-Chapter Two Hundred and Nine-
"It's freezing" Usopp shivered in agreement.
"What is it?" Luffy asked when he caught sight of Aokiji scratching his head in thought.
"How should I put this?" the Admiral suddenly hummed. "You're the spitting image of your grandfather, Monkey D. Luffy—or maybe I should say, you're just as reckless and hard to figure out" he confessed.
"You knew my grandfather?" Luffy tensed.
"Seriously, Luffy's—hey, Luffy, what's wrong? You're sweating!" Usopp worriedly frowned upon seeing how tense the captain was as sweat nervously poured down his face.
"Luffy?" I quietly questioned before tensing myself when I suddenly felt Aokiji's gaze on me once more, his brows furrowed as if he was mulling something over.
"Nothing, really—I'm fine" Luffy dismissively waved as he started to relax.
"Your grandfather helped me out once, a long time ago—that's why I'm here" Aokiji revealed as he turned back to the captain. "I wanted to see you and Nico Robin together with my own eyes...on second thought, maybe I should just kill you" he said, causing my jaw to tighten. "The government still doesn't consider you a threat, but I know enough of your history to see you're a formidable crew—you may be few in numbers, but in the shrew rouges gathered here, this crew will likely be a problem later on" he frowned, his gaze now bouncing from crewmember to crewmember. "Considering the circumstances regarding your initial bounty, the numerous daring actions you've taken in the speed of your overall progress...I fought outlaws for most of my life, but thinking about how you'll turn out scares the hell out of me" he confessed.
"Hey, wait—hold on a second! You said you were here to check things out, not to kill anyone!" Usopp panicked.
"One among you I consider the most dangerous, that would be you, Nico Robin" Aokiji said.
"So, despite everything, you are here for Robin! Now I'm really going to kick your ass!" Luffy angrily snapped, his temper flaring back up.
"The size of her bounty isn't merely a reflection of her strength and power, it also represents something else—that would be the level of threat and danger she poses to the World Government" Aokiji explained, giving me depth do how bounties were usually assigned and how it wasn't always about physical strength. "That's why a 79,000,000 beli bounty was placed on her head at the tender young age of eight—I'm surprised you could survive, especially as a child" he confessed. "You managed to betray, sidestep, and escape from everyone in your path and then found a new partner to make you some. You survived in the underworld by being quick to switch sides and now you've chosen this crew as your next haven."
"That's enough, jerk!" Sanji snapped once he saw the pained look on Robin's face as if the older man had struck a nerve. "I'm not just going to stand here and let you speak to a lady like that! What kind of ridiculous grudge are you holding against Robin?!" he sneered.
"Stop it, Sanji!" Usopp pleaded as he attempted to hold the frustrated blond back.
"I don't have anything against her—the only connection we have between us is that I let her escape from me one time, that's about it" Aokiji admitted. "It was a long time ago—you will all learn soon enough that protecting this woman leads to nothing but regret" he warned. "If you need proof then consider this, every organization that she had something to do with in the past has been annihilated. Not one single solitary member escaped except for her—why is that Nico Robin?" he inquired as if wanting to make the woman feel terrible for whatever she had to do to survive.
"Shut up, you jerk!" Luffy snapped. "The past doesn't matter!"
"That's right! If it did, we wouldn't have a dangerous former pirate hunter guy or degenerate, conniving thief woman on our crew—would we?" Usopp nodded in agreement.
"Don't go overboard!" Nami snapped, striking the sharpshooter.
"You also wouldn't have a Marine Admiral's daughter on your crew..." I felt my breath get caught in my throat as he scoffed this under his breath, rolling his eyes as if he found what the sharpshooter said to be meaningless. I felt my chest tighten, breathing now coming out sharp and ragged at the realization that at any moment he could rat me out if he so pleased—at the realization that the only thing keeping my secret safe was his disinterest in properly sharing such information with the rest as if he saw no real reason to.
'I don't want to go back! I don't want to go back! I don't want to—' I flinched when I suddenly felt a gentle hand rest itself on my shoulder.
"Skylar?" Zoro worriedly murmured.
"I'm...I'm fine..." I thickly swallowed as I raised a hand to grab his own, giving him a strained smile. My breathing was still shaky and uneven even as I desperately tried to slow it, now squeezing his hand in some pitiful attempt to soothe the panic attack that was threatening to consume me. I wasn't sure what game the Admiral was playing with his quiet remarks—always teetering on the edge of saying something he shouldn't as if wanting to mock me...or to perhaps test to waters. Surely it was obvious to him that the others weren't fully aware of my...background...based on the way they showed only interest in what he had to say about Robin.
"Who we are now is more important than who we were!" Sanji firmly huffed...and although the words were sweet...I wondered if he and the others truly understood that sometimes words were not always enough to convince people. I wondered if they understood that sometimes all words were at the end of the day words and nothing more—their weight meant nothing in the eyes of fear and uncertainty.
"That's right, Robin is our friend!" Chopper nodded. "Don't you dare say anything about her, you hear me?!"
