Gold and Red [Law × Reader, Kid × Reader]

Nineteen (Both)

Earlier

Three's side

The thing snaps its fingers, and the scene stops opposite you.

Your eyes never leave King's smile, and you stay on your knees, as you don't feel enough strength in your legs to stand anymore.

The creature walks to you and kneels down as you do, still looking fragile yet threatening.

It holds onto the strange, twisted reflection of yours as a form.

It wipes away your tears, but you barely feel it as you start talking.

"It was you," you whisper, still looking at King's peaceful face, as he tried to comfort you his own way. Protected you, of what you may have become. "You killed the Lunarians, didn't you?"

It nods, and your eyes widen in fear and shock as you see it rocking back and forth with profound woe in the white eyes.

It has grown. In physical form, not, but you gave it your 'words', as it asked. It can express itself now, and explain itself.

An odd, suffocating emotion in your throat wants to hear all of it.

"That is why King knew of my Devil Fruit, while it was never in the book," you cry, holding the katana he once gave you, the only thing you could keep here, even after losing control. "He heard the old tales. He recognized it, and still cared about me, all these years. Even if something inside me destroyed everything he ever held dear."

"I never wanted that," answers the creature. "I was never meant to roam this world, Three, but I am locked here by this power. I didn't understand what was going on and had little consciousness. I was terrified, and hid deep in the darkness, while humans used me to take away the thing I value most."

Death stops moving.

"I have fallen in love with life ever since I came to existence," it whispers. "And they still used me to take it away from others, over and over again. And the more they did, the more hatred grew in me, until I became exactly what you see me to be now."

You finally break your gaze away from King, and you thrill as you see how broken this thing is.

The most powerful force of nature, crumbling under its own presence, and the role that humanity forced on it.

You hate how you never gave it a chance before. How you misunderstood it all.

"By time, I always ended up a monster like them," it continues softly, closing its eyes. You barely notice how you are back to the shore of the sea. "Enough to take over them, and end their lives myself before they took more from others. But once, just before I could, another Devil Fruit user appeared, which brought its strength from beating hearts."

"You obeyed it," you say silently. "You obeyed it, and they used you as a weapon to erase the Lunarians."

Death nods voicelessly, and for a while, neither of you talks. You don't know what to do anymore. Everything you believed in and prepared for was wrong.

You have been watching the lives of others in your dreams since you can remember, because it watched it through your eyes.

The two of you were more similar than you thought. You both only survived the nightmares and your curses by clenching to the small wonders of life.

"We are all powerless against what we love the most," rustles Death, looking at the sea, with the myriad of ever-living souls and memories dancing in it as colorful waves. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. I believe I was born to guide those who passed away, through this sea, so they won't make their journey alone."