Author's Note: Looooooooooooooooong chapt here today! I hope you enjoy cause I worked HARD on this! I need ideas for Hoshi's tattoo!
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
Chapter Twelve: Painful Memories
"Hoshi! Are you alright?" Tori asked as Hoshi stumbled out of the shop. "We heard lots of banging and loud noises!"
Hoshi forced a smile onto her face. "Yeah, I'm fine." She needed to get somewhere quiet, somewhere where she could think straight…
"Are you really okay?" Zoro asked. "You look troubled."
"No… no, I'm okay!" Hoshi smiled. Zoro narrowed his eyes. That smile was too bright to be natural…
She ran out onto the street and pulled out her wings. "I'll be back later!" she called.
"Oi, Hoshi, wait!" Nami called. "I thought you wanted to show everyone your new t- damn, she can't hear me," she muttered.
"What did Hoshi get?" Luffy wanted to know, still hanging from the rafters.
Nami just smiled. "She'll show you all when she's ready."
Zoro walked off the porch.
"Oi, where're you going?" Usopp called.
"To find Hoshi," he answered
Flying out over the island, Hoshi spotted a small pond. Touching down, a flood of memories hit her.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" she murmured, looking out over the weeping willows surrounding the pond. Walking to one, she gently pushed back the branches and sat at the base of the trunk. The slender leaves whispered in the wind, making little ripples on the surface of the pond.
Hoshi sat there for a while, thinking hard. Parents? Real parents? If she ever found them, would they take her back in? She was seventeen, after all… And if she did find them, what would she say? Hi, I think I'm your kid who was supposed to have died seventeen years ago. I hope you don't mind that I've been fused with phoenix genes and I have supernatural powers like the people who ate the Devil's Fruits. I'd still like to be your kid though, will you take me in?
Then they would accept that story with complete belief, then there would be lots of crying and hugging and tons of talk about 'making up for lost time' and mushy stuff like that.
Yeah, right.
Hoshi didn't even know if she wanted to find her parents. She was happy with the nakama she had right now… would she have to choose between her parents and her nakama? And if she did, which one would she choose?
She stood and walked to the edge of the pond. Finding a piece of bark, she carefully stacked a small pile of pebbles on it. She picked it up gently and set it afloat on the pond. Sitting back against the tree, she watched it float to the center of the pond. "I'm sorry," she whispered, closing her eyes.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps and was instantly alert. Who would come to a place like this?
Zoro poked his head through the curtain of leaves. "Oh, Hoshi!" he said, surprised. "You were here?"
"How'd you find this place?" Hoshi demanded, moving over to make some room for him.
He sat. "I don't know. I was walking around town when I suddenly ended up here."
Hoshi sweatdropped. So he somehow managed to find his way here by getting himself lost…
She looked out over the pond. "I used to come here when I was little," she mused. "I would pretend that I had a real family, that I was a normal kid like the others I saw in town." Grinning, she pointed to a stump. "That was dear old dad's favorite chair."
Zoro didn't know quite what to say. "So… you've wanted parents?"
Hoshi hugged her knees. "I did… but I don't know now. If I hadn't found you all, I bet I still would. But I did find you guys, so I sort of lost that wanting."
Zoro smiled. "So did you come back here to say goodbye or something?"
Hoshi smiled back. "Sort of. But I also came here to think… Sensei told be she used to be a whitecoat."
Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Somehow, she doesn't seem the sciency type to me."
She chuckled. "No… she said that she recognized me as a human, and she actually helped me escape. I trust her, so that fact doesn't bother me too much, but what she told me next really confuses me. She said… she said that I have parents somewhere. I wasn't born from a test tube, I have real flesh and blood parents. I don't even know if I want to find them now, which is really confusing for me after wanting them for so long. I don't know what to do." Hoshi sighed.
"What's your dream?" Zoro asked.
Startled at the unexpected question, Hoshi remained silent for a minute. "Somewhere on the Grand Line… there are three flutes, scattered in random places. They're called Mitsu Yokobue. I heard about it. They're supposed to have been made during the Void Century, by the same people who made the Poneglyphs. No one was able to play them… without getting burned to a crisp. It seems that the flutes are waiting for the right person to play them, just waiting patiently, and whoever can play them will receive three wishes, one for each flute. Kind of corny, isn't it?"
Zoro grinned. "Yeah, it really is."
