𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐍

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

───── SHE DIDN'T KNOW WHEN THE SCREAMING STARTED, but she knew it wouldn't end any time soon.

Not long after Zoro and the girl were forced out of the big top, Eniya had to string Luffy up by all four limbs. She avoided meeting his eye the whole time; the sickening guilt she felt only worsened when she tightened his ropes, and he reassured her, "Hey, I'll be fine. Don't worry about it!"

The rope he hung from had been attached to a crank, and slowly, Buggy had made the Mayor of Orange Village stretch the elastic boy to his limits as she and an antsy Cabaji watched.

Eniya wanted to throw up.

While she wasn't proud of being a bystander in most cases—and occasionally Eniya had been made to dirty her hands as well—never had she been so involved in the torment Buggy inflicted. Wrangling Marines, clearing out the holds of ships that had already been stolen? Yeah, that had her all over it.

But abducting men and women from their ships in the middle of the night? Being made to string them up and trying to see how much it took until something broke—their body or stubbornness? She could barely watch, and as Luffy's screaming trailed off into laughter, she could barely even look.

Maybe I'm a hypocrite, Eniya realized.

Now, faced with the reality that she could not micromanage Buggy and bargain for everyone's safety, she, too, wanted to run. She wanted to run fast and far and never turn back.

But she couldn't. She didn't have anywhere to run to; she didn't have anything to her name. The money bag that had been shoved into her hand at fourteen was swiftly taken by Buggy at fifteen, replaced with those damn knives, his inane tasks, and thin-stretched patience.

"I want you to think of this as an artistic exercise." Buggy spoke to Luffy, but he stared at her, his chin resting on his hand. "Because pain leads to art. And art reveals truth. But there's only one truth I need from this exercise."

Standing with a stretch, he looked away from her and approached Luffy with a scowl. "Where. Is. My. Map?"

Luffy squinted. "Truthfully? I'm... I'm kind of hungry. Don't circuses have cotton candy?"

Buggy laughed dryly, drumming his fingers on Luffy's chest. "What could you possibly need that map for, anyway? You wouldn't last five minutes in the Grand Line."

While Luffy stood his ground, Eniya wanted to curl in on herself. Or be anywhere but here.

Now wasn't that Buggy's favorite line?

She could remember being fifteen and locked into a cabin on one of Buggy's ships. The side of her hands was bleeding and embedded with splinters from how aggressively she had pounded the door; her voice was hoarse from her yelling for someone to let her out. Eventually, her voice cracked, and she gave up on her. But her knocking never did.