Benimaru's eyes slowly opened, his vision blurry and unfocused at first. The bright white ceiling above him came into view gradually, along with the harsh fluorescent lights that made him squint. His entire body felt heavy, like it was made of lead, and there was a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to radiate from everywhere at once.
He was in a medical room, that much was clear from the sterile smell of antiseptic that filled his nose and the steady beeping of machines nearby. The walls were painted a plain, clinical white, and to his right stood an IV stand with a bag of clear fluid dripping slowly through a tube that led to his arm. Medical equipment lined a small counter against the wall..bandages, bottles of medicine, and various tools he couldn't quite identify.
The bed he was lying in had crisp white sheets, and he could feel thick bandages wrapped around his torso and arms beneath the thin hospital gown he was wearing. A heart monitor beside the bed beeped steadily, displaying his vital signs in glowing green numbers.
Everything hurt, but at least he was alive.
Slowly, with considerable effort, Benimaru turned his head to the side. There, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, was his uncle Ryota. His head was tilted back against the wall, his mouth slightly open as he slept deeply. Dark circles hung under his eyes and his was especially messy and unkempt today. His Marine coat was draped over the back of the chair, and his katana leaned against the wall within arm's reach.
He looked exhausted, like he hadn't slept properly in days. But he was there, keeping watch even in his sleep.
He turned back to face the ceiling, and immediately the weight of reality crashed down on him.
This wasn't a dream...
A part of him had desperately hoped that it was, that he'd wake up and find himself back home with everyone laughing and alive. But that hope died the moment he felt the very real, very physical pain throbbing in his stomach and radiating through his hands.
This was real.
All of it had been real.
Benimaru slowly turned his head down to look at his stomach where that bone scythe had impaled him. He sighed quietly, a weak, shaky breath.
He was relieved he was still alive, at least, some small part of him was. But a much deeper, darker part of him wished he hadn't survived. That he'd died back there with everyone else. Because what was the point of being alive when everyone who mattered was gone?
He felt entirely empty inside, like someone had hollowed him out and left nothing but a shell. The only thing that reminded him he was still human was the pain, the constant, throbbing ache that proved his body was still functioning, even if his heart felt like it had stopped.
Haruka...
His mother's warm smile flashed in his mind and the times he'd spend with her as a baby.
Daichi...
His father figure, the man who'd raised him, taught him everything.
Yuki...
His little sister, so full of life and innocence.
Tomoe...
His friends.
The villagers.
The children he'd grown up with.
Everybody he loved and cared about, they were all dead. All of them killed brutally right before his eyes, and there had been nothing he could do to stop it.
He closed his eyes, trying to escape the pain, but that only made it worse. Behind his eyelids, he saw the flashes of everybody's faces before they were butchered down. Their expressions of terror and pain as the life left their eyes. Each memory stabbed through him like a knife, over and over again.
He slowly opened his eyes again, staring blankly at the white ceiling.
'Why...?' he questioned silently.
Why had he been reincarnated into this world? What was the point of giving him a second chance at life if this was what it led to? Why couldn't he just live a normal life?
He didn't want to be the strongest. He didn't want to find the One Piece. He didn't want to explore the world or have grand adventures like some protagonist from an anime.
All he'd ever wanted was a family. People to love and be loved by. A simple, peaceful life even in this twisted, fucked-up world. That's all he'd asked for.
But even that had been taken from him.
He wanted to die.
He hated the fact that he was still breathing when everyone else wasn't. What right did he have to survive when they hadn't?
But then... he remembered.
The promise he'd made to the villagers. To the people he loved. That he would live for them. That he would protect them with his own life, no matter what.
He'd failed them in some way, since they were dead now because he hadn't been strong enough.
All because of that one eyed fucker and his crew...
Something cold and hard settled in Benimaru's chest, pushing out the emptiness and replacing it with something else. Something darker.
That pirate crew had slaughtered his people mercilessly. They'd torn apart families, murdered children, destroyed everything he held dear without a second thought.
So with the promise he'd made, the promise to live for those he'd lost, he would hunt them down.
And he would kill them all.
His hands clenched into weak fists despite the pain, and his jaw tightened.
He will continue to live, but not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Because there were monsters out there that needed to die, and he was going to be the one to kill them.
He didn't care about honor, or justice, or any of that vengeance-with-dignity bullshit. There would be nothing noble or righteous about what he was going to do. He would find every single last one of them and kill them in the worst ways possible. He'd make them suffer. He'd make them beg. He'd make them feel even a fraction of the pain and terror his people had felt before they died.
And he wouldn't feel an ounce of guilt about it.
"You're finally up..." a yawning voice came from the side, breaking through his thoughts.
Benimaru turned his head to see Ryota stretching in his chair, rolling his shoulders to work out the stiffness from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position. His uncle's eyes were heavy with exhaustion but filled with relief.
Benimaru turned back to stare at the ceiling. "Yeah..." he said quietly, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.
A long moment of silence passed between them before Benimaru forced himself to ask the question he already knew the answer to, but desperately hoped he was wrong about. "Did anybody else make it?"
Ryota's mouth pressed into a thin line, and he slowly shook his head. His lips trembled slightly as he spoke. "No... you're the only one."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence, but Benimaru just stayed quiet. His eyes fixed on the ceiling above him, refusing to let any emotion show on his face.
"Did you get them?" he asked after another stretch of silence.
Ryota shook his head again, the frustration clear in his voice. "You mean the pirates? No... we arrived too late. They were already gone before we got there." His hand gripped the arm of his chair so tightly the wood creaked under the pressure, his knuckles turning white as he tried to channel his anger somewhere.
