One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 28: Rain, Storm and Whales. Again! (1)

Rainfall. It fell drip by drip on me.

It was slow. It was falling. The cloud had yet to fully form and block the starry skies.

I could feel it. I could feel every single drop that fell on me. It wasn't a lover's touch, yet like her fingers tracing along my skin, I savored it. Each drop landed with a whisper, a cool kiss against the warmth of my body. I let them roll down my face, let them soak into my clothes, let them sink into me. I wanted to feel them. I needed to.

The raindrops felt more and more familiar with every drop on my skin. They felt like home—not just in their touch, but in the way they filled the silence, in the way they blurred the lines between past and present. They felt like nights spent listening to storms outside my window, the scent of wet earth rising from the ground, the echo of a time when things were simpler. Echoes of time when I never got tired of watching the rain fall. Echoes of time when I never got tired of playing in the rain. They felt like something I had lost, and something I had never truly let go of.

I could tell their taste, their texture. Some were sharp, cold, electric—like the first breath of winter air after months of heat. Others were soft, warm, almost sweet—like the remnants of a summer storm that left behind nothing but golden puddles and the scent of renewal. Every drop felt different. Every drop was unique. I could tell every single drop apart, as if I already knew the answer. As if I had always known. I could single out any single drop just by feel, tracing its slow path as it slid from my forehead, down my cheek, to the curve of my lips.

I breathed it in. It was cold. It was warm. It was falling drop by drop on me.

Above, the cold starlight faded behind thick clouds. The sky grew heavy, and the storm carried its promises—promises of rain, of nature's weight pressing down. Promises of the Deep Dark Blue, endless and unknowable. Promises of Destruction, of washing everything away, stripping the world bare. Promises of Life, of soil drinking deeply, of roots stretching beneath softened ground. Promises of Reality.

Every single drop that ran down my skin whispered the same words.

"Time to return to Reality."

I let a few more drops touch my skin. I held onto them like they were something tangible, something I could carry with me. I cleared my mind. I took as much as I could get, as if I could make this moment last forever.

I sighed.

The rain could only hold me for so long.

It was time to return.

Time to return to reality.

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I felt something in my skull. Something unnatural. Something wrong.

I untied my makeshift bandana with slow, deliberate movements. My fingers trembled—not from fear, but from something deeper, something crawling beneath my skin. My pulse was steady. My breath was not.

I reached up and touched it. The hole where the barnacles had burrowed. It was still open. But something had taken root. Something was growing.

It pulsed. Wet. Sticky. Alive.

My fingertips pressed against it, and the sensation was immediate—a gelatinous mass, dense yet pliable, like a wound trying to seal itself shut. It wasn't bone. It wasn't flesh. It wasn't clotting blood. It was something else. Something with a will of its own.

And then it moved.

The jelly-like substance curled around my finger, slow and deliberate, like a mouth savoring a bite. I felt pressure, then warmth, then pain. Not the sharp sting of a cut, but the deep, aching kind—like something pulling me apart strand by strand. It was eating me. It was eating me, dissolving me atom by atom.

It was my ticket to the Cathedral.

I stared at it. Fascinated.

I let it consume for a moment longer than I should have. The pain was distant, like an echo. Did I even feel pain anymore?

Then, with a sharp tug, I tore my finger away, ignoring the wet, ripping sensation as flesh separated. 'Better to leave the hole open than let it close with... whatever this was.' Logic spoke.

A piece of it came with me, stuck to my nail, writhing like a thing that had been disturbed from sleep. Dark red. Not blood. Not quite.

I held it up to the dim fading starlight.

It shimmered. It pulsed. It breathed under the rain.

Not blood. No, something else. Something deeper. Something that I have eaten. Something from the blood layer.

I brought it closer to my eye, watching the way it shifted. For a moment, I could swear it looked back at me.

A laugh bubbled up in my throat.

It was the flesh layer. It was the blood I feasted on. It was the thing beneath the thing, the hidden truth disguised as tissue. It wasn't mine, but it belonged to me, now. This was a ticket to madness. A key to an answer I hadn't yet learned to ask. A way to see them smile again.

The laugh escaped my throat, clawing its way out.

And then, slowly, I pressed the finger against my tongue. My teeth bit hard on the flesh that came out of my nails. I pulled my fingers and it came out, still stuck between my teeth. I ate it. I chewed it.

It had a subtle crunch to it, unexpected yet satisfying. A brittle outer layer giving way to something soft, pulsing, resisting. It moved in my mouth. It twitched with every bite. It fought with every bite.

I chewed harder.

I felt it struggle, like it was alive. Like it knew. Like it feared.

And when it felt dead enough, when the movement slowed, when I could no longer tell if it was the thing writhing or my own hunger shaking my hands.

Logic whispered. 'Why are you willing to go back?'

Sanity asked 'Why do you crave it?'.

The brick said 'Why wouldn't I?'

So,

I ATE IT.

I swallowed. I felt it go down. I felt it join me.

I waited.

I waited to be transported. To ascend. To descend. To change. To know.

I waited.

And nothing.

Nothing but the wet warmth of my own breath and the growing, gnawing disappointment that burned like hunger.

I didn't go to that realm. I needed answers. I needed that madness. I needed to go that realm. Was the amount I ate not enough? Of course, I knew the answer.

It never was. It never will be. The answer was.

Not enough.

Of course, it wasn't enough.

