Chapter Text
Luffy blinked.
The ceiling light sliced through his vision like a blade, leaving white spots floating in his sight. He was wrapped in a haze—not the haze of Calypso, the kind that reeked of burnt oil and rain slithering over asphalt, but an internal fog, thick and sticky, as if his brain were still trapped somewhere between sleep and death.
His eyes were blurry. Dry.
How many days had passed?
The man seated in the corner—Benn Beckman—had left minutes ago. Or hours? Time bled through his fingers like blood, impossible to grasp. He’d heard Benn mutter something before leaving, something about "fetching someone."
He tried to move, but his body answered with a dull ache, as if his bones had been disassembled and hastily put back together. The skin beneath his bandages throbbed, and when he took a deep breath, he felt something strange—a metallic cold slithered down his spine, solid and invasive. The sensation was an old acquaintance; he recognized it even before the shiver racked his vértebras. That cold in his spine dragged him back to that fateful day. Suddenly, he was no longer in the room.
The memory dragged him back to that gray day, to the moment when gloved hands had wrenched him from the saddle with enough force to leave finger-shaped bruises on his shoulders for a week.
Ace and Sabo had fought. He remembered their muffled shouts, their desperate punches against armor lined with thin layers of titanium. Sabo calculating impossible angles, Ace snarling curses. But it had never been a fair fight.
When he woke, he was lying on something cold, the room’s whiteness so absolute it hurt. It wasn’t just white—it was the absence of everything, a vacuum that leached away color, sound, even time itself. The fluorescent lights buzzed like mechanical insects, their harsh glare making his already parched corneas burn.
His body wouldn’t respond. Pale, stiff, he looked less like an eight-year-old boy and more like a corpse prepped for autopsy. The AC cycled in steady intervals, each gust stealing another fraction of his warmth. This wasn’t a cold that came from outside—it was inside him, as if his blood had been replaced with refrigerant.
When he finally managed to blink, the world had warped. The ceiling stretched kilometers away, the machines around him were stainless-steel monsters, their cables like tentacles poised to coil around him. Even the tubes snaking from his arm looked like thick, translucent serpents.
But the true horror came later.
The whispers.
First, it was the technicians’ voices from the hallway—too sharp, as if they were speaking inside his skull. Then came the sounds no human should hear: the electric hum of the lights, the near-inaudible creak of gears in the ventilation shafts, the distant echo of footsteps three floors below. Each noise was a knife twisting in his eardrums.
He tried to cover his ears, but his arms weighed tons. Everything amplified—the ticking of a clock became hammer blows, the scrape of a chair sounded like an earthquake. Even the blood in his own veins roared too loudly.
At the peak of his panic, he realized the worst part: the whispers weren’t external. They were the newly implanted chip’s circuits awakening in his spine, talking to each other in a language of electric pulses only he could understand.
And they were saying his name. Not "Luffy." Never Luffy.
"Unit 17-D. Activation report."
Luffy clenched his fists, trying to wrench himself back into reality. That wasn’t his name. And for a second, the infirmary walls bled like a waterfall of code. Luffy gritted his teeth. His brothers had always told him "numbers aren’t names"—but the metallic voice insisted.
Something warm and liquid trickled between his fingers. The smell of blood on his hands dragged him back to the infirmary; the sound of the door opening yanked him into reality—metallic, alive, so unlike the sterile cold of the labs he’d associated with pain for so long. When he looked down, he saw red seeping through the lines of his palms, mixing with the white scars left by CP’s tubes.
"Luffy."
A voice, soft but firm, cut through the room like a thread of lucidity. It didn’t shout. Didn’t even whisper.
It spoke with a calm that seemed impossible in that world of razor-edged noise. Luffy saw her feet first—worn leather boots stained with oil and herbs. She smelled of medicinal alcohol and rosemary, a grotesque contrast to the iron stench of blood.
The clatter of utensils against a metal prototype rang like an alarm inside Luffy’s skull. The tray was set aside on a corner table. Every clang was a knife twisting in his eardrums, every vibration an electric shock racing down his spine. He flinched instinctively.
