[He grabs Ikki's elbows with his own and takes another deep breath, letting everything sift through him, filter somehow. The rage, the hurt, the fucking everything.]
[It's too overwhelming really.]
[The twilight effect between life and death, the rebirth cycle, the way no one else teeters on it as much as a phoenix probably.]
[Another deep breath, and it's getting easier.]
[And harder.]
[Of course.]
[Like a yin yang spinning out of control, too fast to be black or white anymore, but not blended enough to be gray either.]
[And a third.]
[Just breathing.]
We can't though.
[Stop living. Give up. Let go.]
[They can't.]
[There's too much at stake and the hand they're playing is shit, but it's the only hand they've got.]
Just breathe, eh.
Like the volcano in reverse. [So much reverse. When a phoenix rests in a volcano, it means a hundred years of war. When a phoenix isn't allowed it's war, forced to rest in serenity like this... what does it mean? What does it mean?!]
[He won't let it though.]
[No one can touch his brothers, he won't let it.]
[And Ikki is his brother, even without having met Whitebeard. Even without having grown up on the Moby Dick or fought in the war to save Ace.]
[Because he needs him and they need each other.]
[So he won't let it hurt Ikki anymore.]
[He can't fully stop it.]
[But he'll shield it just every bit as much as he can.]
[Absorb it all like a shield as large as anything, to encompass his whole family.]
[He will, because he wills it, because he won't accept anything else, and because he's Marco. Marco the phoenix. The phoenix, the man who'll do anything for his family, whoever they are, wherever they are, no matter what they face.]
Just breathe.
[Maybe it's said for himself, maybe it's for Ikki, maybe it's to the forest to tell it to back off just enough, so it won't burn, so it remembers that not all flames are bad, and if it chokes out the oxygen from them, they can't breathe either and they'll die.]
[It's a symbiosis. The forest gives oxygen, Ikki and Marco burn it. But they can't burn the forest. They could, but they won't. So it's an ever spinning out of control power struggle.]
[Chandra said Marco couldn't see the mana, and it's true, he can't at all. But boy can he feel its effects. Like wind and oxygen. Spinning so fast.]
[Action]
[It's too overwhelming really.]
[The twilight effect between life and death, the rebirth cycle, the way no one else teeters on it as much as a phoenix probably.]
[Another deep breath, and it's getting easier.]
[And harder.]
[Of course.]
[Like a yin yang spinning out of control, too fast to be black or white anymore, but not blended enough to be gray either.]
[And a third.]
[Just breathing.]
We can't though.
[Stop living. Give up. Let go.]
[They can't.]
[There's too much at stake and the hand they're playing is shit, but it's the only hand they've got.]
Just breathe, eh.
Like the volcano in reverse. [So much reverse. When a phoenix rests in a volcano, it means a hundred years of war. When a phoenix isn't allowed it's war, forced to rest in serenity like this... what does it mean? What does it mean?!]
[He won't let it though.]
[No one can touch his brothers, he won't let it.]
[And Ikki is his brother, even without having met Whitebeard. Even without having grown up on the Moby Dick or fought in the war to save Ace.]
[Because he needs him and they need each other.]
[So he won't let it hurt Ikki anymore.]
[He can't fully stop it.]
[But he'll shield it just every bit as much as he can.]
[Absorb it all like a shield as large as anything, to encompass his whole family.]
[He will, because he wills it, because he won't accept anything else, and because he's Marco. Marco the phoenix. The phoenix, the man who'll do anything for his family, whoever they are, wherever they are, no matter what they face.]
Just breathe.
[Maybe it's said for himself, maybe it's for Ikki, maybe it's to the forest to tell it to back off just enough, so it won't burn, so it remembers that not all flames are bad, and if it chokes out the oxygen from them, they can't breathe either and they'll die.]
[It's a symbiosis. The forest gives oxygen, Ikki and Marco burn it. But they can't burn the forest. They could, but they won't. So it's an ever spinning out of control power struggle.]
[Chandra said Marco couldn't see the mana, and it's true, he can't at all. But boy can he feel its effects. Like wind and oxygen. Spinning so fast.]
[Just breathe.]