Sea of Dreams Re: Dead Woman's Resolve

Despite the hell that I had been forced to inhabit, the next four years seemed to go by in a blink. Those four years were occupied by the backbreaking toil of hard labor, and each day were marked with the scars accumulated from our daily beatings.

And as the days passed and my scars grew, so did my anger and my desire to get out of this horrible place. It burned in my chest where that dark hole of nothing used to be, waiting for the day it would finally get the opportunity to break free and raze anything and everything around me.

But that day wouldn't come any time soon, and it certainly wouldn't be today. Today, it was the same monotonous and painful grind as it always was.

Wiping my sweaty face, I hauled up the box full of stone laying at my feet, heaving it onto my back using the straps attached to the side. The box was full of regular stone that had been cleared to make way for access to the tiny vein of sea stone behind it, and someone had to move it before they could mine.

I grabbed my pickaxe, bringing it with me as I left the vein behind to haul the stone down the side of the cliff via the catwalk. My companions didn't thank me, the thought doesn't even cross their mind. Someone had to do it, and they were more than happy to let that person be the teenager with working joints instead of them.

I passed several other slaves working, and few of them even turned to look at me as I passed. The few who did gave me small smiles or simply blank looks depending on how new they were. Some of them still had hope that they would get out of here, that this wasn't permanent. I would call them fools, but then I'd just be insulting myself, wouldn't I?

I returned some of the smiles with halfhearted ones of my own, before stepping onto the lift at the end of the catwalk, joining several other dirty slaves, and one gun-toting marine. He doesn't even look at me as I joined the rest of the group, merely looking up at the operator and yelling at him to lower them down as the lift filled up.

As the lift began to lower, I couldn't help but stare at the Marine, one of the supposed ‘heroes’ of this world. With their pure white outfits and militaristic nature, they touted themselves as the singular force of good fighting against a world of evil pirates. What a crock of shit. No force of good would have a presence in this mine unless it was to tear it down around their heads. 

My scarred fists clenched as I stared at the Marine who seemingly felt my eyes on him and looked down at me, finally noticing my ice cold stare. He frowned at me and his fingers clenched around his rifle, “Eyes to yourself, slave.” He commanded, and I looked away without a word  knowing that there wouldn’t be a second warning.

The Marines in this place were some of the worst examples of what I had seen in the show. There were no Cobys, no Smokers or Fujitoras, every marine that she had seen so far more resembled Axe-hand Morgan for how they treated the slaves around them. Sometimes I wondered if that is a deliberate choice by whoever assigned them to this place, or if they had chosen to come here just to get the opportunity to lord themselves over those they deemed lesser.

The aching bruises of my most recent beating told me it was the former.

I stepped off the lift as it reached the bottom, tossing my stones in a massive pile with the rest, before shrugging the box off of my back and continuing on my way. I didn’t go back to my section, instead continuing deeper into the mine as I made my way to somewhere specific. As long as I didn’t take too long, nobody would miss me. Besides, this was worth an extra beating or two.

I found Umi where I always did, two levels lower than I normally worked and halfway into her own burgeoning mineshaft that they had dug over the course of several weeks. I walked up behind my friend, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder as she went to lift her axe for her next swing. Umi flinched at the touch, but any fear left her expression as she turned and saw my face instead of some random guard come to harass her.

“Oh, Irana.” She said softly, “What are you doing here?”

Others in the mineshaft turned to look at the commotion, but once they saw it was me they turned away. This was a usual occurrence and had been for the past several years. Wherever Umi was, I would always make sure to pay her a visit at least once a day, to make sure that she was doing alright. 

I shrugged carelessly as I reached over and took the pickaxe from her hands, ignoring her protests, “Just checking up on you as usual.” I said as I gently moved her out of the way and took her spot, slamming the pickaxe into the stone where she had been mining. The first strike cracked the wall and the next one sent a couple dozen pounds of stone chards tumbling down to the ground. A nearby slave moved to pick them up and move them out of the way, and I ignored him as I continued mining in Umi’s stead, “That fall you took yesterday was bad. Why aren’t you still in the infirmary?”

