One Piece: The Lionheart's Slave

It's hard to love another person, even when you yourself are human.

A slave. The moment that mark, stripping away everything, was branded onto their body, their ability to love another person as a human being vanished, too. The Mark of the Flying Hoof seemed to pin its slaves beneath an invisible, enormous claw. Each victorious roar meant someone had yielded to those raging flames and disappeared into endless pain.

"I can never love a human again, even though I'm human myself."

"If I could, I'd want to die without pain. Ah... I understand. Death is part of the pain, too. I'll never be able to do it. It's just another impossible dream. How else can you live in this hell of a world without indulging in delusions?"

"Why am I still alive? Maybe it's greedy of me, but I still want to search for that thing. That thing... that elusive freedom."

This insignificant stubbornness, hidden in a heart nobody cared about, eventually faded away all the same.

Had they surrendered to the pain? Who knows.

Had they finally been unable to go on? Who knows.

Then had they found contentment? Who knows.

But this love, born of sharing one another's suffering, would still disappear inside a body nobody cared about, carried away by the wind.

Author's note:

The third Doflamingo-gets-tormented story! The young master will never escape the torment. He'll never escape it in this lifetime.jpg

Theme: Freedom