A Matter of Trust

**Users Involved:** User:DazzlingEmerald, User:Starving Skeleton
**Previous Role-Play**: Not For You
**Setting:** South Blue (1584)
**Characters Involved**: Hornigold Clovis, Taichi Tara

A week went by, a period of seven days. A period of seven *dreadful* days.

Seven days Clovis spent fleeing for his life. Even the sailors of ships that he hired turned against him when they learned that the World Government had placed a 12,000,000 bounty on his head in exchange for his life. He was branded a criminal, a terrorist. It was as though anywhere he went in South Blue they knew him only for the disaster in Sorbet Kingdom.

With nowhere else to go, Clovis returned home. He was in desperate need of help, love, and peace of mind. He smiled as he swam to the shore of his homeland, the sight of nostalgia bringing him immediate relief. "I was wrong for leaving," he regretted as he traveled back towards his home, "none of this would ever have happened if I never left home. I need to tell mom and dad that I'm sorry... for everything. I'll happily go back to the way my life was, tied to that wooden pole."

Clovis climbed the tall hills that led up to his village. Through the trees and forests, over the dead barren lands that could not host crops. He found his old shed, though he could not find anyone within. "Where did they go?"

Clovis roamed around the streets of the village. There was no one around. Finally he found a brick house in the nearby woods. He caught a glimpse of a familiar face. "Mom?"

He ran over. He found his parents inside of the home and barged in. "Mom, dad... I'm back. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Look who it is," said his dad as he sat on a couch with the newspaper in his lap. "Have you come back for our help after deserting us?"

"I... I'm sorry," said Clovis with a sigh. "I was foolish for the things that I said. Some terrible things have happened... I really need the support of my family."

"Oh sweetheart," Clovis' mother came from the back and hugged her son. "That's what family is for, isn't it? To help one another through tough times?"

Tears streamed down Clovis' face. He sniffed, hard. "Y-Yeah. Thank you, mom. I knew you'd understand." He then realized something. Clovis took a look around. "You guys got a new house... it's so nice. Hey... wait a second... where's Lucy?"

Clovis' younger sister, Lucy, who he'd spend his earnings on in order to feed. She was nowhere to be seen.

"Lucy... is no longer with us," Clovis' dad explained.

"W-What? No... she's...?" Clovis was in disbelief.

"Dead? Hardly but." Clovis' dad began to count a stack of bellies on his lap. "After you ran out on us... I got hurt working my job. We needed money. Lucy provided us with that."

"What?!" Clovis exclaimed. "Y-You... you sold her?! How could you!!! This house... you bought it with the money I gave you; and the money you got out of selling Lucy, didn't you?!"

*Shling!*

Clovis' eyes widened. Suddenly his stomach felt warmer.

"You have no one to blame... but yourself." Clovis' mother pushed her knife deeper into her son's stomach.

"Uragghh!!" Clovis vomited blood before grabbing a hold of his mother's hand and plucking the knife out of his gut. As he fell to his knees, she stepped back.

"You're a criminal, Clovis!" his dad yelled, "don't be telling us about what we've done wrong! This all happened because we gave birth to a good for nothing, useless piece of shit like you!!!"

Clovis struggled to breathe. The pressure... the stress... the shock... it was all catching up to him.

"We have him!" Clovis' mom yelled, "I dealt the first blow to him! Come on out now, he's all yours!"

Clovis' eyes widened as he looked up. From the back of the house, a marine emerged. His own parents had sold him out.

"Are you proud?" A woman's teased said from the door. She emerged, revealing a scantly cladded body wearing a purple top and bottoms. She wasn't dressed like the nearby marines but radiated the same harsh justice aura. She kept her hair in two buns which showed her childlike visage.

"You sell your daughter and help betray your son for a measly 20 million bounty. You're just as much scum as he is."

"Captain Tara, this man is worth only 12. Did you read the report?" Another officer interrupted.

"12. 20. Read. Shmead." Tara smirked. "I'm not paid to write reports all day."

"That's a majority...of the job though." Another officer replied.

"The next person to interrupt me has to go 20 rounds in the ring when we get back to the ship."

"Sorry Ma'am!" They all shouted in unison.

"Come on tubby, let's get going. Your pirate career is over." She snapped her fingers and an officer ran forward to cuff Clovis. "Hey look, prison'll toughen you up hopefully or maybe you can find yourself a nice husband in there that'll take care of your every need."

