"So what's the story with the woman and the turtle?" Johnny asked after a while, once he had inspected Luffy's 'catch' carefully from every angle. "No, I understand the woman. She's that same idiot with the pretty eyes who decided to run away from you." To confirm the theory, the young man pulled down one of Robin's eyelids to check the color of her eyes. "But where did the turtle come from?"
After receiving Law's confirmation that he had taken care of the ten billion berries with all his thoroughness and skill, and that nothing now threatened the money, Luffy turned his attention to Johnny's question.
"That's today's lunch," the young man readily explained. "The hopeless idiot used the turtle as her means of transportation."
By 'hopeless idiot,' Luffy naturally meant Robin.
"Right!" Johnny had no difficulty following his captain's reasoning. "The turtle belonged to an idiot who's one of Broke Shwarks, which automatically makes the turtle our enemy, meaning we have to eat it too... Besides, we haven't had turtle soup in ages."
"Turtle soup?" Sanji considered it. "Why not? I can't remember the last time I made it either."
"I'm more interested in why you decided this so-called idiot is a member of Broke Shwarks," Nami said. "Did she tell you herself?" the girl clarified, looking at Luffy.
"Hm... You know, actually, no." The young man looked slightly puzzled. "I somehow assigned her to the organization's members subconsciously. Besides, she has a little bracelet with the letter 'W' on it! You must have noticed that the letters 'W' and 'BW' appear on almost every bounty hunter's clothes, while some even have their organization's full name and flag embroidered on them. Though I suppose we can simply ask the right person and find out for certain. Hey, transvestite-head" Igaram's skull once again ended up in Luffy's hands "do you know this idiot?" he asked, pushing Mr. Eight's head directly beneath Robin's nose.
Igaram's reaction was highly revealing.
"M-M-Miss All Sunday!!!"
No one present doubted that the man would not have reacted so emotionally to some insignificant underling in the ranks of Baroque Works.
"Okay, who's Miss All Sunday?" Luffy asked, turning Igaram's head to face himself.
"She's the Boss's own partner—Mr. Zero's!"
"You mean Crocodile?"
"Yes! She was the one we followed to learn his true identity!"
"...Something about that picture doesn't fit." After a brief consideration, Luffy shook his head. "How exactly did you follow her in some fantastical manner that prevented her from noticing you? I've known her for only a couple of minutes, but I can already say with absolute certainty that she's a serious paranoiac. I've had time to evaluate your abilities, so unless your princess has an invisibility fruit, you had no chance of remaining unnoticed."
"We probably didn't," Igaram admitted. "Vivi-sama and I had doubts about that ourselves. Since we were ordered eliminated, we were right, and she did notice us."
"Even so, before the idiot noticed you, you managed to learn the Big Boss's identity, correct?" Luffy clarified.
Igaram strongly doubted that a person capable of becoming the right hand of one of the Warlords could be considered an 'idiot.' At the same time, the man understood perfectly that no one here cared about his personal opinion and that his only task was to answer every question obediently.
"Yes, we did."
"How long did you follow her?"
"Several months, and we spent approximately the same amount of time getting close enough."
"And you learned the Big Boss's true identity only recently, right?"
"Yes."
"Then it still doesn't fit! I might believe you if you'd followed her for a couple of hours, but a couple of months? Impossible. It seems things aren't so simple inside Broke Shwarks... Though with a name like that, it isn't surprising. You could call it prophetic!"
Luffy did not care in the least that the organization's real name sounded nothing like that. As usual, he refused to allow some pathetic thing like logic to ruin his perfectly coherent 'theory.'
"The Big Boss's partner," Zoro muttered. "So how was she, Luffy?" he asked when the young man returned Igaram's head to the crate-table. "Strong?"
"Hopeless, not strong."
"I'm serious."
"How should I put it? She isn't especially weak, but she's absurdly far from strong. Her fruit is too specialized. She can sprout her arms even on an enemy's body, so strength and speed don't matter all that much against her. At the same time, any damage to one of the body parts she sprouts is transferred to her own body. That's how I accidentally broke her arm."
"You broke her arm?!" Nami reacted immediately.
"How was I supposed to know she had such an idiotic weakness? That fool sprouted a hundred arms all around me and on top of me! She's incredibly lucky I began by breaking one instead of trying to tear all her arms apart!"
