I'm a good person I swe- oh who am I kidding I'm a horribly person and I'm so sorry this chapter is why the story is rated M oh god. I swear to God Usopp it's gonna get better please trust me.

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Victoria Horn - Yah about craziness... there's a lot more of that to come (in a good way or not... well that's up to you)

JMoon - I know I'm sorry I'm a sinner I have committed sins but I promise, like promise promise promise you only have to sit through a few more chapters of the suffering. e. Also I have to say I absolutely love love LOVE your reviews they offer me so much that I can work off of and potential improvement I can make to the story :D


Loving Anguish

Nico Robin was so, very, deathly afraid.

Never before had she thought that she would live to see that day that Dracule Mihawk fell to his knees.

Once again, she could not have been more wrong.

What had just taken place went beyond her wildest imaginations, left her sanity behind as it slammed into her with all the force it could gather. A thunderous crash had boomed across the forest as the swordsman ran his blade into a black hole without a sliver of doubt on his experienced features, for a few moments after it was as if time itself had frozen in shock due to the echo still rippling above the trees, scattering the clouds above and momentarily pausing the rainstorm. A scream had followed.

It was a scream so absolute that the bellows of Zoro and Noroi paled in comparison, a sound so wild that the bravest and most savage of animals whimpered and scampered away with their tails between their legs. And the darkness began to disperse.

Clouds of shadows and complete, utter blackness had started to float away into the clouds, joining their colleagues as the rain started to pour once more. When at last vision returned to the clearing, no one could process what signals their eyes sent to their brain, could not understand the image that they supposedly perceived, did not want to believe that Dracule Mihawk, a myth, a legend, one who had fought squarely with a Yonko, now lay on the roof of the temple, Yoru clattered on the stone beside him, with blood glistening on his skin, a chest rising and falling as a body strained for air. For the first time since Sabaody Archipelago, the Strawhats were greeted with an old friend: sheer, absolute fear.

That wasn't it.

Next to the swordsman had been the source of that unearthly scream, and terror once again wrapped tight around the hearts of the now infamous pirate crew. Mihawk was not the only one that had taken the brunt of an earth-shattering attack.

Blackbeard did not move, not a muscle. Through the darkness a blade worthy of Gods had slammed into his chest, blood spiraling into the air and splashing onto the skin and face of his foe, adding to those ripped out of the swordsman's veins by the unending darkness.

So fear was hers, the strangely familiar feeling sending her heart thundering so wildly in her chest that she thought it might explode. In a vain attempt to soothe it, she cast her eyes upward and prayed to the sky, which still dumped rain down onto the clearing, filling her mouth and eyes as she searched, desperately, for some high and mighty that reside above the layers and layers of thunderclouds who may provide the help that they needed so, very much, something that may saved them from complete, utter destruction. Robin was aware that Zoro had somehow felt her horror, that he became a whirlwind of rage and torment and lifted his blade time and time again to bring catastrophic assaults down on a monster of his childhood one after another. She also knew that everything he is doing is for a future that they had dreamed about together for a few simple seconds, on that night when they had stood under the same umbrella and existed in a world that their very essences had intertwined to build. Everything he had done, is doing, is to make that impossible dream a reality, however grueling or strenuous the road ahead may be.

Her heart and soul screamed, not only because of how horribly, deathly afraid she was, not only because of the anguish in her heart that threatened to overwhelm her, not only because of the living hell that the forest around her had evolved into, but also because she was crying out to the Gods, asking them, begging them to let her have a future that she had dreamed of night after night in the darkness and sorrow and despair, had dreamed of even before she met the man that changed her life. In her eyes, filled with woe and misery, Nico Robin begged anyone, anything, to grant the one wish that she had never let go of.

In her trance of dread, the archeologist did not take note of the whisper of a ghostly spirit that hovered above them all. It was no God, nor was it a member of the supernatural capable of granting even the most impractical wishes, but a simple girl. A girl that felt every note of desperation in another woman's soul, one that also watched, helpless, as the man of her affections dragged his mangled body into an offensive position and faced off against a foe that suddenly seemed infinitely stronger than he was.


