I'm Poison, an artist, occasional writer and a vampire (jk) from Andalusia, Spain.
There's some things you may wanna know about me:
♰₊˚ My pronouns are she/her.
♰₊˚ I'm 20 years old.
♰₊˚ Virgo is my zodiac sign.
♰₊˚ My Instagram account is @ illust.poison (that's where I mostly post from)
♰₊˚ My COMMISSIONS are OPEN (fanfic and drawings)
♰₊˚ FANDOMS & INTERESTS: One Piece, Final Fantasy, visual-kei, JRPGs, Pokémon, gothic lolita fashion, j-fashion, The World ends with You, Scott Pilgrim, Diabolik Lovers, Monster High, witchcraft community, metal music
(and a HUGE etcetera but I'm not willing to write the whole Bible here so just look at my reblogs lol)
♰₊˚ DNI: right-wing, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, pedophilia, AI "artists", etc.
♰₊˚ 🔞 I do post smut and kinky content. If you're sensitive towards this kind of content, be at your own risk.
* If you're a minor and still consume my content, I'm not someone to judge (I once was there), but please remember Tumblr is not a source of sexual education😭
♰₊˚ English is not my mother tongue so please be nice if I commit some grammatical mistakes or whatever.
CWs: angst, explicit violence, obstetric violence, descriptions of pregnancy in a very gory way, themes of disphoria, transmasc Crocodile, implied doomed dragodile.
WORDCOUNT: ~7300 words
Author's note: IMPORTANT! This chapter explores some of Crocodile’s backstory (unofficial, mostly based on my speculations and popular theories), establishing him as a trans man. If you don’t like the “Crocodad” theory (I refuse to call it “Crocomom”), I suggest that you skip this chapter. As a cis person, I’ve tried my best to portray a topic as raw as this one. I hope I haven’t been disrespectful. That said, I hope you enjoy the chapter!
ALSO, SLIGHT CHANGE: I've decided to change the place in which Sabrina was ordered to be executed. The place is the non-canon city of Rashida. This has already been corrected in the previous chapter.
My One Piece writing masterlist! Check for part eleven and the rest!
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At first, that name only seemed like a faint déjà vu that echoed inside his head for a few seconds that felt too long. It was no surprise, since he was used to easily forget the names of the people he just found unimportant. Crocodile found himself frowning, his eyes narrowing as he mentally shifted through the vast ledger of his associates, enemies, and subordinates.
Cain Barton? Who the hell was called like that?
Not one of his financial assessors. Not one of his waiters. Not one of his croupiers.
However, his mind suddenly started to put the pieces together, dragging a specific memory out from the shadows of a year ago.
It was the next morning after Sabrina and him slept together for the first time. He remembered the tortuous, endless appointment with his vice-president he was forced to attend to right after, and, of course, the reasons of such. Between spme of the issues discussed there, one of the main setbacks was the sudden resignation of one of his trusted casino guards. Crocodile had been mildly irritated by the insolence; however, Miss All Sunday, impeccable as always, had already come up with a replacement.
"Don't worry. The resignation has already been accounted for. I have appointed a man called Cain Barton, his resume is impressive."
The memory hit Crocodile squarely in the chest like a physical fist. The realization unraveled behind his eyes with blinding clarity. He remembered him now. He remembered the man who had stood at the periphery of his casino for an entire year.
Before he could even utter a single word, Sabrina added a sentence that turned the air in the room into liquid lead. "It's the traitor who betrayed us six years ago."
Crocodile froze. The idea of having a rat like that infiltrate in his own casino, his house, right in front of his nose gave nausea to him. To say he was frustrated fell drastically short of the rage brewing beneath his skin.
"Barton?! It's him?! Why the hell didn't you ever tell me the name of the man who let your whole crew die!?"
Sabrina flinched at the volume, but the sheer desperation of her panic drove her to snap back. "I don't know! You didn't ask!"
The sheer irony of the situation threatened to choke him. Crocodile brought his hand up, aggressively slapping his own face in a gesture of profound, self-directed fury.
Right after, he felt almost forced to take the heaviest sigh of his life just to not yell and said:
"Okay, just... Tell me. Tell me everything that happened."
Sabrina took a shaky breath and began to speak. Her voice trembled at first, but grew steadier as she forced the words out.
"Well, so... He... He told me you were waiting at the second basement hallway and..." She managed to start, trying to remain calm even if remembering the event felt as painful as stepping on a nail. "He grabbed my hair and pushed me into the floor and he... he..."
The more Sabrina's testimony unfolded, the more Crocodile's face contorted into an expression of raw, utter horror. Something was taking hold of him. Something acrid, painful, burning.
"He's been looking after me for a whole year. He wants my bounty."
As the narrative unfolded, Crocodile’s expression shifted from frustration to a terrifying, murderous malice.
"He grabbed my wrists and pinned me."
The urge to kill was an addictive heat in his blood.
"He gave me one week, Crocodile. One week to turn myself in publicly in Rashida. If I don’t… it'll be worse.”
Crocodile remained dead silent for a long moment, his sharp pupils burning with a barely contained rage that threatened to tear the room apart.
"He touched you," he hissed, the words sliding out of his mouth like venom. Suddenly, his sand-logia powers flared involuntarily, particles of dust drifting off his coat like smoke. "That miserable stood in my house, under my payroll, and put his filthy hands on you."
Sabrina was instantly startled to see him react with such unhinged hostility. He was out of control, and she knew him too well to know where it was headed.
"Crocodile," she muttered, startled, but he didn't seem to listen to her.
"I'll skin him alive until he begs for death," he murmured, his voice sounding like the one of a man possessed.
"Crocodile, listen to me."
"I don't care whatever bullshit he has dared to threaten you with. I allowed this scum to breathe my air, to look at you... to touch you? No. He dies tonight. By my hand."
"ENOUGH! You don't understand a single shit!" Sabrina finally exclaimed, throwing herself forward and grabbing his massive, scarred coat, her touch the only thing capable of solidifying his sand back into flesh. "Talk sense! It’s not that easy. Killing Barton right now won't solve this!"
His eyes met hers, and for a second he came to his senses, as if the urge to kill had momentarily faded within him.
"And why is that? When I see a problem, I erase the problem."
"You have to trust me. He’s thought of everything," she explained. "He said that if I tried to flee or say anything, he would open his mouth. Barton knows about us, Crocodile. It's too obvious. And to make matters worse, he has connections in the World Government, so if he turns up dead out of nowhere, his associates will launch an investigation against you, since he worked at your casino. I'll be executed anyway and you’ll lose everything. Your position. Your empire. Alabasta. Operation Utopia. Everything you’ve built. Even your own life."
Crocodile fell silent, the sand completely receding into his broad frame, leaving him looking uncharacteristically stranded.
To be neutralized by such dirty, nasty blackmail felt sickening to him.
Desperately, he pulled her closer.
“I don’t care about any of that if it means losing you,” he rasped. “You’re the only thing that matters. The woman I want to—”
He almost said it. The final word almost escaped his lips. However, his voice broked and the sentence died in his throat.
No, it was not the moment for it. There was something more important to solve before any corny confession.
Sabrina started crying again, softer this time, her face pressed against his chest.
“It’s all my fault,” she whispered, voice muffled and broken. “Every time I find a place to belong… every time I let myself be happy… some disgrace occurs. I attract disaster. I shouldn’t have survived that day. I drag everyone I love to doom. Seth… the crew… and now you. If you hadn't met me, you would be safe. It’s all my fault…”
Crocodile was struck with a sudden, profound horror. Hearing the woman he loved voice such wretched, heartbreaking self-loathing was a torment worse than any blade.
Suddenly, the Warlord dropped to his knees before her, throwing his arms around her slight frame. He pulled her flush against his face, his golden hook resting harmlessly over her waist while his right holded her with a ferocious, protective desperation.
“Stop,” he said fiercely, voice rough with the acrimony blooming in his chest. “I won't tolerate you to say that. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me in my miserable life. You hear me?”
After a long, quiet interval of shared breathing, Crocodile leaned back just enough to look into her sapphire eyes, his gaze steady and focused. "I am not going to make any dangerous moves," he promised, his voice regaining its calculated, reassuring weight. "I trust your judgment. If the bastard wants a game of chess, I’ll play it. But I swear to you, I will make sure everything is going to be okay. And after this is over... Everything will be peaceful. We'll be safe. We’ll be happy."
Sabrina didn't answer immediately; she merely nodded, though the fierce, golden light that usually occupied her gaze remained dull, completely extinguished by the shadow of her impending doom.
Desperate to maintain the illusion that everything was under control, Crocodile began to rapidly suggest a string of alternative strategies, his mind racing to find a solutio. "If it’s money what that scum wants, I have more wealth accumulated in the vaults of this casino than he could spend in three lifetimes. Bribing him is a non-issue for me. Your life doesn't have a price tag."
The woman, though she had stopped crying, merely looked at him with a serious, hollow expression. She knew Barton. She knew his psychotic, wicked nature; a bribe would not extinguish his fire. It would only fuel it, transforming their lives into an endless, cyclical nightmare of extortion that would eventually end in a blade to the throat anyway.
"No," she said softly, her voice flat. "Money won't satisfy him for long. It will only tighten the leash."
The man's jaw tightened, but he quickly pivoted, refusing to let the despair win. "Fine. Then we play it smart. Without attacking him directly, and without doing anything that could look suspicious to his lookouts, I can order the elite Baroque Works intelligence agents to begin an off-the-books investigation. We will trace his movements from the past year, find his weak spots, isolate his contacts, and build a flawless counter-strategy. At the very least, we will locate his current safehouse."
"Yes," she whispered, her shoulders dropping slightly. "That... we can do that. It’s a good idea."
"Seven days, right?" Crocodile asked, his eyes narrowing slightly as the strategist within him began to map the board.
"Yes. Seven days."
"Then we have time," he said, though the words felt like ash in his mouth.
Crocodile finally sighed, burying his face into the fabric of her blouse, holding back all of the raw emotions the whole situation just provoked him.
He held her. He held her with all of his might, intoxicating himself with her scent as if any moment could be the last time he would have the chance to drown himself in her presence.
But no. There would be no last time. He was going to save her.
He was going to protect her.
“I’m so tired…” she whispered at last, voice hoarse and small, barely audible against the fabric of his shirt. “I just… I want to call it a day. Please.”
Without uttering a single syllable, understanding that further tactical dissection would only fracture her remaining sanity, he guided her gently into the adjacent private quarters.
That night, they retreated beneath the heavy covers of his king-sized bed, laying together in the dark, tightly cuddling, while Crocodile wrapped his massive right arm and the heavy, blunt curve of his golden hook around her waist, trapping her, surrounding her, as if his arms could protect her from anything that dared to harm her again. Crocodile wished that simply holding her in his arms would be enough. His fingers twitched instinctively against her hip, driven by an almost pathological, uncontrollable urge to shield her from the world. But he also knew that Sabrina was not a woman with an easy past, nor was this an enemy that could be easily dissolved.
Within minutes, she fell asleep quickly from pure physical and emotional exhaustion. However, sleeping became a difficult task for the Desert King that night.
Long after Sabrina’s breathing had dropped into the slow cadence of slumber, he still laid awake, staring at the ceiling, the weight of her body against his both a comfort and a torment. Every rise and fall of her chest reminded him how fragile this peace was, how easily it could be shattered. He closed his eyes, trying to force sleep to come, but his mind refused to rest. It kept circling back to her tear-streaked face, the terror in her eyes when he had touched her wrist.
The truth is, he was terrified. Although he had tried to feign absolute confidence and acted as if every single variable were under his control, an unholy anxiety now clawed at his throat. Long gone was the mask of the calculator chairman he was, leaving behind a man consumed by an uncontrollable, primal urge to protect her, even as the horrific prospect of his own helplessness haunted his thoughts.
How was he supposed to deal with an enemy like that, if dealing with him directly inevitably implied the death of his lover? And moreover, how could have him let something like this happen?
He couldn't fail again. Weakness was a sin he could never, under any circumstances, forgive himself for.
He would not lose Sabrina.
Not her.
Not this time.
Yet even as he made that silent vow, doubt gnawed at him. What if he couldn’t find a way out of the check-mate?
The only thing he knew was that the story could not repeat itself.
Eventually, as the agonizingly slow hours began to bleed into the early vanguard of dawn, his exhaustion grew heavy enough to drug his hyper-vigilant mind, and that night, Crocodile dreamed about the past.
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This is a story of a woman without a name. This is a story of a rebirth.
In a world where dreams are nothing but fantasies that lead poor souls to death, there is only one sanctuary for those those whom life gives the tortuous lesson of reality. Where where rookies leave with their hearts in a thousand pieces, where the 'Romantic Pirate' vanishes.
There’s only one place: hidden behind a scar that never stops hurting, buried in lies and beneath a truth that must never come to light.
This is the story of Sir Crocodile.
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The day Gol D. Roger was executed, I witnessed it with my own eyes.
He laughed. That man stood on the scaffold with a smile wider than the sea itself, as if death were nothing more than another adventure.
The day the King of the Pirates was executed, something shifted inside of me.
At that time I didn’t know how to put a name to what I felt. It wasn’t admiration. It wasn’t inspiration. It was hunger. A raw, aching hunger for something greater than the endless cycle of rebellion and suppression the Revolutionary Army preached. If there was something I was sure as hell about back then, it was that I wasn’t like the others there. I never had been.
My clashes with my comrades didn’t start that day, but the gap between us widened into a chasm the moment the Great Pirate Era was born.
After all, before I became a revolutionary, I had been a pirate.
However, I couldn’t simply leave and set sail in search of the Pirate King’s treasure that very day. My affairs in the army still had a long way to go, since I happened to be a sub-commander. But some years after returning from Loguetown to Baltigo—two years of time wasted uselessly—something happened that made me realize my time was running out.
That godforsaken parasite growing inside my own flesh was my countdown. If I wanted to pursue my dream, I had to do it now.
I had to go hunt the One Piece before my own biology betrayed me.
Ivankov was one of the few people who was aware of my condition.
I remember the last night I saw him before I took off; the smell of medical alcohol and damp earth in the infirmary of the base. I had been pushing myself through a grueling, brutal combat drill, desperately trying to induce enough physical damage, enough internal bleeding, to force my body to eject the unwanted guest. I had stripped my shirt off, my knuckles split and bleeding against a heavy iron-wood training post, my breathing a ragged, furious wheeze.
But the physical exhaustion wasn't the worst of it. It was my own skin.
Every time I caught my reflection, I felt utterly disgusted. The 'parasite' was already rewriting my anatomy against my will. My breasts were growing, becoming heavy and swollen, straining against the tightly wound linen sheets I used to flatten my chest. It felt like a joke. It felt like psychological horror.
I was trapped inside a foreign, alien vessel that was betraying my identity by the hour. With each passing day, that creature inside me took a piece of what 'me' was.
"Stop this madness at once!" Ivankov had shrieked, as he slammed the heavy iron door shut behind him. He marched across the room, his fishnet-clad arm swinging out to violently catch my wrist. "You are two months along, you foolish girl! You think that if you continue to force yourself this way, you will just have a miscarriage. But no, darling, it's not that easy. It's your own life which is at stake, you idiot. If something bad happens, it's not just your piracy business that's over forever; your heartbeat will be over too."
"Then let it!" I snarled, my voice cracking with a desperation I had never allowed another human being to hear. I clenched my fists, staring down at my still-flat stomach with a hatred that tasted like copper. "You don't understand. We are witnessing a historic moment, the birth of an era, and I am supposed to sit here and watch my body turn into something I don't even recognize? It’s a leech. It’s destroying my goddamn dream before I can even buy a ship!"
A tense and painful silence settled between us. I knew Ivankov understood me, but he could never support something as reckless as that.
“Ivankov, I'm sailing,” I said, voice low. "I’m leaving Baltigo by tomorrow."
"And the father?" he asked quietly, his eyes searching mine for a truth I had already resolved to take to my grave. "Are you even going to tell him?"
"Some random guy at a port. It was a mistake. A stupid, drunken mistake."
It was the greatest lie I had ever told. But letting him know the father was the very architect of the shadow we were standing in would had only made the things more complicated. And I couldn't afford complications.
Ivankov sighed, running a hand through his wild hair.
“Then go. But promise me one thing; if you need help, if things go wrong… come back. I’ll be here.”
But before I could slip into the docks and steal away into the dark, I had one final debt to settle. I had to face the commander himself.
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Dragon didn’t look up when I walked into the war room. He stood with his back to me, and I didn't salute.
"I’m leaving."
He remained perfectly still for three long seconds. Then, slowly, he turned his head. Those dark, severe eyes—capable of making even the most fearsome Marine tremble—locked onto mine. There was no surprise in his face.
“You’re really doing it,” he said, voice low. “Leaving the Army. Leaving… us.”
"I was never truly one of you. I told you that from the beginning. I’m a pirate. And I'm going to become the Queen of them all before this 'parasite' you've put in my body stops me from achieving my dream.”
Dragon stepped closer. For a moment, I saw something almost like regret in his eyes.
Actually, I never knew what kind of regret his gaze reflected. Perhaps regret for those nights we shared under the same sheets, driven by the desperate longing for warmth of two broken people who had never truly known it. Perhaps regret for the bitter, sharp-edged way things turned out between us later, as our ideals tore us apart. Regret for what could have been. I don't know. I'll never know.
“You’re carrying my child,” he said quietly. “And you’re willing to throw your life away chasing a dream that has killed better people than you.”
"I'd rather die trying to become who I was meant to be than living a life chained."
He stared at me for a long time. Then, almost too softly, he asked:
“And if I asked you to stay?”
For a couple of seconds, a knot formed in my stomach, rendering me unable to respond. But although my heart burned and ached with a deep sorrow that even I refused to name, I mustered the courage to say a few last words to him before leaving the room:
“I would still leave.”
He reached out, as if to touch my shoulder, but stopped himself. His hand hovered in the air between us before falling back to his side.
I turned away from him, heart pounding, refusing to let him see the tears burning in my eyes.
That was the last time I saw Dragon as the woman I used to be.
Our story ended there.
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I got used to the title of "Captain" easily.
My crew of deserters and outlaws and I made a name for ourselves a few months after I left. My crewmates, whom I trusted blindly.
And among them was her.
Sharp-tongued, quick-witted, with eyes like gleaming sapphires and a laugh that could light the night itself. She was my right hand and navigator. We became inseparable.
While my body spent those first few months acting like a battleground, she was the only one allowed near my quarters. She was the one who helped me tighten the linen when my own hands shook from rage. She was the one who stood on the quarterdeck and barked orders to the men so I could retreat into the corners when the morning sickness threatened to bring me to my knees.
Neither Gardenia nor I ever dared to say that we weren't just captain and first mate. Perhaps, if things hadn't ended this way, something would have changed.
I'll never know.
By the time we hit Sabaody Archipelago, our names were already echoing through the taverns of the Grand Line. The New World awaited us.
Rumors spread like wildfire through the archipelago: an Eternal Pose leading directly to Laugh Tale, the island where the One Piece was said to be hidden. A spark then lit my heart on fire.
But of course, I wasn't the only naive soul who had set her sights on that promise of a throne. Of course not. In Sabaody, where the most fearsome pirate crews on the entire Grand Line roamed freely like children in a park, and every bloodthirsty monster with a hull was already charting a course for that coordinate.
But I couldn't let anyone get ahead of me.
"We're sailing."
Gardenia stared at me across the deck, meeting my hungry, desperate eyes, not seeing a woman five months pregnant but the power-hungry pirate that lived inside of me.
"Yes, captain."
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What we didn't know is that the nameless island would turn into a meat grinder.
The New World didn't welcome us precisely.
By the time our hull scraped the sand, cannon fire chewed the coastline to splinters, and the mud was a thick, sucking soup of blood and seawater.
I fought like a woman possessed, driving my blade through anyone who blocked the path to the central valley where the Pose was rumored to be. Multiple crews clashed in a chaotic free-for-all. I was blind to the tactical layout, deaf to the warnings of my own men. I only saw the crown. My dream, closest as ever.
The Eternal Pose was going to be mine. I had to be the one who became king.
The One Piece had to be mine.
And because of my arrogance, the net closed around us.
A shadow fell over our vanguard—a monstrous, suffocating presence that made the air feel like liquid iron. Out of the smoke stepped One of the most fearsome men I've ever seen. A beast, a former comrade of the legendary Gol D. Roger. And precisely for that reason, his presence seemed an insult to my ambition.
That scum was called Douglas Bullet. And he was the man that took her from me.
His iron fist tore through her insides, and all I could do was pick up her dying body from the ground in my arms.
"Gardenia... Gardenia, look at me," I choked out, my voice cracking, the hard, ruthless mask I had built entirely dissolving. I reached out to press my hands against her wound, but the blood just kept slipping through my fingers. "Don't you dare close your eyes. I'm getting you out of here."
To my horror, Gardenia closed her eyes and never opened them again.
And that was the exact moment I hated myself.
I hated my body and the parasite that had turned me into a burden of flesh and altered hormones. A slow, weak burden, incapable of protecting the one he most wanted to protect.
I stood up from her corpse, my vision blurred by smoke and tears, and charged blindly toward the center of the valley where the final players had gathered.
But I was already too late.
There he was. The white giant. The strongest man in the world.
If someone had asked me back then, I would have said I wanted to be like him. I wanted that absolute, unshakeable sovereignty. But now I'd say he was the embodiment of my worst nightmares.
His presence alone was as powerful as an earthquake.
He was none other than Edward Newgate, Whitebeard.
He held the key to the end of the world in his palm, and he looked down at it with nothing but grim disappointment.
"The world is not prepared for what lies at the end of this path," Whitebeard’s voice boomed, a rumble that shook the very foundation of the island.
And then, everything I had sacrificed—the Revolutionary Army, my sanity, the absolute loathing I felt for the flesh on my bones, the life of the only woman who had ever truly trusted me—it was all destroyed in a single flex of that old man's hand.
Whitebeard crushed the Eternal Pose.
And that's why, at that moment, I didn't feel tiny in the face of the gigantic figure that was his. I ignored my weakness. I ignored the five-month-old scourge growing inside me and I lashed out against that titan.
I wanted to tear his throat out. I wanted to make him bleed for what he had stolen from me.
However, our confrontation was not a battle. Pur confrontation was the execution of my pride.
That man didn't even drop the surrealistically gigantic weapon that was his bisento. As I reached the apex, his left hand shot forward; a movement so deceptively fast it defied his massive bulk. His fist, wrapped in the volatile, translucent sphere of his Quake Quake fruit powers, caught me squarely in the torso.
The shockwave detonated directly against my abdomen, and I felt the air left my lungs in a violent spray of blood. The tightly wound linen binder around my chest snapped under the sheer pressure, the fabric tearing open to expose the very curves I had spent months trying to destroy.
And that, although degrading, was not the worst humiliation.
I was lifted off my feet, my ribs cracking like dry twigs as the vibration rippled through my internal organs, directly striking the womb. A sickening, terrifying pain bloomed deep within my core, a sensation that told me the parasite was being torn from its foundations.
