-Chapter Sixty-Three-
"Wow" I whistled in amazement as I watched how the rubber man picked up and threw the iron spikes back at the Marine ships—sinking almost all of them in one go. "Great job" I praised.
"Okay, now we're ready" Luffy smiled as he dusted his hands off.
"Now's our chance, full speed ahead! Shake them off!" Zoro ordered the second he saw our chance to finally escape. Unfourtantly, due to a lack of wind, we had to row as fast as we could away from the remaining Marines that still gave chase...well, the men had to as Nami only blew a whistle in encouragement while I simply watched in amusement.
-Later-
"Looks like the Marines have stopped following us" Zoro grinned when he noticed that there weren't any more Marine ships following us.
"I don't think they care" I remarked, listening as the others depressingly groaned in response.
"But that's good news, we shook them off" Zoro argued, raising an eyebrow the minute he saw the sullen and almost pouty looks on everyone's faces. "Stop it—what's with the pathetic groans?" he scolded.
"I miss her!" they whined back in response.
"Yeah..." I couldn't help but sigh in agreement, also missing Vivi as I knew I would have enjoyed having her accompany us on the rest of our journey despite once again reminding myself of the responsibilities she had as a princess.
"That's enough whining—if you wanted her to join that bad, then you shouldn't have let her leave" Zoro frowned, crossing his arms.
"Ah! You savage!" Chopper gasped.
"Blockhead" Nami insulted.
"Idiot!" Sanji sneered.
"Three sword style..." Luffy grumbled.
"Saying "three sword style" isn't an insult, Luffy" Usopp frowned.
"Four sword style..." Luffy corrected himself.
"Yeah, that'll show him" I snorted.
"It's not the number that's the problem—an efficient insult must involve some personal detail about the recipient that's rude..." Usopp started to explain as I quickly lost interest and walked right over to the swordsman—lightly smacking his arm the minute I was standing beside him.
"That was rather harsh, what you said to them back there" I softly scolded, causing him to shrug as he mumbled a very unconvincing, "sorry," in response while rubbing his arm. "You could at least try to act like you're sorry" I sweat dropped.
"Looks like we've finally escaped the firing squad" a new and somewhat familiar voice suddenly piped up from behind followed by a door opening and closing.
"Yeah" Zoro agreed as if he hadn't yet realized that the person that hadn't spoken wasn't me nor anyone else on the crew.
"Eh?" I tilted my head.
"Excellent work" the new voice praised, causing everyone to flinch at the sudden realization that we had an intruder on the ship—an intruder who went by the simple name of Miss All Sunday we soon realized once we finally turned and caught sight of her.
"Here to avenge your friends? Just try it!" Zoro sneered as he quickly grabbed hold of his swords.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Nami hissed, rubbing the back of her head after harshly hitting it on the underside of the railing after standing up too quickly from where she had been lying down.
"Thought you were arrested with the rest of the Baroque Works members" I frowned.
"Warning! Warning!" Usopp shouted through a megaphone that he had gotten from somewhere as Chopper ran around, screaming in fear while the rest of us now held our preferred weapons of choice out toward the woman.
"Who's she?" Chopper eventually whimpered, coming to a halt as he attempted to hide behind one of us.
"I don't know, but she's so damn beautiful!" Sanji swooned, hearts now floating around him after taking a good look at the woman. Miss All Sunday didn't even blink an eye as she walked past us all, knocking our weapons out of our hands with the simple use of her Devil Fruit powers.
"Didn't I tell you before, don't point such dangerous objects at me—are you always so slow?" she bluntly asked us.
"How long have you been on our ship?" Nami asked.
"Quite a while—these are your clothes, right? I'm borrowing them, the other girl's clothes were a bit too small for me" Miss All Sunday calmly responded.
"Just a minute, lady—who in the hell do you think you are?!" Nami snapped as we watched the woman pick up a lawn chair.
"Monkey D. Luffy," she addressed as she walked past the rubber man, "it hasn't been that long that you've forgotten what you did to me, has it?" she asked.
"Ah! Luffy!" Sanji glared upon hearing the woman's words, already jumping to conclusions. "What did you do to that beautiful woman, you lousy bastard? Tell me!" he snapped, harshly grabbing hold of the captain's shirt as he started to shake him.
"All stowaways must leave the ship immediately!" Usopp demanded, still speaking through that megaphone of his.
"That megaphone isn't of much help, I hope you know that" I said with the roll of my eyes, crossing my arms. "At most, all it's good for is a headache..." I grumbled.
"Wait a minute, stop lying" Luffy frowned. "You know I didn't do anything to you" he quickly defended as the woman sat her chair down and took a seat.
"Wrong, and what you did to me was unbearable—go ahead, admit it" she softly smiled, crossing her legs as she watched the commotion around her in amusement.
"You're not making any sense, what do you want me to do?" Luffy irritably asked, not really following what the woman was asking of him.