The Princess was not sure when such a feeling for an unfeeling man had entered her life, she wasn't even sure if such a warm feeling is possible for someone who is in part a ghost entity, the very beings that represent the frightening and icy things in the world, to feel. Now she's never told anyone, but perhaps the reason that she fell in love with all that's cute and cuddly around her is that they are supposed to be her opposite. At a very young age she had consumed that Devil Fruit, and since then had her life shoved onto a roller coaster, spinning and falling and tumbling head over toes as she struggled to maintain control over it. Her personality had changed drastically, from a fun-loving child to one that felt a unique attraction to anything dark and forbidden, anything gloomy and scary. After that accidental fruit, she had been turned into something that would be expected of a ghost girl, and it was also when everyone started looking at her with fear and disdain in their eyes, unmasked and displayed publicly for her to see. Back then, she was still a toddler, at the very age when love was vital to her emotional growth, but she had been deprived of it, with only anguish as a replacement... Then she had met that baby bear.

He reminded her that there are still good things in the world. Innocent things to whom it does not matter whether she is a ghost or not, and for the first time she had loved "cute". Something "cute" is something "innocent", and something "innocent" is something that will accept her, something that magnificently counters her supposed purpose with their "cute". So the Ghost Princess had grown up with cute things governing every aspect of her life: she dressed cute, spoke in a cute way, surrounded herself with creatures that she considered cute, and eventually developed a near obsession with them. It continued well into adulthood and has not changed a single bit since she was thrown onto Hawkeye's island and forced to live with him for two years, along with that stupid swordsman who can't take in the simplest of directions. However, she supposed that what has changed is her perception of the concept "cute". One day, she had suddenly found herself thinking about Hawkeyes as "cute", in a serious, sarcastic sort of way. At first it had bothered her, for Perona could not figure out why this feeling was so overwhelmingly strong, why she felt sad and scared whenever they came back from a long day of training and he would have whispers of exhaustion lining his features while she felt nothing at the abundance of bruises and cuts that would cover the other one from head to toe. Though what bothered her most was the fact that she couldn't figure out exactly when it had started, one day it just did, and she couldn't pinpoint the exact second that it clicked into place. Perona also discovered a part of herself cowering from the idea, as if afraid that he would remain an unfeeling man, because she was afraid that he would remain an unfeeling man.

Now she floated above a blood-splattered glade, much too acutely aware of the fact that her real self is sitting, completely unprotected, in a random hollow in some tree somewhere in the forest. She will not deny the fact that when she saw him boarding the raft, she had nearly begged him to take her along, for some part of her, perhaps the most spiritual, had told her that it was much too possible that he won't be coming home. The whole way she had prayed and hoped and prayed some more that it was just paranoia, that such a feeling did not, could not, mean anything for this man. After all, he is the greatest swordsman that the world has ever known! But the fear had lingered, so she did too. Many a time she had left herself in a tree and spied on him with her powers, always trying to make sure that he isn't in any direct line of fire, though if he was, Perona didn't know if she could have done anything, for if someone is strong enough to put Hawkeyes at risk, then what can she, a girl with a strange Devil Fruit, do to stop them? Especially if they wielded two themselves.

In the emotions that she felt radiating in waves off of a girl with dark hair that can only be Nico Robin, Perona saw herself, even if she couldn't understand exactly what had prompted the other girl to fall in love with the idiot mosshead. Still, she saw herself in the fear and anguish and dread that layered Robin's essence, the fear for the safety of someone that she wanted a future with. Coincidentally, both swordsmen.

Perona made a mental note to chat with Robin at some point about how insufferable they can get sometimes.

The inhumanly loud clash of blades jolted her back to the present, screaming a reminder that Hawkeyes is currently in more danger than she had ever imagined possible, not to mention in an absolutely horrible condition that ripped her heart from its rightful place and jostled it around like a cat playing with a horrified mouse before going in for the kill. She looked down at the clearing, her heart in her throat, and watched Hawkeyes drag himself up from the ground, Yoru clasped in both hands, and faced someone whom he had made suffer, darkness and all.

When they struck, thunder boomed, as if on cue, and the new darkness that had risen from the temple detonated, bursting across the forest as night and darkness challenged each other to a rematch to resolve the tie that resulted last time. Everything silenced.

In slow motion Perona comprehended the events that followed.


Robin felt the darkness hit her straight in the chest, finally throwing her off her feet and smashing onto the rocky terrain underfoot. The silence that followed was not silent, but the loudest thing that she has ever heard.

