Cloud - Chapter 32: Chapter 32

"Cloud, who is that?" I asked the latter as his grip tightened around the woman's neck. Her only response to that assault was to smirk and she placed her hand on Cloud's.
"Oh dear, is that a way to greet your mother?" she asked him and my eyes widened in disbelief.
His mother?
She wasn't how I imagined her to be. For a woman who was probably over one hundred years old, she did not look old at all. Her blond hair were long, reaching her waist, and her lips were the color of blood, same for her eyes. She did not look like Cloud or Rain that much.
Maybe they looked like their dad.
"What are you doing here?" Cloud asked her angrily and she hummed, an amused look in her eyes.
"I'm here to see my sons dearest of course. It has been so long since I last saw any of them," she replied and she touched Cloud's cheek. "Did you miss me, my little boy?"
That seemed to anger him even more and he threw her at the opposite wall. Her body hit against a vase and it broke into tiny pieces. She let out a hysterically laugh and before Cloud could attack her once again, she stood up and gave him a kick in the stomach with her heels. He grimaced and she grabbed him by his hair before slamming his head against the wall repeatedly.
"Hey stop!" I exclaimed as I ran to them but Cloud stopped me.
"Don't come closer," he ordered me and I simply looked at him, lost. Blood was dripping on the side of his forehead due to the repetitive impacts that he received. His mom just hurt him without any hesitation. How could she do that? I did not think that she was bad to that extent.
"Well, well, well, you are still so slow," the woman commented and she glanced at me. "Who is that?"
I did not like the way she looked at me at that moment. Her eyes scanned me from up and down and she bit her bottom lip. Then, something passed through her eyes, some sort of realization.
"Get out of here," Cloud told her and she, surprisingly, let go of him. He fell on his knees and hissed. I was about to say something but instead of words coming out of my mouth, I let out a shout when she suddenly snapped Cloud's neck without any warning. He fell down, not moving.
"Oh, don't worry, he's not dead. He'll wake up in a few minutes," his mom reassured me as she looked at my shocked face. Ignoring her, I ran to him and knelt down beside his body.
"C-Cloud," I said, with a trembling voice, as I grabbed his face with shaking hands to shake him off. "Please. N-no."
"Did you not hear me? He's okay," she repeated herself in exasperation and I glared up at her. She smirked.
"Why did you do that?" I asked her angrily and she shrugged.
"I wanted to have a little chat," she replied and then she added unexpectedly, "With you."
Me? I thought with a frown. She turned around, saying that she wanted a drink, before walking further into the house. I glanced down at Cloud, whose eyes were still opened, and I closed them before caressing his cheek worriedly.
"Okay, I'll be back," I told him and I stood up before following the woman's steps. I found her in the living room where she was serving herself some wine.
"Want some?" she asked me casually and I shook my head. She raised her eyebrows at me, "Is it that you don't drink? That's scandalous."
Leaving the bottle of wine opened, she went to sit on the couch, her glass in hand. She let out a sigh and then took a sip of her drink. She noticed my glare and she chuckled.
"Remove that murderous look on your face. It's making me feel in danger," she said and she passed her hand through her hair, "But let me present myself, as my son failed to do so, I'm Eloise, Cloud's mother. We haven't met."
"I would have preferred it to stay that way," I informed her and she crossed her legs.
"Oh, I'm guessing that my son told you about me," she said excitedly. "Though, I'm not sure if the things you've heard are nice and true."
"They aren't nice and I know now that they are true," I made it clear to her. "What do you want?"
"Nothing at all. I'm just curious," she replied and she emptied her glass at one go. "You see, I came here to see my sons but who do I find? You, breathing and well, that's a fun killing."
I watched her in confusion as she went to serve herself another glass. I was about to question her about what the hell she was talking about but then, I heard her murmur something under her breath:
"It's the first time that I'm seeing one of the replicas of the devil."
I did not think that she planned for me to hear what she said but I did.
