Chapter Ten - Apologies and Truths
Edited: 12/2017
Posted: 11/2016
Riyo spent a good portion of the night deciding how to approach Zoro. Too strong and the swordsman would feel like it was pity; too mild and it wouldn't appease Riyo's own instinctive need to fix what she had done.
There wasn't exactly a Miss Manners set of instructions for conveying the appropriate level of 'I'm sorry' for her psychopathic personality disrespecting his entire life's ambition and most cherished belongings while trying to cannibalize a guest.
Zoro had done well with Hawkeye, but that had been a stranger and an unknown, a hurdle to attempt and in that case miss. It was a failure he could accept in stride and with some semblance of grace.
Hawkeye hadn't been the lizard he carried around and cuddled-though Zoro would never admit it.
Riyo finally fell into a fitful sleep in the early hours of the morning pushing around ideas and going in circles with potential receptions to each.
~*\*~
Riyo woke before sunrise.
She wasn't surprised it was due to the small sounds of Zoro starting his weight training on the aft deck.
Again.
She lay curled in her nest in the hold, all of her senses trained on the rhythmic clink of weights and the swordsman's even breathing.
{Coward.}
Riyo snorted at the Other as she stretched out her body physically as a way to mentally prepare for the morning; she couldn't disagree with its assessment, after all.
~*\*~
The sun was barely considering an appearance on the horizon; the clear sky was the palest purple-pink.
She made a slow trek across the deck, nodding at Sanji as the chef was coming down from the crow's nest to begin breakfast preparations; he had been on watch.
Riyo wasn't surprised the blond paused for a moment in front of her.
"Marimo doesn't blame you, you know."
Riyo gave him a baleful look. "I blame myself enough for us both. And he's going to permanently maim himself if he doesn't stop this insane training."
"I won't disagree with that," Sanji admitted. Seas forbid he actually show some level of concern for the swordsman. The chef took a slow drag on his cigarette. "But you're both being dense."
He spun on his heel and disappeared into the galley with a click of his dress shoes.
Riyo blinked for a moment. That was almost an insult--for a woman. That was a huge breakthrough for Sanji.
Riyo also had the sinking feeling she had been judged and found wanting by a kid way-too-much-of-a-fraction of her age. Screw the species lifespan conversion, she was calling bullshit on that one.
"Dense," she muttered to herself. "He's one to talk. I know who he's watching from the crows nest this early; my nose doesn't lie."
~*\*~
Riyo found Zoro exactly where she expected he'd be: training himself into the ground with what should be physically impossible weights.
She leaned on the back wall of the galley that separated the space from the main deck and watched the sweat drip down the smooth muscle of Zoro's back as he swung the massive bar and disk weights with one arm in a paraody of a sword.
Riyo could see why Sanji enjoyed morning watch. She was hardly going to begrudge him the eye candy, even if Zoro was doing this as some sort of twisted punishment for his perceived failure.
Not even Ray had been able to tangle with the Other head on.
Zoro was running through precision katas with the massively over-proportioned hunk of metal and making it look way too easy. And therin lay the problem.
[Hurts.]
Yes. It did. Riyo could feel the ache and burn of the weights in her own shoulders, back, and torso. She could feel the inflamed pain of the stitches popping in his chest and stomach with no chance for recovery the way Zoro was going.
He was quite doggedly killing himself one rep at a time.
Riyo was half tempted to sic Chopper on him right then and there. She curbed the instinct that wanted her to protect her pit even from themselves. She wasn't a hatchling right out of the egg anymore. She had some control over her instincts.
Some.
Zoro would be seeing the fluffball after this and he would be resting for the day. Whether he liked it or not.
She watched Zoro. Watched him ignore the tiny trails of blood and clear fluid seeping from the stitches and shrug off the twinge of muscles protesting the abuse. When Zoro went to move into working his left arm-she lost count of the right arm repetitions at over three hundred, and who knew how late she came into the set-she had enough.
"Zoro."
He paused, the weight held easily in his right arm, and turned his head a fraction to acknowledge her. She knew he had been aware of her the entire time.
"I need to talk with you about what happened. What I did to you and Vivi."
