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Grand Line – Paradise
Alabasta – Port of Nanohana, inside the Merry
Then, not even a second after Luffy said that, the eye and the ear disappeared in an explosion of flower petals.
"Was someone spying on the conversation?", Dragon asks to confirm what was happening.
"Yeah, she's in the room next door", Sabo says after using his Observation.
"Who is she anyway?", Ace asks curiously, after all, there was an intruder on the ship, and okay, she didn't represent any threat, but still, everyone seemed to know her.
"Nico Robin, the only survivor of the Ohara incident, she's an archaeologist, and at the moment she's working with Crocodile!", Luffy explains briefly, waiting for Robin to enter the room they were in.
"Nico Robin!", Dragon murmurs to himself. He had finally found her.
And then, a whole minute passes with them waiting for her to enter the room. What happens is that Robin had gone out into the hallway right after being discovered, intending to flee, but the moment she takes a step in the opposite direction of the room they were in, her body hesitates, and she promptly returns to the room she had just left, staying there for the next minute.
"I don't think she wants to come into the room", Ace comments about the delay with an amused huff.
"Give her some time, she must be fighting her own curiosity", Luffy comments with a smile.
And then, the three, plus Dragon on the other side of the line, hear knocks coming from the front door.
"You may come in!", Luffy says, and a few seconds later, Robin enters the room, trying to look at ease. But the reality is that she was completely tense, so much so that in a matter of seconds, she had already scanned the entire room along with the people present.
"Looks like we meet again, Mr. Captain!", Robin comments in a playful tone, as if she had everything under control.
"Well, you kind of invaded my ship, again!", Luffy comments, raising an eyebrow.
"I thought it was all right since you invited me to the crew and all!", Robin defends herself with an innocent and fake smile.
"You accepted the invitation?", Luffy asks surprised, his face lighting up with happiness, thinking Robin had accepted to join the crew.
"Well, let's just say your proposal is still under evaluation!", Robin answers evasively. Luffy, upon hearing this, loses all the brightness on his face, becoming sad.
"So, are you a clone or were you just careless enough to enter the ship with your real body?", Sabo suddenly asks, remembering the last time.
"Why would I spoil the surprise? It's more fun not knowing and finding out at the moment!", yes, she had made that mistake, but they didn't know that, and it was better they kept not knowing, at least that way she had a false advantage for a while.
"Nico Robin!", Dragon's voice suddenly sounds through the room, catching everyone's attention.
"Hmm? That's me! And who would be the owner of this voice on the other side of the line?", Robin asks as she fixes her gaze on the Den Den Mushi placed in the middle of the table.
"I've been looking for you since the Ohara incident, my name is Monkey D. Dragon, close friend of Nico Olvia and acquaintance of a certain Professor Clover, I believe you know them!", Dragon says, catching both Luffy and Robin by surprise with that information.
"... How do you know these names?", knowing very well who this man on the other side of the line was, Robin asks after a few seconds of silence, slightly furrowing her brow, tense.
[Just to explain how Robin believed so quickly that the person she was talking to was really Dragon of the Revolutionary Army! It's actually very simple, Monkey D. Dragon, Monkey D. Luffy, just connect the dots, she deduced that they keep in contact]
"I started to take an interest in the history of our world when I realized that this kind of knowledge could give me a privileged vision of how my enemy thinks and acts!
In this search of mine for historical knowledge, I met your mother, we became friends, I helped her in some of her searches, she introduced me to a man named Clover, with whom I had some intellectual conversations during the following years! And then, when I learned about the Buster Call, I visited Ohara to pay my condolences to the victims, to bring some flowers!
You know, before this massacre, I was already opposing the World Government, I saw a lot of shit and was boiling with rage, but Ohara was the trigger for me, the moment when my rage turned into raw determination, so, after that visit I founded the Revolutionary Army in the same year, with people who had the same ideals as mine!
"And when I learned that the daughter whom Olvia spoke of with such longing had survived and been labeled as the 'Devil's Child', with a huge bounty on her head, I began my own personal search for you. I wanted to provide you shelter and safety, but I never found you", Dragon then explains how he knew those names, bringing up emotions that Robin didn't want to show anyone.
