Chapter Text
"Sono solo...a nessuno importa di me, perché allora dovrebbe importare a me" Improvvisamente la sua mente viaggio al bicchiere di vetro che gli avevano dato per abbeverarsi, un solo momento e tutto sarebbe finito.
Lo prese lo osservo per breve tempo prima di frantumarlo nella sua mano con la sua immensa forza.
Delle gocce di sangue caddero sul pavimento, ma le ferite da cui provenivano non facevano male, era altro il dolore che provava
Prese il pezzo di vetro più grosso che riusci a trovare e con gli occhi stanchi si mise a fissarlo.
Lentamente con la mente oramai vuota e rassegnata lo avvicino al suo polso, un rivolto di sangue uscì proprio nel momento in cui i catenacci alla porta della sua cella vennero aperti e un uomo alto con un vestito gessato nero e giallo, i capelli ricchi e gli occhiali perennemente sul naso entrò.
"Ma cosa stai facendo Sentomaru?" Chiese l'uomo in questione con aria annoiata, aveva nella voce una nota di rammarico che solo le persone che lo conoscevano bene, come lui, potevano percepire. Ma per il resto era inflessibile e ineffabile come al solito.
"Non osare fermarmi, è mio dovere porre fine a tutto questo con le mie sole mani, ho tradito tutti i miei ideali per un uomo che non ci ha pensato due volte a lasciarmi qui e andarsene, dopo tutto quello che avevo fatto per lui, voglio farla finita" Sentomaru era un fiume di parole come al solito, non riusciva proprio a trattenersi dal dire tutto ciò che gli passava per la testa. La sua faccia era adorabilmente e teneramente contrita, ma i suoi occhi erano di ghiaccio e al solo contatto con quelli dell'altro uomo, gli occhi di quest'ultimo presero fuoco.
Alla velocità della luce prese il polso di Sentomaru, quello con la scheggia di vetro e lo piego in modo che la stessa cadesse.
Sentomaru fu preso alla sprovvista, così come ogni volta in cui interagiva con lui, sempre sorpreso e mai una volta in cui riuscisse a prevedere perfettamente le sue mosse.
It was time to prove his worth and he failed.
In a few hours the world government would have decided his fate, he would have accepted it, he would not have tried to escape like a villain without honor, he would have embraced the life he deserved or death at best.
But... there was a but. A small problem that nagged him.
His breath kept coming and going erratically, his throat closed up, and his stomach rumbled to let out what little he'd eaten before the battle.
He felt tears in his eyes and thoughts of him kept haunting him. Had he ever felt like this before? Yes. He Knew what it was: it was a panic attack.
A normal person would have reacted thinking it was normal, the five Stars of Wisdom were discussing his imminent situation and he was not their guest, but rather their prisoner, with perhaps the most serious charge ever: treason.
Well 3 days earlier he had decided to betray the Navy and the World Government, to save the old Punk's skin, is this what having a conscience entails?
He didn't think that one day he would find himself in a similar situation, he had worked a long time to join the marines and now his entire strenuous career (and probably his life) was destroyed.
But what if he could go back? Would he do it all over again? With the latest information in his possession about him, he didn't know.
Meanwhile a salty tear slowly fell from an otherwise dry face.
He wasn't scared he was just... overwhelmed by the situation; he had discovered many things from "his" fight with his uncle and still had to discover, where did he come from? Who was he really he? But nothing mattered because now he was just another prisoner.
He was alone, of this he was certain. There have been so many moments in his life where he has felt isolated. For example in his village, when everyone avoided him due to his strength, but what he felt now was not simple loneliness. Everyone had abandoned and betrayed him, left alone in a cell awaiting the verdict, alone with his thoughts and torments, and nothing would change.
Or perhaps, unconsciously, she had let him because she didn't really want to take her own life in that miserable way.
"Aiah, you hurt me uncle!"
"I should have spanked Egghead harder, so maybe you'd learn your lesson," Kizaru said in the same tone you tell a joke.