He grunted, but then set the weight on the deck-with an ominous creaking of wood that made Riyo pat Merry's banister in sympathy-and walked over to his discarded shirt to wipe the sweat and blood off his face and chest. He threw the shirt back on the deck and leaned his hip against the railing.
He crossed his arms and stared at her.
That was as much as an invitation as she was going to get, she supposed.
"I-" Her eyes got caught on a small rivulet of blood that dripped from the puffed, red skin around the stitched wound in his chest. Most of the line was scabbed over, faintly bleeding, or seeping fluid. "I'm-"
Seas, that looked awful. Humans were not designed to sustain that kind of damage indefinitely.
"How hard did you even have to try?"
She flinched and dropped her eyes from the horror fest on his chest to the deck.
Damn. He wasn't going to pull any punches.
She wasn't going to do him the dishonor of lying, either. She met the demand in his eyes head on.
"I didn't." She tilted her chin up. "I didn't have to try to stop you."
The words were quiet and leaden in the early dawn air as they stared at each other.
She watched the tension in his shoulders, the clench in his jaw at her answer. She could see the pull in the skin around his eyes as he faced the reminder of the mountain he had to climb before he was even in the game.
"How fast could you end this crew, if you chose?"
She closed her eyes. She couldn't look at him as she whispered the words; couldn't face the fact that he knew she had calculated it too many times to count.
"3 minutes if Luffy was Luffy. Less if he...wasn't."
And that was being generous to the sheer stubbornness of Luffy's Will. In all reality it was less than 60 seconds.
She knew how easy it would be to end the life of everyone on this ship. She knew because she had done it, massacring entire crews-seas, she had destroyed entire armadas when she was bored-before they ever came close to Roger. She knew how stupidly easy it would be to lose them all if they met the wrong person at the wrong time and the crew acted like themselves because they were the Strawhat Pirates through and through.
One wrong word or bullheaded speech to the wrong person and all of their dreams, their spirits, would be stolen in moments.
Her world was defined by a stranger's will and seconds on a clock.
"Hawkeye was right to question why you would choose people so weak to follow," Zoro broke the silence.
Riyo was unnerved by the emotion in the admission.
Zoro stared out at the orange and gold sunrise across the waves in front of them. "We're nothing to you. If it came down to it there's nothing we could do to stop you."
"No," she agreed. She would give him honesty in all things. "Not with the skills you have now."
She walked closer, close enough to feel the fevered heat of Zoro's skin where she stood at the railing next to him. They both watched the last of the sunrise in silence. With the sun fully over the horizon and beginning to burn off the morning chill, Riyo turned to Zoro. She made sure to catch his eyes so he knew the truth of her words.
"You forgot that Mihawk admitted he saw the same potential as I do, though. He challenged you, Roronoa Zoro, to find the world and surpass him. I've known Mihawk almost his entire life, since he was a young child. This crew is so young. Bright. Naive in some ways. But that doesn't change talent and will." She did not blink as she made sure Zoro's focus was on her. "You're the only one Mihawk has ever seen as a potential successor to his title. You're the only one he's ever challenged to succeed."
"Tch. You're not-"
"If you're about to comment on my age we're gonna have a problem. I'm in the prime of my life, thank you."
"Tch." He stared at the water again.
"What I'm trying to say," she sighed, "is that there are people in this world who would face Mihawk and break under an unstoppable force. People like Krieg. Then there are people like you, who would meet that unstoppable force and learn to bend in order to come back stronger again. I'm trying to give you a compliment."
Zoro finally looked at her and Riyo could feel his anger and uncertainty, his self-recrimination churning in her own chest across their bond.
She really needed to figure that out. It was miserable feeling every one of her pit's emotion at all times.
"What good is bending if it means I fail?" Zoro growled. "What good is a chance to become stronger if it means my Captain and crew are dead?"
Riyo wanted to bash her head on the railing.
[We aren't good at the emotion thing.]
{No shit.}
"Shut up, you two," she snapped.
Zoro raised an eyebrow at her outburst.
"Sorry," she waved her hand, "the peanut gallery isn't helping this."
