Storm Clouds on the Horizon

[Vio]

¹

---

“Sorry, ma’am, but I’m afraid I can’t let you leave without an escort,” a Seaman said. Somewhere in his late twenties, he must have had a good few years of service under his belt – a veteran with the rank of First Class, ruggedly handsome and with short brown hair cut neatly and tight to his skull. He had a strong gaze emanating from deep green eyes, but his stare faltered. Thin eyes of orange-red hue pierced deep, as if digging into the darkest recesses of his mind and threatening to burst out from the other side of his head.

^“…”

^{“It’s too dangerous, and–”}

^{“I don’t care.”}

“Wh– What…? Ma’am, these are the rules. Civilians under our protection are not allowed to leave the premises without an escort, so I can’t allow you to step any further until an accompaniment has been arranged,” the Marine explained, struggling to look the woman in the eye as he spoke. That gaze of hers was unnerving to an extreme he had not known in all his years of service, but what made it most peculiar was the heavy contrast those eyes possessed to the body that wielded them. Of moderate stature, middle age and slightly ashen of hair, the citizen that these forces had been charged to protect was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Is there a problem here–soyo?” whispered the wind.

^{“N– No, sir!” saluted the Seaman:
“I was merely trying to protect Miss Ro–”}

“That will not be necessary–soyo,” the breezy voice replied, “as I’ll take the duty as needed–soyo. Now, please return to your duties and I will take it from here, Seaman–soyo.”

^{“Very well, Sir…”}

Vivid eyes – of crackling fire and of frosty wind – watched as the military man gave a salute and turned to leave for other duties. After a few yards, he checked back, only to find those same drilling ovals still picking at his psyche. He shuddered, snapped his head away, and quickened his pace somewhat. The woman scratched lightly at her shoulder, running fingertips over the loose and silky cotton gown she donned. Beneath it, a coarse sponginess teased her touch. After a moment, she turned and spoke.

“You certainly have a habit of showing up at opportune moments, Libeccio,” she said sharply.

^{“My apologies–soyo,” the windswept warrior whistled:
“But, he was right to stop you from leaving–soyo…”}

^{“She’ll be here soon.”}

“And you are sure of this, are you–soyo?” Libeccio asked, his plume of light blond hair bristling in the cool Eldoranian winds. As always, he seemed utterly calm and collected in his mannerisms. And yet, just like the Seaman, even he with his piercing blue eyes refused to meet his company eye to eye. Instead he stood loosely, leaning against a stalk of leafy bamboo as thick as a palm tree’s trunk, eyes partially closed and head angled down.

“If what you told me is to be believed, then yes, she should be here in a few days at most,” the woman answered, holding a piece of paper upon her open palm. A shred of card no bigger than coin seemed to tremble faintly, easing itself across the linen bindings that wrapped the damsel’s hands, almost as if it were trying to fly away to some distant locale. The edges were in a state, browned and curled and uneven, as if this was the rescued remnant of burning parchment. She did not understand it herself, nor had her associate been able to explain why – just a few days ago – the paper had ignited and yet extinguished itself of its own accord. Scrunching the fragment between her fingers, she spoke again: “I want to go and see her for myself.”

^{“Hmm…!?” Libeccio seemed to lose his composure for a moment:
“Are… Are you absolutely sure you want to do this, Miss Rosa–soyo…?”}

“Yes, I am,” Clementine responded with a glare. “I want to see what my former daughter’s become after all this time…”

^-~-

“Urgh… I feel sick,” Scarlette Grimm-Rosa murmured feebly as she disembarked from the now moored Phlegyas. Despite tranquil, soothing winds of cool in the pleasant tropical heat, she looked far from the part of someone here to enjoy a nice climate and foreign scenery. Wrapped quite substantially in a mixture of linen bandages and plaster casts, very little of the lethargic lady’s skin was free to feel the sunshine upon it. Banded stockings had been replaced with tight gauze wrappings, while her porcelain face was framed by similar strips of linen that covered various cuts and grazes.

Her entire right arm was encased in protective wrappings, a set of wooden splints supported by a cotton sling to cradle a limb that had gone through far more than anyone should have allowed. Her left leg was in a similar condition, held stiff and forcing her to walk upon a reinforced crutch. A simple walking stick would not have sufficed, given that three of her fair fingers were bound together, leaving just her pinky and thumb to grip properly with. At least her dress had somehow survived, albeit it was in poor condition, stitched and repaired to the best of Rebecca’s ability for reasons that the dark-haired demoiselle was not quite sure of.