Everything slowed down to the point that she would have been able to see a bullet whiz by and do a complete and thorough inspection of it before it passed her, yet the duels between legends managed to continue as if nothing had happened, despite the very same deceleration restricting their movements to a pace more sluggish than would be underwater. Struggling against the incredible force, Robin stood, her body moving at a snail's pace as she wrestled with the shadows in an attempt to see what's happening between Zoro and Noroi. When she looked up, their blades had clashed, and she felt the tremor even through the watery haze that the temple had cast over their surroundings, and suddenly a sickening feeling wrapped itself around her as she finally noted the fact that Noroi had the Wado Ichimonji grasped in his left hand and his renowned cursed blade in his right. Just when she thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, her brain finally processed that even after who knows how long, Zoro still does not have possession of his white blade, and is therefore handicapped further in a fight with someone who has now gained a frighteningly unfair advantage above him.

Robin watched as Zoro took a dive to the side to escape a calamitous thrust aiming for his throat, following up with a kick to Noroi's head, who, unsurprisingly, dodged effortlessly. However, Zoro wasn't done, and following the momentum granted by the kick, the Pirate Hunter spun gracefully in the air, his robe flaring and hair ruffling from the force of the movement, the motion made ever more beautiful by the deceleration currently consuming the entirety of the woods. After the spin, Shusui split the air and shot for Noroi's shoulder, seemingly fast as lightning even at the funeral pace that it adopted as it moved through the air. The blade did not find its mark, which, for strange reasons, did not surprised her, but what happened next did, and will remain forever engraved into her mind.

Noroi, in order to avoid the thrust, took a flying leap into the air, his left hand, still wielding the Ichimonji, reaching out towards something invisible to her eyes, and when it came down, it was as if the swordsman had suddenly been miraculously granted the devastating powers of the Yami Yami no mi. Coils of darkness trailed the blade that was meant to preserve harmony, and Robin could only watch, for even if she had the strength and speed to do so, the distance was much too vast for her to get there in time to protect what, who she wanted to, helpless as Zoro replicated the actions of his mentor and charged, fearless, straight into the darkness, katanas at the ready, moving through the monsters and horrors that dwelled within to reach his target. As the seconds wore on and Zoro's katanas pierced the unending shadows, Robin's heart became withered, anguish taking its rightful place as her closest companion, as the blade made contact with flesh and darkness wrapped like a serpent around Zoro's body before scattering, the excruciating pain in her chest telling her that as it turned tail and ran, it shredded apart some aspect of Zoro's soul, taking the bravery and honor and love to a place where sunlight cannot reach and darkness is eternal, where happiness did not exist and tears drowned all other emotions.

Thunder crashed across the sky, the rain returning in a downpour that soaked all of them to the bone, the water so much colder than nature should have been able to whip up, and the clashing of blades once again became the only sound in the clearing, a deranged song that the raindrops harmonized to. Hard to imagine that just last night, she had stood in the rain, this very same substance, on the deck of the Sunny, feeling like the happiest girl in the world, next to someone so wonderfully beautiful, perhaps in a different way that many others may perceive "beautiful". Now it was taking on the air of a war drum, thudding rhythmically on the roof of the temple, the ground, the trees, raising an outcry against the wretched darkness as it stole away a piece of a swordsman's soul, as it left everyone in the clearing an empty shell, whizzing away into the sky and seeping back into the ancient cracks of the temple as if nothing had occurred at all. The fighting did not cease.

A clash of blades and a bloodied hiss snatched her attention away from the retreating darkness and to the horrors at hand. On the temple roof running red with the blood of legends, Zoro and Noroi clashed once again, the tips of the blades connecting in a shower of sparks, which cleared to show that the swordsmen have switched places, with Zoro now positioned on the left and Noroi on the right with death in his eyes. When they charged again, they did not separate for long moments.

Noroi's cursed blade swooped in from the side, clashing with its successor and sending the clearing vibrating with shockwaves, though before the first of which had faded, Shusui was already cutting through the air, searching for, with a hint of desperation, a loophole that will allow blood to stain its sacred blade. Just barely, the Wado Ichimonji fell to Noroi's side and metal smashed against metal. Even from where she was, Robin could see the vibrations snaking up Zoro's arm and loosening his grip on the blade, and she saw with strangely clear precision his knuckles flush a ghostly white as his grasp tightened, perhaps fearfully, on the handle. The Ichimonji, wielded in the hands of one that it did not wish to serve, was forced to forget mercy on its rightful master and soared towards the swordsman that had trained with it from the meer age of nine, after it had stopped his blade from reaching his foe, cutting through his defenses as rain slid down its blade, as if the very soul of the katana was crying for the man that it loved and respect.

