Chapter 22: Butterflies

Yulie felt Chopper panicking as her body shuddered and twisted with pain. As her screams rang throughout the whole island enough for everyone to hear. 

"Zehahahaha she will die and I will have her powers" 

Blackbeard menacingly announced as he sent another quake on Luffy and Sabo's direction. The two quickly countering his attacks with their own. 

"What did you do to her!!" 

Luffy demanded as he sent another punch towards him, the quake becoming solid in his grip as it turned into rubber. 

"You don't even know what she was capable of. She can turn back time, turn it back and rewrite new beginnings. She is the last piece that I had been wanting" 

Blackbeard's confession about Yulie's power made Sabo frozen in place. He didn't know that his sister had consumed a devil fruit but he had heard of the kind of devil fruit that had it's power. 

"Chou chou no mi, the butterflies that enter a cycle and the butterflies that grant new beginnings" 

He muttered and Blackbeard laughed loudly at him, the realization quick as Sabo sent his flames toward him. It wasn't pure coincidence then that when he decided to follow Blackbeard he was led to his siblings. He hadn't seen Yulie for years but he realized that his sister had grown up rather quickly. When Blackbeard took her, he knew that there was a chance that she might be in danger. 

But It didn't matter what his sister was now, what matters is that he finds a way to heal her because her screams were beginning to deafen him. Her agonizing screams were beginning to scare him. 

"Yulie please, what can I do to help" 

Chopper cried as he tried to hold the screaming and thrashing Yulie in place. 

"Heal her" 

Kid who had arrived took one look at Yulie's body on the ground and immediately saw red. He had held back almost half of Blackbeard's forces from following them into this island only to stop when he heard Yulie's screams.

"I can't, whatever Blackbeard did to her, he did it internally" 

"Heart" 

Yulie rasped to which both Kid and Chopper turned to her. 

"Poison. Heart." 

She muttered under her breath as another grip tightened around her organ. Chopper's face contorted as he quickly took a trickle of blood from Yulie's mouth and began examining it. 

"Give me a few minutes, I'll find a way" 

"No" 

Yulie answered. 

"But..." 

"Butterflies, black ones" 

She ordered in between breaths and Kid knew exactly what she meant. He had seen those butterflies earlier, in her cabin, tucked in jars. 

"It's in her cabin, inside jars, we need to free those" 

"I got it, I'll ran there quick" 

Chopper wasted no time and changed form into a reindeer as he ran fast towards her cabin. Kid fended off pirates as they got closer to their side. His anger seething right through him as he listened to Yulie's painful screams. 

He would kill, and he would kill because they had hurt her. Because they dared lay a finger on her. On the first person he found himself falling in love. On the person that he might lose before he could even try to have her.

Yulie let out another deafening scream as a flood of images drowned her sanity. Mist, poisonous mist that only targeted the enemies. Her kneeling surrounded by dead bodies. Her hands covered with blood, not hers, but Luffy's and Sabo's. Of Kid, and the Strawhat Pirates. Of Dorry and Brogy, of everyone around her. 

Tears trickle down her eyes as she coughed blood all over again. 

Kid felt himself stiffened when he saw how Yulie's ears began to bleed as well. 

"Yulie" 

He called and her face twisted towards him, her eyes now threatening to explode as the nerves, those tiny nerves in them bulged out like air was being pumped on them. 

"No, no, no, shit where are those butterflies" 

For the first time in his life, Kid started to feel the fear coating his whole being. The expression he couldn't hide. The expression that made Yulie fear for as her own thoughts consumed her.

 I'll die, I'll die again. 

And along with that realization came her butterflies. Fast, like their wings were made of air. Hungry, as they stick to Yulie's skin, their proboscis puncturing through her as they suck out the poison circulating in her body. 

Yulie let out a gasp as she felt the fog vanishing from her mind. Revealing whatever she had hidden in there. Whatever her past selves had sealed in it. 

Power that transcends and ruin the natural laws of time and space, as Blackbeard had phrased it. 

Her devil fruit's real power was to create a cycle of new beginnings. It was to allow her to go back to the past once she had died. 

To go back and create another future. 

She sucked in a heavy breath as she felt her butterflies almost sucking every poison in, only to stop when she felt her. When she felt her presence that was subtly lying, camouflaging itself along with their allies.

When Kid had turned. When both Franky and Jimbei frantically shouted. When Yulie pushed Kid out of the way and welcomed the sword that Catarina Devon had pierced her with. Her laughter echoing as she pushed the sword farther in her, its blade piercing right through her heart. 

"YULIE!!" 

And Yulie felt everything stop. She saw through her butterflies' eyes. She saw how Sabo and Luffy, being distracted by her, was struck by Blackbeard's own hands. Saw how both his hands entered her brother's bodies as they shuddered in pain. She saw how the Strawhat Pirates begun to fall one after the other. She saw how Kid entered a rage that he cannot control earning himself a sword that was struck by Kuzan. 

She saw how ice begun to cover her brothers, her friends, one after another. How they fell and was defeated. How the Blackbeard Pirates cheered. 

She watched until she heard it. 

"Your fault little one. As always, your fault" 

"What is?" 

She answered back to the ownerless voice in her head. The one who she recalled mocked her throughout her dreams. The one who always blamed her. 

The one. Her, in her very first life, before she had used her powers to travel back in time. The very first Yulie. 

"It is a curse. We never should have left that island. We never should have met everyone here. We never should have interfered" 

"Will things change if we don't?"

Yulie asked, and it came not a second later. An answer. A confident one void of any doubts that might haunt her.

"Yes" 

They never should have interfered. If she hadn't sailed the seas, no one would have known of her existence. No one would have put a bounty on her head. Blackbeard wouldn't have known about her. Her brothers and friends wouldn't have to suffer. 

Only if she hadn't existed. 

"But... what about Law" 

Another voice, another her that had traveled to the past.

"And what about our brothers?" 

And another one. Yulie closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she finally saw them. 

Countless images of her. All bloodied and had died only to travel back in the past to die all over again. 

How many times had she died already? 2? 5? 10? 50? A hundred? She didn't know. 

The mist, she thought as Devon and Blackbeard's laughter rang in her ear again. The mist only attacked their opponents, that's why they evolved. It was a part of the cycle. They changed to protect her, always protecting her. Always finding her no matter what happens, all throughout her life. 

She muttered a silent sorry and an order to her ebony colored butterflies. And in an instant, the coughing begun. The screams, curses and loud thuds of falling bodies all around her echoed. 

In an instant, the whole island had been covered with poison mist.