I smirked as I looked down at the sea of bounty hunters before me. I knew that my height was smaller compared to certain other people back home, and definitely smaller compared to people here, and I detested that.

I am a strong believer that people who fight must be tall. Then they can look down on people. Heh. I do that already even though I'm only 5' 3". Most people don't understand how hard it is to intimidate someone taller than you. Actually… maybe that's why Nami's so afraid of me…

Zoro began monologuing and exposing the sea of bounty hunters as Baroque Works. I subtly put my hands on the hilts of my daggers. (They're mine and nothing can change that).

This one nameless bounty hunter spoke up from the seas,

"The only two bounties—"

2 bounties? How much did I screw up?

"Are the captain, Monkey D. Luffy and Shivani Aika,"

What.

Zoro looked at me slightly put-off, and I tried to salvage my situation.

"I didn't do a thing,"

That just made him more skeptical. Oops. Our attention was stolen by another nameless bounty hunter in the sea.

"Hey! Before we turn in Shivani Aika, why don't we play with her a little," the bounty hunter turned a lecherous grin towards me, beady eyes roving over my body, "She seems hot enough,".

I stared at them and fully unsheathed my daggers. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes. How dare those lousy degenerates try to take me?

I stuck my right hand holding the dagger horizontally, so the underside of the blade was facing the spot right next to my feet, and exhaled. I snapped a glare at said degenerate, and sped over to him.

Once I was around one foot or so away from him, I stopped, the wind resistance around me, creating a backlash and sweeping anyone within a ten-foot radius of me away.

"You…" my words were soft, but they cut through the air like a knife through hot butter, "pedophile…". I softly looked up at him, my face the perfect picture of angelic and soft, before saying softly, "I hate pedophiles,". Now, it is a fact that I'm 17, and I'm a minor. I know that rules like those don't apply to this world, but I just want to play with them for a bit.

The plebian still didn't seem to get the message and continued taunting me. Through my peripheral vision, I could see some of his fellow bounty hunters gesturing wildly towards him to shut up, lest he suffer.

"…What's a pretty lass like you gonna do about it?",

Oh. Oh, now that struck home. Why isn't Zoro doing his thing yet? Eh, I'll worry about that later. My angelic mask didn't crack. It didn't, not at all. Screw the cracks, it shattered.

My previously beatific smile, turned into a bloodthirsty grin. My eyes which were closed in a perfect semicircle, like how one would look whilst sleeping, were now open and wide. My hair which previously framed my face beautifully, now shadowed my face adding to the picture of insanity. Add all that to my choice of words, and…

"I will make you scream."

Well, I effectively terrified everyone, I'm not so sure about Zoro though, but I terrified all the nameless bounty hunters. They all seemed to forget that they had the advantage of numbers over me, and it seemed that the mayor guy wasn't going to be pointing it out anytime soon.

Shrugging it off, I turned my full attention to the frozen man in front of me. Gone, was the lecherous grin he once wore, and in its place a frozen expression of shock and fear. I walked over to him leisurely, effectively giving the impression that he wasn't even worth my energy. I smirked and twirled a dagger between my fingers before holding it straight outwards, like how Zoro holds his swords.

I pressed the edge of the blade to his right cheek, inclined it, and shaved a portion of the skin off. It took a lot of energy to not keep my stand-offish demeanor from failing at the sight of blood. The fact that I had barely needed to attack someone to this extent was something they didn't need to know.

He was still frozen, too shocked to comprehend what was going on, but before he could recover, I whipped around to his back and pressed three of his pressure points. He was stunned for a moment before I began carving said pressure points out. His screams were that of pure agony, and I was fighting off a wave of overwhelming nausea, all while keeping my mask on.

I heard footsteps behind me, and I whipped around, and saw a katana less than an inch from my face.

"I don't know whether I should be surprised that you heard my footsteps, or if I should kill you right here and now,"

The voice, which I now identified as Zoro's had a clear and threatening undertone to it. I tensed, and then forcefully relaxed again.

"What? Wouldn't you torture this lousy pedophile?" I exclaimed flippantly, just barely tensing my leg muscles enough, should I have to bolt from the scene.

What does it say about me that I'm thinking like a murderer? God, I feel so slimy.