The fact that I didn't have a miscarriage at that time was a miracle of nature.
And just before I could hit the ground, Whitebeard swung his bisento in a tight, merciless arc.
The black blade of the polearm caught me across the face, carving a deep, horizontal trench from my right ear to my left cheek, slicing right through the bridge of my nose. Blood erupted from the wound, blinding me instantly, and in the same fluid motion, the edge of the steel came down across my left wrist, severing my hand from the arm in a clean, agonizing flash of steel.
I screamed. God knows how screamed. My screams of pain could be heard from the farthest reaches of the sky.
I fell into the mud at his feet, a broken, mutilated creature.
Whitebeard stood over me, the tip of his bisento resting mere inches from my throat. He looked down at my ruined face, his eyes filled with a heavy, disappointing pity that hurt worse than the loss of my hand.
And it was there, with that giant towering before me in all its magnificence, when I stopped to contemplate the panorama that surrounded me.
There was only silence.
The blood of a thousand rookies who had believed Roger’s final words was splitted everywhere.
My comrades had been horribly defeated, and I had been so blinded by my dreams that I was unable to protect them.
"If you want to protect something, then do it right."
His words, which seemed to have read the deep lament of my heart, were seared into my mind.
I lay there in the mud as the storms raged around me, clutching my bleeding stomach with my remaining hand, listening to the distant sound of Whitebeard's crew disposing to sail away.
I didn't die—my spite wouldn't allow it—but the woman I once was died on that ridge. I dragged myself into the shadows of the rocks, leaving a trail of blood and broken dreams behind me, running from the ultimate humiliation of the era.
That day I learned I wouldn't hate someone more than that man. But what I also learned was that dreams are nothing more than embellished death sentences.
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The boat with which I managed to escape from that hell was nothing more than a splintered coffin taking on water.
I lay flat on my back in the bilge, painting the wood with the dark, sluggish blood pouring from the stump of my left arm. I had used a piece of frayed hemp rigging to tie a crude tourniquet above the raw bone, crushing the flesh until the pulsing slowed to a thick, painful drip, but the rot was already setting in.
However, the physical mutilation was a distant, secondary horror to the violent revolution taking place within my own belly.
The escape back to Baltigo took me long enough for the parasite to start warning me that it was the time.
For three days of aimless drifting under a cloud-choked sky, the womb had been a furnace of agonizing contractions, a feral, tearing pressure that felt as though a beast were trying to claw its way out through my hip bones. My body was giving up.
I had no choice but to disembark as best I could on the first island I found, but I didn't even make it into the tree line.
I felt as if someone grabbed my body and ripped it in two. The worst kind of agony I had ever suffered. My hips shifted and tore, my internal organs burned.
There was no doctor, no hand to hold. There was only me, the howling wind, and the screams that no one else would hear.
Blood, thick and dark, pooled beneath my thighs, steaming slightly in the freezing night air. I could feel the tearing of my own flesh, the horrific, unyielding pressure as the child’s skull forced its way through a passage that my mind desperately rejected. I wanted to close my legs and crush it. I wanted to let the tide wash over my hips and drown us both in the foam. The temptation to simply lie back, close my eyes, and let the hemorrhage take me was a sweet, seductive siren song.
But as the child finally slipped from my ruined body after hours of suffering, a pathetic, wet choke echoed through the lull of the storm. It wasn't dead. Despite the shockwave, despite the salt water and the trauma, the thing was breathing, and it happened to be a boy. It lay between my knees, a slick, purple mass of mucus and blood, its tiny limbs twitching feebly against the cold.
That baby semed to be as much as a warrior as me.
I hated it. I loathed the very sight of its squalling, fragile form. But I could not leave it to freeze. If I let it die here, then Whitebeard was right. If I let it die, then I was nothing but a weak, incompetent fool who couldn't even protect the consequences of her own mistakes.
With trembling, clumsy fingers, I reached down with my remaining hand. I used my teeth to gnaw through the thick, rubbery cord, then scooped the weight of the infant against my shivering chest, pulling the remnants of my soaked captain’s coat around its body.
"We are going to survive, 'parasite,' you hear me?"
The return to Baltigo was a blur of fever dreams and delirium. I don't remember the ships I stole or the currents I navigated; I only remember the rhythm of the child’s breathing against my ribs and the increasing stench of my own dying flesh.
What I only remember was collapsing against the hidden iron door of Ivankov’s private laboratory once I reached the island, using the heel of my boot to strike the metal three times before my vision went entirely white.
Iva's eyes, when he saw me, only reflected a tenth of the horror I had suffered. And rightly so.
The proud, arrogant rookie who had sailed out of that same island months ago was completely unrecognizable. I was decrepit, a living corpse.
"M-My God..." Ivankov whispered, the signature theatricality completely draining from his voice. He dropped to his knees, his hands shaking as he reached for me. "Darling... what has happened to you? What did they do?"
But his breath caught in his throat, a high, terrified gasp escaping his lips as his gaze drifted to the bundle tucked under my right arm. A small, round head covered in downy black hair poked through the stained wool, its wide eyes staring blankly up at the cavern ceiling.
"You... you had it," the okama rasped, his hands flying to his mouth as tears pricked the corners of his eyes. "Alone... in the wild... you actually brought it into the world..."
I shoved the child into his chest with my remaining hand, my fingers instantly losing their grip as my body finally gave out. "Take it. Before I drop it."
For the next twelve hours, the laboratory was a chamber of torture. Ivankov worked in absolute, frantic secrecy, his advanced medical knowledge the only thing keeping the reaper from crossing the threshold, as always. I hated having to admit it, but he knew I would trust that guy with my life no matter what.
To my horror, he had to amputate another three inches of my left arm to clear the rot, sawing through the bone without anesthesia because my liver couldn't handle the sedation. Great, a disability. Just what I wanted.
He cleansed the trench on my face, pouring raw alcohol over the exposed nerves before driving coarse, black sutures through my flesh to hold the bridge of my nose together. I didn't scream. I bit down on a leather strap until my gums bled, my eyes locked onto the stone ceiling, my mind detaching itself from the meat of my body. After giving birth in such a gruesome way, I think I could have endured any kind of pain. It didn't matter anymore.
When the needles finally stopped, the worst operation began: my dissection.
I told Iva everything that happened. After all, who else in the world could I have told? He had to know.
I explained my humiliation, my regret, my loss, my pain, about Whitebeard, about Gardenia, and in that cold, sanitized laboratory, I felt like the most miserable person in the world. Ivankov looked at me with pity. But I hated to be seen that way.
I lay on the steel operating table, wrapped in clean, dry bandages, the metallic tang of blood still heavy in the back of my throat. And when I rolled my head to the side, staring at the small, cracked mirror hanging over the washbasin, the creature looking back at me was an abomination. A scarred, one-handed freak with the hollowed-out eyes of a ghost.
"I hate her," I rasped, my remaining fingers clawing at the edge of the operating table. "I hate the woman in that glass. She is an inept, pathetic fool who let her stupid dreams make her reckless. She led her comrades to their deaths. She let an old man pity her. If the world finds out that the sub-commander of the Revolutionary Army, that the pirate who claimed she would conquer the sea, was just a weak, bleeding bitch who whimpered in the mud... I will die of the shame alone."
I turned my eyes back to Ivankov, my gaze burning with a terrifying, unhinged ferocity. "No one can ever know, Iva. Do you hear me? The woman who sailed from this port is dead. The New World killed her. I want her buried. I want her name erased from every ledger, every manifest, every memory. I prefer that Dragon and the rest of the army believe I am rotting at the bottom of the sea."
"And what on earth do you intend to do?"
"I don't want to be the woman I see on that mirror," I said, leaning up from the table, my teeth bared in a snarl that pulled at my fresh facial stitches. "I want a body that cannot be impregnated. I want a strong body that cannot be branded by the world’s pity. I want to be someone else. You have the power, Iva."
Ivankov could only part his lips slightly, letting out a gasp. "What...?"
"Make me a man."
He looked at me for a long, agonizing moment, searching for any trace of the friend he had known, but he found nothing but an empty, scorched desert. "The Emporio Otoko Hormone... it changes the body, yes. It re-writes the DNA. But it cannot erase the scars in your mind, darling. It is a heavy burden to carry a lie that deep."
"I said, make me a man."
Recognizing that my spirit would completely implode if he refused, Ivankov slowly stood up. Suddenly, through his striking red gloves, sharp nails bristled like needles, releasing a pinkish liquid that shimmered with the gleam of the lamplight near the stretcher.
"And the child?" he then asked, his hand hovering over my carotid. "What of the boy?"
I didn't look toward the cradle in the corner where the infant lay sleeping. "Take him to Dragon, I'm sure he'll know what to do with the baby. Tell him it's an orphan you found abandoned in a basket or something. But I can't be with the child, Iva. I can't take care of him, and he deserves at least not to die."
Ivankov let out a long, heavy sigh that sounded like the deflation of a balloon.
"May God have mercy on whatever you become, darling," he whispered.
At that very moment, he dug his nails deeply deep into my neck. The execution of my old self came right after.
The reaction was instantaneous. I screamed. It was a sound that didn't belong to a human being, a raw, bubbling shriek that tore through the stone walls of the laboratory.
It felt as if my cells were melting and reforming. I felt my bone density thickening, my shoulders broadening with a sudden, agonizing snapping sound as the skeletal framework rearranged itself. The internal organs shifted, the remnants of my reproductive tract withering away into nothingness as a surge of foreign, aggressive testosterone flooded my nervous system.
My chest flattened violently, the swelling tissue collapsing as the pectorals hardened into a broad, unyielding wall of muscle. It felt as though I was being skinned alive from the inside out, my nerve endings scorched by a purple tide of chemical re-authoring.
My voice cords thickened and split, the high pitch of my agony dropping in real-time, morphing from a woman's shriek into a deep, vibrating, bestial roar that rattled the glassware on the shelves.
However, when the fire finally burned itself out, I stopped feeling like I was dying and I felt like I had been reborn.
The laboratory was dead silent. I lay on the iron table, my skin slick with a cold, oily sweat, breathing heavily. But the breath didn't rattle in my chest anymore. It came from deep within a broad, powerful torso.
Slowly, I pushed myself up. The leverage was entirely different: I was taller, harder, more muscular.
And when I finally deigned to get up in search of a mirror, an ecstatic smile spread across my face, almost as wide as the scar drawn on the bridge of my nose.
A man stood there, right before my eyes.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Sharp-jawed. Between my legs, the absence of what had once been there felt like the most profound relief I had ever known.
This was me.
Not the woman who had failed her crew. Not the woman who had let herself become weak. Not the woman who had carried a child she never wanted.
This was me.
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I left Baltigo that same night.
I didn’t say goodbye to anyone except Ivankov. He stood at the hidden dock, watching me with a mixture of sorrow and reluctant acceptance as I boarded a small, fast ship I had prepared in secret.
There were no tears left between us. I never looked back.
Ivankov had done his part, and thanks to it, from that day forward, I was him.
The man whose name everyone would pronounce with terror.
The man who would never let himself be trampled on again.
The man who would never again trust in the childlike fragility of dreams.
The man who would protect what was his, properly this time.
Sir Crocodile was born.
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The next morning, Crocodile woke with an acrimonious taste in his mouth.
Those memories were a still-raw wound in his mind. A wound he had tried to cover up and bury in the deepest recesses of that desert. But, however much he might have wanted to pretend otherwise, some cuts did not heal simply with the passage of time, as could have been the case with the transverse scar on his face.
Seeking the grounding comfort of her presence to banish the lingering ghosts, he then heavily rolled over in the bed.
His voice came out in a tired, raspy murmur, rough from the restless night.
"G'morning Ri—"
But the words died abruptly on his lips.
As he extended his right arm across the mattress to pull Sabrina against his chest, his hand met nothing but the cold, smooth expanse of empty linen. A sharp pang of unease twisted in his chest, as he didn't find her familiar warmth waiting for him, the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing, nor her fragrance of lavender and vanilla to cut through the stale taste of his nightmare.
“Where the hell…?” he muttered, running a hand through his dark hair after sitting up abruptly, the movement sharp and ungraceful for a man of his usual composure.
Crocodile scanned the dim, quiet bedroom, his sharp eyes darting everywhere, as if deep down a part of him hoped she was playing hide-and-seek somewhere in his suite. However, his search ceased when his gaze landed on the nightstand, where a small piece of paper had been placed.
“I was in a hurry and didn’t want to wake you. I’ll call you later.”
He crumpled the note in his fist, the paper creaking under the pressure.
The worry gnawed at him, sharper than any blade. He knew her too well, and Sabrina wasn't exactly an early bird, let alone a woman to slip away into the morning without a word. Something was eating at her; something she was trying to carry alone.
And that terrified him more than any enemy he ever had.
Because if she was pulling away now, when her life was on the line, it could only mean one thing:
CWs: angst, explicit violence, descriptions of ptsd episode, descriptions of panic attack, fluff.
WORDCOUNT: ~9000 words
Author's note: Sorry for the delay in uploading the new chapter, I've been extremely busy with exams oof (fuck uni fuck finals). I only could write during my bus rides. I hope you like this chapter!! Crocodile was really silly in this one I love him.
My One Piece writing masterlist! Check for part ten and the rest!
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The gods may throw a dice
Their minds as cold as ice
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear
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Sir Crocodile was in one of his moods.
Not the usual calculated coldness he wore like armor; this was something sharper, more volatile. Employees scurried through the corridors like frightened mice, whispering nervously whenever they passed his office. Orders were barked with unusual frequency. The head chef had already been reduced to tears after the third complaint about the menu for tonight’s private dinner.
But the worst part was suffered by the poor employee who dared to decorate the VIP room with floral arrangements, only to be threatened by Crocodile with being turned into a dehydrated corpse."The miss is allergic to flowers, you brainless, irresponsible cockroach," he had told him.
No one understood what was driving the Warlord’s obsessive, suffocating perfectionism. No one dared ask why the boss was acting like this, but everyone was praying they would survive him.
In truth, Crocodile himself barely understood the storm raging inside his chest.
Needing a respite from his own frustration, he retreated to his private office on the upper floors, slamming the heavy mahogany door shut behind him. There, the velvet box sat on his desk like a live grenade. He picked it up for the seventh time that hour, opening it to stare at the ring inside.
It was… tacky. Obnoxiously so.
A massive central emerald surrounded by a chaotic halo of diamonds and smaller emeralds, set in a heavy gold ornamental cameo. This wasn't like that oversized one he'd once lent her (and which she’d thrown in his face after he’d behaved like an absolute asshole). No, this one was going to be entirely hers, made to measure, crafted just for the woman he was head over heels for.
Crocodile hated it on sight. But he knew—with grim certainty—that Sabrina would lose her mind over it. She loved loud, ridiculous things. And for once, he wanted to give her something loud and ridiculous.
While still staring at that crime against the concept of jewelry, he couldn't stop thinking about that specific conversation. His heart felt oddly heavy, compressed by a strange, foreign weight that the grand architecture of his ambition had never prepared him for.
It had happened months ago, on a peaceful Wednesday evening in that very office. The desert wind had died down, leaving the night still, and they had spent hours playing cards and gossiping about unimportant things. Sabrina was leaning back, a delicate trail of cigarette smoke curling around her fingers, while Crocodile filled the space between them with the rich, heavy haze of his cigar.
"Hey, Crocodile," she had murmured, her voice laced with a lazy, cat-like curiosity. "How many people have you actually been with before? Be honest."
Crocodile had paused mid-inhale, his hand freezing over his cards as the smoke trailed out of his nose in two thin, gray lines like exhaust. "What kind of an absurd question is that?"
"A perfectly normal one for a couple of degenerates like us," she had chirped, leaning her chin on her hand, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Come on. Give me a ballpark estimate. Or shall I make my own theories?"
His response was letting out a low, amused chuckle, the gravel in his throat vibrating pleasantly, and then he had dropped his cards onto the felt. "And what are your theories, if I may ask, madam?"
“Well,” she had said, her tone shifting into that mock-intellectual cadence she used whenever she was about to say something entirely inappropriate. "Either an absolute whore amount or a nun number."
“Is that the only choice I get?” He had murmured, leaning back into his leather chair, his golden hook catching the lamplight. He had let the silence stretch for a moment, enjoying the way she leaned in, waiting for the verdict. “I'm sorry to disappoint you, but… In my entire life? I highly doubt the total amount reaches ten.”
"Ten," she had echoed softly, her teasing smile softening into something more intrigued. "That's very little for someone who's already in his forties."
“Let me be clear,” he had started, his voice dropping into a firmer, more defensive register, though the corner of his mouth remained tipped upward. “We both know it is not because I have lacked the opportunity. But I had other priorities."
“And those ten?” she had asked, her fingers leaving the cards entirely now, her gaze locked onto his with an intensity that made the air between them feel thick. “Were you ever… serious about any of them?"
Crocodile had looked down at his cigar, the tip a brilliant, burning orange. “Not really. Perhaps just once, decades ago. There was someone I met when I was younger and naïve. But it ended exactly how you would expect a pirate's first romance to end. Bloody and with a lesson learned.”
A brief, bitter expression had crossed the Warlord's features—a faint, pained shadow that suggested the memory, though dead and buried, still left an odd taste in his mouth. He raised his eyes back to hers, his gaze sharpening with a familiar, competitive heat as he deflected the vulnerability. "And what about you? Have you been in a proper relationship before?"
Sabrina had let out a dramatic, melodic sigh, tossing her head back with a flourish. “As you may suspect, darling, I am an incredibly sought-after lady. Yeah, I’ve had a few little love affairs before," she had explained. "Some dashing bandit over here, some bounty hunter who forgot he was supposed to capture me over there… and, of course, I had my adventures right here in your dear casino before we officially met."
Crocodile raised a judgemental eyebrow.
"Though they never lasted long enough to actually matter," she continued. "Nothing serious. Pirates don't exactly do 'serious.' We fuck, we fight, we sail away."
He had leaned forward, a wicked smirk spreading across his scarred face. “Whore.”
Without a second of hesitation, she had kicked his shin beneath the mahogany table.
“HEY! You bastard," Sabrina had chirped. "At least I had my fun. Meanwhile, you've spent your whole existance being a monk until I came along and revolutionized your sex life. You're welcome, by the way.”
Crocodile laughed out loud then—a rich, genuine sound that rarely echoed outside these four walls. "Seriously, though," he continued, leaning forward on his elbows. "Nothing serious? Not even a classic, tragic 'true romance story' inside the cabins of the Oasis Pirates? You know what they say: closeness breeds affection."
"Hell no," Sabrina said instantly, her face softening into a fond, nostalgic smile that always accompanied the mention of her old life. "The crew… they were family, Croc. Seth, the guys… It would have been totally twisted.
"Not even… what was his name? The one with the bandana. Your shipwright." Crocodile tilted his head, his eyes narrowing slightly as he dragged up the memory.
"You mean Kino?"
"Kino. That was it. I saw his bounty poster many years ago. Gotta say it, the boy was handsome."
The woman let out a loud, horrified gasp, covering her face with her hands. "Goodness, absolutely not! Kino? That would have been like fucking my cousin!"
They had laughed together then, the ease of the conversation settling over the office like a familiar, warm blanket, stripping away the blood-soaked history that usually followed them both.
"So," he then murmured, his laughter dying down into a warm, lingering hum as he looked at her across the table. "It seems we are both absolute rookies with this…"
"Yeah," Sabrina had agreed, her voice soft as she leaned back against the cushions, staring down at her cards with a lopsided, affectionate smile. "Very clumsy rookies."
She went quiet for a moment, the silence between them growing heavy, charged with an unspoken weight. Sabrina looked up, her gaze locking onto his through her lashes. The teasing facade was completely gone now, leaving behind a raw, sudden vulnerability that made Crocodile’s chest tighten.
"You know, at first, compromise scared the hell out of me," she had whispered, looking up at him through her lashes, her vulnerability sudden and sharp. "The idea of it. And yet here I am, playing cards with the man I say goodnight to every night.
"Are you getting sentimental on me, Rina? I thought you were a hardened ex-pirate," the Warlord had teased, unable to resist the urge to poke her armor just a bit.
"Shut up and listen, I'm trying to be profound," she had groaned, though a faint blush had crept up her neck. "Having a boyfriend is all fun and games," Sabrina continued, a small, breathless laugh escaping her lips as she traced a pattern on the wood of the table. "It's easy to share a bed and get pretty to go on dates. But, eventually, there comes a definitive point when things get more… serious. Years ago, if you had told me I'd consider chaining myself to a person that way, I would have laughed in your face."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah," Sabrina had reached out, her small hand sliding across the mahogany table until her fingers gently brushed against his powerful, scarred wrist. Her voice was a soft, steady vow in the quiet room."But now… looking at you? I wouldn't mind chaining myself to you for the rest of my miserable days."
That conversation had never left him. Every time he looked at her, every time she laughed at him, every time she chose to stay despite all his flaws—those words echoed in his mind.
Chaining myself to you.
Crocodile blinked, the warm amber light of the memory fading back into the harsh, cold reality of his empty office.
“Damn it all,” he growled to himself, stopping in front of the glass of the Bananawanis' tank, observing its reflection with a knot in its stomach.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of his office, in the reinforced Kairouseki-lined cell built into the far wall of the room, a prisoner sat huddled in the corner—one of his own former Baroque Works agents, a mid-level Billion whose name Crocodile hadn’t bothered remembering. The man had made the fatal mistake of discovering Mr. 0’s true identity. He had been sobbing quietly for the past hour.
Crocodile ignored him.
He cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and began practicing again—for the seventh time.
“Karina… Rina.” He frowned, reformulating. “No— Karina.”
He took a breath.
"I never thought I’d want this. Commitment. Marriage. But I do. I want you. And if you want me… well. Take the damn ring."
Clearly frustrated with himself, his immediate self-response was a click of his tongue. "Fuck. No."
Then, from the dark cell, a muffled, tearful sob broke the silence. "I… I don't wanna die… Please, have mer—"
Crocodile shot the prisoner a withering glare and interrupted him. “Quiet, you’re distracting me. You're gonna die slowly anyway so shut your mouth.”
The man whimpered and pressed himself tighter against the wall. Crocodile paused, rubbing the bridge of his nose where a headache was beginning to bloom, then took another deep breath.
"Karina. From the moment you walked back into my life, you’ve done nothing but complicate it. You challenge me. You infuriate me. You’re stubborn, chaotic, impossible… yet—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I feel like the luckiest man in Alabasta every single day I wake up next to you. I love you. So, marry me or I'll—"
He stopped dead in his tracks, groaning aloud.
"Damn, no. Still too agressive. I cannot threaten her into marrying me."
Frustrated, he decided to go all out. He did something he had only ever done once before in his entire life, at the most shameful and painful moment of his life, and only before that woman: kneeling down.