Over the years that I had been here, Umi and I had developed the same sisterly relationship that she had with the original Irana. I would admit to having become a bit protective over the younger girl. She just reminded me so much of my old sister that I couldn’t help but put Bianca’s face over her own despite their differences in appearance. Umi didn’t mind it, enjoying the occasional reprieve from pain that my fretting provided her. 

As she watched me work, Umi rubbed her shoulder, listening to the unsettling yet familiar click in her joints, “The doctor said that I’m strong enough to carry an axe or a box so they sent me out.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” I frowned, slamming my pickaxe into the wall with a bit more force, “You’re lucky you only fractured a few ribs instead of your spine or neck. And even then, if you don’t rest they won’t set properly and you’ll be in pain for the rest of your life.”

Umi had been the victim of an unfortunate ‘fall’ after she strayed a bit too close to a marine on her last shift. She had fallen at least thirty feet and landed on her side, cushioned only by the dirt and stone. Two of her ribs had broken and another one had been cracked. It was a merciful result considering what could have happened, but I still made sure to remember the Marine’s faces just in case we crossed paths in the future.

“They don't care.” Umi sighed, “They don't expect me to last much longer anyway… I don't either anymore, if I'm being honest.”

I froze, before giving her a severe look, “Don't say shit like that. You and I both know that the moment you start thinking like that, it's over. You gotta believe that you'll make it out of here, self-actualize the reality that you want or else you really never will.”

“You say that all the time but nothing's changed.”

“Just be patient and put your trust in me, alright?” I said sincerely, breaking another section of the wall, “I'm gonna get you out of here and you're gonna go back home and forget this hellhole ever even existed in the first place. I promise.*

Umi just looked at me dully, and my heart squeezed in my chest at the tired look in her young eyes. No child should look like that, and yet the sight had become all too common in Umi as of late. I hated it. “You don’t have to make me feel better. I know we’re never getting out of here. I’m gonna die in a mineshaft just like this one one day, I know it.”

My pickaxe slammed into the wall and lodged itself there as I whirled around to face Umi who flinched back in surprise. I grabbed her by the shoulders, keeping my touch gentle yet looking at her urgently to make sure that she knew how serious I was.

“Look at me, Umi.” I said, keeping my voice low. She didn’t listen at first, but after a moment she slowly looked up, meeting my eyes with her own, “I am going to get you out of here. I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care who I have to go through or what I have to do to do it, you are going to see the ocean again. I will walk you out of here myself, no matter who stands in my way. I swear, you aren’t going to die here.”

Umi stared at me, tired cyan eyes seeming far older than their owner. I held her gaze, wanting her to know of the conviction that I felt, that I wasn’t merely saying things to give her false home. I didn’t know if I succeeded, but something changed in her gaze, and she nodded slowly, “Okay.” She said in a tiny voice, before lunging forward and wrapping her arms around me.

Her body trembled as I hugged her back, and I could feel the bones under her skin and the thin, ratty fabric that was the only thing keeping her decent. She clung to me like a koala, holding me tightly as if I would disappear if she let go, and I placed my chin on the crown of her head just as I had done for Andrew when he was so much younger and scared of the storm raging outside of our apartment.

That felt like a lifetime ago now, but the feeling in my chest remained the same. The desire to protect this tiny, fragile piece of life that was looking to me for reassurance and hope. I wouldn’t let her down.

I had been sent here to find a purpose, a reason to live. Over the course of my life here, protecting Umi had become that purpose. She was probably the only reason that I hadn’t done the same as the original Irana and looked for an early way out. In return, I would free her from this place and keep her from sharing the same fate as those who hadn’t been able to survive it.  With my own two hands, I would tear this place down around the people who kept us in bondage, and pry open the doors to the world outside.