"They're kind of the reason for this," Zoro said pointedly.
Ouch.
"I know," she sighed. This time it was her turn to stare out at the water. "Look, their actions, although mostly out of my control, don't change the fact that they are me. As much as I hate it that makes it my responsibility to fix whatever stupidity it is they've done."
{Bite me, human.}
Gladly, she growled back. Ryuko was cackling to itself as the Other snarled at her.
She took a deep breath and faced Zoro. This time she put a hand on Zoro's shoulder, his skin far too hot as she met his eyes. He had to have a fever on top of popping all of those stitches; the lack of rest was not helping. He needed to stop this before he really did put himself at death's door.
"You haven't asked the right question, Zoro."
Zoro watched her for some time, either thinking on her words or what the question should be; more likely he knew and wasn't ready to forgive himself so easily.
Riyo gave him a tight smile. "You can't always be perfect. Luck, grit, determination, training. They're not always enough. Some things take time, Zoro. The strongest, tallest trees grow the slowest. And sometimes our best isn't enough even after all of that. I know better than anyone," she added softly.
He frowned at her, but it seemed that was the encouragement he needed. "Would you ever willingly harm this crew?"
"Never," she said immediately. "I would never harm the crew when I'm in control."
"And that's the problem. There's more than you in your head. What about them?"
"Ryuko is fine. She has the attention span of a goldfish. She'd be more interested in cuddling with Chopper or chasing down a sea king than harming the crew--as long as no one attacked her first. The Other is the concern. The Other chased Vivi. The Other disarmed you. The Other lives in black and white...pit or not-pit. There is no gray. The crew would have been safe. Mostly. Usopp would have been questionable but everyone else is pit and it at least recognizes Sanji as a potential predator rather than prey as hes not pit. Vivi and Carue aren't crew and aren't pit and she chose possibly the perfectly worst moment to interrupt. She-" Riyo finally had to turn away from Zoro, turn away from the sea, and wrap her arms around her stomach as she hunched over and remembered the wall with the open wound. The wall she couldn't fix. Not now.
"What happened?"
Riyo shook her head at Zoro's sharp voice. He knew something was wrong.
"She stopped me in the middle of repairing the wall. It was cracked from somnum. I had to clean the breaxh out, widen it to properly fix it, and when the Other surged up to take control it shattered the crack into a crevasse. Not really a hole, but not something I can fix any longer-not without rebuilding the entire wall and that wouldn't end well for anyone. The Other is recovering after the energy it took to break out, but it's not held inside any more. Not really. It's only biding its time. The next time I'm distracted it will take control. Every time I lose focus for a moment it will try to take control."
Zoro strung together enough curses even Riyo was impressed with the creativity.
"Yeah," she sighed. She abruptly settled herself on her knees on the deck, gesturing to Zoro to sit in front of her.
"Have a seat. This is going to take a little while."
Riyo knew it was going to come to this at some point. Honestly she expected it would be her Alpha, but having observed Luffy and now having the deepened bond with the rubber boy she knew he truly didn't care. Their pasts meant nothing to him but what had shaped them into the crew he loved today. Luffy accepted them all unconditionally.
Chopper silently worried about Riyo's mental health but the young doctor was too kind to force any sort of tests or drugs on her (not that they'd do much good with her metabolism).
Nami had lived her own version of Riyo's past; the navigator didn't need to poke at Riyo's scars for any more nightmare fuel.
Zoro was different. Zoro needed to know. As the first mate and her Beta he had every right to understand the dangers to the crew and pit even if the danger was from herself. Especially if the danger was from herself.
She placed her hands on the deck and bent forward until her forehead touched the wood at Zoro's knees. It was the most formal way to apologize in Zoro's culture. She held the position before sitting back and catching Zoro's gaze.
She did not blink as her scales, always covering her torso and upper thighs in a dark blue yo protect her human modesty, spread. Where they usually sat just beneath her human skin on her extremities, a hint of definition colored to blend in with the tan of her human skin, they rose and thickened until she wore her complete scales and true coloring on her human body. She was still in her full human form but with the deep blues, blacks, and purples of an adult sea queen.