Leaning his weight on his knee while gripping the small velvet box tightly in his calloused hand, he looked onto an imaginary Sabrina and recited:
"Listen to me, you chaotic little menace. I love you. You make me… feel things I never thought I’d feel again. I've realized that the Utopia I aspire to is meaningless without you by my side. So let me be a king alongside his queen. Forever.”
Silence.
Then, from the depths of the Seastone cell, a tiny, trembling, utterly horrified whisper cut through the air. “…Are you really practicing a marriage proposal… while I’m chained in here?”
Crocodile finally turned, sharp eyes narrowing dangerously at the terrified man. “Yes. And you’re ruining the mood.”
The prisoner looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.
"Hmm. Maybe it was too soft?" the Warlord muttered to himself, rising from his knee and brushing a speck of dust from his trousers.
The poor man in the cell whimpered again, tears streaming down his face. “I won't say anything… Sir… I have a wife… two children… please…”
"And I'm trying to have a wife too so stop wasting time babbling about your miserable life, would you mind?"
Crocodile snapped the box shut and placed it on the desk at his left before exhaling sharply, running his hand through his dark hair. His usual confidence was cracking at the edges. He was nervous—genuinely nervous—and it infuriated him.
“Oh god. What if she says no?” he muttered, half to himself, half to the unfortunate audience of one. “She’s stubborn. What if she laughs? She always laughs at me when I try to be romantic…”
The prisoner, desperate to survive and recognizing a bizarre, delusional window of opportunity, tried to flatter his executioner through his tears. “She… she’ll say yes, Boss! Definitely! You’re Sir Crocodile! Who on earth would say no to you?”
The Warlord shot him a withering glare. “You clearly don’t know her.”
The scene had turned entirely Dantesque— Crocodile pacing again around the room, oversharing with the condemned man like he was a reluctant therapist.
"A leash over her neck? Never. She will never be mine. She belongs to no one. She simply decides who she's most interested in bothering, and it seems she has chosen me as her victim," Crocodile explained. "She’s chaos incarnate. A walking disaster in heels. But when she smiles at me…” He stopped, jaw tightening. “When she smiles at me like I hung the fucking moon, I forget I ever wanted to rule this kingdom.”
As he spoke, an unusually sweet, uncharacteristic smile touched the Warlord's lips. His sharp eyes shone with a sudden, fierce excitement, unable to help but imagine her actual reaction tonight—the pure joy in her gaze, the beautiful, crimson curve of her lips when she finally saw the ring. His heart was beating powerfully against his ribs, a volatile mix of raw nerves and the frantic butterflies that simply thinking about her caused him.
The unlucky hostage whimpered again, temporarily distracted from his doom by the sudden warmth radiating from the terrifying Warlord. “She sounds… wonderful, sir.”
“I just… want her to be happy,” he muttered. “I want her to stay. I want her to choose me."
The Warlord stopped. He turned his head slowly, looking at the man with a subtle, warm smile. For a split second, the prisoner thought he had won him over.
"You think she'll say yes?"
"Y-Yes, sir! Absolutely! Any woman would be insane to turn down a man of your stature! She’ll definitely say yes, I'm certain of it! You sound incredibly… romantic! Just let me go, and I'll—"
"Nice try," he interrupted, the curve of his smirk turning wicked. "But you know too much. You're still dying in an hour."
Before the prisoner could let out another wail of despair, the heavy mechanical lock of the office door clicked. The door swung open, and a muscular man, tall as a pillar, wearing a suit and with a shaved head, strode into the room, his massive, imposing figure instantly filling the entryway. He stopped in his tracks, his sharp, unblinking eyes darting from his boss—who was standing by his desk, unusually flustered and quickly adjusting his vest—to the weeping, broken mess of a man shivering in the corner of the cell.
Mr. 1 paused, one eyebrow twitching slightly. “…Should I come back later, Mr. 0?”
"No," Crocodile snapped, a bit too quickly. "Get in here and close the door. I don't have all day."
Mr. 1 obeyed without question, the heavy door sealing behind him with a low thud. He glanced once more at the weeping prisoner, then back to his boss.
“I’ve taken care of everything you asked for,” he reported in his usual calm, professional tone. "Miss Doublefinger and I have made sure that our 'guest's' gossip has not reached third parties. So I am ready to fulfill my task and take care of the prisoner, as you demanded."
The prisioner gasped in tremor.
Crocodile nodded curtly and waved his hand dismissively, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, then walked back to his desk, picking up the velvet box and turning it over in his fingers.
Mr. 1 observed him for a moment, then added with the faintest hint of dry amusement in his voice: “You look nervous, sir.”
“I am not nervous,” Crocodile snapped immediately, his golden eyes flashing with a sudden, defensive fire. He glared at his top assassin as if daring him to challenge the statement.
Mr. 1 didn't blink. He simply stood there, an immovable wall of compliance.
"…I’m fucking terrified," the Warlord finally muttered under his breath.
A rare, small smile—something almost resembling human warmth—tugged at the corner of Mr. 1’s severe mouth.“She’s going to say yes, you know.”
However, before Crocodile could respond, the prisoner in the cell suddenly interrupted through his tears, desperate to win favor:
“I-I told him the same thing!" The prisoner yelled, desperately pressing his face against the Sea-Prism stone bars, tears smudging the dirt on his cheeks. "I'm telling you, Boss, she's going to love it! You two are going to be so happy!"
Crocodile’s smile vanished instantly. He turned a deadpan, thoroughly unimpressed glare toward the cell. Then, the man reached into his trousers pocket, pulling out a heavy iron ring of keys, and tossed them carelessly across the room. Mr. 1 caught them mid-air with a flawless, metallic snap of his hand.
"Take care of him, Mr. 1," the Warlord rumbled. "And make it clean. I don't want any mess tonight."
"Understood."
He scooped up the velvet box, safely tucking it into the right pocket of his trousers. He took a few steps toward the door, but paused, his heavy boots coming to a halt just outside the shadow of the cage. He turned back slowly, a sinister, mocking smirk curling the edge of his lips. He looked down at the hostage one last time.
"Too bad you're going to die tonight," Crocodile murmured, his voice dripping with a cruel, dark satisfaction. "You won't get to see how incredible she looks in white."
Without waiting for a response, the Warlord swept out of the room, his heavy coat billowing behind him. The heavy mahogany door slammed shut, completely cutting off the sudden, renewed torrent of screams and pathetic whimpers that erupted from the cell behind him.
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Perched with practiced elegance upon a high, plush leather stool at one of Rain Dinners’ secondary bars, she lazily swirled a colorful piña colada, watching the condensation drip down the glass to pool on the polished mahogany. Around her, the madness of the crème of Alabasta hummed in a symphonic blur of sensory overload; wealthy merchants from Alubarna argued over card values, the slot machines offered a hypnotic chorus of electronic chirps, and the dry, rhythmic clatter of plastic chips being shuffled filled the room like white noise.
Though she sat entirely alone amidst the crowd, a serene, almost lazy calm enveloped her. Crocodile had explicitly warned her earlier that he would be swallowed by agonizingly dry Baroque Works logistics for the better part of the evening, strictly instructing her to amuse herself until he could break away. And of course, she was more than content to bide her time, nursing her drink and taking a quiet, observational pleasure in the desperation of the gamblers.
This peaceful equilibrium was shattered, however, when the ambient light was suddenly blocked by a towering shadow.
He had appeared literally out of nowhere. Despite her sharp instincts—honed by years of survival on the treacherous currents of the Grand Line—she had neither heard a footfall nor sensed the displacement of air that usually accompanied a physical presence.
The man's imposing silhouette was framed by the stark, dark uniform of the casino's elite security. A cascade of long, striking platinum blonde hair fell in immaculate strands over his shoulders. His gaze was entirely obscured behind a pair of deeply dark, polarized sunglasses, which caught and fractured the neon hues of the roulette wheels. Because of the heavy shadows of the lounge and the opacity of his eyewear, Sabrina found herself unable to discern his facial features properly, recognizing only the sharp, rigid line of his jaw.
"Miss Sabrina," the guard murmured, his posture bowing just a fraction to strike a perfect balance between deference and authority. "Sir Crocodile has personally asked me to locate you. He wants you to await his arrival at the second basement corridor, as he is currently wrapping up his private affairs."
Sabrina paused mid-sip, lowering her straw as a faint, skeptical line creased her brow. "The basement corridor?" she echoed, her voice laced with a lazy amusement that didn't quite mask her confusion. "Well, that’s a new twist, even for him. Usually, the big man prefers to come and pick me up personally, or summon me directly at his office."
The guard did not waver under her scrutiny; instead, his hidden gaze remained fixed precisely on her face, his hands clasping formally behind his back. "The Boss was really specific on the matter, miss. He stated that the main office is currently compromised by... administrative clutter. He felt the lower levels would provide a far more suitable, undisturbed environment."
Slid off the barstool, she smoothed down the fabric of her skirt and hoisted her small handbag over her shoulder. "Fine, then. I'll head down myself. I know the layout of those service tunnels better than half the staff anyway."
As she made a move to bypass him toward the secure employee exit, the platinum-haired guard smoothly shifted his weight, subtly threading himself back into her path with an unyielding politeness. "Allow me to escort you down, miss."
"Oh, it's really not necessary, sweetheart," Sabrina chirped, offering him a brilliant, dismissive flash of a smile as she attempted to wave him off. "I appreciate the chivalry, truly, but I'm a big girl. I can reach the basement without a chaperone. So go back to watching the high-rollers; I'm sure someone's trying to slip a card up their sleeve at the blackjack table."
"I must insist, Miss Sabrina," the guard stated, his voice firming up just a fraction, carrying an underlying gravity that caused her to pause in her tracks. "Sir Crocodile explicitly told me to accompany you. Today is a particularly hectic day on the floor, and considering the overall... complicated social climate within the city limits lately, he demanded that I ensure your absolute safety until you are in his presence."
She actively searched his posture for any hidden spike of malice, any telltale tremor of deceit, but the man remained entirely impenetrable. For a fleeting second, the sheer perfection of his blankness felt strange, but as she processed his words, a fond, slightly exasperated warmth took over her suspicion. It made total sense. Alabasta had been a powder keg lately, and this protective chauvinism was exactly the kind of suffocating caution she expected from Crocodile when he was stressed out.
"God, he really is a control freak when he's under pressure, isn't he?" she groaned playfully, rolling her eyes with a lopsided smile. "Alright, you win. Lead the way."
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The basement hallway stretched out before them like a hollow concrete vault, illuminated only by a series of flickering, low-wattage fluorescent bulbs fixed to the ceiling that looked as though they might snap into total darkness at any given second.
The only sound filling the narrow corridor was the rhythmic, coordinated click of their footsteps echoing off the stone.
Sabrina walked slightly ahead, her heels striking the floor with a steady, casual cadence. Behind her, the guard matched her pace with a heavy, military precision. It was a flawless, synchronized rhythm...until it wasn't.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the heavy thud of the combat boots behind her began to fall out of sync. The distance between them stretched. The footsteps slowed, dragging against the concrete, before dying out entirely.
Silence collapsed over the hallway.
Sabrina stopped. She stood frozen for a beat, her back still turned to the towering figure, a strange, cold prickle of alarm flaring up the back of her neck. She looked around at the damp, empty corridor, her brow furrowing in deep confusion.
"Hey," she said, her voice laced with a sharp, puzzled edge as she began to shift her weight to glance over her shoulder. "Are you sure this is where Crocodile said he wanted to meet me? I don't kno—"
"This charade is over," a voice cut her off.
It wasn't the polite, carefully modulated baritone the guard had used at the bar. It was rougher, deeper, carrying an undercurrent of venomous familiarity that made her blood run entirely cold.
Before the final syllable could even echo off the concrete, the air behind her violently displaced. A savage, blinding rush of movement tore through the shadows. A massive, gloved fist swung directly for the back of her head, aiming to crush her skull against the wall.
But Sabrina’s instincts didn't fail her. Even without being able to read his aura, her battle-honed reflexes tore into action. Sensing the lethal intent a millisecond before impact, she dropped her weight, spinning fluidly to the left as the fist whistled through the empty air where her head had been, colliding with the concrete wall with a sickening, cracking force that showered the floor with dust.
She let out a sharp, ragged gasp, her heart violently hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"What the hell do you think you're—!"
Enraged, the shock instantly morphing into lethal adrenaline, Sabrina countered without hesitation. She drove her heel forward in a vicious, blindingly fast kick aimed squarely at the guard's ribs. But whoever this man was, he wasn't a standard casino lackey. With terrifying, flawless speed, he twisted his torso, the fabric of his uniform whistling as he dodged her strike by a fraction of an inch.
Before she could chamber another strike, a heavy hand shot out of the gloom.
Fingers twisted brutally into her hair, gripping the strands with a cruel, unyielding force that made her vision white out with a flash of agony. With a savage, downward heave, the man ruthlessly threw her to the ground.
Sabrina hit the hard floor with a breath-robbing thud, a sharp whimpering cry escaping her lips as her handbag slid away across the floor. Pain flared through her shoulder and scalp, her breathing ragged, her eyes wide with absolute disbelief.
The towering figure stood directly over her, casting a massive, inescapable shadow across her trembling form. Slowly, deliberately, the man raised his free hand to the brim of his face. He snatched the deeply dark, polarized sunglasses from his nose and tossed them aside, clattering against the stone.
Sabrina looked up, and the words caught in her throat, choking her.
Staring down at her with a twisted, triumphant sneer were a pair of eyes she never thought she would see again. The platinum hair, the sharp, rigid jaw, the unmistakable, malicious arrogance etched into every line of his face.
No. It can't be.
"Long time no see, Karina," the man murmured, a cold, sickeningly familiar smirk carving into his weathered face.
Cain Barton.
It was as though a dam had breached within her skull. A sudden, suffocating horror gripped her throat, seizing her lungs until the cool basement air turned to solid lead. Looking up into those striking, slate-gray eyes, the flickering fluorescent light above morphed into the blazing, merciless sun of a day she had spent six years trying to drown in vices and denial.
Suddenly, she wasn’t the elegant, untouchable woman lounging at the poker tables of Rain Dinners. She was twenty-seven again. And Nanohana was burning.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! They're here!
It was a sensory assault. The white-hot, coarse sand of the harbor, stained a deep red with the blood of a hundred nameless souls.
I can't see...! I can't see anything... Help!
Marines and pirates alike were swallowed up by the war.
Run, for god's sake, RUN!
The acrid smell of burning flesh, a scent that still made her vomit to this day.
Someone please help me!
The guttural roar of the cannons, and that wet, sickening sound of steel parting skin. The screams of her crewmates, voices she had loved, voices she had memorized over shared rations and starlit nights, reverberated inside her ears, loud and agonizingly clear.
My legs...! Karina, help! Where are my legs!?
That was May. May, who used to play the concertina on the deck. She had only been nineteen. Sabrina remembered staring down at the dark, smoking void where the girl's lower half used to be, her fingers clawing desperately into the strategist's trousers, begging for a salvation she didn't possess.
Karina!
She saw Seth. Brilliant, fiercely protective Auguste Seth, the captain who had sworn to give Alabasta its sky back. At the very verge of his death again, thrusting his gold Ankh earrings into her bloodstained trembling palm.
Promise me you’ll carry them. That our memory will breath through you.
The memory cut off, leaving a raw, bleeding gap in her chest, right where the scar of the sword wound that was supposed to have killed her that day was located. Now, the monster who had engineered that slaughter was standing right in front of her, breathing the same air. Sabrina felt entirely weak, terrified, her breath coming in shallow hitches as an acute panic attack locked her muscles in place.
Barton’s gaze flicked downward, landing precisely on the gold ornaments dangling from her ears. "Nice earrings," he spat with a sadistic, sharp smile. "They suit you better than him."
"You..." Sabrina’s voice was a pathetic, shattered rasp, forcing her hands against the concrete, pushing her weight back until her spine slammed against the cold wall. "You... you were supposed to be dead. There was no way... no way you escaped. Everyone died that day."
He let out a low, gravelly chuckle, a sound entirely devoid of human empathy, as he slowly rolled his sleeves up his thick forearms. "Die?" the man repeated, tilting his head with a look of supreme, patronizing amusement. "Of course I escaped. It wouldn't have been very smart of me to accompany the rest of you idiots to your own graves, now would it? Not after the absolute fortune the World Government was quietly offering for your collective heads."
"You... traitor," Sabrina spat, her voice trembling violently with a volatile mixture of terror and burning rage. She forced herself up onto her knees, her fingernails digging so deeply into her palms that she nearly broke the skin, using the pain to anchor her wandering mind. "You betrayed them. You betrayed the people who literally pulled you out of the gutter! Seth was the only idiot in the world who would have put his neck on the line for you when you were nothing more than a penniless thug, and yet you sold him out as if he were nothing more than a walking bounty? I never trusted you one bit, but we were your family. And because of you, now they’re all..."
"And look where that 'family' dynamic got them," Barton interrupted her smoothly, his gray eyes flashing with a cold, calculating brilliance. "Buried beneath the sand, entirely despised by the country they were trying so desperately to save."
An agonizing sting burned deep within her insides, choking out her next breath. She remained silent, her bared teeth locking together as she stared at the floor. The worst part—the part that truly broke her down inside—was that she was entirely unable to refute what he said.
It was the ugly, bleeding truth. Alabasta had never taken the Oasis Pirates seriously. The citizens had looked at them with suspicion; the royal guard had hunted them; and in the end, the world had simply moved on without them, labeling them villains in the daily papers. But was that fair? Did they really deserve to be slaughtered like cattle just because they dared to hope for something better?
"Let's be realistic, Karina. The Oasis Pirates were doomed from the start. You all honestly believed you could save this miserable, dried-up kingdom. You thought you could solve the drought, play the heroes, and sail off into the sunset. It was a pathetic fantasy. I merely did the smartest thing a man in my position could do: I recognized a sinking ship and I switched sides before it pulled me under."
He took a slow step forward, his heavy boots clicking with terrifying deliberation on the stone.
"Don't look at me like that, I was just securing my future. Since that day in Nanohana, I’ve been operating as a government-sponsored bounty hunter. I made the right connections. I scratch the backs of certain entities—Cipher Pol, to name one—and they keep my pockets heavy and my record clean." He gestured down at his Rain Dinners uniform with a sharp, mocking grin. "Which brings us to my current assignment. Do you like the outfit? I think I've got used to the uniform after a year."
Sabrina's heart skipped a beat as she stared at him in horror. "A year...?"
“I’ve been working here for over a year,” he continued, as if they were having a casual conversation, enjoying the sheer disbelief on her face. “Right under your nose. And you never noticed. Not once.”
Sabrina’s jaw dropped; her lips parted, but she couldn’t utter a single sound. A whole year, and she had been utterly blind to it. How had she not realized? If there was one thing in this miserable world she prided herself on, one thing she trusted implicitly to keep her alive, it was her sharp, calculating powers of observation. And now, at this very moment, her greatest strength had been exposed as a complete failure.
But as the initial shock reeled back, the cold, clinical truth of it settled in. It was hardly surprising. Barton had been a feared, high-tier pirate in his own right before the betrayal; he was a man who understood how to blend into the background, how to mask his presence entirely. It was no shock that he had managed to hone his Haki during their years apart, sharpening it into a perfect shroud that her own perception simply couldn't pierce.
"An old associate of mine that worked at Rain Dinners tipped me off a while back. Said they spotted a woman who might well be linked in some way to my old crew around the grand casino of Rainbase. Piercing, golden gaze, like that of a viper. Ankh earrings, just like the Oasis' captain. Imagine my delight when I confirmed it was you. And not only were you alive, but you were actively associating with Sir Crocodile himself."
The moment Barton voiced the Shichibukai's name, Sabrina's entire expression startled. A sharp, involuntary gasp escaped her lips, her hand instinctively moving toward her chest. Barton’s eyes gleamed, a slow, wicked smile spreading across his face as he easily detected the sudden sentimentality that the name awakened within her.
"Why?" Sabrina asked, her voice a fragile, desperate whisper as she stared at him. "If you knew I was here... why wait a year? Why do this now?"
Barton’s smile widened, turning thoroughly dark and sadistic. He tilted his head, studying her pale face with a twisted sense of affection. "Think of it as my last gift to you. After all, we were once crewmates, weren't we? I wanted to let you live out that little fantasy of yours just a bit longer. Playing house with the so-called 'Hero of Alabasta' and dressing up as the glamorous lady you always dreamed of being."
“Gift?” she hissed, voice breaking. “You call this a gift?"
"Well, it also has been a 'gift' for me. Waiting allowed me to be thorough. Come on, you were once a formidable strategist, Karina. If I struck too early, you would have slipped through my fingers. So, I waited. I watched. I gathered evidence, documented your routines, and developed a strategy so airtight that you couldn't possibly wiggle out of it."
Barton then began to pace around her, his heavy steps ticking like a countdown clock. "But really, Karina... I have to say, I'm surprised. A Shichibukai? A government lapdog? Out of all the men in this world, couldn't you have gotten yourself another boyfriend? Seth would be absolutely furious with you if he could see you now."
The mention of her former captain tore through her like a hot blade. The fragile boundary holding back her rage shattered entirely.
"Shut your mouth, you piece of shit!" Sabrina screamed. The raw volume of her voice erupted violently off the narrow concrete walls, cracking under the weight of her grief. She scrambled to her feet with a sudden, explosive burst of adrenaline, her eyes burning with a feral, dangerous light that completely replaced her fear. "You don't get to say his name!"
Blinded by pure fury, Sabrina didn't hesitate, throwing her entire weight into a vicious, blindingly fast roundhouse kick aimed directly at Barton's stomach.
But Barton was entirely prepared. Expecting the emotional outburst, he reacted with a superhuman speed, ducking beneath the arc of her heel, the wind of her kick whistling harmlessly over his platinum hair. Before she could recover her balance, his large hands shot forward like iron vices.
He grabbed her wrists with a brutal, crushing grip, completely cutting off her circulation.
Right afterwards, the man slammed her violently against the concrete wall. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs, a sharp gasp escaping her lips as her head lightly clipped the stone. Barton leaned his massive frame heavily against her, pinning her wrists firmly on either side of her head, locking her completely in place.
Sabrina was trapped. Defenceless. Encaged.
Powerless and unable to do anything.
Again.
Unable to move, rage consumed her. A rage that manifested in her eyes as unshed tears.
"What do you want from me now, Barton?" she rasped. "You took my only friends, you took my will to live, you took everything! What else is there left for you to steal from me?"
A laugh. A macabre, deep, and sepulchral laugh filled the emptiness of the dark corridor. A laugh that tormented the woman's ears like a sound ripped from her own nightmares, utterly devoid of mercy. The laugh of a monster.
"I want you to turn yourself in," he purred, his voice smooth and entirely lacking of remorse. "Your bounty was a masterpiece six years ago, so imagine what it must be worth now. The double? No, the tenfold! If they discover you're alive, and that I am the one delivering your head, the payout will ensure I never have to work ever again."
Sabrina swallowed the lump of glass in her throat.
