Archive of Our Own ^beta

Naively, she’d thought in the beginning that she could… not change him, necessarily, no man ever really changes for a woman, but perhaps… soften him. There’s no love between them. Their marriage is a propaganda piece, a beautiful sham showing Germa and the wider world that the last living Vinsmoke is robust, vibrant, readying to produce heirs and worthy of the love of a beautiful woman. That he has depth of character. That he’s more than the aggressor in the Conquest of Four Nations, that behind the metal mask is a man and not the villain he’s made out to be.

It's a convincing act. She almost falls for it herself.

It’s not much of a marriage, really. They never even consummate it. In public he kisses her hand and presses his wide hand to the small of her back, but in private he prefers not to see her. It’s loveless and cold, but there are much worse ways it could have gone. It’s hardly like having a husband at all.

She plays her part just as well as a trained animal. Yes, my dear. Yes, Lord Husband. Of course, my darling. When he storms into her chambers and announces that his scientists need to collect some of her eggs, she acquiesces. When he blurts out over breakfast one morning that it’s time for her to carry the first heir of the Vinsmoke name, she submits without protest.

Later, she’ll cherish her pregnancy with Reiju. Of the two she would experience, it is the closest to how she imagines a normal pregnancy would progress. She feels healthy and energetic. Her maids tell her she has a vibrant glow. Judge dotes upon her in public and makes stilted attempts at small talk in private. She thinks, this isn’t so terrible. Her baby is healthy. Her husband is civil, if not particularly friendly. If he asks her to do it again, she’ll agree.

The illusion cracks a bit when the baby actually comes. She delivers her naturally – an uncomplicated delivery after a long labor. Judge is present for most of it, and when the nurse hands him the bundle that is his first child, he inspects it like one would examine livestock. Sora pretends she doesn’t notice. She pretends in her head that it’s love softening his expression, that this baby is the beginning of something more in the imposing man she married.

She’s wrong, of course, but a woman can dream.

One month. She gets one month relatively undisturbed with her Reiju before Judge and his scientists interfere. Her breast milk isn’t good enough – the baby must eat this formula instead. She’s coddling her with too much skin-to-skin contact and cuddling. We must perform more tests. Measure this. Study that. Treating her baby like a caged lab animal.

“She’s just a baby,” she begs one day. “Please, just…”

“She is a Vinsmoke,” Judge says. He barely looks at her, intent on whatever information he’s collected on his clipboard. “I designed her for this.”

He doesn’t elaborate. Even when she asks.

Sora becomes good at sneaking and lying. The household staff of the main castle becomes divided. Those loyal to Judge, and those who work for her in secret. She hears everything that happens in the castle. She finds ways to gently introduce kindness and softness into her daughter’s life. She tries, desperately, to let her be a child.

“It is time to try again,” Judge tells her one day at dinner.

“Again?” She takes a slow sip of wine. There are many things she could say. Many questions she could ask. She knows already that Judge won’t bother to listen or answer.

“We have prepared some embryos for implantation. You will undergo the procedure two days from now.”

Carefully, she sets her wine glass on the table and places her hands in her lap. The fine fabric of her skirt bunches under her hands. For the first time that dinner, she raises her head and looks her husband in the eyes.

“More than one?”

Judge barely looks up from cutting his steak. “Four.”

“Four. You want me to carry quadruplets?”

Judges quick glance at her is scathing. “For a woman at your age and in your condition? You can carry four easily.”

“Easily,” she echoes. She can’t seem to look away from him where he casually continues his dinner. As if what he’s demanding is both reasonable and a foregone conclusion. “Quadruplets won’t be easy.”

He scoffs and devotes his energy more to chewing than speaking to her. “You will endure. You can remain on bedrest if you like. It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

She feels numb. Like a puppet on strings, she lifts her arms and reaches for her wine glass again. Imagines dashing it into his face, shattering the delicate glass over the stupid helmet he wears. Thinks about slipping away in the night with Reiju and being rid of this damned place for good.

She takes a sip. “As you say, husband.”

She cannot refuse. He’ll hunt her down – the Germa snail ships are impossible to escape from with their ability to climb the Red Line. She’d be run down like a fox and torn apart by the hounds. It wouldn’t stop him, either. The embryos will be implanted in some other woman if she refuses. This way, at least, she has some measure of control over her children.

