Cephalophore
2024-07-24 15:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mekachu04Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
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Penguin & Shachi are here to rescue their captain from a marine base in town. Turns out, another pirate crew's been being held there already, and they've already tasted what lies in store for Trafalgar Law if his crew doesn't hurry.
please mind the tags. it's not a happy ending for everyone.
It might not be as graphic as I'm building it up to be, but I'm not great at feeling out what the normal amount of violence typically is and if i missed the mark, I don't want to mess up anyone's day. I think it's more on the mellow side but again. I'm not sure. I don't feel it's any worse than canon. but. not a happy story for everyone, like i said.
The island was tense, a cumbersome troubled air that weighted everyone's spirits down. Incognito, Penguin and Shachi kept their heads down, avoiding eye contact as they followed the crowds.
Their Captain had been brought to the island this morning, the two of them only an hour to so behind. They just needed to slip in to wherever the man was being held, rid him of the Seastone cuffs, and then the three could be merrily on their way.
The problem was the getting to the higher security barracks was proving harder than they planned on. Something happened yesterday to put everyone on alert, and the two pirates could feel the weight of it.
The word 'execution' kept being murmured about - much to the duo's horror. But no - past tense. The execution that had everyone worried had... already happen? Usually it was the other way around. Then the words 'Pirate King' and 'Ally' started to get thrown around and ohh....
They must of executed one of Monkey's people. Yeah. That would be a reason to be worried. This whole island had a countdown on it, if that was the case. Shachi wasn't sure how Emperor Monkey would take to civilians watching one of his nakama be executed but he doubted the man would take it graciously. "Well, push comes to shove, if we can keep Captain alive long enough, then Strawhat will bust him out for us," he tittered.
Only Penguin wasn't at his side anymore. His friend had stopped, starting up at a post in the town center.
The execution platform had been removed, but someone had spiked the recently departed's head on the post for all to see.
Eustass Kidd.
Shachi almost vomited. He'd heard Captain Kidd had been captured - several wildly different tales actually - but the most recent one was to buy time for Strawhat to escape a Marine ambush. He'd had it's doubts on the story, but he'd also heard that Kidd's one ship was sunk, not unlike the Tang, and the Kidd Pirates had been taking refuge on the Thousand Sunny at the time. It had been less as helping Strawhat and more of paying a debt and trying to steal a ship.
Looks like it might have been truer than Shachi had wanted to believe.
Shit. And now the Marines had his own captain. How long until someone decided Captain Law's head would look good up there too?
He grabbed Penguin's arm, dragging them back into the flow of the crowd. "We have to find Captain. Now."
-
There was a group of soldiers outside the barracks. All in all, not surprising. But there was more then either had expected. They also all seemed to be trying to keep a distance from the building itself, those closest occasionally making a pained face and pressing on their ears. The wind shifted, and then Penguin and Shachi would hear it too as they slipped inside .
It was loud, unrelenting and filled the halls with echoing despair. At first, it sounded like someone screaming, wailing, sobbing. But no - it was someone laughing. Uncontrollably, ear piercing laughter.
The two regarded each other with heartbroken look, reflecting on the spiked head on display in town. They'd consulted notes with Captain on the Smile Fruits side effects in Wano - the worst kept secret was that the Kidd's First Mate had eaten one at some point during their crew's imprisonment. Killer's inability to keep the faux-fruit's sway under control had driven every marine out of the building in an attempt to flee the laughter.
Well, bonus for them.
Indeed, Killer was easy enough to find, just follow the most soul crushing sound the two of them had heard before, right to the cell where the man was bound. He was a mess, battered and bloody, chained down with the shackles meant for three men. regardless of the fact they were seastone, he'd already ripped one set out of the wall by sheer force of will, along with his own arm out of socket in the process.
He screamed and laughed and sobbed, still fighting. He must have been at this for hours.
Penguin picked the outer door locks easy enough, but the two stood uncertainly in the open gate way as Killer thrashed with renewed vengeance.
"Oi, OI. OI!" Shachi tried, waving hands in a placating matter to try ad get though to the man. Killer just laughed, before jerking on the chains and snapping his jaws at them like he was trying to bite them.
There was enough blood on his face - he likely had found success in it with early guards.
"Oi, Killer! Calm down man! Stop!"
It made no difference, the man was gone in his desolation.
Penguin recalled a comment he'd heard Roronoa make to the man in Wano - "Kamazo, stop!"
He reacted like someone at hit him, the laughter cracking around the edges, but softening. He stopped thrashing, looking at them, so confused and lost. Hollow. "'m not..." He made a sound like he was trying to talk, but his throat was shredded and torn. "s'not me..."
Penguin help his hands out - showing the lock picks. "Hey - lets get you outta here..." he offered.
Killer weakly laughed, but didn't move again, watching brokenly as Penguin set upon the cuffs on his injured arm. One by one, they fell away, until his arm fell limply to his side. Shachi was there to take Penguin's place as he moved to remove the ones on Killer's ankles, investigating his shoulder to see about setting the arm back into place.