She let escape a harsh laugh and forced her chin up, trying desperately to summon the phantom of her usual razor-sharp confidence, though her voice still shook violently. "You're an idiot, Barton," she spat, her eyes flashing with a desperate defiance. "You think you've trapped me? You’re so fucking wrong. If Crocodile finds out what you’re plotting, if he catches so much as a whisper of you touching me... Hah! Oh man, you don't know him. He will tear you apart limb by limb and feed whatever is left to the Bananawanis."
However, Sabrina's threat did not intimidate him at all. If anything, it only seemed to sweeten his triumph.
"Oh, I'm surely aware of what Sir Crocodile is capable of," Barton murmured, as he loosened his grip on her wrists just a fraction, not to free her, but to lean in until his breath hot against her ear. "But let me lay out the board for you, strategist."
Sabrina glared at him, her chest heaving as she swallowed the bitter sarcasm with which he had spat her old title.
"If you dare to tell Crocodile, or if you try to run away like a coward, the consequences no longer fall solely on you. The moment I open my mouth and prove that Sir Crocodile has been knowingly harboring and sleeping with a high-tier, classified outlaw, his status is gone. The World Government will brand him a traitor, strip his Shichibukai immunity, and give him a 'one-way vacation' straight to Enies Lobby."
Her heart stopped, a cold, paralyzing dread washing over her.
"And don't think your dear boyfriend can just eliminate me to solve the problem," Barton continued, his smile turning profoundly sadistic. "If I suddenly vanish, or if I turn up as a dehydrated corpse, my associates have strict orders to immediately launch an intensive federal investigation into Rain Dinners. No matter which piece you move, Karina, Crocodile falls. If you tell him, he falls. If you fight, he falls. If you try to save yourself, you sentence him to a grave next to yours."
The logic snapped into place like the jaws of a bear trap. It was flawless. It was cruel. She was a shield turned into a weapon against the only man who had ever made her feel safe again.
But that safety was futile. The only person who had given her back her will to live was now her weakness. It wasn't just her facing her past anymore. Now he was in the same target too.
No... not again. Please, God, not him.
A broken, ragged sob tore from her chest. Her strength entirely dissolved, and her head slumped back against the stone wall as tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, pooling at her jawline.
"Why?" she wept, looking at him with a gaze completely shattered by grief. "Why do you always have to destroy everything I love? Is it really worth that much? First Seth, the crew... and now him? Why can't you just let me rebuild my life?"
"In this world, Karina, there are only two kinds of people: allies and enemies," he explained coldly. "You're a pirate. I'm not anymore. And that makes us enemies."
Barton stared at her tears with the detached curiosity of a scientist dissecting a bug. He let go of her wrists entirely, stepping back and smoothing down the lapels of his dark security uniform as if he had just finished a routine business transaction.
"You know, I’m a reasonable man. We shared a ship once, after all," he replied coldly as he reached down, picking up his discarded sunglasses from the floor, wiping a speck of concrete dust from the frame before slipping them back over his hidden eyes. "So, I’m going to give you a week. Seven days to wrap up your little affairs, say your proper goodbyes, and make up your mind. You will surrender to me voluntarily, march out of this casino quietly, put on the heavy irons, and allow yourself to be transported to a public execution in the platform of Rashida as an example to the rest of the Alabasta. If you do that... Crocodile remains untouched. Play your cards right, strategist."
Sabrina slid down the wall, her knees giving out as she sat curled on the cold basement floor. She buried her face in her hands, her frame wracked with silent, violent weeping. The gold Ankh earrings in her palm felt heavy, burning against her skin like molten lead.
Barton turned on his heel, his heavy combat boots crunching softly against the debris on the floor. He took a few steps down the darkened, flickering hallway, his platinum hair catching the last glints of the dying fluorescent light. Just before he reached the heavy service door, he paused, casting a backward glance over his shoulder. A cruel, mockery of a smile played on his rigid jaw.
"Well, Miss Sabrina," Barton called out smoothly, his voice echoing through the damp corridor with terrifying normalcy. "Don't make Sir Crocodile wait too long. He's down in the VIP lounge, and we both know how much he hates it when things don't go according to his schedule."
The silence of the basement returned, thick and suffocating, interrupted only by the sound of Sabrina’s broken, uncontrollable sobbing.
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A short while later, having had enough time to wipe away her smudged mascara and touch up her make-up, Sabrina took the elevator to the third basement. When she stepped into the private lounge, the meticulous level of detail Crocodile had poured into the room nearly brought her to her knees. Soft, golden lighting bathed the room in a warm glow. Scented candles—vanilla and lavender, exactly like the ones Sabrina kept in her apartment—flickered gently on the table and side consoles. The air carried a delicate, comforting fragrance. No flowers anywhere. Crocodile had made sure of that. The table was set with fine crystal and silverware, presenting an exquisite seafood pasta dish that would make anyone's mouth water just looking at it, accompanied by the rosé wine that Sabrina loved so much.
Everything was flawless. A sanctuary engineered by a tyrant who, for her sake, had learned how to be gentle.
Across from her, Crocodile sat with his shoulders squared, trying to appear calm. His heart, however, was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. The Warlord’s large hand was buried deep within his trousers pocket, his thumb tracing the soft velvet corners of the ring box.
Just pull it out and say it, his inner voice commanded to himself. It's just a damn question, nothing more.
However, on the opposite side of the table, the woman he was intending to pop the question up to was entirely somewhere else. Her fork was idly pushing a single piece of shrimp around her plate. She hadn't taken more than two bites.
Think, Karina, think! There has to be a blind spot. If I try to outmaneuver them and fail, Crocodile pays the price. I’m a noose around his neck.
This is all my fault.
Whoever approaches me, gets dragged into the doom.
The silence stretched between them, thicker than usual. Sensing the drop in the atmosphere, Crocodile cleared his throat, pulling his hand away from his pocket to rest his elbow on the table. He forced a small smile to his lips.
“The food… is it good?" The Warlord asked, gesturing vaguely with his golden hook toward her plate. "I had the chef prepare your favorite. You know, you’d been going on and on about wanting to eat pasta for a whole week, so… As you wish, my lady."
Sabrina didn't answer immediately, as her eyes remained locked on her plate. Two seconds passed. Three.
Suddenly realizing the lapse, she snapped her head up, a bright, dazzling, hollow smile instantly plastering itself across her face. "Oh! Yes, of course, Croc," she chirped, her voice a fraction too high, too performed. "It’s divine. You know me, give me a plate of seafood pasta and I’m usually a happy woman."
She took a small bite, chewing mechanically, her golden eyes completely devoid of their usual spark.
The ring inside Crocodile’s pocket was completely forgotten at that moment. No, it wasn’t the right time.
Something was definitely wrong. Under normal circumstances, Sabrina would be chattering away like a parrot, gossiping about the snobbish rabble upstairs, laughing at his expense, and devouring her favorite meal without a single shred of modesty or restraint. She wouldn't be picking at her food. She wouldn't be staring through him as if he were a pane of glass.
The heavy hint of suspicion and sudden, deep-seated worry settled into his chest. He lowered his glass, his expression shifting from a nervous lover to a man who knew every micro-expression of the woman across from him.
"You're barely touching it," Crocodile murmured, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling register. "Rina. Look at me. You've been quiet all evening. Is everything alright?"
"What? Yeah, totally," she lied smoothly, waving a dismissive hand as she forced another empty chuckle. She wouldn't look him in the eye. She couldn't. If she looked too deeply into those, she would break, and the truth would spill out, sentencing him to ruin. "I'm just... a little tired, honestly. It’s been a long day. Don't worry about it."
Crocodile didn't buy it for a single millisecond. He knew her better than anyone alive; he knew the exact cadence of her genuine exhaustion, and this wasn't it.
"If you're tired, we can end this right now," Crocodile said, his voice softening with profound concern as he began to push his chair back. "The dinner can wait. We can go straight to bed so you can get some sleep."
He rose from his seat, leaning down her, his eyes scanning her face, searching for the anomaly—until his gaze dropped to her arms.
Beneath the soft, amber light of the candles, the delicate skin of her wrists was distinctly, angrily discolored. A pair of faint, swollen red marks encircled her flesh, looking stark and raw against her pale skin.
"What is this?" he rumbled, reaching down to gently, carefully close his large hand around her left wrist. He didn't use force; it was the soft, reverent grip he only ever used with her, intending to lift her hand to inspect the injury. "What happened? How did you manage to bruise your—"
But the moment Crocodile’s fingers closed, something inside Sabrina snapped.
For a split second, she wasn’t in the warm, candlelit VIP lounge anymore.
He's got me. I can't move. I can't breathe.
She was back in that cold, dimly lit basement corridor. Barton’s iron grip crushing her wrists, pinning her against the wall. She wasn't looking at her boyfriend, but the man who was the author of her ruin.
Her chest seized. Her vision blurred. A raw, broken sound tore from her throat.
“No. No, no, no, no—” she gasped. With an explosive, instinctual burst of adrenaline, she violently shoved Crocodile away from her, yanking her wrist away so hard she nearly knocked over her glass. Her chair scraped loudly against the floor as she shoved herself back. “Don’t— please don’t—”
Crocodile stumbled back a half-step, his boots gripping the floor as his arms dropped to his sides. He was nothing but stunned, shocked, confused. His sharp eyes were wide, staring at her in complete disbelief, his mind unable to process why the woman who fell asleep in his arms every night had just looked at him with that raw, foreign terror. "Rina...?"
But she couldn't hear him.
Her breathing shattered into rapid, shallow, agonizing gasps—her lungs seizing as if the air had literally turned to poison. Her chest heaved violently, her ribs aching under the strain of air that refused to settle in her lungs.
"I'm sorry..." she choked out, her voice a ragged, breathless weep as she began to rock back and forth, her fingernails digging into her scalp. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Rina?!" he barked, his voice cracking with shock.
"I... I am sorry I survived...."
The Warlord felt helpless in a way he had never experienced before. Yes, he had seen her have anxiety attacks before. He had woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of her gasping for breath, her skin soaked in cold sweat from nightmares of her past that came without warning, and he had learned how to sit by her side in the dark until the tremors subsided. But he had never, in all their time together, seen her react with such inexplicable, violent horror. Never triggered by something as simple, as innocent, as him touching her wrist.
"Look at me. I'm here," Crocodile dropped to his knees, his heavy frame hitting the floorboards with a dull thud, as he tried to reach for her, his hand and hook hovering over her shaking shoulders, completely terrified that touching her would make it worse. "Talk to me. What happened today?"
Seeing her in that heartbreaking state ignited a savage, protective fury in his soul. Someone had touched her. Someone dared to harm what he treasured most.
"Who did this to you?" Crocodile growled, his golden eyes flashing with a lethal, murderous light. He reached out, his grip tightening on her shoulders as he tried to stabilize her rocking form, desperate for a name, a target, a bloodline to obliterate. "Name. Give me a name, or I swear to God I will dismantle this entire kingdom brick by brick until I find them myself."
“I can’t...!” she wept, her voice fracturing into a high, pathetic sob as she tried to pull away from his grip, her eyes wide and glassy, staring through him rather than at him. “I can’t tell you... I can’t...! You’ll do something stupid... You’ll get yourself killed—!”
"Look at me! I am not going to die! Tell me who—!"
But the moment the harshness left his mouth, he saw the expression in her eyes. She didn't look at him like he was her savior. For a single, agonizing millisecond, she looked at him with the exact same terror she would show an executioner. His roughness wasn't helping, but merely reinforcing the walls of her cage.
A profound, sickening wave of guilt washed over the Warlord.
Slowly, deliberately, Crocodile tossed aside his fury. He discarded the lethal bloodlust, the protective arrogance, and the violent instincts. He relaxed his grip on her shoulders, his flesh hand softening until it was barely brushing her skin.
Sabrina began to breathe more steadily then, though her gaze still reflected a deep, hollow despair.
At that moment, she slowly returned to reality. Her pupils recognized his; her senses recognized exactly who the person in front of her was. Sabrina saw only the man she trusted most in the world, her only true anchor to life, completely consumed with concern for her.
This should never have happened, she thought bitterly. This has to be a nightmare.
Seeing those sharp eyes staring at her with pure, protective agony, Sabrina felt herself breaking completely inside.
If I stay, I ruin him. If I run, I ruin him.
Crocodile exhaled shakily. He moved closer, carefully pulling her into his arms when she didn’t flinch away, holding her tightly against his chest, his hand resting protectively on the back of her head, fingers threading gently through her hair.
"I'm sorry. I'm not going to force you. You don't have to tell me anything tonight. Just breathe."
For several long, agonizing minutes, the only sound in the room was the erratic hitching of her breath against his chest. But slowly, beneath the warm pressure of his embrace, the logic of the trap began to recede from her immediate senses. The smell of blood gave way to the scented candles. The screaming in her ears faded.
The seven-day countdown was still ticking. But in the quiet safety of his arms, the sheer isolation of the secret became too heavy to bear alone.
If there was anyone she had to tell, it was him.
She pulled her head back just a fraction, her golden eyes swollen, rimmed with red, and entirely stripped of their usual fire as she looked up into his scarred face.
“He’s back, Crocodile…” she whispered, her voice a fragile, shattered thread that barely carried across the space between them. “He’s back.”
“Who is back?”
Sabrina swallowed the metallic taste of fear, her fingers tightening against his chest.
Twice in the last couple of weeks now I've had random accounts try to pull the same con on me, so I figured I would warn people in case the same thing happens to them. It starts with them replying to a post with something exactly along these lines (regardless of whether your DMs are open or not):
The first time it happened, I DID message the account, and it became immediately apparent that it was fraudulent and trying to steal my information.
They claimed that they and several of their friends had mistakenly reported my account for fraud because they mistook me for someone who scammed them out of some money. Automatically, I didn't find this believable, and their story fell even further apart when they then sent me a screenshot of a Discord link to "Verified Tumblr Dispute Support" and asked me to message them in order to fix things.
Obviously I didn't do this and proceeded to block/report, but there is a 110% chance that if I had, they'd have sent me the "claim form", which would have asked for my password. Then they'd have stolen my account. This is the fake screenshot I was sent to try and prove that they'd reported me:
FOR THE RECORD: SOCIAL MEDIA SITES LIKE TUMBLR (AND ALL OFFICIAL BUSINESSES LIKE YOUR BANK, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES LIKE THE IRS, ETC.) WILL NEVER ASK YOU TO CONDUCT COMMUNICATION THROUGH A THIRD PARTY PLATFORM LIKE DISCORD. DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR INFORMATION.
Please note that a "ticking clock" element (notice the statement at the bottom of the message claiming that my account has already been "queued for deletion" and will be gone if I don't submit a "form", also implies I'll be in legal trouble if I don't do what they ask) is an incredibly common element of scams to try to get you to act before you think things through.
Also notice the numerous grammatical errors throughout the fake screenshot they sent (starting with the title; "you submitted a fraudulent report" is not the phrasing a native English speaker would use, because it implies the claim itself is fraudulent, not fraud-related). This is another scam identifier.
thinking about writing a zoro x sanji x reader one shot on a 90's AU where reader and her boyfriend (i can't decide between zoro and sanji) go to a party at one of their friend's house... and things happen...
CWs: comedy without purpose, Sabrina being Doflamingo's bestie, fluff, kind of angst?, I Hate Gecko Moria, fake boss-secretary, suggestive, food poisoning.
WORDCOUNT: ~10000 words.
Author’s note: My little gift before I end this story in the next few chapters (you WILL suffer). I hope you like it!! Also, I won't be able to post anything in the next weeks (I've got a lot of exams oof. Finals are terrible).
My One Piece writing masterlist! Check for the rest of the parts of this fic!
This side story takes place in an unspecified moment between when Crocodile and Sabrina start dating and the end of this story.
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In the peaceful chaos of Sabrina’s apartment—which had slowly improved from “complete insult to civilization ” to “slightly less catastrophic” thanks to Crocodile’s frequent passive-aggressive lectures—the two of them were enjoying one of their favorite afternoons of 'doing-absolutely-nothing'.
Sabrina was sprawled in an armchair by the window, painstakingly applying a coat of deep crimson to her nails, while Crocodile lounged on the couch, pretending to read the newspaper while his eyes kept drifting to the ominous envelope resting on the coffee table like a bad omen.
To him, that envelope didn't contain an invitation; it contained a sentence to several hours of psychological torture. Shichibukai meetings were his personal version of hell populated by people he found as insufferable clowns, zealots, and one particularly loud feathered freak he’d like to skin alive to make him a new fur coat.
He gripped the edge of the newspaper until the paper crinkled. He would have happily dismantled a small country to get out of this commitment, but he knew his status and the privilege of being a Shichibukai were the lynchpin of Operation Utopia.
And suddenly, a spark ignited in his mind.
"Rina," he called out. "I have a question for you."
"I'm on my period," she answered vaguely, not looking up from her pinky finger.
Crocodile blinked, his dignified mask slipping for a fraction of a second. "What—no. I wasn't going to ask you that."
Sabrina finally blew on her nails and looked over at him, her amber eyes glaring at him with a confused look.
Crocodile picked up the envelope with his flesh hand, gesturing toward it with a flick of his wrist.
“I’ve been summoned to Mary Geoise,” he grumbled. “Another damned Shichibukai meeting. Mandatory attendance.”
"Poor baby. The big, bad Warlord has to go to work and play nice with the other kids," she mocked gently. "But what does that have to do with me?"
Crocodile turned his head fully, his gaze fixing on her with a sudden intensity. "I want you to come with me."
The nail polish brush slipped, leaving a red streak across Sabrina’s knuckle. She stared at him, unblinking. "I'm sorry?"
"I want you there," he insisted, his voice dropping to a gravelly plea. "I swear, if I have to share the same room with those clowns for more than half an hour without you distracting me with your ridiculousness, I will commit felony.”
Sabrina let out a sharp, disbelieving bark of laughter.
“Crocodile, I say this with love, but I think you might be feverish or something," she said. "You want me —an outlaw that is supposed to be death to the eyes of the government— to walk into Mary Geoise? Where the Navy has high-ranking officers crawling everywhere like ants? Isn't it extra, super, extremely dangerous? And are you sure they'll allow you to bring your current girlfriend just because?”
"Don't be dramatic," Crocodile countered with a straight face, adjusting his rings. "Plus, I've got the perfect excuse. You can pose as my secretary. Or assistant. Whatever sounds official enough. I am the most civilized, reputable member they have, of course they’ll allow me a personal secretary. No one will question it if I say I need you for managing my documents.”
"A secretary?" Sabrina arched a skeptical brow. "Me? I can barely organize my own spice rack, let alone your 'executive' affairs."
"You just have to stand there, pretend you take notes, and occasionally whisper something in my ear so I have an excuse to ignore whatever nonsense Doflamingo spits," he urged. "Please, Rina. I can't face that feathered freak alone."
Sabrina leaned back, the gears in her head turning. She was starting to picture it already, and it seemed hilariously tempting. It sounded like the worst, most deranged 'group project' in history—which meant it was exactly her brand of chaos.
She narrowed her eyes, still hesitating. “And if someone recognizes me?”
"No one will," he assured. "Just make sure your red roots are retouched. And, of course," Crocodile added, pointing at her earrings with a lazy gesture of his index, "those need to go."
"My earrings!?" she exclaimed, her hands instinctively flying up to the golden ankhs she never removed. "They’re my lucky charms. I don't go anywhere without them."
"Those earrings scream 'Oasis Pirates' to any marine with half a brain," Crocodile pointed out, his voice turning stern. "If a high-ranking Vice Admiral recognizes them, my 'reputation' won't save us. You have to take them off."
"Then I think you're going to go alone," she huffed, turning back to her nails.
Crocodile sighed, reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat. "I had a feeling you'd be difficult."
He snapped a small, velvet box open and held it out. Nestled inside were two teardrop earrings crafted from deep, glowing emeralds, surrounded by a halo of diamonds that caught the light like trapped stars.
In a second, like a moth attracted to light, Sabrina snatched the box, her eyes gleaming with a mix of avarice and mischief. "Auguste who? I don't know the man. Never heard of him." She stood up, already heading for the mirror to swap the jewelry. "I guess we're roleplaying boss-and-secretary, then? Interesting kink you've developed in your old age."
Crocodile narrowed his eyes.
"I'm not old."
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A week later, an official Navy vessel docked at the port along the deep Sandora River. The prestigious Captain Momonga himself had been sent to escort the Desert King and his… particular secretary.
Sabrina had taken her role far too seriously. After a long and dramatic wardrobe battle (during which Crocodile had flatly rejected three outfits that looked less like professional secretary and more like some sort of porn fantasy), she finally emerged wearing a sleek black blazer, a fitted pencil skirt, and a pair of non-prescription glasses she insisted made her “look intelligent.”
Crocodile had taken one look at her and muttered, “You’re enjoying this entirely too much.”
The two-day boat journey was surprisingly pleasant. Sabrina spent most of it leaning against the railing beside Crocodile, excitedly theorizing about the upcoming meeting.
“This is going to be the most dysfunctional tea party ever,” she said with a grin. “I can’t wait to watch you all pretend to tolerate each other.”
Crocodile exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke, already regretting his life choices. “You’re going to behave, right?"
“Define ‘behave.’”
He gave her a deadpan stare. Sabrina only laughed and bumped her shoulder against his arm.
By the time a strange device based on a giant floating bubble—Sabrina later learnt it was called a Bondola—lifted them toward the dizzying heights of Mary Geoise, the sheer, cold opulence of Pangea Castle began to set in. The white marble was blinding, the air thin and smelling of the most exquisite incident ever imaginable, an aroma so pure and at the same time so powerful that it made the air seem to carry the ancient secrets of the world. However, any sense of awe Sabrina felt was immediately replaced by a sharp, indignant pout when the room assignments were announced.
As a Warlord, Crocodile was escorted to a sprawling suite dripping with gold leaf. Sabrina was led further down the hall to the "Staff Annex"—a room that was perfectly elegant but roughly the size of Crocodile’s walk-in closet.
“This is ridiculous,” she grumbled under her breath as a servant tried to guid her. “I’m your secretary. Shouldn’t I be staying with you for… administrative purposes?”
Crocodile pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's for one night. You’re lucky they gave you a room at all."
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The conference room inside Pangea Castle was every bit as extravagant as one would expect from the seat of the World Government—towering marble pillars, gilded ceilings, and a long obsidian table that probably cost more than most islands. But the real spectacle wasn’t the decor.
It was the people.
As they entered, Sabrina’s eyes widened slightly behind her fake glasses. She tried (and failed) to keep a neutral expression as she took in the colorful circus seated around the table.
A tall, brooding man in a black coat and ridiculous hat sat silently, his gaze sharp enough to cut glass and an obscenely large sword resting against his chair like it weighed nothing. Next to him was what could only be described as a towering... demon thing with horns and patchwork skin that occupied three seats at once. Further down sat a massive, rough-looking man reading a Bible with surprising focus. And then, of course, there was the most obnoxious presence in the room—a tall man in a bright pink feathered coat, laughing loudly at something no one else found funny.
