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A five-year-old girl had just killed a grown man with her bare will made manifest. The impossibility of it didn't make it any less real.
King Riku's corpse lay sprawled in the rubble, aged beyond recognition. What had been a weathered but functional body now resembled a mummified centenarian—skin like ancient parchment, limbs withered to bone wrapped in leather, white hair scattered around his skull like dandelion seeds.
Elsa stared at the body for several long minutes, her chest heaving with ragged breaths. Her throat still burned from where his hands had squeezed the life from her. Red and black lightning had stopped crackling around her small fingers, but the memory of that power—that presence—lingered like an aftertaste.
Finally, she moved. Not toward the corpse, but to a loose stone near her feet. She picked it up—roughly the size of her fist—and hefted it experimentally. Then she threw it.
The stone bounced off King Riku's chest with a dull thud.
Nothing. No reaction. No movement.
She threw another. And another. Each stone striking dead flesh, testing for any sign of deception, any chance this was a trick and he'd suddenly lunge for her throat again.
But King Riku didn't move. Would never move again.
"I killed someone," Elsa whispered to the empty ruins. "I killed someone today."
The strange power that had erupted from her body retreated like a tide going out, disappearing back into whatever place it had come from. She felt hollow in its absence—empty and small and achingly mortal.
Her legs gave out. She sat heavily among the broken stones, her gaze fixed on her grandfather's corpse with an expression that should have been horror or guilt or terror.
But she felt... nothing.
Killing him had been like stepping on an ant. A necessary action. A problem solved. The man who'd murdered her sister and mother and tried to murder her—he was gone now, and she felt no more distress than if she'd swatted a mosquito.
Is something wrong with me?
The thought crept through her mind like ice water. Normal people felt bad when they killed, didn't they? She'd heard stories where heroes agonized over taking life, where even justified killings haunted them forever. Yet here she sat, staring at her grandfather's desiccated corpse, and the only thing she felt was a vague curiosity about why she didn't feel worse.
"Mama," she whispered, drawing her knees up to her chest and burying her face against them. "Is this what killing feels like? Why doesn't my heart hurt? Am I... am I a bad person?"
The ruins offered no answer. Only silence and the distant sounds of Dressrosa tearing itself apart.
Elsa sat that way for a long time, talking to herself because there was no one else left to talk to. The events of this day had carved something fundamental out of her soul—something that should have been innocence or hope or trust in the basic goodness of the world.
When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were dry and clear. The tears had stopped. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing dirt and dried blood across her cheeks.
Who do I even blame for this? she wondered, her young mind trying to make sense of cascading tragedies. King Riku killed Mama and Anna. But he did it because of Doflamingo. But Doflamingo only became a problem because Eren started the Rumbling. But Eren only came here because of that Straw Hat boy I met in the restaurant.
The chain of causality stretched backward infinitely, each link depending on the one before it. She could hate King Riku, but he was already dead. She could hate Doflamingo, but he'd fled the island. She could hate Eren or Luffy or any of the others, but what good would that do?
Maybe I should just hate everyone, she decided with the absolute logic only a traumatized child could possess. Hate this whole dark world. Being born was a mistake. I wish I'd never existed.
The thought settled over her like a shroud, and for a moment she simply sat there, a tiny figure among the ruins, contemplating a universe that had shown her nothing but cruelty.
Then her stomach growled.
The sound was so unexpected, so mundane in the face of existential despair, that it almost startled her into laughing. She pressed a hand against her belly, feeling the hollow ache of hunger. She hadn't eaten since breakfast—before the festival, before the titans, before everything had gone so terribly wrong.
I need food, she thought, the practical need overriding philosophy. But where would I find anything in this wasteland?
She stood on shaky legs and looked around the devastated landscape. Scorched earth. Broken stone. Not a plant in sight, much less anything edible. No way Mama's cakes would magically appear in these ruins. Probably not even a single piece of fruit—
Wait.
