𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 ➳ 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐚 (one piece fanfic)

Chapter 8

Konan hated torture, she loathed the thing from every fiber of her being, yet she did it countless times; leaving a person a breath away from death, watching as the life faded from their eyes and their hope was crushed from their eyes as they screamed till their throat was sore, be it, children or elders, she had watched both grovel at her feet, pleading for their lives or their loved ones' only for their spirit to break when they saw her impassible face looking down upon them.

She couldn't bring herself to enjoy the act of depriving a human of his very humanity, as did many of her co-workers.

No.

No matter how many she killed and tortured, she could never feel even a sliver of joy, even as she avenged her parents or her best friend.

The least she could do for them was to give them a painless death. Just as a human breathed to live, she killed to survive, without thrill nor satisfaction, killing brought nothing to her.

It stopped moving her, and she started seeing it as a necessary action. When, she didn't know. She didn't remember when she stopped puking after her torture sessions, or since when she didn't wake up from nightmares anymore. She didn't know when she stopped avoiding the gazes of their corpses or when she stopped listening to their stories, their pleas.

She simply, watched, detached from her body as her hands worked to extract pieces of information from her prisoners. It was just that to her, her work, her duties, to her childhood friend, to her country, to the countless children crying out on the battlefield. She dirtied her hands so they wouldn't.

So when she found herself staring at a bloodied and pleading Porchemy, she didn't feel anything for him. He was the one who dared lay his dirty fingers on her dear brother after all. She stood tall, unmoving as a hundred bloodied papers fluttered around him, cutting him just enough to draw blood but not enough to kill him, no death was too easy for him, too merciful. She wanted him to suffer just as her 7-year-old brother had. She was kinder to the rest of the crew as she simply cut off their legs and arms and allowed them to bleed to death or commit suicide to avoid the painfully slow drain.

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"Say, Konan, how did you become so strong?" Sabo voiced out breathily while laying down, his pipes laid beside him, along with a beaten Ace and a sleeping Luffy.

"Real-life training," she answered in an even tone. War is a slaughterhouse, for adults and children alike, you either kill or are killed. In this kind of environment, you quickly pick up a few things to survive.

They settled in comfortable silence in the middle of the forest, in one of the rare meadows as a dark veil draped over the sun, slowly giving place to the Moon.

With practiced hands, Konan started folding papers, quickly turning them into paper butterflies. Laying them on her hands, before blowing on them, she smiled, as their wings started fluttering and they detached themselves from her hands, flying for a bit around her before going off in the distance.

Sabo watched with fascinated eyes as she worked her magic: even from where he laid, he could see the white of their wings slowly fade into more natural colors to become the butterflies he recognized.

"How... how do you do that?" he stammered out, words slipping from his tongue before he could stop himself.

Turning to face him, she tilted her head before patting the spot beside her, grinning when he obediently dragged himself to sit beside her. Still keeping her silence, she handed him a square piece of paper and started folding it but this time slower.

Immediately understanding his task, he concentrated on the movement of her hands and replicated it with his paper. 5 minutes later, he stared proudly at his handiwork, a simple butterfly. Despite a few wrong turns, he successfully made his first origami with his own hands. He swiftly turned to show his work to his honorary teacher who smilingly ruffled his already messy hair.

Konan put back his butterfly on his hands and told him to blow on it. Nodding hurriedly, Sabo blew hard on the butterfly, making it float away and fall from his hands, earning a disappointed sigh from the boy.

"Look," at her words, the blonde looked down to see its wings flutter before slowly flying up. Pumping his fist up, Sabo watched heatedly the hazardous flying of his butterfly, quickly putting both his hands beneath it when he saw it faltering. As the butterfly once again flew up, he cheered, getting up with it.

His gushing didn't take long to wake up both his brothers who watched with stupefaction as Sabo cheered on a flying paper butterfly. At the same time, both their heads turned to Konan with a clear indication shining in their eyes 'I want to try'.

A good 15 minutes later, all three were running after their butterflies, gazes fixed on them, hands readied beneath it, just in case, making Konan chuckle in fond adoration.

"Konan," cried out Luffy while pointing to a tall tree with sharp leaves, "my butterfly..." he sniffled pitifully before continuing "he got stuck".

Her gaze traveled to the edge of the tree to indeed see a struggling butterfly, stuck in the sticky leaves, before returning to the doe eyes of a pleading Luffy.

Konan stood before him before bending down and grabbing him, wings unfolding on her back, opening majestically before easily pushing down making a few gusts of wings as she, along with Luffy, flew up to the imprisoned butterfly. Grinning wildly as he gazed down on the void beneath him, Luffy stuck out his tongue toward his stunned brothers.

"Here," Konan interrupted his thoughts as she extended the now-free butterfly toward him before folding her wings ever so slightly, allowing them to free-fall to the ground. She smirked as she heard Luffy scream in unadulterated joy, opening her wings just as they were about to crash to instead float above the ground.

The only sound remaining was Luffy's laughter before both his brothers advanced with determined steps, blurting out in the same voice, "I want to try too."

"One at a time," Konan answered in muted amusement.

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I dare you to do the paper butterfly shown in the above DIY video! I did it and it's pretty easy, you only need a piece of paper and scissors.