"That must be the 'Feathered Freak', as he calls him", she thought. Sabrina had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing. Crocodile’s displeased scowl only made it harder.
“Jinbe isn't here,” Crocodile then grumbled under his breath as they approached the table. “Typical.”
“And Boa Hancock? I hope she comes,” Sabrina whispered. "I must ask her where she gets those pretty dresses..."
“That harpy? She never shows up.”
A disappointed “Oh” escaped from her lips.
The moment they reached their seats, she felt a sudden, freezing weight fall over her. She looked up and found herself locking eyes with Mihawk. The World’s Strongest Swordsman was staring directly at her, his golden eyes analyzing her with a quiet, terrifying intensity. He didn't speak, but his gaze felt like a blade scraping against her skin. Does he know me? she panicked internally, clutching her notebook tighter.
Before she could spiral into an existential crisis, the silence was shattered by a nasal, mocking purr.
"Well, well, well... Croccy!"
Doflamingo leaned forward, his elbows resting on the mahogany table as his wide, predatory grin stretched impossibly further.
“Where did you find a secretary like that?” he asked, voice dripping with playfulness. As his eyes roamed up and down Sabrina’s body, as if his gaze were a snail leaving a slimy trail behind, he added “And with legs like that."
The temperature in the room instantly plummeted.
Sabrina's upper lip twitched.
Crocodile’s golden hook scraped against the edge of the table, a high-pitched screech that made several Marine guards reach instinctively for their sidearms. His eyes, dark and murderous, locked onto the pink-feathered disruptor.
Sabrina could practically see the sand swirling beneath his skin as he fought the urge to turn Doflamingo into a pile of dust.
However, the woman—playing her role to perfection—offered a sweet, professional smile onto her face. She looked Doflamingo straight in his glasses, her own eyes sparkling with a dangerous, hidden mischief.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my name is Sabrina” she said politely. “I’m here to manage the vital documentation Sir Crocodile requires for this summit, as well as to ensure every key point is recorded with the utmost precision. I’ll try my best not to be a nuisance.”
"You could never be a nuisance! I like her, Crocodile," he glanced at the scarrerd man. "Let her come to Dressrosa whenever she wants."
Crocodile frowned, his gaze a silent prayer that Sabrina would simply ignore the bait. But he had forgotten who he was dealing with.
"I'd be delighted to go to Dressrosa if they sell coats as fabulous as yours there," Sabrina said, her eyes wide with wonder. "You HAVE to tell me where you got that one, sir."
Great. Two clowns with the same brainpower and the same tacky tastes. Crocodile's worst nightmare come true.
As Sabrina and Doflamingo began a rapid-fire exchange about high-couture textiles and some other fashion topics Crocodile gave zero fucks about, the blonde man's cackling laughter echoed through the grand conference room like shattering glass.
“You pink-feathered piece of—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the heavy double doors swung open. The rhythmic clack of polished boots on marble signaled the arrival of the Navy’s top brass.
At that very moment, Sabrina’s stomach dropped, suddenly feeling very small. Prey: that was the only word dwelling in her mind.
One wrong look, one marine who's a bit too clever for his own good, and this could end very badly.
Leading the procession was a tall, imposing man with a braided goatee, whose cape bearing the kanji for “justice” fluttered in the celestial breeze streaming through the window. A man far too respected and imposing to wear a cap with such a ridiculous yet cute seagull on it. There was Fleet Admiral Sengoku, his presence so immense and severe that the air seemed to flee before him. He surveyed the table with the look of a man forced to organize a dinner party for a pack of rabid wolves.
"Warlords," the Fleet Admiral grumbled after he stopped at the head of the table, his tone making the title sound like an insult. "Let us begin. I trust we can keep the blood off the carpets today."
Doflamingo, never one to miss an opportunity, took advantage of the hustle and bustle surrounding the arrival of the new guests and smoothly stood, moving to the empty seat directly beside Sabrina, plopping down with dramatic flair.
"Hi again, Sabby!", he said in a cherful whisper.
Sabrina smiled at him.
Crocodile looked two seconds away from committing war crimes.
Suddenly, Sengoku slammed a thick file onto the table. "I suspect you already are aware of the motives of your assistance. The World Government has demanded a total restructuring of the Shichibukai system. We will be discussing organizational structure, increased funding transparency, naval support protocols, and revised obligations regarding government orders."
The admiral began spouting incomprehensible gibberish that, to Sabrina, seemed like nothing more than a bureaucratic nightmare.
And, to her misfortune, said nightmare continued for several endless minutes.
All she could do was blinking, her pen hovering over her notebook like a lost bird. Actually, she had already gotten lost in the first thirty seconds. Clause 4-B? Allocation? Is that a kind of fish or something? She looked at her page, then at Crocodile, then again at her page, her mind a complete blank.
"Justice," Kuma's voice cut through the room, cool and sharp as a winter morning.
Everyone turned to look at him. He offered no further explanation.
Across the table, Moria laughed in such an unbearable, shrill, and loud way that Sabrina, unaccustomed to the presence of that hellish homunculus, wished she had been born deaf.
“Booooring," he chirped. "Why do they need to update the system? Who needs more rules? We should just let me create an army of zombies to solve all our problems!”
Sengoku’s jaw tightened. "It is a matter of security. If the Shichibukai cannot be regulated, perhaps the funding should be redirected to other gubernamental projects."
Mihawk sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is why everybody takes this institution as a joke.”
"And speaking of jokes!" Doflamingo piped up, leaning so far into Sabrina’s space that his pink feathers tickled her cheek. "I know a really good one. Why did the Marine cross the Grand Line?"
Please don't, Crocodile thought, frowning.
The silence that followed was deafening. Sengoku looked like he was mentally drafting his resignation letter; Kuma remained a silent mountain; Mihawk actually reached for the hilt of his black blade and began to stand in order to leave the room, before the Fleet Admiral’s sharp glare forced him back into his seat.
“To get to the other tide!” the blonde Warlord then shrieked with laughter, slapping the table.
It was objectively the worst joke Sabrina had ever heard. It was unfunny, poorly timed, and delivered by a man who looked like a flamboyant pimp with a bird fixation. Yet, the sheer, crushing absurdity of the situation snapped something inside her.
She let out a sudden, loud snort of laughter that echoed through the silent, prestigious room.
Everyone stopped. Crocodile turned his head slowly, his golden eyes wide with a mix of horror and betrayal. Mihawk’s yellow gaze slid toward her, unblinking. Even Sengoku paused his lecture, staring at the 'secretary' as if she had just grown a second head.
Sabrina, we are definitely breaking up after this.
"See! The lady has taste!” Doflamingo pointed at Sabrina, his grin reaching his ears.
"If she laughs again, I’m firing her," Crocodile lied through his teeth while dedicating a murderous glance toward Sabrina.
She simply offered an innocent, sheepish giggle and whispered an apology, hiding her face behind her notebook. But behind her glasses, her eyes remained sharp and calculating.
She knew very well what she was doing.
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“Moving on,” Sengoku said through gritted teeth. “We expect each of you to increase your contributions by twenty percent over the next fiscal year. Reports on pirate activity must be submitted monthly—”
The sudden and horrendous "Kishishishi" laughter of Moria brought Sabrina back to reality.
“Monthly?” Moria whined. “Do I look like I have time for paperwork?”
“You barely have time for basic hygiene,” Mihawk muttered dryly.
Moria gasped dramatically. “How rude! I bathe… sometimes!”
Sengoku’s patience finally shattered. He slammed both hands onto the table with a thunderous crack that made the crystal carafes rattle.
“ENOUGH!” he roared, voice echoing through the grand hall. “I need seriousness! I need concentration! This is not a playground for you lot to bicker and waste my time! For once in your lives, can you all act like professionals?!”
The room fell into a heavy, awkward silence.
Crocodile, sensing an opportunity to regain some control (and dignity), cleared his throat with an air of refined authority.
“Don’t worry, Fleet Admiral Sengoku,” he said smoothly, voice deep and composed. “Allow me to steer us back to the important matters. Regarding the reports on piracy, and, by consecuence, the required financing for the increased naval support for Alabasta’s security, I believe we should—”
He paused and gestured toward Sabrina with a graceful flick of his hand.
“—my secretary will provide the compiled notes so we may continue with the relevant points.”
Sabrina froze. Every eye in the room turned to her.
With a slightly nervous smile, she slid her notebook across the polished wooden surface toward Crocodile.
He opened it.
For a long, horrifying second, there was complete silence.
The first page featured a surprisingly detailed doodle of Moria as a lumpy, angry onion with the caption: “HE WON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
Underneath was a game of tic-tac-toe she had played against Doflamingo (she had won), as well as several other elegant notes:
“Mihawk: looks like a goth wine aunt”
“The Feathered Freak is lowkey funny”
“Bible guy is terrifying. Is he actually reading?”
“Sengoku's cap is silly”
And right in the middle, in big bubbly letters: “This meeting boring as hell.”
Crocodile’s face slowly turned a deep, furious shade of red. Sabrina scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.
Sengoku stared at the notebook, then at Crocodile, then back at the notebook.
Mihawk raised one elegant eyebrow in silent judgment. Doflamingo was barely containing his laughter, shoulders shaking.
And then, wishing that a natural disaster would suddenly sweep away Pangaea Castle and end his suffering, Crocodile slowly closed the notebook with a soft, lethal click.
“…I’m the only one allowed to review my secretary’s private notes,” he declared stiffly, ears burning. “Forget it, Sengoku. Continue.”
Under the table, he kicked her shin hard.
“Ow—!” Sabrina hissed, then leaned toward him and whispered angrily, “You shitty alligator, that hurt!”
However, the menacing glare he gave her silently said: "You're lucky I only kicked you."
As Sengoku resumed speaking in the strained, hollow voice of a man who had lost all hope for the future of the Warlord system, the rest of the table reacted in their own characteristic ways.
Doflamingo, for his part, was barely paying attention at all. He was slouched lazily in his chair, clearly more entertained by the side drama happening to his left.
Sabrina, never one to take a hit without returning it, swung her heel and caught Crocodile’s shin with satisfying force, causing him to groan in pain.
Crocodile’s eye twitched. “You absolute child,” he hissed through the corner of his mouth. "You are the most unprofessional fake secretary in history.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. ‘I'm the most civilised member they have’,” she shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Next time you want emotional support, hire an actual secretary instead of dragging your criminal girlfriend into the most dangerous building on the planet.”
“You’re enjoying this,” he accused, voice low and heated. “I can see it behind those ridiculous glasses. You’re having the time of your life watching me suffer.”
Sabrina smirked, not even denying it. “A little bit. You get so cute when you’re stressed.”
“I will throw you into the sea on the way back,” he growled.
“You’d miss me in five minutes.”
“Try me.”
Their heated whispering was getting dangerously loud. Crocodile’s hook was scraping against the table again. Sabrina looked far too pleased with herself.
And then Doflamingo’s cheerful, nosy voice cut through the air like a blade:
“You two fuck, right?”
Crocodile nearly choked on his cigar.
Sabrina’s eyes widened, her face flushing instantly. She quickly recovered, placing a hand over her chest with theatrical scandal.
“Of course not!” she whispered back, voice perfectly scandalized. “My relationship with Sir Crocodile is strictly professional!”
"How boring," Doflamingo purred, leaning back with a wide, shark-like grin. He didn't push further; he didn't need to. The way Crocodile was currently vibrating with repressed homicidal energy was enough entertainment.
Fortunately, Sengoku was too busy arguing with Moria to notice, and the rest of the room was too drowned in bureaucratic noise to notice the filth being whispered at the center of the table.
Thank god, Crocodile thought.
However, across the table, Mihawk slowly turned his head. His sharp, golden eyes locked onto Sabrina with a cold, piercing intensity that made her stomach drop.
The World’s Strongest Swordsman said nothing. He simply stared—calm, unblinking, and deeply unsettling.
Why the hell is he looking at me like that.
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Crocodile was living his own personal inferno.
To his left, there was the alliance of idiocy. "Sabby" and "Doffy" were huddled together like two schoolgirls at the back of a classroom, giggling and whispering.
"Doffy, you have to show me," Sabrina giggled, leaning into the pink feathers. "How do you do that string thing?"
Doflamingo, delighted to finally have an audience that didn't look like they were planning his assassination, flicked his wrist. With a sharp twang, a nearly invisible string snatched a grape from a fruit bowl on a nearby table and delivered it perfectly into Sabrina’s hand. She let out an audible "Ooh!" and began asking if he could use his Devil Fruit powers to fix a loose hem on her skirt.
This is it, Crocodile thought darkly. This is how I die. Not in battle. Not by betrayal. But by pure, second-hand embarrassment.
To his right, Moria had given up on the meeting entirely and was now shouting at a shadow on the wall, demanding it stand up and dance for him, his wheezing "Kishishishi" laughter bouncing off the marble pillars. Across the table, Mihawk had produced a small whetstone and was sharpening the tiny cross-dagger at his neck, the rhythmic shrrr-shrrr-shrrr of metal on stone acting as a countdown to Crocodile's inevitable mental breakdown. Kuma remained a silent, terrifying monolith, but even he seemed to have retreated into a deep, meditative state to escape the madness.
And Sengoku… poor Sengoku had completely given up. He was the final sign of the apocalypse. A lower-ranking Marine had discreetly brought in his pet goat, and the Fleet Admiral was now absentmindedly scratching the animal behind the ears while staring into the void with dead eyes.
The Warlord of Alabasta's head was spinning. His hook scraped against the table again and again as he fought the overwhelming urge to fucking scream. The noise, the nonsense, his girlfriend acting like Doflamingo’s new bestie—it was too much.
Just when he thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse…
The heavy double doors burst open with a dramatic bang.
Every head in the room turned.
Crocodile squeezed his eyes shut and cursed internally.
Of course. Of course she had to show up now.
The heavy mahogany valves slammed against the marble walls with a thunderous bang that finally cut through the chaos. A scent of exotic lilies and cold arrogance flooded the room, preceding a presence so blindingly magnificent it felt as though the sun had been dragged indoors.
Emerging from the threshold was a woman of such staggering, impossible beauty that the Marine guards at the door visibly forgot how to breathe. Her radiant raven hair fell in a shimmering cascade of silk, and draped around her was a massive, coiled snaked that looked hungry enough to eat the Fleet Admiral’s goat for an appetizer.
That living goddess was none other than Boa Hancock, the Pirate Empress.
The effect was immediate and pathetic. Every lower-ranking Marine guard in the room turned a bright, pulsing shade of beet-red, their rifles wobbling in their hands. Moria let out a loud, lovesick “Kishishishishi~!” while blushing furiously. Even Sengoku’s cheeks gained a slight tint as he straightened up in his chair. Doflamingo waved his hand enthusiastically like an idiot, calling out her name.
“Hancock~! You’re as radiant as ever. Tell me, did you come all this way just to brighten up this dull meeting, or are you finally ready to form an alliance with me?”
Hancock didn’t even look at him.
“I do not recall giving you permission to speak to me, you disgusting peacock.”
He clutched his chest dramatically. “So cold! Yet so beautiful! Fufufu~!”
Meanwhile, the 'fake secretary' was completely amazed. That elegance, that poise, that purple qi-pao dress that seemed like all her dreams come true... Sabrina couldn't decide if she felt admiration, envy, jealousy, a desire to be her, or a desire to become her best friend forever so she could have a chance to reach her wardrobe.
Crocodile was the only one who didn't find himself affected by her 'charms'. He watched her with a look of pure, unadulterated irritation, as if she were a particularly loud fly that had just interrupted his funeral. He didn't particularly like that person. He thought she was a spoiled, arrogant brat, a burden he certainly wasn't willing to bear. Crocodile expected that, as with most Shichibukai meetings, she wouldn't even bother to show up. But no, she had to appear that very day.
Hancock stopped at the foot of the table, her head tilted back so far she was practically looking at the rafters—her signature expression of extreme condescension. She didn't look at the empty chair; she looked at the world as if it were a smudge on her shoe.
"You are two hours late, Boa Hancock!" Sengoku barked from the floor, trying to reclaim some semblance of rank, though even his voice lacked its usual bite.
She closed her eyes, a faint, radiant glow seeming to emanate from her skin. "It matters not," the woman stated, her voice like velvet over steel. "Whether I am late, whether I ignore your petty summons, or whether I kick a kitten... the world will forgive me."
Suddenly, she struck an over-dramatic pose, pointing a slender finger at the room. "And do you know why?"
Everybody was silent.
"Because I am... beautiful."
The Marines let out a collective, strangled sigh of agreement. Sabrina felt that she could have kissed her if she were a lesbian. Crocodile, meanwhile, bit so hard on his sixth cigar that he nearly snapped it in half.
“How repulsive,” the 'Empress' declared, voice dripping with superiority. “To think I had to share the same air as all of you inferior creatures. Especially you—” she pointed a perfectly manicured finger at Moria, “—you disgusting stitched-up abomination. And you—” her gaze slid to Doflamingo, “—with that tacky pink coat. Have you no shame?”
Doflamingo only laughed louder. Moria looked genuinely offended. Mihawk didn’t even react. Sengoku simply sighed like a man who had accepted his fate.
Sabrina, however, was completely starstruck.
That dress is insane, she thought, equal parts jealous and mesmerized. I need one. No. I need ten.
Crocodile glanced at his 'secretary' and felt another piece of his soul die.
The meeting resumed, or rather, it attempted to crawl forward through the wreckage of the Warlords' egos. Hancock had taken her seat with the air of a goddess forced to dine in a sewer. She spent the next ten minutes loudly sighing at Sengoku’s slides, occasionally pausing to point a slender finger at the other Shichibukai and refer to them as "grotesque barnacles" or "odoriferous piles of refuse."
And Sabrina, obviously, had not yet come out of the trance, staring at Hancock’s gown—the intricate patterns, the gold-threaded embroidery—with a hunger that bordered on religious.
Hancock’s sharp gaze eventually flickered over to the "secretary", and she recoiled as if she’d found a slug in her tea. "And what is this?" the Empress sneered, her voice dripping with disdain. "The alligator brought his ordinary pet? She smells of mediocrity. Her presence is an insult to my eyes."
The trance snapped the moment the word 'pet' hit her like a slap. Sabrina’s face went from starstruck to murderous in 0.5 seconds.
All that feeling like a 'pet' stirred up in her was a bitterness that Sabrina couldn't explain in words. It was salt rubbed into a wound that had only finished to scab over—that night at the gala, the pain, the betrayal, and the hard-won trust she and Crocodile had painstakingly rebuilt from the wreckage of their past.
To hear that specific brand of dehumanization, to be reduced to a leashed thing again, and by this woman, was more than she could stomach.
"Excuse me?" she then hissed, her chair screeching back as she lunged forward, fingers curling into claws aimed straight for that raven hair. "Listen here, you arrogant, over-dressed b—"
"No."
Before the word "bitch" could fully leave her teeth, a massive, ringed hand clamped over her mouth with the force of an iron vice. Crocodile didn't just stop her; he practically tackled her back into her seat.
"Mmph! Mmm-ph!" Sabrina muffled into his palm, her legs kicking under the table.
"Ooh!" Doflamingo meanwhile purred. "Catfight... I like it!"
Crocodile’s jaw clenched, but he kept his grip on Sabrina firm, whispering into her ear again, voice low but surprisingly gentle, “Not here. Not now. Calm down, Rina. Please.”
He wasn't looking at Sabrina; he kept his eyes locked on Hancock, his expression a mask of cold, concentrated lethality. He felt the tremor of her rage, and more importantly, he felt the hurt behind it. The warlord knew why that word was a knife in her heart—because he was the one who had first held the blade. And then, the guilt and the protective instinct flared within him.
"Boa Hancock, I would kindly ask you not to insult my employee in front of me," Crocodile spat, his voice, laden with false courtesy and sweetness, concealed a clear threat as cold as steel. "None of us would want your beloved snake to mysteriously turn up dehydrated to death tomorrow in the morning."
Hancock actually flinched, her eyes widening slightly at the raw, murderous intent behind his 'politeness.'
Under his hand, Sabrina was still vibrating with rage, her eyes burning with the desire to fight. Crocodile leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of her ear as he whispered, "I'll let you pull out her hair later. For now, sit. down. or you're going to get both of us killed."
The next twenty minutes were a blur of Sengoku trying to speak for more than 20 seconds without being interrupted, while Hancock was voting 'no' on every single proposal simply because she "felt like it," and occasionally kicking a nearby Marine guard for standing too loudly. Eventually, the Fleet Admiral let out a sound like a deflating balloon.
Sengoku slumped forward, his forehead hitting the table with a dull thud. "Half-hour break," he muffled into the wood. "There are appetizers in the corner. If you kill each other, do it near the windows so the cleaners can throw the bodies out easily."
The room cleared like a startled school of fish. Hancock immediately marched toward a large gilded mirror to fix her hair, muttering about the "peasant air" ruining her luster.
Back at the table, Crocodile and Sabrina had been left alone while the rest of the Warlords were milling around the room. Sabrina slumped into her chair, her chest still heaving with the remnants of her adrenaline.
"A 'pet'? A 'pet'!?" she hissed, smoothing her blazer with jerky, agitated motions. "Have you heard that wretch? I should have scalped her."
“I have,” he whispered. "But you have spent the last three hours turning this summit into a personal playground and now you just tried to start a catfight against one of the strongest women in the world. If you're not more careful, you're going to get both of us killed."
The look of anger and disappointment in Sabrina's eyes made Crocodile understand that perhaps he had not chosen the best words.
His expression then softened, as the Warlord placed his good hand on her knee under the table, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Ehm..." he started muttering, holding back his previous words. "I’m sorry you had to hear that.” His thumb brushed soothing circles against her leg. “She’s arrogant and cruel to everyone. It wasn’t personal. She doesn’t even know you.”
“She made it personal,” Sabrina muttered, still upset. “The way she said it… like I was some stray dog you decided to keep.”
“Hey,” he said softly. “You’re not a pet. You’re not my property. You’re my equal, and you've been my equal for a long time now.” He paused, then added with a small, teasing smirk, “Even if you were drooling over her like a helpless fangirl five minutes ago.”
Sabrina’s face flushed. “That was before she opened her mouth and proved she’s rotten inside! I hate her. She’s so… tall. And shiny. And pretty. And unnecessarily rude.”
“You're prettier,” he chuckled lowly.
She narrowed her eyes. “Shut up. I hate you too.”
“No you don’t.” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear with surprising tenderness. “Relax a little, Rina. This place is dangerous enough without you starting a war against the whole Kuja tribe. Just breathe. We only have to survive a few more hours of this circus.”
She then stood up, smoothing down her pencil skirt. “I’m going to get some of those fancy canapés before Moria eats everything. You want anything?”
"I'm afraid not. This freak show has completely killed my appetite. And watching you call that pink-feathered nightmare 'Doffy'," Crocodile recoiled in nausea, "has only worsened it. What exactly is your game with him?"