"But," Hoshi said, starting to get excited, "the flutes are supposed to have a sound, a complete voice of their own. I want to hear them. I also want to see them together again, as a set as they were supposed to be," she said, a happy look on her face. She pulled out her silver flute. "This is one of them, Daini. Part of the reason why I received a bounty was because I snuck into a Marine base to get it, at Logue Town. Did you happen to stop there before you entered the Grand Line?"
Zoro winced. "Yeah," he said, thinking about what had happened. "Luffy almost got himself executed there."
"WHAT?!"
Zoro laughed at the look on Hoshi's face. "A bunch of enemies that Luffy made while wandering around East Blue got together and cornered him at Logue Town and almost executed him at the podium where Gold Roger was executed."
"How the hell did he get out of that?!"
"I'll give you a couple of hints… think about how a lucky bolt of lightening and a random gust of wind helped."
Hoshi sweatdropped. "How am I supposed to figure it out from that?"
Zoro shrugged. "Think about it."
She stayed silent for a minute, then started laughing. "Are you telling me that lightening actually struck the podium, then a gust of wind blew you all out of there?" she asked disbelievingly.
Zoro didn't say anything.
Hoshi gaped at him. "That's actually what happened?!"
"Pretty much…"
Hoshi was so surprised, she couldn't say anything.
"What would you wish for?" Zoro asked.
Hoshi's face darkened a little. "I don't know. I don't want to really wish for anything."
"But if you have one flute already, don't you already have one wish?"
Hoshi winced. "I had to wish myself out of the vault it was kept in… I was stupid and didn't notice the magnetic alarm at its tail-end. When I pulled it out, an alarm went off, and I think you can imagine the rest."
Zoro winced, then spotted the bit of floating bark. His eyes narrowed. "Who's that for?" he asked.
Hoshi hesitated before answering. "I guess… you could call him my little brother."
Zoro didn't push her. He waited.
Hoshi closed her eyes, remembering… before she told Zoro what had happened.
"Neh, Oneesama, are you okay?"
"Don't worry about it, I'm getting us out of here right now," growled an eight year old Hoshi, then known as Experiment 413.
A small boy with overly large eyes stood next to her as she picked the lock carefully with a small scalpel she had swiped from the lab.
"But you had that acid test today, the one that I'm supposed to have tomorrow," he whimpered. "Are you sure we should do this tonight?"
Hoshi winced as a burn spot on her arm sent a jolt of pain up her arm. "Tomorrow's going to be too late. I'm not letting them do this to you."
"Oneesama, I really thin-"
"Got it!" she cried happily. The door swung open. "Let's get out of here."
Hoshi grabbed the small boy's hand and ran down the hall, dragging him behind. He looked around fearfully. "The whitecoats…"
"They're all asleep," Hoshi assured him. "I heard one of them say that they all deserved an early night, the lady."
"But… what if…"
"No what ifs! This is our only chance to get out!"
The puppy-boy looked up at her. 'Trust' was the message in the chocolate eyes.
"We'll get out!" Hoshi smiled at him reassuringly, interpreting the look. "Definitely. They're not putting us into any damn cages again. Don't worry, you and me are going to have some fun adventures, finding the Mitsu Yokobue!"
He smiled. "I want to help you find them too!" he said. "I'll be a big help, won't I? I want to hear you play them!"
"Of course!" Hoshi grinned. "We'll find them together, just like we've always wanted!"
He followed obediently after that. Hoshi felt a surge of protectiveness at the feeling of the smaller hand clutching hers… as much protectiveness as an eight-year-old was capable of feeling, anyways.
Hoshi cautiously opened a door to the second hallway. Peeking in to make sure it was deserted, she slipped both of them into a room.
The small boy shivered. "We've never been in the lab without the whitecoats before…"
"We're not going to be in here ever again," Hoshi growled. "Stand back."
The boy scuttled away under a desk. He knew his oneesama well enough to know that something big was going to happen when she said 'stand back'. Last time she'd said that, she had set half this room on fire by uphending a table with delicate mixtures of toxic chemicals.
Hoshi tipped over a barrel onto its side and rolled it to the end of the room. Grunting, she pushed with her legs against the wall, making the barrel roll the opposite direction. It smashed into the opposite wall with a bang.