What little control she has.

Quadruplets is not easy.

Trust a man and his team of male scientists to downplay her suffering. It’s not their bodies being stretched to their limit. They don’t wake gasping for air as four babies press down on their lungs from the inside. They’re not the ones carted into labs to be prodded and poked when all she really wants is to float in her huge bathtub and ease some of the soreness and pressure from her body. Her ankles swell. She’s too tired to play with Reiju.

Still, she sings. She rubs her hands over her belly and laughs when they kick in response to her voice. Reiju comes to watch and to touch her swollen belly with wonder. She shrieks in fear and delight the first time the boys move around wildly enough that her belly stretches and moves on its own. Sora will treasure that little shriek for years as proof. Proof that her daughter’s just as human as she is, despite her husband’s best efforts.

The best efforts of a beast. A madman. As she learns of his plans for the boys, she feels her blood run cold. Her precious boys, emotionless and taught nothing but hatred and violence. Her sweet babies who wriggle inside her when she sings and who she can’t wait to meet. He’s going to take them and ruin them. There’s no deliberation to be made. She’d walk over glass, drink liquid fire, deal with the Devil himself if it would spare her boys the fate their father’s laid out for them.

She reminds herself of this as the vial of drugs falls from her numb hands, and all she feels is flames.

“Don’t call them that,” she says weakly.

Judge and his scientist ignore her. They’re bent over bassinet number 03.

“The genetic modification was supposed to be linked to the gene for hair color,” Judge states, though it sounds more like an accusation.

“And it is,” the scientist stammers. “The other three subjects display the modified hair gene, so I’m certain the modifications to their gene code were successful. As for 03… Well, it’s possible that the gene modification took, but the hair color gene failed to activate.”

“Or 03 is a dud.” Judge crosses his arms.

“Don’t call them that,” Sora speaks up louder.

Both men turn to her. The quadruplets’ birth was not kind to her. Weakened from the poison she drank, the cesarean section was perhaps more than her body was ready to handle. She can barely move from the exhaustion and pain. The two men are less than sympathetic.

“What are you blabbering about, woman?”

“The boys… You can’t call them that. They’re children… they’re just babies…” She’s so frustrated when her eyes well up with tears. She’s trying so hard to be firm. She’s just so tired and in so much pain. “Not subjects. Not… lab experiments. They need names. They’re people.”

Judge smiles. It’s a nasty thing. “They’ll have names, you foolish woman. I can’t very well register them with the World Government as subjects 01 through 04. Ichiji, Niji, Sanji, and Yonji are their names.”

Any hope she’d clung to that he would accept the names she’d scrawled into her diary in the faint hope that she’d have some say in the matter is dashed. The tears spill over.

“They’re your sons,” she whispers.

“They are my greatest achievement.” He steps closer to her and scoffs. “Evidently, your final achievement. What did you hope to accomplish? My scientists are far smarter than you will ever be. If anything, all you did was sign your own death sentence.”

“It will be worth it,” she says, meeting his eyes, “if even one of them is free of you.”

She never recovers.

Sora’s things are moved to the infirmary ward. Her entire life becomes the white walls of her private room and the short trips to the nearby gardens in her wheelchair. She’s rarely forced to see Judge. It’s probably for the best.

It’s difficult to tell with the babies. How does one determine if a baby has emotions or not? They still cry when they are hungry or tired or frustrated. They still enjoy creature comforts. How can one measure empathy in a being too young to have learned it anyway?

Even as they get older, she watches for signs. She thinks, maybe, that she’s succeeded. They still perk up when she sings the songs she sang during her pregnancy. They laugh, they weep, they have favorite toys. Desperately, she clings to any shred of hope she has.

She’s wheeled to the main castle for their first birthday. Their family is staged for photographs for the Germa news. Everyone wants to celebrate the first year of their baby princes’ lives. Sora lets servants style her hair and makeup and drape her in a fine gown that matches her eyes. They pantomime cutting a birthday cake, opening presents, holding each other and smiling. She feels her husband’s wide hand spanning the small of her back and she shudders. He scoffs when he feels her tremble under him. He thinks she’s afraid. She wants nothing more than to destroy him.

