Chapter Text
The sun is going out.
Bright it may shine, but it flickers. Threatening to be swallowed up entirely.
Oyster walks among broken bodies and broken walls, the inside of the world exposed to the outside. There are so many dead, in the uniforms of the guard and the mishmash of rebellion fashion. None of Those Who Serve, such corpses have been already taken away for their rites. But the signs remain, imprints of bodies tossed about and blood sprayed across floors and walls.
There is blood and it is sticky under her bare feet.
War has come to the Heart of the World. Portions of the Palace have been destroyed in battles between titans, great powers that do not observe what lies under their feet. Many of Those Who Serve have been lost as a result. But not to clashing warriors alone, though the Masters surely think that is the case.
Oyster takes a breath.
No, there are cracks that can be taken advantage of. Used. Cracks in which one can flee through, though where they might run to... Oyster doesn’t know. The Master’s grip is much tighter, much extended, compared to before and before was already wide and far as it was.
But as the sun has dimmed, so too has the hope of Those Who Serve. Fewer escape to chance the world outside, far more escape only as far as the edge of the world. To find mercy in stepping off of that edge. One day, Oyster too thinks she will take that plunge. But not today.
Not when one who needs her help walks behind her.
The Master has taken many new slaves like never before, slaves who know the world beyond the center of it. Trophies to showcase the coming of the Master’s victory. Trophies that may be noticed if they disappear entirely.
Oyster glances back slightly behind her, at one of those prizes who now follows in Oyster’s wake. A young girl with bright pink hair, slight and short. A pirate once, she thinks, though young for one. There are many pirates among the new slaves. A girl who does not speak, not due to losing her tongue like Those Who Serve, but for the collar about her neck that will surely activate if a word leaves her mouth. A truly cruel punishment for one who is clearly accustomed to shouting and crying out when she pleases.
The Master is cruel in their cunning, always tempting the girl to cry out. The closest Oyster thinks the girl has come to fully breaking her silence (and thus her life) is when a large bear-like man had been brought before her, last breath whispering out of a broken form full of flesh and apparent steel.
But the girl had not made a sound. Tears did fall, but no sound with them.
For this, Those Who Serve properly name her. Share what they can with her.
Biter, the heels of clawed hands hitting together, for how the girl has made up for her forced silence. Punishment, of course, has been had for the incidents, but that does not stop blood from being drawn. The girl will not bend. She is surely doomed, in a time when the Master is less distracted, when the war ends. She will die then, as sure as the darkness above will swallow them all.
If Oyster cannot help him, she will do her best to help another in his stead.
Ink is here too, the older man picked for his large stature and body shape that seems to calm Biter down. A body much like the bear-like man, now that Oyster’s thinking about that. Not that matters now.
Biter taps at her wrist. She’s taken to tapping and signing quickly, driven by necessity.
‘Why here? What do here?’
Quick, but not fluent yet.
Oyster taps back a simple enough answer. ‘Stay still. Soon you will know.’
That accomplished, she reaches for the back of Biter’s collar. Curls her fingers around it as she works a thin pin into the lock.
It’s taken much practice and time far from watchful eyes to figure this skill out. One that had little use until the sun came to attack the Heart of the World. Creating the cracks.
If it blows, at least Ink will drag off her and Biter’s bodies for their rites in turn.
Click.
But it does not explode. Instead the collar falls to the ground. Not exactly harmless, but unable to accomplish its task.
A gasp.
“Oh! Thank you thank you thank you!” Biter whirls around to hug her tightly, up towards Oyster’s neck. Around it. The only answer to that is to of course hug back.
Clang.
Something drops, the weight on Oyster’s neck lessened- she jerks back out of the hug, from the hands of the girl she suddenly realizes had been at her throat.
It’s the collar. Her collar. Oyster stares, uncomprehending, at the chain that’s been around her neck her entire life. Now useless on the ground, covered in...rust?
Then Biter skips over to Ink and does the same thing for him, rusted through collar dropping from his neck while he stares with wide eyes. Unnatural doings.
It’s strange, that’s what.
That done, Biter whirls around to face Oyster with hands on her hips.
“Are you going to escape too?” The girl squints at her.
‘I will escape,’ she agrees. ‘Join my friends.’ Escape by walking off the edge of the Red Line, join them in the depths. For where else is there to go, when the sun is going out?
