One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 32: Rain, Storm and Whales. Again!(5)

There are always bigger fishes in the waters.

They said. And I agreed. Even in real life, there were and are big fishes. Fishes who could swallow everything you had without even opening their mouth. I was just a fish, a growing fish well into his adulthood. I didn't had much room to grow. I was stuck in a small pond watching the ripples, knowing the vast oceans lay just beyond my reach. I was stuck in a small pond in a world where there were oceans just a leap away.

Whenever I tried leaping into the vast oceans, the pond would call for me. The other fishes in the pond influenced by herd mentality, would swarm me their collective fears of the vast ocean, would let me do no such thing. And I caved in to them. I stayed. I stayed in a pond with just dreams to swim in the ocean regardless of the danger. Dreams that meant nothing if they remained just that.

I would hear stories of other fishes that jumped. Snatched and devoured by the eagles mid air, before they even touch the water. When they reach the ocean, all the fish in the ocean would make them a pariah, an outcast in their own species. They would be feasted on whatever fat they stored on the pond. Feasted just enough to let them live but just enough to let them be useful, let them live. They swan, not as equals but as prey, fattened again and again till the big fishes decided for a feast or a snack.

Some I heard had jumped from a tiny fish to whales. Not the proper whale but big enough to be called one. By luck or by capability. I don't know. They don't speak much to the fishes in the pond. They have a new world, a new home, a new current to swim in. A new odd to go against.

I wished I could swim like them in the current.

Some I heard were brought to the ocean, courtesy of the big fishes there. The eagles would carry the said fishes to the ocean for other fishes. The said fishes had to do nothing, not even swim against the current. The big fishes would have schools of smaller fishes that would protect the said fishes, shield the said fishes from the current, hunt for the said fishes. The big fishes would take care of them and fatten them, raise them till they became a big fish. The fishes that ruled a part or the whole ocean cared for them. Last I heard all were arrogant even for the ocean standard.

Then there were some fishes. Fishes who came back.

Fishes who came back from the ocean happy, satisfied, wounded, hurt, sad. Some brought corals from the ocean to the little pond. They wanted peace of the pond. Some were old. Some had a family. Some just wanted the slow current of the pond. I couldn't blame them.

Some came here with nothing but hunger. They plundered the pond for resources to rise as a big fish to tread the ocean waters. They disrupted the pond to grow big. Most did. Some still visit to plunder. I couldn't blame them.

Some came back broken. Some lost the hope of living. I could still see them swimming with the current, not resisting it at all. They swam but they had no direction. Those fishes had no home, no will, no desire. Those fishes were already dead the moment they came to the pond from the ocean. The current carried them, lifeless in spirit. Honestly, I couldn't blame them.

I never even been out of the pond. Even if I wanted to. Too Bound by the fishes and the water of the pond. I had grown past the age of easy adaptation. The ocean would be even harsher to me, as I am currently.

But.

I do wish to know what the waters in the ocean would look like.

A foolish dream but it was mine.

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A bigger fish in the water, huh.

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A metaphor that came true in front of my very eyes.

A Leviathan Class Anglerfish eaten in a single gulp.

The Lightning still lighting the whole area. I could see it. Not the angler fish. The one that ate it.

It was rising, upwards. A mass of darkness, so dark that even the light couldn't tell any other color. Nothing was visible of it. Nothing. Just glimpses. Glimpse of the endless.

Just how big is this thing?

The Anglerfish was at worst 300 meter to the best a Kilometer long. And came out a bigger fish who swallowed it whole. Not hunted but swallowed.

It wasn't just bigger. It was faster. Faster than what my eyes could comprehend. Faster than the Anglerfish.

A second. That's all it had taken. A single second for a creature that could destroy cruise ships, capsize freighters, sink entire vessels without a trace.

A second. A second was all it took to swallow that Behemoth.

If I had some sort of awe for the Anglerfish size and its majestic. Then all I had was fear for this thing.

Every movement of this thing could shift oceans. A flick of its tail and it could make waves that would drown the costal cities.

Just like this hunting movement. Fuck.

I turned and ran.

If my luck was rotten as it always was, then a wave was coming. A big wave.

First came the winds, sharper and more powerful than the storm. It hit like a hammer. My feet left the ground before I could even comprehend. I was airborne, a ragdoll caught in the chaos.

The winds threw me far away. Very far away. And to remind me of my luck, the light from the Lightning disappeared as well. I landed not on the barnacles but on the clean patch of skin. Pain shot through my body in an instant, sharp and blinding. Something cracked. Something gave way. Few back ribs were broken, no doubt.

But there was no time to dwell. Because the wave was coming.

No, it came. The wave hit me. It hit me like a wall of water, crashing down like a collapsing building. My ribs screamed. My lungs emptied. Then the world spun. There was no up and down. just the ocean crushing me under its weight from every direction.

I could do nothing against the force of nature. I was swept with it.

A booming thunder cracked overhead, loud enough to shake the air and with it violent convulsion upon my body. I coughed, choking, gasping as my lungs forced the water out. A sharp pain seized my heart.