"What?" I said as I stared at her in shock. This just couldn't be. "What did you just say?"
She looked at me for some seconds and then she seemed to realize something.
"Oh no, this can't be," she told herself in surprise and an amused look came on her face as she asked me, "You know more than you should, don't you?"
"And you know about the original being," I added and she gave me an innocent look. I took a step forward. "How? What do you know about him?"
"The real question is; what do you know about him?" she retorted. "As far as I know, you are not supposed to know anything about him nor about what you truly are but from the looks of it, you do know a lot already."
Once again, she drank her wine at one go. She glanced down at the bottle before taking it with her. She walked to the couch and sat down. She poured herself another glass of alcohol. Something told me that drinking was one of her things.
"This wine is good but I'm too frustrated to appreciate it now," she said. "I never thought that I would one day meet one of you. The fact that you are at my son's house is both shocking and not surprising at all."
"Who is he?" I asked her without wasting another second. "What do you know about him? Tell me more."
"I can't tell you anything," was her negative reply. "I promised to keep whatever I know about him a secret."
Her answer angered me so much.
"Why is it that everyone who know about him don't want to say anything?" I exclaimed angrily.
"Because we want to forget about his existence," she replied like if it was obvious. "People tried to eliminate him for one reason. They don't want him to come back. The ones behind his disappearance erased any trace of his existence so that no one tries to bring him back. People, like me, who know about him had to promise to not spill anything about him out."
"So you did meet him," I concluded.
"More or less," she said. "I saw him once and really, you may look like him but there's a different vibe coming from you. He was more like the dominant type of guy and you, you look like you can't even crush a little flower with your feet."
If only she knew what I was capable of. I knew what everyone thought of me at first sight; they saw a weak and defenseless Luffy and maybe in the past, I was like this. Though, now was a different time. I knew that I could do more than just sit around and let everyone protect me from danger.
"I'm curious to know," Eloise continued as she stood up from the couch once again. She let her glass fall to the ground and it crashed into pieces. She slowly walked to me, the half-emptied bottle of wine still in her hand, "Which replica are you? The one who can teleport himself wherever he wants?" I frowned at that and she chuckled at my expression. "No, you're obviously not that one. So, are you the one who can see more than he should? Or maybe you are the one whose powers have no limits? You can do whatever you want, from copying other people's powers to canceling their powers...or even more interesting than any of those three, are you the replica who holds him inside?"
She had arrived behind me while making her little speech. She got closer to me, so close that I could feel her breath on my neck. I clenched my fists. She breathed in my scent and brought her lips to my ear.
"I mentioned exactly four type of replicas," she whispered. "There's no fifth replica but I will tell you a little secret. That being, whom you want to know so much about, he held one particular power, one power so immense and strong that replicas, like you, couldn't hold so the final piece of his power was hidden in a secret place that no one, exactly, no one knows about."
A hidden power? What was she talking about? I was told by the original himself that replicas were created to hold his divided powers. He never told me that some of the said powers were hidden in a secret place. Unless...
Ask that bitch where they hid it!
The original's loud voice full of rage was heard in my head and I touched my forehead. My head was starting to ache suddenly.
You too don't know about that secret hidden power of yours, do you?
That was the only explanation that I could get. The original himself didn't know that some of his powers were hidden in a secret place. But where? And why? Were those powers really so powerful that it was better for everyone to not know where they were? Did Vance know about this?
What are those powers? What can you really do?
That is none of your business, just ask her where they hid it.
I can't help you if you can't tell me more.
Luffy, without all of my powers I'm nothing more than-
His voice was cut off when I was suddenly hit at the back of the head. I fell down on the floor and I groaned in pain. It was Eloise. She crashed the bottle of wine against my head. I touched the back of my head and blood came on my hand. I glanced up in disbelief at Cloud's mom.
