Soon the two of them were casually rummaging through the aforementioned ship's insides, with the burning camp in the background and the ground generously littered with the bodies of agents unlucky enough to have been left on guard duty. On the other hand, which Baroque Works agents were lucky at all? Perhaps only those who had not participated in the events on Little Garden. Naturally, from the organization's own point of view, the situation looked exactly opposite. Every hunter currently present on the prehistoric island considered themselves extraordinarily fortunate. Why would they think otherwise? As far as they were concerned, money was practically walking into their hands on its own! And the improvised circus staged through the combined efforts of Johnny, Yosaku, Sanji, and Usopp only strengthened their confidence in their own luck. Yosaku was dead, Sanji was drinking tea with the enemy, Johnny looked like a helpless idiot, and Usopp was running so fast the ground nearly caught fire beneath him. And what an expression he had while running! Bulging eyes trailing an entire stream of tears through the air behind them, snot pouring from his nose, saliva flying from his wide-open mouth twisted in terror. None of this did much to communicate the seriousness of their situation to the Baroque Works agents.
And again, why should the people chasing Usopp be worried? There were several thousand of them, while their opponent was only one boy scared shitless who did not look even remotely strong to the most unbiased eye in the world. On top of that, he was running directly into the ambush prepared for him. The moment Mr. Three's message arrived, half the ships assigned to the ambush hurried to land their crews on shore and close the pincers around the fleeing Usopp, while the remaining half secretly surrounded the Going Merry. Still, no order to attack followed. No one intended to expose themselves to unnecessary risk. Or rather, without Mr. Three's explicit order, the ambush teams might not have restrained themselves. Everyone wanted a chance to distinguish themselves, and Roronoa Zoro's head 'looked' like the most desirable prize of all. Not one agent doubted that if they managed to claim his head, a promotion within the organization would soon follow. The newspapers had genuinely done an excellent job tarnishing Zoro's previously 'flawless' reputation. By now even the smallest fry had stopped fearing him, never mind bigger 'fish'.
Robin watched all of these events closely with her eyes closed and her arms crossed in front of her. She saw Sanji's reaction, saw Yosaku's death, saw Usopp begin darting hysterically from side to side when he realized enemies had surrounded him from every direction. The woman also saw the ambush formed by the ships, and most notably, she saw Luffy and Nami. Her heart pounding wildly in her chest, Robin watched the complete destruction of Baroque Works' camp from beginning to end. In the frightened woman's eyes, the smiling Luffy looked like some mythical Angel of Death. He had not lifted a finger, yet everyone around him simply went mad, chaos erupted everywhere, and blood poured without end.
"Robin? So what's happening?"
Vivi's worried voice pulled the black-haired woman out of her peculiar trance. Lowering her arms and opening her eyes, Robin looked at the two girls standing beside her, then involuntarily shifted her gaze toward the sleeping Zoro. If there was anyone in the Straw Hat family whom she feared no less than Luffy himself, it was unquestionably the green-haired swordsman.
"Robin?" Vivi called again.
"...Captain-san destroyed Baroque Works' camp," Robin finally said, turning back toward the girls beside her. "Now he and... now they're looting the ships." Before Nami's name or nickname could leave her lips, Robin hurriedly changed the sentence, as though any mention of the red-haired navigator had become some kind of taboo. "Cook-san is drinking tea with Miss Goldenweek, Long-Nose was caught in an ambush, Corpse-san died again, and Flamethrower-san is so angry right now that he probably won't calm down until he's burned the entire island to ashes. And apparently none of us will have to defend Lamb-san. Half the ships assigned to ambush Lamb-san went hunting Long-Nose, and the remaining ships probably won't attack us until the other Straw Hats have been dealt with."
When Robin finished her unusual report, Tashigi and Vivi involuntarily exchanged glances. The black-haired woman had what seemed to them an utterly strange habit of calling everyone by various nicknames rather than their names. Nicknames she invented herself, at that. Except Nami. Robin never said Nami's name or any nickname for her. It was entirely possible the red-haired little devil did not have a nickname at all. Or perhaps it was far too indecent to say aloud. At any rate, 'Flamethrower-san' strongly favored the second explanation.
"...Robin-san, you haven't... you haven't decided to do something foolish, have you?" Vivi asked cautiously.
Robin really did look far too tense, but instead of answering, the woman's gaze passed over the sleeping Zoro, the shore, the jungle, and finally traveled into the distance toward where the ambush ships were hiding.
"Think carefully one more time," Tashigi said after the princess. "Vivi-sama is absolutely right. There's no need to do anything foolish. Just do what you've been ordered to do, and everything will be fine."
Most remarkably, neither girl realized just how absurd a situation they had ended up in. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that by focusing on a couple of individual pieces of the mosaic, they had completely lost sight of the larger picture. At first glance, it might appear that two girls were trying to talk a third out of a reckless decision, but in reality? The princess of a country being torn apart by civil war was worried about a woman who had directly participated in inflaming that conflict among her people, while a Marine officer was openly telling both of them that the best solution for all three would be to obey the orders of a pirate captain. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. It was amazing that the girls themselves did not understand what was happening to them. Vivi and Tashigi certainly did not. The same could not be said of Robin herself.
Otherwise, why would she suddenly decide on such an idiotic action?
"Where are you going?!" Tashigi rushed to the rail.
