DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ONE PIECE

I'm also a day late on updating, and I apologize.


Chapter Fifty-Three

My body slammed hard onto the floor below, knocking the breath out of me. I gasped for air, rolling from my side onto my back, blinking away the dust and trying to breathe normally without inhaling too much of the dust and debris. Pain blossomed in almost every part of my body and I felt tears streaming down my cheeks, finally falling from my eyes due to the excruciating pain and betrayal that I had been feeling.

The dust settled after a moment, just as my breathing became more normal. I sputtered and choked out the remnants of the debris that had been moving into my throat, turning over onto my hands and knees to simultaneously wipe my tears and the spit that dribbled down my chin. I shoved my hair from my face, annoyed that it was sticking to my forehead and cheeks, as I brought my head up to look at the hole I made in the wall. There was no sign of Marue in that opening, which meant he could already be down here, or he could still be on the floor from when I threw the chair at him.

I started shakily to my feet, eyes still on the opening for a moment before looking behind me to ensure that he hadn't snuck up in the time it took me to get my bearings. I didn't see him, but instead I saw someone else.

"…Law?"

He looked absolutely livid, but with an undertone of concern and relief all mixed in. It was an odd combination to see on Trafalgar Law, but I found myself liking his disheveled appearance, as if he had been fretting for a few days and couldn't find the time to tame his black hair or dress properly, not even bothering with his hoodie as he wore a black t-shirt and some jeans. The dark circles under his eyes had become darker, more than likely due to lack of sleep or more stress. I happened to see—because I sure as hell wasn't looking for it—bruises and small scratches littering his knuckles, and I wondered for a moment who he had been fighting before I had a thought.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?!" I started forward, tripping over my heels and the rubble around me. Drawing my eyes from Law, I took in the group standing around him, which included Nate, Killian, Tino, Penguin, and Shachi. As I started walking to them, Bepo sprinted into the room, looking between Law's group and myself with wide eyes. "You guys aren't supposed to know where I am! How did you—?"

Kaeli…

As if on cue, I heard the sounds of barking from outside the mansion. I whipped my head to the window, paling when I heard the piercing scream that could only belong to my sister. It was too dark to see out of the windows, but I could hear her screams, as if she were trying to draw the attention of the dogs outside to her. I changed directions, now heading for the doors on shaky feet, when Marue jumped down in front of me, brandishing that same knife from before.

"Dammit Mara, I can't take it anymore. I can't handle you not wanting to be with me!" I dodged when he swung the knife at me, and yelled back to the Heart Pirates when they moved to interfere that this was my fight. To my surprise, Law signaled them all to stop. He had his sword drawn, but there was a look in his eyes, like he understood why I needed to do this on my own.

"I need you to explain some things." I ordered Marue, moving away from another swipe of his dagger and punching him when his face got close enough, knocking him back a few steps to his utter outrage. "I need to know why."

He barked out a laugh and almost relaxed his stance. "You really don't know?" I glared and didn't answer, moving to dodge again but not moving fast enough, getting a small cut on my arm. I moved back from him, almost falling in these damned heels again, but succeeding in putting a few feet of distance between the two of us. "I love you."

"That doesn't really answer the question. I need to know why me. You could have chosen anyone else—hell, the first time we met was on Sabaody! So why would you go through all of this trouble all this time for me?"

He didn't answer for a long time. He relaxed his position, dropping his hands to his sides and simply staring at me. I didn't relax at all. If anything, I tensed up even more, clenching my fists and bracing myself for an unexpected attack. In the near-silence of the room; I could still hear barking and screams from outside, as well as the crackling of the flames engulfing the building.

And then he attacked.

I was glad that I was ready for it, because if I hadn't been, I would have ended up on the ground underneath him. Instead, I was pushed towards the wall again, only this time, the end position was very different. He had moved to cut me again, but I grabbed his wrist, holding it back with all the strength I could muster. I allowed him to pick my feet up from the ground, but I used it to my advantage and looped one leg around his arm and poised my other foot so that my heel was pressed against his neck. I could give one push and crush his esophagus. His other hand, the one not holding the dagger and being held in place by my leg, was holding my one free arm that wasn't holding his wrist.

We were at a standstill against the wall.

"You don't remember me…" It wasn't a question, but I shook my head regardless. His eyes hardened and he tried to push his dagger holding hand closer to me, but I held firm with my hand on his wrist. "You don't remember the poor, sickly twin of Margie."