The picture-perfect scene is ruined when little Yonji gets his fists into the cake and starts smashing it with wild abandon. Niji squeals in delight and joins in immediately. Little Sanji quietly licks frosting from his hands. Ichiji glances, just briefly, at Judge before his natural impulse to play wins out. The four of them are laughing like the babies they are. Poor Reiju watches from the side, her eyes darting too often to Judge. Only four, and she’s seen her father’s discipline often enough to fear him. Sora daydreams again about taking the cake knife and sinking it into her husband’s spleen.

“They’re children,” she says to him, eyes fixed on the chaotic mess. “They don’t belong to you. They’ll never really belong to you. Can’t you just… let them be themselves?”

Judge’s teeth creak from the pressure of his grinding.

“They will always belong to me.”

She’s a fool to think her defiance won’t have repercussions. If she’d expected any, she’d thought they would fall on her. Not the children. Never the children.

She’d take everything back if she knew.

Her first inkling that something is terribly wrong comes when Reiju bursts into her hospital room weeping uncontrollably. She’s never seen her this distraught, not even as a baby. Her chest hiccups with great shuddering heaves that leave her gagging from the force of them, snot running down her face in watery streams.

“Reiju? Baby, what’s wrong?”

Reiju flings herself across her legs on the bed, still wailing. When Sora reaches down to pat her back to soothe her, she flinches away violently.

“Baby, what’s going on?”

“He hurt them!”

Sora’s blood turns to ice.

“Who?”

She’s out of bed before the word has left her mouth. The pain and fatigue is forgotten as she stumbles from the room, following where Reiju is desperately leading her. They’re going somewhere in the infirmary ward. Another wing. Reiju’s sobbing hasn’t ceased. As they walk closer to a set of doors, she smells something hot, the smell of burnt flesh, and hears the wailing of her other children.

The doors hit the walls with a bang.

All four of her babies are laid out on beds in the room. Laid out on their bellies, wailing into the mattress. On their bellies because their backs are open to the room. Because there are fresh burns over their spines.

66 – 01
66 – 02
66 – 03
66 – 04

Peeking up from Reiju’s collar is a bandage over the same place. She knows without looking that there’s a 66 – 00 underneath that cotton square.

Judge turns from his handiwork to smile at her. There’s nothing in his eyes but petty cruelty, a mean and childish vengeance and smug superiority.

“So they won’t forget who they belong to,” he says.

She doesn’t remember choosing to break the nearby water pitcher over his head.

When she does recover her memory, both of her wrists are clamped in her husband’s hands. Blood runs down from the top of his head and over the surface of his mask. Any visible skin – his jaw, his neck, his hands – they’re covered in bloody scratches like he was attacked by a wild animal. Sora twists in his grip. Horrible screams echo in her ears. It takes a good moment to realize she’s the one making those sounds.

“Sedate her,” Judge says to someone behind her. “You’ve gone mad, woman.”

“They’re your children! They’re your babies! You bastard!” She flinches when a needle pokes her neck. She can already feel the effects of the drug. Still, she twists her wrists in his grip, tries to bite at him. Weakly, she keeps repeating, “They’re just babies! They’re your children! They’re… just…”

She remembers no more.

She dreams of taking a ship and sailing far away from here.

She’ll take all five of them. Reiju can learn to be a real little girl. She’ll have dolls and pretty dresses, have tea parties in the garden. She’ll give Ichiji puzzle books, take him to museums, teach him how to skip rope. Niji will need extra cuddles, extra gentle reminders to play with his pet bunny softly, don’t hurt him, he’s fragile. She’ll let Sanji smell flowers in the garden as long as he wants, let him take rides on a little pony just his size, give him all the kisses he asks for. Yonji can play ball until his extra energy is spent, she’ll give him healthy food but extra cookies at snack time, because he’s been such a good boy and he deserves them. They’ll be a family.

She refuses to be grateful that Judge doesn’t try to keep them from her. If anything, it’s probably another taunt. To dangle them in front of her just so she can watch them spiral out of her control into what Judge wants them to be.

They’re just children.

It’s not even the lack of empathy to blame. She loves all of her children. She thinks, maybe, that she could teach them a better way. That kindness is a choice, regardless of feeling empathy, that there are more emotions out there than cruelty and amusement as the expense of others. There’s a whole world of things they can still experience even if they never find kindness or love in their hearts.

