"Axia, this isn't your fault," the red-haired boy said gently.
Axia shook her head. "No, it's all my fault. If I hadn't eaten that Devil Fruit... my parents wouldn't have died, and neither would my aunt and uncle. Even the little animals that used to like me came to hate me..." By the end, tears glimmered in the girl's eyes. For a thirteen-year-old girl, what had happened to her was far too heavy to bear.
Rono had also heard about what happened to her, and he felt deeply sorry for her. (It absolutely wasn't because she was a little girl!) Rono released the News Bird that had just taken a trip to the Edge of Hell and walked toward the girl.
Axia shook her head and retreated in panic when she saw Rono approaching. "Please don't come over, Mr. Rono. I—I'll bring you bad luck." She waved both hands frantically, hoping to stop him from coming closer.
She backed all the way into the wall beside the room and began to cry nervously. "Don't come over. Please."
Rono ignored her words. Standing before Axia, he pulled her into his arms. "It's all right. I won't die."
"B—but even so, Mr. Rono will still encounter bad luck." Axia's tense body relaxed as she felt Rono's warm embrace. Her small hands pressed against his chest, still trying to push him away. How long had it been? Other than that uncle, no one had dared approach her. Axia enjoyed the feeling of being cared for.
"Would you like to tell me about yourself?" Rono released Axia and led her to sit down.
Axia quietly scooted her bottom away, still wanting to keep her distance from Rono.
"Does Mr. Rono really want to hear?" The Blue-Haired Girl lowered her head, her long hair completely hiding her face and making her expression impossible to see.
"Mm." Rono didn't stop Axia from moving. He supported himself with his left hand and sat cross-legged. Suddenly, his expression changed, but he quickly recovered. Damn, it's dislocated! Can you believe this?
"I'd better not tell you, Mr. Rono. Your hand..." Axia began crying again and stood up, moving away from Rono.
As a girl who had brought bad luck to those around her for nearly ten years, Axia was extremely observant of such details.
"Oh, look. It's already healed. I'm fine!" Rono extended his recovered arm and waved it at Axia. "Don't worry. I'm as resilient as a cockroach."
"R-really?" The girl examined Rono's raised arm. After confirming that it was truly fine, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Tell me your story, Axia." Rono withdrew his hand and grinned, baring his teeth.
"Th-then, all right." Axia hesitated for a while before finally telling him her story:
That year, Axia was five years old. While playing by the seaside, she found a Devil Fruit.
"Ah, om." Axia took a bite. "Blegh—" It was disgusting. How could anything taste so awful? Axia angrily threw the Devil Fruit back into the sea.
Axia didn't know what she had eaten. After running home happily, she told her parents about it. The remote little town didn't know what Devil Fruits were. After examining Axia and finding nothing wrong with her, they merely cautioned her not to eat fruit she had never seen before.
"I'm never eating one again! That fruit tasted horrible!"
Then the misfortune began.
That night, the moon was full, and its light shone beautifully across the ground.
"Boom—" An explosion tore through Axia's home. For some reason—or perhaps for no reason at all—the Wooden Cabin was blown into pieces. Her parents died on the spot. Strangely, Axia wasn't injured at all. Not even a single flying piece of wood touched her.
By the time the nearby residents arrived and put out the fire, they found only two charred corpses.
Axia cried herself unconscious. Her uncle arranged her parents' funeral, and Axia moved into his home.
However, the good times didn't last. Her uncle and aunt died as well. While eating, her uncle choked on his food and collapsed onto the dining table right in front of Axia.
Axia and her aunt tried desperately to save him, but they still couldn't keep him alive.
It was another funeral. Her aunt knelt before her uncle's grave and sobbed her heart out. Then she died too...
That was right. She simply stopped breathing while crying, and her body toppled to the ground with a thud.
The guests fell silent. The town's only doctor stepped forward and conducted a series of examinations before shaking his head helplessly.
Axia moved into her aunt's home. Her aunt had been a sharp-tongued, spiteful woman who ordered five-year-old Axia to clean the rooms, wash the dishes, and scrub the floors. Axia was so exhausted on her first day that she went to bed without even eating.
Perhaps because her aunt and uncle disliked her, they never interacted with her—not even during meals—and lived a little longer.
A month later, disaster struck again.
While Axia's aunt was working in the fields, a rare venomous snake slithered over and bit her...
On the way to work, her uncle tripped and fell face-first onto the ground. A rusty nail pierced his eyeball, and he died after an infection proved too severe to treat.
Funerals. Nothing but funerals. Five-year-old Axia's life was shrouded in misfortune and sorrow.
People in the town began calling her the Witch, and her relatives no longer dared take her in.
Axia lived alone in her aunt's Former Residence.
Before she turned five, Axia had always been surrounded by animals: butterflies, Little Rabbits, dogs, and even bears and tigers.
They had an innate fondness for Axia. They never harmed her and even shared their prey with the Blue-Haired Girl.
But ever since Axia ate the Devil Fruit, everything changed. Whenever she approached, the animals instinctively sensed terror. They fled and shrieked, and even mice no longer dared approach the house.
Loneliness and solitude. Those two words ran through Axia's childhood. If kind residents hadn't brought her food and daily necessities, Axia never would have survived.
Axia stopped speaking and secretly glanced at Rono. She didn't see the fear or disgust she had expected in his eyes, nor did he move away from her. Instead, he even drew a little closer. At least three years—what a load of crap. Ahem. No, that wasn't it. How could anyone bring themselves to hate such a cute little girl? Still, this Devil Fruit Ability was terrifying enough.
In that short time, Rono had already suffered two bird-dropping attacks and one lightbulb attack from the room outside, right on top of his head.
If Rono hadn't kept signaling that he was fine, the little girl would have stopped speaking long ago.
"Until last year, I still remember that it was winter, and it was snowing heavily. It was really cold. Even wearing two padded coats, Axia was still freezing." Axia gestured with both hands to make herself more convincing. "I met Uncle Mo. He was lying in the snow, and the ice beneath him had been dyed red with blood. If I hadn't gone out to look for wild vegetables, I might never have met him! Axia was so lucky!" Axia's eyes narrowed into happy crescents.
Axia hurried to the doctor's house and pounded on the door.
"Who is it?" Although the doctor sounded impatient, he still got out of bed. If someone was sick, he couldn't afford to delay.
Axia backed away several steps, about four or five meters. "Doctor, someone is lying in the snow over there. There's so much blood!" As she spoke, she pointed out the direction.
When the doctor opened the door and saw Axia, he hurriedly retreated inside. Only after carefully judging the distance between them did he leave the clinic. "Where is the person you mentioned?" A doctor's duty was to save lives and heal the wounded.
After seven years of observation, the townspeople had roughly figured out the range of Axia's influence. Beyond one meter, there was generally no danger. Of course, they had paid for that knowledge in blood. If the mayor hadn't done everything possible to stop them, and if Axia's parents hadn't had such good relations with the townspeople, Axia would at the very least have been driven out of town and left homeless.
Axia pointed the doctor in the right direction and ran toward Mo while keeping her distance.
Before you continue