Zoro's face was utter confusion.
"I take every responsibility for what the Other did when I lost control of it during my meditation. I respect your dedication to your craft, your dream, and the tools you use. Your blades deserve the honor and care you wield them with. The Other has no concept of this."
Riyo's voice cracked as she confronted what she'd have to share with him. The truth was hard to remember, even so many years later. She took a shaky breath and then she bared her past as she had bared her scales.
"This is the second most closely guarded secret of sea queens." Riyo didn't need to add the trust she was giving him. "Centuries ago, shortly after I was hatched, sea queens as a species were forced to make a decision that changed the way we survive. We used to be complete loners, isolated by choice and hardly ever crossing paths with another sea queen; we certainly never searched out a pit.
"The pit was an adaptation we chose in order to survive our then-current environment. We were fighting our one and only predator and losing." She saw Zoro's unspoken curiosity. "Humans, Zoro. Humans had discovered sea stone and they were using it against us in order to capture, control, and cage us."
"Sea stone?"
Ah, they probably had no idea of the metal's existence or danger. "Harder than diamond and with the properties of the sea. It weakens devil fruit users as if they had been thrown in the water and is a common material for weapons in the Grand Line to counteract the fruits, particularly in the New World. It's also addictive to sea queens when consumed in large quantities. It's an almost unknown weakness for us outside the World Government."
"Addic-"
"High as a kite," Riyo cut him off. This wasn't a pretty picture to paint. "It occurs in small quantities naturally and sea queens use it much like alcohol for humans. Acceptable in moderation. If we're forced to consume too much at once it triggers an addictive response for the rest of our lives. We crave it. It already smells divine, like catnip to a cat, but it becomes an obsession once we've crossed that line. We lose all control, all sense of self, to have one more bite. If we get enough of it we become disoriented, confused, lethargic, and may even slip into a coma and finally death. It's one of the only semi-reliable ways to kill us and make sure we stay dead," she finished blandly.
Zoro stared at her in horror.
"Why would you ever cross that line?"
"We weren't given a choice, Zoro," she said softly. The screams, the rage, the hate still echoed in her mind. "The true world is not a nice place. If you want to survive, that's the truth you'll have to find for yourself. How you respond to that truth will define who you are and what you become on the Grand Line."
"Are you…"
The question trailed off and Riyo filled in the words.
Was she addicted, weak, compromised?
She had to remind herself she wasn't a hatchling any more as she stared into the sky and sea.
She wasn't a victim any more even if she would carry the scars of that time for thr rest of her long life.
"Yes."
He nodded, and Riyo knew he understood the things unsaid and the pain fogging the air. It was more than she expected.
"As I said, when we chose to adapt the pit it was not undertaken lightly. It was similar to when the Other forced our body to alter our vocal chords to speak while Changed, but this was a species-wide decision for a specific genetic alteration. Sea queens have never before or since that day made such a drastic change."
This time she couldn't stop the small smile. She had been too young to remember a time before the pull for pit, at least not clearly.
"Our pit is our heart and soul. Our single purpose in life is to fill our pit with worthy family, protect them, guide them, and ensure we meet any and all of theirs needs."
"Our dreams," Zoro stated simply.
She gave him a quick smile. "Yes. All of your dreams are mine now. But it goes deeper than that. In order to win against the humans, it wasn't enough to need a pit. Anyone could step in and out of the role, then." Riyo had to look away. She watched the sun glitter on the waves as she remembered what it felt like to have her soul ripped out of her body and her mind split into jagged edges.
[Wrongwrongwrong to let them go.]
It had been. It was. But healing now. New bonds, deeper bonds to keep them safe. Ryuko grumbled in agreement and settled at that thought.
"We needed to have control of who we selected and we needed to make sure they couldn't ever be taken away without severe consequences." She trailed off, lost in the pain of that day.
"What consequences?" Zoro prompted.
She stared at Zoro. Felt their bond pulse and thicken as she spilled her past. A Beta's need to protect surrounding her in warm strength
She wasn't as shocked as she should have been to realize there were pulses from Luffy, Nami, and Chopper as well, a steady flow of comfort curled in her chest from her pit as they responded instinctively to her emotional pain.