“I can barely walk on this without swaying…,” Scarlette uttered to her companions; “Are you sure that Fishman doctor knew what he was doing…?”

---

SPOILER: Click to show

{OOC}

[/a], I honestly feel this would be the perfect place for the next few threads, but for now let’s focus on this first one. I’m imagining we’d have docked in El Town.[/font][/sub]

Starring…

_{Scarlette Grimm-Rosa (960018)
Pluto (550055)
Rebecca (33ffff)
Clementine Rosa (c56c00)
Libeccio (87ceeb)
Seaman (eeeeee)}

[/ul][/spoiler][/font][/sup][/blockquote][/div][/div][/div]

[BlacKitten]

Exactly ten days ago, a clash against the fishmen had emerged; all of which took place in an underground island known as Blue Lagoon. What had transpired may have appeared to be an unfortunate turn of events for three travelers, but only one of them had a true purpose for arriving there. Unbeknownst to his shipmates, the nineteen-year old boy was affiliated with the Revolutionary Army, tasked with the mission to retrieve a fallen member who goes by the name Ara.

Despite being warned to avoid confronting a dangerous fishman known as Varuna, he inevitably fought against the monster that ran a human slave business and tortured these slaved into submission. His little sister was in danger, and his foe was brutishly powerful and durable. Angered, he used his trump card which granted him access to a source of destructive power in exchange for damage throughout his body. The accumulation of injuries and wounds had left him incapacitated ever since then, and he wasn’t the only one. Both Scarlette and Ara had been hospitalized for the next few days.

Afterwards, they sailed the seas on their next voyage, most of them had lazed in bed for the most part. No one was in any condition to complain to bring Ara along with them. The girl had her own separate room within their ship. Rebecca made sure to feed the malnourished girl properly. She would pay a visit to each of her patient but spend most of her time next to her older brother, Pluto. It was the first in her two years of knowing him to have seen him in such a weakened and broken state. He had a rigid cast on his right arm, but beyond that, he required far fewer bandage wrappings compared to the other two. Most of his damage was internal, including fractured bones, muscle tears, and ruptured blood vessels.

Ara was the first out of the three to have regained the ability to comfortably walk albeit she was still low on energy and couldn’t exert herself too heavily. She would often apologetically express her gratitude towards Rebecca for nursing her back to almost full health, and in addition, she would often ask about Pluto’s wellbeing. Sometimes the girl would peek inside his room when the door was opened, but she was never bold enough to step inside. In addition, she would avoid Scarlette’s room at all costs, sensing something creepy and scary about the crimson-eyed woman.

Rebecca quickly found Ara to be a very cute and attractive person who was rather shy and timid.

Present time...

The heavily bandaged-up girl had tried to walk on crutches, “I can barely walk on this without swaying… Are you sure that Fishman doctor knew what he was doing…?”

“What exactly happened in your fight to have led you in such a pitiful state?” asked Pluto who leaned against the railing on the deck. There was a stark contrast in the level of medical care between them as the boy only had a cast on his right arm with a strap hung around his neck. He hoped her response to his question would offer him some insight on how she took on the Four Commanders who served directly under Varuna.

Rebecca was sightseeing the entire time, occasionally checking the log pose that she wears like a bracelet. The island of their new destination was within view. She wanted to discuss about Ara with her brother, but now didn’t seem to be the right time. Their new –perhaps temporary- crew member had been resting in her room. Ever since Scarlette was well enough to start moving in her crutches, Ara had been hiding in her room for a lot longer. It was questionable whether or not Scarlette was even aware of her presence.

Ara is afraid of Scarlette, and she doesn’t know Pluto all that well. I’m the closest person she knows. I better visit her more often then.

[Vio]

²

---

“What exactly happened?” asked Pluto. Scarlette turned, albeit stiffly, and gave him a strange look. Her eyes were a dull brown, lacking the crimson lustre that emerged in the right light, and her naturally tired face looked somewhat wizened from such extreme fatigue. Eating was hard enough – soft bread and sugary tea had practically been all she had survived on in the passing days since waking from her catatonic slumber. A certain degree of resentment had welled up within recently. Resentment for the young man that always seemed to come out better than she did, surviving all manner of horrific fights.