Gotta hurry, the whitecoats will be here soon after that bang, Hoshi thought. She quickly repeated the maneuver, and it smashed into the wall three more times. A spiderweb of cracks had appeared in the stone. Hoshi wedged several large hunks out with her fingers. "Once more," she grunted.
The barrel smashed through the wall. "Yes!" Hoshi crowed. She ran over to the place where she had seen the little boy hide. "Ototho, we're out! We're…out…" Her voice died in her throat.
The whitecoats had slipped silently into the room and had stuffed her little ototho into a dog crate. They had kept him quiet by means of a scalpel pointed at his head. "O… oneesama…" he whimpered. "I… I'm sorry…"
Rage boiled up in Hoshi, rage as she had never felt before. "NO!!" she screamed, charging at the whitecoats. "GIVE HIM BACK!! GIVE HIM BACK!! YOU FILTHY BASTARDS, GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!" she roared.
"Oneesama, NO!" he yelled. "Get out! Leave me here and get out!"
Hoshi's eyes went from aqua to scarlet as a power previously unknown to her awakened. "I'm not leaving you here," she whispered. She attacked a whitecoat, clawing at his eyes and kicking him where it hurt.
"NO ONEESAMA!" the boy screamed. "GET OUT!"
"I'll leave when you're back with me," she growled, moving onto the next whitecoat. The problem was now that they were all charging at her, trying to pin her down. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. "Ototho! JUST DIE YOU BASTARDS AND GIVE ME MY OTOTHO BACK!" she screamed at the offending whitecoats.
"I'll wait, Oneesama," the boy yelled. "I'll wait for you to come back for me."
"No…" Hoshi whispered. A whitecoat picked up the crate and started carrying him away. "NO!! OTOTHO!"
He smiled bravely at her through the bars imprisoning him. "I'll wait Oneesama! I'll be waiting for you to come back!"
"OTOTHO!!"
He was gone, swallowed back into the hellhole they called a laboratory. Hoshi fought off the remaining offenders and ducked through the small hole she had created in the wall with the barrel, tears clouding her vision. Running through the forest, she collapsed into a bush.
For a while, she just sat and cried. Then she slowly realized she still held the scalpel in her hand. In a fit of rage, she stabbed her shoulder where the tattoo was. Again… and again… digging the damn number out of her flesh. Again, and again, the pain was nothing, not compared to what she had lost…
Curling into a ball, she felt the blood trickle down her side. Touching it, she brought her hand away wet. She stared at it dully for a while, then her hand formed a tight fist. "I'll be back when I'm strong enough to destroy this place," she growled. "Ototho, I'll be back for you."
Quick translation notes:
Ototho: little brother
Oneesama: older sister
Zoro was silent, contemplating the pain Hoshi had gone through. She stared at the little grave marker she had made on the pond. "I… I couldn't keep that promise," she whispered, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. "I should've come back sooner."
"No," Zoro said. "You couldn't have known."
"It's not that… I was strong enough to destroy this place a long time ago, but I got caught up in looking for the Yokobue." She smiled sadly. "I wanted to play them for him when I rescued him, just like he wanted me to… but that was a stupid decision. I should've come and got him."
Zoro wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. "You did what you thought was best," he murmured. "He won't fault you for that."
"But I wanted to play them for him," Hoshi sighed, tears streaming earnestly down her cheeks. "He wanted to hear them…"
"Once you find them all, you'll play them, won't you?" Zoro grinned. "He'll be able to hear them, no matter where he is. You're thinking about too much: your parents, your ototho, accomplishing your dream… relax. You'll do fine when it's time for you to make all the decisions you need. No need to stress about them now."
Hoshi was silent for a moment, then she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Thank you," she whispered.
They didn't say anything for a while after that, just listened to the whisper of the leaves.
With no words, Zoro gently inserted two fingers under Hoshi's chin and raised her head up. She looked at him with a small smile, and taking that as unspoken permission, Zoro closed the small distance between their lips, caressing her cheek with one hand. She slid one hand around to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer.
Coming up briefly for air, they leaned their foreheads together. Then again, their lips met and both of their senses were overloaded with the essence of the other.
Lost in their own world as they were, they didn't hear six pairs of feet enter the clearing, nor the conversation following.
"Do you really think she came this way?" Sanji asked.
"Well, this is the way the tea-obassan told us to go," Luffy answered.
"How the hell would you know, with YOUR sense of direction?" Nami demanded.
"She said we would find a pond with lots of crying trees around," Luffy retorted.