They still visit her. Still listen to her sing. Still tell her stories about their days and what they’ve learned. Ichiji is so clever. He has natural leadership skills, and he’s so smart. He always has the most interesting facts to tell her. Niji is the biggest joker, and the biggest showoff. He’s always trying to one-up his brothers and get as much of her attention as he can. Sanji’s a complete sweetheart, always bringing some little animal he’d found around the ship with him and coming to her for extra cuddles and kisses. Yonji’s her big strong boy, always beating his brothers in races and contests. Though they’re basically the same age, he’ll always be the baby of the family to her.

They’re just children.

Her health declines more. As the boys get bigger, she sees them less and less, until it’s only Reiju and Sanji who go out of their ways to visit her. She misses her other boys.

Judge’s hand on them is strong. Her heart breaks little by little as her smart Ichiji and funny Niji and tough Yonji become colder and crueler as the days wear on. As every act of violence is rewarded. As perceived weakness is punished. As they’re molded more and more into the weapons Judge wanted in the guise of a family.

The first time Sanji comes to visit her covered in bruises and mumbles, “brothers,” when she asks who hit him, her heart shatters. He falls asleep on her bed with her and she pulls the collar of his shirt down to trace the raised scar tissue on his back with her fingers. She summons some servants to escort him back to the castle, and once he’s safely gone, she breaks down in tears.

Is it worth it?

As time passes, it becomes clearer and clearer that the gamble she took did something to Sanji. Maybe it gave him all the empathy that was taken from his brothers. And she’s a weak woman, because even as the evidence piles up that they’re becoming the monsters Judge made them to be, she still loves all of them. Still daydreams about running away with them to a quiet home where she can love them enough to unravel Judge’s brainwashing.

As if it would be that easy.

As if she’d ever do anything right.

And Sanji just comes to her more and more hurt.

She doesn’t give up on the other boys, but on one of her rare visits from Judge, she reaches out to touch his sleeve, and it’s Sanji she begs for.

“Please,” she says, throwing her dignity away because this is more important, “Please, Judge, can’t you just let us go? He’s not what you wanted. Can’t you let me take Sanji with me? Somewhere we’ll never bother you again? You’ll never have to see us. Just let us go.”

And Judge, the man who branded his children just to make a point, yanks his arm out of her grasp.

“As if I’d let you two leave to go smear my name. A conniving woman like you? You’d have me painted as a villain. Sanji is mine. Failure or not, he still has his chance to prove his usefulness. Unlike you, he might still be able to correct my disappointment in him.”

She gives up on dignity entirely as he walks away. She cries. She begs. She screams. And Judge leaves her alone.

She gets out of bed and breaks everything she can get her hands on.

She’s bedridden for three days from the effort, but it feels worth it. She just wishes it was Judge she had broken.

Sanji’s injuries increase in severity.

He comes to the infirmary wing with pneumonia from being half-drowned.

He comes with broken bones.

He winces when she hugs him one day and shuts down completely when she asks what happened. She pulls his collar aside to see belt lashes breaking her baby’s beautiful skin, right on top of the old brand. She doesn’t have to ask whose belt left the marks.

Reiju visits and at her behest, whispers stories about experiments. Sparring matches gone wrong. Petty bullying. About her beautiful brave boys twisted into monsters that act as the hands of Judge’s cruelty, raining abuse down on the weakest of them to spare themselves the punishment.

“Why don’t you help Sanji?”

Reiju doesn’t look at her. She picks a thread of embroidery loose from her dress.

“I’m not as strong as them. Father hadn’t gotten the method perfect yet when he made me. I’m too weak. And there are three of them. If I try to fight them, they might win, and Father…”

And her father will know she has empathy for her brother, that she’s not his perfect obedient heir, and she could very well be next. She wants to be angry, to insist that Sanji needs help, but she can understand it. It aches and stabs and burns in her heart, but she can understand it.

“Just do what you can for him,” she whispers. “I love all of you so much.”

Reiju says nothing in reply.

The walls of her room close in on her. A prison cell in everything but name. She wastes her days staring out the window. She dreams of a ship taking her and her children far away. Somewhere sunny. There’s a house in her dreams. It’s warm and snug and has a kitchen full of laughter where Sanji experiments, a yard worn down from Yonji’s feet, a couch for them to share, a vanity where she brushes Reiju’s hair, a cat lounging by the windowsill, and it’s safe. Niji won’t throw the cat from the second story balcony. Yonji’s punches won’t crack the walls. Ichiji will smile at her stories. Sanji’s skin will be clean and unmarked. Reiju will let her kiss her on the cheek before bed. She’ll be healthy and well and she’ll be safe. No numbers on their backs. Skin that feels soft to the touch. They’ll all love each other, and the house will be full of joy, and no one will be harmed or pitted against each other.

