-WARNING: Trigger warnings-
Self-harm
This chapter deals with sensitive topics that may have an emotional impact on certain people. There is a warning at the beginning and end of this scene.
In no case does this author want to promote this type of actions, so if you are sensitive to this type of topics I recommend you skip the warned content. For a world more attentive and aware of mental health.
The scene is warned so you can skip it.
Chapter 20
The Root of the Traitor
Nami woke up with the certainty that betrayal was brewing slowly all around her. The room was tinged with the blue hue of the alkanet flower, the root of the traitor.
When she was little, Nojiko used to leave a trail of strands of hair from the bed to the bathroom, which drove Bell-mère from worry to worry. The doctor who used to check on Nami once a year remarked, between hiccups, that it was probably due to poor nutrition. For two weeks, their mother woke up with swollen eyelids and red eyes as she scoured the village looking for a solution. The solution came in the form of an old remedy: hours spent among trees searching for the bluish flower of the alkanet, which, turned into oil, was capable of soothing the many troubles that plagued Nojiko's hair.
When Bell-mère couldn't attend to her, it was Nami who stained her fingers blue in the daily massages to her sister's head. After weeks of the process, Nojiko's hair decided to stay where it belonged, and Nami's fingers rebelled, permanently dyed the color of that wretched flower. The girl scratched her hands as much as she could, but the blue wouldn't go away, and worries stormed her young mind.
Would her fingers stay blue forever?
What if it spread all over her body?
Would she have to live as a blue person until she died?
"Well," Bell-mère chuckled at her daughter's dramatic concerns, "they also call alkanet the root of the traitor. You've discovered just how treacherous the color can be."
Two years later, with clean hands at last, troubles arrived in the form of blue scales in her life. Blue fins pulled the trigger that killed her mother, and she ventured into the great blue to turn her back on her village in search of money.
The alkanet didn't forget her, not even during the nights she spent on the floor of the map room—cold, hungry, and beaten. When darkness painted terrifying bluish shadows, haunting her on the nights her stomach sang its lament.
Nami was destined for betrayal, but it surprised her to wake up with that feeling in Garp's home. Here, she was supposed to feel safe. She attributed the sensation to her usual fear and focused on something more pressing: once awake, worry, anxiety, and fear returned to life.
She still had a fever, and the room smelled of herbs, but she knew this time she'd stay conscious. The problem was that nothing weighed on her mind, which meant there was enough space for thought.
It was barely dawn, and cold blue shadows played with the black lashes of Luffy, sprawled in a chair he had pulled close to the bed. For a few seconds, anxiety and worry drifted away, distant, in the gentle rhythm of her friend's breathing. His eyelids fluttered in sync with a restless dream, and she wondered if, in his sleep, he was also playing with orange beetles.
When anxiety and that blue sensation from waking up rained back down on her, she rose with smooth, measured movements, careful not to disturb his sleep.
When she placed her feet on the floor, it took her a few moments to regain her sense of balance. It was as if her stability had been shaken in the past few days, leaving her unable to feel solid ground beneath her feet.
Or as if her eardrums had burst from a blow.
Nami sighed and touched her ear, searching for the lost equilibrium, but all she found was pain.
It took her a few minutes to find her footing again. She had to spread her legs slightly to anchor herself better to the floorboards.
When she took a step forward, she tripped over her own feet and had to spread her arms to maintain what little balance remained. She shot a quick glance toward Luffy, relieved to see him roll over in his tangle of limbs on the chair, frowning but still asleep.
She made her way to the door, but halfway there, her attention was caught by a small figure wrapped in an oversized shirt and pants tied at the waist. In the reflection, she saw the terrible blue mark of a jagged nose.
Nami looked at the disheveled, copper-haired figure—small and speckled with greenish and yellowish bruises. It was more a ghost or an apparition than a person. And she felt compelled to ask herself how the girl of mandarins, maps, and blue-stained hands had become that sorrowful shadow.
The tattoo of Arlong's face watched her from her shoulder, always vigilant, reminding her, like a beacon in the open sea, where her loyalty must always lie.
The blue of the morning surrounded her. It was a day for betrayal.
The simple thought—impersonal, cold, calculated—left her trembling before the mirror, her hand on the doorknob, the heart frozen.
The blue ink gripped her arm and whispered in her ear of Arlong's proximity, of those cold fins awaiting a job well done.
She opened the door quickly and stepped into the hallway, determined to leave the thought behind.
Nami focused her empty mind on the grain lines that ran through the wood at her feet. On the light below, casting patterns on the ceiling above the stairs. She placed her hands against the wall to guide herself, and the wrinkles in the paint led her down the hallway.
At that hour, the world slept, too early for innocent souls to be woken by worries.
Under her fingers, the wall wove a story of scratches and fights, anger and joy. She paused to trace the delicate patterns with the fervor of someone finding memories in tiny details.
A blue glimmer reflected on her fingernail, and puzzled, she turned her hand over in a soft caress of the light. It reminded her of the sea, though the floor below was all wood, fabric, and furniture.
She followed the blue patterns, shifting like waves, searching for their source, and the reflections led her eyes between the bars of the railing to an enormous blue figure sitting on the couch.
Still aching and unsteady, she moved closer to the edge and leaned forward. Tears dampened her cheeks before she even realized they were there, as she comprehended the scales.
Scales seated on the couch.
Arlong had come looking for her.
Surrounded by the infernal silence of damaged ears.
