A/N: Well guys, I'm back! Life has been totally insane, I won't bore you with details, but basically, I wrote a novel! Yeah, like a real one, that'll be published by this summer. It's got nothing to do with One Piece, or anything like that, but if you're interested PM me and I'll send you the first chapter! I'm also going to post it on here if anyone is interested in reading it! Also, you may want to read the last chapter again since it's been so long.
Cloud Piece: I've started working on your story, buddy, it'll be up after this one!
The colors were starting to blend together. Everything almost seemed to be one large splash of oil ready to burst into flames. Usopp died…and it's your fault! The thought echoed to the melody of the calliope in a space between my ears. A harsh ringing had started, high-pitched and wailing, My eyes kept darting in and out of focus. But I forced my face into a mask of calm, my steps to be straight and even.
"Get him up," Luffy said, turning away from Ace.
"Captain-san," I heard my own voice saying from far away, "the carnival man had seastone figurines behind his counter. You can use them to restrain the traitor."
Luffy looked at me, wounded. "Don't call him that!" he said.
I laughed a little, "it's true, Captain-san!" I said. Am I going mad? No. Who am I talking to?
Chopper ran behind the counter and fetched a cloth bag full of the figurines I had sensed in the carnival man's presence as we played his game. The bag was almost as big as our doctor. As he neared me with it, I wanted to back away. Run. Go away. "Doctor-san, take them to Ace," I said tersely.
Chopper looked at me a little strangely. "Robin, are you alright?" he asked.
Ace gave a tremendous cry and managed to get one arm free of Sanji's hold. Chopper turned and ran at him with the seastone, throwing it on his raised arm. Ace cried out, incapacitated, and fell almost limp in Sanji and Zoro's hold.
"Tie it on," Zoro said, tearing a strip from the cloth bag and securing a swordsman-shaped figurine to Ace's chest. Sanji followed suit, tying a doctor-like shape to Ace's arm.
I feel you are beginning to unravel. "My name is Nico Robin," I said under my breath.
"What?" Luffy asked. He turned to me sharply, face still alight with rage.
The voice and ringing in my head cleared immediately. I felt myself part of things around me again, able to move and speak freely. "I'm sorry, captain-san." I said. "We need to take him before it gets dark. We're running out of time."
"Which way back to the gypsies?" Luffy asked, turning to Nami.
She lifted an arm and coughed tremendously, clutching at her chest where her ribs had been broken. Clearly dizzy, Nami stumbled. I ran to catch her, my own legs weak and shaky in the aftershock of the battle. Both of us fell to our knees.
"Nami!" Zoro said urgently, bending to put his hands on her shoulders. "Tell me where it hurts," he said.
Chopper was looking at all of us. He had remained miraculously uninjured in his fight with Rob Lucci, but the rest of us were bleeding messes. "You guys, we can't go anywhere! Look at you, if blood loss doesn't kill half of you, infection will!"
"You're all going to die anyway!" Ace said weakly. The bonds of seastone were heavy, draining more than his Devil Fruit abilities.
Chopper turned to him, kicking him hard in the temple. Ace's face convulsed and he fell unconscious. "Shut up!" Chopper said. He turned back to us. "Guys, please," he said. His eyes filled with huge, child-like tears. "Let me help you. I…I wasn't good enough for Usopp but…I can save the rest of you!"
I thought back to Usopp, to his refusal of Chopper's skills. Our doctor couldn't have saved him. He'd kept our whole crew together, kept all of us from breaking or bleeding out so many times. For the first time in my memory, Chopper had failed us. The Circus had destroyed his faith in himself, his ability to heal.
"Come here, Chopper," Zoro said, smiling weakly.
The little doctor gave in for a second, let himself sigh, his shoulders slump. A single, dry sob escaped him. But when he looked up, his eyes were clear, blameless. "Who's bleeding the worst?" His eyes fell on Sanji and Luffy, both of whom could have been mistaken for cadavers. They were pale, Sanji's eyelid still hanging thinly from a piece of skin. Luffy had done nothing to wipe Usopp's blood from his face or hat. Chopper swallowed hard, determined, and took his bag of supplies from his shoulder. "Lay down," he said, "all of you."
