One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 40 - 39.1: The girl with red hair(3)

Time is a slippery thing, indifferent to those who want to grasp it. It will not wait for hearts full of desire, nor will it wait for tired souls that beg for but a few moments.

You wake up one morning and see the face of someone new before you in the mirror, smooth, untroubled, unblemished by the slow erosion of life. There is youth in your complexion, and a spark in your eyes which has yet to discover the seriousness of years. You are invulnerable, sure that time is but a notion—something out there, outside of you, with no real significance.

Time never arrives.

Time never announces itself. Time insinuates itself, quietly, without any flourish, without any prelude. And before you know it, one day, you glance again—and everything has changed. The reflection is not the same anymore. The smooth face is creased, the bright eyes have shadows of what they have witnessed. The face in the mirror remains yours, yet simultaneously, it is someone else's—someone who has been touched by the years, shaped by experience, formed by joy, by sorrow, by regret.

And only when you view time's work do you begin to nurture it. You begin to measure it—not in minutes or hours, but in the weight of moments passed and lost. Every glance in the mirror reminds you that time cannot be held. It does not wait for anyone. It returns nothing of what it takes.

But in that awareness, there is a paradox. The more you spend on time, the more it eludes you. You attempt to make the most of it, to spend it well, to mold it to your will. You chase it with desperation, running against time to do more, be more, leave something behind before it devours you.

And so, every look in the mirror reveals the same face—tired, weary, but determined. A man who has tried to outrun time, outsmart it, to extract sense from every passing moment. He is both content and enraged, for he knows he has done his utmost, and yet, it will never be enough.

Because time is not won. It is not war. It is lived.

The face in the mirror will change again. The lines will deepen, the hair will grey, the body will grow slower. And eventually, there will be a day when the mirror reflects nothing at all.

But perhaps the measure of a life is not in how long one fights against time, but in how well one walks alongside it.

Then why the fuck am I still not standing?

I have been lying here for god knows how long. Like a corpse that forgot to stop breathing. Like a salted fish baking under the sun, left to dry, left to rot.

I had slept. Yes. And when I woke up, I watched the crimson sun drag itself across the sky—rising, falling, bleeding into the horizon like an open wound. And still, I did not move. I only stared, thoughts unraveling, drifting, twisting into shapes I couldn't quite recognize.

And when the starry sky came to reclaim the heavens, I slept again.

Now that I am awake, why am I still lying here?

Am I out of energy? No. I have more than enough, more than a man who hasn't eaten in what feels like eternity should. My body should be weak, should be withered, but it isn't. I am whole. I am healed.

Still, I am lying here.

Is it because this is the first silence I have had in so long? Maybe. Is it because I have lost my reason to move? No. My regrets are still there, lurking, gnawing at the back of my skull. My pinky promise, the weight of it, still lingers like a shackle around my wrist. I have reasons to stand.

So why?

Why the fuck am I not moving?

I am not lazy. No—at least, not like this. I am lazy with things that bore me, things that hold no meaning. But this? This is my meaning.

Then why?

My brain is sending signals. I can feel it. The twitch of my fingers, the slight clench of my jaw. My body wants to move. My nerves respond.

So why am I not standing?

Something is wrong.

Think. Think.

I even had a fucking philosophy class in my head about time—about not wasting it, about moving, about acting.

So why the fuck am I not standing?

I was fine until the end of the Leviathan crisis. I fought. I bled. I won. And then the blood—your blood—changed me. It crawled into every wound, every torn muscle, every shattered bone. It took me apart and put me back together.

And since then, I've been lying here. Under the sun. Under the sky. Like a corpse too stubborn to rot.

I fucking know what this is.

You think you have a say in this?

You think because you stitched me up, you own me?

You liquid piece of parasitic SHIT—this is MY body.

Mine.

This flesh, this blood, these bones—they belong to ME. You do not get to claim them. You do not get to whisper in my muscles, to slither in my veins, to try and control me.

I don't care if you healed me. I don't care if you saved me. You do not get to move my body to your whims.

This temple—MY temple.

This shrine—MY shrine.

I don't care if you think you've merged with me. I don't care if you think I'm yours.

You're wrong.

Because this broken body that you stitched back together?

It. Is. MINE.

ONLY MINE.

No one.

NO ONE.

Gets to tell my body what to do.

Only me.

Not fate.

Not gods.

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Not some writhing, parasitic liquid bitch that thinks it has a say just because it stitched me back together.

MOVE.

Move, damn it.

Move so this thing knows it does NOT control me.

Move so I can show that I am the only one who decides what this body does.

Move because this body is MINE, and I will NOT be enslaved in my own flesh.

My muscles tensed. My nerves burned. My body LISTENED.

And I moved.

Like a stone released from a slingshot, I moved—

Wild, Forceful, Unstoppable.

And I fell.

Fell hard, straight into the ground, face-first, hitting the earth like a fucking meteorite.

But I moved.

Because I wanted to.

I moved because I chose to.

Not because something let me.

Not because something made me.

Because I willed it.

Because You don't get to take what's mine.