Clovis' eyes rounded at the sight of Tara. Another pesky marine. What a fool he had been to ever trust them. How stupid was he? Thinking he could make some deals with them and make a new life for himself. His parents, his village, the marines... they had all betrayed him. All those countless hours he spent being nothing but a punching bag for those large crows in the fields, none of it even mattered. People only cared about you as long as you were around to please him. As soon as it was done they didn't care to show any sort of respect or gratitude.

Clovis pulled the knife from his stomach and in the same motion cut the throat of the marine who dared to step towards him. He watched the marine bleed out and die in front of him. "I... I made a promise to myself!" he declared, "I won't back down no matter the odds!! You can cower behind your soldiers all you want but in the end you marines are all the same... you picked this fight with me!!!" Clovis pointed his knife at his own mother, then trailed his arm so that it would meet his father. "And you two, my very own parents... have picked their side!! I don't fear death but know that if I meet my end here it will only be after I have killed you all myself!!"

Something had changed within Clovis. Gone was that boy devoid of purpose. In his place was a man filled with a raging ambition for bloodlust. No one in this world could be trusted. At every step was another person trying to usurp the other in order to gain a better footing in the race. "I... I'm no longer that worthless failure you tried to convince me that I am!!!!"

Everywhere he looked, Clovis saw flashes of the little girl who was killed by the bomb that went off; the bomb that was given to him by the marines. He sprinted forward and roared into the room. "Come to your deaths, marines!!!"

"Damn. They killed Eugene. I liked Eugene." Tara said with a slight smile as Eugene bled like a pig at her feet. She let Clovis rant and rumble. She knew where he was coming from after all. That *man* she called a father, a being respected by Martial Artist throughout the world, devoted his life to that monstrous bitch. She didn't hate him though, like Clovis did his parents, but sometimes parents suck. Its what drove her to be a marine. To rise throughout the ranks and become strong enough to lead a charge into Wano herself. Where she'll arrest him and execute him for...

"Yeah yeah yeah. Marines are the real villains. I've heard this speech a million times." Tara looked at her men. "I want everyone outside the house and out of my way. Every exit with a gun pointed at it."

"What about you captain?"

Tara stretched. She cracked her knuckles, elbows and neck. Taking her signature stance with a low seated position and hands up in Tai Chi Chuan. "I'm just going to go with the flow."

"Motion is flow, Tara. Energy is movement." The old man said. His white beard flowing in the wind as he moved from stance to stance. His hands flowing down various rivers painted in the air. "Aikiryu is melding with this flow. Not just redirecting it but becoming one so that no one can tell where yours begin and theirs end."

Tara let Clovis get his anger at his parents. People who sell others should be executed either way. However, when he reached Eugene's fellow classmate, she'd appear right before Clovis's knife. Her hand tapping against the back of his palm in a circular motion so that it would be driven off path and past her. Her own hand riding his with the intent of popping Clovis' forehead with her knuckle. A seemingly weak strike with an intense burst.

Clovis' aim was to get rid of his parents first. But another marine cut him off first and Tara, after dismissing them, quickly came to his aid. Tara appeared right before Clovis' knife. He was unable to react to her movements as she tapped the back of his palm and set his aim off course. Clovis was disarmed before he could realize what had happened; the knife fell to the ground and his wrist snapped.

But he had no time to grimace over the mild pain before Tara's knuckles bashed into his forehead with the utmost grace. And yet while the motion of her hand hardly looked like it was capable of harming a fly it made Clovis' eyes roll back upon impact, sending him through the air until a coffee table in the kitchen cushioned his fall. "Urgghh!!"

Clovis got up quick, trying to shrug off the damage that was dealt to him. But the pain in his stomach was becoming unbearable. He felt like he was at a severe disadvantage now that he had seen the marine's bizarre fighting style.

"Listen my man," Tata started while approaching Clovis. She put her foot on his wound ever so lightly. And yet, it felt like a gigantic man stood atop CLois. A man so large he would break the ceiling simply by getting up. This was Aikiryu. The masterful manipulation of energy.

"I get it you're upset. But this is just life. Some people aren't born worth anything and they have to work and grind their way out. Those people become fate changers. And then there's others that sit there and cry about it." Tara kneeled over. "Guess which one you are and which one I am." She'd been born to similar conditions. A little girl adopted by the very man who made her an orphan. Raised on a Yonko's ship, forced to work for her life. She'd only escape several years ago and made her way back *home*. Only to find her remaining family had passed away to a plague.

*Yeah. This is just life.*

She brought her foot off his stomach in a low kick aimed at knocking him unconscious. "I'm done here."

Clovis gritted his teeth attempting to bear the excruciating pain of her foot digging into his wound. His voice poured out from behind his teeth. “Urrrgahhhhh!!!!!”

the kick to his face was a prayer answered. It sent him rolling across the floor, until bringing him slowly to a stop. His body slooped and for awhile he was stagnant, unmoving.