The steps burned her bare feet as she crouched, terrified, and the man shifted in the armchair toward the enormous and imposing figure of Garp, who handed him a cup of coffee. The air turned to shards of ice in her chest. Tears soaked her knees.
"I made a mistake, and I'll regret letting him go for the rest of my life, but now isn't the time for remorse. Do you know where he is?"
The voice of that scaled giant was deep, and it slipped uninvited into Nami's broken ears.
"Nami hasn't wanted to name her island. She's a very distrustful child, but it's clear he's here."
The girl furiously rubbed her face. Her cheeks burned. Her throat itched. She forced herself to swallow the urge to scream.
Betrayal embraced her again, like an old friend, and hatred, rage, and resentment strangled her. Soon she wouldn't even be able to breathe.
Her village would die because she was weak.
Weak to any form of love that pretended to sustain her.
"When she wakes up, I'd like to speak with her."
Garp let out a long sigh that churned Nami's stomach.
"Prepare yourself. Arlong is about to kill her. She looks like a shadow."
Her already churning guts flipped, and she tasted bile on her tongue.
They were going to kill her.
Those she had opened her heart to wanted her dead.
With urgency and fear on the tips of her toes, Nami ran toward the bathroom. By the time she reached the door, the walls seemed to be closing in, suffocating her. The surfaces had sharpened against her. The toothbrushes and scissors on the sink aimed their edges at her. The mirror reflected straight, cutting lines, full of slashes and threats. The hard glass reflected desperation and fear.
It reflected her.
Her and a world turned blue.
She opened the toilet lid and vomited what little was left of herself.
She had always known. She knew she shouldn't trust anyone! In the end, betrayal was inherent to all human beings. They were weak and malicious. Savage and inferior. Foolish and manipulative.
Her people had chosen to hate a child instead of fighting for her.
At sea, you had to choose between staining your hands blue or suffering betrayal.
She had long since realized that love was worth nothing when it stood in the way of someone's plans.
Love only caused pain, and she hurt so much…
She choked on her sobs and vomited again. Somehow, she dragged herself to the sink and rinsed her mouth with a little water.
To her deafness, tears added their weight, and the room turned to a haze of indigo and traces of despair. Her nose clogged, blocking her breath and smell. And touch froze her.
The world became a mass of familiar ice and pain.
She should never have trusted anyone, and no one should ever have trusted her.
Nami forced her lungs to constrict, searching for air. Air that froze her throat, raw from days of feverish crying.
Around her, emotions swelled into enormous masses of smoke and mist. Huge and beastly.
The anger at having trusted again when she had taught herself distrust clawed at her.
The fury of having opened a heart she should have kept closed battered her.
Garp's betrayal would kill her. Because she was a fool, inept, useless. She was stupid. Senseless. Despicable. Weak.
She had allowed herself to love again. After her mother's love had bitten her. After her village's love had devoured her whole. After Carina had spat out her first love.
After living an entire life with her hands stained blue.
For a decade, she had bled out on the ground from a thousand wounds inflicted by love.
She had been stabbed so deeply by it that she would die there, alone and shattered, in a frozen bathroom.
She couldn't even die in peace because if she died, her village would die with her. Though apparently, everything was already lost.
Arlong would kill her, and yet, she knew she wouldn't die at his hands but at the hands of love stained with the alkanet.
The mark of Arlong on her shoulder mocked her in the mirror.
Dark and ominous. Full of iron and chains.
Because Arlong was always right.
Arlong had never intended to keep his word.
Arlong…
Arlong.
Arlong.
Arlong.
The sunlight hid behind a cloud. And her life turned blue again.
The pain became more intense. It grew dark and glimmering. Her veins turned black again, chained under the weight of the tattoo, of Arlong's words.
The crushed hope revived the ink. The laughter of the Fishman stabbed her deaf ears.
-WARNING: sensitive content begins-
Nami's teeth chattered as she stood and grabbed the scissors from the sink before the weight of despair drowned her completely.
When the tips of the scissors merged with her pain and tore the skin of her shoulder, instead of fear, she felt relief as dark, nearly black blood flowed.
The second stab followed quickly after the first; her shoulder went numb, and the ink poured out of her.
The third, fourth, fifth… the sixth blow rang metallic against the chains.
At the seventh, the scissors slipped from her bloodied hands, and Arlong's crooked nose laughed at her. The eighth stab split the nose in two.
She clenched her teeth before delivering the ninth, aimed straight at the sharp eye.
-End of sensitive content-
Her hand stopped abruptly mid-air, and when she turned to find the culprit, Luffy's black eyes stole the last bit of air left in her lungs.
They were full of worry and fear. Full of love. The kind she fled from. The kind that was bleeding her out on the floor of a stranger's bathroom, surrounded by pain. With sleep still clinging to her hair.
A blue-scaled figure appeared behind him, and Nami couldn't hold back—she crumpled to the ground, terrified, sobbing.
Luffy's touch burned on her wrist. And the slow simmer of the traitor's root finally boiled over.
Well... this fic has been a roller coaster of emotions so far and... it's going to continue to be!
Even though the next chapter is going to be a bit twisty, I want to stabilize negative feelings. This fic has more angst than Bernarda Alba's house hahaha.
I hope you liked it. I had the chapter written two weeks ago, but I wasn't completely convinced and I've modified it a lot to adapt it to an idea that I like more.
By the way, today is my birthday, this is my gift to whoever reads me ;)