Pairing: Zosan (maybe Sanzo)
Two days…two fucking days until his birthday. Sanji sighed, staring at his ceiling. He blinked a few times to get rid of the tears gathering in his eyes. He couldn't remember how long he was silently crying while staring straight ahead. Two more days until his siblings would get their familiars, and he wouldn’t. Two days left to make his father proud and get the chance to still get his familiar…except that he already gave up on that. He had years and didn't change anything about it! Years of torture and tries to be useful…to be not as much of a disgrace to his father as he thought.
A sob ripped through his throat as he turned around and screamed into his pillow. It hurt…physically hurt to know he would never meet his familiar. He stayed in bed all day, even when Reiju came and told him their father expected him at the training grounds. What was the point anymore? He wouldn't change his look on him - so why try? To ditch the beating he would get while training? Only to get beaten later because he didn't show up. It was the same. So why get up and walk outside? Why go through a fucking training routine he would never master? He would stay in bed and wait until his brothers would find him there.
They came five hours later, wrecked his room, beat him up, and left him on the floor - bleeding from several lacerations. Sanji hadn't any tears left to cry in pain, and so he lay there…still staring at the ceiling, waiting for the unconsciousness to take him to the darkness and hold him there for a while.
The next day was the same. He didn't even eat anything. He just stayed in his room, mostly in his bed, and felt like shit.
Midnight came, and with it, a pain that was unsettling for Sanji. It wasn't really hurting…it was like a constant buzzing in his whole body - like electricity running through him, stimulating his muscles, and starting to overstimulate him every hour. His body felt weird…he could feel every hair on it! He wanted to rip his clothes off his body, scratch his skin from his muscles, and tear his muscles from his bones! Sleep was over as soon as the feeling started, and Sanji was back at staring holes into his ceiling or wall. It was bad…so fucking bad, and he couldn't do anything against it.
He knew Judge would talk to his siblings right after breakfast, so Sanji made his way to the throne room. Maybe he would at least be allowed to see how his siblings summoned their familiars.
“You aren't allowed in there,” one of the guards said when Sanji approached the big doors of the throne room.
“An order from His Majesty. We have to make sure you aren't getting in there and disturb the ritual.”
“I just wanted to watch…”
“Don’t make us take you to the dungeon!” The other guard spat in his direction.
Sanji stumbled backward and shook his head so fast his head started to spin.
“I…I won’t! I promise! Can I…Am I allowed to stay here? Outside? I want to congratulate my siblings after they come out of the throne room.”
The guards looked at each other and then back at Sanji. One nodded, and Sanji sat down.
It took almost two hours for the big doors to open, and his siblings came out. Sanji stared at them with an open mouth. His siblings didn’t look at him, not even a short glance.
Beside Ichiji walked a majestic lion with black wings that was at least one head taller than him. Niji had an big eagle with an iron beak and claws. Yonji’s familiar turned out to be a huge silverback gorilla with stone fists and Reiju got a snake that was bigger than her with a blade as it’s tail tip.
The deadly Germa soldiers just got deadlier, Sanji thought.
He watched them walk down the hallway and out the front gate. They undoubtedly were heading for the training grounds. With a painful sigh, he stood up and followed them. He didn’t want to train, but he wanted to see what their familiars could do.
It was a mess! The animals weren't listening to them. They did what they wanted. The lion attacked the Germa soldiers standing by and watching. The eagle flew away, so Niji had to run after him. Yonji’s gorilla destroyed one of the smaller watch towers beside the training grounds, and Reiju’s sake started to spit venom everywhere.
Sanji quickly took cover behind a big part of the watch tower that the gorilla had thrown over. He watched in disbelief and slight horror how the familiars destroyed the inner yard.
It took over three hours to calm them down. But calming them down wasn't even the right word. Ichiji had a cable wrapped around the neck of his lion and almost choked him into unconsciousness. Niji fastened a heavy rope around the feet of his eagle so it couldn't fly away anymore - he had been seconds away from breaking the poor animal's wing. Yonji’s gorilla was knocked unconscious by him with a part of the stone tower he had destroyed. Reiju put a makeshift muzzle onto her snake that tightened every time it tried to open its mouth. The blade tail was still swinging wildly. But not for long, because Yonji put a heavy stone on it, so it was trapped to the ground. All the animals were screaming and whining in pain and stress.
