Chapter 16: The Human Equation

Chapter 16: The Human Equation

Several minutes later, Masked agents materialised from the shadows, their footsteps echoing a tense rhythm in the silent alley.

Akainu lay sprawled on the cold ground, his vacant eyes reflecting the vast indifference of the night sky above.

One agent tightened his grip on his weapon and scanned the area with a trained eye, searching for any sign of threat.

Another knelt beside the admiral, her movements precise and efficient as she checked for signs of life.

A heavy silence hung in the air, broken only by the rasp of their breathing. Wordless glances were exchanged, each agent lost in their own thoughts.

Unspoken questions swirled around Akainu's prone form: what had happened in this desolate alley, and what had reduced the once-formidable admiral to such a helpless state?

"So, is he dead?" The commander's question dripped with sarcasm as he glanced down at Akainu's prone form.

Despite the jest, a flicker of unease flickered across his eyes, momentarily breaching the mask of indifference.

"No, sir, he isn't," she said, showing no emotion as she gave the report. "But we can't seem to find out why he's like this; since we met Marie, we know she's not capable of such a thing, which means she has found assistants, and judging by Akainu's condition, they're probably quite capable…"

The commander didn't wait for her to finish. With a stride that echoed with authority, he moved towards Akainu, his presence a tangible force in the tense atmosphere. His scornful gaze fell on the admiral, a silent accusation etched into his face.

"Wake up, you useless dog!" he spat, his words dripping with contempt.

A sickening thud echoed as his boot connected with Akainu's side. The admiral's eyes flickered for a moment before a veil of indifference returned, a flicker of defiance dancing in their depths. He stared up at the commander, his silence a stark contrast to the urgency in the air.

"Where has the target gone?" the commander demanded. Each word echoed through the alley, bouncing off the cold brick walls.

He rose slowly, his movements controlled even though he seemed off balance. Then, in a strange turn of events, he opened and closed his hands a few times.

The world around him seemed to come back into focus, and a wave of memories washed over him. His eyes, empty moments before, flickered with confusion before settling into a scowl.

A cold rage simmered beneath the surface, fueled by the terrible feeling of not being able to control his own body. Now awake, he finally looked at the commander but said nothing in his defence.

The commander, clearly annoyed by Akainu's silence and strange behaviour, barked with authority, "After this mission, I'm filing a report recommending your demotion. But for now, tell us where the target is! You can at least do that much, can't you?" His voice dripped with sarcasm, highlighting Akainu's apparent failure.

Akainu snorted at the empty threat, the sound reverberating with raw contempt. The commander's words hung in the air, unanswered and unwanted. He didn't even waste a glance in his direction.

With a predatory glint in his eye, he began to move, showing his complete disregard for the man. Ignoring him completely, he took a powerful step forward, then another, his pace purposeful. His mind, though shaken by his recent experience, held a single focus - the direction he had seen Marie heading in earlier.

He pushed forward, a slow heat rising beneath his skin and a cold fury in his eyes.

The masked agents flanking the commander shifted nervously, their hands instinctively tightening around their hidden weapons. They moved out of the way, a flicker of apprehension replacing their usual stoicism in the face of Akainu's simmering rage.

Standing at the back, one of the agents whispered, "Does he seem off to you?"

"Not really. He's probably just furious that he got knocked out," another agent replied quietly, their words carrying a hint of mockery.

"While you are making light of the situation, we cannot ignore the fact that he was down and we don't know why," the agent whispered, pointing out the real issue.

A flicker of unease crossed the first agent's face. The mockery vanished, as trepidation set in.

Their mission seemed to have even more complications than previously planned as they swiftly followed the silent Akainu.

…

A sliver of the full moon peeked over the jagged edge of the crater, bathing Marie in an ethereal glow.

Standing in the centre of the devastation, she traced the moon's path with her finger, calculating the time until midnight. "Almost there," she whispered, her voice barely louder than the howling wind.

Marie's actions were quick and efficient, devoid of any emotional connection, as she placed John in the centre of the crater.

John's spirit, standing at the edge of the crater, watched the scene with a strange apathy.

He had tried to re-enter his body several times on the way here, feeling a faint connection to the lifeless husk.

But now the effort felt hollow, devoid of the urgency that should have gripped him, replaced by a cold numbness that had set in, a consequence of the journey that had slowly stripped his emotions bare.