The two worked in tandem to free the Kidd Pirate, set him to rights, before settling back warily as Killer stumbled to his feet. He wasn't steady - he was dehydrated, beaten, exhausted. Probably hadn't eaten in days and suffering from bloodloss. But he was standing.
"Tr..." he lost his voice, wheezing out a laugh, " 'ger here too?"
They nodded, unconsciously perfectly in sync. Killer's laugh hiccuped. He staggered out of the cell into the hallway.
"Killer, about Captain Kidd..."
Killer's laugh spiked, and he curled in on himself, shaking his head. Shachi stopped talking.
Once he got control, Killer staggered up again, "Either of you armed?" he rasped.
"No - weapons made us stick out too much."
Killer just shrugged, "Fists it is, then" he giggled out, leading them to the main halls. If any marines noticed his laugh getting louder, they hadn't acted on it - still mingling outside.
Killer pointed down on of the other halls. "Important prisoners are down there." Kidd must have been kept down there. Killer assumed Law could be too. That's all the help he gave them before heading to the front.
"HEY! What are you doing?" Penguin demanded in a harsh whisperer.
"Buying you some time. Getting some payback. Meeting up with my partner."
"Killer..." Shachi shook his head no, but also knew he wasn't going to be able to talk the man out of it.
"Dun' worry. I won't leave any of them to slow you down once you get out of here."
Penguin and Shachi watched him walk away for a moment, before darting down the hall he indicated.
They'd only just discovered their Captain, who looked at them back in disbelief, when the shouts of surprise started to echo into the building from the yard outside.
-
Law had swapped them out of the building once he had a clear line of sight with the streets beyond the yard where Killer was living up to his epithet. It was a blood bath of soldiers behind them, and Law did pause once they'd stepped in the street to look back at the wall now separating them from Killer.
Shachi jerked on his hand, prompting him to move before they were spotted. His hat had been shoved on Captain's head to disguise him, his causal day-coat tossed over the man's shoulders to hide the bloody shirt from his capture.
They were still in ear shot when a volley of gunfire echoed out. Then nothing but a smothering stillness.
They ran.
They ran, darting down alleys and though crowed streets, across uneven cobblestones and broken pavement, darting around trash piles and stall carts. There wasn't a destination yet - just away.
And then Law stopped, frozen in place just like Penguin had only an hour or so before.
"Captain - someone will recognize you..." Shachi hissed, unable to look at the gruesome display a second time. Penguin watched the crowd nervously, gently trying to push Law to keep moving.
Grim faced, Law summoned a room, unable to trust his own voice at the moment, pulling Shachi's coat off to cradled in his arm. He wouldn't give the Marines the satisfaction, shambling Kidd's decapitated head with the clothes before finally letting Shaichi and Penguin move him along again. The room faded away as they slipped into the crowd again, Law trying to keep his pilfered prize out of anyone's direct line of sight.
He's made a game of taking the heads of marine and pirate alike in the past. But he'd used his powers to do it - those men and women where technically still alive, bodies still living on. They'd had a weightlessness to them, as if still supported in a way by their own selves. Kidd's head had none of that. It was heavy.
Law wanted to go back, he wanted to tear those men apart, to finish the final taste Killer had given himself.. But he knew that the timing was wrong. The timing had been wrong since the moment they'd left Wano, and they could do nothing more now then to keep running away.
-
An exhausted Bepo had a small ship ready when they made it to the shore, the trio moving on instinct more than anything else, and finding Bepo waiting was a surprise to all four of them. Law curled around his gruesome purloined loot to keep Bepo from having to see such a sight as his oldest friend hugged him tightly before they where being ushered into the boat.
"It won't take them long to figure out Killer had help getting free," Penguin warned, "and as soon as they do, they're going to figure out quick that you're missing. And we need to be far away before they connect those dots."
Killer. No doubt left for dead in the yard as the marines scrambled to collect themselves after his rampage. "Do... do you think they'll... ya know..." Shachi looked ill, nodding to Law's lap. Bepo was busying himself with the ships sails with Penguin as they heading to open water.
"Did... did they.. did he still have his helmet?" Law hadn't even gotten to see the man who'd stayed behind so he could walk free.
Shachi shook his head in negative.
"His face was never actually on a poster," Law reminded him, "So no.. they probably wont put him on display. The average person won't know who he was, and he was rather pretty. Without giving him a trial, they won't risk gibbeting in case people are sympathetic to his death." Most likely, they'll bury him quickly, an unmarked grave, and try to cover up the end of life body count he'd racked up in his last moments.
Law's going to burn this town down later. Once he got his own crew settled. Maybe see if any of Kidd's men survived in the end. Maybe Luffy would want to help. And he'd either find Killer's grave and dig him up for the proper send off Law never got to give his own family, or he'd just sink the whole place, send all the unknown pirates buried there back to the sea where they belonged.
I later did write Kidd's goodbye to Luffy, and added it as a stand alone instead of as a chapter with this one, since the ending of that one is ambiguous and if you want to image them having a happy ending, you could.
This is not my first beheading one piece story, interestingly enough - the very first story I ever wrote for One piece, and the only one to survive the LJ purges was a piece in 2007 simply called Untitled Death Fic , found under my old days non-de-plume of Sentra04.