Sabrina stopped, glancing back over her shoulder. She offered him a conspiratorial wink and a small, sharp giggle. Crocodile watched her walk away toward the buffet, his frown deepening in genuine confusion. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine beginning to pulse in time with the rhythmic clicking of her heels.
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Sabrina wandered over to the long tables in the corner where luxurious appetizers had been laid out. The spread was impressive—delicate seafood towers, tiny golden pastries, fresh fruit arrangements that probably cost more than most people’s monthly salary.
But as she reached for a small crab puff, she froze.
There was Mihawk standing alone by a window, staring out at the landscape. The tension between them had been a cold weight in her gut since she arrived. Every time those golden eyes had flicked toward her during the summit, Sabrina felt a cold shiver of exposure, as if her "secretary" disguise were made of glass.
I have to fix this, she thought. If I can just act normal, maybe he'll stop looking at me like I’m a target.
After smoothing her skirt and adjusting her fake glasses just for the sensation of regaining some sort of confidence, she walked over. "A beautiful view, isn't it, Mr. Mihawk?" she said, her voice trembling just a fraction. "A nice change of pace from... whatever that was inside."
Mihawk didn't move. He slowly turned his head, the wide brim of his hat casting a shadow that made his soulless golden eyes glow with an almost supernatural intensity.
He stared at her. And stared. He didn't blink. He looked through her skin, through her fake glasses, and seemingly into the very core of her DNA.
He knows, Sabrina’s internal monologue screamed. He knows my real name. He knows I'm with Crocodile. He’s waiting for me to confess. He’s going to draw that massive sword and bisect me right here for daring to breathe in his presence.
In reality, what Sabrina didn't know was that Mihawk was just wondering if the castle kitchen had any decent red wine or if he’d be forced to drink the Marine-issue swill again. He looked at her because she was the only thing in the room that wasn't currently shouting.
"It is... a view," Mihawk finally rumbled.
"Right! Yes. A view. Very... scenic," Sabrina squeaked. She waited for him to say more, but the silence stretched out, heavy and suffocating, as those hawk-like eyes continued their silent, soul-sucking audit of her face, and she felt the sudden, desperate urge to confess to every crime she’d ever committed. "Well! I should... go. Papers to... shuffle. Goodbye!"
Mihawk offered no response. Not a word. Not even a nod. He simply turned his face back toward the window, dismissing her existence entirely.
“Emo,” she muttered bitterly under her breath as she retreated.
But Mihawk’s ears were as sharp as his blade. He turned his head again, those dagger-like pupils locking onto her with renewed, piercing focus.
Sabrina felt her soul leave her body for a second.
FUCK, HE HEARD ME.
After grabbing a random handful of canapés, she didn't just walk away; she fled, her shoes clicking a frantic rhythm on the marble as she bolted back to Crocodile’s side, then grabbed his silk-clad arm like it was the only sturdy thing in a crumbling world.
"We have to leave," she whispered frantically, her eyes darting back toward the window. "We have to leave, change our names, and move to a deserted island in the South Blue. He knows, Crocodile. The goth wine aunt knows."
Crocodile, who had been quietly nursing what remained of his cigar, didn’t even flinch. He simply exhaled a slow plume of smoke and glanced across the room toward Mihawk with mild disinterest.
“He doesn’t know,” he said. “Don't worry.”
“How can you be so sure?!” Sabrina whispered frantically. “He’s been dissecting me with his eyes since this meeting started. I felt like he was reading my bounty poster in his head.”
Crocodile’s lips twitched with faint amusement.
“Because that’s just how Mihawk looks at people,” he explained, voice low. “He doesn’t have ‘normal’ eyes. He stares at everyone like they’re a mildly disappointing insect he’s considering cutting in half. It’s his default setting. It means nothing.”
Sabrina blinked, still tense. “You’re… sure? You’re not just saying that so I don’t pass out and cause another scene?”
“I know him,” Crocodile said, reaching out to gently squeeze her shoulder with his good hand. “If he actually suspected something, we’d already know. He’s not subtle when he wants to be.”
She let out a shaky breath, shoulders slowly relaxing. “Okay… okay. But I’m still going to keep an eye on him. That man is terrifying.”
“You’re safe,” he murmured, softer this time. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought you weren’t, you idiot.”
Before Sabrina could formulate a witty retort, Doflamingo’s loud, theatrical voice cut through the room like a firework.
“Fuffuffu! Don’t be so gloomy, everyone~!”
The blonde Warlord sauntered back toward the center of the room with his usual dramatic flair, followed by two nervous-looking Marines carrying a silver tray laden with crystal glasses and a very expensive-looking dark bottle.
"The atmosphere in here is far too stiff," the blonde man chirped, his grin wide and predatory. "So... I brought a little peace offering from my private cellars in Dressrosa! A vintage red for my fellow 'colleagues' and the lovely Sabby. Why don't we all have a glass to ease the tension?"
The effect was instantaneous. As if Doflamingo had whispered a magic spell, the soulless, bored expression on Mihawk’s face suddenly sparked with life. Wine—especially a fine one—was one of the very few things capable of reviving the World’s Strongest Swordsman from his usual state of elegant apathy.
Definitely a wine aunt, Sabrina said in her mind, narrowing her eyes beneath her fake glasses.
Moria let out a wheezing, unbearable laugh, his stitched throat wobbling with excitement at the prospect of free, high-end spirits. Hancock, who had been meticulously combing her raven hair with the disdain of a queen, paused, displaying an almost childlike enthusiasm beneath her veil of arrogance.
Even Crocodile couldn't suppress a flicker of recognition. Dressrosa vintages were famous—coveted by kings and connoisseurs alike. As a man who prided himself on his refined tastes, it was a bitter pill to swallow, having to silently agree with that flamingo bastard. But he knew good wine when he heard of it.
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Doflamingo, revelling in the attention, turned his predatory grin toward the corner where Sengoku was still staring at his goat in a state of catatonic exhaustion. “Come now, Fleet Admiral Sengoku~” he called out playfully. “Even you look like you could use a drink. Don’t be so uptight! One glass won’t kill you. Or… well, it shouldn’t.”
Sengoku pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly exhausted, but eventually waved a tired hand in surrender.
“…Fine. One glass.”
As the Shichibukai reclaimed their seats around the obsidian table, a strange hush fell over the room. The Marine servants, hands trembling, placed the sparkling crystal flutes before each Warlord with the care of men handling unexploded ordnance.
Sabrina, her pulse still erratic from her encounter with Mihawk, found herself leaning forward, her eyes bright with a morbid fascination.
Doflamingo didn't simply pour the wine; he turned it into a grotesque ballet. With a flick of his fingers, nearly invisible strings snared the bottle, hoisting it into the air. The dark, aged bottle seemed to dance, tilting with a liquid grace that defied gravity as it moved from glass to glass.
Sabrina took a small, tentative sip from her own glass, her eyes dancing along with "Doffy’s" flamboyant tricks, just enjoying the theater with a smile.
But when Doflamingo reached Crocodile’s glass, something felt wrong. Only her seemed to notice: a faint, almost imperceptible thread—even harder to see than the others—slipped from his sleeve, and a tiny, transparent drop, glistening like a lethal pearl, slid down the length of the string and plunged into the wine.
Sabrina’s stomach tightened.
Doflamingo guided the glass toward Crocodile, placing it down with a smile that was far too wide and far too fixed. “For you, Croccy~ Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.”
Crocodile’s hand began to move, his ringed fingers reaching for the stem of the glass.
But before his skin could even make contact with the crystal, Sabrina’s arm shot out, and she smoothly intercepted the glass with a bright, innocent smile.
And then, in one fluid motion, she downed the entire glass in a single gulp.
The silence that followed was absolute
Several Marines stared with their mouths open. Mihawk actually raised both eyebrows. Sengoku looked personally offended, as if she had just slapped the Navy’s dignity in the face.
And she just set the empty glass down with a soft clink and wiped her mouth delicately with the back of her hand.
“Sorry,” she said with zero shame. “I was really thirsty.”
Doflamingo’s reaction was a jagged explosion of sound. “Fuffuffu! She’s bold! I love her, Crocodile! Truly!” He leaned back, his feathered coat shaking with a laughter that sounded like shattering glass. “I might have to steal her from you! A secretary with the thirst of a desert wanderer!”
Outwardly, he was a picture of manic amusement.
Internally, however, the King of Dressrosa was staring at Sabrina with a cold, recalculating venom. His smile didn’t really reach his eyes—hidden behind those curved, crimson shades—that narrowed into slits of pure, homicidal frustration.
Crocodile, on the other hand, looked mortified. His face had gone pale, and his hook was digging into the table hard enough to leave marks while trying to digest the thought of the woman at his side having publicly ridiculed him.
A few minutes later, Sabrina politely excused herself. “I’ll be right back.”
She didn’t wait for permission. The woman just walked out of the conference room with measured steps, her pencil skirt swaying, trying to look like nothing more than a dutiful secretary who had indulged a little too enthusiastically.
Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. Sengoku was tapping his fingers on the table, his patience finally at its absolute limit. "Crocodile, go get your secretary. The break was over ten minutes ago, and I will not have this meeting delayed by a woman who doesn't know how to pace her drinking."
Crocodile stood up immediately. “I’ll go check on her.”
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He found her in the ladies bathroom attached to the waiting area, bent over a porcelain sink.
“First the doodles,” Crocodile roared, pacing the narrow space. "Then the 'Doffy' and 'Sabby' nonsense, and now this? Stealing my drinks like a common drunk in front of the Navy’s top brass? What do you want? Turning me into a laughingstock? Well, I have reached the limit of my patience. Explain yourself before I—"
"I shoved my fingers so far down my throat I think I touched my stomach," she interrupted, her voice a raw, jagged rasp.
Crocodile froze mid-sentence.
Only then did he truly look at her—the sick pallor of her face, her glasses discarded on the counter, the way she was gripping the edge of the sink, the faint tremor in her shoulders. The sharp, acidic tang of bile and wine hung heavy in the air, drifting from the closed stall behind her.
She had just made herself vomit.
The anger drained from his expression in an instant, replaced by sharp, genuine worry.
“Rina…” His voice lost its edge, dropping into a low, hollow tone of realization. He stepped forward, his heavy hand hovering uncertainly near her shoulder. “What are you talking about? What have you done?”
Sabrina straightened up slowly, wiping her mouth one last time with her sleeve. Her eyes were serious, focused, and completely devoid of her earlier playful energy.
"You're always so fucking stubborn," Sabrina complained with a thin voice. "I’ve been watching him since the very first moment we walked in. I wasn't ‘giggling’ because I liked him. I was getting close enough to see the way his fingers moved. He wasn’t just teasing you for fun, Crocodile. He was testing you. Studying you. Every smile, every ‘Croccy~’, every little provocation—it was calculated. Something told me he didn't have good intentions towards you; and how could I not, I'm never mistaken."
Crocodile swallowed hard, a cold sweat pricking the back of his neck. For a moment, he had forgotten who she really was. He had been so preoccupied with her "secretary" facade that he had overlooked the woman beneath—the strategist who had once commanded the respect of the Grand Line, the woman whose 100,000,000 Berry bounty wasn't just a number, but a testament to a mind that saw moves three turns ahead of everyone else.
“When he poured your glass, I saw it. One of his strings—almost invisible—slipped from his sleeve. A single drop. Clear as water. It fell into your wine before disappearing, ane no one else saw it. But I did. I’ve had my eye on his hands for three hours. I know the exact position of his fingers depending on where the threads come from. How could I not notice? He spent the entire meeting doing those gaudy tricks to try and keep my attention, never realizing I was using that attention to memorize his every tell.”
She finally turned to look at him, her eyes bloodshot but burning with a terrifying, lucid intensity.
"I'm sure it was poison," she declared. "And if my intuition is correct, the feathered freak used a slow-acting neurotoxin. That makes the most sense to me, considering the taste of the wine and the intentions of that bastard. He wasn’t trying to kill you here. Not outright. It would’ve crept in later—paralysis, disorientation, maybe a convenient ‘accident’ or a weakened state for whatever scheme he’s running. He wanted you compromised, not dead on the table. Easier to manipulate the aftermath that way.”
A mixture of shock, raw emotion, and a crushing sense of guilt surged through him. He reached out, his large, ringed hand finally settling on the back of her neck, pulling her forehead gently toward his chest.
“You drank it,” he murmured, his voice thick with vulnerability. “You drank poison for me."
"Lucky I threw it up before it could kick in."
"You idiot. You stupid, reckless, impossible woman…You could have just spilled the glass. You could have tipped the table.”
“And let him know I’m onto him?” she whispered into his vest, her body finally starting to go limp as the adrenaline ebbed away. “No. If I’m just the ‘drunk, unprofessional secretary,’ he stays arrogant. He thinks his plan failed because of a fluke, not because you have someone better than him in your corner.”
Crocodile closed his eyes, his hook resting harmlessly against the marble. The "unprofessional fake secretary" had just outmaneuvered one of the most dangerous men on the sea, and she had done it with a smile while her own life hung in the balance.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said quietly against her temple. “Not even a little.”
She only offered him a painful, low giggle, her hand weakly clutching at his cravat.
But in that moment, the softness in Crocodile's expression curdled. The unconditional transformed into something much darker, much more fiery.
“I’m going to kill him,” he rumbled, the promise vibrating deep in his chest.
"No," Sabrina countered, her voice gaining a bit of its usual grounded strength. She pulled back just an inch, looking up at him with eyes that were still watery but sharp. "Choose your battles, Crocodile. Think about it carefully: you have everything to lose if you face a Shichibukai alone now, in this place."
Crocodile’s jaw remained a jagged line of granite. He hated she was right because the logic tasted like retreat. He could bear that the fool had tried to kill him; in their world, that was practically a greeting. But that Sabrina—the woman he adored, the only person in the world he actually cared for—should pay the price for Doflamingo's petty games? That was a debt he wanted to collect in blood, and he wanted to collect it immediately.
"He poisoned you, Rina," he rasped, his eyes flashing with a predatory, golden light. "There is no 'thinking carefully' about that."
"There is when the alternative is public execution," she countered, reaching up to straighten his cravat with a trembling hand. "We play the long game. We always play the long game. Right now, the best revenge is you walking back into that room looking completely untouched, while he rots in his own confusion."
"Look who came to speak," he teased, his voice returning to its usual gravelly velvet. "The one who almost jumped across the table to scalp Boa Hancock in the middle of a global security conference. Suddenly, you're the voice of diplomacy?"
"Hey, that bitch insulted my dignity. Doflamingo just tried to chemically lobotomize you. There’s a hierarchy of grievances."
"Your priorities are a disaster," he muttered, though he reached out and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He watched her for a moment as she splashed cold water on her face, regaining her composure with a terrifying efficiency. Once again, she had managed to surprise him. Behind the laughter, the "Doffy" nicknames, and the theatrical drama, her mind remained a steel trap. She was more than just an asset; she was a master of the very shadows he thrived in.
As she reached for her discarded glasses, Crocodile caught her wrist, his expression turning uncharacteristically contemplative.
His voice dropped, quieter now.
“…You’re wasted as my fake secretary, you know.”
Sabrina raised an eyebrow.
“I mean it,” he continued, golden eyes intense. “You saw what no one else did. You acted faster than I ever could. Are you sure you don't want to work at Baroque Wo—?"
Sabrina interrupted him with a flat, disinterested smile.
“We've talked about this,” she said firmly, though her eyes sparkled with tired amusement. “I’ve had enough of pretending to be your secretary for one day. I am not joining your shady criminal empire, thank you very much. I like my current chaotic, low-responsibility lifestyle.”
Crocodile exhaled a long, defeated breath, but the corner of his mouth twitched with reluctant fondness.
“You’re impossible. I could pay you with handbags and dinners at incredibly expensive restaurants.”
“You already do. It's called dating,” she teased, gently poking his chest. “Now come on, Mr. Warlord. We have a meeting to survive.”
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They slipped back into the conference room as if nothing had happened. Sabrina had quickly splashed water on her face and straightened her blazer, while Crocodile wore his usual mask of cold authority. Only someone who knew him well would have noticed the lingering tension in his jaw.
The moment Sabrina sat down beside Crocodile, several pairs of eyes turned toward her with clear disapproval—especially Sengoku’s. To their ignorant eyes, she was nothing more than an unprofessional secretary with a drinking problem.
Doflamingo was already back in his seat, spinning a wine glass between his fingers with a wide, theatrical smile. But his eyes—hidden behind those ridiculous sunglasses—held a sharp, irritated glint. His plan had failed, and he knew it. Yet the man was nothing if not a performer. He immediately leaned forward with exaggerated cheer.
“Fufuffu! There they are! The dynamic duo returns! Did you two get lost in the corridors or were you having a little private meeting of your own?”
Crocodile didn’t even dignify him with a response. Sabrina simply offered a sweet, professional smile and sat down beside her “boss.”
The meeting dragged on for another painful hour. Moria kept interrupting with increasingly absurd zombie-related proposals. Mihawk contributed the occasional dry, cutting remark that made everyone uncomfortable. Sengoku looked like he was mentally drafting his resignation letter while trying to explain fiscal reforms. Kuma remained almost completely silent, only offering a solemn “Justice” whenever the topic of security arose.
Doflamingo, still smarting from his failed scheme, kept throwing little barbed comments disguised as jokes, trying to provoke Crocodile while pretending to be friendly with Sabrina.
At one point, he leaned toward her again. “Sabby, darling, whenever you get weary of this boring old man, remember that there's plenty of room for you in my castle in Dressrosa. Ask Croccy to move up your vacation and come visit me, come on~.”
Sabrina smiled politely. “I’ll keep that in mind, Doffy.”
Yet this time, Crocodile didn’t grit his teeth or claw at the table with his hook. He simply sat there, calm and composed.
Because now he understood.
And for the first time that day, a quiet, private pride bloomed in his chest.
Doflamingo, who enjoyed every approach to his secretary to unnerve him, seemed confused this time.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Sengoku raised his hand in exhausted defeat.
“That will be all for today,” he announced, voice heavy with fatigue. “The main points regarding funding adjustments and monthly reporting requirements have been negotiated... successfully? Well, they've been negotiated. We will reconvene in three months. Try not to kill each other before then.”
The Shichibukai rose from their seats with varying degrees of relief and annoyance.
Crocodile leaned toward Sabrina and murmured quietly, “I’m exhausted. I need to take off my shoes and vest and throw myself on the bed to rot in peace."
She nodded and giggled at him. "Go to your room, Croc. You need to rest."
"But I'll see you later, alright?"
"Of course."
He brushed his fingers lightly against her wrist—a secret, fleeting touch—and then, as Crocodile left the room, Sabrina lingered for a moment in the grand hallway just outside.
The corridor of Pangaea Castle was breathtaking—towering arches, marble floors that gleamed like polished ice, and wide windows that offered a stunning view of the holy land. A gentle, heavenly breeze drifted through, carrying the faint scent of flowers and sea air.
She smiled softly to herself.
Despite everything… I’m glad I came. I would never have seen a place like this otherwise.
The thought had barely formed when a massive shadow suddenly engulfed her from behind.
Sabrina froze. A chill ran down her spine as she slowly turned around.
Towering over her was a man nearly three meters tall, built like a bear, with a calm but unreadable expression. He carried a thick book in his hands — a Bible, she realized.
Ah… it’s the Bible guy, she thought.
Kuma looked down at her with surprising gentleness in his otherwise stoic face. His voice, when he spoke, was deep, soft, and unexpectedly kind.
“I saw it too.”
Sabrina blinked, confused. “I… beg your pardon?”
“The thread,” Kuma continued calmly. “And the drop in the wine. I saw what Doflamingo did. I know his intentions toward Sir Crocodile.”
Sabrina’s breath caught. She hadn’t expected anyone to notice, least of all the silent, government-loyal Kuma.
He continued in that same measured, gentle tone:
“Among the Shichibukai, backstabbing, betrayal, mistrust, and hatred are not exceptions—they are the rule. You can't trust anyone here. This is a murky, dark world we inhabit. Just like the government we... 'serve'.” His eyes softened slightly, and The woman listening couldn't believe that he, a 'government lapdog', would speak about his own rulers in that way, even though it was a subtle comment. “You acted bravely today. Recklessly, but bravely. You protected him without hesitation.”
Sabrina was stunned. This was the same man who usually spoke only one word at a time. Hearing him speak so clearly, with such quiet wisdom, felt surreal.
Kuma looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing his next words carefully.
“It is very dangerous to get involved with a Warlord,” he said, almost gently. “Especially one as ambitious as Sir Crocodile. The path you walk is filled with shadows. Be careful, miss. There are forces far greater than Doflamingo watching. And not all of them are as clumsy.”
He gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod—the closest thing to kindness she had seen from him all day.
Before she could even respond, Bartholomew Kuma turned without another word. His massive frame moved with a silent, severe grace, disappearing down the grand hallway like a storm cloud fading into the horizon. Sabrina stood in the silence, the "heavenly breeze" suddenly feeling like a cold, biting wind.
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"Come in."
After knocking, she pushed the door open to find the room bathed in the warm, amber glow of a few low lamps. Crocodile was sitting in a plush velvet armchair near the balcony, having already shed his heavy coat and cravat. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the powerful, scarred forearms Sabrina often drooled over. He took a long, slow drag of his cigar, the tip glowing like a dying star in the dim light.
"Secretaries aren't supposed to sneak into their employers' rooms, much less at night," he joked, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
"Then it's a good thing I'm a terrible secretary," she retorted, crossing the room and plopping down on the edge of the silk-sheeted bed. She let out a long, dramatic sigh of relief. "My feet are killing me, my stomach is finally settling, and I’m pretty sure my face is hanging on some 'wall of shame' on Amazon Lily. What a day."
Crocodile let out a dry, gravelly chuckle. "What a day, indeed. But mostly for me. You were a disaster. Seriously, you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days."
"But admit it," she leaned forward, her eyes dancing in the firelight. "It was the most fun you’ve had at one of these things in years."
"Fun is a generous word for 'psychological torture,'" he countered, though the hardness in his eyes had melted into something much softer.
"Oh, please," she added, tossing her head back. "I remind you that this was entirely your own idea. 'Oh, Rina, please come with me. Oh, Rina, I'm so gloomy and sad without you and I'm such a big, bad crybaby who can't handle the World Government alone...'"
"I do not sound like that."
"You do in my head," she chirped.
"I regretted the decision approximately five minutes after we sat down," he said, shaking his head as he tapped ash into a crystal tray. "I'm not bringing you to any more meetings. I think I'm going to get gray hairs from the stress of it. You're a fucking whirlwind."
They shared a quiet chuckle, the tension of the summit finally beginning to dissipate.
"But... I suppose a whirlwind is what was needed. If it weren't for your... attitude," he paused, his tone dropping slightly, "I might have been the one leaning over a sink tonight. Or worse."
Sabrina’s smile softened, but her expression grew serious as the memory of the thread returned. "He's going to try again, you know," she said, her voice dropping the playful edge. "Doflamingo isn't the type to take a 'fluke' well. You're going to have to do something about him sooner or later. Please, just... be careful. He's obsessed with you."