Memories flooded back all at once and I gasped. Marue was related to Margie, and I hadn't remembered until now. He was always hanging around her back home, but we would kick him out of the group because he had bad asthma and couldn't keep up. A young boy who only wanted companionship,, but was always forced to sit in the background and watch our interactions from a distance.

I had always thought, ever since I first thought that I met Marue, that he had an uncanny resemblance to Margie—green eyes, red hair. But, I would remember that they weren't the only people in the world with that color combination, and it was unlikely that this man would be related to my childhood friend.

Now, I knew how wrong I was.

"You were…"

He nodded, sneering as he tightened his hold on my arm. "I was always there. You never noticed me, but by God I noticed you—I noticed you every single day, and every day I hated you more and more for taking Margie from me."

"You hated me? But you just said—"

"I hated you at first. God, I hated you and wanted you to die. That was why I attacked your family—why I pitted your own sister against each and every one of you. It was the reason why I made sure they were all dead. I tried to make sure you died as well, but, well, things didn't go as planned."

He tried to wrench his wrist from my hand, but I held on and pushed my heel harder against his throat, causing him to cough slightly. "It's not a Devil Fruit."

"No, you idiot." He clarified, sounding out of breath and raspy. "Why would I rig my own house to render Devil Fruit freaks useless if I had one?"

"You hurt your own sister." I felt sick all over again as the thought broke into my mind, remembering seeing her blinded and burned alongside me on the ground when the villagers ran to help us to the hospital for treatment.

"That was an accident—Margie acted on her own to save you. You were supposed to perish, but you survived. And I think that was when I started to love you." He got a look in his eyes then that spoke volumes about the 'love' he was feeling. I pushed my heel harder against his throat, bringing him back to the present to finish talking. "You're a survivor, Mara. You were always living—surviving every little thing that I made Raven do."

I shook my head, tightening my grip on his wrist. "You're not in love with me. You're in love with the idea of killing me."

He seemed to mull over this new opinion for a moment before giving a shrug and grinning. "Does it really matter? I wanted you dead, then I wanted you as mine, and now…now I want you dead again. It's like a vicious cycle, and you're the force behind it."

"Explain one more things before I kill you." He raised a brow, both in waiting and in amusement. He didn't believe that I would go through with it. I could tell by the look in his eyes. "Why is Raven's name on the back of my neck?"

He laughed again, ignoring my heel digging into his throat as he did so. "That was a little thing that I did to spice things up. I didn't think it would take you so long to notice, but the look on your face when you did was priceless!"

Now I was going to kill him.

I pressed my heel harder onto his throat, effectively cutting off his air and watching his face turn an unkind shade of red as he sputtered and tried to back away. I held fast to his wrist with my hand, tightening my leg around his arm so that when he backed away, I went with him. I pushed harder and harder, and almost succeeded in crushing his windpipe when his hand broke free and he slashed down at me with his dagger. I let go in time, falling to my back on the ground as he stumbled backwards, hacking and coughing as he tried to right himself. He fell to his hands and knees, clutching the dagger as he caught his breath.

Without giving myself time to get rid of the pain from falling onto my back, I rolled over and jumped up, heading to him and kicking his face, knocking him backwards and picking the knife up quickly. His nose broke with a sickening crunch that made my insides churn, but I didn't have time to think of it as he tried to get up. I knelt before him, pressing the dagger firmly to his neck and allowing it to dig into his skin, breaking it and bringing some blood up to slide down to the ground. He was glaring heatedly at me, but I didn't make any faces. I simply stared back at him with a blank look.

"If you're gonna do it, then do it. I'm not planning on begging for mercy."

I couldn't do it.

Killing Raven was one thing—nothing had been revealed to me about the entirety of the situation, and I thought killing him would end everything. Now, with Marue, I was thinking differently on account of the discoveries that I've made. I felt like I was really about to do some horrible thing and take him down when he couldn't even fight back. What if, when he was dying, he got that same look as Raven? What if he wasn't really the mastermind? What if—?

"Where's Raven's body?"

His eyes widened before he glared again, coughing some more against the blade. "I threw him into the ocean after I took him from the island. I had no more use for him." I nodded, grateful that I had an answer for that one. It had been bothering me ever since it disappeared from the island. "Stop wasting time, Mara. If you can't kill me then I'll gladly kill you and your little friends over there."

Rage swept through my body at his words, along with images of the fallen Hear Pirates that danced across my imagination. The dark, morbid images allowed me to make my decision, which I would carry out before I changed my mind.

"You won't kill anyone else." I growled out, lifting the knife to plunge it into his neck. He grinned, and I got a bad feeling right before my name was called.