She didn't grab his hands. Instead, her fingers slid beneath his like someone turning over an injured bird without startling it. Her touch was warm—but it didn't burn like the technicians' copper wires. This was the warmth of living skin, not machines; strange yet painless.
"Doesn't look serious," Luffy saw Makino's jaw muscle tense for just a second—that tiny tell the CP technicians could never control. She was lying. He could taste the deception, metallic on his tongue. His body shuddered; in the labs, those words always came with more needles, with eyes scanning his cuts with the precision of those who'd seen far worse. "I'll bandage this. Then you'll eat."
The offer of food sounded like a coded command. At CP, "eating" only came after "obeying." Luffy swallowed dryly, his throat rough as sandpaper—how many days without water? How many screams had been swallowed by darkness?
When he finally spoke, his voice came out fractured, barely audible:
"Who...are you?"
Makino smiled. Not the scientists' perfect-toothed grin, but something frayed at the edges—like the worn pages of an old book, strangely comforting and warm. What does she want from me? Luffy wondered.
"You can call me Makino."
As she wrapped gauze around his fingers, Luffy heard the buzz of the overhead lamp, the creak of the rusted door, the whisper of the chip in his spine attempting to recalibrate. But for a moment—just a moment—the loudest sound in the room was Makino's steady breathing.
Makino trimmed the excess gauze with scissors, her deft fingers adjusting the bandage until it was snug but not constricting. Luffy had barely believed her when she mentioned food earlier, but now, with the steaming plate before him—a thick stew and dark bread, their buttery aroma saturating the air—his lips trembled.
This was a test. It had to be. At CP, meals only came after "adjustment" sessions, or worse, as bait for compliance. His fingers twitched against his knees, the scars on his wrists throbbing like silent reminders.
The door creaked open.
A man strode in unceremoniously, bringing with him the scent of acid rain and cheap tobacco. His red hair stuck up in sleep-mussed spikes, his unbuttoned shirt revealing grimy bandages across his chest. He rubbed one eye with his fist, yawning widely—but when his gaze landed on Luffy sitting on that makeshift infirmary cot, all exhaustion seemed to evaporate.
Shanks.
Luffy didn’t know why that name sent a shiver down his spine. Maybe it was the way Benn—still leaning against the wall—muttered a muffled "Finally," or how Makino arched her brows and crossed her arms, tension rolling off her in waves.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," she remarked, not bothering to hide the edge in her voice.
Shanks ignored her. He moved slowly, with the precision of someone approaching a wounded animal. He took a seat on a chair a meter away—close enough to show presence, far enough not to seem a threat.
"Hey, brat," he said, his voice sleep-rough but oddly steady. "Sleep well?"
Luffy didn't answer. His eyes darted from the plate of food to Makino, then landed on Shanks' empty hands—no weapons, no syringes, no shock prods. Nothing that screamed immediate danger, yet his body remained coiled tight.
Shanks seemed to notice. Without hurry, he reached over and took a piece of bread from the plate. He bit off half in one go, chewing slowly like he was proving there were no tricks.
"Pretty bad, huh? Almost as dry as Benn's rum stash," Shanks said around a mouthful, laughing. He swallowed lazily, then with exaggerated flair, held out the remaining bread to Luffy. "Go on, try it. If it's really that awful, I'll eat yours and you can have mine. Fair trade, yeah?"
Makino released a controlled sigh—the sound of surgical scissors being placed with other supplies, her hands counting medications three times over.
Luffy hesitated. He stared at the bread, then at Shanks' open grin—no promises, no threats, just an almost silly challenge.
Shanks tilted his head and whispered like he was sharing a secret:
"If you don't eat, I'll think you're rejecting me. Then I'll cry. Like, actually cry. It'll be embarrassing for everyone."
The laugh nearly escaped Luffy’s lips—a fractured, foolish reflex of what had once been joy. But it died in his throat, smothered by the ingrained fear that even happiness could be a trap.
Instead, his hands—thin, marked by needle scars and shackle burns—reached out with the hesitation of someone approaching a sleeping beast. His fingers trembled as they closed around the bread; his joints, too fragile, could barely support even that small weight. He had to use both hands, like a child.