"And you know why? All because I once refused to make an alliance with him," Crocodile rumbled, the promise of violence vibrating in the air like a coming sandstorm. "God... I want to finish him.
"Crocodile," the woman said softly. "Remember what we talked about."
Crocodile looked down at her, the fire in his eyes slowly cooling into a dark, calculated simmer as he let out a long breath of smoke. "I know. I know." He paused, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. "I’ll deal with him. But not here. Not now. When the time is right... he’ll regret ever looking at you the way he did today."
A heavy silence followed. Crocodile rested the cigar between his lips, a slight, uncharacteristic blush touching his cheeks as he gazed at her. He stood up from the armchair and moved to the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he sat beside her. He leaned in, his arm brushing against her skin, the heat of him grounding her.
"Thank you," he murmured, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "For coming. And for... all you did for me."
Sabrina leaned into his touch, a small, tired smile on her lips. "I’d drink all the poison in the world and puke as many times as necessary just for you."
"Gross," he joked, though his voice was thick with tenderness.
The warlord then closed the distance, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her cheek, then carefully resting his head on her delicate shoulder.
But suddenly, as if an idea had magically and suddenly enlightened her mind, Sabrina sat up straight, a playful glint returning to her eyes that signaled she was far from finished with the day’s antics.
"You know," she started, her voice regaining its habitual spark, "I’ve thought of a way to start getting revenge on the feathered freak. A little appetizer before the main course you’re planning."
She slid off the mattress, standing in front of him with a newfound energy. Crocodile watched her, one eyebrow arched in curiosity as he exhaled a plume of smoke.
"The other Shichibukai are still wandering the halls like fools," she explained, gesturing toward the door. "They haven't all retired to their rooms yet. And on my way here, I noticed something very interesting... the idiot Doflamingo left his suite door half open. Probably too busy fuming over his failed chemistry experiment to check the latch."
Crocodile paused, the cigar held between his lips as he tracked her movement. She didn't wait for a verbal response; instead, she moved toward him with a slow, predatory intent that caught him entirely off guard, closing the distance and crouching down, her knees bracketing his thighs as she began to straddle him.
The Warlord felt a hint of genuine surprise ripple through his frame. His heart stuttered against his ribs as she leaned in, her gaze locking onto his with a searing, mischievous intensity. The friction of her movement against his trousers sent a heat wave through his body.
Sabrina reached out, her fingers brushing against his lips as she deftly took the cigar from his mouth. She held it aside, the smoke curling between them like a silken veil, and leaned in until her lips were a mere breath away from his. The scent of her—honeyed, sweet perfume—overwhelmed the lingering aroma of tobacco, as she breathed against his lips:
"Wanna fuck in his room?"
The words hit him like a spark on dry tinder.
For a split second, Crocodile was stunned—eyes widening, pulse spiking. Then a slow, wicked smirk curved his lips, as if the mere idea of profaning the sheets of that pink asshole he loathed so much was the best proposal he had ever received. His good hand slid possessively up her thigh, gripping her hip with just enough pressure to make her shiver.
“Fuck yes,” he growled, voice rough with immediate hunger.
He surged forward, capturing her mouth in a deep, devouring kiss. The tension that had simmered between them all day finally snapped. Sabrina moaned softly into his mouth as their tongues met, the kiss turning fierce and desperate, all teeth and heat and pent-up need. Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, tugging just hard enough to draw a low groan from his chest.
But then Crocodile suddenly recoiled with a disgusted grimace, pulling back sharply.
"UGH," he rumbled. "YOU STILL TASTE LIKE VOMIT."
“Oh,” she spat, covering her mouth. “I think I should brush my teeth first.”
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I drew chibi Sabrina and Crocodile in my break between commissions! I never have time to draw them properly </3
They're going on an adventure! (the adventure being Sabrina forcing Crocodile to try on 20 different vests)
CWs: smut, nsfw, p in v, masturbation, sex with love, teasing, kind of? bondage, jealousy, fluff, angst, swearing, suggestive, competence kink, dark romance.
WORDCOUNT: ~8400 words
Author's note: Pretty long chapter, but I felt like some fluff was needed. TJQ is coming to an end in maybe... 1 or 2? chapters. But before, I will post a silly side story: SABRINA ATTENDING TO A WARLORD MEETING. What could possibly go wrong?
My One Piece writing masterlist! Check for part nine and the rest!
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If I trust in you
Would you let me down?
Would you laugh at me?
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As promised, he had arrived right on time: 6PM sharp. Not a minute later. Not a minute earlier.
Crocodile leaned against the sleek black limousine with the lazy arrogance of a man who owned half the desert, dressed in a tailored black suit that accentuated his broad frame, with a deep violet scarf resting loosely around his neck, the only splash of color against the darkness. Between his fingers, a thick cigar smoldered, and every thirty seconds his flesh hand flicked open the lid of his pocket watch with a sharp click.
Six-ten.
He tilted his head toward the first-floor balcony, voice low and edged with impatience.
“Sabrina. How much longer are you going to make me stand here like a damn escort?”
From inside came her muffled reply, casual as ever.
“Almost done! I still have to do my hair.”
Crocodile exhaled a thick plume of smoke, his expression darkening with frustration.
“You have short hair,” he growled. “You wear it the exact same way every single day. Pray tell, how the hell does that take more than five minutes?”
A light laugh floated down in response, but no footsteps followed.
Several more minutes dragged by before the front door finally creaked open. Sabrina stepped out in a striking burgundy dress that hugged her figure with dangerous elegance, a delicate pearl necklace resting against her collarbone. For a moment, even Crocodile’s sharp tongue failed him. She looked devastating.
Then she froze mid-step, one hand still on the doorknob.
“…I forgot my purse.”
Before he could snarl a single word, she spun on her heel and darted back upstairs like a startled cat. His teeth clenched around the cigar so tightly the ash crumbled.
“I’m going to strangle her.”
When she finally reappeared—purse in hand, slightly out of breath—Crocodile pushed off the limousine and approached her with long strides. From behind his back, he produced an enormous, obscenely lush bouquet of desert roses, exotic lilies, and the most exquisite orchids ever, a riot of crimson, white, and gold.
"I didn't know which ones you liked, so I went to all the flower shops in Rainbase to get the most expensive ones," he confessed, his gaze drifting toward the horizon to avoid her eyes, a shy, boyish smile playing at the corner of his mouth, as if the irritation from earlier suddenly disappeared.
Such a charmingly clumsy display of affection from a man like him, made all the more poignant by the subtle, uncharacteristic flush of crimson that crept across the scar on his face.
But Sabrina stopped dead.
Her face went strangely pale as she stared at the floral monstrosity. With trembling hands, she accepted the bouquet, forcing a bright smile.
“Wow… Crocodile, this is… really thoughtful. Thank you so much.”
She tried. She really tried. But her body betrayed her almost instantly.
Her voice was already turning nasal. Her eyes began to water. Crocodile narrowed his gaze, studying her reddening face with growing suspicion.
“Are you okay? You’re making a strange expression.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, sniffling. “Really, it’s—”
The first violent sneeze cut her off.
Then another.
And another.
And Crocodile's face of disbelief was as bizarre as a cubist painting.
Her eyes streamed. Her carefully applied mascara began to streak in tragic rivulets down her cheeks. She turned her face away, mortified, still clutching the flowers like they were a live grenade.
“You’re allergic to FLOWERS?!”
Sabrina sneezed again, harder this time, before shoving the bouquet back into his arms with a watery glare.
“Extremely. Looks like I’m going to have to do my makeup again,” she muttered, voice thick. “Just… hold those far away from me.”
The bouquet seemed almost offending to him now, as if it had personally betrayed him. With a heavy, defeated sigh, he slapped his palm against his face, dragging it down slowly.
“Unbelievable," he groaned to himself. “I should have just brought you a carton of cigarettes.”
By the time they finally departed, it was six-thirty.
Setting aside his earlier despair, Crocodile waited until Sabrina had settled into the car before reaching out. Then he cupped her face with tenderness, pressing a lingering, unusually gentle kiss to her cheek.
"Gotta say it," he admitted with a smile. "You look pretty".
Sabrina smiled up at him, eyes sparkling. “Careful. If you keep saying nice things, I might start thinking you actually like me,” she said with sweet sarcasm.
As she finally took a seat into the limousine, Sabrina’s earlier disaster seemed forgotten. Despite having ridden in this very car several times before — during shopping trips and lazy afternoons together — the moment she settled against the plush leather seats, her eyes sparkled with undisguised delight. She ran her fingers along the polished wood trim, grinning like a child who had snuck into a palace.
Crocodile watched her from the opposite seat, one eyebrow raised in dry amusement.
“You’re ridiculous. You’ve sat in this car at least six times,” he said, voice low and smoky, though there was no real bite in it. “Yet you still act like I’ve kidnapped you into a fairy tale.”
Sabrina grinned at him, unrepentant. “What can I say? It makes me feel like a princess. You should be flattered.”
He gave a low huff that might have been a laugh.
As the limousine glided smoothly through the streets, Sabrina tilted her head, curiosity winning over her excitement.
“So… where exactly are you taking me?”
Crocodile leaned back, crossing his long legs with practiced elegance.
“Elumalu. There’s a restaurant on the cliffs—very exclusive," he replied, leaning back. "Private terrace overlooking the desert and the sea. I booked the best table. The only downside is that it's a bit of a drive.” His gaze sharpened slightly. “Which is why it was important to be ready on time.”
Sabrina smiled sweetly, ignoring the pointed remark. “Elumalu? I know that city well. Used to dock there all the time back in our pirate days. Good black markets, even better taverns.”
Crocodile shot her a pointed look.
“Yes, well, tonight we’re not visiting the black market. We’re having a civilized dinner. You’re getting the bare minimum of what involves dating me, whether you like it or not." His voice softened just a fraction as he added, almost to himself, “And I intend to do it right.”
Sabrina grinned, completely unrepentant.
“Relax. We’re almost here now, aren’t we?”
The Warlord simply exhaled another cloud of smoke toward the slightly cracked window, muttering under his breath.
“Miracles do happen.”
After a while, the desert landscape eventually gave way to rocky cliffs as they approached Elumalu, the golden light of dusk painting the sea in warm hues. When the limousine finally pulled up to the elegant restaurant perched on the lookout point, Crocodile stepped out first, offering his hand with surprising chivalry.
Sabrina took it, the silk of her gown catching the evening breeze.
“Ready?” he asked, voice lower now.
She smiled up at him, eyes still slightly red but shining with mischief.
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As they crossed the threshold, the ambient chatter of the Alabastan elite was severed as if by a guillotine. The air pressure in the room shifted instantly. The reason? Sir Crocodile had just arrived. And the way he arrived: moving with the heavy, unhurried gait of a predator that knew no equal.
Not only did Crocodile command the space, but he did so with an uncharacteristic, possessive warmth. He draped a heavy arm around Sabrina’s shoulders, pulling her flush against his side with a firm, unyielding strength. Sabrina, despite her usual bravado, felt a sudden, incandescent heat rush to her cheeks. She leaned into him, her heart swelling with a quiet, triumphant joy.
He’s holding me in public… she thought, a quiet delight blooming in her chest. The old Crocodile would never have done this.
The staff, meanwhile, descended into a state of coordinated panic. The head receptionist, a man whose spine appeared to have turned to jelly, approached them with a gait that was simultaneously frantic and hesitant.
“S-Sir Crocodile,” the man stammered, his voice a thin, trembling reed. “An absolute honor. We have, of course, prepared our most exclusive table for you and your... companion in the VIP sector of the terrace.”
Before Crocodile could respond, Sabrina, spotting a golden opportunity for chaos, grabbed his arm with both hands, beaming with exaggerated cheerfulness.
“Companion? Oh, sweetie, please,” she chirped, her voice carrying across the silent foyer. “I’m his wife!!”
Crocodile’s head snapped toward her. “No, you’re not.”
To silence his protest and maximize the man’s bewilderment, Sabrina reached up and squeezed Crocodile’s cheeks with exaggerated, grandmotherly tenderness. “Oh forgive him. He gets real cranky when he's hungry,” she cooed, before winking at the flabbergasted receptionist. “Hey, honey, be a doll and show us to our table?”
The receptionist’s mouth hung open, his brain clearly unable to process the sight of the Desert King being treated like a prize-winning pug. “I-it would be my absolute pleasure, madam,” he managed.
Crocodile’s face had turned a rare shade of red. The moment the receptionist scurried ahead to lead them, he leveled at her and growled near her ear, yet despite the indignant glare the corners of his mouth were twitching with a suppressed, traitorous laugh.
“You did that on purpose, you witch.”
“Come on. You needed a little humanizing,” Sabrina grinned up at him. “Everyone’s terrified of you. It’s almost funny watching grown men trip over their own feet just to bring you a bread basket.”
“Good. Let them stay terrified. It keeps the service fast,” he rumbled in response with a disheveled smile.
Once they reached their private terrace table, draped with delicate curtains and offering a stunning view of the moonlit desert and sea, the receptionist bowed again and vanished as quickly as possible. Crocodile dropped into his chair, still looking slightly disheveled, his cheeks faintly pink.
“You know… I never thought I’d see you like this. Holding me in public. Not caring who sees.” Her voice softened with genuine emotion. “The old you would’ve kept me at arm’s length. This… it makes me really happy.”
"I guess you look too pretty today to have you walking two meters behind me," he said with a flushed smile, reaching across the table to briefly squeeze her hand. “Now, what are you drinking? The cellar here is world-renowned.”
“Just water for me,” Sabrina replied, surprising him. “I’ve been drinking too much this past week to drown my sorrows. I think I need to be stone-cold sober for a while to make up for the liver damage.”
Crocodile nodded, a hint of guilt flitting across his face, and then beckoned to the nearest waiter with a wave of his hand.
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As the menus arrived, Sabrina’s confident facade hit a structural snag. While the fortune she adquired through her wit and luck at the card tables had allowed her to treat herself with the most exquisite luxuries imaginable, her upbringing still was one of humble survival and pirate rations. She stared at the esoteric descriptions with a look of profound confusion.
“Crocodile?” she whispered, pointing to a dish with a name so complex it required three accents. “What the hell is ‘Poulet de Bresse en Croûte de Pain with Infused Saffron Reduction'?"
Crocodile didn't even look up from his own menu. "It is a heritage breed of chicken, seasoned and baked inside a crust of bread to retain its moisture, served with a sauce made from the world’s most expensive spice."
Sabrina blinked, processing the information. "So... they’re chicken nuggets, but fancier?"
A nearby waiter nearly dropped his crystal water carafe. Crocodile’s eye twitched. "The chef would kill you if he heard you say such blasphemy."
"Right. Fancy nuggets. Got it." She flipped the page, her finger landing on something that finally didn't sound like a royal decree. "Oh! Grilled Desert Scorpions. Finally, something that doesn't require a dictionary."
His brow furrowed in a look of genuine horror. “Scorpions? In a restaurant this expensive? You’re joking.”
"Relax, they’re an Elumalu staple," she said, crunching into one with relish. "Tastes like nutty shrimp. They’re crunchy, salty, and if you grill them right, they taste better than any overpriced bird. I used to buy these by the bucket at the street markets back in the day."
“Charming,” he muttered, though his eyes were dancing.
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After a while, the dinner arrived with the silent efficiency of a military operation. Sabrina noticed, with a sharp, observant eye, that the waiter placed Crocodile's steak before him already expertly sliced into bite-sized morsels. Because of his single hand, the establishment clearly made it a point of honor to save him the indignity of struggling with a knife.
"Oh, look at you," she cooed, her voice dripping with mock sweetness. "Does the big, bad Desert King need his food cut into tiny pieces like a little kid? Do you need a bib too, or can you handle the napkin by yourself with one hand?"
Crocodile’s expression was a mask of pure suffering. "Keep talking and I’ll show you exactly what this single hand once did to a whole Navy fleet. Do you think it's easy to use cutlery with one hand?"
"It's hilarious," she cackled. "There's no fucking way I'm NOT going to tell anyone."
"Eat your bugs, woman," he growled, though the edges of his mouth betrayed a reluctant twitch.
As they began to eat, Sabrina poked at her plate, her nose wrinkling in disgust. Hidden beneath her beautifully grilled scorpions was a lush bed of heirloom tomatoes.
“Ugh, tomatoes,” she muttered, looking at the plate as if it were contaminated. “I didn't know these had a garnish. I’ve only ever eaten these skewered on a stick at a stall.”
Crocodile raised an eyebrow. “Give them here,” he said, extending his fork. “They happen to be one of my favourite foods.”
She happily scraped the fruit to his plate, and he accepted them with a tender, knowing smile. “I swear, Sabrina,” he laughed softly, “you have the palate of a five-year-old child. You’ll eat a literal bug but a tomato is where you draw the line?”
She chuckled, her voice dropping to a discreet, low-toned hum. “I mean, I can eat them if there’s a famine, but I simply don’t like the texture. Besides, I’ve eaten far worse things when I was a... pirate.” She said the last part in a low voice. "Do you remember when I told you I once had to eat a live octopus in the Calm Belt because the stove was broken?"
"How could I forget? I almost threw up when you told me the story," Crocodile said softly, chuckling. "The Calm Belt is a terrible place to starve, with all of those Sea Kings."
"It was," Sabrina admitted. "But that's the thing about the pirate life, isn't it? One day you're drinking the finest rum in a hidden cove, and the next you're chewing on leather boots just to keep your stomach from collapsing."
Sabrina lowered her gaze, a look of quiet nostalgia in her eyes. “It’s funny how easily things can change in just a few years.”
The man let out a tender laugh, the sound low and warm.
“Change?” He leaned back slightly, golden eyes studying her with open fondness. “You may have traded sails for silks and gold, but believe me… it’s still there. In the way you speak, the way you move, the way you laugh. You may dress like a lady now, but deep down, you’re still very much a pirate. And I’m becoming more convinced of that every single day.”
Sabrina gave him a confused look, tilting her head. “You mean so?”
“Please,” he teased, a playful smirk tugging at his lips. “It’s so obvious you’re new rich. You’re not used to having money. You’re tacky, bold, and you have zero idea about etiquette or real luxury. You just spend like a madwoman, doll.”
Sabrina straightened up dramatically, placing a hand over her chest as if deeply offended.
“Excuse me?” she exclaimed, though her eyes sparkled with amusement. “You talk like you were born with a silver spoon, but we both know you come from humbler beginnings than you like to admit. You confessed it to me yourself. Acting all high and mighty now, like some multimillionaire aristocrat... but you were once just a broke-ass rookie pirate sailing the Grand Line decades ago.”
Crocodile’s smirk widened, clearly enjoying the banter. He lifted his chin with exaggerated arrogance.
“But I adapted much better than you. I have more class.”
“More class, he says…” Sabrina muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes. She picked up her fork and pointed it at him accusingly. “If having class means letting the waiter cut your steak into baby pieces so you don’t struggle with the knife, then sure. You’re dripping with class.”
He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head. “You really are impossible.” His voice dropped, becoming quieter and more sincere. “But I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
Sabrina felt that familiar, traitorous laughter bloom in her chest.
"Thank God we’re the only ones up here in the VIP area. Honestly, if anyone heard us talking like this..." she joked, her tone dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The Navy would be at the front door within the hour and hang me in the Alubarna square."
"And I’d be headed for Impel Down before dessert for harbouring an outlaw.”
They both burst into a sudden, joyous laughter.
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The night had grown deep by the time they left restaurant. The desert air had cooled considerably, carrying with it the faint scent of salt from the distant sea. Sabrina and Crocodile walked side by side through the quiet, moonlit streets of Elumalu, as their hands were gently holding.
Sabrina let out a long, satisfied groan, placing both hands over her stomach.
“Damn… that bill was more expensive than my former bounty,” she complained, though her voice was filled with delight. “God, I’m so full I’m gonna explode.”
Crocodile glanced down at her with a raised eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Well, my dear," he called with sarcasm "that tends to happen when you order nearly every dessert on the menu.”
“It’s not my fault!” she defended herself, giving his arm a playful squeeze. “It’s just that everything sounded so delicious. How was I supposed to choose between the chocolate fondant and the saffron mousse?”
Suddenly, Sabrina’s eyes lit up. The lethargy of her ‘food coma’ vanished in a flash of spontaneous energy. She jumped slightly, pulling on his arm to bring him to a halt, her face radiant under the starlight.
“Crocodile! Don’t go back to the car yet. I don’t want to go home,” she insisted, her voice bubbling with excitement. “I want to take you somewhere I know. It's my favourite place in the world.”
The warlord studied her glowing expression for a moment. The soft moonlight caught in her eyes, making them sparkle with pure, infectious enthusiasm.
"Come on. It’s not far.”
As if he could ever refuse her when she looked at him like that.
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Before them lay a small, hidden cove, tucked away from the bustling heart of Elumalu. It was a secluded beach of fine, powdery sand that glowed silver under the starlight. The calm sea stretched out before them, its surface shimmering like liquid obsidian, reflecting countless stars in a breathtaking mirror of the night sky. Gentle waves lapped softly against the shore, and the entire place felt wonderfully untouched—peaceful, intimate, and completely deserted.
After proud comments from her side and the occasional nonchalant "It's not so bad" from Crocodile, Sabrina released his arm and stepped forward onto the sand with her heels in her hand as she took in the view, her dress and hair swaying gently in the sea breeze.
She gazed at that wonder with rapturous eyes, captivated, her eyes reflecting a deep feeling of nostalgia and longing while a sweet smile formed on her lips.
“You know,” she said softly, almost reverently. "The only think I don't like from Rainbase is that it's too far from the sea."
He found himself captivated, not just by the ethereal silver of the moon on the waves, but by the gravity of the atmosphere she had curated. And then, they sank onto the sand together, the silk of her dress and the heavy wool of his suit a stark contrast to the natural grit of the shore. For a long time, the only sound was the rhythmic respiration of the tide—a shared silence so profound they could almost feel the syncopation of their hearts through the narrow space between them.
"You know," Sabrina then whispered, her voice barely rising above the murmur of the surf as she stared at the ink-dark horizon. "I buried my ambitions a lifetime ago. But some nights... I can't help but fantasize about the sea again."
Crocodile turned his head toward her, visibly surprised by the confession.
Suddenly, she turned, her amber gaze boring into his with an intensity that made the Warlord feel strangely exposed. "Hey, Crocodile. What was the dream you gave up on?"
He went silent as a tomb.
This was a vault he had kept sealed with iron and blood for decades; to open it now, under the soft gaze of that woman, felt like a second skinning.
“My dream... was to become the King of the Pirates.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
The warlord immediately jerked his head away, his jaw set in a hard, defensive line. He braced himself for the inevitable—the sharp, mocking laugh, the biting sarcasm, the humiliation of a man of his stature admitting to a futile fantasy like that. He felt a searing heat of shame behind his eyes, waiting for the blow.
“You know my opinion about dreams,” Sabrina said, her voice dropping to a register of profound, aching tenderness. “I call them a fool’s errand. But... I still think it's a lovely dream."
