"Just look what you've done!" Nami scolded the guy while hugging the black-haired woman sitting beside her, who looked ready to crawl all the way beneath the table. "You can't discuss such personal things out loud!"
She said it like a reprimand, but had the girl genuinely wanted to protect Robin's feelings, she would have killed the entire conversation at the very beginning rather than waiting patiently for it to reach the end. In other words, Nami had simply used the opportunity to cuddle her defenseless victim yet again. Or 'victim'?
As already mentioned, Robin had absolutely no experience with such close contact with other people. And although the situation had improved noticeably over the last several weeks—exclusively thanks to Nami's own persistence, it should be noted—the black-haired woman still reacted hilariously to any physical display of affection. And those reactions only encouraged the red-haired harasser further. Given free rein, Nami would have kept Robin in her arms twenty-four hours a day.
"What the hell is so personal about that?" Johnny objected unhappily. "Big deal, I asked whether she'd had a man or not. And by the way, since she still hasn't answered me herself, that means I haven't used my winner's privilege yet, right?" he clarified.
It was a good attempt. Unfortunately, it failed.
"Like hell!"
"Next time, think with your head before asking questions with obvious answers!"
"Screw you!"
"You don't get any privilege!"
"Forget it."
In the end, an offended Johnny had no choice but to gather all the cards scattered across the table and begin shuffling the deck for another game. Right now, here at the bow of the ship, the entire family and Robin were gathered around a makeshift table on low folding chairs. Only Vivi and Tashigi were missing, busy training together at the stern.
It had all begun early that morning, when everyone woke to discover with surprise that the sea around them was completely calm. No wind. No waves. No current. Not even a ripple on the water. Everyone had the strange feeling that the Going Merry had sailed directly into the Calm Belt.
Traveling without wind was inconvenient, and nobody was in any particular hurry anyway—nothing new there; that was always the case with the Straw Hats—so after a large and prolonged breakfast, the entire family gathered together and began playing cards for 'something'. With the exception of Luffy.
The guy never lost and never played honestly. If there was even the slightest possibility of cheating, he cheated without hesitation, and he knew an endless number of methods. Luffy cheated even when he could have won honestly.
What was the point of playing with someone like that? By unanimous decision, Luffy had been 'kicked' out of the game before the first round even began. Johnny had won the most recent game. While thinking about how to use his prize, his eyes had involuntarily settled on Robin. And on Nami shamelessly hanging all over her. That was the exact moment when his 'extremely important' question had occurred to him.
"Zoro, congratulations on another article about how another group of another experts has once again proved that you're once again another well-advertised loser," Luffy said while Johnny shuffled the cards and everyone else enjoyed Sanji's desserts.
"Too many uses of 'another'," the swordsman replied calmly.
"How are they not tired of it yet?" Usopp asked.
"More importantly, what's the point of continuing to publish articles like that?" Nami asked a much more sensible question, reluctantly releasing the embarrassed Robin from her embrace. "As far as I can tell, they've already achieved everything they wanted."
"At least now all those idiotic articles aren't printed on the front page like before. They're somewhere in the middle or toward the end," Yosaku said, clearly trying to find at least something positive in the situation.
Everyone gathered there involuntarily looked toward Zoro.
"Those idiots can write whatever nonsense they want," the swordsman said with the same calm. "I don't care about their fake articles. Their lies can't make me weaker, and nothing else matters."
"That's the right attitude!" Luffy nodded approvingly. "What difference does it make what they write about you? Just take this article, for example!" The guy shook the newspaper in his hands. "Unlike the journalists and their invited experts, everyone here knows for certain that pirates were afraid of you because of your monstrous strength and ruthlessness, not because you're a passionate lover of pretty boys and a complete pervert who mercilessly raped every pirate you caught. Seriously, how did they even come up with something like that? And then print it in the biggest newspaper in the world! What imaginations."
"WHAT?!!"
Before anyone could even process what had happened, Luffy's newspaper was in the furious swordsman's hands and Zoro was standing over the guy lying on the lounger. Every other member of the family immediately focused on Zoro, whose wild gaze now raced across the newspaper pages in search of confirmation of Luffy's claim. Everyone froze in place as well, involuntarily holding their breath. Who could blame them?
An enraged Zoro was a terrifying sight. And there was no point even trying to describe the aura coming from him at that moment. It felt as though the air itself had taken on a rich metallic taste. The taste of blood. Robin's reaction, however, was the most remarkable. Startled, the woman instinctively grabbed the arm of Nami sitting beside her and even leaned slightly toward the redhead in an obvious search for protection.
The funniest part was that Robin's reaction surprised not only Nami, but Robin herself. Realizing what she had just done, Robin instantly released Nami's arm and moved away, but as the saying went, 'you can't gather spilled milk back off the floor'. One glance at the face of the girl beside her was enough to send goosebumps the size of hippos racing down Robin's spine. Despite all her so-called 'harassment', Nami had never allowed herself to cross certain boundaries. But now? After a reaction like that? It was like a traffic light turning green.
