Boy With a Scar

Chapter 25: Dead or Alive

The hatch above fell closed, plunging the room into the half-darkness, but not before Sanji laid his eyes on Luffy's back, the latter caught off-guard and not moving fast enough to pull his new dry shirt over it.

The lit cigarette hit the floor, throwing glowing specks of cinder in a small circle around it.

"That's..." Sanji spoke breathlessly. "That's a slave brand."

Luffy's guard instantly went up, his expression going flat with practiced blankness. A sudden flare of fear in his dark eyes was forcefully suppressed and replaced by deadly sharpness with an underlying caution. His body shifted ever so slightly, muscles tense and ready, conveying intense mistrust, wariness, and apprehension without even saying a word.

Sanji, for his part, didn't notice yet; his mind was still struggling to fully comprehend what he had just stated aloud.

Luffy's voice, low and as cold as ice, sliced through the suffocating silence: "How do you know?"

It finally jolted the cook out of his dazed stupor. Two pirates stared at each other, anticipation dancing in the air. There was something dangerous and chilling in the rubber teen's stance that whispered to Sanji's instincts. But the boy wasn't preparing to attack him, he realized. Luffy was ready to defend himself.

That epiphany hit Sanji like a punch to his gut.

Luffy was ready to defend himself from him. From his own crewmate, the person he himself invited to join him on his travels, his nakama, and all because he saw the—

Sanji made a few unsteady steps backward and sat down on the couch.

All because he saw the Hoof of the Soaring Dragon burned into his flesh, the symbol that should forever mark someone as 'less than human.'

No wonder his captain was feeling defensive. Who wouldn't? In the eyes of the world's majority, humans like him were technically the property of the World Nobles, regardless of how disgusting that sounded. The instilled fear and the consequences of going against such people often outweighed the person's humanity and conscience.

Luffy expected to be betrayed.

"Zeff," the blond finally croaked out. "The geezer told me about it." He rummaged through his pockets, searching for his cigarettes. "A few years ago he got drunk and told me a story about how he met a woman during his journey through the Grand Line. She was one of..." he trailed off, pushing a cigarette between his lips. "He said that those people dismissed her after disfiguring her face." The damn lighter refused to work. "Eventually, she took her own life."

A heavy silence sank down on them, disturbed only by Sanji's vain attempts to ignite his lighter.

Click. Click. Click.

Luffy said nothing, simply watching, searching, judging, though Sanji was falling back into his own thoughts.

Zeff rarely drank and even more rarely got drunk, but when he did, he always had a loose tongue. The blond was curious at that time, so he asked to tell him more. If those monsters could do such awful things to women, he couldn't even imagine what they did to men or... kids.

Sanji stumbled over the last thought, and words slipped out without his consent: "For how long?"

The boy shifted again, lips twitching down in a small frown. "Four years," he replied reluctantly. "That's what my brother said."

That's what his brother said. Sanji clenched his teeth. It must have been so horrible that Luffy himself lost the feeling of time. He was seventeen now. Four years. Even if he had been freed recently, it meant that he was just a kid during his enslavement.