Where… where was he? Varin couldn't remember the last… minutes. His body was moving on autopilot, and there was that sweet taste in his mouth, good, easily the best thing he'd ever tasted, Better than anything Sanji had made, honestly. He wanted more, even though his focus wasn't on the meal in front of him.
Where was Vivi? He looked around, and… ah, there she was, peeking out from behind some rubble to his left. How had she survived the fall? Maybe… had he helped her? He must have. How else would she be alive?
He shook his head. Didn't matter. She was safe, and Varin was eating, whatever it was he was eating. He wondered briefly if Vivi would want some, but the thought got stomped down quickly. He was always so protective, so helpful. He could be selfish this one time.
Though Varin was curious about where Enel had gone. Had the man fallen into the ocean below? That would mean he was dead, right? They'd won against an invincible Logia. Varin laughed at that, a low, rough sound that scraped out of his throat. They'd actually won. By the skin of their teeth, judging by how he couldn't even see properly right now, let alone feel much of anything beyond the taste filling his mouth. But they'd beaten the lightning god.
He noticed Vivi flinch backward at the sound of his laughter, and he looked closer at her. She was… scared? No. Beyond scared. Even when she'd nearly died to Crocodile, she hadn't looked like this. She was terrified. Horrified. By something in Varin's direction.
But what? He looked right. Nothing but rubble and a bit of blood, but Nothing worth being scared of. He looked back at her. Her eyes kept flicking between him and his meal. He still didn't know what he was eating. His gaze dropped down, and for the first few seconds, it was fuzzy, blurred at the edges like his vision hadn't caught up to the rest of him. But he could make out the color red.
Then slowly, it focused.
And he kept eating. No. This wasn't eating. This was devouring. He was devouring the corpse of something that had once been a man, in his hands, a long earlobe that he slurped up like spaghetti, the cartilage crunching between his teeth before sliding down. His claws were buried wrist-deep in the ruin of the god's chest, the same chest he'd put his hand through earlier, except now there was nothing left of the wound to distinguish from the rest of the damage. Everything was ruin. Flesh peeled back in wet strips, muscle fibers separating under his teeth like they were meant to come apart this way. The broken architecture of ribs, all of it disappearing between his teeth in steady, mechanical bites that his mind only seemed to be witnessing rather than directing.
Blood ran down his chin, warm and thick, pooling in the hollow of his throat. He could taste iron, copper, and sugary sweetness. His own pulse hammered somewhere distant and irrelevant, drowned out by the singular, screaming satisfaction radiating from somewhere far beneath conscious thought. Every swallow sent warmth flooding through him, every bite brought that hunger closer to sated, and it wasn't enough, it would never be enough, there was always more to consume, always another piece to tear away and make disappear.
A piece of what had once been a shoulder joint came loose in his mouth, the ball of it popping free with a wet sound. He chewed through the cartilage, felt it give way under the pressure of his jaw, and swallowed it whole. The motion sent fresh waves of satisfaction through him, bright and electric and absolutely euphoric.
His hands worked independently now, claws raking through what remained, separating muscle from bone with the efficiency of something that had done this before. In the back of his mind, some distant, drowning part of himself screamed. Screamed and screamed and couldn't be heard over the roar of appetite finally being fed.
He didn't remember reaching for the face. Didn't remember his teeth closing around what had once been an eye socket, the soft collapse of it, the slight resistance before it gave way entirely. Didn't remember any of it, but his body did. His body knew exactly what it was doing.
It tasted like victory. Like proof. Like every year, on that iceberg had been worth enduring just to arrive at this exact moment, tearing apart something that had called itself untouchable and finding out it bled and broke and ended just like everything else.
He didn't want to stop. That realization should have terrified him. Some distant, smaller part of him understood that much, screaming somewhere behind the haze, but the scream didn't carry any real weight. It was background noise next to the overwhelming, consuming clarity of the hunger actually being fed for the first time in longer than he could remember.
A wet, broken sound reached him, small and choked. Varin's head turned toward it before his mind caught up with the motion. Vivi had both hands pressed over her mouth, shoulders shaking, eyes wide and wet, and fixed on him with an expression that didn't belong on her face. Not the steady, composed look she wore even when facing down assassins. Not the grief she'd worn over her country's suffering. Something rawer than either of those things. Something that looked, horribly, like she was looking at a stranger wearing Varin's skin. The sound came from her again, shorter this time, swallowed almost as soon as it escaped.
