☠️ 65 days of the curse remain…
The flickering lights above the dormitory hallway buzzed erratically as Luffy stood frozen, the dorm assignment board still lingering in his thoughts. His name… beside Lilith's. His soul… bound to a demon.
Everything should've felt unreal. But instead, a chilling silence swallowed his world.
Then—darkness.
The hallway around him suddenly vanished.
Like a switch flipped inside his mind, he was standing alone in an endless black void. The warmth of the academy was gone. No Ryo. No Lilith. No Sera. Only silence.
"W-What… where am I?" Luffy whispered, voice trembling.
A soft echo of footsteps answered him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Someone was approaching.
A figure emerged from the shadows. No… not someone.
Himself.
But twisted.
This version of Luffy had lifeless eyes. A sinister grin stretched across his face. His posture screamed mockery, confidence… and malice. He wore the same uniform, yet somehow, it looked like it was soaked in shadow.
"Heh… you've gotten soft," the dark Luffy sneered. "Baka."
Luffy stepped back. "What… the hell are you?"
"I'm you," it hissed. "The part you buried. The part that remembers what they did to you."
A chill raced down Luffy's spine.
He tried to deny it. "That's… not true. I moved on—"
"Liar."
The voice echoed louder now—more than just one.
The shadows around him began to whisper. Thousands of whispers. Cold. Familiar.
"I'm the one inside you… the real you."
"How could you just forget me?"
"Did you think pretending would make the pain vanish?"
The ground beneath him twisted, morphing into the old school hallway. His old school. The one he had hoped to forget.
Lockers. Dirty walls. That smell of ink and regret.
Voices returned. Laughter. But not the good kind.
Mockery.
He saw himself—young, hopeful, smiling—standing beside a friend. That friend. The one he trusted the most.
Then came the betrayal.
Luffy watched as the scene unfolded like a puppet show. His friend whispering lies. Turning others against him. Framing him.
"Pathetic," Dark Luffy laughed, stepping beside him. "You cried in front of them."
Luffy clutched his head. "Shut up…"
"They broke you. And now you pretend to be strong? You joke, laugh, act like you're okay. You're not."
"Shut UP!"
Luffy fell to his knees. The memory clawed at him like razors.
The hallway shifted again. The lockers melted into skeletal hands that reached for him. The laughter of his old classmates turned into distorted wails.
Dark Luffy crouched before him, eye to eye.
"You're still that boy. Afraid. Alone. A coward. A—"
"BAKA!"
Luffy screamed, throwing a punch.
It went through the shadow.
But something in him cracked.
A spark. A pulse.
From deep within, his soul rippled. Something ancient. Something not entirely his.
A single line echoed in the void.
"You cannot escape me… because I am you."
Then—
A burning sigil lit up on Luffy's chest.
The same cursed mark Lilith had spoken about.
The void trembled. A monstrous eye opened in the blackness above him. Watching. Waiting.
Luffy clutched his chest, screaming as the pain surged through him. But he didn't collapse.
He stood. Slowly.
Shaking.
But smiling.
"…I might be a baka…" Luffy whispered through gritted teeth, "…but I'm not that me anymore."
The void exploded into light.
And just like that—he woke up.
In his dorm bed. Covered in sweat.
His breath was ragged. The room was silent.
But something had changed.
The mark on his chest still glowed faintly under his shirt.
He touched it. It pulsed. Like a heartbeat.
Was it the curse?
No. It was him.
Somewhere inside, something had awakened.
And it wasn't going to stay quiet anymore.
End of Chapter 3☠️ 65 days of the curse remain… but the shadows have begun to stir.