Suddenly, Sanji felt relieved that he didn't have a familiar. He wouldn't be able to do such cruel things to it even if it would have tried to kill him. His heart felt somehow lighter, but the underlying pain that had settled in his body was still there and stared to get worse again.
He stood up and walked back inside, not willing to watch how his siblings' familiars would be punished and tortured.
He could hear their screams and cries all the way to his room.
It took almost three months to break the animals. Three months of constant cries, inflicted by whips and chains and bullets, injections of poison and sedatives, and things Sanji didn't even want to imagine. The poor animals fought hard against their human’s behaviors...but in the end, they had no chance. It was either obey and live or disobey and die, so they had no real decision to make.
It broke Sanji’s heart every time he saw the lifeless and pain-filled eyes of the familiars. The way his mother always described the bond between humans and their familiars, he always thought both were hurt if pain was inflicted on one of them. But then again, his siblings were used to pain…Also, Sanji believed that not one of his siblings was able to form a stable and healthy bond with their familiar. They all were emotionless, and that surely was why their animals didn't listen to them. They weren’t able to communicate through an emotional bond, so they were just animals…it was heart breaking.
Sanji woke up in a cold sweat and frantically looked around. Someone had called his name. Urgently called his name, and that pain he felt since his birthday fleared up again. Whimpering, he curled up on his side. There was no one in his room calling him, and when he ignored the pain, it would eventually go away. It took two hours to stop, and another two for Sanji to go back to sleep.
But it wasn't peaceful for long because the calling started again shortly after Sanji fell asleep again, and with it, the pain came back. It was torture, and he couldn't do anything against it. He didn't even know why it happened, and that was the worst part. When Judge tortured him, he knew when it started and when it would end. He knew why, and he knew what to expect most of the time. It was the same with his brothers. But this? This crawling pain that felt like ants were eating him from the inside…this hammering inside his skull every time his name was called from fuck knew where. He couldn't handle it!
The doctors said they didn't know why this happened to him. But Sanji saw the lie in their eyes. They knew they just didn't want to tell him or couldn't tell him because Judge had told them so.
Sanji‘s life changed after his siblings got their familiars. He wasn't ordered to the training grounds anymore because now there wasn't even a slight chance that he would catch up to his siblings. He wasn't ordered to the big tests because now they changed to fit not only his siblings but also their familiars. The only thing that stayed the same was Judge‘s experiments on him. He still tried to get rid of Sanji‘s emotions and now with newly found vigour as it seemed.
Every time Sanji woke up on the big metal table at the lab, he felt like he had died and was brought back. Honestly, he really believed that! And every time he woke up, there was that lingering pain again under his skin, and his own name echoed through his head in a voice he was sure he had never heard before.
“Damn…” he mumbled, holding his head as he sat up.
Pain shot through him, and he thought he’d fall unconscious again because of it. After a few minutes, it started to subside, and Sanji left the lab. He walked back to his room to change into new clothes.
His name was yelled, and it felt like a force was pushing him forward. He stumbled to the ground and groaned in pain when his head hit the floor.
The voice suddenly sounded concerned. Was he finally going mad? Barring his teeth, he pushed up from the ground and started walking again.
Then he started running, as fast as his feet would carry him. Maybe in the hopes of avoiding this voice. Maybe he could outrun it! Hopefully, he could outrun it!
“Shut up…” Sanji mumbled and covered his ears - he knew it wouldn't help, he tried it again and again.
Back in his room, he started banging his head against the wooden frame of his bed. It helped, somehow. The pain overshadowed the voice, which became increasingly concerned until it fell silent again. Sanji sighed and let his head sink against the soft matrice instead of the hard wood.
“Why can't you just shut up without me almost bashing my own head in?”
Sanji cried silently until he fell asleep, kneeling in front of his bed. It all was too much! The experiments, the pain, the fact that he got more and more separated from his family - even if they all tortured him - the voice! That fucking voice he didn't know and didn't know why it was suddenly there! He had to be mad, didn't he?! It was the only explanation he found for it. Why else would he hear voices inside his head?
