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Noise stands out in the otherwise silent island, like flowers in a cemetery.
His footsteps, click of heels against stone as he follows the broken path, interrupted only by the recurrent splash of blood as his boots come near a body. Crows cry from afar, above in the sky, the carnage too grotesque even for them to approach.
No birds, no animals, no people. Mihawk doesn’t see a need to make himself quiet, when there are only ghosts to hide from.
Shikkearu Kingdom, Kuraigana Island; these names have been forgotten, drowned out by their war.
Wind wraps around crumbling walls to meet him, screaming at his skin. It brawls against his coat before continuing on its way, carrying within desperate whispers, forsaken pleads. The last breath of a people who are no more.
Their land has been left rotten, with too much death buried under it, too much death withering above. As if nature itself cannot see hope here, no plants climb from the bodies or the ruins, flora and fauna driven away by the man-made disaster.
Or rather, he ponders after a moment, it might’ve been nature who abandoned them first.
He leaves the stone path, reaching instead towards a lone body. It’s fresher than most, meat still mushed against frail bones, dry mouth open in final agony.
A woundless corpse, no blood sprayed on its surroundings, yet its ribcage curls inwards. What finished them was no weapon; the end of this war was marked by famine.
No one survived to give the last victims a proper burial. The tragedy of it, the hopelessness, it stirs something within him. Pulls at him. It’s devastating, yet at the same time, fascinating.
Hand gently cradling its jaw, he closes the cadaver’s mouth, and moves forward.
Lone walls, where houses once stood. Scorch marks, soot, rusted weapons; the thick and pungent presence of death. These details, like the scattered pages of a lost book, explain a story no soul has been spared to share.
Glint of broken gold catches his eye within the dense fog. Shards of stained glass cover the ground, only indication to know he’s entered a temple. No ceiling remains, no walls, no valuables, nothing but ruins in the sacred place.
Mihawk kneels next to the glint, and clears out the debris to uncover a pair of golden feet. They must have held a statue, once. The details of the toes, the careful wrinkles, are enough to show how much care it was made with.
He wipes off grime, contemplating this foreign god. Wonders, whether its people died cursing its name or begging its forgiveness.
This kingdom should feel empty, he supposes. And yet, it seems like everywhere he turns there's a ghost staring into him, starving for mercy.
It’s not kindness nor pity that kindles his heart; he’s brought too many lives to an end, taken too many souls with his own hands to claim compassion. It’s not truly respect, either; braver and more admirable people than these have gone, and received less acknowledgement from him.
It’s the enthrallment of tragedy, of death so unfair and meaningless. An entire country wiped out from the inside, and not a change in the world, not a person to remember the fallen nor care for the massacre.
Bodies strewn as far as the eye can see, yet their cause remains untouched. The war did not fix their differences, did not fix their hunger; it only brought their end.
Leaving behind the temple, he returns to the stone path. He has yet to find out where it leads.
Since his arrival at the shores of the desolate island, his haki has been silent, passively confirming the lifelessness of the place. Now, however, it acts up, warning him of the living creatures ahead.
Humandrills, gathered next to what appears to be the only standing structure. Tall, stone foundation that rises into the misty sky. A castle.
Knowing the particularity of the creatures’ behavior, it’s not a surprise to find them sporting armor and weapons, still wet with blood from the fallen soldiers whose corpses they must have once failed to protect.
They slash at each other, mimicking the movements of ill-trained men destined for death. One of the beasts falls as a rusty sword impales its chest, and three others rush over. They dig into the wound, jaws closing on the flesh of their own. Their faces come alight with desperation, which Mihawk isn't entirely convinced genuinely belongs to them.
He steps forward, and the creatures turn to him as one, leaving their feast in favor of surging towards him.
They are not worthy of Yoru.
It’s not long before the beasts realize their mistake, instead fleeing into the ruins of the kingdom. Mihawk wonders if cowardice, too, is something they’ve learnt from soldiers.
He turns his focus towards the castle. This must have been where the ruling family lived, before their kingdom collapsed under them.
The echo of his steps follows him as he advances through the fortress. Dust dances in the air, clinging onto his clothes with the loneliness of one who’s been in the sole company of death for far too long.
It is dark. Mihawk lights a torch from the wall, wrapping a handkerchief around his hand before taking hold of it.
He’s greeted with a view much akin to the outside of the castle. It must have been a bloodbath once, long since dried, sticking to the floor and walls like it does to clothes and corpses. Servants, guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Many of them are children. Not even old enough to have passed puberty, though there is no required age to become casualty of war, he supposes.
Feet stepping over bodies, he opens the next door with ease, continuing his exploration of the castle.
The place is in ruins. Windows smashed and walls crumbling down, as wind moves through crack to crack. The only witness, and his only companion.
The locks of the doors forced long ago; chests tossed, smashed and emptied. None of the bodies hold any jewelry, but it likely wasn’t much to begin with. He doubts they would’ve been able to afford anything of too much value, being alive during wartime.
Mihawk finds the kingdom’s princess in the arms of a maid. She’s the youngest child of the castle so far, in a bedroom big enough to house a family of five. Broken toys adorn the corners, though the frame of the bed remains almost intact.
The maid is hunched over the little body, uniform dyed in the dark brown of old blood. The princess lacks a dress, one he imagines to have been much too beautiful for looters to keep away from. She also lacks a head.
Mihawk pulls the door closed behind him, with the pointed lack of a clack, and leaves the two souls to their own.
What is the function of a fortress, but to protect its people?
What use can it be, when it has already failed so terribly?
Such thick stone walls, such great columns. Labyrinth of rooms, ample halls. The rights to all these lands and their riches. Enough servants to assemble an army.
So many souls to its protection, now littering its halls.
And yet, the castle stands. There is something poetic in this, perhaps.
The loneliness, at least, is reminiscent of his own. Much in the same way blood tends to drip from Mihawk’s hands, it runs through the halls of this stronghold. Too good at preserving itself, but never strong enough to protect another.
Across a doorless hall, Mihawk finds the dining room. It turns out to be a particularly ravaged area of the castle. The floor is decorated with scattered chairs and broken plates, as cutlery and weaponry hide between bodies. A large wooden table takes up most of the room, and laid on its center is a lifeless gentleman dressed in tones of gray.
Encircling the table, he picks up a chair and places it upright beside it, following the action by correcting the next one. One by one, until the table is besieged by all, and a bit of order returns to the tragedy.
He moves the curtains to the sides, allowing a faint ray of moonlight to shine inside the room, dampened against the dense fog of the island. The corner of the table is wiped with a rag, taking with it both dust and dried blood.
Mihawk sits down, observing the abandoned home, drinking in all of its quiet details. Takes a cracked wineglass onto his hand, and makes a motion as if swirling around the nonexisting liquid.
A vacant home, beautiful and vast, yet no people to bring it meaning. Waiting inescapably to crumble against time, or perhaps, to be given a new purpose.
And what is he, but a wanderer with nowhere to call his own?
Some things, he decides, are tied together by fate.