And yet, she did not wholly know if that was the truth.

“I don’t… remember,” the dark-haired devil replied weakly, hesitantly. It was a lie that had spilled from her lips, but to her it was more or less a white lie, and also an uncertain truth. The reality was that her memories of the moment were vague, surrounded by red haze that seemed to make every nerve ending prickle whenever she tried to delve into its secrets. The fates of Varuna’s Commanders – Ruggard, Chivo, Jiro and Chika – were clear. But the process by which they were delivered unto their fates was lost to a crimson aether. Pain was all she remembered as she probed the secrets, knowing only glimpses of what was a barbaric, monstrous occurrence the likes of which she had never seen or experienced.

^{“Just be glad I won,” Miss Grimm-Rosa coughed:
“I don’t think you’d have survived if I didn’t…”}

Turning again, struggling against dodgy balance, she looked to the island before her. Various unusual trees lined the coast, providing shade to a wide expanse of clean beach that seemed to stretch as far as it could in either direction. Scarlette winced. If not for the size of the town, the likeness was almost uncanny. Mountains in the distance further forged the silhouette of what she could only compare to a more tropical and larger variant of her own homeland. Wherever this place was, it greatly resembled Jigokuchi, even if only in its initial façade.

I’ve got a strange feeling about this place… Wobbling her way from the Phlegyas’ gangplank and onto the stable boardwalks of the El Town docks, the woeful-looking woman pushed ahead of her own accord. Right now, staying with Pluto and Rebecca seemed like being tied down to one spot. She was in no condition to liberate the kind and innocent folk of the island; the Zoan would surely have identified that by now. If she could hardly walk on her own two legs, what chance did she have of wielding a knife or scythe? Indeed, she had even gone so far as to leave the weapons behind, and the weakened feeling in her body seemed to deny her the chance to even think about the Tane Tane no Mi’s capabilities…

---

SPOILER: Click to show

{OOC}

abandons the group to wander, stewing upon many strange thoughts, but what will she encounter on her meanderings through El Town?

[/font][/sub]

Starring…

_{Scarlette Grimm-Rosa (960018)
Pluto (550055)
Rebecca (33ffff)
Clementine Rosa (c56c00)
Libeccio (87ceeb)
Seaman (eeeeee)}

[/ul][/spoiler][/font][/sup][/blockquote][/div][/div][/div]

[BlacKitten]

“I don’t… remember,” Scarlette responded.

“Oh, you did lose a lot of blood. I can’t blame you for not remembering,” Pluto accepted her answer rather casually as if he didn’t care too much about it. His question was intended to scrap up any new information from this dangerous woman. As her proficiency with the Tane Tane no Mi evolves, the more he needed to keep an eye on her.

“Just be glad I won. I don’t think you’d have survived if didn’t…,” and after those words, the figure on crutches redirected her attention on the island that they were just about to arrive at. In a clumsy manner, she left the ship and went off on her own. With those injuries of hers, the serial killer wouldn’t be of much threat to the public. The citizens could probably put up a better fight than the woman in her current state.

You don’t think I’d have survived if you didn’t win? What an odd thing to say coming from you. Wouldn’t you have been glad if I didn’t survive? Aren’t you all about liberating others through killing? Just what exactly is going through her head, I wonder. Do I even want to find out?

That short exchange of words didn’t seem to go too well. He couldn’t help but sense that something subtle was off. The way she spoke, did she have something against him? Whatever it was, he didn’t recognize it from his past interactions with her. Perhaps he was just simply overanalyzing everything.

“Rebecca,” he called for his little sister’s attention, giving her a strict glare, “What do you think of Scarlette?”

“Huh?” The girl perked up her head, feeling slight unease by the question directed at her. “She... seems like someone who’s... suffered a great amount of pain in her life.”

“Yes, and I bet all of that pain had left scars in both her mind and heart, scars that will never heal. Rebecca, I never wanted you to see all of that blood ten days ago. I’m going to be blunt with you; she is a killer.”

She quietly gave a saddened expression.

“Given our past, that is nothing new to you. Such people have been after our heads for quite some time. While Scarlette isn’t a member of the organization, I still consider her as just as much of a threat as the Berserker who coincidentally also fights with a scythe. I don’t know how, when, or why, but one day, she won’t be our ally anymore.”