Zoro narrowed his eyes at me, "Just who are you really? I was a bounty hunter until a few weeks ago, and the bounty you've got on that poster of yours… It should take years to build up, especially for someone from the East Blue. There are no scandals about you, so your bounty can't just jump up like Luffy's, so how?" he waited for my answer before adding on, "and tell me about that Mota girl too, she seems close to you, but she doesn't have a bounty poster,"

I tensed, just barely stopping the instinctual reaction of widening my eyes, and lied through my teeth, "I got framed for an event that didn't even happen,". Zoro narrowed his eyes at me even more, and pulled out his even more so bloodthirsty sword, "You're lying,".

No one. No one has been able to read me like that so fast. I tensed my leg muscles and waited for him to make the first move, but to my surprise, he just sighed, "Tell me the truth and maybe I won't have to explain to Luffy why there's a corpse of you tomorrow morning," he offered.

My eyes widened and fear began bubbling up in my gut. No, no, NO! This isn't going to plan! I sighed and decided to tell Zoro.

Everything, and boy, I'm sure his reaction will be sweet.

"Mota did arson on my house for no reason whatsoever, I found her, the police back home thought that I was the culprit for burning down my own house, and I got arrested, my parents got mad, I got pressed with charges, this stunning blue goddess abducted me and sent me to this world, which was literally a manga back at home, Me and Mota are enemies, we were dropped on that one island of Gaimon's residence, and she forced a Devil Fruit down my throat, I still don't know why, I carried her on my back and we ran all the way to Loguetown, I saw your future crewmate, sort-of, there and I got captured by Smokey and the Marines for an event that didn't even happen, Luffy's father found me after I broke out, and went all 'Revolutionary Dragon' on us and dropped us on your ship, in which I find out that me and Mota have an inexplicable connection through our mind, and also, we both know the future, except I know your futures for about 2 years from now, so…" I clapped my hands together,

"Any questions?"

Zoro blinked his eyes and raised his finger before dropping it back down towards his side. I became distinctly aware that the plaza was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Zoro futilely tried to rebut my claims.

"You know what? I'll just explain everything later, for now, we get rid of these bounty hunters, no?", I smiled beatifically, before speeding off and leaving Zoro alone.

Oh my god, I relayed, 'What?' was my response, 'I'm trying to deal with a Luffy here,'

Sorry, I replied back, it's just, I told Zoro,

'How much?'

Everything.

'You're a fool, did you know that?' I didn't need to be near her in order to hear the deadpan tone of her voice.

Don't worry, he's too confused to understand anything, and let's hope it stays that way, I assured.

I felt indignancy flare up in the back of my mind before forcefully pushing it down and putting up mental barriers once more.

I ran towards the sea of bounty hunters which Zoro was taking care of quite nicely, and decided to join in on the fun. I gave a speedy right hook to this one guy, who rocketed backwards from the enhanced punch into his best buddy behind him. Wow, you know, Kizaru was right, speed is weight. I was nowhere near that strong before.

I whipped around and gave a backwards kick to the guy behind me before twirling on my heel and kicking out next to me. 2 more down.

Everything is going straight to plan… almost… I smirked.

Within five minutes, the entire plaza was cleared of everyone save the officer agents of Baroque Works. I pulled out my dagger and looked down the plaza. If I remember correctly, the Devil Fruit guys, Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine would be coming right about… now.

…

Nothing's happening.

…

I heard an explosion to my right and I saw Zoro holding his katan outwards with an expression of disgust on his face. Without even looking at his opponents, I walked up to him, slung my arm across his shoulders and said, "Mad that you had to cut through a booger, huh?".

"Shut up"

I grinned and sped over to Ms. Valentine before she could do anything, and I decked her clean across the face, before delivering a hard-left kick to her ribcage. A split second before she reacted, I grabbed her by the head, and kneed her in the face, the satisfying sound of her nose crunching against my knees was simultaneously satisfying and nauseating.

Shivani Aika wins by Knockout! I tauntingly sent over the mental connection. Not too long after, I got a response, 'Ha, ha. At least you don't have to deal with a certain Monkey D Luffy, are you done yet? I can't hold him back for long. There's only so much stories about his own adventures can do,' (AN: Before anyone says anything, she's not giving details as to what's happening, and she's not getting too far into the literal adventure, she's putting her own spin on the story so much so that Luffy's adventures that she's talking about, aren't Luffy's adventures anymore.)

