People who have gone through a great many unpleasant things in their lives are commonly said to have 'taken quite a beating from life.' And such people truly do deserve sympathy. Yet far more sympathy is owed to those who, from the outside, seem to have angered Life merely by existing. Sometimes merely by having the possibility of existing. It manifested in various incurable illnesses that condemned a newborn life to a very swift—or simply swift—death. Such people had not even taken a single step along their path through life before finding themselves in the middle of an empty desert with their tendons cut. Healthy parents, healthy grandparents, an uncomplicated pregnancy, proper nutrition, no excessive strain—and yet the child was born terminally ill. Whatever explanations the doctor later gave the grief-stricken parents, however well founded those explanations might have been, none of it made any sense. Where, one might ask, was the so-called Higher Justice in that? What had a child who had barely been born done wrong? It was at moments like those that people began to remember Life, Death, Karma, Fate, God, and the Devil. Anything to find at least some justification for what was happening. Otherwise, everything ceased to have any meaning at all. And if one allowed for the existence of even some of the Powers listed above, things truly did become somewhat clearer—and at the same time far more confusing.
The thing was, sometimes Life missed its mark—or perhaps the other Powers interfered with its plans; who could say?—and the person it hated was born without any fatal 'buts.' Naturally, a Great Power of that magnitude could hardly be stopped by such a 'trifle,' and so other methods came into play. Family, loved ones, strangers, animals, insects, plants—everything was under Life's control, and thus it possessed a vast number of ways to eliminate a person it found objectionable. It began hammering at them, tormenting them, tearing them apart, grinding them down, destroying them, and continued until the inevitable conclusion arrived. The difference was that, when operating in the open world, so to speak—a world in which other Great Powers were also present—it had to act far more subtly than in the first scenario. It had to accommodate the plans and rules of the other Powers. Sometimes the reprisal took mere hours, days, or weeks, while at other times it stretched over months and years. In exceptional cases, a person somehow managed to live to the age of twenty, after which, usually at their funeral or shortly afterward, one could hear that previously mentioned phrase about how they had 'taken quite a beating from life.' Almost no one was capable of escaping Life's wrath. Not on their own. The real 'heat' began when a person became not only the victim of Life's anger but also the focus of the close attention of the other Great Powers. That was when a truly magnificent mess began. At any rate, only such a theory of how the world worked could explain, even remotely, everything that had happened to Nico Robin over the twenty-eight years of her life.
From the moment of her birth, Nico Robin had been one of the luckiest people on the planet—who was constantly, almost catastrophically, unlucky! Quite the paradox, was it not? The girl had been born on Ohara, a small island in West Blue. Ohara was famous throughout the world for two things: its scholars, and a gigantic five-thousand-year-old library tree known as the Tree of Knowledge. The enormous tree, whose crown seemed to prop up the heavens themselves, served both as one of the largest and most complete libraries in the world and as a home to dozens of renowned scholars and archaeologists. Robin's mother, Olvia, had been one of those archaeologists. By the age of eight, the little girl possessed only vague memories of her. Olvia had sailed away on a research expedition before Robin was even three. Robin had never known her father, Ogu, at all, nor had she known what became of him, and so she spent all the following years, until her eighth birthday, in the home of her maternal uncle. It would have been strange to expect someone who had incurred Life's wrath to enjoy a happy and carefree childhood. Robin's childhood was many things, but happy and carefree were not among them.
Without a father, without a mother, and living in someone else's home, Robin stayed with her uncle as a 'poor relation' and could easily have served as the model for a little Cinderella. Except that Cinderella had at least been loved by her father, while no one in Robin's family loved her at all. The power of the Devil Fruit she had obtained by accident, the Hana Hana no Mi (Flower-Flower Fruit), contributed greatly to that. The fruit granted the girl the ability to sprout parts of her body from any surface. Somewhere on the Grand Line, no one would have paid it any mind, but to the inhabitants of a small island Robin instantly became a freak, a monster. Children bullied her, other parents disliked her, and her uncle's family never missed an opportunity to remind the girl that she was not welcome there. The only ray of light in Robin's childhood came from the archaeologists and scholars of the Tree of Knowledge. Her mother Olvia's colleagues adored the girl, and they became her family in all but name. They celebrated her birthdays, gave her presents, and taught her archaeology. Robin grew into an intelligent, diligent, and hardworking little girl. Driven by a hidden desire to please the only adults who treated her kindly, she successfully passed her examination and managed to become an archaeologist at the age of eight. On that day, they celebrated her birthday, she became an archaeologist, and then she even befriended a genuine giant named Saul—the first and only friend she had ever had in her life. Such happiness could not possibly be allowed to go unpunished, and so the 'divine slipper from the heavens' did not take long to fall.