"Fufufufu!"
That was what happened when you spent too much time with Luffy. Nami had even started laughing like him. After restoring a more or less respectable expression to her face, the girl looked triumphantly toward Luffy to see his reaction to Robin's actions. It had never even occurred to her that the guy might miss such an important moment.
Which made her surprise even stronger when she looked at Luffy and realized that he really had somehow failed to notice such an obvious indicator of Robin's genuine feelings. At that moment, the guy's attention was fixed entirely on Zoro standing beside him. Luffy clenched his jaw hard, desperately trying not to burst out laughing. Some battles, however, were simply not meant to be won. At best, one could postpone the inevitable.
"Pfft! Heh-heh!"
The instant Zoro heard the chuckle finally escape Luffy's lips, he practically turned to stone. Then, irritably crumpling the newspaper into a ball, he smacked the guy across the face with it.
"Asshole!"
The swordsman's insult and the blow from the crumpled newspaper served as Luffy's signal that he no longer needed to restrain himself.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA!"
Only then did every other member of the family finally realize that everything Luffy had said about the article had been one of his usual jokes. Nobody could believe they had fallen for something so stupid. They should all have suspected something was wrong the moment he mentioned Zoro's monstrous strength and ruthlessness. For the green-haired swordsman, words like that were outright praise, and Luffy had always been a complete miser when it came to praising anyone. They should have guessed immediately.
On the other hand, once the family finished 'digesting' their surprise at their own stupidity, they could not help appreciating both their captain's joke and Zoro's reaction to it. Muffled laughter immediately joined Luffy's booming howl. Everyone tried not to look at the grim Zoro and not to laugh too loudly, but they might as well have roared openly. How could it be otherwise?
For the last couple of weeks, the swordsman had done nothing but insist that the countless 'exposé' articles about him did not bother him in the slightest. One single joke from Luffy had instantly put everything in its proper place. Zoro did not mind being considered a bloodthirsty cannibalistic butcher who devoured captured pirates alive and snacked on disobedient children. But despite all his claims, the guy clearly did mind having the reputation of a 'crazy' clown. And Luffy had exposed him with effortless ease.
"Will you all shut the hell up already?!" a visibly red-faced Zoro roared when time passed and the laughter still did not stop. "And you, stop mangling the deck and deal the cards!" he snapped at Johnny, who really had continued shuffling despite choking on laughter.
But the new game was never destined to begin.
"We... we're done training."
While everyone had been laughing, Tashigi approached the table. Despite her words, the woman did not look tired, flushed, or sweaty at all. The same absolutely could not be said of Vivi.
Unlike the Marine, the exhausted princess—soaked through with sweat—was sprawled directly on the deck where they had been training at the stern of the ship. Beside her, acting like an enormous mother hen, Karoo fussed and clucked anxiously.
At least, unlike during the first days, the huge yellow robotic duck no longer tried to run circles around his exhausted mistress. Whenever Karoo did that, the entire ship began rocking violently.
"Two hours? Not bad!" Nami smiled with satisfaction after checking the small women's wristwatch on her arm. "Vivi-chan is getting stronger and stronger!"
The princess's training had once begun as ordinary rehabilitation and a way to identify possible side effects after her operation. It had long since ceased to have anything to do with those original reasons. It was difficult to say exactly what guided Luffy—or what plans he had developed for Vivi—but the blue-haired girl had ended up under Zoro's supervision.
The swordsman did not raise the bar for her to absurd heights the way he constantly did with Tashigi, but Vivi had more than enough trouble keeping up anyway. Unlike the Marine, she lacked such a solid foundation. On the other hand, Vivi possessed a Devil Fruit power, and it had long been known that any Devil Fruit noticeably affected the development of its user's physical abilities.
Zoan fruits were unquestionably in a league of their own in that regard, but Paramecia and Logia still allowed their users to develop significantly faster than ordinary people. Vivi had once again provided proof of that fact.
"Then we'll start your training," Zoro replied, rising from the table. He answered far too quickly. And rather than simply rising, he practically jumped to his feet.
It looked suspiciously like an undisguised escape. Judging by the scarlet color of the guy's ears, he understood that perfectly well, along with the fact that he was fooling nobody. Nobody except Tashigi, frozen beside him and unable to take her eyes off his face. At that moment, the girl probably would not have noticed anything less dramatic than a meteorite falling nearby or an entire Marine armada attacking them. A pirate armada she might have missed.
Her condition had not merely persisted for several weeks; it was becoming worse with every passing day. Everyone silently watched Zoro leave with Tashigi obediently following him. Robin was no exception.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...No words," Usopp finally said, shaking his head.