Her gaze snagged on something in the corner of her vision. A splash of color against the gray and brown monotony. She turned her head slowly, hardly daring to believe what she was seeing.
A plant. An actual, living plant somehow growing from a crack in the rubble. And on that plant, hanging like a bizarre ornament, was a fruit that looked vaguely like an apple—if apples were covered in intricate swirling patterns that resembled falling snow.
That's... impossible, she thought, approaching it cautiously. Nothing should be growing here. Not after the explosion.
But there it was, defying all logic. The fruit was about the size of her face, its surface decorated with patterns that seemed to shift when she looked at them directly. She'd never seen an apple that looked anything like this.
Her stomach growled again, more insistently this time.
"If it's poisonous, it'll just make me sick," she muttered, reaching out to pluck the fruit from its stem. "At least my stomach will be full."
She held it in both hands, studying the strange patterns one more time. Then, before she could second-guess herself, she opened her mouth and bit down.
The taste that flooded her mouth was indescribable—and not in a good way. It was like someone had taken everything disgusting in the world—rotting fish, bitter medicine, spoiled milk, burnt hair—and concentrated it into a single bite of fruit. Her face immediately twisted into a grimace of pure revulsion.
"Ugh! Ughhh!" Tears sprang to her eyes, but whether from the taste or from sheer misery at her situation, she couldn't tell. "This is the worst thing I've ever tasted!"
But she was so hungry. So desperately, achingly hungry. And she'd already taken one bite, so what did it matter?
With tears streaming down her face and an expression of profound martyrdom, Elsa forced herself to keep eating. Bite after disgusting bite. The fruit seemed to actively fight against being consumed, each mouthful worse than the last. By the time she reached the core, she was crying openly, her face scrunched up in misery.
"Never... again," she gasped between bites. "Never eating... another apple... ever..."
She even ate the core out of sheer stubborn determination not to waste a single bit of this horrible experience. When the last piece finally disappeared down her throat, she sat back with a groan, her stomach pleasantly full even if her taste buds were staging a rebellion.
Then the cold hit.
It started deep in her belly—a chill that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with something fundamental changing inside her body. The sensation spread outward like frost crawling across glass, reaching her limbs, her chest, her head.
"Ah... ACHOO!"
The sneeze came without warning. And in the direction she'd sneezed, a large boulder suddenly changed. Ice crystals bloomed across its surface, spreading from a central point like a time-lapse video of winter arriving. Within seconds, the entire stone was encased in thick frost, frozen solid from the inside out.
Elsa stared at the frozen boulder, then at her hands, then back at the boulder.
"Did I... did I do that?"
She noticed other changes too. Her hair—which had always been the same golden blonde as Doflamingo's—had transformed into pure silver, like moonlight made solid. When she caught her reflection in a shard of polished stone, she saw that her eyes had changed as well. No longer their original color, but a striking, crystalline blue.
Memory surfaced—Senior Pink explaining something to her during one of their shopping trips, his baby outfit incongruous with the serious topic. "There are these things called Devil Fruits in this ocean, Elsa. They give people special powers, but they taste absolutely terrible. If you ever find one, you'll know immediately because nothing else tastes that bad."
"A Devil Fruit," she breathed, understanding dawning. "I ate a Devil Fruit."
The frost powers. The transformation. The impossible fruit growing in impossible circumstances. It all made a terrible kind of sense.
"But why here? Why now?" She looked around the ruins as though they might answer. "Did God put it here? Was this... was this meant for me?"
The theological implications were too much for a five-year-old to process. She decided to focus on the practical instead: she had power now. Real power. Not just that strange lightning-aura that had saved her from King Riku, but something she could use, could control, could turn into tools for survival.
"I can make ice," she said experimentally, holding out her hand. A thin layer of frost crept across her palm, responding to her will like it had been waiting for permission. "That's... that's actually amazing."
Then she looked down at herself and grimaced. Her dress—the beautiful one Mama had sewn with such care—was torn to shreds from crawling through the rubble. Blood from small scratches marked her arms and legs. She looked like a disaster survivor, which she supposed she was.