"I see, so these poor fools don't suspect a thing" Aokiji sighed, shaking his head.
"Just get to the point! If you want to arrest me then why not just do it already?!" Robin frowned as she suddenly and perhaps irrationally used her Devil Fruit powers to grab hold of the Admiral—restraining him completely.
"No, Robin!" Usopp fearfully cried.
"My, my, my, did something I say strike a nerve?" Aokiji asked, sounding almost a bit mocking as he raised an eyebrow at the woman's rash behavior. "That's too bad, I must have overestimated how reasonable a woman you were" he tsked.
"And clutch" Robin sneered as she attempted to snap the man's body in half.
"He shattered to a million pieces!" Chopper panicked the second the Admiral turned to ice at the last second possible—shattering like glass before slowly putting himself back together.
"It didn't work—we're screwed!" Usopp cried, already starting to freak out alongside Chopper. "Let's get out of here! Everybody run for your lives!" he frantically screamed, motioning for the rest of us to start running.
"Now, now, that wasn't a very nice thing to do" Aokiji tsked as he tore some blades of grass from the ground—throwing them in the air before freezing them right on the spot. "Ice Saber" in an instant, he created a long and sharp saber from the grass blades he had tossed. "I didn't want to kill you, but now..." he swung the saber down only for Zoro to stop the attack and for Sanji to kick the weapon from his hands.
"Yeah!" Usopp cheered.
"I don't remember asking for your help, Cook" Zoro frowned.
"Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you, Moss Head" Sanji retorted.
"Gum Gum Pistol!" Luffy rushed the Admiral, his fist drawn back before shooting forward as the man grabbed hold of both Zoro and Sanji—willingly taking the full force of the teen's attack to his stomach. "He's cold!" the captain shivered before freaking out when his, Zoro, and Sanji's limbs started to freeze.
"He got all three of them at once!" Nami gasped, causing my lips to curl back into a frustrated snarl. Glaring, I drew one of my swords the second the three were harshly shoved away. "Skylar, stop!" I ignored the ginger's cry, blindly fueled by fear and frustration as I rushed the Admiral and recklessly swung my sword down at him...only for him to instantly grab hold of my wrist and stop my attack.
"So reckless" Aokiji shook his head in disappointment as he bent down until our eyes were locked.
"I don't exactly appreciate you hurting my friends..." I spat as he silently stared back at me.
"That look in your eyes...it's exactly like his—there's no doubt about you, you truly are your father's daughter" fresh tears pricked the corners of my eyes and blurred my vision as my chest grew painfully tight. I felt my lips twitch and draw further back as I viciously snarled at the man in a manner akin to that of a caged animal. "I'd rather not hurt you—your father can be quite the terrifying man when upset, almost like he has a screw or two loose" he heavily sighed, becoming lost in thought for a moment as if recalling something before shaking his head. "But I don't exactly appreciate this hostile nature of yours—it's rather childish."
"Skylar!" Zoro shouted as I painfully cried out at the sudden burning sensation of ice crystals forming over the flesh of my wrist.
It hurt.
It hurt so much that I felt like my arm had been buried underneath a mountain of snow and just left there to freeze. When he was done, he easily tossed me to the side like it was nothing.
"D-don't compare me to t-that m-monster!" I trembled as I grasped my frozen wrist and cradled it close to my chest. "I'm n-nothing like him!" I sneered, breathing still ragged as I hatefully glared up at the Admiral with teary eyes.
"You say that, yet you're practically the spitting image of him—the only difference besides gender is you seem to let your emotions dictate you" he scoffed before raising an eyebrow as he looked down at me in slight curiosity as if amused by my fear and frustration. Angrily, I screamed as I attempted to stand back up before crying out when he suddenly used his foot to gently kick me away. "I don't exactly have time to deal with you right now—you're not my main priority and maybe you should be thankful for that" he shook his head which only made my anger worse.
"He's freezing them solid—I have to help quickly! If they get frostbite, their limbs will start to rot!" Chopper panicked. "Usopp, what are you doing?! We have to save them now!" he frantically cried.
"I want to help, I'm trying to, but I can't seem to move—did he freeze me too?" Usopp shivered.
"No! You're just too scared to move, coward!" Chopper angrily snapped.
"Luffy!" Usopp fearfully wailed.
"Sanji! Zoro! Skylar!" Chopper cried. "Hold on, we'll save you!"
"Robin, run away!" Nami shouted when she saw the Admiral approaching the older woman.
"You have some very loyal friends, but you will never change Nico Robin" Aokiji said.
"No, that's not true!" Robin frantically shook her head in denial.
"Robin, get away from him! Watch out!" Luffy screamed as the man got closer to the older woman until finally, he tightly wrapped his arms around her in what most would consider a mockery of a hug.
"I'm not who—" she didn't get to finish as her whole body suddenly became encased in ice.
"Robin!" Sanji worriedly shouted.
"You leave her alone!" I angrily screamed as the Admiral slowly pulled away from her crystallized body.
"You bastard!" Luffy sneered.