Like he should have, in another life.
The bread reached his mouth slowly, as if time itself hesitated with him. One bite.
And then—
Soft.
Faintly sweet.
Something inside him shattered.
His eyes widened, pupils dilating as if trying to absorb every nuance of that moment—the pillowy texture, the subtle taste of caramelized honey, the lingering warmth in the center. The bread was soft as clouds, but the flavor on his tongue was guilt. Luffy didn’t know why he was crying—whether it was from hunger, or from having forgotten what it felt like to not be hungry.
It was so simple. So normal. And that’s why it hurt.
Not the pain he knew—physical, predictable—but something deeper, crushing, rising from his chest into his throat like a scream that couldn’t escape.
Tears.
They came before he even realized—hot, salty, mixing with the bread in his mouth.
"S-Sorry—"
His voice splintered into sobs, weak and frightened. He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. For crying? For soaking the bread in tears? For still being capable of something as stupid as happiness?
His shoulders shook. He curled inward, arms tightening around himself like he was trying to hold himself together—or crush himself into nothing. The sweet crumb became a knot in his throat, tangled with the metallic taste of blood from his cracked lips.
He didn’t understand.
His eyes flickered. For a split second, a crimson flash crossed his irises—sudden, vivid, unnatural. The spoon slipped from his fingers and shot across the room like a projectile.
Makino dodged on reflex, medicine bottles still clutched in her hands. The spoon clattered against the wall before hitting the floor with a hollow clink.
She paused. Looked first at the fallen spoon, then at Luffy. One eyebrow arched, thoughtful.
"...Good aim," she said aloud, her tone dry but laced with humor that floated just above the tension.
Shanks turned immediately. His gaze swept over Luffy, then Makino, before settling on where the spoon had landed. His expression didn’t shift much—but the way his shoulders stiffened spoke volumes.
Luffy dropped his eyes again, shame flooding his chest, his breaths coming short and ragged. He didn’t know what had just happened. Didn’t know what that was. Only knew that he was terrified.
Makino knelt calmly, retrieving the spoon from the floor. No impatient sigh, no sharp remark. Just the quiet swish of a cloth from her apron pocket as she wiped the rim clean before stepping forward again—offering it back with steady hands.
Luffy reached out as if the spoon were made of glass or fire. His trembling fingers curled around it with exaggerated care, his breath hitching with the effort of not letting it slip again.
But the spoon slid from his grip anyway. It dropped straight into the bowl with a metallic clink—small, harmless, but to Luffy’s ears, it rang out like a gunshot.
He flinched instantly.
His shoulders hunched in a reflexive curl, head bowed, eyes locked on the floor. His entire body braced—tense, coiled—waiting for impact. A slap. A shout. A yank of his hair. The punishment that always followed failure.
But there was only silence.
No shock. No reprimand. Just the quiet steam rising from the stew and the faint creak of a chair shifting across the room.
Then, with a patience that seemed to belong to another world, Makino leaned in and spoke, her voice low and steady:
"Like this, Captain."
She took his hand carefully, her slender fingers adjusting his grip around the spoon. It wasn’t an invasive gesture, nor a hesitant one. There was certainty in her touch, but no force—just humanity.
"S...orry," he mumbled, the word splintering on its way out. Not just for the spoon, but for existing. For taking up space. For needing help at all.
Makino didn’t say "it’s okay." Didn’t dismiss his shame. She just tilted her head, her dark eyes reflecting a silent understanding.
"None of us held things right at first," she said, and something in her tone implied she wasn’t just talking about spoons. Then she turned away—back to her tasks, back to giving him room.
Shanks didn’t speak. Just stood there, close, as if his presence alone were enough—solid, quiet, there. No urgency in his hands. No judgment in his gaze. Only the calm patience of someone who knew some wounds needed time to breathe.
Across the room, Makino finished putting away the medicines, carefully slotting each vial into the cabinets. The supplies were nearly in order now, and she tallied them silently in her mind—as if keeping her hands busy could loosen the knot in her chest.