And despite Robin wanting to doubt what was said, she had the feeling that it was true; maybe it was just a feeling, but the fact is that this cracked the façade she had built during all those years.
"... Yeah, I... I learned to hide well!", shaken by what she had just heard, Robin responds with tears involuntarily sprouting from the corners of her eyes, threatening to run down her face, her façade momentarily failing. A whole life of suffering, moving forward even when she no longer wanted to live, and all this time there had been someone out there who supposedly cared about her but could never reach her; was this some irony of fate?
"You're an archaeologist? Just like your mother?", Dragon asks, his question making Robin vividly remember everything that happened that day.
"... Yes!", she answers weakly, giving her all to try to pull herself together. No matter how much they already knew and sympathized with her, or how trustworthy they seemed to be, she simply couldn't appear weak in front of them.
"Then I think you'll be happy to know that the knowledge of Ohara still lives, in Elbaph, the land of giants!", Dragon then drops a bomb in Robin's lap, who involuntarily widens her eyes, processing the information at lightning speed.
"Saul?", Robin asks involuntarily. It had to be him, right? After all, why would the knowledge of Ohara be in the land of giants if that wasn't his doing?
"That is the name of the giant I talked to during my visit. He mobilized his people to rescue tons of books, texts, and ancient documents from the lake in the center of the island!", Dragon confirms her thoughts, and without her noticing, a tear runs down from one of her eyes.
"... Hmm!", biting her lips, Robin just grunts, afraid that if she tried to say something, she would start crying like a broken hydrant in front of everyone. Who would've thought this would be the happiest day of her life in a long time? The only bad part is that she has to suppress her feelings, even though them being so uncontrollable at the moment.
This information, her feelings weren't so hard to control just from knowing that Saul is alive. No, knowledge submerged in the lake; she knew very well what that meant. Her mother, Professor Clover, everyone, they had sacrificed themselves to keep the knowledge alive, to pass on the untold history.
"Luffy said that you are working with the Shichibukai Crocodile!", Dragon comments to confirm what his son had said earlier.
"No longer, I basically betrayed him by not completing the mission he sent me on!", Robin responds, minimally pulling herself together, her emotions still bubbling behind her cracked façade.
"What was the mission?", Sabo asks curiously.
"To use the chaos of your crew's fight against the Marines to kill Princess Vivi! It was a suicide mission, so I decided that this partnership wasn't worth it anymore. I came here more with the intention of invading this ship in search of notes about the Poneglyph you said you had read in our last conversation than anything else", Robin answers, explaining what her mission was and why she betrayed Crocodile. Like it or not, the Shichibukai provided her protection; now, however, she was alone, and luckily for her, ahead were two groups that could keep her safe, at least for a while, so the act of showing sincerity might earn her an easier entry into either group.
"Ah, I didn't write anything down, it's all in my head! But I took some photos if they're of any use", Luffy says with a huge smile on his face, genuinely happy for Robin; he didn't know about Saul and everything else.
"Man, taking photos and writing down is practically the same thing!", Ace comments, rolling his eyes with a half-smile.
"If you want, we always need more good people in our ranks", Dragon says, extending an invitation for her to join the Revolutionary Army.
"Hey, Dad, don't even start with that shit of trying to recruit a future member of my crew!", upon hearing his father invite Robin to the Revolutionary Army, Luffy yells indignantly, jumping out of his chair as he does so.
"Hmm, is the invitation still standing, Cap?", after pondering for a few seconds, Robin turns to Luffy and asks with a subtle and almost imperceptible smile, discreetly wiping the dried tears from the corners of her eyes. It was the first time in a long while that she felt her body truly relax, even if just a little.
"Well, it looks like you've made your decision!", Dragon comments with a slight smile.
"Robin, don't listen to this grumpy old man, the Revolutionary Army is boring as hell! Joining my crew and being my adventure companion is much more fun. We will cross the Grand Line and beyond, find the One Piece, and much more. Just imagine how fun and exciting that will be!... Wait, seriously? You want to join my crew?", not processing what Robin had just said, nor even listening to what his father said, Luffy turns to her and starts pitching, determined to convince her that joining his crew is the right choice. Then, upon finishing his sales pitch, after a few seconds of silence, his brain processes what she said, and immediately a huge smile spreads across his face.