The expected sting of mockery never came; instead, he felt a strange, terrifying sensation—his heart, long ago condemned to resentment, began to thaw.
“It was forcibly taken from me,” he spat, his voice thick with a resurrected resentment. He reached up, his fingers tracing the jagged, horizontal scar that bifurcated his face—the permanent receipt of a lesson he had never wanted to learn. “I learned the hard way that dreams are nothing more than intangible fallacies. Vapors that vanish the moment a stronger hand closes around your throat.”
His gaze drifted back to the waves, but he wasn't seeing the cove. He was seeing that man, standing on the deck of a colossal ship. He was seeing the shattering of his fleet, the cold realization of his own insignificance, and the moment the strongest man in the world had broken his spirit along with his body. His right hand instinctively tightened over the cold metal of his hook; even now, the phantom nerves in his missing wrist screamed with a dull, throbbing ache.
“It still hurts sometimes,” he muttered, the confession escaping him before he could catch it.
Without a word, Sabrina moved, shifting closer, the silk of her dress rustling, and resting her head gently against his broad shoulder. Offering empty platitudes or hollow comforts seemed just senseless to her at that point. No grand speeches. No empty reassurances. Just her presencesteady, warm, and unwavering.
In that quiet moment, they were simply two people who had once dared to dream, only to have the world teach them its cruelty. Dreams had been abandoned. What remained was reality.
And now… each other.
After a long, peaceful silence, Sabrina slowly pulled away. She rose to her feet and turned to face him. The moonlight and starlight danced across the water behind her, casting a soft, almost ethereal glow around her figure.
“You know?” she said, her voice serene and steady. “My dream was to see the New World."
The New World. An old scar in Crocodile's dignity.
A bitter, metallic taste flooded his mouth, and for a moment, he found himself unable to speak. The New World was the site of his greatest humiliation, the graveyard where his youthful ambitions had been buried by that white devil. He knew the terrors that lurked across those waters; he knew firsthand how that particular fantasy could strip a man of his soul and leave him a hollowed-out husk of sand and spite.
"To discover what it had to offer me. To unravel what secrets it hid so maybe I could end up finding myself. That was my dream."
Yet, as he looked up at her, he saw a haunting gleam of longing in her eyes—a remnant of the dreams that had been snatched away from her by tragedy five years prior. Seeing that same hunger in her, the same spark that the New World had once stolen from him, caused something he wasn't able to name to stir within the iron cage of his chest.
“But it’s a dream I buried five years ago,” she added, a small, sad smile ghosting across her lips.
She then let out a long, soft sigh that seemed to carry away the last of the evening’s tension. Then —without warning—, with a casualness that bordered on the surreal, she reached for the zipper of her gown, suddenly beginning to undress.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Crocodile barked, his eyes widening in a rare moment of total shock. He scrambled to sit upright, his face flushing a furious red. “Sabrina! This is a fucking public place! Have you lost your mind?”
Sabrina glanced over her shoulder with a half-smile, calm and teasing even as she slipped out of her clothes.
“Calm down, pretty face,” she said lightly. “The only ones who knew about this cove were the Oasis Pirates and me. And it turns out… everyone except me is six feet underground now.”
Crocodile sat paralyzed, his mouth slightly agape as he watched her.
Completely bare under the starlight, Sabrina walked toward the water with elegant, unhurried steps. The sea welcomed her like an old lover, gentle waves lapping at her skin as she waded deeper.
The sight of her standing naked in the water felt like a mirage to him— too beautiful to be real: the way the moonlight traced the curves of her body, the scar traced on her chest visible like a faint map on her skin. Droplets of seawater clung to her limbs like scattered diamonds.
He couldn't help but drowning his eyes into her, heart pounding, equal parts stunned and helplessly captivated.
"I know you long for the sea, too," she whispered, her voice carrying over the rhythmic, low-frequency hum of the tide.
"How can you know?" Crocodile replied with a thin voice.
"You surround yourself with water," she said, her amber eyes locking into his with terrifying clarity. "Your headquarters are underwater. You spend all day staring at those aquariums like a fool, with the unmistakable gaze of a man who longs for the scent of the ocean breeze. It's something that I can recognize very well. You watch your ugly alligator things swim in circles as if you could reach the water too. But you never do. You surround yourself with water, Crocodile, because you are starving for the sea—and yet you never let it touch you."
She had dissected him with effortless precision, and Crocodile found himself unable to respond to that.
Once again, that woman had just outplayed him.
Sabrina then spread her arms wide, leaning back to let more of the silvered water envelop her body. The gesture was magnetic, an unspoken invitation that pulled at the very core of his being. Yet, they both were aware of the impossibility of the ask.
Water—and even more so the sea—were absolute no-gos for Crocodile. He was a Devil Fruit user—and worse, a Logia of sand. The ocean wasn't a mere weakness to him; it was almost an executioner. His obsession with control and his deep-seated phobia of vulnerability were so absolute that he had never even permitted her to shower with him (something she oftenly complained about).
This time Sabrina wasn’t asking for his sacrifice, but even so, he felt something within him leaning toward her.
You can’t, a voice hissed in the back of his mind—the cold, jagged voice of his survival instinct. To step in is to drown. To be weak is to die.
But as she stood there, looking like a nymph carved from moonlight, the most beautiful and terrifying thing he had ever laid eyes on, the voice faltered.
“We are all children of the sea, Crocodile,” she called out, her voice a low, melodic vibration that carried over the rhythmic wash of the waves.
The world stopped. Those words—that specific, cursed philosophy—hit him with the force of a tidal wave.
Children of the sea. It was a reminder of a time before he was a Warlord. To hear those words now, from her lips, felt like a bridge being built over a twenty-year-old canyon of resentment. Words that didn't felt hers, but that man's.
How can she know?
They struck something deep inside him — something raw and unnamed. Something he buried decades ago. It was as if she held every hidden key to his heart and had chosen the gentlest way to turn them. His chest tightened. His pulse thundered in his ears.
Then, to her visible astonishment, the Desert King stood and began to undress.
First, he loosened the violet scarf around his neck, letting it slip through his fingers and fall onto the sand. Then came the elegant black suit jacket, which he shrugged off with measured grace, revealing the broad, powerful expanse of his shoulders and the strong lines of his chest. The crisp white shirt followed. Button by button, he undid it, exposing the defined ridges of his abdomen, the powerful arms, the sharp V of his hips, the trail of dark hair disappearing beneath his trousers, the dangerous elegance of his frame.
And she simple couldn't look away.
Crocodile kicked off his shoes, and when he reached for the buckle of his trousers, the air in the cove grew thick enough to burn.
Completely naked now, he stood before her. The moonlight highlighted every ridge of muscle, hardline faction, and the length of him, already half-hard from the sight of her alone.
He was breathtaking.
The air from her lungs caught as she drank him in, and Crocodile, almost as if pulled by an invisible siren’s song, walked toward the water.
The moment the sea touched his feet, a wave of dizziness washed over him. He instantly began to feel a violent, sickening drain of his strenght, his body growing heavy as the saltwater weakened the very core of his nature.
Still, he didn’t stop. Step by step, he waded deeper, jaw clenched, eyes locked only on her.
Sabrina moved to meet him, the water rippling around her. When he swayed slightly, she reached out and placed her hands gently on his chest, steadying him. Her touch was warm against his cooling skin.
“Crocodile…” she whispered, concern and wonder mingling in her voice. "Idiot. You shouldn't... You know what the sea does to you. Do you intend to die?"
Crocodile looked down at her, his golden eyes dark with intensity. His breathing was heavier, his cheeks faintly flushed — not from embarrassment, but from the overwhelming intensity of the moment. Even if the dizziness made his head spin, he remained steady, one arm sliding around her waist to pull her closer.
Nothing mattered anymore—not the sickening sensation in his limbs, not the curse of the sea, and certainly not the vulnerability he had spent half a lifetime hiding. He had underestimated her for too long; he had tasted the jagged agony of nearly losing her, and he had suffered so deeply through the hollow futility of a life without her that the old armor was useless. Crocodile was in a state of absolute clarity—a mind so devoted that he would have cut himself open and offered her the very beat of his heart if she asked, and he wouldn't have felt the wound.
You're vulnerable.
Nothing else mattered anymore. Only her.
His voice came out low, rough, and devastatingly sincere, vibrating through the small space between their lips.
To be weak is to die.
"Sabrina," he said. "If something had to kill me, if that something were you, I would be happy to die."
The roar of the ocean faded into a muffled hum, leaving only the two of them in a vacuum of raw emotion. With eyes shining with tears of joy and absolute devotion that she never shed, Sabrina reached out and placed her hands on his cheeks. She caressed him with a touch so light it was almost a prayer, her fingers tracing the jagged line of his scar with a reverence that suggested she was memorizing the very soul beneath the skin.
"You can say it," she whispered, her voice a fragile glass.
"What?", he muttered.
"My name. You can say my real name," she added, her gaze searching his. "I love it when you call me Sabrina. It's the name of mine that brought us together. But tonight... the situation warrants the truth, don't you think?"
Crocodile’s eyes widened slightly, surprised. He had avoided it for so long—out of respect, out of fear of reopening old wounds.
Then, with a tender smile that broke through years of practiced cruelty, Crocodile parted his lips and savored each syllable. He pronounced it like a sacred vow, a name that belonged to his dreams and his nightmares alike.
"Karina," the name left his lips like a caress."You'll be the death of me."
That name hurt. It hurt as hell. But, at the same time, nothing ever felt better than hearing it come from his own lips.
Her response was immediate; tears that came down her face like moonlit pearls.
Her thumbs started to caress him with profound slowness, tracing the sharp, masculine line of his cheekbones before converging on his lips, stroking the fullness of his lower lip.
"You said it," she whispered.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Only the soft hush of the waves and the thunder of their heartbeats filled the space between them.
Soon her hands began to move with aching slowness, sliding down the strong column of his neck, feeling the rapid pulse beneath her fingertips. She continued lower, palms spreading over the broad expanse of his chest, savoring the contrast between his cool skin and the fierce, living heat she could feel burning underneath. His heartbeat was strong and unsteady beneath her touch
Crocodile shuddered. A low, ragged breath escaped him as her fingers explored further, tracing every ridge of muscle, every old scar, every line of the body she had once known so intimately and had missed so painfully.
“You’re shivering,” she whispered, voice soft and warm against his skin.
“I’m not,” he lied, voice hoarse.
A quiet, affectionate smile curved her lips. She pressed herself closer, their naked bodies aligning perfectly in the gentle water. Skin against skin. Heart against heart. The cool sea lapped around them, but the heat building between their bodies was undeniable.
The woman leaned in and began kissing him — slow, feather-light kisses pressed to the center of his chest, then higher, along his collarbone, up the side of his neck, and finally to the sharp line of his jaw. Each kiss was tender, almost worshipful, as though she were trying to heal every wound the world had ever given him.
And fnally, she brought her lips to his ear, her breath warm and trembling.
“Crocodile…” she called him, voice husky with emotion and something deeper. “I think I’ve made up my mind."
"Is that so?"
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Sabrina's self-imposed abstinence died the moment she urged him out of the water. Her whispered plea came between heated kisses — she wanted him properly, in a bed, in her home, where she could take her time claiming every inch of him. And Crocodile needed no further encouragement.
And so they did. They dressed clumsily and woth a hurry that bordered on the desperate, sharing a hastily laughter in the attempt, casting aside the elegance of the evening for the raw necessity of what was to come.
The drive back to Rainbase was a haze of charged silence and stolen touches.
And when they reached her apartment, everything exploded.
The moment the door to her house closed behind them, the last remnants of her so-called punishment crumbled to dust. Who had she been kidding? Denying herself Crocodile had been torture for both of them.
He had barely kicked the bedroom door shut when their mouths crashed together again in a fierce, devouring kiss.
Sabrina was already tearing at her burgundy dress, yanking it down her body until it pooled at her feet, leaving her in nothing but a delicate black lace bra and matching panties. She reached for Crocodile’s shirt, fingers frantic on the buttons, dying to feel his skin against hers.
But he caught her wrist with his good hand, stopping her.
Not yet.
Before she could protest, he pushed her back onto the bed.
Sabrina’s chest heaved with anticipation, her thighs pressing together instinctively. She was soaked, aching, dying to feel him stretch her open again.
But Crocodile had other plans.
"Hands up,” he ordered, voice low and rough.
A slow, dangerous smirk curved his lips. He reached for the deep violet scarf still around his neck and unraveled it with deliberate sensuality. Leaning down, he captured her wrists and tied them securely to the headboard.
“Stay still,” he commanded, voice low and rough. “You’re not allowed to touch yet. Not until I say so.”
Sabrina squirmed beneath him, already aching, her thighs pressing together. “You son of a...,” she breathed.
Crocodile chuckled darkly. "Didn't you say you were going to punish me by withholding sex? Your punishment didn't last long..."
"Crocodile..."
“Shh.” He straightened again, eyes locked on hers.
He stepped back, giving her the full view. Slowly, teasingly, he began to undress again — this time purely for her. The black jacket slipped off his shoulders with theatrical grace. He unbuttoned his shirt one button at a time, revealing the powerful chest and sculpted abdomen she craved. When the shirt fell, he ran his good hand slowly down his own body, caressing the hard ridges of muscle, brushing over a nipple, then lower across his abs.
Sabrina’s breath hitched. “Crocodile… untie me. I want to touch you."
“Not yet,” he said calmly, eyes gleaming, as he unbuckled his belt with agonizing slowness, and then pushed his trousers and boxers down in one smooth motion. His thick, heavy cock sprang free — hard, flushed, and already leaking at the tip. Sabrina’s mouth watered at the sight.
He wrapped his hand around himself and gave one slow stroke, watching her reaction with dark satisfaction. By that time, Sabrina had tugged uselessly at the scarf once, twice and more times her dignity would allow her to admit, desperate to reach him.
“Relax,” he purred, voice dripping with wicked amusement. “Be a good girl and enjoy the show. You wanted to punish me by making me wait… now it’s my turn.”
He caressed his own chest, fingers trailing over defined abs and the sharp cut of his hips, putting every inch of his powerful body on display for her. His hand returned to his cock, stroking lazily, thumb spreading the bead of precum over the swollen head.
“Fuck... look at what you do to me,” he growled, voice thick with lust. “You have no idea how many times I came thinking about burying myself inside you again. How many nights I fucked my own hand wishing it was your throat, your pussy, your ass… I’d cum so hard I saw stars, but it was never enough. Nothing compares to you.”
Sabrina whimpered, hips rolling desperately. “Then stop teasing and fuck me already, you bastard.”
Crocodile chuckled darkly, pumping himself faster. “Insulting me won't get you very far, doll. Look at you—tied up and soaked, and still running that bratty mouth." He groaned, eyes half-lidded with pleasure, while fastening the rythm of his masturbation. “Tell me,” he then added. “Does it turn you on knowing the great Sir Crocodile was reduced to jerking his cock like a pathetic teenager every night thinking about burying himself inside you?”
All she could respond with was nodding frantically, licking her lips as she stared at his cock. He stepped closer, knees on either side of her chest, stroking himself right above her face. Sabrina stared up at him with raw hunger, tongue darting out to wet her lips.
“Ah... I’m close,” he warned, voice strained. “Open your mouth. Now.”
She obeyed instantly, lips parting, tongue extended.
Crocodile’s strokes grew erratic, breath ragged. With a deep, loud moan, he then came hard just in front of her eyes, letting her watch the whole display of his arousal. Thick ropes of cum spilled across her tongue and into her open mouth, and the man kept stroking himself through it, milking every drop while watching her with dark satisfaction.
“Swallow,” he then commanded hoarsely.
And she did, closing her mouth and swallowing every drop with a soft, desperate sound, as if she'd craved for that taste for ages. The moment she swallowed, Crocodile descended on her like a man starved.
He kissed her fiercely, tongue plunging into her mouth, tasting himself on her tongue. The kiss was filthy, possessive, and deeply intimate all at once. Sabrina let out a muffled moan into it, kissing him back with equal hunger, her bound body writhing beneath his.
It was the dirstiest, nastiest kiss she ever recieved. And yet she found herself extremely turned on by it.
When he finally pulled back, a thin string of saliva and cum connected their lips for a brief second.
Sabrina let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh.
“You’re so fucking gross” she whispered, though her eyes were unable to hide how much that act had excited her.
Crocodile smirked, brushing his thumb over her swollen bottom lip, golden eyes glowing with dark affection.
At that very moment, his mouth moved again against hers with deep, devouring hunger, tongue sliding sensually against her own, still tasting the evidence of his release still lingering on her tongue. The filthy intimacy only seemed to make him hard again.
His good hand finally slid down her body, fingers tracing over her breasts, her stomach, until they reached the slick heat between her thighs.
Sabrina moaned loudly, back arching off the bed as his fingers curled perfectly inside her, his thumb circling her swollen clit in tight, unrelenting strokes while he continued kissing her senseless.
She tugged desperately at the silk binding her wrists, hips rolling against his hand. “Crocodile… please—”
Crocodile's only response was adding a third finger, stretching her open, fucking her slowly with his hand while his mouth claimed hers again and again. The wet, obscene sounds of his fingers pumping into her drenched pussy filled the room.
But even this wasn’t enough.
Muffling a inaudible curse of impatience, Crocodile reached up and untied the scarf by ripping it with his hook. The moment her wrists were free, Sabrina surged forward like she was possessed.
She pushed him onto his back with surprising force and climbed on tp of him, straddling his hips. Her hands shook with urgency as she grabbed his thick, throbbing cock and lined it up with her entrance.
“I can’t wait anymore,” she gasped, voice breaking with raw need.
Instantly, Sabrina sank down onto him in one desperate motion.
A shared, broken moan tore from both their throats as he filled her completely, stretching her open in that perfect, overwhelming way only he could.
Sabrina didn’t waste a single second. She began riding him, hips slamming down onto his cock with shameless desperation.
Hard. Fast. Greedy.
The wet slap of skin against skin echoed loudly with every brutal downward thrust. Her breasts bounced as she fucked herself on him, taking him deeper with every roll of her hips.
Then, she leaned down and attacked his neck with her mouth, sucking hard, leaving dark, possessive hickeys across his skin. “You’re mine, you hear me?” she growled against his throat, biting down before soothing the mark with her tongue. “Mine and no one elses's. This body is mine. Every inch of it.”
Crocodile groaned deeply, hips snapping up to meet her thrusts, driving his cock even deeper inside her. Her possessiveness clearly drove him wild.
“Shit… you resentful, possessive bitch,” he rasped, voice thick with arousal. “Going to bruise my whole neck so the next woman who looks at me knows I’ve already got an owner?”
“You're a quick learner,” Sabrina hissed, grinding down harder, leaving another dark hickey right above his heart. “Gotta make sure everyone on your dear little casino knows you belong to me."
Crocodile let out a breathless, dark chuckle that quickly dissolved into a groan. “You’re wicked… making such a mess of me.” He tilted his head back, giving her better access to his throat. “I should hate you for it.”
“No, you don't,” she replied, voice thick with both lust and affection. “You love what I do to you."
Something shifted in his expression.
At that very moment, Crocodile suddenly sat up, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against his chest. Forehead against forehead. Breaths mingling hotly between their parted lips.
None of them moved as he still remained inside of her.
"You're right," he said. "I love you."
Sabrina’s breath hitched sharply. She stared at him, wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t quite believe the words had come from his mouth—least of all first.
“I… I…” the woman poorly stammered, unable to offer a proper answer.
“You don’t have to say it,” he whispered, brushing his thumb tenderly over her cheek. “I know these things aren't easy for you.”
The gentleness in his voice undid her.
A soft, overwhelmed whimper escaped her. She clung to him tighter, arms wrapping around his neck as she kissed him—deep, desperate, and full of everything she couldn’t yet put into words.
They then started to move in perfect sync, as if they were made for each other—skin sliding against skin, hearts hammering in time.
"Fuck, I love you," he repeated, voice cracking with emotion as he buried himself inside her again and again. "I love you so much."
“I missed you, Crocodile,” she whispered hoarsely against his lips, voice cracking with genuine emotion. “I missed you so fucking much… I never want to be apart from you again... Every single night without you felt like hell.”
Crocodile's fingers digged into her skin as if he were terrified she would vanish the moment he loosened his hold, savoring every second of their union.
"Then I’m going to fuck you until you forget every single night we spent apart.”
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Before they could even realize, time slipped away under the scorching sun of Alabasta. And so, the desert swallowed another year.
She was the fire to his loins.
He was her anchor to life.
They were happy. Not in the gentle, peaceful way of ordinary lovers, but in the fierce, volatile way of two storms that had chosen to dance instead of destroy each other. They fought often—viciously, brilliantly, passionately. Sabrina’s stubbornness clashed against Crocodile’s foul moods like flint against steel, sparking arguments that sometimes lasted hours and ended with her pinned beneath him or him dragged into her bed. Yet every fight only seemed to bind them tighter.
In public, he called her “Rina.”
The first time the nickname left his lips, she had glared at him, suspicious.
“What’s that about?”
Crocodile had simply smirked, hooking a finger under her chin.
“Calling you Karina in public is dangerous. But ‘Rina’… that name belongs only to me. A name I can speak freely.”
From that day on, every time he called her “Rina” in that low, smoky drawl of his, something warm curled in her chest. She loved it. She loved it more than she would ever admit.
Meanwhile, he was still the ruler of the underworld. Operation Utopia continued its slow, calculated march toward completion. Yet even as he moved pieces across the board of Alabasta’s fate, his thoughts constantly drifted back to her. In the middle of important meetings, while staring into the massive aquariums in his headquarters, his mind would wander to the woman waiting for him.
One quiet afternoon, as sapphire light filtered through the filtered glass of his office, Crocodile stood before the enormous tank, a velvet case in his hand. Miss All Sunday waited patiently at his side, ever observant fully aware of the content of that case.
After a long silence, he spoke, voice low but filled with absolute certainty.
“I’m going to make that woman the Queen of Alabasta, Miss All Sunday.”
There was no hesitation. No doubt. It was her.
This woman —bold, wild, and infuriatingly perfect— drove him to madness and peace in equal measure. Her laughter filled the cold corridors of his power. Her body warmed his bed every night. Her sharp tongue challenged him like no one else dared, and her smile… gods, her smile made the cruelest parts of him soften.
Crocodile loved her.
He loved her with a ferocity that should have terrified him. He loved her when she teased him and put him on his nerves. He loved her when she was soft and sleepy in his arms at dawn. He loved her when she called him 'bastard', and he loved her even more when she whispered his name like a prayer.
She was everything he had never known he needed. Nothing could compare to the feelings he had for her.
For a while, it felt like enough.
But.
This isn’t a story about love. This isn’t a story about good endings.
In a world where trusting the wrong man is an unforgettable sin, the past is never dead; it's waiting. There's no place to hide. No place to flee to.
There is only one fate for those who try to outrun their own ghosts. Where the warmth of a lover becomes one's break.
Where old disgraces arrive again with a traitorous blade.