Varin froze. His jaw stopped moving mid-motion, claws still buried in the wreckage beneath him, and for one long, suspended second, the world snapped back into a kind of clarity he hadn't realized was missing. The taste in his mouth turned to ash immediately, replaced by something cold and sour climbing up the back of his throat. He looked down at his hands. Red, to the elbow. Pieces of something he didn't want to name anymore scattered across the broken stone beneath him. The smell hit him properly for the first time, the iron and copper and something worse underneath it, and his stomach turned violently enough that he nearly retched right there.
"Vivi," he said, and his voice came out wrong, Smaller than he'd ever heard it.
She flinched at the sound of her own name. Varin's hands shook as he pulled them back from the corpse, scrambling backward across the rubble on instinct alone, putting distance between himself and what remained of Enel like the distance might undo what had already happened. His back hit a slab of broken stone hard enough to jar his spine, and he barely registered the impact. His chest heaved, he tried to vomit, he slammed his hands into his stomach, trying to force the sweet, disgusting flesh out of him.
His body refused to cooperate. His stomach clenched violently, twisting hard enough to make him double over, but nothing came up beyond a thin string of bile. The taste remained stubbornly lodged in the back of his throat, rich and warm and familiar in a way that made his skin crawl. He could still feel pieces of it between his teeth. Still feel it sliding down his throat if he focused too hard. Every instinct screamed at him to get it out, to tear open his own stomach if he had to, but the damage was already done. What he'd eaten wasn't sitting in his mouth anymore. It was inside him.
That thought sent another wave of nausea crashing through him, but even as his stomach twisted, another realization followed close behind it, and that one was somehow worse. The taste hadn't become disgusting when he'd realized what he was eating. It should have. The moment he'd looked down and recognized Enel's body, recognized the flesh hanging from his claws and the blood soaking his hands, every trace of enjoyment should have vanished. Instead, it had lingered. Even now, beneath the horror and revulsion and panic, he could still remember how good it had tasted, and some dark corner of his mind remembered it fondly.
His gaze drifted toward the corpse before he consciously realized he was moving. The ruined remains of Enel lay scattered across broken stone, torn beyond any clean shape, and for a brief, horrible moment, Varin found himself staring. Not with horror. Not with disbelief. He was staring because something inside him was still interested. Still curious. Still hungry enough to wonder how much remained.
He snapped upright so fast his body nearly betrayed him, stumbling forward before his boots caught. His claws closed around what was left of Enel without hesitation, dragging the broken mass up from the stone like erasing it would undo the act. The moment he lifted it, pieces gave way, slipping through his grip and dropping with wet sounds that echoed wrong in the sudden silence. He didn't stop to hear them properly.
He threw the corpse over the edge. It vanished into the clouds beneath Skypiea without resistance, swallowed by the white void below as if it had never been. For a fraction of a second, he stood still. Then his gaze dropped. The pieces that had fallen during the motion were still there, scattered across broken stone. His stomach twisted hard enough to bend him at the waist, but he forced himself forward anyway, grabbing them one after another with shaking hands. Each fragment hit the edge and disappeared into the sky below. It still was not enough.
The rubble beneath it all was stained red where blood had soaked into stone. The sight made something in his chest tighten violently, so Varin dropped to his knees and started tearing the battlefield apart. Chunks of stone were ripped free and hurled over the edge with increasing force, no longer careful, no longer precise. Anything stained went. Then anything touched. Then anything that simply looked wrong under his gaze. The sound of stone breaking filled the air as he worked, his breath coming in harsh, uneven bursts, his claws scraping and cracking against the surface like he could physically dig the moment out of existence.
Still, he didn't slow. Even as the last traces of Enel disappeared into the clouds below, Varin kept going, throwing rubble until there was almost nothing left. Until the ground itself looked bare in places where he'd stripped it down to untouched stone.
Only then did his hands finally hesitate. His chest rose and fell in heavy, uneven pulls of air. The silence that followed was worse than the fight had been. Because now there was nothing left to erase. And nothing left to distract him from the fact that erasing it hadn't changed a single thing.
"V—Varin." Her voice came slowly, uneven, like saying his name carried weight she hadn't fully agreed to carry. It was careful in the way people are when they're standing too close to something that might break.