"Weeping willows," Robin corrected.
"Well whatever, it's this place," Luffy said candidly.
"You're hopeless," Usopp grumbled.
Luffy laughed.
"Come to think of it, Zoro disappeared too," Chopper commented.
Sanji's face suddenly darkened. "That bastard better not be anywhere near Hoshi-chan, or I'll kill him this time," he growled.
Nami smiled mischievously. "Well, strange things do happen," she said.
Sanji looked at her in alarm. "Nami-san, you don't mean…"
The carrot head's smile widened. "Maybe, Sanji-kun."
Luffy looked confused. "What're you talking about?" he asked. Neither one of his companions cared to answer that. Nami, because she was too busy chuckling, and Sanji, because he had started running around the pond. "HOSHI-CHAN! WHERE A-"
THAT'S when he ran in on Zoro and Hoshi.
They broke apart and stared at him with surprise. Shit…
Sanji fell to his knees. "Hoshi-chan, how could you?" he moaned.
Luffy poked his head in above Sanji's head. "Na? Zoro, you're here too?" he asked, seeing Zoro and Hoshi. "Hoshi! We finally found you!" he laughed. "We've been looking forever!"
"Baka, the tea-obassan TOLD us where to look," Nami said, stepping in. Looking at the pair, she quickly assessed the situation and smiled. "Well it's about time," she told them frankly.
Sanji gaped at Nami. "You KNEW?"
"It was so obvious," Nami groaned, rolling her eyes. "Only morons like you would have missed it."
"Didn't you know already Sanji?" Usopp asked. "You're the one who told Zoro to keep running at Kiken Island."
"I remember that too!" Chopper put in.
"That was instinctive," Sanji snapped.
Robin just smiled as Hoshi and Zoro blushed furiously.
Nami smiled at them. "Well Hoshi, would you like to show everyone now?" she asked. "I know you've been dying too."
Hoshi blinked, then smiled shakily. "Y-yeah…" she mumbled. "Maybe later."
Nami shrugged. "Suit yourse-"
"DAMN MARIMO!!" Sanji roared. "HOW DARE YOU TAKE MY HOSHI-CHAN AWAY FROM ME!!"
"Sanji!" Nami yelled.
"THE HELL!? SHE WAS NEVER WITH YOU TO BEGIN WITH, DARTBOARD!!"
"Both of you, shut it!" Nami roared.
"BASTARD! I'LL NEVER FORGIV-"
"That's ENOUGH!!!" Nami roared. She pounded them both on the head, smashing their faces into the damp soil. "You two are so damn noisy!"
Hoshi was looking extremely uncomfortable. "Um…"
"Don't mind Sanji," Nami sighed, waving her hand. "You know how he's like."
Hoshi sweatdropped. "Okay…"
Suddenly, a hoard of feet pounded through the clearing.
"I found them!"
"They were here?"
"Ah! A pond!"
A small shape suddenly dived into the pool, clothes and all. Two others followed, screaming.
The grave marker seemed to bob happily on the water, riding the ripples without dropping a single pebble.
Kitsune surfaced first. "Ah, the water's so nice!" she called. Spotting Hoshi, she waved. "Hurry and come in with us!"
Hoshi sweatdropped. "It's alright… I don't feel much like swimming."
Oso and Kakyou surfaced. "C'mon Hoshi-san!" Kakyou yelled. "The water's great!!"
Neko winced. "Water…" he shuddered. "Not good."
Uma sweatdropped. "You're a cat in more than one way, aren't you?"
Neko continued to shudder. "Wa…ter…" He got blue lines over his head. "Not good."
Panda, Uma, Raku, Tori, and Tokage all waved their hands at him.
"Lazy."
"Stingy."
"Poop head."
"Furball."
"Cat."
Neko glanced casually at them all. "So what? 'Cat' isn't an insult you know," he informed Panda.
Panda sniffed. "Kitten."
"That's a baby cat. Still not an insult."
Hoshi stood with a shaky smile. "So… can I take this that we're ready to go?"
Nami grinned. "Yup! Do you have any last goodbyes or anything, cause you'd better make them now!" she said with her usual tact.
Hoshi jumped at that, then mixed emotions seemed to be fighting on her face. "Yeah… I guess."
She slowly walked out of the clearing. She's right… I'm not going to see this island again for a really long time…
I need to say goodbye to Sensei…