She cast a quick glance at Benn Beckman, now seated in a nearby armchair, pretending to read a weathered hardcover—some ancient tome salvaged from a forgotten library—though his eyes never truly left Luffy.
The two exchanged a look. Brief. Weighted. Makino sighed. Turning, she murmured:
"Shanks..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Come with me a moment?"
He held her gaze for a beat, then looked back at Luffy—still hunched over his plate, small shoulders trembling silently. Shanks hesitated a moment longer before pushing up from the chair with deliberate slowness.
"Be right back, brat," he murmured, forcing lightness into his voice.
As he passed Benn, he added:
"He'll keep an eye on you for a bit, yeah?" No reply needed. Just the swish of the door as he followed Makino into the hushed hallway.
Luffy's eyes trailed after him briefly before flickering, wary, toward Benn. He peered through his lashes—suspicious, testing—as if trying to decipher whether it was safe to even breathe around this quiet giant. This stranger with his unread book whose pages never turned.
The hallway was narrow—the kind of place where echoes whispered old stories but never quite faded. The walls, stained with damp and soot, seemed to swallow the weak light from bare bulbs hanging like bones from a body too weary for another war. The air carried a bittersweet tang of mildew, old gunpowder, and spilled rum—as if every inch of that passage were steeped in memories no one dared bury.
Makino walked ahead, her steps measured, unhurried. Shanks followed in silence, his hand still carrying the scent of the rag he’d used to wipe dried blood from the trapdoor’s handle. Neither spoke until they emerged into the kitchen, where the light was cleaner but no lighter.
The silence here was different. Not tense, not hostile. Just… full.
Makino stopped near the sink, arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze locked onto Shanks' with surgical precision. There was no anger—just cold, unwavering resolve, the same expression he'd seen on her when stitching wounds too gaping to wait for anesthesia. The face of someone who knew some damages never heal; you just learn to carry them.
She spoke first, her voice low and sharp as a well-honed razor:
"I know what you're thinking."
Makino didn’t need mind-reading to spot the quip ready on Shanks’ lips—that crooked smile he’d worn as armor since he was twenty. Before he could speak, she drove the kitchen knife into the table between them. The handle vibrates on impact, burying the blade halfway into the wood.
"You. Can’t. Keep him."
Each word was a surgical strike. Precise. Relentless. No anger here—no room for it. Just truths. Facts. Sharp as the scalpel that would now divide Shanks’ life into before and after the 09-F brand still burning, invisible, beneath his sleeve.
"You're a criminal, Shanks." Makino's voice was low, but it cut like cold steel to the bone. "One of the greats. Your head has a bounty in three continents. Three factions, two governments. And now—" She inhaled sharply, crossing her arms again as if physically holding herself back. "Now you want to paint an even bigger target on that boy’s back?"
Shanks didn’t look away. Not because he was brave. But because he knew she was right.
Shanks laughed.
It was a dry, broken sound—like rotten wood finally snapping under the weight of something that should’ve collapsed long ago. Not a trace of humor. Not a spark of relief. Just the exhaustion of a man who’d carried the world on his shoulders too long… and now barely had the strength to keep pretending it was worth it.
He lifted his gaze at last. Red-rimmed from sleepless nights, from choices that still burned inside him like embers.
"Can you?" The question came out low, barely a whisper.
But it had weight. It had venom, each word hitting the ground like crushed glass, scraping the air between them.
"Ex-Viper." He spat the codename like a curse, a reminder. "With hands just as filthy as mine?"
The silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was a threat. Like the exact moment before a gunshot. Like two stray dogs sizing each other up in an alley, breaths held, waiting for the first one to move. Worse—a territorial standoff between wolf and panther.
Shanks didn’t need to shout. His anger was cold. Old. And whoever stood across from him knew: this wasn’t just a taunt.
It was a warning.
The silence that followed seemed to double the weight of the kitchen pressing down on her shoulders. The old fridge hummed in the corner. The light above the sink flickered with an irritating buzz, casting jagged shadows across the walls stained with soot and grease.