Robin did not possess enough physical strength to jump to shore by herself, but she had a rather interesting Devil Fruit whose power she had used for many years.
"Cien Fleur: Wings!"
Under Vivi and Tashigi's astonished gazes, Robin grew genuine wings from her back, made from her interwoven arms. Jumping from the Going Merry's side toward shore, she sharply beat her improvised wings once, then again, and landed safely on the island's grassy shore. Casting one glance toward the stunned pair left aboard the ship, Robin turned away and sprinted off, vanishing almost instantly into the dense jungle.
Tashigi simply could not find appropriate words.
"She!... She!... She!..."
Vivi had no such problem.
"What an idiot!"
As though unable to bear watching any more of what was happening, the princess covered her eyes with one palm and shook her head in despair. Tashigi completely shared her feelings!
"What was she thinking?!" The Marine's temporarily lost power of speech began returning rapidly along with genuine outrage. "Doesn't she understand her situation at all?! She never seemed this stupid before!"
"...Maybe Nami-onee-sama is the reason?" Vivi suggested somewhat awkwardly, moving the hand covering her eyes down to her mouth.
If there was anyone aboard the Going Merry who suffered—or perhaps 'suffered'?—from the red-haired navigator's attention almost as much as poor Robin, it was Vivi. In her case everything remained more or less respectable, but the mere fact that Nami had forced the princess of an entire country to address her as nothing less than 'most respected elder sister', meaning 'onee-sama', already said quite a lot.
"Even if you're right, that doesn't make what she did any less stupid!" Tashigi showed no sign of calming down.
"But in that case, you can at least understand her a little," Vivi said quietly, lowering her head shyly and beginning to poke her index fingers together. "If I were in her position, it's entirely possible I would have had to do exactly the same thing. As heir to the throne, I have certain obligations to the people of my country. And one of those obligations cannot be fulfilled with Nami-onee-sama participating. Maybe that's why Robin-san decided on something as foolish as running away?" Vivi finished in an almost inaudible voice, somehow managing to blush all the way to the tips of her ears.
It was impossible to tell whether she had simply chosen her words poorly and therefore failed to realize how suggestive they sounded—as in, if she were not a princess, then everything would be fine?—or whether she truly meant exactly what it sounded like she meant. On the other hand, Nami was Nami, so Vivi could be understood either way. After those revelations, Tashigi became no less red—her thoughts had immediately followed the second interpretation—and an extremely awkward, prolonged silence settled between the girls.
At that same time, a certain third person became an unwilling listener to their entire conversation.
Letting out a barely audible sigh, Zoro closed his sleepy eyes again. He had absolutely no intention of getting involved in Nami and Luffy's affairs! He understood perfectly how closely those two had 'clicked' by now, so he felt no desire whatsoever to show initiative. After all, every intelligent person knew exactly what initiative liked to do to the person who showed it, and contrary to all his captain's loud declarations, the swordsman had never considered himself stupid. Besides, just as Tashigi and Vivi had assumed, Robin's foolishness had not gone unnoticed.
"Congratulations, Nami. You finally drove our poor Robin over the edge," Luffy said carelessly, looking through an exquisitely crafted, gold-plated spyglass at the woman standing some distance away. "What do you have to say in your defense?" he demanded in the stern voice of an investigator.
Nami did not even consider looking guilty. Bent over a table, she happily examined the charts they had found earlier. If there was anything material in this world that the red-haired little devil valued more highly than money and gold, it was navigational charts.
"First clarify exactly what you mean," the girl answered just as carelessly as Luffy without bothering to look at him. "Though I should warn you right away that I'm not going to make excuses even if I am guilty."
"That categorical?"
"Yes! I'm too good for excuses!"
"Then I should inform you that despite our agreement, Robin did run away from the Going Merry after all, and there's no doubt whatsoever that you're to blame. After everything you did to her, I suppose it would have been more surprising if she'd done anything else."
Now Luffy finally succeeded in capturing the red-haired beauty's complete attention.
"Fufufufu!" familiar laughter rang out in an unfamiliar voice. Or was it already time to say 'a slightly less unfamiliar voice'? "So you're saying my Robin ran away? Fufufufu!"
"She's running toward the ambush ships," the young man answered, finally lowering the spyglass. "Looks like she wants to use one of them to escape the island. If not for how stupid the whole idea is, I'd say our girl is growing up very clever."
"Don't belittle my Robin's intelligence," Nami lightly scolded him. "I won't deny that she's unbelievably clumsy at expressing her emotions, a huge coward who's afraid of her own shadow, and completely useless in real life, but you definitely can't call her stupid."
"Fine, I agree. Our little Robin is clever. But if she tried to escape while fully understanding how stupid the attempt was, that only makes your guilt even stronger. How could you drive the poor girl into a state like that? Do you have a conscience?"
"No! And you're the last person in the world I want to hear that question from! Anyway, I shouldn't be accused, I should be praised! If my Robin ran away, that means I won! She's finished!"
"Explain."
As surprising as it might seem, Luffy genuinely did not understand. Nami had thrown herself into the 'Robin project' with such explosive enthusiasm that the young man had surrendered the leading role to her without a shred of shame and happily moved himself into the second row beside all the other family members. As a result, right now he truly did not fully understand his 'partner in crime'.
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