I couldn't move. I couldn't even sit up. My lungs hurt. Every attempt to breathe felt like plunging a knife on my flesh. It wasn't just pain. Something was wrong.

I tried. A swallow inhale. A second. But no matter how much I tried, no matter how desperately my body begged for air, I wasn't getting enough. My vision blurred. My thoughts slowed. I was suffocating.

Something was wrong with my lungs.

I forced my trembling hand to move. The movement sluggish, uncoordinated, nothing worked right. My arm acted like it wasn't mine.

But I had to check. I had to know what was wrong.

And I felt it.

The jagged edges. The circular ends.

Barnacles. They had punctured me. The waves had slammed me into them. They had pierced me straight through my right lung.

The realization came slow, like a delayed horror finally setting in. I could feel them even in the agony. I could feel them, embedded deep, stuck in my flesh. The rough texture of their shells scraped with my flesh with every movement.

I took a breath. Too sharp. The pain nearly knocked me unconscious. I coughed and a metallic texture coated my tongue.

Blood and Chunks of flesh.

I had to move. I had to get them out.

I gritted my teeth. I pushed against the ground, forcing my upper body up. The movement was hell. I could feel the barnacle lodged inside me shift, tear more wounds grind with my ribs. the sharp edges scraped against the wound as they came loose slowly, painfully.

Fuck.

I bit down on my lips hard enough to draw blood. Every centimeter I lifted, the shells dragged against the raw flesh, rubbing salt into the gashes. Literally. The barnacles were covered in salty layers. Coarse, Rough, Jagged. And my body was feeling every second of it.

But I kept moving.

One breath at a time. One centimeter at a time. Even if it hurt like hell, even if every fiber in my body screamed.

I kept going.

The barnacles were out.

I could feel it—the gaping wounds they left behind, the raw, open flesh screaming with every breath. But I could breathe. It hurt like hell but I could breathe.

The storm raged on, the wind howled like some unseen predator circling its prey. Rain fell harder. Every drop stung as it washed over my wounds, mixing with the blood, thinning it, carrying it away.

But I didn't care.

I stayed on my knees, forcing deep, uneven breaths through gritted teeth. Each inhale felt like fire spreading through my ribs, sharp and unforgiving. The pain blurred my thoughts, but through the haze, one thing settled in clearly.

I was exhausted. I am tired.

One life-threatening moment after another. One impossible scenario bleeding into the next. Every choice I had made had led me here battered, wounded and alone.

Yes, I chose to walk into the dark.

Yes, I chose to approach the Leviathan.

Yes, I did this. I did that. I made my own bed.

But damn.

I am so fucking tired.

I wanted to rest. Just for a moment. Just one moment where I wasn't running, wasn't bleeding, wasn't fighting for every inch of my life.

So, I did.

I let my body fall back, arms sprawled out, my face tilted up to the sky. Rain hammered against my skin, cold and unyielding. My clothes clung to me, soaked through, heavy, suffocating. But none of it mattered.

I just lay there. Letting the rain drops fall on me.

What a shitty week this has been.

From being in a raft to fighting bastard just to eat to the storm I weathered to the whale kid that made me see the deep dark blue. Then the whole barnacles and bugger issue. The sentient blood that swallowed everything in its path. Me eating the said blood and reaching into the fog, seeing the Cathedral being built, seeing the kids smile, seeing them happy. The Seven Sins that came from the fog. The pinky promise. To the fucking leviathan now.

Things no one else would know. Things no onw else should know.

And me? Just a man. A man trying to survive. A man who stepped too far in a world that was never meant from him.

I exhaled, long and slow.

Let it rain.

Let the storm scream.

Let the world do what it wanted.

Just for a little while.

Let me rest.

The rain felt cold. The wind made the cold rain even colder. But somehow, it was refreshing.

I lay there, sprawled out on the wet ground, the pain in my body dulled by exhaustion. The storm raged on, howling its fury, but I didn't care.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder cracked—a sharp reminder of where I was. Of what surrounded me.

But why should I care?

Let me rest.

Let me lie here, let me feel the rain, let me forget about the Anglerfish Leviathan and the Leviathan of the Leviathan that swallowed it whole. Almost dying with one wave is enough for me.

Another one would kill me for sure.

Hah.

Shouldn't there be two waves?

One from when that monstrous thing emerged, and another from when it went under.

Fuck.

Another wave was coming.

Like some divine punchline to a cruel joke, the sky split apart once more. Lightning carved through the darkness, lighting up my surroundings in an instant. And in that flickering second of clarity, I saw it.

The Apex Leviathan.

Still moving.

Still rising.

Not diving back into the waters- rising into the cloud.

And then, a portion of its massive, unfathomable body came down, bearing wrath from the gods itself.

Falling right above ground.

Near the place the Anglerfish was eating.

I should have stayed in my pond. I just wanted to rest.

The impact hit like the wrath of a god. A deafening sound of earth and sky colliding. Shockwaves ripped through everything. The ground beneath me trembled. The force tore me from my spot, from the tiny moment of peace I had stolen for myself. I flew into the air once more.

I barely had time to curse before the world flipped upside down.

And then, I was falling.

Straight into the cold, pitch-black waters.