Makino didn’t move. Didn’t frown. Didn’t fight back. Just pulled up her sleeve with a slow, deliberate motion—like someone uncovering an old grave.
On her wrist, the skin was paler, puckered around the faded black mark: 09-F. Branded by iron. There was no drama in the gesture. No theatrics. Just a fact—a dry reminder of where she’d come from. And all the things she never said aloud.
"I know what it’s like to be a weapon." Her voice was quiet, weightless, but firm. She felt the brand burning on her arm as if it were fresh. As if she were speaking more to the musty air than to him. As if she were saying it to herself.
The damaged lights buzzed between them like a taunt. Outside, the city carried on—distant horns, brief sirens, the muffled noise of a world in constant collapse.
She lifted her gaze and struck without raising her voice:
"You only know how to break them."
It was like dropping ice into a boiling drink. The tension cracked the air, leaving a metallic taste on the tongue. Shanks didn’t reply. Because there was no defense against that. Not here. Not with that brand seared into her skin.
The smell of old copper and cheap liquor thickened between them. Makino doesn’t flinch when Shanks’ fingers twitch toward his holster.
"Saving a child doesn’t redeem you, Shanks."
She says it slow, like driving in a knife and twisting. Her eyes don’t waver. Scorpion-gray, the color of the sky before a hurricane.
"It just makes you more dangerous to her."
Shanks smiled. A broken thing, the smile of a man who'd lost so much he'd forgotten how to cry.
"You've pushed someone into the abyss before too."
This time, he flinched.
It was nearly imperceptible—just a tremor in the muscles around his eyes, like he'd taken a gut punch. His fingers twitched faintly, replaying that failed motion from years ago when he'd stretched his arm till the joints cracked and still couldn't reach Buggy in time—
Maybe he never really tried.
Makino stepped forward. One step.
Enough for the stench of gunpowder and cheap rum on him to collide with the medicinal herbs and dried blood on her.
"You're saving Luffy to clean your conscience."
She spat the words like bullets, a final calculated blow between the eyes:
"You really wanna play hero now? After everything?"
The bar creaked around them. The rotted counter groaned under the weight of empty bottles. Somewhere, a pipe dripped like a rusted metronome. Shanks swallowed hard but didn’t dare look away.
"Either you face what you've done," —she raised her hand, wrist upturned, the 09-F brand throbbing under the sickly light— "or you’ll drag him down with you."**
Silence. Then—
A cough.
Muffled, ragged, from just a few meters below. Luffy.
Shanks closed his eyes. For a second, he wasn’t in the bar. He was back on that cliff’s edge, wind howling in his ears, Buggy screaming his name. When he opened them again, Makino saw the abyss in them.
"And you?"
His voice was shredded, like he’d swallowed glass. "Betrayed CP-11 Squad to escape. How many died for you, Makino?"
Makino didn’t hesitate.
"Twelve."
She said the number like reciting a gravestone. "And I carry every name here." Her hand touched her chest, where a bullet pendant hung hidden beneath the fabric. Shanks knew what was engraved on it. CP-11. 12 NAMES. 1 SURVIVOR.
Makino didn’t smile. Didn’t cry. Just held his gaze.
"But I look at them every day." She tilted her chin up, defiant. "Can you say the same?"
Shanks didn’t answer. The flickering window light cast shadows that stretched like skeletal fingers between them.
Makino sighed, the weight of decades bowing her shoulders for just a moment. "Raising a child takes more than good intentions, Shanks. It takes being whole. And you... you're still on that cliff's edge, deciding whether to jump or turn back."
She turned to leave but threw one last glance over her shoulder—and in it, there was something dangerously close to pity.
"When you finally decide who you really are, then you can try to be what he needs. Until then... don't lie to him. He's suffered enough already."
The hallway door creaked shut behind her, leaving Shanks alone with the drone's buzz outside—and the echo of a question he still couldn't answer.
