Chapter 17
"It's totally cheating!" Shanks said, looking at me like he couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth.
"It's only cheating if I use it during competition," I argued, before taking a bite out of my BLT. "I used it after. Plus, no one ever actually specified that there was a no devil fruit rule."
We were back at the diner, eating lunch because two days of breakfast in a row was an unachievable feat for Shanks by his own admission.
"No devil fruit goes without saying."
I rolled my eye, as he continued.
"It influences your state of mind. You make different decisions. You entered a drinking competition, knowing that there would be no downside."
"But my devil fruit has a downside."
The night before I had successfully drunk most of Shanks crew under the table, including both Luck and Yasopp. And I had done so 100% on my own merit, despite current protests.
I was the last one standing… at an angle, but still standing. Luck was slumped on the table, and Yasopp had fallen back on the floor. Most of the officers had chosen not to participate, but instead to let me obliterate the rest of the crew, so the competition wasn't the stiffest, but I still won.
The controversy arose afterwards. I had gone outside, Shanks coming with 'cause he most certainly thought I was going to puke or pass out in the bushes, probably both. Instead, I parked my ass down on the step, transformed into full Balor and let the demon burn the alcohol out of my system. I was sober within fifteen minutes.
He nodded slowly, bringing his fork up to his mouth and taking a bite. After taking a second to pretend to mull it over, he said, "Eliza, my dear, you know that I know that there's no way you're buying your own bullshit right now."
I let out an ugly snort, bursting into laughter. "I'll have it better rehearsed before I see the others. And since when are pirates so hung up on rules?"
"They're going to want a rematch."
"You know who to put your money on."
Shanks grinned, a devilish glint in his eyes. "What if I want to compete next time?"
"Then I forfeit," I shrugged. "I've dodged death several times, I'll be damned if the thing that actually kills me is a drinking contest."
At my words, I noticed that Shanks' expression briefly fell.
I sighed, setting my sandwich down and gesturing for Shanks to get on with it.
"What?" he asked, playing dumb.
"I know you're not stupid."
"I don't think your favorite shares that sentiment."
"Trust me, it would be easier if you were dumb as you look."
"You like the way I look," he argued.
I looked at him expectantly.
"Can I ask you something that you probably don't want to answer?"
My lips twitched as I thought back to Shanks sitting at my tiny kitchen table, as I asked him that exact same thing. "You mean aside from that?"
"Aside from that," he said, smiling warmly. His expression became more neutral. It was a controlled expression. Clearly, not trying to make light of whatever he was planning on asking but making a point to not be so overly concerned as to set me off in anyway. "Tel shot you in the face, didn't he?"
I leaned back against the back of the booth.
"Can you believe he still almost missed? So nervous. With a lame target at point blank range and almost misses. Fuck, all that and I didn't even die."
"Almost?"
"Almost," I confirmed, reaching into my pocket to pull out my safety case.
I pulled the lower lid of my right eye with my index finger, allowing my glass eye to slide out, just enough for me to grab it and pull it the rest of the way. I quickly placed it in its case and shoved it in my pocket.
"So much for 'right between the eyes, huh?'" I asked.
"He got the 'right' part down," Shanks said.
I snorted out a laugh, feeling myself relax again. I picked up a fry and popped it into my mouth.
"I don't remember the initial pain," I said. "My guess is the shock kept me from feeling much of anything. The adrenaline was enough for me to transform and get the hell out of there."
It got blurry from that point. "I remember collapsing in the back of the tavern, where Rayne called Gene who came over and did first aid. Shit. Getting shot was the easy part. Two old bats fighting over whether to yank your eye out. That was fucking brutal. Fortunately, I passed out. Then I woke up in a fucking cave missing my eye."
"And Tel?"
If anyone of my brothers had seen me, it would've been game over for the entire island, save for Rayne and Gene. And admittedly there were a few days when I first woke back up, where I was hurting and feeling sorry for myself in the god damn dark that I just sat there and thought 'Good.' If my brothers came through and wrecked everyone's shit, I wasn't going to do a damn thing to stop them.
I would manage wherever they shipped me off to next. I wasn't going to be happy about it, but I could adjust.
But then I started to get restless and agitated.
Tel and the others tore through the tavern, the store and both Rayne and Gene's homes trying to find me trying to find my body. They even tried to find Rayne's hide out only to be disappointed when she took them to a decoy filled with fancy bottles full of cheap booze.
I had put my actual life on the line to keep everyone safe and those fuckers, Tel, had the audacity to shoot me while I was down. And they were going to win. They were going to hell, but at the end of the day, I was going to be shipped off, which is what they wanted from the beginning. A new start on another island, making myself smaller for everyone else's comfort.
After their days of searching, they finally gave up. They never believed her or Gene, but they couldn't find me and after a few days I think they realized that I would probably be healed up to fight back if they did find me. So, they stopped their searches and reported to the rest of the village that I was no more.
A week later in the cover of night, I slipped back to the tavern into my absolutely trashed apartment.
As I sorted through all my shit, I grabbed Shank's journal leafing through. The worn pages brought me comfort as I flipped through his scribbled trials and shenanigans.