“Pluto, I trust you more than anyone else. Whatever decision you make, I’ll trust it,” she said firmly. Whatever will happen between them, she didn’t feel ready for it. Only someone like her brother would be able to deal with it, and she would just have to accept it in the end.

“I’m not sure if that’s the mentality I want you to have, but in any case, do avoid getting close to her.”

“Oh! Ara has been avoiding her all this time,” she finally got the chance to mention it.

“Ara? Oh..., her. I haven’t seen her around for so long that I forgot that she’s with us. Has she recovered yet?”

She gave an eager nod, “Yes! She was the first one to recover.”

“I see. Well..., that’s good,” he said apathetically. His ears morphed into a black pair of large, cup-shaped hearing devices that were situated at the top of his head.

“?” Rebecca immediately took notice of her brother’s bat ears. She didn’t know that he was capable of transforming only a small section of his body like this.

I’ve more or less memorized the signature of Scarlette’s breath. If I can’t keep an eye on her, I’ll just have to keep an ear on her.

[Vio]

³

---

I’m in a ‘pitiful state’, am I? Well, I can’t argue with that, can I…, Scarlette Grimm-Rosa contemplated. Though brief, her talk with Pluto had said a lot, even if very few words had been exchanged between them. A convoluted cocktail of consideration stirred up her mind; her soul as she made her way in no particular direction, aiming for what she assumed would be the middle of the town. She just needed to move, get away from the strangely tormenting presence of Rebecca. Forget her resentment for Pluto – it was that little girl who so horribly reminded her of Annabelle that was causing the most pain within.

^{“Pain…,” she murmured breathlessly:
“I don’t want to feel any more pain…”}

^{Clack… Clack… Clack…}

Look at all these people, oblivious to the truth, and here I am in this sorry state unable to do anything about it, the wicked woman brooded as she eased her way through the sunlit streets of the settlement. The dark, morbid energies broiled within her heart, seeming to drag her down into an abyss of blackened thoughts. These were thoughts she did not want to have – thoughts that pressured her into making a decision she just did not want to make. Why was she still alive after all that? What hellish punishment were the Wardens inflicting upon her? Was this their attempt at trying to break her, knock her off her devout path? What kind of twisted jurisprudence did those monsters commit to?

She turned a corner.

“Hmph… You almost look older than I am,” a woman whispered in her ear. The voice made Miss Grimm-Rosa’s whole body quiver, her blood turn to ice – and then to weak flame. She turned sharply, nearly falling in the process, and every muscle seemed to yell in protest. Her innards felt like they had just turned topsy-turvy, a bout of brief nausea overtaking her. Chocolate eyes met all too familiar irises of light crimson: “What’s the matter? Seen a ghost…?”

^{“You…!”}

^{“Yes, it is I. Me.”}

“Don’t mock me, demon,” Scarlette snarled.

“Demon, am I? Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Scarlette,” the fellow femme replied. Both stood at similar height, carved of similar build, and even stared at each other with similar yet differently shaded eyes. Whereas one wore a mop of ragged jet upon her head, the other wore a more ashen, peppered head of hair. Scarlette stared daggers into the woman’s eyes, but the woman – dressed in lighter bandaging and a simple summer dress of orange shade and white floral pattern – simply threw back swords with her gaze. She was nonchalant, mocking; a noticeable difference from the quivering coward of the past.

^{“You have no right to call me by name, mother!”}

^{“Likewise,” Miss Rosa replied brutally:
“You’re not my daughter anymore.”}

“That’s fine.”

^“Fine?”

^“Fine!”

“Hm,” the older woman sighed, “and here I thought you would have grown up a bit since leaving Jigokuchi. I guess I was wrong – you’re still nothing more than a snivelling, naïve child. Honestly, it’s impressive you’ve even survived this long on your own. What’s really impressive is that you’ve made it this far into the Grand Line.”

Scarlette winced.

“Now what,” Clementine raised a thin eyebrow, revealing scarred skin on the side of her face. Indeed, scars littered her flesh from head to toe, many covered by the array of gauze that still cloaked her skin. Etched into her mostly healed visage were numerous signs of healing, drawn upon her like an artist’s brush upon canvas. Each was a fine stroke, cleanly marked, and showing signs of near surgical precision. The ‘demon’s’ daughter recognised each and every one, eyes passively drawing out the rest of the carvings that had been hidden beneath robe and linen:

^{有
罪
確
定}

---

SPOILER: Click to show

{OOC}

spell out the phrase Yūzaikakutei, which means “Guilty as Charged”.