I gave a derisive snort and sped over to Mr. 5 to deck him across the face, before speeding out of the way for Zoro to finish the job. Yeah, yeah, I'm almost done, all we need to do is get Vivi into position.

I looked around and decided to do a run-through of the island. Which basically meant that I kick into high gear and practically soru across the entire island area. I closed my eyes and bowed down low before kicking the ground. I didn't know it at the time, but I had broken the sound barrier, and left a miniature crater in my wake.

Hmm… Blue hair, blue hair, ah! Vivi! I grinned and tried to swerve into her general direction, but I ended up overestimating and speeding right into her duck which was right next to her. I crashed into the wall of the shack behind them, all dazed and completely out of it. The second I snapped back into reality, I pinned Vivi with a glare.

"You're not going anywhere, princess," I added that last part with a bit of spite, in order to get her to listen. It didn't exactly tug on my heartstrings that I was doing this to her, considering that she was pretty stupid to infiltrate Baroque Works, on her own, without a devil fruit, but I guess that she's also pretty badass for that too.

I escorted her towards the central plaza, and saw…

The exact same freaking thing I wanted to prevent.

Zoro and Luffy were standing off against each other with their fists and katanas raised like complete idiots. Those stories were supposed to placate Luffy for a while, and open his mind just a little to the possibility of sabotage, I thought that Zoro would be smart enough to catch on.

Clearly, I must have been wrong.

My blood was boiling, and I wanted nothing more than to smack them both upside the head for their stupidity. Is this how Nami felt on a daily basis? Damn. She's hardcore.

I ignored Vivi, who was watching the stand-off with a frozen look of shock, and marched right up to the mosshead closest to me. I raised my fist and decked him across the face, no devil fruit power included. I wanted this to feel nice and slow against my fist.

Amazingly, there must be some secret superpower that all girls in this world have, because he fell right over and began caressing his bruised cheek,

"JEEZ, LADY, WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"

I blinked, The hell is wrong with me? I scowled and then looked at Zoro. The temperature rose by fifteen degrees.

"The hell is wrong with me?!", I began, slowly, as if testing the words out in my mouth, which I kind of was, "THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?! ARE YOU A FOOL?" I exploded, before giving him a chance to react, I turned towards the captain man himself, "AND YOU!", I thundered, "YOU'D SOONER TRUST SOME RANDOM PEOPLE YOU'VE NOT EVEN KNOWN FOR AN ENTIRE DAY OVER YOUR OWN FIRST MATE?" Luffy had the decency to wince at my declaration, before opening his mouth. Before he could say a thing, I shot him down.

"DON'T GIVE ME THE EXCUSE 'Oh, they gave me meat!' THAT AIN'T GONNA CUT IT! WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET THROUGH TO YOUR MIND THAT THEY. SABOTAGED. US. YOU IDIOTIC BUFFOON!", by now, I had garnered quite the crowd with my advancing spectacle, and even the bruised and beaten Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine stopped to watch. Nami watched on with a look of shock, for what? I don't know.

"But…", the captain started,'

"NO!", at this point, my voice was enhanced with my devil fruit, and I busted eardrums with it.

Luffy winced back from my verbal assault before I felt a pat on my shoulder, I turned around to look, and I was met with the face of a distinctly unimpressed Katrina Mota who with her other hand, pointed towards her ears.

"Congratulations," she said flatly, "You've made us all deaf, Mission Accomplished," I scoffed and glared at her, old hate festering within my stomach. I forcefully pushed it down before sending a mental message, Go get Vivi, she's probably stunned from this whole ordeal.

Mota scowled before shooting back, 'I'm not your slave,' yet she did it regardless. I heard a thump from beside me, and one Cat Burglar Nami stepped up into the fray. She walked up to me, looked me in the eye, and slapped me across the face, "How dare you…" she said softly, "…speak to our captain that way…", she hefted a heavy bag of what was undoubtedly gold and jewels and stalked silently away.