The command was absolute. With no room, and no energy, to protest we found ourselves lying on the ground, almost surrendering to the Circus Avalon. Nami and Zoro lay beside me, her head on his chest for comfort. She shut her eyes instantly, her breathing becoming even. Zoro's other hand rested against my hair, making sure I was alive and not alone.
"Robin," he asked quietly as Chopper set about sewing Sanji's eyelid back into place, "are you awake?"
"Yes, swordsman-san," I said.
"Tell me something happy," he said. The voice was a child's, weak with blood-loss and fatigue.
"Nami loves you," I said.
The girl on his chest made a little noise in her sleep. He pressed his hand against the back of her head, keeping her safe. "I love her, too."
Sanji cried out sharply, a sob mixing with his shriek of pain. With my eyes closed, the sound cut shocking and harsh through the dark. I jumped. Zoro's hand remained in my hair, his thumb running along my forehead.
"I think…I think it's getting inside me. The Circus," I said.
Zoro's hand tightened on my head. "Robin…" he said.
"I have to fight it," I said. "Because if I go mad, then none of you will get out. I couldn't be responsible for deaths, not more of them…"
Zoro sensed the sadness, the angst in my voice, "Usopp's death wasn't your fault, Robin," he said.
"Yes it was…" I hissed. "I asked the question…! I hate myself…"
"Don't!" Zoro's voice was stern, like a father's. "If you hate, that's when it gets you. You told me that, Robin. Don't forget it!"
Ring around the Rosey, pocket full of Poesy.
Ashes,
Ashes
We all fall down!
"Who's Robin?" I asked weakly.
"Open your eyes," Zoro commanded.
I looked at him. His dark gaze seemed fierce. I saw myself reflected there, reflected two times over in those dark pools.
"Mirror Maze!" Zoro cried. Nami woke instantly as he bolted up, launching himself across the space between us. He knelt over me, pinning my legs beneath him and my arms above my head with his hands. "Mirror Maze, get away!" he shouted.
"You-you get away!" I heard myself say. I opened my mouth wide and screamed against my will. My mouth tasted sweet, and I felt liquid pour out of it down the side of my face. I coughed against the drowning force of it, and a strawberry flew out of my throat and hit Zoro in the cheek.
"Robin!" Luffy shouted. He took my face in his hands, tilting it back to look at him.
"Stra-straw hat! You won't-you won't get her back!"
Suddenly I could see no more. Zoro's face and Luffy's were gone. I could hear them screaming, but it was from far away. I felt my body moved, but my mind remained perfectly still. I turned away from my eyes and nearly jumped.
Inside my head, a perfectly circular room was laid out. The floor was polished to perfection, thin boards of dark wood lying in straight lines as far as I could see. The walls were reflective, shimmering like black water. A single floodlight hung from the ceiling, with a cone-shaped shade on it. It cast weird, yellowish light in a circle on the floor. In the center of the room was a chair, and in the chair was a man.
He was incredibly thin. Too tall for his limbs, which seemed to extend on forever. His hands were casual and long-fingered, with perfectly shaped nails. On the middle finger of his right hand he wore a black ring. He was smiling at me.
The face was indistinct, indescribable unless you were looking straight at it. Long and casual. The eyebrows were sharp and high, almost feminine, and the casually scowling lips were bleeding red in the pale face. His eyes were miraculous. Purple and white striped irises filled the whole space, like a cat's eyes. The pupils were tiny, barely distinct dots of maddening darkness in the center of those mesmerizing colors.
He was dressed in a shabby red suit, his dark hair falling long and messy around his face and neck. The tie was green and lay askew across the left breast of his jacket.
"Good morning," he greeted as I turned. He stood, those achingly long limbs setting chills running down my spine.
"Good morning," I replied. I took a step towards him, closer to the lamp.
He stood with one hand on the chair's back, though he towered over it. The whole scene had the air of emaciation, something unhealthy and pale. Wan.