"Sounds fun!", Dragon's offer was tempting, but she had a dream, and joining Luffy aligned more with that dream than joining the Revolutionary Army.
"Cool, let's tell the crew!", Luffy celebrates with a gigantic smile on his face before trying to drag Robin out to tell the rest of the crew about her joining.
"Before that, can you tell me what was written on the Poneglyph you read?", Robin stops him midway and asks, wanting to know what was written on the Poneglyph he had mentioned in Whisky Peak.
"Okay, all right! Three years ago, I heard a call, which asked me to go find it so we could then go on adventures together! And since I'm not one to refuse an adventure, I set sail and went to meet the voice I was hearing. I ended up making a friend along the way, and we ended up on a really big island, almost totally covered by a dense tropical forest. So after guiding ourselves based on the call I was hearing, Reiju and I found the ruins of a temple.
Inside, we solved a puzzle using a children's poem written in the language of the Poneglyphs, and then we opened a secret passage where we found an Akuma no Mi, and that's it! I mean, there's more, but that's a conversation for the future!", agreeing, Luffy then sits back down and explains how it all happened, without going into too much detail because he was in a hurry and anxious to announce to the crew that Robin had accepted the invitation and was now part of the crew.
"You said you took photos, can I see them?", noticing Luffy's restlessness, Robin asks, deducing that this way it would be faster and simpler to get the things she wanted.
"Sure, I just need to grab them from my stuff!", Luffy says before getting up and running out of the room, going to fetch the photos he had taken back then.
A minute later, Luffy comes running back, stopping in front of Robin with his right hand extended, and between his fingers were some photos.
Robin then takes them and starts looking at them one by one with a look of pure interest, which she couldn't hide.
And upon reaching the last photo, the only one that contained writings in the language of the Poneglyphs, Robin begins to read aloud, having a bit of difficulty understanding what was written due to the photo's size, "Interesting, especialy this poem 'Nika and... his magic boat, explored... the seas in search of adventures, Nika and his magic boat, once... bored, decided to explore... the sky, Nika and his magic boat, mocking... the phrase... 'the sky is the limit', decided... to explore the... stars, Nika and his magic boat', do you know who this figure mentioned is?"
[Luffy forgot to take photos of the walls in the chamber where the special Devil Fruit was]
"Nika is a mythological being, basically the Sun God, also known as the Warrior of Liberation. He is described as someone who, wherever he went, brought chaos with him, freed the oppressed and put smiles on their faces with his antics, drum beats, and silly dance!", Luffy explains what he knows.
"And I believe the World Government doesn't like this myth very much, right?", nodding slightly, Robin then asks, correctly deducing.
"That's right", Luffy answers, confirming her thought.
"You mentioned that you also found a Akuma no Mi in that temple, right?", jumping to another point that caught her attention, Robin asks curiously, after all, it was a Devil Fruit guarded in a secret room that needed to be opened by a puzzle, all this in the ruins of a temple with inscriptions in the same language used in the Poneglyphs.
"Shishishishishi! It's a very special Akuma no Mi, it shouldn't take long before I can show it to the whole crew, it's going to be fun!", Luffy says evasively, not wanting to spoil the surprise, expectant for the relatively near moment, since he had already run into Merry's Klabautermann a few days ago.
"Well, thank you for showing me these photos!", Robin then changes the subject, not trying to squeeze out more information, choosing not to push her luck.
"Shishishishi! It's nothing! Now let's go tell the crew that you accepted the invitation! By the way, are you guys coming?", Luffy says with a smile before turning to his brothers and asking.
"I will, it seems like this conversation lasted forever, I need some fresh air!", Ace says, getting up and leaving the room in front of everyone. They had stayed inside for a relatively short time, but it felt like it lasted forever.
"Go on ahead, I still need to talk to Dragon!", Sabo says before turning his attention back to the Den Den Mushi in front of him.
"All right!", Luffy says with a smile before leaving the room, dragging Robin with him.
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