[/font][/sub]

Starring…

_{Scarlette Grimm-Rosa (960018)
Pluto (550055)
Rebecca (33ffff)
Clementine Rosa (c56c00)
Libeccio (87ceeb)
Seaman (eeeeee)}

[/ul][/spoiler][/font][/sup][/blockquote][/div][/div][/div]

[BlacKitten]

Stirring up from her slumber, Ara rolled on her bed, lethargically pushing herself up to a sitting posture. After a few strokes of brushing through her long black hair with her hands, she gazed at the room that was given for her usage during the voyage that lasted about a week. Very quickly, the girl could sense exactly who was on board and who was not.

I... I must have overslept. That scary lady, Scarlette, isn’t here anymore. Rebecca and her brother are the only ones here. We’ve already reached an island.

Swinging her legs off the bedside, she slipped on a pair of brown sandals before exiting her room. Each step cautiously settled in front of the other. As time passed by, her mind contemplated on whether or not to confront them. The little girl was no problem; she simply didn’t have the courage to meet the other one. While they may have saved her life, she still didn’t know what kind of people they were.

Furtively climbing up the stairs that leads to the main deck, Ara stopped halfway and heard nothing but silence as the siblings seemed to be standing idly outside. Then, she heard a voice.

“Rebecca, she seems to be awake. Go bother her,” a male voice had spoken.

Eek! H-He knows I’m here!?

“Oh! Ara is awake?” Rebecca’s tone brightened.

“Yeah, she’s hiding by the stairs. It’s hard to focus when I’m being spied on. Could you do something about her?” Pluto brushed off the social interaction part to the more competent little girl.

H-How does he know?

“Ara! Come on out! You can’t hide from Pluto’s ears,” Rebecca called out playfully.

W-Wha-!?

“... Rebecca, that’s not what I had in mind when I said do something about her,” he grumbled.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I meant getting her as far away from me as possible, not bringing her even closer” he said harshly.

H-He’s mean.... A-At least I don’t have to come outside.

“Pluto! You’re just making excuses. I’m outside with you right now, and you can still focus. You’re just too shy to meet a new person!” Without a second to waste, the youth bolted off with a grin on her face.

Eh!? She’s coming towards me! I-I’m going back to my room!

Clumsily, Ara turned around, but before she could sprint off, her wrist was quickly snatched by the swift Rebecca who forcefully dragged her outside.

“W-Wait! What are you doing?” She asked in a panicky manner.

“You haven’t really met my brother yet, have you?” The little one continued to tug on her wrist as if it was the handle to a leash.

“But, I’m not mentally ready yet!” Not only did she not feel up for it, but being caught by his hearing –which she forgot about- only made it that much more embarrassing.

Eventually, the two of them were facing directly towards Pluto’s back as he was facing out towards the island, all while emanating a serious vibe.

“Pluto! Turn around, she’s here!” Rebecca poked in during his eavesdropping.

“Shh!” He hushed her.

Scarlette’s mother is on this island!?

...

They don’t seem to get along in the slightest

...

From the sound of it, her mother doesn’t know about me yet. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have commented on her surviving on her own.

[Vio]

⁴

---

“Admiring your handiwork, are you?” quizzed Clementine Rosa, piercing eyes staring into her daughter’s dulled hues. Scarlette’s gaze lifted, but an inexplicable tension seemed to fill the air between them, far worse than any that had come before. She looked away, clenching the grip of the crutch upon which she rested, and then looked back indirectly. Many a pair of eyes had been gazed into by the vicious vixen, including those vivid ovals, and had been consumed by fear. Now, her mother’s eyes seemed utterly fearless, devoid of dread or panic. But there was something else within them. It was something that the wounded wanderer seemed to be afraid of, and she loathed that sensation.

Even when she stood against me and took her punishment, she was never like this… Miss Grimm-Rosa shuddered, gritting her teeth. Every inch of her body already ached, but now it felt like the tension had surrounded her like a blanket, whose very weave had turned to snakes that constricted her flesh. She gasped a little, realising she had been holding her breath for quite a while, though fresh air in her lungs did not help relieve the crushing presence one little bit.