Zoro passed by me and gave me the stink eye, his hand clenched onto Wado, almost ready for a fight. I suppressed a wince. I knew that I wasn't a member of the Straw Hats. Far from it, actually. I wasn't even an ally, I was just a person, nothing special about it.

All of a sudden, the world just seemed heavier on my shoulders. I knew this feeling. It was the crushing claws of despair. It took everything I had not to collapse to my knees and just let go of my mask for 5 seconds so I can cry.

I let out a shaky breath and acted like I was steeling my nerves. Ha. At this point, all my will comes from the acting persona I'm making up. This mask is one that'll put Nico Robin's to shame.

I spun on my heel and walked towards the general direction of the ship. I had no doubt that by now, Mota had already explained to the Straw Hats of their next objective. I walked a little faster, opting to put more cheer into my step. Maybe I should follow my mom's footsteps and be more actor than person. Yes… that seems like it would work. Even if for a moment, it will get this horrible feeling of despair off of me.

I changed the pattern of my steps into a skip, and plastered a smile onto my face, before stopping and frowning. They would get suspicious of such an abrupt change. Maybe it was my inherited instinct of an actress that I knew that, but I instead forwent with the new mask I was creating and decided to work on it once on the ship.

I rocketed at full speed towards the Merry, and jumped nimbly on her rail, before speedily sneaking through the commotion on deck to go to the alley door. I ran through the hallways in the ship, just barely keeping my mask together from all the stares I was getting. I knew Luffy—the captain—was loved, but I didn't know just how loved, with which my experience in watching One Piece should've told me.

I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door shut, breathing hard, and for the first time in a long time, I let my mask break. My back slid against the door and I fell down to my knees, that perpetually shocked and broken expression on my face, before I huddled into my knees and cried. I cried so hard, that I'm pretty sure that I would've gone unconscious should I have gone any harder.

Just put on a mask, everything will be fine.

I ignored the itch of ever-growing horror in the back of my mind, until horror of my own overtook it. Crap! I broadcasted that—

The bathroom door slammed open, and I immediately slammed a façade on. I cursed silently to myself, I should've put the mental barriers on before lowering my guard. It shan't happen again.

Mota looked at me with a blank, icy stare, before closing the bathroom door slowly and softly. She crossed her arms before sitting down, "Explain, now." She demanded.

I was slowly getting my bearings back, and a petulant rage fired up inside of me. This was my time. MY time to be me. HOW DARE THIS CHILD TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!

I gritted my teeth and looked her in the eyes. I knew that if we both shared a true mental connection, then it was no doubt that she had connections to my memories. Thinking outside the box had become a norm for me. Looking at the big picture and then whittling it down to something simpler is child's play.

I was not in the right state of mind, though, and in no way ready nor wanting to put on a mask after forgoing it not even 30 seconds ago. If I were to put on a mask, it would be petty. I would force myself to feel sad, make her feel satisfied with the answer and finally leave me alone, but right now, I can't do that.

"And how would you know what I go through?" I asked rudely.

Mota's look softened before she said, "I was so offended when you insulted my beauty because it's the only thing that I'm praised for. I myself know that it's sick that I side with the ones that hurt, instead of being the victim, because I don't want to be alone. It's evil, I know, and it eats at my conscience every passing day, knowing that I'm the cause of so much envy and hate in the social hierarchy, that I can fix it, but I just… can't.".

Ever since she began talking, my rage kept rising with each passing minute, How dare she call this pain. This? I gritted my teeth so hard; I was in danger of cracking a tooth. Tch.

I carefully put my mask on this time, so she wouldn't notice, and I kept the mental barriers up like second nature, projecting only comforted emotions, "I—thank you, Arsonist, for doing this for me, now I realize that my problem is actually quite petty when I hear your past," Like hell, "And… I'll try not to be such a killjoy from now on, so just have your fun!" I almost gritted out the last part, but she didn't seem to notice.

"That's good! Now, if I feel any fake emotions coming from you again…" she let the threat hang in the air before leaving. I almost let a snort escape from me when I heard her make that threat. It was so… weak. Or at least, the person making it is. When I heard her past, that made me almost want to laugh. Ha! She calls that pain.

I put up the mental barriers and kept them strong before finally dropping my mask again. I sighed; I had always been the victim of bullying. In elementary, bullying was strictly forbidden, since young minds can be easily molded, and they wanted self-confident children leading the next generation. That was why physical bullying was forbidden.

