I didn't sit.
I moved to the farthest corner of the cell, the clinking of my chains the only sound I allowed to follow me. I leaned my back against the cold stone wall, one leg bent slightly, the other stretched just enough to brace my balance. Chin dipped, arms loose in the manacles, I studied them through half-lidded eyes—unreadable, analytical.
I didn't speak. I didn't ask questions. Nor did I offer comfort.
I simply observed. Every breath, every twitch of muscle, every silent glance passed between the three girls. Like a scholar dissecting a forbidden text. My gaze was cold, calculating, not cruel but precise. Like someone remembering everything for later.
Boa Hancock noticed first. The way I didn't avert my eyes. Didn't fidget or flinch when those bustard would stop to deliver our daily meals.
"You're not afraid of them," Hancock murmured aloud, almost to herself.
I didn't reply.
"She's like a ghost," Sandersonia said under her breath. "She's too quiet. She barely even moves."
"No," Marigold muttered. "Not a ghost. Maybe a storm. Big sister is right. Look at her eyes. There like a hurricane's."
I blinked slowly, like the words barely registered. But something in my jaw tensed, letting them know I was listening.
Boa leaned back again, wincing faintly as the movement pulled at a half-healed gash beneath her ribs.
"You're planning something," she said finally, eyes narrowing. "You're not like the others they've dragged in here. You don't want to survive. You want to end them."
At that, my head tilted. It was not enough to confirm, but not enough to deny either. I simply whispered, voice low and blade-thin, "…They'll regret not killing me outright."
The words were spoken without emotion. Without fire. There was only certainty.
For the first time I was dragged here, the sisters were quiet, not because of pain or fear, but because something unfamiliar filled the room.
Respect. I saw it in there eyes.
The cell door slammed open without warning.
Two guards stepped in—both armed, both in dark uniforms with Vacuo crests on their shoulders. Behind them, a handler in a silver-trimmed coat stood with a ledger under one arm and a metal prod in his hand. His eyes scanned the cell with all the empathy of a butcher choosing meat.
"You. The quiet one."
His gaze landed on me.
The sisters stirred, instinctively shifting closer together. Marigold's hands tightened into fists. Sandersonia bared her teeth slightly. Hancock sat upright, blood-streaked but composed, eyes flicking to me with something like a silent warning.
I didn't move.
The handler nodded to the guards. "Bring her."
They yanked me forward. I didn't resist. My feet scraped against the stone floor as I was hauled from the cell, the chains on my wrists biting deep. The collar at my neck clinked softly as the door shut behind me again, leaving silence in my wake.
~×~×~×
The sisters waited.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Thirty.
Screams echoed down the corridor. They were not loud, but sharp, like a whip through bone. One. Two. Another.
Then silence.
And then…the slow, dragging sound of footsteps.
The guards returned, dragging Raven between them, her head bowed, her body limp. They tossed her back into the cell like she was nothing more than a sack of flesh.
She hit the floor hard, shoulder-first. Blood smeared beneath her, but she didn't make a sound.
Not a whimper. Not even a sob. Only a low exhale through her nose. Controlled. Even.
Hancock stood, watching with veiled eyes as the guards slammed the door and left without another word.
"Is she…" Marigold whispered.
Raven stirred.
She rolled slightly onto her back, chains rattling. One eye swollen shut, a cut across her cheekbone, bruises blossoming like ink beneath the skin—but her lips were curled in a faint, sardonic smirk.
"I counted thirty-six lashes," she rasped. "They stopped when they got tired."
She let her head rest back again, staring up at the ceiling.
"I didn't scream. Or did I?"
Silence fell heavy again. But it was different this time.
Sandersonia's lips parted, speechless.
Boa Hancock stared at Raven for a long, quiet moment.
Then she turned, sat beside the wall again, and whispered without looking:
"They'll fear you, eventually."
Raven didn't answer.
But the smallest twitch at the corner of her mouth said enough.
×~×~×~×
The oil lamp in the corner burned low, its light barely reaching the cracks in the stone.
Night in the Vacuo estate was a strange kind of silence—watched, oppressive, as though the walls themselves were listening. The air was thick with the ghostly scent of dried blood and perfume meant to mask the rot beneath gold.
Raven hadn't moved in hours. She lay in the farthest shadow of the cell, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slow and even. If she was in pain, she didn't show it. If she was awake, she didn't speak.