^{“What’s wrong with you?”}

“Wrong with me?” the woman clicked her tongue. “First you call me a ‘demon’, and then you ask me what’s ‘wrong’ with me? Truly ironic considering it’s you making those statements, but I should ask the same question, shouldn’t I? You want me to show a bit of that ‘maternal instinct’ that you seem so eager to keep out of your precious ‘Otherworld’? So, what’s wrong with you, Scarlette? Why is it you’re standing before me, covered head to toe in bandages, and yet still pushing on? I severely doubt that your insane and unstable ideology carried you this far, even with that horrid power of yours.”

^{“Insane? Unstable…?” Scarlette repeated:
“You’re just… too blind to see the truth!”}

“No, no, I see the truth,” Clementine waved, stepping away from the wall against which she had been supporting herself and stepping a little more into the light. Though no taller, her mere being seemed to tower above. Her breath was almost icy upon the girl’s face, evoking the same chill that rattled her spine when looking into those eyes. It was like being an infant again, causing mischief and facing punishment for it, but it was no mere slap on the wrist. The words escaping Clementine’s lips were sharp as daggers: “The truth is you’re not unstable at all. Though it pains you to admit it, you’re… Just. Like. Me. And do you want to know what my psychiatrist said about me? Oh, I’m sure he’d see it in you, too. You see, Scarlette, we’re not unstable. We’re quite the opposite, in fact. We’re consistently insane!”

^Whoosh…

Wh– What is this…? I feel like… I’m going to… faint… The crutch fell to the floor, something powerful and unseen washing over the psychotic siren’s whole being. Such energy was immense, forcing her down to her knees. An already tenfold magnified presence went tenfold again, Clementine seeming like a Giant compared to the ant that Scarlette had become. Any and all strength, will to fight and desire to retaliate had been knocked out of her as if she had been winded. The overly obedient, whimpering child had returned, on all fours at her mother’s feet.

Clementine shook her head, clutching the sides of her face.

Bystanders fell, one by one. Groceries scattered, washing blew away on the wind, dogs and cats and birds let out unnerved whines and hisses and squawks. Not a one in the area remained standing. Many had passed out, but only a select few – Scarlette amongst them – remained lucid but dazed. A piece of parchment fluttered away, loosed from a fallen stranger’s hands…

---

SPOILER: Click to show

{OOC}

[/sub]

Starring…

_{Scarlette Grimm-Rosa (960018)
Pluto (550055)
Rebecca (33ffff)
Clementine Rosa (c56c00)
Libeccio (87ceeb)
Seaman (eeeeee)}

[/ul][/spoiler][/font][/sup][/blockquote][/div][/div][/div]

[BlacKitten]

It doesn’t seem like the mother believes in Scarlette’s ideology. That’s good. But then, who was it that spewed such nonsensical ideas in her head if not the mother? Where did her ideology come from?

...

Eh? What is her mother saying? She’s contradicting her earlier statement. Huh..., they’re consistently insane? Oh..., I guess the mental disorder runs in the family then.

Suddenly, an invisible, oppressive wave washed over. Pluto widened his eyes as he felt this strange disturbance. Immediately, he turned around to catch his little sister who collapsed onto his left arm. “Rebecca!?” He called out to her, but the youth wasn’t responding or reacting to his voice at all.

“T-This is...,” Ara had a look of utter shock on her face, “H-Haoshoku... Haki?”

“Haoshoku Haki? What is that? You know something about this,” he grew perplexed upon hearing terminologies that he was unfamiliar of. His ears twitched along with a slight turn of his head. There was an unusual sound of human bodies suddenly thumping onto the ground originating not too far from where Scarlette and her mother stood. No..., more accurately, only the mother was standing. Even the daughter seemed to have collapsed. Therefore, by crosses of elimination, the mother must have been the one to have caused it. 

“What’s going on!? Things just got really quiet over there. And why is Rebecca knocked out?” He furrowed his brows, unable to comprehend the situation whatsoever. If his little sister was like this, then he could only assume that a bunch of other people in town had suffered the same fate.

“Your sister will be fine. She just fainted. Her willpower was simply overwhelmed,” she said in a composed manner before gazing out at the island that they had yet to step foot on. “But... it’s extremely rare to encounter someone who has such a trait.”

