures on the boat too. Dory saw after much squinting that it bore the naval emblem on its flank. A pang of relief rippled through him. Marines were still on the island. He couldn't believe—
The girl ran.
Dory gave chase almost without a word, half-startled into it like a dog would be. She was unbelievably fast, her steps smooth and quick as a dancer's.
"Hey! Wha—"
Her arms splayed out and shined beneath the starlight. Dory's eyes nearly popped out of his skull when they morphed into blades. Cleavers.
A devil fruit user.
Wha…?)
xxx
"And ever since he returned, he's been making you worse and worse." Vergo squeezed his hand, the parchment of the letters crushed between them. "Just look at yourself. A bleeding wreck with no ship or crew left, trapped on an island of corpses. Is this you? Is he worth all this?"
Doflamingo stared.
"You…"
"I know it wasn't my place to interfere." Vergo took a step forward. "But Trebol said he would be your ruin. I had to force him out, Doffy. I told him you'd killed your father. It was always something you'd thought about doing anyway, was it not?"
"Trebol," Doflamingo repeated and looked beyond the cage. But Trebol was being loaded onto a ship of marines at the borders of the triangle. He was laughing somewhere in the black distance, far out of Doflamingo's icy pale reach.
He knew where to push. He made fools of us both.
Trebol has you dancing.
Doflamingo dropped his hand. Vergo released him. The letters fell too, six-years worth, scattering around them in a ring, a few pages slipping into the depths.
There's no time. He's going into...
Please, help us.
Something interesting just a few days ago about the properties of Conqueror's Haki.
Vergo looked confused when he took a step back. "What's wrong, Doffy?"
"You…" Doflamingo whispered, "You…"
He spun for the beach.
Vergo grabbed his wrist. "Where are you going? You're too injured, you can't—"
Blood slathered the floor and over the rail, over Doflamingo's shoes and some of his hair and flecked over his face.
Vergo staggered backwards. He coughed twice and looked down at himself. His mouth opened and shut, forming the shape of his name. His arm rose partially, before he collapsed like a pound of bricks and sent an echo across the boat.
The strings pulled free and shot across the waves. Doflamingo's feet floated from the deck.
xxx
(And there it was. The Monster in plain view.
Golden-haired creature, lean and sleek. Tarnished, demonic crew-butchering, cousin-murdering beast.
He thumbed back the hammer.)
xxx
I ran as hard as I could. My legs were screaming.
Oh, Young Master, I didn't even breathe.
xxx
He landed on the frosted sand, coat settling around him. White steam flowed past Doflamingo's lips, through the hot rivulets of Vergo's blood—a singular breath in the frosted night. Slow and blank.
He raced towards the bluff.
What have you done? A child's voice whispered after him.
Doflamingo couldn't feel his legs, his mouth, his skin. His body was an ice cavern of buzzing and tearing, everything suspended in freefall.
Heart failure
a study had linked Law had said haki how many times
Heart failure—
He was on his ship one year ago, letting Trebol seep all over his chair and his thoughts and his brain, and he was standing in the lounge losing his temper over fucking nothing, watching his brother beg him for a promise he broke, in a washroom scrubbing blood off his—
You will regret it…
Always, you know?
...for the rest of your life.
Always.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? In the flash of a moment, the child appeared, sunglasses gone, tear-soaked, small ragged hands open in front of him.
YOU
KILLED
The world blurred hot and wet.
"Rosi—"
He crashed into the snow.
For a moment, Doflamingo laid there, stunned. Feathers landed beside his head. A ringing echoed in his ears. A warmth spread over his back.
It took him a while to realize he'd been shot.
Right before he was shot again.
And again. And again. And again.
Doflamingo breathed, fingers dragging in the snow as he tried to push himself upright.
The glassy sound of metal plinked over ice and when he turned he saw an old man walking up to him through an aisle of bullet shells. Greasy hair, quivering bloodshot eyes. Rifle aimed in his hands. Doflamingo didn't recognize him.
"The Beast sees its doom, across the gloom." The grin curled bright behind the cavernous barrel. "This hunter who shot down the Moon."
The man's finger gripped the trigger. He leaned.
And then in a slash of light, he dropped dead.
The leathery stump of his neck oozed black against the sand. His head sailed towards the clouds.
The rifle clattered to the ground.
Baby Five kicked it away without a look.
xxx
It'll be in me forever.
My captain on that beach.