"I don't care which replica you are," she said then coldly. "But I know one thing, you must not know about his existence and sorry to tell you but now I will have to kill you. Another you will be reborn and you will forget the life that you currently have."
I tried to crawl away from her but it was useless. My headache got stronger and more intense. I could hear the original's voice in my head but his words weren't clear to me. I knew that I needed to use my powers to defend myself but they were suddenly not under my control. I was too destabilize to act.
Eloise got on top of me and leaned her face closer to mine. My only want was to push her away but the headache and the pain that I felt prevented me from doing so. Her hands went down my body and she placed one hand over my heart. It was then that I felt her try to push her hand inside my body to reach my heart.
I thought that I was going to die at that instant but soon, she got push off me and Cloud came into sight. Not giving his mom anymore attention, he knelt at my side and pulled me into his arms.
"Fuck, you're bleeding," he noticed and he touched me in the wrong place, I hissed in pain. He gave me a sorry look before examining me more carefully, making sure not to touch the wound at the back of my head. "Wait, there seems to be a piece of glass stuck there, I'm just going to remove it."
Oh my god.
I did not even feel the glass at first but when Cloud actually touched it, I had the want to shout, though, I contained myself and let him remove it. Once it was over, he pulled me closer to him, burying my face in his chest.
"Damn, what the hell is wrong with you?" Cloud shouted angrily and I immediately concluded that it was at his mom.
"That boy needs to die, Cloud," she told him. "Trust me, he's better off dead."
"Trust you? How can you even ask me that?" he asked her in disbelief. "I don't trust you, mother. Now get out of my house. I won't let you hurt him."
"Why do you even care about him? You never cared about anyone before. You-" she stopped in her sentence and seconds after, she continued, "No, it can't be. Don't tell me that you got feelings for him. Cloud, you are going the wrong way."
"Get.Out," Cloud insisted more firmly and I pushed him away from me. He gave me a confused look but I ignored him and stood up with difficulty on my feet. I needed to be strong.
"I'm none of the replicas you mentioned," I told Eloise, looking at her directly in the eyes, "I'm just a little bit of all. Now, if you don't want me to show you what I'm capable of, I advise you to get out of this house."
She and I stared in each other's eyes before she finally looked away, admitting defeat. She let out a sigh and then walked in the direction of the exit. She passed by me and stopped in front of Cloud.
"You are more like your dad than I thought," she told him quietly. "You have the same taste."
"Why did you really come here?" he asked her then.
"I'm searching for your dad," she admitted and he frowned.
"Why would you think that he is here?" he questioned and she let out a light chuckle.
"Just a woman instinct," was her reply before she was gone.
It remained silent after she left. I felt my pain slowly fade away and when I touched the back of my head, it no longer hurt. I concluded that the wound healed itself. I looked at Cloud and he seemed to be back to his normal self. Him getting his neck snapped did not seem to have affected him that much.
"I'm sorry about her," he apologized to me surprisingly and I shrugged.
"It's nothing," I assured him. "I'm going to go back to my room to think about what just happened."
I started to walk away but he grabbed me by my arm to stop me. I gave him a questioning look.
"Luffy, we need to talk," he said. "Something is not right between us lately and we need to talk about it."
"There's nothing to talk about," I told him and I pulled my arm away. "Things are better left like this. There's nothing more to say."
I turned around and continued my walk but once again, he grabbed me and forced me to face him. I was about to shout at him to let me go but he suddenly pressed his lips against mine. I froze. I did not respond to his kiss and I did not have to as, soon, we heard someone clear their throat and I pushed Cloud away. I looked at the new arrival and saw that it was Nicolas.
"Luffy, are you okay?" he asked me awkwardly. "I felt like something was not right and I saw this woman going away. What happened?"
I did not reply to him and simply looked back at Cloud. I felt it then, the anger coming to me. I raised my hand and slapped him hard across the face. He was surprised by that and it was the same for Nicolas.
"Ass," I told Cloud and I walked away, dragging Nicolas with me.