A gramophone appeared, or rather came into view. The man moved to turn it on. A tinny, almost irksome melody came from it. Minor key and out of tune. He returned to his place behind the chair and stood staring at me.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" I asked.
He rolled them back in his head, blinking his irises away. The blank whites looked out at me. "Nothing," he said. The voice seemed noiseless, an insult, an invasion into the silence.
I stepped closer, circling around towards the back of the chair. The man's gaze didn't follow me. He didn't even move, just stood with his hand on the back of the chair, looking out at where I had been. The gramophone began skipping, little sections of melody cut off by scratches in the record's surface.
I found a door in the wall behind me. Turned the knob only to find the door locked.
"Can't," the man said without turning. I was almost directly behind him, but could still see the white absence of his eyes.
"Who are you?" I breathed.
The gramophone stopped as he reached one long arm out to take the needle from the track. "Good morning," he said again.
"Stop saying that…" I breathed.
"Good morning."
I crumpled against the door as the man turned, his long arms and legs draping about the space around him.
"Are you mad, yet?" he asked. The eyes rolled back into place. "Hearing calliopes?" He took one small step towards me.
"You're…Merry go Round," I said.
The man's head cocked to one side. His eyes widened. "Ooooooooooh." The sound was a long, drawn-out breath of a noise. The sound lungs make when they're pressed too hard. "You don't know what I am!"
"My name is Nico Robin…my name is Nico Robin…" I found myself whispering over and over again, praying hard that it stayed true.
"Robin?" the man said, sounding out each syllable as though he were tasting them on his tongue.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered. My shoulders shook in terror.
The man's eyes rolled back in his head. When they returned, they were dark and huge, empty chasms. "I'm going to fill my eyes with yours!" he said, licking his lips.
The light bulb in the ceiling fizzled in and out of existence. I panted, terrified, in the dark behind my own eyes. I kept my gaze fixed on the man. He was still, unmoving, his hand outstretched to press the gramophone into discord. The calliope wheezed along his finger, hollow notes bleeding into the silence.
The bulb went out.
"Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh ," I heard again, the long noise sending tears skittering down my face. "When the dark comes out to play, little birds should fly away…but should the birds forget to fly the dark will teach them how to die!"
I was aware of those swallowing eyes just centimeters from me. Merry-go-Round had moved without moving, with a bend of his tall, unbearable form he had spanned all of space to reach me. The cavities in his head shone oil-slick shiny. "Robin?" he asked, hardly a question.
"Stop…" I winced away.
"Give me your eyes, Robin. Give them to me!" The voice was a child's pouty and wheezing.
I pressed my face into my knees. "No, no, no," I breathed, sobbing.
I felt one of Merry go Round's fingers on my forehead, forcing my head up.
I saw it in silhouette, the face, mouth wide an thin as a blade. It was my own face, and it was screaming.
Hickory, dickory, dock
the mouse ran up the clock
the clock struck one
the mouse came down
hickory
dickory
dock.
You'll betray me, Ace. Just like you betrayed your little brother! Give up the ghost, make my secret go away…
Do you know what makes a man hate? I've been wondering the same thing for centuries, turn the question about like a marble. Pop like a grape.
They all tasted differently. The Lustre, 500 years old and hated the idea of dying. Didn't fear, hated…delicious.
The quick Finner, one of the Old People dark as the day is long and hated his mother, his father, his whole country. We swallowed them quick like opening a bottle. Gobble, gobble…hah, hah hah!
Ohara-man. We didn't know what you wanted until the ships blasted that poor island to hell. Keep the calliope strong, you did…
Bell-Viper. Why is it you hate ships? Straw hats and the color red? Your soul's a mystery to me, a damned enigma until I taste it.
Won't be long now.
We'll take you and then we'll get what we want, Viper.
You don't know, do you? You've never known that hating makes your face grow hard, your tongue and teeth sharp. If I didn't get you, the animal trees would…
they're as old as I! And hungry…
so hungry…
Good morning, Chopper-san.