"I wish I had clean clothes," she muttered. "Something nice. Something that isn't falling apart."
The ice responded to her desire before she'd even finished the thought.
Frost and snow erupted from her body, swirling around her in a miniature blizzard. The particles moved with purpose, weaving together like invisible hands were stitching fabric from frozen water. Within moments, her tattered dress had been replaced by something far more elegant—a flowing gown of crystalline blue that seemed to shimmer in the light, complete with a translucent white cloak that draped across her shoulders like morning mist.
Elsa gasped, spinning in place to watch the cloak billow behind her. The ice clothing didn't feel cold against her skin. If anything, it felt comfortable—like it was part of her rather than something she was wearing.
"It's beautiful," she whispered, her voice filled with wonder for the first time since this nightmare had begun. "I look like... like a princess from one of Mama's stories."
The transformation from traumatized victim to elegant young noble felt surreal. Her silver hair and blue dress created an image of otherworldly grace—something that might have stepped out of a fairy tale rather than a war zone.
If I can make clothes, she thought, her mind already leaping ahead, maybe I can make other things too. A way to leave this place without walking.
She'd never ridden a horse before, but she'd seen them in the streets. Big, powerful animals that could carry people long distances. Could her ice create something like that?
"A horse," she said aloud, exhaling deliberately. "I want a horse made of ice."
The cold breath leaving her lungs coalesced in midair, the vapor compressing and solidifying until a full-sized horse stood before her. But this was no ordinary steed—its body was formed entirely from translucent ice that caught and reflected light like a living prism. Steam rose from its nostrils with each breath, and when it moved, the sound was like wind chimes made of crystal.
The ice horse turned its head to look at its creator, then lowered itself into a kneeling position, clearly inviting her to climb aboard.
Elsa approached cautiously, reaching out to stroke the horse's neck. The ice was smooth and cool beneath her small hand, but not unpleasantly so. "You're amazing," she whispered. "Are you... are you alive?"
The horse snorted steam in response, as close to communication as a construct of frozen water could manage.
Taking a deep breath for courage, Elsa climbed onto the horse's back, settling herself as comfortably as she could. Her hands gripped the creature's mane—thin strands of ice that looked like they should cut but felt soft as silk.
"Take me home," she said quietly. "Please. I need to go home."
The ice horse stood smoothly, lifting her high into the air. Then, before she could wonder how exactly this was supposed to work, two magnificent wings of crystalline ice unfurled from the creature's sides.
"You can fly?!" Elsa's voice cracked with excitement, the first genuine positive emotion she'd felt in hours. "Your wings are so beautiful!"
The horse preened at the praise, tossing its icy mane. Then it leaped forward, wings catching the air with impossible grace, and suddenly they were flying—soaring above the devastated King's Plateau like something out of a dream.
For a moment, Elsa forgot everything. The terror. The loss. The blood on her hands and the corpses left behind. She was flying on a magical ice horse, the wind rushing past her face, the whole ruined city spread out below like a broken toy.
She laughed—high and bright and achingly young—because how could she not? This was incredible! This was freedom!
The ice horse maintained a steady pace, and within a minute, the flower field cottage came into view. The structure that had survived Baby 5's explosion through Violet's desperate protection. The place that had been home.
Elsa's laughter died in her throat as the horse descended.
She knew what waited inside that cottage. Knew what she'd find behind that familiar door.
But some part of her—the part that was still just a little girl who wanted her mother—held onto a desperate, irrational hope that maybe, somehow, it had all been a bad dream. Maybe Mama would be inside baking, and Anna would be playing with her dolls, and everything would be okay.
The ice horse touched down gently in front of the cottage door.
Elsa slid from its back, her legs trembling as her feet found solid ground.
The door stood slightly ajar, just as King Riku had left it when he'd pursued her into the ruins.
Behind that door lay either impossible hope or unbearable reality.