Downstairs, the silence hangs thick as smoke. The slightly ajar window lets in a thin stream of cold wind that plays with the curtains and makes the old house's wood groan. On the couch, Luffy remains pale—his pupils dilated from sedatives, his skin marked by freshly closed stitches. The bandages wrapping his abdomen look like poorly disguised war trophies. He doesn't cry. Doesn't moan. Just breathes, slowly, as if even that hurts.
In the armchair a meter away, Benn Beckman turns another page of a grimy book with the same precision he'd use to disassemble a rifle. The leather cover is cracked, the title long gone. But he doesn't need the spine.
He knows this particular hell by heart.
His voice cut through the silence with grave weight:
"Per me si va ne la città dolente.
Per me si va ne l’etterno dolore.
Per me si va tra la perduta gente."
The foreign tongue seemed to scrape against the very walls. Luffy lifted his gaze—he didn’t understand the words, but the cadence tightened his chest. It was the kind of sound that came before pain. Training sessions. Screams muffled by concrete. His fingers twitched toward the half-eaten bread, still suspended mid-air, his lips parted as if the metallic taste had returned. He drew his hand back slightly.
"Is that... Latin?" he asked, his voice threadbare.
"Italian," Beckman corrected. "Old. Ancient as dust. But sharper than most knives."
Luffy turned his face toward him. Eyelids heavy, but eyes alert. Dark. Too deep for someone so small.
"What's it mean?"
Beckman recited with a calm that cut deeper than any shout:
"Through me you enter the city of suffering.
Through me you enter eternal grief.
Through me you walk among the lost."
Luffy stared at the ceiling, where the flickering light of a weak bulb danced like an exhausted flame. The soup spoon lay forgotten in the bowl, though his fingers never left its handle. Then, barely audible:
"Is it a warning?"
Beckman didn’t answer right away. Closed the book with a soft *snap*. Pulled the cigarette from the table’s edge but didn’t light it—just held it between his fingers like a habit too old to break.
"It’s a door."
"Door to where?"
"Hell."
Luffy took a deep breath. The air hitched—stitches pulling taut. He closed his eyes for a beat, then asked in the only way he knew how:
"Is it like the place I came from?"
Beckman studied him. Not sizing him up—more like staring into a cracked mirror.
"Maybe worse."
"Are there monsters there?"
"Yes."
"Humans?"
Beckman doesn't answer. But his eyes say yes. Luffy turns his head sideways, sinking deeper into the pillow.
"You've been there?"
"Few times," Beckman says. "Dante thought hell had nine layers."
"Like an onion?"
Benn huffs a half-laugh, rough as sandpaper.
"Yeah. Just like that. 'Cept instead of making you cry when you cut it... you cry when you peel it."
Luffy frowns, thinking hard.
"What if... someone eats hell?"
"What?"
"Like an onion. One piece at a time."
Beckman stares at him. The kid’s dead serious. No mischief in those eyes—just survival-logic, honed by scraps and unanswered questions.
"Think it’d work?"
Luffy shrugs, slow. "I’ve eaten worse."
Beckman’s mouth quirks at the corner. Not a smile. A sadness in disguise. He picks up the book again, flips to a faded illustration—a robed man standing before a spiraling abyss.
"This is the first layer. Where the descent starts."
Luffy peers at it. "Looks... deep."
"Yeah. And the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Tighter. Harder to climb back out."
Luffy stays quiet for a long moment. Then, barely audible:
"Ace... he'd wanna go all the way down. Just to see what's at the bottom."
"And you?"
"I..."
"You wanna get *out*?"
The silence lasts longer than the question. Until Luffy slowly turns his head, eyes dull, and whispers:
"I just wanna sleep without hearing the world scream."
Beckman gives a single nod, rising carefully. The floorboards groan under his weight. He crushes the unlit cigarette between his fingers, leaving the book beside the couch like an invisible pillow.
"Then start there, brat." Benn closes the book, meeting Luffy’s gaze. "Tomorrow, I’ll read more—if you finish everything Makino left on that plate."
Luffy looks down at the off-white porcelain, then back at Beckman. His eyes—still holding a spark of that stubborn fire that keeps him alive—lock onto the plate.
And for today, hell waits outside.