"What lesson? The one about not trusting anyone? The one where everyone stabs you in the back and then abandons you?" Sentomaru answered exhausted and angry.
"No, the one for whom life is worth more than honor" Zikaru knew well what he was talking about, he had learned it on his skin long before, and since then he had done everything to survive, even abandoning those ideals he believed inviolable.
"You have to adapt and change if you want to survive. That said the Stars of Wisdom have made a decision, that's why they're here..."
Sentomaru felt his heart in his throat, waiting for the answer. He knew she wasn't beautiful because I sent him on purpose. If they had sent any other marine to let him know the outcome he would have been calm because they knew he wouldn't have done anything unfortunate. But by sending Kizaru they knew the reaction to any negative result would be appeased.
"AND?" Sentomaru asked tensely.
Kizaru looked down and turned away, he couldn't look at his face as he told him that he was going to die…
Sentomaru understood, and suddenly his breathing quickened, it didn't mean anything good, the tears returned, but he would never give his uncle the satisfaction of seeing him as a baby, so he swallowed it all and was petrified. He was used to eating toads.
He thought about his life, or about the one he thought he remembered and knew it was too short, but everything was decided, without his consent everything would have ended.
Kizaru walked out of the cell without turning around, but stood on his dream alone.
"Sentomaru you will survive one way or another, maybe in people's memories. People only die when they are forgotten"
At that point Sentomaru couldn't take it anymore and getting up in a hurry he threw himself against Kizaru nailing him to the wall next to the door, the corridor was free; no one had followed Kizaru sure that he would never let Sentomaru escape, and Sentomaru knew it too so he didn't even try. But he had to tell his uncle something.
"Easy for you to say that I will survive in people's memories...but which people? Those of my village who abandoned me or in the memories of old Punk who left me in your hands? In whose memories will I stay? I thought becoming a marine I would have become someone, instead I realized that I was the last of the last, that I was forgotten by everyone. Not only will I die without ever having even understood what my dreams were, like a bastard without a family that really loved me, but i will die forgotten and neglected as i am...i will never know why whoever it was they cursed put me into this world i will never know who i really am it seems but worst of all i will die alone no one deserves an end like that and yet here I am, and you come to tell me, to console me that I won't really die? Well I'll tell you something new, when the heart stops beating you die definitively!" Sentomaru was screaming and without realizing it he was crying at the same time. But now the fear of death had disappeared, replaced by a blind rage towards everything, everyone but above all towards life; he never wanted to be a God like many, he never hoped to become someone important, but right now his dream was to become someone important to someone else, anyone, enough to come and oppose his execution. And it is with these thoughts full of rage and boundless frustration, losing control of his mental faculties, that he raised a fist and hurled it against the wall breaking it into hundreds of pieces and alarming everyone in the building.
After that blow, as fast as he had gone up, the adrenaline went down, and Sentomaru felt exhausted. He slumped to the ground shaking and as everyone in the building ran to the spot with guns and guns aimed, Kizaru stripped off his marine jacket to drape it over his former subbird's shoulders.
"Get out, nothing happened, you see I'm fine. So unravel and walk away, there's nothing to see."
As everyone resigned from the place, Kizaru looked down at that figure that he had seen as a child, that he had watched grow into a man as strong and big as a mountain, become small and innocent again. She had so many words on the tip of her tongue that he wanted to say, but the only thing that came out was: "I'll help you move to the gallows, no one will disturb you anymore. No one will ever ask you anything again, finally you'll be free."
Sentomaru no longer had the strength to oppose anything that was happening, he was resigned to his fate, he was about to die and all it would have gone out, the show was over, the curtain had fallen.
He tried to get up but his legs gave way, luckily Kizaru was beside him and held him by the elbow. She took him in her arms and without taking off his admiral's jacket accompanied him through the corridors of the government building. Kizaru looked at him and thought about when he hoped to see him with that jacket next to him as an admiral and deeply hoped that Sentomaru would fight, that he would rebel, instead he did nothing.