He cut in before she could finish. "If you tell me to throw myself over as well, I'll do it," he said simply, his voice filled with flat, exhausted honesty that made the words worse instead of better, because it was clear he meant it.
The sound of her stepping forward stopped mid-motion. Then she shifted back instead, a small retreat of instinct more than decision, and Varin heard it clearly even without looking. The scrape of her foot against stone. The distance being put between them, like her body had made the choice without asking permission first.
He still didn't turn around. Not because he was afraid of what she'd say, but because he didn't trust what it would do to him if he saw it on her face. So he stayed where he was, crouched over broken stone, hands still clenched tight enough that his claws threatened to break through skin. His breathing was heavy at first, uneven, but it began to settle in slow, reluctant stages. Each cycle dragged him a fraction further from the edge, though it never quite reached anything resembling calm.
Behind him, Vivi didn't speak right away. That silence hurt more than words would have. Because it gave his imagination too much room to work with. Too many versions of her expression. Too many ways this could end with her looking at him the way he'd seen her look at monsters before.
He stiffened a moment later. Not from her words. Because Vivi didn't respond the way his mind had been bracing for. She hugged him, tight. So tight it wasn't gentle reassurance anymore, it was something stubborn. Something that felt like a choice being made in real time, like she'd decided in that exact moment that she wasn't letting him drift any further away than he already had.
Varin went completely still. Every muscle locked at once, like his body had forgotten what to do with contact that wasn't violence or impact. His breath caught halfway and just stayed there.
"I'm glad you're okay," she said quietly, her voice pressed into his back, muffled by skin and exhaustion and something that sounded like she was holding herself together more than him. Her forehead rested against him, right at the dip in his spine, one of the few places that wasn't soaked in blood.
The words didn't make sense at first, maybe because Varin's mind refused them outright. There was nothing okay about this. Nothing about what she'd just watched him do.\ His hands twitched where they hung at his sides, unsure whether to lift or stay still. Every instinct screamed at him to move away, to create distance, to undo the contact before it became something worse.
He didn't, because he couldn't reconcile what he expected with what was actually happening. She should have been afraid. She had been afraid. He saw the way she'd flinched from him like he was something that had crawled out of a nightmare.
And yet her arms didn't loosen; if anything, they tightened again, just slightly, like she was reinforcing a decision she wasn't going to let herself back out of.
Varin swallowed. It felt wrong in his throat, like even that simple motion didn't belong to him right now. "Don't," he managed finally, voice rough and low, the closest to begging she had heard from him. "Don't do that."
She didn't answer right away. Just held on tighter for a moment, like she was afraid the second she let go, he'd disappear back into whatever had happened just a few minutes ago.
Varin's shoulders twitched under her grip. "I'm serious," he said quietly, and there was nothing sharp in it. Just exhaustion sitting under every word. "You shouldn't be near me right now."
Vivi didn't move away. Her forehead stayed pressed against his back, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped completely out of anything resembling humor. "I know what I saw," she said softly. Varin's fingers tightened without meaning to, his claws digging into his own palms. "And I know what you are," she continued, slower now, like she was choosing each word carefully. "I know what you did. I know you're hating yourself more than I could possibly understand right now." Her breathing changed, less controlled now, more human, more uncertain. Like she was trying to hold onto him while also trying not to break under the weight of what she was admitting. "I'm not here to punish you," she said. "I'm not afraid of you like that." Varin tensed even more at the words, every muscle in his back locking like his body had been bracing for a blow and found one anyway. "But I am scared," she admitted, and this time there was no attempt to hide it. "Not of you. Of what you think you are right now." Her arms tightened slightly again, anchoring herself as much as anchoring him.
Varin tensed even more, and then, slowly, some of that rigidity drained out of him. Not all of it, but enough that his breathing changed, enough that the panic in his chest gave way to something rawer. "Back on Alabasta," he said quietly, still not turning because he didn't trust himself to see her face while saying it, "Toto mentioned you liked me. If that was true, if it's still true, don't tell the others about this. Not yet….please"
The words sat between them, awkward and too honest, carrying the faintest trace of something embarrassed beneath the exhaustion. He hated how small he sounded. Hated that he was asking her for secrecy when the rest of him felt peeled open and left exposed on this broken battlefield. But he meant it.
