One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 38.1: The girl with red hair(1)

The blood moved in my skull like it was home. It didn't just settle. No, it spread, seeped into the cracks of my mind. It wriggled itself through every hollow space like a parasite that knew it had found the perfect host. It wasn't a invader. It wasn't a conqueror.

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It was home.

I could feel it shifting, pulsing, a living thing that wasn't entirely separate from me. The blood didn't replace what it devoured. It became what it consumed. It drank deep, feeding off what was left of my shattered eye, the nerves, the tissues, the sense of sight itself. And when it had devoured everything, it became my eye. Not a wound, not a scar, but something new, something not entirely mine. Something entirely mine.

Then, it burrowed deeper.

It reached into my brain, hunting for more, searching for places to root itself. Whatever if found, it took. And whatever it took, it became.

But then, it hesitated.

It wriggled around my brain, slithering through the folds, pressing against the delicate tissue. i could feel it. I could feel it touch my thoughts, my memories, my very being, but it didn't consume. It circled, probing, searching for something deeper than flesh.

And then, it found the hole.

The hole in my skull. the void where something should have been, but wasn't.

The blood did not eat around it. It did not try to escape through it. No, it filled the hole.

The blood gave something without taking.

Slowly, deliberately, it poured itself into the empty space, writhing, pulsing, alive. It didn't clot like normal blood. It did not dry or harden. It stayed moving. Shifting. Breathing.

A mass of wriggling veins and liquid life, nestled within the hollow of my skull like a parasite that had finally found its nest.

I felt it. Every twitch, Every pulse. It was inside me, but separate.

A presence. A thing.

The blood did not just enter me—it carried me.

I felt it beneath me, shifting, flowing with a purpose beyond my understanding. It wasn't a river. No, a river would let me drift. A river would let me sink. This? This was deliberate. A force. A will that had decided I needed to go somewhere.

It was like riding an escalator made of living veins, a tide of crimson that dragged me forward with a smooth, unnatural rhythm. My body wasn't bobbing or thrashing—it was guided. Directed. And though the motion was eerily steady, each raindrop that fell on my skin made the experience more disorienting. Cold droplets from above, warm blood from below. A contradiction. A reminder that none of this was natural.

Then, the ride changed.

The blood encountered something—an incline, a shift in the unseen terrain. I felt it gather, push, as if mustering strength, and then I was lifted, carried a few inches higher. Not a jarring movement, but deliberate. Effortful.

And then, I was laid down.

Not dropped. Not abandoned. Placed.

The surface beneath me was no longer just liquid. No longer just flowing blood. It was solid.

And then—it shifted.

Not like a tide. Not like a wave. Like legs. Like something standing up.

And then—it moved.

Not just a pulse, not just a shift. It traveled.

The ride changed. The smooth, flowing motion was gone, replaced by something heavier, more deliberate. Rolling. Not like waves, not like liquid, but like a machine—a tank with caterpillar tracks. Each step—each grind of movement—sent a faint tremor through my body. The surface beneath me wasn't just carrying me. It was marching.

The ride grew rougher, though never violent. Steady. Calculated. Purposeful.

I wasn't just being taken somewhere. I was being delivered.

The ground beneath me moved through unseen paths, shifting and adjusting with eerie precision. It did not hesitate. It did not falter. But it was searching.

I felt it.

A pause. A slight tremor. The surface wavered, as if gauging the world around it, sniffing out the right direction. Then, as if receiving some silent command—some answer—I could not hear, it moved again.

Forward.

Straight ahead.

And then—

It fell.

No hesitation. No stopping.

The ground beneath me surged forward and plunged.

Into the waters.

Dragging me down with it.

I plunged into the waters.

Once more.

The cold swallowed me whole, wrapping around me like a living thing, dragging me down. The currents pulled, the weight of the sea pressing from all sides. My body, broken and exhausted, sank like a stone. Drowning. Again.

Falling to the depths. Again.

The blood in my skull squirmed.

Not idly, not passively—it hated this.

The moment the seawater touched me, it moved. Rushing. Writhing. Sealing. My nose, my mouth, my ears—every opening, every crevice that water could slip into, the blood filled first. It didn't just cover—I could feel it rejecting the ocean itself, as if it loathed it. As if it refused to let the water claim me.

And then, as I fell—I hit something.

Hard.

Not rock. Not flesh. Something else.

It stopped my descent. Caught me. Lifted me.

And then I was rising.

Breaking the surface.

The water spilled away as I was carried up, placed atop something solid. Not land. Not safety. But familiar.

I could feel it. The texture beneath my fingertips, the subtle pulse, the movement. The same ground that had carried me before.

It had followed me. It had retrieved me.

And now—it was carrying me again.

Not down. Not deeper.

Away.

Through the open waters, drifting forward with steady, deliberate motion. Moving as if it had a purpose.

Taking me somewhere.

I slept for what felt like forever.

I don't remember the exact moment it happened—when exhaustion finally overtook me. My body had long since stopped resisting. My limbs were heavy, my muscles deadened, my mind thick with fog. My eye—or what was left of it—throbbed with a dull, rhythmic pulse, but even that was distant now. Muted.

My eyelids grew heavier with every passing second, drooping as if gravity itself was demanding my surrender.

I should've fought it. I should've stayed awake. But my body—my mind—agreed.

Rest.

I fell into it like a body sinking into the abyss. No hesitation, no second thought. Just an all-consuming darkness that swallowed me whole.

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