Just when it seemed like he had kicked the bucket, he coughed out a fountain of blood. Somehow he managed to get himself on his elbows. He looked at her. She had called him out for complaining too much so this time he said nothing. What was the point? This was life. He agreed with that.

"Tch." Tara bit her lip. No one else noticed it but she saw the ember sparking each passing second. *"I didn't kill you...I can see ti in you. It's small but it's there."* She was a woman born raised around men and women who served the Pirate Empress. She *saw* this every single day. It became something so recognizable that well....

"Any last words, worm?"

As she hovered over him, Clovis looked up at her. He was staring his death in the face. But he did not try to beg for his life or persuade her in any way. Death came to those who were fated to die. Whether she brought him death or he brought her death, there was no argument that could be made.

Clovis chose his words carefully. "Only those who have something to lose fear death. It is a power sentiment which is why it works so well as a bargaining chip. But not against me. To me, death is akin to salvation, a journey towards eternal freedom!" His glare intensified. "Kill me here or I promise you... one day you will die by my hands."

Tara's eyes widened. "I'll die by your hands?" She repeated gleefully. "I've grown tired of the small-fry in this sea but Master swears that I have to crawl before I walk."

"C-captain Tara...." An officer said slowly.

"But its so boring. I love fighting. I love standing against power and overcoming it."

"C-c-captain Tara." Another added.

"S-she's not going to do...."

"I think she is."

"How about this. I'll let you go. Turn a blind eye and all that good shit only if you keep that promise. Become strong enough so we can actually fight to the death without me feeling like I'm performing a mercy killing."

"SHE DID IT!" They all screamed.

"Justice is worth fighting for! If you want to fight for your freedom then that's my justice. That's Strong Justice!" Tara stood up and started walking off. "Come on you guys. That asshole got away." She said with an excited glee.

A promise of murder had freed Clovis' life? So it was true after all. Death was the greatest bargaining tool that there was. No one wanted to die. Except for those who had nothing in this world.

As he looked upon Tara's departing form, Clovis was reminded of the crow beetles who lived in the nearby fields of the island. They had abused Clovis when he was tied to that stake, but they never killed him. Because once he was dead they no longer had something to abuse and thus their fun would all be over. Tara wasn't sparing Clovis because she cared about him. She was sparing him for her own sake, for her own enjoyment. She was some psychotic piece of work who wanted to feel greater fulfillment in killing him than she felt now.

"H-Hey! Hold on a minute!" Clovis' father cried out, "where are you going?! We set this plan up for a reason --you can't leave without finishing your duty!"

"That man is a criminal!! He must be detained --or killed!! Aren't you the marines!?" Clovis' mother added in.

Slowly, Clovis stood up to his feet. "That man... happens to be your son." Tears streamed down Clovis' face and mixed with all the blood. "I see now... in this world everyone just wants to use each other. No one cares for loyalty. They only care about themselves."

Clovis found a piece of broken glass and ran forward. He had made up his mind. If the world had made him a criminal then he would embrace it. As he swiped at his father's throat, his father instead pulled his mother in front of himself. Clovis' father used his mother as a human shield and so Clovis slit her throat instead.

But he had no remorse, no reaction to give. It didn't surprise him that his father selfishly sacrificed his mom in order for his own survival. His mother's corpse fell to the ground and his father used that chance to run for the back exit.

"Loyalty is nothing but a temporary covering. Peel it off and you'll see the betrayal that lies underneath." Ironically, his parents had been betrayed by the marines, too. They called them here to kill Clovis and somehow the marines actually ended up sparing him. If his parents tried to kill him, why did it make him a terrible person to counterattack and kill them instead?

"I did so much for you fuckers!!!!" Clovis sprinted after his father. "I GAVE UP ALL MY DREAMS, ALL MY WANTS!!!" Clovis tackled his father and sat on top of him.

"N-No! Please!"

"ALL THOSE DAYS I COULD HAVE DIED YOU WERE MY ONLY MOTIVATION!!!" Clovis began to furiously stab his father's face and throat with the piece of glass. "I FELT SO USELESS BECAUSE OF YOU!!! I NEVER EVEN STOPPED TO DOUBT YOU, NOT EVEN ONCE!!! NO MORE!!! I WILL LIVE MY OWN LIFE!!!"

Stab. Stab. Stab.

Clovis sat back, having reduced his father's face into a puddle of meat stew splattered with ketchup. He began to breathe heavily. In this world where loyalty did not exist, you could trust no one.

'**FIN.**