Vivi didn't answer right away. That silence made him tighten again despite himself, waiting for the sound of her leaving, the careful footsteps moving away. Then her arms loosened just slightly, though she didn't step back. "I'm not telling anyone," she said quietly. "But you have to promise me you'll tell them soon. Promise me you won't decide you're something they're supposed to hate before they've even had the chance to see you." She swallowed, and he could feel it against his back. "Promise me," she said again, softer this time, "you won't make decisions about what you deserve without letting them choose first."
Varin let out a breath that sounded like it had to be dragged out of him. "I… I promise," he said quietly. Vivi finally let go, but Varin still didn't turn around. "....You're too nice for your own damn good, princess," he muttered, voice somewhat lighter though it didn't mean much.
"Ex-princess," she corrected, stepping back now, her voice carrying a faint edge of something that might've been amusement if it hadn't been shaking slightly. "I did leave for you guys after all."
"Smart ass," Varin rumbled, and this time there was actual warmth under it, the kind that suggested he was trying on normalcy again and finding it fit a little better than he expected.
He finally turned around. Vivi was standing a few feet away, her dress torn and stained, her hair a mess, her eyes still red from either tears or fear or some combination of both. She looked exhausted. She looked shaken. She also looked, somehow, like she was exactly where she'd decided to be.
"You're bleeding," she said, noting the red across his hands and up his arms.
"Not mine," he said flatly.
She flinched slightly at that but didn't look away. "We should get back to the others," she said instead. "The others will be worried."
Varin nodded slowly. The idea of facing them, of carrying what had just happened down the beanstalk and back to the Ark Maxim, suddenly felt like climbing a mountain he wasn't sure his legs could manage. But she was right. They would be worried. They would be looking. "Aye," he said finally, pushing himself upright. His legs held, which was something. "Come on then."
They walked in silence for a few minutes, stepping over rubble and cloud debris. The ship was gone, along with the island itself, so the best bet they had was heading back toward where they'd first faced off against Enel and left the wounded ones behind. Varin's thoughts were too loud in the quiet. So he broke it. "How did he die?"
Vivi squeaked slightly, jumping at the gravel in his voice. "Huh?"
"How did Enel die?" Varin said. His voice was steadier now, but still rough around the edges. "I don't remember anything since the fall."
Vivi walked a few more steps before answering, like she needed the time to decide what to say. When she did, her voice came careful and measured, as if she was choosing each word specifically.
"You caught him," she said quietly. "Before he could get away. You were riding him down with your Haki, not letting him escape." She paused, stepping over a larger chunk of debris. "And then you hit the cloud layer below, and I lost sight of you both."
Varin waited for her to continue, but she didn't immediately. "That's it?" he asked.
"Uhm… when I first saw you…..you know," she said hesitantly, her voice barely carrying over the wind. "His uhm. Throat was missing, I think. So maybe… You tor—bit him while you were falling."
Varin's steps didn't falter, but something in his shoulders tightened. That piece of the puzzle clicking into place, confirmed by someone other than his own broken memory. His throat. Of course, it was his throat. That was the fastest way to stop a man from fighting back, from screaming, from being anything other than prey. He'd done that, treated a human as nothing more than a rabbit. "How did you survive?" he asked, curiosity mixing with his worry.
"Oh, I landed in a spot of… water? Cloud? The white sea," she said, her voice wavering slightly at the memory. "It hurt a lot, and I think I broke my wrist, but nothing that bad for how far we fell. I think I got lucky that specific cloud was dense enough not to sink right through either."
"You broke your wrist?" Varin asked, turning to face her fully and crouching. He reached out gently, taking her hands in his before she could pull away. His movements were careful now, almost reverent, like he was handling something far more fragile than he'd been treating anything else today. He turned her wrist slowly, examining it with more gentleness than his massive hands usually allowed. The joint was swollen, discolored already, the kind of damage that came from impact and impact alone.
"Why didn't you say so before you hugged me, you daft woman," he muttered, not looking up from the injury. There was no real heat in it, just exhaustion and something that sounded dangerously like affection wrapped in gruffness.
"Because you needed it more than I needed to complain," Vivi said simply. Varin made a low sound in his throat that might've been agreement or might've been disapproval. Hard to tell with him.
