Blake had taken care of most the pirates blundering the town by the time the reinforcements appeared, but letting the Marines succeed made her feel a little salty. If she had not still been hurt she would probably have taken care of them too. The wound in her arm was still painful, it had opened a little bit during her exercise and was leaking. She quickly just wrapped a new bandage on top of the old one and sat back on the bed in her little shed. All this action, from her killing Marines to now a Pirate crew starting a full frontal assault on the town was bound to just lead more Marines into the city. It would start to be a straight out war and she was only one person.
The thought made her feel a bit lonely, but what was she supposed to do? There was no one around to trust, not that she trusted people easily to begin with. It made her think a bit about the pirates she had faced, no matter how disgusting they were, they were still a crew that trusted in each other. “Strength in numbers, huh?”, looking at the ceiling she sighed. The whole concept was alien to her, who always had fought by herself. Who endured and fought all alone, trusting nothing but her own strength. Even less so she understood what a “team” or “crew” meant. Obviously even she sometimes wanted someone to depend on, even just having someone to talk with would have been nice, but who would it be that would not backstab her? Just sleeping with someone knowing where she was, was scary. Being all vulnerable and helpless was not her thing.
Soon the whole topic made her head spin, or maybe it was the blood loose, but either way she had to lay down and stop thinking about it!
Even in her sleep the topic was not leaving her alone. In her dreams she stood on a mountain of corpses all alone. As far as she could see nothing but blood covered ground and more dead people. So much blood that even the sky was painted red. Not all of the blood was that of her enemies, as she looked down on herself she saw her own clothes ripped with cuts and holes, blood oozing out underneath, but she felt the urge to go on. She felt as if there were more people to kill, but as she tried to make a step forward she felt a grasp around her ankle and suddenly a pull. With all the strength she had she struggled to not get pulled down, but soon she saw nothing but black, suffocating darkness. Knowing no one would help her she did not even scream or struggle any longer and just gave up.
Then she woke up, covered in sweat she was gasping for air. The sun had already risen and a new day begun. Yet Blake still felt frozen, as if the lifeless hands of her victims were still holding her in place. She had had many nightmares as a child, especially in the harder times, but when she started killing she had never even dreamt about any of the men and women, who's live she had taken. It was a first for her. Why was she having them now? Freeing herself from the grasp of the nightmare she slowly sat up in bed and looked to the mirror. Maybe it was because she was such a mess. She yearned to go to the public bath again and get herself fixed, but after all the things she had done that was out of question. It was an option to just leave the island. Actually that was not a bad idea, start new on a different island, have a good long bath and everything, but she also felt like finishing what she had started, even if that goal was still far off.
Carefully not to hurt herself more she got out of bed and made her way towards the barrel of water she had stored in the back of her shed, poured herself a bucket and threw it over herself. The icy water felt great. She proceeded to wipe herself till most of the sweat was gone, then also cleaned her wound anew and applied fresh bandages, it already looked much better than the day before.
Next she took a small portion of dry bread and a smoked meat as breakfast. Again she just wished to go outside and have a proper meal at one of the many restaurants or at the pub she used to work at. If she was not too crazy, she would almost have considered starting a normal life for a second. Instead she suddenly felt the urge to kill. To be more exact she felt the urge to go out and slaughter some Marines. Life, death, strength, weakness and loneliness, that all did not matter to her before and there was no reason for it to suddenly matter.
Against the pain in her arm she pulled a red shirt over and placed her daggers in her sleeves. Leaving philosophy to the philosophers she stepped out and took a quick look around. The reconstruction of the harbour area had already begun, obviously without the help from the soldiers, those were still busy searching the city for the murderer. From the shadows she observed a large group of em in the city square, reassuring the citizens that they had everything under control, a lanky man in a fancy uniform even stepped up on the steps of the city hall and raising his voice he spoke to every citizen present: “I understand you are worried, the last few days have been terrible, but now I am here and I plan to increase the number of Marine patrolling the city to ensure your safety. As I speak my men are already searching every corner of the city to find the murderous woman and any other kind of scum hiding!”
The crowd did not seem to be too excited, someone raised the notion that the killer only went after the men in white and was even seen killing the attacking pirates. Someone else yelled that they wanted the Marines to stop invading their city and they were only there for their own revenge. A woman questioned why they did not leave it to the city guards. Someone even questioned if that murderer was real or if the Marines just wanted an excuse to strengthen their grip on the island. The whole picture made her laugh. It was hilarious seeing the man struggle to find the right words, in the end he just stomped the ground and yelled: “Quiet you idiots, if you want to defend this murderer we can take you into custody right here!” With these words his soldiers placed their hands at their rifles. It was even better than Blake had hoped, not only had they lost the trust in the Marines, the man had now turned them into his enemy.
If Blake had just been a bit more confident in herself she would have attacked right there, but after her recent mistakes she rather waited. It would have been a great display, but their were just too many armed soldiers. Instead she slid backwards and disappeared in the alleyway from which she was watching. That did not change the fact that she planed to kill the Marine.
Calmly she began to observe him. It seemed like he had no real goal in mind, but to get back on the good site of the citizen he had to patrol the city at least once. In the process he visited many all the places of Blake's killings. That made her feel almost a bit nostalgic. In each place he looked for some clues, even if there were non to be found. Especially with his half-assed effort. Even in the narrowest alleys he kept five men close to him at all times. Just watching from afar made Blake laugh a little.
He spend his whole afternoon in this manner, before reaching the port to take a look at the most recent attack. There Blake kept her eye on him from the top of an undamaged warehouse. She really wanted to strike as soon as possible, but he still kept multiple soldiers near him.
As she was watching Blake began to wonder, why exactly had she become scared of others? The girl had always been proud of being the one to instil fear in others. It almost felt like she was her old self, her young self again. She hated it! “I am not afraid of you!”, she yelled and with that coated her legs in Haki and jumped down from the building right in front of the man and his ten underlings. “I am not afraid!”, she yelled again as they raised their rifles and at the same time fell unconscious. Mostly she had to yell it to convince herself, the mistakes she had made, the wound and most of all the nightmares had left her shaking for far too long. If she wanted to be a force to be reckoned with she had to throw that fear away. Her goal was to make a change and if she had to die while trying, fine!
“I am not afraid!”, she said a bit quieter and pulled both daggers while stepping closer. At the same time the Marine unsheathed his sabre and dashed towards her. Instead of blocking it Blake coated her shoulder and neck in Haki and took the hit straight on, while ramming a dagger multiple times in his stretched out arm. Then she spun past under said arm and cut another two times at his legs, making him lose his balance, but he did not fall. Yelling “MURDERER” he also spun around, but Blake dodged under his swing and stabbed both daggers in his stomach, pulling them apart and letting his guts spill out. Finally he fell down, coughing up blood he looked up at the murderer, who still kept telling herself that she was not afraid with a giant grin on her face.
She was no longer just convincing herself, instead it was herself realizing this. Even if she had messed up before, as long as she was still alive she was fine! Laughing out loud she turned to her victim, she could see the shock in his eyes. “Try to scare me, but I am not afraid at all, but I guess you are.” Again laughing she gave him a kick in the open stomach, then calmly turned his back to him on her way back into the city, she really wanted a hot bath and a good meal!
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