One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 41 - 39.2: The girl with red hair(4)

I could move just fine now. My body was sluggish, slow like an old machine just starting up, but it moved. That was enough. That was proof. Proof that I was still me. Proof that the blood that had tried to claim me, hadn't won.

I stood. My legs were unsteady at first, weak from disuse, but they held. They would hold. Because I willed them to.

And so I turned my gaze outward.

The world stretched before me—an endless canvas of red and blue, of contradiction, of unnatural beauty. The sky, the sun, the air itself—red, bleeding, endless. But below me, beneath my feet, the ocean had turned back to its original color. Blue, deep and untouched, rejecting the madness above. It should have been a relief, something familiar in this nightmare of shifting realities.

It wasn't.

It was strange. Wrong.

The red sky did not reflect in the water. As if the two worlds rejected each other. As if whatever had tainted the sky could not touch the sea, and the sea refused to acknowledge the sky's madness. My eyes saw both, existing in the same space yet refusing to merge.

I should have been unsettled.

The me from a week ago would have been. He would have stared, horrified, questioning what was real and what was illusion. He would have tried to rationalize, to convince himself this was just an aftereffect of his wounds, his mind playing tricks.

But that version of me was gone.

The me of now looked upon the scene and felt something close to wonder.

The world had changed. Or maybe I had changed. Either way, I wasn't repulsed. I wasn't afraid.

I liked it.

The sheer impossibility of it. The sky burning, bleeding above me, the sea silent, cold, rejecting it all. The way the colors refused to touch. A world divided. A world more surreal than anything I had seen before.

The world had once again upped its madness.

And it was waiting.

Waiting for me to up my game. Waiting for me to match its madness once more.

I had already won once. I had fought, struggled, bled, and still came out standing. And now, as if unsatisfied, the world upped the stakes. Raised the bet, daring me to go all in again.

Tough luck, asshole.

I wasn't playing just because it wanted me to. I wasn't some puppet for the madness around me. I was in control.

At least, for now.

I would play the game when I decided to. When I wanted to. Not a second before.

Right now, I had bigger things to worry about. Bigger fish to fry.

So I took my time, surveying my surroundings.

Nothing but emptiness. Nothing but emptiness. A crimson sky, the bleeding sun hanging like an open wound. The ocean, a calm blue, untouched, stretching endlessly around me.

And then—a reunion.

A familiar sight among the surreal landscape. Something that had been with me through the storms, through the silence, through everything.

My raft.

I was standing on it. But it wasn't the same.

It was red now. Not red because of my eyes but because it had been dyed the color of red.

The same deep, wet, pulsing red that had changed me. That had claimed me. A layer of blood clung to it, not just coating it but seeping into it, soaking it, becoming one with it. A sickening red.

And. It was reaching.

The blood—that cursed liquid that had wormed its way into my body, into my flesh, into my very being—was reaching for me again.

It crawled along the raft, climbing, creeping, stretching higher. As if drawn to me. As if it still wanted me.

It wasn't just a raft anymore.

It was something more.

Something alive.

Something that hadn't let me go.

Something that won't let go.

But I had to admit, the raft looked cool from my eyes. Sure, I may die cause of it but goddamn the red color made the raft go from common to epic in a flash.

I would have loved to stand there, soaking in the sight of my old raft—my last piece of familiarity in this ever-shifting world. I would have loved to appreciate it, maybe even relish the fact that something of mine had endured. But then—

I saw it.

A dark speck on the horizon.

A ship. A real, man-made ship. It wasn't a mirage. It wasn't some trick of light and exhaustion. It was real. And it was coming.

The wind told me everything I needed to know. It blew strong and steady toward me, filling its unseen sails, guiding it in my direction.

I should be excited.

I should be thrilled.

For the first time in forever, I was seeing humans. Real, living humans. Not Leviathans, not incomprehensible beasts lurking beneath the waves, not eldritch things crawling from the depths. Humans. Creatures of logic, of reason. I could talk to them. I could explain. And They would listen.

Then why?

Why was my skin crawling?

Why did the sight of that ship send a slow, sinking weight down my spine? Why does the ship inching closer bring a sense of challenge?

Deja vu. That's why.

My luck. My fucking luck.

Because nothing in this world had ever handed me salvation without a cost. Nothing had ever let me walk away clean. Every time I thought I had won, that I had carved out a sliver of peace, the world had smiled, raised the stakes, and shoved me back in.

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And now, here it was again.

Another bet.

A bet I had to jump in.

Fuck me dead.

I just hope they are not the challenge.

Oh yeah. They were the challenge. The world equivalent of I raised the bet bitch. How did I know?

Maybe it was the skull-and-crossbones flag flapping dramatically in the wind.

Or maybe it was the shouting. The way the men on deck pointed at me like I was some exotic animal on display, as if they had just discovered a particularly ugly sea monster and were debating whether to kill it or sell it.

Oh, and let's not forget the weapons. Always a good sign. Swords drawn, guns cocked, the whole "We're definitely not here to make friends" package.

But if all of that somehow wasn't enough to clue me in—

Then maybe, just maybe, it was the harpoon.

The one that shot through my leg and buried itself deep into my raft.

Yeah. That might have been the giveaway.

And just to really drive the point home, they were pulling me in. Reeling me toward their ship like I was today's fresh catch, like this whole situation was just another Tuesday for them.

Lovely.

Absolutely fucking lovely.