Pierre stumbled as he followed Leo up the narrow stairs to the main deck, his legs unsteady after days confined to his cabin. The worn wooden steps beneath his feet seemed to shift and sway, though whether from the ocean's movement or his own weakness, he couldn't tell. Each step sent a tremor through his weakened frame, the simple act of climbing suddenly as challenging as scaling a mountain.

"Careful, Captain," Leo murmured, glancing back with concern etched deeply into his young face, his large dark eyes wide with worry.

Pierre nodded, focusing intensely on each step as if it required all his concentration. The simple porridge in his stomach felt heavy but grounding—a reminder of his humanity that pushed back against Valerio's cold calculations still reverberating through his mind like an unwelcome guest that refused to leave.

The hatch opened, and sunlight slammed into Pierre with physical force, a brilliant assault after days in darkness. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, momentarily blinded after days in the dim confines of his cabin. The salt air rushed into his lungs, sharp and clean, so different from the stale atmosphere below—it felt like his first real breath in days.

As his vision adjusted, the Crimson Sparrow spread before him in all her imperfect glory. Valerio's voice immediately began cataloging flaws with merciless precision: Port gunwale misaligned by 0.7 centimeters. Canvas tension asymmetrical. Deck planking shows irregular spacing. Inefficient wind capture angle on the mainsail.

Pierre gripped the sea-blue stone at his throat, his fingers wrapping around it desperately, using its solid presence to anchor himself against the relentless tide of obsessive thoughts threatening to drown his own consciousness.

The ship fell quiet in waves—first the rhythmic work sounds, then the rustling of movement, until only the wind in the sails and the slap of water against the hull remained. Pierre looked up to see Raven frozen at the helm, her mismatched red and white hair whipping around her face like a flag of warning. Her blue eyes narrowed, cat-like pupils contracting as she assessed him with the wariness one might show a wounded predator that could still strike.

Near the port railing, Alyssa stood with a rope half-coiled in her elegant hands. Her platinum blonde hair had been hastily tied back, escaping strands framing her face like silver threads. Unlike Raven's cautious stillness, Alyssa's body tensed forward, her posture betraying internal conflict, as if caught between rushing toward him and maintaining her distance.

Leo quietly stepped aside, moving to a spot near the mainmast where he could observe without intruding, clutching his ever-present broom like a talisman.

The silence stretched taut as a bowstring, heavy with unspoken questions.

Alyssa broke first, dropping the rope with a soft thud and striding toward him, shoulders back in that regal posture that seemed ingrained in her very bones. Her pale green eyes snapped with a familiar imperious fire, but Pierre caught the shadows beneath them, the tightness around her mouth that spoke of sleepless nights.

"What are you doing out of bed?" she demanded, her voice carrying that aristocratic edge she reverted to when threatened or worried. "You should be resting. You're barely recovered!" The concern beneath her sharp tone was as obvious as the sun above them.

Pierre didn't answer immediately. Instead, he took in the state of his ship and crew with new eyes. The sails were properly trimmed, the deck swept clean despite the endless battle against salt and grime. But exhaustion marked both women—Alyssa's normally immaculate appearance showing signs of neglect, strands of hair escaping her hasty ponytail, while Raven's shoulders remained tight with fatigue, dark circles shadowing her eyes.

They had kept the ship running without him, carrying the burden he'd abandoned.

"I needed to see you both," Pierre said finally, his voice rasping from disuse, each word scraping his throat like sandpaper.

Raven remained at the helm, her knuckles white where they gripped the wheel. Her lips pressed into a thin line, the tension in her body speaking volumes. "How much of you is left in there?" she asked bluntly, cutting straight to the heart of what everyone feared.

It was the same question he'd been asking himself for days, staring into the cracked mirror in his cabin until his reflection seemed to splinter into two people.

"Enough," he answered honestly, refusing to sugarcoat the truth they deserved. "Most days, enough. Some moments... less."

He took a step forward, his legs unsteady beneath him. The deck seemed to tilt violently beneath him—not the ship's motion, but his own weakness betraying him.

"What happened in Porto Veloce," Pierre continued, forcing the words past the tightness in his throat, "in Valerio's workshop—that wasn't me. Or it wasn't all me. It was something... darker."

"We know that," Alyssa interjected quickly, but uncertainty threaded through her words like a loose stitch.

Pierre shook his head firmly. "No, you need to hear this. When I absorbed Valerio's essence, I took more than his strength. I took his mind—his obsessions, his way of seeing the world. His coldness." A shudder ran through him at the memory.

He gestured around the ship with a sweeping motion. "Right now, part of me is cataloging every flaw in this vessel with painful precision. The uneven planking. The slight list to port. The inefficient rigging configuration that reduces our maximum speed by approximately 3.7 percent." He tapped his temple sharply. "It's like having another person in my head, constantly analyzing, constantly judging, seeing nothing but flaws to be corrected."

Raven's gaze sharpened, her posture straightening with renewed vigilance. "Can you control it?" The question hung in the air, carrying the weight of their future.

"Most of the time. But in moments of stress or weakness..." Pierre looked down at his hands, half-expecting to see someone else's fingers. "I slip. I become someone I don't recognize."

The confession hung in the air between them, heavy as storm clouds.

"I'm sorry," Pierre said, meeting their eyes directly, refusing to hide from what he'd done. "I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to resist using that power. I'm sorry I disappeared when you needed me most. I'm sorry I put us all in danger."

Alyssa took another step toward him, her expression softening despite her obvious attempt to maintain her guard. "You saved us from Valerio. You freed an entire port from his grip."

"At what cost?" Pierre asked quietly, the question barely above a whisper.

No one answered. No one needed to.

The ship creaked beneath them, the sound almost mournful in the silence, as if the Crimson Sparrow herself understood their predicament.

"I don't know if I'll ever be completely free of him," Pierre admitted, the words like ash in his mouth. "But I'm fighting it. Every minute. Every second."

He swayed suddenly, the edges of his vision darkening like an encroaching tide. The effort of standing, of speaking, of fighting the constant whispers in his mind—it was too much after days of isolation and internal battle.

"I think... I need to sit down," he murmured, his voice distant even to his own ears.

His legs gave way beneath him. Pierre had a momentary, dizzying impression of the blue sky wheeling above him as he fell, the world spinning around him in a blur of blue and crimson.

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