Standing in the midst of all my things that were strewn about, I made my mind up. I still had a few weeks before one of my idiot brothers showed up.
Rayne figured out immediately what I was thinking. I thought she might try to talk me out of it, but instead she called Gene over and together they started my numerous planning sessions, which were more like cram school. Geography, weather, navigation, sailing.
In the back of my mind hidden behind the tidal waves of information being dumped on me, another plot was steadily coming together.
In the last two weeks leading up to my departure, I put it into effect. It was hard, trying to instill what decades of paranoia felt like within a two-week span, but I made do.
I started small with the feeling of being watched, lurking around corners and windows like a fucking idiot.
Then I got bolder. Things would end up lost only to reappear right where he left them when he asked someone else about them. Items he was sure were in his house ended up at his office. Things that had been thrown out were back where they started over and over and over again.
I watched delightfully as the paranoia took root in Tel. He knew something was up. And I was sure he thought it was me. But he didn't have proof. He didn't have proof it wasn't either. Everyone knew he had shot me. They also knew that I had run off, where and how I ended up were still unknown.
But they had chosen to believe that I was dead or at least that I had been run off. I had heard from Rayne how they had celebrated in the middle of town. She had closed the tavern out of protest, and scolded them for their callousness, reminding them that their celebration came as she and Gene were in mourning.
I applauded her performance.
The others either truly delusional or more likely unwilling to face the reality that I was alive and that I was out there, brushed Tel off, telling him that it was just that 'protector instinct' that had him on the edge.
By the end of the second week, he was constantly looking over his shoulder, so it didn't take much to get him out of the house. A few broken branches and the brushing of leaves and he was on the chase following me deeper into the jungle, beyond the limits of the village, far from his cronies, far from anyone who could hear him.
And it was only after I went silent, as I hid from my perch in the trees and Tel was surrounded by nothing but silence did he realize what he'd done, where he was, that he was for the first time in years completely and totally alone.
I waited it out, letting him survey his surroundings, settle his own nerves as the more he looked the more he realized that nothing was amiss.
I'm sure he went through all of the usual thoughts. 'There's nothing there. I can't believe I did that. I must be going insane.' Just as I saw him shake his head and turn to return the way that he came, I dropped, finally revealing myself.
At the time, I hadn't planned to hurt him, at least not seriously. Maybe I'd finally give him that kick in the ass that he deserved. I just wanted to give him a glimpse of the hell that he had put me through.
But then he looked right at me, both eyes narrowing in on the patch that had on to protect my still healing eye socket, and he still managed the muster up the arrogance to put his nose up at me and gloat about shooting me.
I had protected his village. I had protected his business. I had protected his home. I had protected his neighbors. I had protected him. I protected his wife. I had protected his children.
And he, who only had the balls to attack me after I had already gotten my ass kicked by pirates who would've overrun the village, had the nerve to call my survival a fluke and promise to finish me off.
That pushed me over the edge. "When Shanks was here, he told you that the only reason he left you alive was because you were more a nuisance to me dead than alive. But I don't think that's true anymore."
I didn't actually kill him. I almost did. I thought about it.
I beat him within an inch of his life. And there was nothing that he could do about it. If I had time, if I didn't know that Gene and Rayne were waiting to see me off, I would've kept at it for hours.
Instead, after he was far too brutalized to fight back, I grabbed him by his broken and bloody jaw to force him to look at me, hand slowly rising up his face, thumb brushing over his cheek underneath his right eye socket.
"Something to remember me by," I had said, letting out a wave of conqueror's haki.
The night I left, as I sailed away from Aurora after having left Tel's battered body in the middle of town, I thought about the look on his face before I plunged my thumb into his eye socket. There was the same raw fear in his eyes that had been there when Shanks had overwhelmed and overpowered him with haki alone.
Shanks leaned back on his side of the booth. The movement pulled me out of my own memories. He looked content with a proud smile on his face. "Good."
I shook my head. Only Shanks would beam with pride after hearing that I nearly killed a man and did fully rip his eye out with my bare hands. "You're unhinged."
"I'm endeared."
I briefly thought of the night the Red-Haired crew left, as I rowed Shanks back to the ship. "You shouldn't be."
"I shouldn't be," he agreed, quoting me back at myself.
"But I'm happy that you are."
Shanks' grin got even wider, and I couldn't help but mirror it back.
"We're both fucking unhinged."
Author's Note:
Two months instead of two years between updates? Who am I?
Review Replies:
mizukitakuri: I love this story! Everything was so well planned out and well paced. Characters had solid back story and development. I was really shocked when I found out who her dad was, but that made it all the more thrilling! Pls update soon!
Thank you so much for the lovely review!
Momochan77: Filler chapters are necessary to help with story transition points! Plus I like this chapter because the Red Hair pirates get to see Elizabeth again and she tells why she got off Aurora Island! Now the real question is-what happens next? Will she travel with them? Or keep going solo? I'm excited to see! See you next update!
Thank you! I'm also happy that Liv and the crew are reunited. What happens next? That is the question, isn't it?
starrat: Amazing looking forward to the next chapter.
Thank you thank you!