Willpower? What sort of an attack was that? She called it a trait. Was it not from a Devil Fruit power?

All of this came as a jolting surprise. Yet again, another cryptic ability had left him puzzled, but it seemed that Ara was someone who knew quite a bit about this subject. Upon processing the situation, he had yet to find a reason to make a move. Whatever predicament Scarlette had found herself in didn’t concern or involve him whatsoever. It was none of his business. The only irking aspect that would drive him to intervene was the fact that his little sister had been affected, but if she only fainted and remained unharmed, then he can tolerate that.

Ara quietly glared at the side of his head, carefully watching him. It was a bit odd to look at someone with such animalistic ears. She also noticed how protective and caring he was by the way his little sister was being held. This person wasn’t so scary when Rebecca is around.

The fluttering of paper sounded in gentle breeze. “Hmm?” Pluto raised his head, eyeing on a parchment that flew towards his direction. With his right arm disabled in a cast and his left arm holding his sister, he had his hands full.

Tracing through the drifting rectangular paper with her golden eyes, Ara stepped off to the side as sheet had landed on the wooden deck. She approached it, bent over, and picked it up. Flipping the parchment around, she remained silent for several heartbeats. Her body was motionless, frozen like a statue.

“Ara, what is it that you’re holding?”

The girl then gave him a nervous look, “U-Um..., Pluto..., it’s a bounty poster.” She seemed hesitant to actually show him the side that she was reading but reluctantly did just that.

Immediately, Pluto noticed a picture that took up a large chunk of the poster which revealed the image of a familiar red-eyed, black-haired girl. Below the portrait, the words were as followed: ‘DEAD OR ALIVE’... “SCARLETTE GRIMM-ROSA’.... ’70, 000, 000’

To his memories, this was the first time he had heard or seen of Scarlette’s last name. It had been so long since he last had to deal with bounties, and he wasn’t entirely sure how the value of seventy million stands in the Grand Line.

“Oh dear...,” he narrowed his eyes.

[Vio]

⁵

---

“Ah… Gck… Ngh,” Scarlette stuttered incomprehensibly. Words of confusion and awe tried to escape her lips, but her maternity’s dominating aura seemed to steal away all attempts at speech. Clementine had stepped back, but the younger’s head just could not lift to see what had befallen her. Indeed, all she could make out were simple flat shoes teetering back and forth, rocking rhythmically on toe and heel as if compensating for the sway and kick of a vessel sailing choppy waters. The girl, still weak and on hands and knees, retched dryly as nausea and disorientation swallowed her senses and spat them back out again.

^{“Oh, how I wish I couldn’t do that,” Miss Rosa mumbled:
“But, my loathing of you is what causes it, ‘Scarly’.”}

^{“B!+€#…!”}

Stirred by sentiment and driven by agony, the dark-haired demoiselle managed to break free of her sickened, subjugated trance. Lurching forth, she took a desperate one-armed swing at her mother’s legs, but fell far short of the mark. Restrained by wrappings of gauze and linen, Scarlette instead ended up lying uncomfortably upon her stomach. Her pallid face displayed an awkward grimace.

“A b!+€# I may be,” Clementine mocked, “but at least my bite is a match for my bark.”

She stepped forward, shadow bathing the prone predator. The next thing Miss Grimm-Rosa knew, something was pressing down hard upon her back – her mother’s heel dug right between the shoulders. Air escaped shallow lungs, but she held on as best she could to the oxygen at her disposal, even if sickly sensations had turned that air sour in her throat. The pressure twisted, as if stubbing out a fallen cigarette, or even crushing an insect underfoot.

“That nickname Annabelle gave to you seemed so sweet, yet you won’t let anyone use it? Why is that?” the monster of a matriarch queried, paying no mind to the stirring souls in her surroundings as she continued to make a mockery of her own flesh and blood. Her words seemed so calm, so devoid of negativity, and yet oozed venom so toxic that it threatened to kill with every pause. “Do you cling to what once was, just as I did? Your father’s ‘legacy’ is a hopeless one; your sister’s passing at his hand was no act of ‘mercy’, nor are any of the atrocities you’ve committed. Maxwell broke Anna’s body, my heart and then your mind. And then you broke mine, apparently. I feel I should return some favours, but, given the state you’re in right now, I don’t know if there’s anything left for me to break.”