Maybe there was something to this nee kind of pit bond.
"We form a mental and metaphysical bond with every member of our pit. It was meant only to provide a warning when they experienced extreme emotion. Pain, fear, anger. It was our warning they needed protection and help. We would feel the emotion as our own. If we failed, if they were lost...depending on their given role it could be anything from physical illness to severe depression. Worst cases are bouts of hallucination, manic episodes, mindless rage, and insanity. And in the case of our Alpha: death. Every time. Without fail."
"How-?"
"How did I break our most immutable law that's hardwired into our every cell and instinct?" she finished with a bitter smirk.
It wasn't hard to put two and two together and realize that Roger had been her Alpha. She took a deep breath and let it go slowly. It wasn't going to get any easier so she might as well get it out now.
"Our chosen Alpha is the fulcrum for the entire pit. The Alpha bond is the source of all others. It will always be the strongest bond aside from the Sigma."
"Wait," Zoro said, "Ryuko said that you needed your Sigma, whatever or whoever that is." Zoro's hands rested on his knees and he had a small frown as he tried to put the pieces together. "You keep talking about the pit and the Sigma as if they're two entirely different things."
"Our Sigma is a conversation for a later time, but in a sense that is true. The pit is required. The Sigma came later as a natural mutation. The Sigma is as necessary as blood and as ephemeral as Luffy's attention span. A male becoming a potential Sigma is a factor of nature and nurture, something we can sense as they grow closer to the title. Any male can become a Sigma match with the right personality and factors at play, but once acknowledged as a Sigma match the sea queen has to choose the male and the male has to survive the courting," she smirked.
Zoro shook his head. "I'm not touching that. What happened to the previous pit bonds?"
{Tactful.}
Riyo ignored it.
"The day Roger was executed was the day my mind shattered. The longer I'm physically with my pit, particularly the core pit-you, Luffy, Nami, and Chopper-the deeper I'm connected. I was with them for over 15 years. The bonds were more than set by that time.
"I shouldn't have survived Roger. I should have died with my Alpha. But I had to live, for more reasons than I care to share right now. To save my sanity and innocent lives from my rampage, Ray, my Beta then, forced me to compartmentalize each aspect of myself. He kept my body exhausted with sparring and isolated me to a barren stretch of the New World while I worked through meditation for months to lock away every severed bond and instinct." That was the PG version of it anyway. "The Other was created in that process and every darker aspect of my psyche as a sea queen is now embodied in it or withheld by it.
"You already know there are three main personalities. I am the human aspect. I share, in a sense, my mindspace with the beast. The one Luffy named Ryuko. The beast is my surface instinct, impulsive and hedonistic. It's guided by my most basic drives; it really is more like a dumb animal than anything. Food, prey, predator, mate. It has no self control or focus.
"Separate from us is the Other, although that's a bit of a misnomer. It is both its own entity and the gateway to the broken bonds that were severed with Roger's death. The Other embodies my deepest instincts and fears, and has locked away access to my strongest abilities as a sea queen; that was the only way to keep me alive at the time.
"The Other has no morality. It sees only in black and white, strong and weak. It does nothing but plot and plan and it will destroy anything it finds useless or to be in the way. It respects direct pit only, in the loosest sense of respect. Anything outside of that sphere is on its own."
She paused. This time it was Zoro who placed a hand on her knee in silent support. She smiled as best she could at him.
"When Luffy found me I was almost dead. A few more hours and I wouldn't be here. Somnum is part of our biology, a suspension state when we've hit our limits that allows for increased regeneration and more efficient metabolism. With the Break I'm the only one that actually sleeps now, although Ryuko and the Other are weaker and sluggish.
"Since I normally maintain the wall around the Other and this was the first time I had hit somnum since the Break, the Other had the chance to crack through. I-I thought having a pit again would help...but every time I see any of you in danger my instincts take over. It's harder and harder to control the beast and Other."
"And Vivi interrupted when you were trying to fix it. Now it'll never be fixed."
She nodded.