I exhaled sharply, annoyed, dragging my tongue over my teeth. The taste lingered—metallic, electric, almost familiar.

Fine.

More.

I raised my trembling fingers to my skull, just above the open wound. The place where the jelly-blood pulsed, shifting beneath the bone like a secret waiting to be uncovered.

It wanted to be taken.

So, I took it.

I dug in.

My fingernail scraped against the slick surface, parting it like overripe fruit. The jelly latched onto me, clinging, pulsing, tightening—it didn't want to let go.

But I wanted it more.

I ripped a chunk free. It stretched, unwilling, before snapping apart with a wet, sucking sound.

The laugh came again.

I held the piece between my fingers, slick and trembling, watching how it quivered, how it tried to hold onto itself, how it knew.

I licked my lips.

And then—

I ate it.

I didn't bite this time.

I didn't want to taste it. I wanted to be taken. I wanted it to consume me as I consumed it.

So, I swallowed it whole.

I felt it slither down my throat, dragging itself deeper, moving like it belonged.

I gagged. My body resisted. My chest tightened as it crawled through me, pushing past my windpipe, winding down my esophagus like a parasite searching for home.

I should be afraid. I should be screaming, clawing at my throat, trying to purge this thing from my body. I should stop.

Once was enough. Twice is suicide.

Yet, I was a moth to a flame. I could fly away—I knew that. I could resist. I could still be me.

But I wasn't sure that mattered anymore.

The hunger wasn't just in my gut. It was in my blood, my thoughts, the marrow of my bones. And it wasn't just hunger. It was longing. A tether I couldn't see, pulling me toward something vast and unseen.

I told myself I wasn't searching for that realm. That I hadn't spent nights tracing its shape in my mind, dreaming of what lay beyond. That the Cathedral wasn't calling me, whispering in the space between my thoughts, waiting for me to listen.

But I was listening. I had always been listening.

I should have thrown it up.

But I didn't.

Because I knew why I craved the madness.

I had always known.

It was honeyed nectar laced with venom, and I would drink it every time. Not because I was weak. Not because I was lost.

Because it would make me free.

Free of this burden.

Free of everything.

Free to finally understand.

I pressed a hand against my throat, feeling it pulse beneath my skin. The motion was slow, deliberate. It wanted to be inside me.

And I let it.

The jelly-blood settled in my stomach.

I could feel it.

It didn't dissolve. It didn't break apart like food should.

It moved.

At first, just a twitch. Then a roll. Then something more—a pulse. A rhythm. A heartbeat.

My stomach twitched back.

I inhaled sharply, doubling over as a wave of cold spread through me, deeper than flesh, deeper than bone. My insides shifted. The walls of my stomach tightened, contracted, pulled.

A flicker of thought—this isn't normal.

A flicker of something else—I don't care.

I pressed my palm against my abdomen. The muscle beneath my skin rippled. I could feel it—not just in my stomach, but in my ribs, my veins, my skull.

It was growing.

I should have been afraid.

I wasn't.

The hunger returned— It was not mine, It was not human.

It wasn't just in my stomach. It was in my blood. It was in my lungs. It was in my bones.

Something inside me was waking up.

I exhaled slowly, dragging my tongue over my teeth. The taste lingered—metallic, electric, familiar.

I looked down at my hands. My fingers trembled.

Was it fear?

Or was it anticipation?

I swallowed, and my throat burned with the absence of more.

Not enough.

Of course, it wasn't enough.

The sane part of me whispered, "It's never enough. It wants you fed."

The insane part of me whispered back, "Everyone is fed. Everyone is fattened. By life. By society. By nature. The only difference is who gets eaten in the end."

Live fed or be fed on.

Madness was the answer. Madness would keep me fed. Madness would keep me alive.

I just had to be the one left standing.

A fool's dream, but it was mine.

And death is a small price to pay for dreams.

Death is a small price to pay for living.

I lifted my hand to my skull, fingertips pressing against the wound where the jelly-blood pulsed. It shifted beneath my touch, eager.

It was waiting.

It wanted.

And so was I.

I wanted the madness. I wanted the realm to open. I wanted to see. I wanted to drink that venom-laced nectar. I wanted to die.

I wanted to live.

So, I gave it what it wanted.

I dug in.

Not just the jelly-blood. Not just the growing thing beneath my skin.

I dug into my own skull.

The madness realm demanded madness. I gave it madness.

My fingers sank into my skull, deeper than before. Slick warmth. Gelatinous mass. I felt the brain fluid seep between my fingers, thick and sticky.

I scooped out a handful—soft, pulsing, alive.

I squeezed.

It squished between my fingers, shifting, molding, reshaping. My thoughts turned to liquid. My mind, spilling between my hands.

I ate it.

I ate me.

I was already too far gone to be saved.

"No. Not yet."

A voice. Sharp. Certain.

It carved through the madness like a rusted blade, not to heal but to pry me open further. It was not salvation. It was recognition.

Something had seen me. Something had been watching.

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I felt it then—not inside me, but beyond. A presence at the edges of my mind, patient, waiting.

I was never feeding myself.

I was being fattened.

The hunger was never mine.

It was theirs.

A jagged breath shuddered from my lungs. My fingers twitched against the ruined flesh of my skull, but I no longer knew if I was controlling them. My body wasn't rejecting the madness.

It was preparing for more.

I swallowed.

And in the silence, I hoped something else swallowed back.