He had known her all his life, through her wanted posters that adorned the walls of Enies Lobby and the inflated rumors that spread through the mouths of the ignorant marine soldiers. He grew up hearing her stories; the demon of Ohara and the enemy of none other than the World Government itself, the girl whose very existence was a threat to the entire world.
He still remembered that day twenty years ago when he first heard her name, when her posters were suddenly put up and the accounts of her infamy were told. He never questioned it when they warned him of the danger of her existence- how, despite what she seemed on the outside, she was still a demon capable of destroying the whole world.
"Funny,"
A twenty-six year old Lucci muttered to himself, staring at a brick wall littered with worn out posters. He took off one of them that had a photo of a dark-haired young girl with an unusually high bounty that belied her innocuous appearance. It had been months since Nico Robin mysteriously went missing after her last sighting in Alabasta, and it seemed as though the government had stopped pursuing her altogether, considering the disappearance a mere result of her death.
"-how the world can forget such a dangerous threat so easily."
With that said he ripped the poster slowly, piece by piece, before carelessly tossing the remains onto the ground. The world might have had forgotten her existence, but he never had.
He never would.
In the beginning it had all been about righting the wrongs of the world and extermination of evil. He merely followed what the World Government deemed was right, for as far as he knew, they were the true justice itself.
But things were different now.
She stepped out from behind him and stood on that very place where he had sworn to chase her down to the ends of the earth. She stared at him lying defeated on the ground, trounced and sprawling in his own pool of blood. To say he was exhausted from the battle with the captain of the Strawhat pirates was an understatement; he was losing consciousness and each breath he huffed came out forced and weak. When she turned to leave he could barely make out her shape crawling at the edges in his blurry vision, her hands now free of the seastone cuffs and the messy black locks of her hair cascading in the dusty wind. With a shaking motion he clenched his bloody fist.
It didn't matter if the World Government needed her alive. It didn't matter if they needed to obtain the Ancient Weapons; all that mattered now to him was to kill her, to eliminate her existence completely from this world.
All in the name of dark justice, all for the sake of the World Government.
Years of indoctrination and repeated dogmas had distorted his image of her from a mere pest into the object of his fierce hatred. He gritted his teeth, coughing out her name between whizzes of breath as she left him before his eyes. Let the whole world forget her, or downright forgive her of her misdeeds - he would never let go of her, let alone set her free. He would be the one to bring her sinful life to an end.
"...Nico Robin..."
His hoarse voice was buried away by the rumbling noise of the collapsing building; debris upon debris fell down along with clouds of ocher dust. As her silhouette vanished into the sunlight he heard the Enies Lobby roar, its immense body finally giving in to the damage and caving in on top of him.
Darkness fell.
She was gone.