Boa Hancock's voice broke the stillness first, barely a whisper.
"She's not like the others."
Marigold stirred. "She's… scary. Not like a monster. But like a lightning storm that doesn't care if you're in the way."
"She didn't scream," Sandersonia added. "Didn't cry. Didn't even beg." Her voice tightened. "They always beg the first time."
Hancock didn't respond at first. Her gaze remained locked on the shape lying quietly in the dark.
"I watched her eyes when they dragged her out," she said softly. "She wasn't afraid. She was calculating."
"Calculating what?" Marigold asked.
"A way out."
A heavy pause.
"You think she'll try to escape?" Sandersonia whispered, hopeful and afraid all at once.
"I think," Hancock said slowly, "if she does, it won't be just for herself."
Marigold blinked. "You mean…?"
"She told us her name," Hancock replied. "That's not nothing. That's a choice."
They fell silent again, listening to the breath of the girl in the shadows.
And though none of them said it aloud, the thought passed through them all like a ripple of heat through the cell:
Maybe, just maybe, this time… they weren't alone in their rage.
The silence stretched.
The sisters had fallen quiet, their whispers settling like dust on the cell floor. The oil lamp flickered again, its last breath of flame casting long, tired shadows on the wall.
Then—
"I'm not planning an escape," Raven said flatly.
Three heads snapped toward the corner where she lay.
She hadn't moved. Still on her back, one arm across her stomach, the other resting near her side in a loose chain.
"But if I was," she continued, voice quiet but unflinching, "I wouldn't waste it on just myself."
Sandersonia blinked. "You… were awake?"
"I don't sleep easy," Raven muttered, finally shifting enough to sit upright. One eye was still swollen, but the other caught the light just enough to gleam.
Marigold shifted closer to her sisters, both wary and… curious. "Then why didn't you say anything?"
Raven tilted her head slightly.
"Because I was listening."
Hancock watched her carefully, arms wrapped around her knees. "To what?"
"To see if you'd sell me out when the guards came again. Or if you still remembered how to feel something." She looked at each of them in turn. "Seems you do. That's rare in a world filled with greed and envy."
Sandersonia's eyes narrowed, but it wasn't anger—it was calculation.
"What about you?" she asked. "Do you still feel anything?"
Raven didn't answer right away.
Then, slowly, she brought one hand to her mouth and bit the inside of her cheek again—drawing a bead of blood. She swallowed it.
"…Enough," she said finally, her voice like steel cooled in shadow.
Hancock leaned forward. "Then why let them break you a little more each day?"
Raven's gaze met hers, unwavering.
"Because they think I'm already broken," she said. "And I need them to keep thinking that."
She stood then, stiff but composed, her posture straightening despite the bruises and the blood. Her chains scraped softly against the floor as she moved back to her corner.
"And when they realize they were wrong…"
She sat. "…It'll be too late."
No one spoke after that. There was nothing left to say.
×~×~×~×
In three days, it was the third time they dragged me out.
The same corridor. The same handler. The same bloodstained prod.
But this time… something was different.
They had begun to whisper about me. The guards. The handlers. Even the slaves chained along the hallway corners glanced up as I passed, not with pity, but dread. Not for me, but for the ones dragging me back.
"Still no screaming?" one muttered.
"She should've passed out last time…"
"Maybe they messed up her batch—she's not normal."
They shoved me through the training hall doors—if it could even be called that. The room reeked of iron, piss, and old pain. Chains lined the walls. Instruments of "discipline" hung from the ceiling like butcher's tools.
I stood tall despite the collar and cuffs.
The handler stepped forward again, expression curling into frustration. Not fear. Not yet. But close.
"You're making my reports look incomplete, girl," he said with a sneer, lifting the metal prod.
"Your expectations are the problem," I replied coldly.
The guard's lips twitched.
Crack.
The first strike was swift—across my back. The next, across my ribs. Another. And another.
But I never screamed.
I didn't grit my teeth. Nor did I cry.
I bled. I breathed as I stared at him. Eyes sharp, cold, and alive.
It unnerved them more than screams ever could.
By the tenth blow, the handler's hand was shaking.
By the twentieth, his face was pale, sweat forming at his temples.
He struck harder. And harder.
Until finally—something cracked.