For now, there was little point in going into the details of 'why,' 'how,' and 'for what purpose.' What mattered most was that, only a few days after meeting Saul, a sobbing Robin—the sole survivor—sat in a small wooden boat. It was night. Behind the girl, her home island burned, along with the fallen Tree of Knowledge and countless corpses, including the archaeologists and scholars who had replaced her family, and her own mother, who had returned on the day of the tragedy. The giant Saul had not escaped a grim fate either, and the circumstances of his death had nearly shattered the girl's mind for good. At the time, Robin had only just turned eight, and by all rights she should have died along with everyone else—but she did not. Life's perfect plan had been thoroughly spoiled by Fate's intervention, and so the heavy full stop in Robin's Book of Life became its first comma. And that was how it continued. With the obsession of a psychopathic maniac, Life diligently crushed and destroyed everything around Robin in endless attempts to rid the world of her presence. Attempts that failed. Fate had plans of its own for the girl, and so the heavy full stops continued turning into commas.
After the events on Ohara, the Government dubbed Robin the 'Devil Child' and placed a bounty of seventy-nine million berries on her head. It could be said with certainty that none of the Five Elders suspected just how accurate the nickname they had given the girl would prove to be. Whatever Robin touched, whoever or whatever she encountered, everything around her soon began collapsing and dying. Entire organizations fell apart, pirate armadas sank ingloriously into the depths, and dozens, hundreds, and thousands of people died along the way. They died, and died, and died, and died. Everyone who crossed paths with Robin met only death. Everything collapsed, and everyone died. Except Robin herself. As though she were cursed. As though she truly were the Devil Child. Robin became the embodiment of the luckiest miserable person in the world. She constantly survived where everyone else died. No matter what organization or crew she joined, in the end she was always the only survivor.
And so the years passed. The little girl became a teenager, then a young woman, and finally a beautiful adult woman. Along the way, the full stops in her Book of Life became more numerous and heavier, making it harder and harder to alter them into commas. The latest full stop promised to become a great blot of ink, with no chance of correction. Twenty-eight years of uninterrupted struggle were drawing to a close, threatening to end in Life's complete and indisputable victory. Death, initially indifferent to everything, was already preparing to perform its usual work, while Karma tried to decide what to do with all the positive points Robin had accumulated over the course of her life. And it was at that exact moment that Fate decided to go all in. Since there was nothing left to lose, why not seek outside help? Help from a man who had long ago fed his own Book of Life into a furnace, after first filling it with obscenities and drawing lewd pictures all over its pages. A man who walked through the world with his soft sandals somehow thudding impossibly loudly against the earth, breaking and rebuilding any plans he disliked to suit himself—including Fate's own plans. A man who exercised the Right of Choice granted to him from above as fully and shamelessly as possible. Fate decided to bring the cursed child, Nico Robin, whose life was about to end at Crocodile's hands, into collision with the human disaster known as Monkey D. Luffy. And see what happened.
Something like that.
Naturally, the world had never discovered any irrefutable evidence that absolutely confirmed the existence of Higher Powers or Books of Life. And of course, even if they were all real, no one could say for certain how any of it actually worked. Nevertheless, in light of all past and future events, it made for a coherent hypothesis. The details were undoubtedly different, and the identity of the 'Main Villain' remained unclear—what if it was Fate rather than Life?—but otherwise, who could guarantee that such a thing was impossible? No one. Such guarantees would require equally irrefutable proof that the Higher Powers did not exist. Everything was relative. And far too implausible for most people, who had never personally experienced every cruel twist of fate. Not to mention that the overwhelming majority of people were incapable of recognizing the relevant signs even after everything was over. Those who could recognize them usually ended up clutching their heads afterward, wondering how it was possible, and why they had not understood from the start. Fewer still could recognize the signs while events were unfolding and manage to adjust the final result. And finally, only a handful possessed enough insight to foresee, if not everything, then at least a significant part of future events. Such people usually ended their lives either in a ditch or at the very top of the world.
Nico Robin had never had reason to complain about a lack of intelligence, and after all the hardships she had endured, she had no shortage of insight either. She understood the world far better than most people, but because the doom that followed relentlessly at her heels—well-fed, with beautiful white fur, an excellent nose for tracking its prey, and inexhaustible endurance—the signs in Robin's life were either entirely absent or sent false signals intended to lure the girl into yet another trap. And so she had sailed to Whisky Peak not out of necessity, not on orders, not for the sake of any plan or lofty ideal, but rather to convince herself once again of the cruelty and injustice of this world.