Even if it killed me.

~~~

The next day, in the tiny window of time that existed between work and sleep, I was standing in the back of my cell, performing a task that I had done innumerable times since I had been sent here. Punching the wall.

Sweat rolled down my face and neck as I slammed my fists into the stone wall of my cell again and again. The wall was covered in small chips and indents from where my fists had worn themselves down against its immovable surface, only to be built back up to do it all over again. This was one of the ways that I let out my constant anger of being stuck in this place, by trying my best to chip my way through the mine with my bare fists alone. Not only did it function as a form of stress relief, it was also a way to train my body that didn’t involve pushups or situps or menial exercises like that. After all, if it worked for Garp and Luffy, why wouldn’t it work for me?

It hurt like hell at first, back during the first months when I started punching the wall like an idiot, and I could still remember the lingering pain in my fingers from where they had been damaged to the point of breaking, but now I felt nothing but the burn in my biceps and the vibrations of the stone through my bones. That meant it was working. Or my nerves had been damaged so much that even the notion of feeling through my hands had been eliminated from the equation. Oh well. It wasn’t like I intended to stop either way. Not until I was strong enough to tear this place down to its foundation.

I briefly thought back to Umi and our conversation, recalling that hopeless expression that reminded me so much of the one I saw in the mirror during the twilight years of my life. She really believed that she was going to die here, joining the countless bodies that lined the caves, scraping at dirt of their shallow graves. If I wasn’t here to help her, would she still even be alive today? Or would she have followed Irana’s lead and thrown herself at the nearest danger, hoping to join her in death?

I forcefully ejected the image from my mind with a shout, and the next time that my fist landed against the stone, it was with enough force to create a crack that spread all the way to the ceiling. 

I stared at the damage, the largest I had managed to create in a single blow, and I only felt… dissatisfied. It wasn’t enough. People in this world could rend steel with their bare hands, nevermind stone. If I wanted to get Umi out of here, I would have to be so much stronger. 

Taking a deep breath, I began my workout once more, slamming my fists against the wall like it personally insulted me. I fell into a steady rhythm, bruising my knuckles and cracking stone with no regard for my own wellbeing.

What I was doing should be making me a cripple or someone with extremely fragile bones at the very least, but One Piece was an anime and as such, followed anime logic. My current actions right now could be considered low tier strength training, beating her body against a literal unmovable mountain until she could force the mountain to move with nothing but her strength alone. 

And yet even that kind of feat paled in comparison to the one thing that I just couldn't seem to manage. The greatest force multiplayer in this world that allowed even the weakest pirate to become a force to be reckoned with. Haki. If I could figure that out, then nobody would be able to stop me from tearing this place apart and freeing myself and Umi. 

But no matter how hard I tried, it eluded me at every turn. I hadn’t even made a modicum of progress in actually acquiring the power that ruled the seas. So far, I had been completely unable to manifest a hint of armament or even observation haki during the years that I had been trying to acquire the power, and I had no idea why that was. 

The show didn’t really specify how to unlock haki outside of montage, and others just sort of stumbled into the power or already had some sort of innate talent for it like Usopp or Zoro. With no idea where to start, I was forced to make things up on the fly and hope that something would work. So far, nothing had.

I didn't stop punching as someone walked into my cell, recognizing the soft, halting footsteps. I turned to look at Umi as she took her usual place, sitting against the wall with her knees curled up to her chest as she watched me work out.

 “How much did your section mine today?” I asked idly to break the silence.

“Almost nothing.” Umi said, making me pause, “We barely found anything, just like the last section we tried. Jerrik said that his section only got a bucket's worth. Maybe one and a half.”

My fists fell back down to my sides as I registered her statement and deliberated on what it meant. My own section had done poorly as well, with maybe two of three pounds of seastone for every half ton of regular stone. It was a stark contrast to what we had been gathering when I first arrived, and I knew what it meant. The mine was almost depleted.

And once the mine was depleted, they wouldn't have any use for the slaves they were using to harvest the sea stone. I knew that they wouldn't waste the time and resources to relocate us, given that they would rather kill a slave than waste a dime nursing them back to health after a certain point. 

Judging by how diminishing our returns had been these past few weeks, we had maybe a month or two before the person who owned the mine decided that the cost outweighed the returns and dumped the whole project. 

And that meant that my timetable had moved up quite a bit.