Her foot moved away.

^{“I see that look in your eyes,” Clementine sighed, her voice easing:
“Anna’s gone, Scarlette – for her sake, don’t cling to her spirit…”}

‘Don’t cling to her spirit’ she says… Father said the same, near enough… Still practically incapacitated, Miss Grimm-Rosa lay and pondered, watching her mother vanish into the distant streets of El Town. Chocolate eyes seemed to flicker as images of the past came to the fore. A deluge of memories, some happy and some sad, played through the woeful woman’s mind. Glimpses of playful times; with dolls and toy houses, hide and seek in the woods, getting under the feet of harvest festival dancers, and the odd squabble over who was going to have the last spoonful of strawberry jam and cream from the mixing bowl…

---

SPOILER: Click to show

{OOC}

[/sub]

Starring…

_{Scarlette Grimm-Rosa (960018)
Pluto (550055)
Rebecca (33ffff)
Clementine Rosa (c56c00)
Libeccio (87ceeb)
Seaman (eeeeee)}

[/ul][/spoiler][/font][/sup][/blockquote][/div][/div][/div]

[BlacKitten]

With what few strings that held psychopathic woman together with the siblings throughout their voyages, this bounty poster had just cut the last remaining thread. The scale had been tilted; one side outweighed the other. Inevitable, he thought. From the first day that the two met, he knew just what sort of person that he formed an alliance with. On that day, Scarlette was on a killing spree in Amino Island which came to a halt the moment she had decided to make him the next target. She struggled to deal the killing blow with her scythe alone, resorting to her Devil Fruit powers. There was no true winner or loser; their fight was inconclusive as Rebecca intervened. For some reason, the murderer had broken into tears at the sight of the little girl; her bloodlust had dissolved instantly at that moment along with her fighting spirit. It was Rebecca who showed her kindness. Later on that day, a pirate crew had attacked the city, burning down buildings as they wreak havoc. Pluto and Scarlette had a common enemy, each of them taking on the two elite fighters with bounties on their heads. That was how things played out.

The two formed a pact in the end, an alliance to increase their chances of surviving in the world. At the same time, Pluto was curious in other Devil Fruit abilities with a hunger to learn more about them. He viewed her as nothing more than a tool, a weapon, a specimen to observe. Just like a mad scientist who created a monster, he had contributed to teaching the crazy woman hand-to-hand combat, making her even stronger. At the time, he didn’t view her as a threat; making her stronger was the same as upgrading a weapon. Gradually over time, his companion’s cursed powers had evolved as she grew into a better combatant. He never really did engage her in a serious, one-on-one battle before, but he had thought about it many times. When seeking for strength, it was inevitable to yearn for a way to measure one self, finding a ruler to see where one would stand relative to others. It was easy to think that he would win against her in a fight, but that was something that any arrogant, prideful, egotistical person would say. There was bias in that train of thinking. As he was afraid of being deluded by that bias, how could he know for sure that he would win? Thus, his training became private; their fighters became personal, often done without the other. Rarely would they ever fight as a team. They were as independent as they could get. Even if he was ahead of her, he continued to get stronger out of paranoia that she would catch up to him. Before he even knew it, he had been planning for a fight against her all along. Becoming stronger in secret, forming new techniques and abilities in private, all of that was for the instinctive foresight that the two of them would eventually face each other one day in the very near future.

This bounty, should he even be surprised? Was this not the sign that he had been quietly waiting for all this time, the indication that he will now soon clash with her? Scarlette was a ticking bomb. She had not attacked them throughout that alliance, but with that unstable, twisted mentality and belief of hers that everyone ought to be killed in order to be free, how could any reasonable person live day after day without ever questioning that ‘what if’ scenario of her changing her stance? It was only a matter of time before she eventually turned against him. All that was required was for someone to push the detonation button that would trigger it.

Their voyages together, sailing on the same ship, all of that comes to an end on this very island. He could not risk himself by travelling with a criminal who has a bounty of 70, 000, 000 beri. He could not associate himself with her any longer. It was time to break all ties with this lunatic.

“So..., it has finally come to this,” the boy whispered to himself. “Scarlette..., you’ve felt it too, haven’t you? One day would come where you and I will part ways.”