With a cold, calculating gaze that could pierce the heavens, Marie raised her eyes to the sky. The sliver of the full moon, now larger and more prominent, bathed her in an ethereal glow. Her expression remained an unreadable mask, revealing nothing of her thoughts.

John's ghost stared in shock as his body suddenly spoke, interrupting Marie's reverie.

"So what now?" it asked, a note of amusement lacing its words. "You're going to kill me? Why wait until now? You had plenty of chances if you really wanted to."

The unexpected voice sent a jolt of confusion through John's ghost.

His own body was speaking with a disturbing cheerfulness. A cold feeling settled in his stomach - something was wrong.

Marie scoffed as a flicker of disbelief crossed her features. "Oh, so you're still with us, hmm?" she remarked, her voice regaining its cool composure and a hint of amusement in her tone. "You think it's that easy? If it were, I would have gotten rid of you in the first place."

John's body tilted his head, a childish smile spreading across his face. The voice that emerged, however, had a chilling edge of amusement. "Well, well, well," it chirped, "you've got me a bit... interested, so why don't you tell me what's going on, Marie?" The playful tone sent a wave of nausea through John.

Marie's voice took on a thoughtful tone, a flicker of weakness replacing the amusement. "It all began with a loss decades ago," she confessed, her gaze fixed on the sliver of full moon above. "An injustice that demanded... correction."

John's body interjected with ridicule. "So instead of killing me, are you going to bore me to death with 200 years of backstory?" His words dripped with cynicism, a sharp contrast to the gravity of the situation.

Marie narrowed her eyes, her annoyance clear. "Don't get cocky," she snapped. "Look, considering the state you're in, you wouldn't last through the whole story. Let's just get to the point, shall we?"

John's eyes sparkled with unyielding joy. "Lighten up! Besides," he leaned forward, his grin widening, "the suspense is kiling me! Now, where were we? Ah yes, your old age!"

With a wry smile playing at the corners of her lips, Marie deflected the question, "Did nobody teach you to never ask a young lady her age?"

"Good thing I'm not asking a 'young' lady now, ain't it?" John retorted, edged with a touch of amusement.

Marie's smile faltered, replaced by a flicker of something akin to regret. "All of a sudden, I don't feel so bad about what's going to happen next..." Her voice trailed off, leaving John hanging. Her gaze drifted back to the night sky, a sudden reluctance to engage further clouding her features.

"Don't be like that; come on, tell me," John urged, his tone betraying his curiosity. "If you're going to kill me, shouldn't you at least tell me your elaborate scheme?" His words were strangely lighthearted; they almost sounded amused about his own death.

…

Standing to the side, John's spirit couldn't believe what he was witnessing. Throughout the entire conversation, his body never once looked away from him, and he was certain that it could see him.

He couldn't suppress the nagging question any longer. "Can you see me?" he finally asked, his voice tinged with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. Despite the surreal nature of the situation, he needed confirmation, a reassurance that he was real and hadn't gone unnoticed by his own body.

…

A moment of silence passed.

Looking down at John, Marie's gaze softened with a hint of pity. "You are already dead, John," she said matter-of-factly, her words carrying a strange finality to them. "Your very soul was shattered the day I met you, just like Cynthia's soul was on the day I went to see her."

"Without the devil fruit I gave you that evening, you'd also have fallen into a coma, and your body would have died shortly after. As a matter of fact, the very reason Cynthia was surviving was that every time you went to visit her, you prolonged her life using your own."

John interrupted Marie abruptly. "So why did you use a devil fruit to save me? And don't pretend it was from the goodness of your heart; we both know that would be a lie."

She let out a soft schuckel: "Saving you was never the point; I have only prolonged the inevitable."

Her voice was calm as she revealed the truth. "The fruit only enhances your vitality to the extreme, so your body could stay alive long enough after your soul has naturally dissipated for the next soul to take its place." Her words echoed through the silence of the crater, marking the culmination of her elaborate plan.

(John's spirit felt that something was wrong: "If the fruit was truly as simple as she claims it is, then why am I here witnessing my own body having a conversation?")

Hearing Marie's plan, for the first time, John's expression changed, a mixture of confusion and scepticism clouding his features as he turned to her and asked. "But how would you even do that?… The Soul Fruit is supposed to be with Big Mom, and even she should not be able to do what you are describing unless..."

