Blood pools in the grout between the tiles. It's warm, still steaming in the cold air, and it reflects the flickering orange of distant flames.

The battle is over. You can feel it in the sudden, ringing silence—the kind that hurts the ears after so much screaming.

Imu kneels a few feet away. His white hair is matted with sweat and grime, one of his black wings bent at an unnatural angle. The eye-patterned clouds of his awakening have receded, clinging to his shoulders like a dying breath. His zigzag polearm lies shattered in three pieces, its blade blackened and broken.

Monkey D. Luffy steps over the rubble, his knuckles bloodied, his gaze hard and unyielding. He doesn't look triumphant. He looks like a man finishing a job he never wanted.

His fingers brush against your ankle.

It's the gentlest touch he's given you in eight hundred years.

The realization hits you like a fist to the gut.