Vivi laughed, a genuine one this time, and the sound actually carried some warmth despite everything. "You got struck by lightning," she said, still smiling even as she gestured at him. "Held onto a living lightning rod, doing his best to fry you, and your fingers have been twitching this entire time. Part of your back, where I'm assuming he clawed you, is literally black." She tilted her head, studying him with the kind of look that suggested she was very much enjoying this moment of him being caught out. "I think I got off lucky with a few light shocks and a broken wrist."
Varin blinked at her. Then he looked down at his hands. His fingers were indeed twitching slightly, little involuntary movements that he'd been ignoring because ignoring things was easier than acknowledging them. He flexed them slowly, watching the movement like it belonged to someone else. "That's different," he muttered, but there was no real conviction in it.
"It's really not," Vivi said, and now there was definitely amusement in her voice. "You're going to let Chopper fuss over you, and you're going to do it without complaining, because if you don't, I'm going to tell Nami you offered to throw yourself off a cliff and we both know how she'll react to that."
Varin grimaced at the threat. "Blackmail. From a princess no less."
"Ex-princess," Vivi corrected again, that faint smile still playing at her mouth. "And yes. I'm getting very good at this."
He snorted despite himself, the sound rough but genuine. "Come on then. Before you collapse, and I have to carry you." Just as they started again, Varin spoke once more. "Thank you," he said, voice sincere.
"Don't," Vivi said immediately. "I think I would have forgiven just about anyone for just about anything." She shrugged slightly, like it meant nothing. "I mean, Robin was the right hand of the man who wanted to kill me, my father, and most of my people, and I actually like her a lot, so."
"Better, but not perfect," Varin said. "You tensed when I got close to check your wrist. Even if just for a moment." He paused. "And besides, Robin's a victim of circumstance."
"And you're not?" Vivi snapped back, her voice sharper now. "If you didn't have that damn wolf inside you, or whatever, you would have never done that. I know you, Varin. I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid of what's inside you."
Varin was quiet for a moment. "And that's different how?" he asked finally, voice flat.
Vivi stopped walking. "Because," she said, turning to face him fully, "one of those things you can control, and the other one you can't. You didn't ask for Fenrir. You didn't ask for…..that. But you're here, you're walking next to me, like a man, not the wolf"
"The part that matters is what I did," Varin said quietly. "The wolf doesn't get to excuse the man."
"The man doesn't get to condemn himself before anyone else gets a say," Vivi shot back. "You made me a promise, remember? You promised you wouldn't decide what you deserve without letting them choose first." She stepped closer, despite the exhaustion written across her face. "So stop deciding," she said. "And start trusting us to be smarter than you think we are."
"I trust that you're all fools," Varin said, turning around. "Fools who will fight for a monster that doesn't deserve it. I just ate a man, Vivi. How in the bloody hell can you excuse that?" He stepped closer, and Vivi instinctively took a step back.
He stopped immediately. The moment hung there between them, heavier than anything before it, because they'd both just acknowledged the truth underneath her reassurance. She could say the right words. She could hold him and mean it. But her body still remembered what it had seen.
Varin turned away again, shoulders tight. "Thank you, Vivi," he said quietly. "Truly. But don't make excuses for the ones who can't be redeemed. You've a good heart, but you're a bad liar."
"I'm not—" she started.
"Don't insult me by pretending you didn't." The wind moved across the broken city, carrying the smell of decaying ozone and blood. Vivi didn't have an answer for that. Not one that wouldn't be another lie. "When we get back," Varin said, his voice carrying that weight again, the kind that had no room for comfort, "you tell Chopper about the wrist. You tell the crew we won. You don't tell them the rest. Not yet. Not until I figure out how to say it without sounding like I'm asking for permission to die."
He started walking again, back toward where the others waited. And this time, Vivi followed at a distance, the space between them speaking louder than anything either of them could say.
"Come on," he said, voice lighter than he felt. "I may be a bastard, but I still like ya. Keep up, or scared or not, I'll have to carry you. Vivi didn't answer right away. Just picked up her pace slightly. The ruins of Skypiea stretched out before them, broken and empty. Neither of them looked back at the battlefield they were leaving behind. Varin's fingers twitched at his sides, the lightning damage still working its way through his nerves. His back burned where Enel's claws had carved black lines across his skin. His mouth still carried the taste of something he didn't want to name. But he kept walking. And Vivi walked with him, broken wrist and all, the distance between them no longer a chasm but just the space it took for two people who'd seen something ugly to figure out how to look at each other again.
It would have to be enough for now.
It would have to be.