"I want to join you" Miss All Sunday simply answered.
"What?!" we shouted in shock.
"That's surprising—you want to join the crew of pirates that the man you had been working under wanted to kill? Doesn't make much sense" I raised an eyebrow, trying to think of a reason why the woman would logically want to set sail with us after everything we and her former group have done to each other.
"I wanted nothing more than to die at that moment, but you forced me to live—that's your crime" Miss All Sunday shrugged as she went straight into revealing what had happened after Luffy had defeated Crocodile. "There's no place for me to go or to return to, so I decided that I'll join you" she finished with a smile.
"I see your problem, guess there's no other choice—welcome" Luffy nodded.
"Luffy!" the others snapped as I scratched my cheek.
"You sure are quick when making your decisions—did you even think this over before agreeing?" I asked, huffing a smile when I heard him laugh.
"There's nothing to worry about, trust me, she isn't a bad person" he widely grinned, unfazed by the irritated looks he was now receiving from most of the crew. Only Sanji really seemed to enjoy this decision of his as his body happily swayed back and forth in pure joy upon realizing the crew now had another pretty lady aboard.
Once everything had settled, Usopp was quick to suggest an interrogation of the woman—setting up a table and everything as if he was some kind of professional. Despite how serious he was trying to act, the silliness going on behind him ruined the atmosphere.
"Cute..." I breathed out, smiling at Luffy and Chopper who childishly giggled as they followed the swaying disembodied arm that was poking out of the floor.
"Pay attention!" Usopp snapped, hitting his hand against the wooden table in order to catch the woman's attention once he saw that she wasn't really paying attention to him, but more to the two behind him. "I want some straight-up and honest answers—I'll ask you one more time, what's your name?" he asked before realizing just how rude he was being. "My name's Usopp, hello" he politely greeted.
"Nico Robin" the woman responded.
"Hm?" I hummed, lifting my head up from where I was messing with one of Zoro's hands from my spot seated between his legs. "Nico Robin?" I questioned, tilting my head in thought as the two turned their heads in my direction.
"Skylar?" Usopp questioned.
"Have you heard of me before, Swordswoman?" Robin asked, curiously raising an eyebrow as I stared at the two of them for a minute with a blank stare.
"No, never heard of you—just wanted to say your name is beautiful" I lied, giving a strained smile which caused Usopp to shrug without question and turn his attention back toward the woman who continued to stare. I quickly ducked my head, returning to fiddling with Zoro's hand as I mindlessly traced my finger over the palm of it and up his fingers, acting as if I was counting the lines.
"Um...okay, Nico Robin" Usopp nodded, trying to get back into the full swing of things. "So what's your occupation?" he asked as the woman slowly turned her attention back toward him.
"Archaeologist" she truthfully answered.
"Are you serious?" the sharpshooter asked, surprised by her answer as if he hadn't expected something so simple and mundane.
"Archaeology runs in my blood, I come from a long line of them" Robin nodded.
"Hm, I see, so your family has a scientific background" Usopp nodded, already writing down what he'd just been told.
"What in the hell?" Zoro grumbled, tightly wrapping his arms around my waist and seemingly became lost in thought as his grip only started to get tighter in the same vain that his hand had back in Alabasta
"If you don't loosen your grip soon I'm going to die" I gasped out, smacking his arms in an attempt to catch his attention.
"Hm? Sorry" he apologized once he realized what I had said before finally loosening his grip a little.
"If you keep trying to crush me, I'm going have to revoke your holding privileges" I huffed, crawling off his lap and plopping down beside him.
"Like you can stop me from holding you" he scoffed with the roll of his eyes.
"You're right, my spine would be broken long before I'd even have a chance at escaping you—my fate would already be sealed before I could even think about getting away" I dramatically sighed, resting my head against his shoulder as he snorted.
"You're making it sound like I'm some kind of monster holding you against your will" he raised an eyebrow.
"But isn't that what you are though?" I asked, giggling when I felt him suddenly shove me away.
"Go on" Usopp motioned for the woman to continue, ignoring the commotion going on around him.
"It was when I was eight years old that I decided to peruse archaeology as my career, shortly thereafter, I found myself wanted by the World Government—since then, I've spent the past twenty years hiding from the world" Robin calmly explained.
"You've been alone since you were eight?" Usopp blinked.
"Must have been lonely..." I bitterly muttered, unwanted thoughts already trying to resurface before I pushed them back down.
"Then one day, I heard the calling of the sea—but there's no way for a child to survive alone on the water" Robin continued, stating a painful truth that I knew all too well. "The option I found that assured my protection and the ability to achieve my goal was...I chose to work for various rouges. Not an ideal solution, but it brought me this far, and here we are" she smiled.
"I'm guessing you're incorporating Crocodile into your gallery of rouges" Usopp assumed.