After all the losses, betrayals, and murders she had endured, Robin developed an attraction to something that could reasonably be called 'psychological masochism,' with a considerable measure of 'psychological sadism' mixed in. The girl felt a dark satisfaction whenever she encountered yet more proof of the world's cruelty and injustice. That was how her 'psychological masochism' manifested itself. Sometimes she arranged such situations herself, which already qualified quite well as 'psychological sadism.' What Robin hated most about herself, however, was that every time she encountered such circumstances, somewhere deep inside she still continued to hope for a miracle. She blamed Saul for everything. Had it not been for his final words, she would long ago have managed to rid herself of that foolish, meaningless sprout of hope, capable of doing nothing but hurting her. Thus, if there was any reason Robin had come to Whisky Peak, it was solely for another dose of 'psychological masochism.'
Nefertari Vivi, a young princess who longed with all her heart to save her kingdom and prevent bloodshed among her subjects—Robin found it difficult to comprehend that anyone in this world could be quite so naive! Contrary to the orders of her current boss, Crocodile, she had allowed the princess and the captain guarding her to discover who stood behind all of Alabasta's troubles. Not for profit, and not from any desire to help, but out of ordinary curiosity—to observe their reaction and what they would do afterward. Something like a clinical trial conducted on a pair of laboratory mice. 'Psychological sadism' in action, indeed. Truth and opportunity served as the 'vaccine,' while Robin used Crocodile and Baroque Works as the 'virus.' The girl had not concealed from her boss that she had 'slipped up,' so he immediately activated the 'elimination mechanism' against those who had become inconvenient to him. And not because he feared being exposed.
A brief digression was required here.
Mr. Zero, otherwise known as Sir Crocodile, was infinitely far from the portrait the Hats had painted of him in their minds after the events at Whisky Peak. Truly, Crocodile had lived through Roger's era, survived the waters of the New World, earned the Government's recognition through his own strength and intelligence, become one of the seven active Warlords of the Sea, and nearly taken possession of an entire country. Could a man like that possibly be an idiot? Much less an idiot incapable of noticing a pair of such conspicuously 'fat rats' inside his own organization? Of course not. The moment a report landed on Crocodile's desk stating that none of his agents had seen the heir to the throne or the captain of the royal guard inside the palace for an extended period, he immediately began looking for them. The search did not take long. Crocodile had no difficulty finding a pair of naive fools capable of thinking only in standard patterns. Once he located them among the members of his organization, the man took no action against them and chose to wait.
The princess and the captain did not trouble Crocodile in the slightest while they quietly sat on the far edge of the Grand Line and diligently earned him money to destroy their own country. In their attempt to learn Mr. Zero's true identity—that is, Crocodile's identity—they worked ten times harder than everyone else. How did one get close to the person at the head of an organization? By climbing the career ladder, of course! It was, admittedly, a perfectly reasonable approach. As always, the problem lay with the people carrying it out—they might as well have brought the king himself along on their 'secret' infiltration. Nevertheless, Crocodile could hardly fail to encourage such zeal, and the final result did not disappoint him. Besides, the man found the irony far too amusing—instead of saving their beloved country, they worked tirelessly to bring the day of its destruction closer with their own hands!—and so he was in no hurry to dispose of the two naive fools. Even their newfound knowledge did not particularly concern him. They lacked the power to interfere with his plans. At the present stage, even an opponent equal to Crocodile could not have ruined his game, while a little princess and an aging captain had barely risen above the level of pathetic gnats he could crush with one hand. Literally.
Crocodile would not have touched them at all, but once they acquired the information they wanted, it would have been foolish to hope they would continue earning money for him. The man had no desire to waste time hunting them on the road to Alabasta or within the country itself, so after receiving a message from his right hand—Miss All Sunday, also known as Nico Robin—he immediately assigned the matter to Mr. Five's pair. Crocodile had good reason to believe that those two would be more than sufficient to eliminate the problem even if unexpected complications arose. And they would have been. But plans were plans, precautions were precautions, and Crocodile could not see the future. While he feared Government interference—unlike Cobra, the king of Alabasta, whom the man considered yet another naive fool, the old men in the Government might have drawn the correct conclusions if the relevant information reached them—the threat came, or rather sailed, from a direction no one expected. Crocodile could not reasonably have foreseen that, after twenty-two years of silence, East Blue would produce another monster. And, in accordance with the universally known law of perversity, produce it precisely now rather than sooner or later! In other words, everything was proceeding as usual.
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