"Finding the Sigma who is coming up, not quite a Sigma yet but almost there, is the only chance for me to settle my mind and have a chance at containing the Other. As our mate the Sigma bond is deeper than even the Alpha. We tie our life force to him; he becomes a sort of baseline for our body and mind. The Sigma is the sun to the planetary orbit of our pit. A central anchor."
Riyo sat in silence as Zoro took that all in. She glanced up and over Zoro's shoulder at a shift of shadow and caught Sanji staring out across the railing from where he leaned absently against the wall. Riyo wasn't sure how long he had been there or how much he had heard even if he only seemed to be taking a casual break. She knew better.
Sanji knowing the truth wasn't as alarming a thought as she had expected. Huh.
"So what's with the scales?" Zoro finally asked.
Right.
"This is the most formal way I can apologize in my culture. Displaying my full scales in human form like this js a sign of trust. I cannot hide any flaws in the armor."
She did not break eye contact as she lifted Zoro's right hand to press his fingers to the loose scale on her left side that she had noticed yesterday. It stuck up oddly, as easy to spot in its lack of uniformity as a broken feather shaft in a bird's wing. She bristled her side scales, wrapped his fingers around the loose one, and together they pulled.
Her scales rippled reflexively at the pain in a wave of pale pink that radiated from her stomach out to her fingers and toes.
Zoro stared at the color, then at the bloody bit of scale in his hand.
The skin bed bled sluggishly as a patch of raw, red flesh about an inch square was left exposed over her secondary heart. She could faintly see the dark black outline of the new scale coming in underneath, thicker than the one that was lost. Similar to a shark losing a tooth for the next to fall into place...except each ecalecame back stronger and stronger again.
Sea queens were born of stone and steel; they grew with age and pressure and heat into diamond and graphene.
Riyo let go of Zoro's hand so that he was staring at the scale-highly confused and mildly alarmed. The scale did have the growth bed and bits of flesh still attached.
She left her scales on full display and settled before Zoro to meet his questioning gaze.
"This is a scale taken from over my secondary heart. This scale is my shield, given freely to my Beta to show my commitment to the pit's protection, and my trust that they will protect my truths in turn. It is a symbol of my apology and an affirmation of my promise to provide for, sustain, and to serve them, even at the cost of my own goals or life.
"This is the most formal way I can apologize to you in my culture, even more so with the scale having been pulled by your hand. When the protection of one of our own is in question, give them that scale. Even the Other will acknowledge a part of ourselves given freely, no matter who the bearer may be."
There. She said it. She dropped her head to the deck again in a human bow.
"I understand if you can't forgive me. What the Other did because of my lack of control was insulting, dangerous, and dishonorable. I made a promise to myself to protect this crew-everyone on the crew-and the minute it was tested I broke that promise. I will accept any decision you give."
It was the Beta's duty to remove threats to the pit. It was the Beta's duty to pass judgement; the Beta's judgement superseded even Alpha when it came to the pit's protection.
It would be well within his rights to remove her from the crew. The decision would kill her--literally--but the pit and crew would be safe.
"Dammit. Get up," he finally growled.
She jerked her head up at the gruff words. Zoro had stood and was now at the rail, arms crossed and scowling at the waves.
"What you did sucked, but it wasn't your fault you used the skills you have. I wasn't even in your league. That was my failing that I have to accept and learn from. Knowing what I do now, I know what to look out for."
"Thank you, Zoro," she whispered. The strength to understand and admit his own weakness was staggering.
This crew always seemed to amaze her.
Zoro suddenly turned his gaze on her. She jumped when he dropped to his knees to mirror her bow from before.
"I want you to train me," he bit out. "Show me how to get strong enough to protect us. Seconds should not define the lifespan of our dreams. Luffy will be King of the Pirates. My pride, my dream, is nothing if I cannot ensure that happens."
Riyo place a gentle hand on his shoulder, nudging him up.
"It would be my greatest honor to train you, Roronoa Zoro."
"Thank you."
He stared at her a few seconds, then glanced down at the scale in his hand.
"Exactly how many hearts do you have?"
"Really not the point, Zoro."