Ink has a knowing look in his eyes, but he says nothing. It is not his place to.
“Well, that’s good!” Biter huffs out. She folds her arms over her chest. Suddenly grows into a full grown woman, then older, then back to her young body. “Man, I missed being able to do that. Feels good to have my powers back.”
‘Devil Fruits are strange things,’ Ink signs, and Oyster couldn’t agree more. Changing age and destroying bomb collars at once? That’s a lot.
“They’re useful strange things,” Biter insists. Then she frowns, and Oyster’s heart pangs at the sight. “If only I could age me back to before all of this happened, ugh.”
Then she pauses. Tilts her head, pink hair flopping off to the side to cover an ear. Her eyes light up with something. Not exactly hope, but something burns like it.
“Wait. Maybe...” Biter looks thoughtful, pacing. “Are there ghosts here?”
Oyster and Ink exchange a look at that.
The Master is very bad at letting things go.
Many things, alive and otherwise, stay stuck within the walls of the Palace from that. Souls surely do as well, souls enough to call and do what Biter desires: to go back. To live once more.
‘There must be,’ Ink answers, for Biter.
“The shadow guy, I’ve seen him do all kinds of strange rituals and spells for Devil Fruit users.” Biter wiggles her fingers, healed crooked as they are. “Do you think he has one I can use to make my Age-Age powers more oomph?”
‘Is there?’ She turns to Ink for answers, one of the few remaining Those Who Serve older than herself.
Whose lips pinch together, as he slowly picks out his words.
‘There is power in blood, as the Master has said.’
Yes, this is true. This is why the more powerful Knights of God come from older bloodlines, servants bred specifically for their duty under the Master. Also why so many pirates have been slain recently, their blood passed down from powerful foes of the Master.
‘With our blood, we could make what Biter wants,’ Ink explains. ‘One of the powerful circles.’
Oyster frowns. Wait, she knows this from stories. The older ones, the darker ones. ‘I thought that only those who can be heard can use those arts.’
Another reason that the Master stole their voices, as to never risk Those Who Serve ever putting those dark magics of theirs into use. Or so the oldest of tales mutter.
‘Not quite. It is only those with a voice.’ A small grin. ‘Is not Our Tongue also a voice?’
“What do you mean? What are you guys talking about?” Biter’s head ping-pongs back and forth, eyebrows coming together in confusion. That is right, she is new to Their Tongue and knows not the signs they use. But few do, excepting those of the Elders.
‘We can make a...circle to do that.’ Oyster very carefully does not add I think to her statement. ‘But it will need blood.’
“Blood, huh...” The girl’s lip twists, as she once again thinks. “That’ll work for what I want to do, anyway.”
Ink and Oyster stare at her, waiting for her to continue.
“I want to make my powers go booom, so I can make ghosts get younger!” She jumps in place, waving her arms. “Because they don’t have any bodies, the younger ghosts will go back to their younger bodies and change everything!”
Her eyes are wet.
“Maybe enough to save my daddy and my friends. Stop this from happening.”
She dabs quickly at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I can’t do for me, because I still got a body. But lots of people have died here, so maybe, if we get some of them, I can make their ghosts like babies.”
Well. That didn’t make any sense. Only something about...changing the past? Impossible. Nothing can change the past. But Biter wants to try, even before escaping, so the attempt must be important too.
Ink tilts his chin towards Oyster. Leaving her to decide, as one who took off the collar in the first place to allow this strange idea to possibly happen.
‘I will do it,’ Oyster decides. She can bloody her hands for this girl, for her impossible hope.
“Okay, let’s find some bodies!” Biter claps her hands. “The fresher the better, this spell thingy might make me more powerful but I don’t think that’ll be enough for super dead people.”
Fair enough. Oyster glances about the room, familiar with the various signs of death. A recent one, ah, there they go.
‘This one?’ She points to a blond headed man, whose cross-shaped mark can barely be seen under caked blood and bruises.
“He’s a pirate that had a big family, he’d definitely want to change things!”
Good enough for Oyster. She squats down to cut, to drag out blood to coat her hands.
“Ew.”