I didn't look over my shoulder to see who had called for me, because I didn't want to look away from Marue, but I was grabbed from behind and a shot rang out. An eerie silence followed, and I dug my fingers into my ears in an attempt to stop the ringing.

Lifting myself from the ground, I looked before me and reeled back in shock.

Kaeli, who had scratches and bite marks littering every part of her that wasn't covered in her dress, was still in her disguise, plunging the knife into Marue's neck. He was dead now, eyes lifeless as they stared up at the ceiling. She was breathing hard with her back to me. After a moment of my staring at her back, she turned her head to peek at me over her shoulder, giving a smile.

"Thanks…" I breathed out, getting on my hands and knees to crawl to her.

She tried to speak, but as she did, blood pooled from her mouth and she fell backwards from her kneeling position beside Marue, slamming her back onto the ground and allowing me to see the gunshot wound on her stomach. Marue held the gun in his hand, the barrel still smoking. It was all too clear that the bullet was meant for me, but Kaeli had intervened.

Tears formed in my eyes as I crawled to her, grabbing her head and cradling it in my lap, a mantra of the word 'no' escaping my lips. More blood still escaped the corner of her mouth, falling onto my dress, but I paid not mind to it as I pressed my hand to her stomach in an attempt to stop the blood flow.

"You're such an idiot." As I spoke, the disguise she wore melted away, revealing her watery blue eyes as she looked up at me. She flinched in pain every once in a while as the entire disguise was washed away, and I shook my head at her. "What were you thinking? What happened to you?" I touched the bite marks on her arms and looked down at the ones on her legs.

She coughed and I allowed some tears to fall. "I…took your scent." I choked out a sob, knowing what she would say before she even said it. Her part of the plan became clear despite the agonizing feeling of guilt that was clouding my head. "I was…the distraction for the dogs…"

"You moron—" I sobbed openly, pressing my hand harder against her wound as I turned to the group of pirates that I had forgotten about until now. Law stood at the head of the group with a hard look in his eyes, and I could tell before the thought even crossed my mind that there was no hope for Kaeli. He couldn't save her.

Kaeli was going to die tonight.

She shivered in my arms and managed a chuckle, tears streaming down her cheeks as well. "Mar, I just…I just want you to know that I'm really sorry." I shook my head, but couldn't form words around my sobs. She continued. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't want to lose you. I didn't want you to stop being my sister. I'm just so sorry that I was too weak to do anything sooner. I want—"

Kaeli sobbed and choked, cutting off her rant as blood pooled up to cover my hand on her stomach and more come from her mouth like a horrible crimson waterfall. I couldn't breathe properly for a moment. When I could, I told her to shut up. "God, you're forgiven, Kaeli. I love you. You did nothing wrong. You're not the monster anymore. I am! I'm the monster because I couldn't forgive you before and now that you're—"

"You're not a monster, idiot." She reached her hand up and grabbed onto mine that was holding her wound, clutching my hand in hers in a surprisingly tight grip. "You're my sister, and I love you too." Her grip tightened and a heart breaking sob broke from her, louder than any of the crying that had been going on yet. I widened my eyes and looked at her face, filled with fear and regret. "Mara, I'm so scared to die. I don't want to go yet. I have so many people to apologize to! Oh God, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry to everyone. I'm sorry to you and Margie. I'm scared, Mara. I'm so fucking scared. I'm not ready." Her voice died down, but she continued to mumble about how scared she was and that she wasn't ready to go.

My heart felt like it was shattering as the grip loosened bit by bit. It was almost unnoticeable, but I could feel it for sure when her hand gave up completely and it was only my grip on her hand that kept it up. I sobbed uncontrollably as her labored breathing began to die down. I mumbled 'I love you' as many times as I could, pressing kisses to her forehead and cheeks until she was gone for good.

Her life left her with one solid breath, and her body went completely limp.

Her head lolled to the side, the look of fear etched on her face still.

I smoothed her hair back, bringing my hand up to wipe my tears. This wasn't my first dead body that I held, but it was a more important one. Kaeli was the last person in my biological family, and now all I had left was the family that was filled with Pirates, Marines, and mountain bandits.


[A/N:] Well, this kind of got me emotional while I was writing it, so I hope you guys enjoyed it. I also want to say that I suck at fight scenes, so I'm sorry if it's a little anti-climactic.

ALSO, this story, Her Twisted Tale, is coming to its end soon. There will be a few more chapters, and then it's over. BUT DO NOT DESPAIR! I will make a sequel (which I am already thinking of ideas for)

Hope you all like the chapter, please leave a review, and have a nice day~

Love you!

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