Damn teachers said nothing about verbal bullying. In fact, it did its job even harsher than the physical bullying. Taking blows at one's pride, reverse psychology, making you feel so low, and so on. It wasn't until middle school did the bullying become physical. By then, my self-esteem had been so low, it would've had to reach up to tie its metaphorical shoes.

I couldn't even fight back against the physical bullying at that point. I kept all my frustration and sadness bottled up, it didn't even come to mind to feel angry, since I was so busy trying to keep up the mask of happiness and bliss. The physical bullying started out as people purposefully bumping into me while I passed by them in the halls, and then pointing accused stares at me.

Then, they upgraded. They began punching when the teacher wasn't looking. I was the perfect target. I wouldn't cry, I wouldn't scream, all because I was too inexperienced, too inexperienced to take the damn mask off, so it looked like I was friggin' happy when they beat my ass into the ground.

That's when the hate started to fester.

If I had thought middle-school was bad, Highschool was worse. I had to cycle through three different high schools, getting a real, bloody taste of what passed as violence there. At the first school, I was constantly punched and kicked while on the ground. At the second school, I learned to take of my mask, switch it out for a new one, look inherently scary, and fight back. The cost was insane, though.

Those bastards almost tore out my right eye. The teachers didn't even notice.

At the third high school me and my parents chose, it was an all-girl high school, also where I met Mota. I kept a distant and aloof personality all the time at school, and people, save her, would avoid me in turn. After school, on the weekends though… The district I lived near was violent, gangs used that place as a base.

I decided to use that place as my training grounds, because I thought it was abandoned, and that was the worst mistake of my life.

Every. Single. Man. They all jumped on me the moment I entered, the only thing that was keeping me aloft was the taser my mom bought for my birthday, and instincts honed by years of taking punches. I had scary pain tolerance.

I didn't beat them all, no, not by a long shot. I could see that they were experienced in fighting, the only reason they lost, being that they had just finished eating. After that, I was declared 'Queen' of the Red District.

People from other districts would come to that district to 'have a piece of her majesty', or crap like that, and I had to condone it. Otherwise, I would lose my right to the Red District. I was beaten black, blue, and bloody because of my own doing.

Anger, at myself, anger at my tormentors, anger at the world was burning deep within me, and was released during those fights. The result?

Brutal.

Years, I tell you, years of verbal bullying had chipped away at my mind, causing it to be unstable and for me to have somewhat of a split personality. One which I was in complete control of. My masks were mine, yet they were a completely different persona.

At this point, I don't even know who I am anymore.

I was broken out of my reminiscing by the door opening. I put on a mask, filling up any holes that I could identify and looked up at the offender.

It was Luffy.

Wait, what?

AN: So, Shivani's past is revealed, Katrina's past is also revealed, they both forgot to explain their future knowledge, but I'll get to that next chapter. I originally wanted Shivani to be a very strange character, one that has a sense of humor, cynical as it may be, yet melancholic because she's lost sight of who she wants to be. Who she is. Because, when I say that she has a split personality (sort-of), I mean that she has multiple different personas that she controls with their own dreams, their own personalities, and that chips away at your sense of self. If I did something wrong on making her like so, please tell me.

For Katrina, I wanted her to be guilty of who she was and aim to make change, I wanted her to not be as melancholic as Shivani, but have guilt eating away at who she is, so much so, that when she and Shivani join the Straw-Hat crew, and they will, she will be hesitant at causing pain for another again.

Prelude to Next Chapter:

Shivani just shot her relationship with the Straw Hats, however fragile it may be, into dust, along with all the trust she had with it. They like her counterpart better than her, she's on the verge of being forgotten again, what could possibly go worse? Monkey D. Luffy decided to pay her a visit. What does he need from her? Is there any hope left? What will happen when Nico—Ms. Allsunday comes into the fray?

"I just want to talk!", Shivani leaned on the railing to get a better view of the panicked form of Ms. Allsunday before she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Huh?"

SLAP!

"uurgh…"

…

What happens next? Find out next chapter at… Raging Storm!

(God, that was so cheesy, should I do that again next chapter?)

~~4,281 words