The execution would have been a private show, only for some celestial dragons, the five stars of wisdom and a few marines, precisely to underline the consideration they had of the young man they were about to kill, the paucity with which they treated him. If only in life someone had taught him to have more courage and less sense of personal safety, he would have done or said something.
Without realizing it Sentomaru's same feeling of panic was invading Kizaru too, soon he would lose a trusted friend and he was doing absolutely nothing.
They came to a room that was dimly lit except for one spot, a performance stage with a pair of marines as large as he stood at the ready with two equally large swords, maybe it was just Sentomaru's imagination, but it all seemed huge to him, or maybe it was him to feel very small, like it hasn't happened to him for years.
Kizaru gently dropped him onto the gallows, Sentomaru didn't dare look up at the darkened audience, he knew they were in front of him, but he couldn't see them distinctly, only marginal figures.
His breathing became more and more labored, on the one hand he hoped to end it and pass out, on the other hand he did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing him weakened, but he could not contain his panic, and not because he was about to die, now at that thought there he had put a stone on it, but because he knew he was dying without ever having done many things. Of course he had been through a lot, it's just that not even he remembered many of them, he only knew them because Vegapunk or Kizaru sometimes told him something, and now he knew why ...
He couldn't distinguish the voices, but he perceived some key words: death sentence, betrayal, World Government, loyalty
That word had lost its meaning, nothing mattered anymore. Suddenly a little courage shot through him, and I raised my head to the sky; it was raining outside and a bolt of lightning tore through the sky and lit up his face.
Not a single muscle moved on his face, only a look of pride and passion could be seen in his eyes.
He lowered his head to the block and waited.
And waited.
He waited again, but no heads fell.
A sudden noise broke into the silence, a sound of breaking glass. Sentomaru looked up again only to see white lightning hurtling past him.
He didn't understand what was happening, but something had just happened, because a loud roar and clamor of chairs and voices, but he couldn't see anything, because there was someone in front of him blocking the view.
He didn't see who he was but along with the din of voices was added a battle cry, screaming freedom.
Suddenly he turned around in search of Kizaru, who was in the midst of a group of celestial dragons, he had placed himself in defense of those miserable ones. But one thing bothered him, he was looking at him intensely and with a stupid smile on his face. This destabilized and confused him. What the heck was going on.
A voice parched him, a voice he knew all too well.
He had known him for almost 3 years now, a voice that made his blood boil with excitement.
Luffy D. Monkey was standing right in front of him, talking to him.
"Hello sumo man, good to see you again."
The situation was paradoxical and deafening, he didn't hear footsteps behind him, but only hands fumbling with the handcuffs that locked him behind his back.
"I can't unlock them!" said the voice behind him. But Sentomaro didn't care, he only saw Straw Hat smiling at him with a huge smile.
He recognized him only by his voice because his appearance was completely different, white curls floated around his head, it almost looked like a cloud.
His clothes were pure white as well, and an equally white vapor surrounded his cloud-hair and arms.
"Sentomaru I'm sorry, but I have to!" He said someone else, who he thought he'd heard before, but he couldn't look around, even though the room was now well lit, he was petrified with amazement.
Suddenly he recognized Vegapunk's voice, but it was distorted, it seemed to come from a slugphone, not far from him.
"Sentomaru I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do, I never meant to, but just know it's for your own safety."
Kizaru, who meanwhile was evacuating the hall from the Celestial Dragons to prepare for the fight, heard and suddenly understood what old Punk thought.
"Vegapunk don't you dare, you promised you would never do it, you swore on your life!"
"Kizaru I have no choice, if you don't do something I'll have to."
"Sentomaru listen carefully to my orders, from now on you will be free, this is my last command: free the chip!"
Suddenly Sentomaru felt a shock invade his body and then nothing, emptiness.