One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 52: The girl with red hair(15)

I crouched low, just enough to meet the hollow gaze of the corpse beneath me. What was left of him, anyway. His body—a withered husk of bone and skin—had been drained of everything vital. No blood, no organs, nothing but a shell, a grotesque shell, crumbling like old parchment.

I reached out, slow, deliberate, and grasped his skull. It had something in it. The brittle remains of his face were taut, pulled tight over bone, his skin stained deep crimson from where his eyes resided. The blood had poured from them in his final moments, carving grotesque rivulets down his cheeks. Now, they were empty sockets, voids that reflected nothing but the sea's cruel indifference.

Funny.

He looked more like a sailor in death than he ever did in life.

His gun had slipped from his fingers, the weight of it pressing into the wooden boards of the ship's deck. A lonely thing, abandoned, waiting.

Slowly, I rose, my gaze sweeping the scattered crew—weak, trembling, pretending not to be prey. But one stood out among them, not by choice, but by fate. The youngest. The one whose hands had not yet been soaked in enough blood to grow numb to its warmth.

I pointed at him.

A simple gesture. A single, crooked finger in his direction.

He froze. His breath hitched, a sharp, stifled sound. The air shifted. The men around him instinctively recoiled, stepping back as if he carried a plague, as if merely standing beside him would mark them too. They knew what I wanted. They knew what it meant to be singled out by me.

And so, like rats scrambling from a sinking ship, they scattered, leaving him alone.

Poor thing.

His knees locked, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he took a single step backward. Then another. His eyes darted, searching—perhaps for salvation, perhaps for courage—but finding neither.

I tilted my head, watching him with something like amusement, though I knew he would not see it that way. I had no interest in him. Not yet. He wasn't meant to be torn apart. Not today.

So, I pointed again.

At the gun.

Then at him.

Then back at the gun.

A slow, patient motion.

And then, finally, I curled my fingers into a beckoning gesture.

Come.

He hesitated, his mind struggling to grasp the simplicity of my demand. I saw the moment understanding dawned on him. The moment realization dug its jagged nails into his chest.

And as that understanding grew, so did my grin.

It stretched, slow and sharp, carving its way across my face like a wound splitting open, wider and wider, until my teeth gleamed beneath the dim light.

He caved.

Of course he did.

He scrambled forward. His hands shaking so violently that I thought he might drop the gun before reaching me. But no, he held on, fingers clutched around the grip as though it were the last thing that acted as a tether to life itself.

He reached me and extended the weapon, his knuckles white, his breath sputtering with terror.

I took it from his trembling grasp, feeling the weight of it settle into my palm.

And then, with a lazy flick of my fingers, I shooed him away.

Dismissed him like an afterthought.

He wasn't the target.

Not yet.

But his time would come.

I still had the coward's skull in my grasp, his spine still clinging to it, his skin still draped over the brittle remains of his skeleton. The corpse was no longer a man but something less, something hollow—an effigy of failure.

With a single motion, I flipped the gun in my hand, gripping it by the barrel. It was no longer a weapon for shooting. It was a bludgeon. A tool of correction.

I raised it high.

And I brought it down.

The first strike landed with a dull, wet thud. A muffled impact that sent vibrations through the bone. The spine trembled but did not break.

A second strike. CRACK. The sound slithered through the air, sharp and raw.

A third. THUD. CRUNCH.

The crew flinched. Their bodies jerked with each impact as if they could feel the pain that the dead man no longer could. I did not stop. I would not stop. Not until it gave way.

The sound of splitting cartilage filled the silence, a thick, meaty **pop** that sent a shudder through the gathered men. They cowered back, eyes wide, fear pooling in their breath as they watched me hammer down with relentless force.

More cracks. More snaps. The ship's deck was now painted with the remnants of what had once been a man. But still, his spine resisted, a grotesque testament to the sheer stubbornness of the flesh even after life had fled.

I laughed.

Another blow. Harder. A furious, teeth-rattling crunch.

Then—

SNAP.

The spine finally gave, splintering from the skull. The long, twisted column of bone tumbled to the ground in a limp, defeated heap, its tendons still glistening, its marrow exposed in jagged shards.

I let the gun slip from my grasp. It had served its purpose. It was no longer needed.

Now, only the skin remained.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, feeling the sharp edges, the hunger that burned behind my ribs. My fingers curled around the flaps of flesh that still clung to the hollowed-out head. The skin was tight, stretched, resisting.

It wouldn't resist for long.

I bit.

The texture odd. Rubbery, thick, dense with the taste of sweat, salt, and death. But I did not stop. I chewed, my jaw locking down with feral strength, tearing through the tissue with a raw, primal hunger. My teeth ached, but I pressed on, grinding against the resistance, feeling the fibers snap one by one.

A taste flooded my mouth—something stale, something rotten, something undeniably human.

The crew had gone silent. Not a breath, not a whisper. Just the faint shuffle of boots scraping backward as they watched. As they understood.

I chewed harder. A deep, visceral rip. The skin began to tear.

I snarled against the sinew, my jaw working, my breath coming fast and fevered. It was giving way. I could feel it. A seam forming, widening, splitting under the sheer force of my hunger.

And then—

RIP.

The last fibers snapped, and the skull fell free from its grotesque prison. I spat the remaining shreds of flesh to the deck, my hands shaking with exhilaration.

And then I saw it.

The skull was not empty.

Nestled within the hollow cavity where the brain should have been, something moved.

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A pulse.

A throb.

A beating heart.

Dark and veined, slick with blood and something older, something deeper than life itself. It quivered within the skull, each beat sending tiny tremors through the cracked bone.

Ba-dump.