Blood flew, and the Wado Ichimonji was stained a ghastly red with the blood of one who loved it the way he loved a childhood friend.

Robin heard her own hoarse cry echoing around the clearing, yet she felt rooted to the ground as his most prized possession entered under Zoro's rib cage and emerged on the other side, the blood falling like tears from the gleaming metal. His eye widened, but he did not hesitate, and she saw her swordsman shed a single tear before the Sandai Kitetsu descended upon the Ichimonji, its wielder not holding back an inch of his strength, and accompanying the nauseating sound of metal grating against metal, split a long, thin crack down the length of a beloved blade. The Ichimonji moaned in the rain, the unfeeling drops already cleansing the white blade of the blood that lingered on its edges, as if in relief. The metal quivered, droplets of water sliding down every inch of the katana as it seemed to weep tears of joy, for at the same moment that the crack appeared, Wakazumi Noroi uttered the most horrid cry of the darkest hatred and wrenched the sword out of his enemy's flesh, and the Ichimonji ceased in bringing death to its lord and friend.

For the first time, Robin truly understood. All katanas have a soul, and this one loved Zoro with every inch of it.


Perona did not have time to understand before a darkness that slowed down time engulfed the clearing, everything, including herself, lost the ability to move at a normal pace, as if the mind and soul of their surroundings were whisked away to a faraway place and only left shadows to control an empty body. Directly in her line of sight was a man that she adored, blood still plastering his sodden hair to his face, the pair of penetrating hawk eyes peeking out from underneath the black and tangled mess. Yoru's blade quivered slightly, mirroring a white blade as its soul shed lamenting tears for a respected, though perhaps cold-hearted, master. Opposite them, someone dangerous stirred, then started rising, the jewels that adorned his fingers reflecting light that came from deep within that darkness, somewhere that is invisible to the naked eye. As Blackbeard clambered onto his feet, clumsy and unbalanced, blood darkening his skin, the Ghost Princess saw in him something that had her ghostly form shuddering, the holographic figure shimmering in and out as her concentration wavered, fear clouding the mind of a creature of fear.

In his eyes, Perona did not see death, no, death does not scare her, she is the embodiment of the spirit realm and negativity, no, she saw torture, not just any torture, but torture that comes from the hands of a master, of someone destined to bring agony to the world, someone that lives to hear the screams of his victims and feel the sticky sensation of blood on their hands. In Marshall D. Teach's eyes, a girl saw the image of her man tied to a wooden cross, not an inch of him left bare of injuries. This was torture by a man that did not know honor, for the swordsman's back was ravaged beyond recognition, every centimeter of it ripped open and wrecked by layers upon layers of flesh that was split open by a iron-spiked whip, and the blood was a waterfall that cascaded down this unspeakable background, falling in great clumps to the dark grass below, a trickle already thickening into a stream. Despair captured her heart, and Perona reached out by instinct, then realized that her hands were chained by the darkness, and that while the others could move, though so, very slowly, she couldn't. Not at all.

Perhaps it was because the darkness recognized itself in her, perhaps it was some other twisted and corrupt reason, but she couldn't move, and when the vision of Blackbeard's desire dissipated into nothingness and turned tail to rejoin the darkness, she knew that though perhaps that exact scene will not take place, there was no way for her to prevent something similar. So bracing herself, she watched them clash together in a cascade of sparks that seem far too bright in this eternal night.

Yoru slipped in between the cracks of Blackbeard's fingers, aiming with frightening precision as it craftily avoided all defenses that the other threw its way and sent its tip closer and closer to a chest already slick and almost shining with blood, and for a moment, Perona mentally slapped herself for feeling such fear. This was Dracule Mihawk, the World's Greatest Swordsman, someone who can sent members of a Yonko's crew trembling and fleeing for cover, how unreasonable was it to think that someone can outdo him so extremely? Yet once again, her fears were confirmed, and just before it touched flesh, Yoru halted, as if suddenly chain down the way she was, and when she looked harder, dread only buried deeper into her soul, for holding a haki imbued tip of a Saijou Oowaza-mono blade, were nothing but glamoured fingers.