Hearing that answer, Benimaru felt a flash of annoyance that those bastards had gotten away. But beneath that, there was also a strange sense of relief. They probably thought they'd gotten away with what they'd done. They were probably laughing, drinking, and celebrating as of right now.
But it would make it so much better when he finally found them and killed every last one.
"Beni... I'm sorry for not being the—"
"Don't worry about it," Benimaru cut him off, his voice still flat. "It's not your fault."
Ryota opened his mouth to protest, but Benimaru continued.
"If anyone should apologize, it shouldn't be you," he said. He wasn't going to blame Ryota for something that was completely out of his control. Sure, maybe his uncle could've stopped it if he'd been there earlier, but who could say for sure? That man was insanely strong. Just looking at him, Benimaru had felt the overwhelming difference in power between them.
He knew Ryota was strong, the man was a Commodore, after all. But he didn't know if even that would've been enough to stop that monster. And the man had some kind of weird Devil Fruit ability too.
Ryota groaned, clearly not satisfied with Benimaru's answer. He'd expected anger, screaming, blame or something that would justify the crushing guilt he felt. He felt partially responsible. If he'd just been there, if he'd arrived sooner, he could've stopped this from happening and maybe everyone would still be alive.
"You don't have to say that to make me feel better," Ryota said quietly. "I should've been there."
"I'm not," Benimaru replied bluntly, slowly pushing himself up from the bed despite the immense pain that shot through his body with every inch that he moved. "Should you have been there? Yes."
"Hey! Sit back down—you haven't recovered yet!" Ryota warned, immediately rushing to his nephew's side to help him.
"But it doesn't change the fact that what happened... happened," Benimaru continued, ignoring his uncle's concern. He grabbed onto the handle of the IV stand to hold himself up, his legs shaking slightly under his weight but refusing to give out.
Ryota groaned, shaking his head as he watched his nephew struggle to stand. For some reason, when he looked at Benimaru now, he didn't see a kid at all. If anything, the boy seemed more like a man than Ryota himself was, even though Ryota was twice his age. There was something in Benimaru's eyes, something hard and cold that hadn't been there before a couple years back.
Yet beneath that hardness, Ryota could see the suffering his nephew was desperately trying to hold back. The pain, the grief, the trauma, all of it was bottled up behind that blank expression.
He felt sorry for the kid. He truly did. Nobody deserved to go through what Benimaru had experienced, by watching his entire family get slaughtered right in front of him.
But Benimaru was his only family now. That meant Ryota had to step up and take care of him properly as an uncle, even if the kid didn't want to be taken care of.
"You're right, kid," Ryota said softly, placing a gentle hand on Benimaru's shoulder. "But just sit back down for now, alright? Anything you want, I'll have someone get it for you. Just focus on recovering first."
He looked at Benimaru with genuine concern, hoping the boy would listen to reason.
Benimaru looked at his uncle for a long moment, then sighed and slowly sat back down on the bed. "Anything I want...?" Benimaru repeated quietly. "So can I see the bodies of everybody?"
Ryota felt relieved when Benimaru got back into bed, but that relief was immediately replaced by concern at the request. He wanted to ask what good would it do to see them like that? But he decided against it. The boy had just lost everything. If he needed this, then Ryota wasn't going to deny him.
"Sure...if you promise to stay in this bed until you recover." Ryota said after a moment.
"Fine." Benimaru agreed.
. . . . .
Benimaru stood weakly, leaning heavily on the IV stand as he used it to support himself. Ryota walked beside him, one hand hovering near his nephew's arm just in case he started to fall.
They were in what looked like a makeshift morgue at the bottom of the ship, though it was really just a storage room lined with large refrigeration units normally used to preserve food supplies. The air was cold and sterile, and the hum of the cooling systems was the only sound besides their footsteps.
Benimaru's eyes scanned the few refrigerators in the room. "Where's the rest of the villagers?" he asked, his voice hollow. There weren't nearly enough units here to hold everyone.
Ryota sighed heavily, the weight of his words clear in his expression. "They were buried on the island. We held a service and laid them to rest there." He paused, then continued, "But I stored Haruka, Yuki, and Daichi here to figure out what you wanted to do with them. Bury them or cremate them... I felt that was a decision you should make."
Benimaru just stood there, staring at the three refrigerators that held what remained of his family.
"Can I see them first?" he asked quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
Ryota hesitated for just a moment, then nodded with a heavy sigh. He walked over to the three refrigeration units and carefully opened each one, pulling out the bodies on metal gurneys and wheeling them into the center of the room so they were lined up side by side.
"There..." he said, his breath solidifying into fog in the cold air. He then stepped back, giving Benimaru space.
Benimaru stood there silently, staring at the three covered bodies with only their heads poking out. Slowly, he stepped forward and reached out with a trembling hand, running it alongside each of their bodies through the white sheets.
Haruka.
Daichi.
Yuki.
He looked down at his hand, feeling the lingering chill on his fingertips, then let out a long, quiet sigh.
"Cremate them," he said coldly.
Ryota's brow twitched in surprise. "You sure that's the right decision?" he asked carefully. Personally, he felt that burying them would be better than burning them. Burial was a sign of honor, a way of respecting the dead and giving them a proper resting place.
Benimaru nodded without hesitation. "They don't deserve to rot in the ground and get eaten by maggots," he said flatly. "Cremate them and give me the ashes."
He turned and headed for the door, using the IV stand to support his weak legs as he made his way out of the freezing room.
Ryota stood there for a moment, looking at the three bodies, then back at his nephew's.
"Alright..." he agreed quietly, though he didn't necessarily agree with the decision.
. . . . .
_________________________________
________________________________________________________