His words trailed off, leaving the implication hanging in the air as he grasped some of the details of Marie's plan.

This time, it was Marie's turn to be taken aback by John's statement.

With a furrowed brow, she looked at him with a mixture of surprise and suspicion, realising that John wasn't as simple as he was letting on.

She decided to test him with some questions. Not many people should know the answer to.

"So, John, what do you know of devil fruit's?"

The body smiled again. "Well, I know some of the basics, the three types, and some of the exceptions that overlap.

John's soul could feel that there was something not quite right about the answer.

Though technically correct, it felt... incomplete. A flicker of memories surfaced - conversations from the past, speculations, and theories about a hidden power within certain Devil Fruits.

He tried to grasp these memories and understand their significance, but they remained frustratingly out of reach.

Marie's surprise was obvious. "Overjoyed" might be a strong word, but a flicker of satisfaction crossed her features. "Indeed," she admitted, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice. "I seem to have underestimated you, John. Knowing there are three types and exceptions is more than most do."

"Well, as you clearly know, the types are Logia, Paramecia and Zoan."

"Logia was the one you met earlier, hinting at his brief encounter with Akainu."

"Yours, for example, is a Paramecia, the vitality fruit, to be precise, a very simple fruit that only gives the user an abundance of well vitality, nothing more, nothing less."

"I knew its previous user; he was quite ordinary, and apart from making him stronger and live longer than the average human, he was nothing special, as he was also bound by it, as no amount of training could increase his strength."

As they digested the information, both he and his body remained silent, feeling that there had been a misunderstanding in Marie's knowledge of the devil fruit she had fed him.

"And lastly, the most important one: the Zoan fruits!"

"Did you know that someone long ago figured out how to feed Zoan devil fruit's to objects?"

He knew that. The first person that comes to mind was vegapunk, but that shouldn't be known yet, so who was Marie talking about?

His body said, "Funkfreed!" with a knowing look in his eyes.

Looking at the expression on the body, Marie couldn't help but say, "I don't know what 'funkfreed' is, but I'll take that as a yes.

"Now, did you know that zoan devil fruits have the side effect of overpowering the user if their power is not strong enough?

The more Marie explained, the clearer the picture became, and he had a terrifying premonition.

"Now, what do you think happens if we feed a zoan devil fruit, specifically a human human fruit, to a still living soulless boddy?"

"Your mad!" John involuntarily said, Completely shocked.

This time, it was Marie's turn to be shocked. Even back in the day he discussed this with Carmell, she had to spoonfeed it more than this: "We'll, it seems like you understand far more than you let on..."

"So, John, man with no future and no past, I wonder who you really are. Hmm, it seems our time together has come to an end."

John's body took one last knowing look at his spirit and smiled at him. Everything had gone as they had planned; now it was up to him.

His spirit felt the link to his body grow weaker and weaker until it was finally gone, removing his last connection to the world.

This time, John's spirit could feel that Marie was right. He felt completely drained for the first time in a week. It seems that Marie did not lie; he was really dying this time.

It gave his soul a sense of calm and peace that it had not felt in a long time, slowly fading out of existence.

On the seventh night that John had arrived in this world, he breathed his last.

Time of death 00:00 midnight

"Poor kid, I hope you find happiness in your next life." giving John a small prayer.

While her words were respectful, her actions were not. She took out a thin needle and plunged it into John's chest, injecting another devil fruit directly into his still slowly beating heart.

"Now let's see if years of preparation were worth it."

After waiting for several minutes, she finally concluded.

Nothing happened.

In that moment, she lost all her reasons to live; nothing mattered any more. She decided to just let it all go and sat down, facing away from the kneeling corpse of John.

The people Marie had recruited to bring John back came over from the edges of the crater, and, seeing a demoralised Marie, almost all of them remained silent except for the leader.

"This concludes our agreement, and all debts are now settled. I wish you well in your future endeavours as long as they don't involve use."

He hesitated for a moment before saying, "Goodbye, Marie. You should go, too. The Marines cannot be far behind, and you have wasted a lot of time here."

With that, several figures departed in the dark.

She said nothing because it just didn't matter anymore.

She was so distracted by her failure that she also failed to notice that John was slowly getting his pulse back.