The infamous hawk eyes narrowed, seeming to assess the situation in milliseconds, and before the fingers have even fully closed on the sword, the swordsman leapt, releasing Yoru from his grip, and flew onto the hilt of the black blade, from where he once again jumped into the air, the altitude of which remaining true to the animal that he had been named after. From there, his hand reached out to lay on the world's sharpest blade, supporting his entire body weight as he spun beautifully and kicked out at his opponent, the speed almost normal in the swirling abyss of slowness, telling Perona that if time had flowed normally, it wouldn't have taken more than a second. The perfectly coordinated attack did not miss its mark this time, and Blackbeard staggered backwards as the force of the kick sent the darkness around them momentarily cowering away, returning time to its normal speed for no longer than the blink of an eye before the endless shadows returned and slowed his ungraceful fall enough for him to regain his footing. However, he had long released Yoru from the grip of his fingers, and when Perona's eyes darted back to Mihawk, he had in his hand, cut by the very same sword, the black blade.

His eyes were intense, the yellow rings empty and emotionless as they stared down a worthy yet hated opponent, who reached out his hand to bring destruction upon the clearing. At the very same moment that they moved, the darkness shrieked, sending Perona's brain vibrating from the impact, but it wasn't until she involuntarily put her hands up to block the sound that she realized the fact that she could now move. Then the darkness began to run, pushing and shoving as they tried to escape from something terrifying enough to send something a million times worse than fear and death fleeing for its life. As a spirit, Perona felt herself being dragged away, the darkness attempting to lure her into the afterlife as it fled, determined to take something from everyone before it makes its dramatic exit. Somehow she held on, kept the thought of Mihawk securely strapped to her mind and stayed, despite the feeling that her very essence, the thing that still marks her as human, is being ripped apart right in front of her eyes. When the darkness cleared and she dared to look once more, a hurricane of strikes and attacks greeted her, nearly tearing away the parts of her that weren't already taken by the darkness. Through the whirlwind, she could only make out semblances of strikes: one from Hawkeyes that stabbed into the darkness; an ear-splitting rumble from the earth as Blackbeard utilized the powers of the most powerful Paramecia and sent it spiking for the swordsman; Yoru snaking through defenses and slamming into the flesh under Blackbeard's arm; clawed darkness wrapping around Mihawk's throat, refusing to be outdone…

The harder she looked, the harder it became to see, and Perona was one thought away from moving closer when demons burst out of their skins and reigned over the clearing. Great bursts of light hurtled into the sky, separating into two distinctive beams as they went: one an almost repulsive shade of green with strands of purple mixed within, the other a mad and deranged black so black that it appeared to be the red of blood. In the midst of all that stood two figures, both bathed in light among the rain and floating in midair, the terrifyingly wonderful structures around them providing a stable place for them to stand. Yet it was what the structures were that truly planted panic into the Strawhat crew and herself, for they were monstrosities, the worst mutations of a species that the mind can conjure, of two animals that are as different as the night is from the day.

In the sky, still heavy with clouds, the rain never ceasing, a great white shark and a king cobra faced off against one another, each the stuff of utter and absolute horror, the savages that would only appear in the worst of the worst of nightmares.


Hatred blinded him.

This man, this snake, had forced him into destroying his most prized possession, had forced him to dishonor Kuina's name by bringing harm to the one thing that still held her soul and kept her story alive. The sickening sound and the spider net crack haunted him, as he knew it will for many nights to come. That is, if he survives this.

The shark encased him, and he saw its demonic red eyes, hungry for prey, and the teeth sharper than Yoru's blade, dripping with freshly shed blood. Opposite him was a man that could have no better representation, though some part of him had always known that this fight would not last long. In fact, there wouldn't be a fight at all.

All of this? This is just a distraction.

It had been perhaps two seconds after they had soured into the sky after one another, the demons within finally shredding apart their defenses and exploding out of their bodies, when he saw Noroi's smile even from behind the auras that now governed their souls and minds, only confirming that this man would not fight him head on, instead, he would find a way to cause as much suffering as he could possibly muster. So Noroi had smiled, and Zoro watched as the king cobra turned in one fluid motion and soared, its gigantic tail whipping the air behind it, for Nico Robin.


When the cobra came towards her, Robin heard his cry, full of hatred and torment and anguish and love, not so much with her ears then with her heart, in which cracks widened and threatened to split it in half.

"I'm only going to break your heart."

So she opened her mouth and gave a cry of her own, except this one contained love and only love.

Pure, eternal love.


Enter the Ghost Princess and the demons within.