I smiled. A small, bloodied thing. Faint. Feral. And full of promise.
The handler dropped the prod.
"Get her out of my sight," he muttered. "Chain her to the wall for the night. No food. No water."
"Yes, sir." But his voice faltered. And his guards avoided my gaze.
Because something had changed. Not just in me, but in them. Fear had crept in. And fear was the first crack.
×~×~×~
They heard her coming before they saw her.
The heavy footfalls of boots dragging her in had become routine by now. But this time, there was something off—wrong in a different way. Quieter. More cautious and less cruel.
The door opened.
Raven was thrown in, as always.
But the guard who threw her didn't sneer. Didn't taunt. He wouldn't even meet the sisters' eyes. He mumbled something about "orders" and "extra chains" before slamming the cell shut behind him—quickly, like he couldn't bear to be in the same room with her a second longer.
The sisters stared as the sound of retreating footsteps echoed away.
"...They didn't laugh this time," Marigold said slowly.
Sandersonia nodded, golden eyes narrowing. "Or spit on her."
"They used to shove her in like garbage." Hancock's voice was flat, thoughtful. "Now they're scared she'll get up."
Raven lay where she'd landed, her face half-hidden beneath dark, sweat-slicked hair. Her lip was split again. Her arms were shackled behind her this time, chain anchored to the wall like they expected her to lash out.
But she was smiling again.
Faint. Crooked. A blood-smear blooming across her teeth.
"You got to them," Hancock murmured, stepping closer, her voice low with something bordering on respect. "Didn't you?"
Raven's good eye opened, locking with hers.
"They flinch now," she said softly. "That's step one."
"Step one to what?" Sandersonia asked.
"To reminding them…" Raven shifted slightly, testing the chain length with a subtle twist of her wrist. "…that cages only work when the beast forgets it has claws."
Hancock crouched beside her, studying the restraint bolts embedded in the wall.
"They'll double your punishment tomorrow," she said.
"I know."
"They might kill you."
Raven gave a dry, rasping chuckle.
"They've been trying. Just… not hard enough."
For the first time since her arrival, Hancock reached forward—not out of pity, but understanding—and adjusted Raven's hair away from her swollen eye.
"I've seen monsters in this place," she said. "But you're something else."
Raven's smirk sharpened, even as blood slipped from the corner of her mouth.
"I'm remembering who I am."
And for the first time since the sisters had been dragged here, they didn't feel alone anymore.
×~×~×~
The night was still.
The lamp in their cell had long since burned out, plunging the room into a cool, bluish gloom broken only by the distant flicker of torchlight outside the barred window.
I lay half-upright, chained against the wall, dried blood crusting along the edge of my jaw. My breathing was shallow but steady. I hadn't spoken since the guards left. Nor did I ask for help.
I never did.
Using what little training in observation haki I had back in Ohara, I watched with my eyes closed.
Hancock hadn't moved, or at least not far. She sat across from me, arms wrapped around her knees, watching with a sharpness that belied her stillness.
After what felt like hours, she finally rose.
There were no words.
She crossed the space between us barefoot, silent as moonlight on water.
My one good eye opened lazily as Hancock knelt in front of me.
"…Don't," I rasped, voice hoarse.
"I didn't ask," Hancock said quietly.
From beneath the thin fabric of her sleeve, she pulled a scrap of torn cloth, dampened from the condensation dripping along the wall. It wasn't much, but it was clean. Clean enough.
She reached for my face.
I flinched, barely, but didn't pull away.
Hancock dabbed gently at the blood beneath my eye. Then at the split on my lip. Then the dark smear on my throat.
The silence between us was different this time.
It wasn't distant. It wasn't cold. It was aware.
"You're not used to kindness," Hancock murmured.
My lips twitched faintly, painfully. "And you're not used to offering it outside your sisters."
Hancock paused. Then resumed, her movements precise and delicate.
"You're right."
She worked carefully, unwrapping another strip from her waist and tying it around my forearm, where the iron had rubbed my skin raw.
"I'm not doing this for you," Hancock said after a moment. "I'm doing this for us."
I blinked slowly.
"Noted."
I didn't thank her. Hancock didn't expect me to.
But when Hancock stood again, I said—softly, almost as if I didn't mean for it to be heard:
"…I won't forget this."
Hancock paused. Then gave a single nod before returning to her spot in the corner.