With her sweetened breath [ONE PIECE]

18 - WAR

It was a strange thing, the first time you cut a man. You realize we're nothing but sacks of meat and blood and some bone to keep it all standing.

All their hopes and dream perishing along their life, such a cruel thing to do and yet so so easy. How a single pierced of a blade could make a man kneel and lay on their own pool of blood, how you could crush the organ that keep them breathing with a single harsh squeeze - it almost feel like cheating, how she could easily do it, as if she had done it many times before, and maybe she had, she's positive that she had.

The Pirate Captain, Elijah, as he had said was his name, was once a cocky greedy man, all talk and boast, all grin and laugh, a clown fighter with a stance of a fresh soldier, he wanted it all, the treasure and the power and the crown, he wanted everything because it's what he deserve he had told them, because he was born to be a king. But how much a crown can be worth when a crow can feast upon a king?

Now he layed beneath her, skull crushed and soaked with his own blood. She had punched him repeatedly, twice on his guts and hundreds on his face. His nose was broken, crushed on the force of her fist. Teeth gone and tounge bitten off, the skin between his eyes were sunken it - as if caving cowardly towards his own skull, it almost look comical at how ridiculous and horrifying he looks - all bloody and broken, done all by her hands.

It shouldn't feel good, it shouldn't but it does and she hates it yet craved it all the same.

"Are you alright?" Smoker came next to her, slick back hair still as perfect as it once was. Spray of crimson painted his cheeks while a cigar hang lazily on his lips.

"Yeah" she nodded her head, dazed. She could feel the warm blood on her hands, the dull ache of her knuckles and the fresh wound on her arm that Elijah had done.

It felt good, familiar almost - an odd comfort that accompanies the pain on her body. 

"You gave him quiet a beating" Smoker said, she could smell the scent of tabaco swirling in the air - harsh on her nose but still did nothing to cover the rusty filth of blood clouding her nostrils.

"Yeah.." She nodded "guess I did"

"Shocking isnt?" He had stated after some time, wet blood now slightly dry on her skin. "..How easy it was.  the first time you killed a man you thought something big would happened, something so ground breaking, like-i dont know- god coming down from heaven and cursing you for taking a life, or demons crawling underneath, but none of that happened and then, you would realized, that murder isnt that much of a big deal as you thought it was, as people make it out to be" Smoker had shrugged, as if pushing off the regret weighting on his shoulder.

Y/n did not know what to say, it was clear as a day that Smoker is a broken man, his own words were meant for him as much as it meant for her. A soldier in the middle of a slow war, a man whose death already set on stone the minute he wore his white coat, it remind her of the people she had met so long ago - in paradis. They were children, only children and yet the were forced to become men, to become a soldier, to hold a rifle and soar on the air, days of playing under the sun were gone and well past, only death awaits them once the green coat of freedom touch their skin.

She couldnt believe she escaped a war only to be sent into another one.

In this type of days, were the air felt much heavier and her eyes were prickled with tears, she craved the familiar love of her parents. The warmth of their embraced, to dot on her like she was still a child, to mumble comforts on her ear, to let her know everything will be alright and nothing is going wrong.

But she cant have that now.

Not when the guilt of her past weight on her like a boulder, not when the blood of a man she killed felt euphoric on her skin.