Her hospital room’s door slams open.

The dream fades away. Her happy and unmarked Sanji dissipates, and a jittery boy with a broken nose and an eclectic bento beams at her from the doorway. The smile she musters for him is wide and genuine.

There is some small joy to be found outside of dreams.

“You’re dying,” Judge says to her.

It should be a question. From him it sounds like a statement.

“I can feel it. My body won’t hold out much longer.” She stares out the window instead of looking at him. “Can you grant a dying woman one last wish?”

Judge says nothing.

She’s too tired not to cry. The tears feel like feathers on her cheeks, tickling down. Has she been good enough? Has she done enough? Will it be angels who greet her when she goes? She hasn’t enough faith to think so.

“Let them go,” she whispers. “Just let them be children. Let them be people. Please. If you do nothing else for me, then please save my children.”

Judge’s uniform rustles as he shifts.

“You ask for impossible things, woman.”

More tears spill over when she closes her eyes.

“Then Sanji. Just him, then. I begged you to let him go once. I can’t take him, but please. I’m begging you now, Judge. You’re killing him. Foster him somewhere. Send him to another Blue. Anything. Please. Let me have saved at least one of them.”

She turns to look at him, finally. He looks exactly the same as he always has. He hasn’t changed a bit. She prays that he’s softened even slightly. She can’t change him and never really tried, but please let him have softened enough for this request.

Judge’s stony face is answer enough.

Her wheelchair isn’t designed to move without someone pushing her, but she grabs the wheels awkwardly and pushes herself towards Judge. She’s not so weak that she can’t manage a few steps once she’s closer. Judge lets her get close. He doesn’t see the dinner knife she’d hidden in the folds of her robe. He jolts in shock when she shoves it into his gut. His huge hands clamp over hers. They stand close together in a parody of marital intimacy.

“Damn you, Vinsmoke Judge,” she whispers.

She knows already that she isn’t strong enough to kill him. She’s never been that strong. She just hopes it hurts.

“Damn you to Hell,” she says, louder. Judge’s blood gushes over her hand, hot and slippery. “Damn you, Judge, and your entire country, too! I hope the sea swallows you. I hope you have everything you’ve ever cared about taken from you and you die alone and penniless and forgotten you vainglorious swine of a man! I hope when you’re finally pushed off this earth you arrive at the gates of Hell and I’m there to greet you, you bastard.”

Her voice has risen from a whisper to a shriek. Judge stares down at her, impassive even as he sweats from the pain of her knife in his gut. His big hands keep hers wrapped around the knife handle. She manages to push just a little deeper, and he grunts.

“I hate you,” she whispers.

Her strength fades, and she sags. Judge catches her as she falls and lowers her down to her wheelchair with surprising tenderness. Wearily, she lifts her head to meet his inscrutable eyes.

“You’re allowed your hate,” he says. “In your eyes, I’ve done you great harm. Still, you carried my children. I owe you gratitude for that. You may remain here with your hatred, and…” His lips quirk in something like a smile. “I suppose I shall see you in Hell. Goodbye, Vinsmoke Sora.”

She sits mutely in her chair as his blood dries tacky on her hands.

His back retreating from her room is the last she ever sees of him.

She doesn’t get to say goodbye to her boys. She lies dying in her bed and thinks about a line of little backs laid out in front of her.

66 – 00
66 – 01
66 – 02
66 – 03
66 – 04

How horribly has she failed them. If she’d just tried harder. Been a little braver. Done just a little more.

She dreams of a house. It’s quaint. It’s snug. It’s safe. There is no Germa Kingdom there. No Vinsmoke name. The sky is always blue and the birds are always singing. The boys have the names she picked for them all those years ago. When the children splash in the ocean, their backs are clean and perfect. She sits with them on the porch swing as the sun sets and the crickets begin to sing. They smile and tell her stories. Reiju kisses her hair while they rock gently. Everyone is loved and everyone is safe.

It’s a good dream.