There’s another body that seems mostly intact nearby, and this one, Oyster realizes with a twist to her gut, she actually recognizes. Bright red hair, the height, shards of a familiar sword, scattered about, this was a Master once. The Traitor, that’s right. Maybe she should take his blood too, still warm as he is. As warm as the other body.
Fingers snapping. She glances over to Ink.
‘Are you sure?’ Ink asks.
She nods. Enough for the older man, who stands back with a nod in return.
It is Biter, of course, who protests further when Oyster chooses to kneel down next to the body. “Whoa, what are you picking that guy for? He’s one of those God Knights!”
‘He was no longer,’ she explains, tapping out her words as she signs. “He came back to fight the Master, instead of hiding away.’
That much deserves a second chance. For what drove him to fight the Master, enough to cut off his own marked limb, will surely push him to further heights in a past yet to be changed. She pushes clothing aside to find it.
A sword, carefully hidden from the world on the traitor’s belt, clearly unused. Strange. Possibly useful. She takes it to drag behind her, after using it to cut its master’s flesh for blood.
Oyster wets her hands with any other blood she can find, limited as its freshness may be. It may be the pirate and the former master who may be the only ones to make it, if they succeed, but she will try her best to spread any more possibilities.
Biter is bouncing in place. “Are we ready now? Ink, what do we do next?”
‘Make a circle,’ he shapes in the air, gesturing to a decent enough spot on the floor. One that Oyster had already decided on beforehand, having much experience with cleaning the floor after the Master’s rituals. Experience enough that she can draw out what are the most necessary symbols for it to work by heart.
She needs the sword and its cutting to wet her hands with more blood, to successfully do so, but in the end she manages it. Completes the circle like the Master uses for their arts, and kneels at its center, sword on the ground before her, next to the bloody hand pressed flat against the symbols.
“Are you ready?” Biter wrings her hands, stretching out her fingers, for whatever preparation those actions may serve.
Oyster punches the air with a ‘Do it.’
“Alright...” Small hands are placed on her shoulders. Biter shoves her forehead up against Oyster’s, eyes closing in clear concentration. “Shattered Past.”
There is pain.
Oyster breathes. Oyster focuses.
Energy coursing through her, power that at once wrinkles up her skin and shrinks her limbs and everything at once, Oyster forces her free hand into motion. Following after the words that the Master has used before, in such rituals.
‘Devil Magnification.’
The eye of the Master turns upon them, as she knew it would. At the audacity that an insect would steal from their power in the Heart of the World, shaping it to a purpose alien to them. Already, Oyster can hear them coming. Hear the enemy come.
And she prays.
Not to Nika, not to the sun going out. But to another.
Among Those Who Serve in the Palace specifically, there is another to pray to. Almost taboo to mention, but all know of it. A power in silence, a power in being unspoken, unheard.
Stomping boots, walls torn apart even further. A nauseous voice, speaking.
“Vermin attempting to flee? Time to dispose of them.”
Calm, she begs her heart. Calm, she begs her bloodied hand to keep going. Commanding the power inside that will surely unmake her.
The lash of a blade. There, Ink falls. In two pieces, arm still out stretched.
The calm in having made a choice and now how it would end from the start, looking death in the end as it holds your heart in its hand.
“Liberation PUNCH!”
The begging of a parent that the enemy will not hear the cries of their children hidden behind them, that they will die first and it will be sacrifice enough to save them.
Please, calm calm, just a little longer.
“Our Lord won’t mind me taking a limb or two off, I’m sure. Not when I tell our Lord what you’ve been up to.”
A cry. A cry of pain. A body dropping to the ground. More thuds. Dripping. Blood, surely.
Calm, there will be freedom. But only if there is calm a little longer.
Calm enough to shape the last words, the last command over reality.
She can feel it take hold. A violent gust in her veins. Power, wrenched forth, hopefully to free souls to rush to a past beyond the here and now. Even as it does, the ever present flickering stalls. Stops. Leaving only darkness to descend. Darkness with red eyes and grasping claws and hungry maws that can never be filled.
If she dies, it is not a fate she was not expecting.
If she dies, at least she dies so the sun may properly rise.
But here.
The sun no longer shines.
The sun has gone out.
As does her heart.
The Calmest it’s ever been.
(I offer you this story-)
(That one day.)
(The world changed because a man did not want to kill his brother.)