Soliloquy of the Broken Soul

Better or Worse

Many expressions flashed across Luffy's face, and Ace arched a brow as the seven-year-old seemingly glared at nothing, then grit his teeth before completely relaxing and shaking his head as if to clear it in a matter of seconds.

Ace was confused, because it looked like Luffy had been mad. Had he said something upsetting?

"Are you alright Luffy?" The freckled raven asked carefully.

Luffy opened his eyes and the spark was still there as he replied, "I'm a little hungry."

Ace smiled, but it was quickly replaced with confusion as Luffy added darkly, "The voice isn't though," with the spite of an escaped convict.

The other three looked on in perplexed concern at the small raven, wondering what the heck that meant.

"What do you mean 'voice' Luffy?" Sabo dared inquire first, slowly.

Luffy looked up suddenly, gaze alight with slight awe at the blond, as if he was surprised he knew what Luffy had said. That they had even heard him. Which only raised more eyebrows in question.

Seeking to see this as an opportunity, Luffy fu!bled a bit before beginning a short-lived ramble.

"It's always there," he said in an unreadable tone, yet another un-Luffyish thing, "it never really goes away. Doesn't like being talked abo-"

The seven-year-old cut off a bit abruptly and winced, earning many strange yet worried looks as he put a hand to his temple as said voice reared its head, protesting Luffy say anything else that betrays it.

"Luffy?" Ace asked anxiously, holding a hovering hand out just behind Luffy's back, in case he for some reason collapses.

Marco kneeled down to Luffy's level, watching the raven close his eyes tightly the way one might do when blocking out a particularly nagging headache.

"Can you hear it now, yoi?" Marco asked softly as to not cause any more irritation by being overly loud.

If it was anything like a headache, as he suspected the sudden infliction was (or something similar at least) he knew noise would only make everything worse.

Luffy nodded meekly and looked up, cracking his eyes open slightly to look at Marco.

"It usually keeps me from saying stuff about it," he tried to explain, the voice itself screeching in the back of his mind to shut up.

"Like right now, yoi?" Marco asked

Luffy nodded once more.

Marco thought to himself, pondering the problem for a minute as he let Luffy gather his own thoughts back to himself.

After a few tense minutes and deep breaths, Luffy seemed a bit better, his three companions giving him time and space to rein in the voice (The voice he'd finally managed to tell them about and thank goodness because gosh was it getting hard to deal with. Especially after yesterday and finally realising just how much of control it had over him) and think properly once more. Or, as properly as a traumatised seven-year-old could.

When Luffy seemed to be in a bit of a better place, Marco suggested they visit Aria, to which Luffy complied, but silently wondered what she could possibly do about... It.

They walked across the hall and into the infirmary, where an unsurprised Doctor greeted them.

She was getting used to their visits. In fact, she was more surprised yesterday when they didn't show up.

"Welcome back you three, long time no see" she greets with a tease, "What is it this time?"

She turned to Marco for an answer while Ace, Sabo, and Luffy waited quietly for instructions. They, being the patients, had also gotten used to this.