Any member of their family, including Usopp, would have argued fiercely against Nami's claim that she was the most normal among them. Yet if the girl had suddenly stated that only her moral principles were the most normal in the family, even Luffy would have kept his mouth firmly shut. Although Nami never said it aloud, she always tried to keep her 'boys' bloodlust under control. She could not be said to succeed particularly well, but in this matter the girl preferred to take whatever small victories she could get. Nami fully agreed that they could show their enemies the utmost cruelty and mercilessness and had no intention of disputing that approach. In every other case, however—especially where women and children were concerned—Nami watched them with particular strictness. Even there, she occasionally had to compromise. The situation with Miss Valentine and Vivi was one example. One had been harvested for organs, while the other's life had been saved with those same organs. Nami judged the life of an underage princess and potential ally more valuable than the life of Miss Valentine, an unambiguous enemy. Otherwise, the girl simply would not have allowed anyone to treat her with such cruelty. And not one of them would have been able to argue with her!
"Then why did you bring this woman you call an idiot back to us at all? Especially when you didn't even know who she was?" Usopp asked after listening silently the entire time.
"Why the hell was she running away from me?!!" Luffy exclaimed indignantly.
"You're saying that if she hadn't run from you, you wouldn't have needed her at all?"
"Of course!"
"..."
"And now that we know who she is?" Once Yosaku realized Usopp had 'left the game,' he picked up the 'fallen banner.' "If she's the Big Boss's partner, she must know all kinds of information. Are we going to interrogate her?"
"And what information do we need?" Luffy raised an eyebrow.
"..."
"The money, for example!" The instant Yosaku 'showed weakness,' the 'banner' ended up in Nami's hands. "She has to know where it is, how much there is, and how to get it!"
"That's one question," the young man nodded in agreement. "Anyone else have a suggestion?"
"...Why did she allow them to learn the Big Boss's true identity?" Johnny suggested uncertainly, raising one hand slightly. "I'm curious, for one."
Who could have doubted it?
"That's a second question," Luffy nodded again. "Anything else?"
"..."
"Fine. As the saying goes, appetite comes with eating." The young man sighed and headed toward the unconscious Robin, who still lay on the dead Banchi's head. "Maybe something else will occur to us once we start the interrogation."
It did not take long to bring the girl back to consciousness. Unlike the standard effect of Conqueror's Haki—as though someone had struck the victim over the head with a bat!—Luffy's method of applying it used a creative approach and therefore operated somewhat differently. As Robin demonstrated, a victim recovered from that method much more easily and many times faster, but they could also lose their mind. Such an outcome was entirely impossible with the ordinary application of Conqueror's Haki, and the scale was incomparable as well. Luffy's version was more localized, while the standard method made it possible to defeat entire armies in a single instant.
"No, no, no, NO!!!"
Those were the words with which Robin awoke when Luffy, without ceremony and ignoring Sanji's protests, threw her down from Banchi's head, took one of the wine bottles, and began pouring its contents over the girl's face. Crying and frightened half to death, Robin immediately thrashed from side to side the moment she regained consciousness, until she disturbed her broken arm. Crying out in pain, the girl once again pressed it carefully to her chest and looked around with the hunted eyes of an animal. Wine on her face and tears in her eyes did little to help her see, so she wiped them with her healthy hand. Once she had cleared her eyes, she surveyed her surroundings with a considerably more aware gaze.
"Good morning!" Luffy waved when Robin finally noticed him standing only two meters away. "Sleep well? Was the ride too rough? What did you dream about? It must have been something interesting if you woke up that energetically!"
At the word 'dream,' Robin involuntarily shuddered and instantly remembered every detail of those dreams and what had preceded them. She had not experienced nightmares that terrible in a very, very long time. Blood, fire, screams, explosions, murder, death everywhere, cold, and hundreds of reanimated corpses mutilated by flames, all repeating the same words: 'This is all your fault, Robin!'
"Listen, I think I know her!" Yosaku unexpectedly admitted, having previously examined the girl sitting on the ground with a somewhat puzzled expression. "Her eyes seemed strangely familiar, but I didn't pay much attention to it, and while she was lying down, the resemblance wasn't so obvious. Only now, looking at her properly, can I definitely say I've seen her face on a wanted poster before."
"Really?" Johnny became predictably interested. "How much is she worth?"
"I'm still not completely certain I'm right," Yosaku clarified just in case, "but if it really is her, you should remember her too."
"Really?" Johnny repeated, now thoroughly confused. "Seriously? I don't remember anyone who looked like her." Turning toward Robin and studying her attentively, the young man shook his head.
"Remember the poster with the little girl?" Yosaku asked. "It was before we met Luffy and Zoro. We were surprised they were offering a full seventy-nine million for some little brat."
"Now that you mention it, you're right!" Recognition lit Johnny's eyes. "She really does look like her!" The young man looked at Robin in an entirely new manner. "But are you sure it's her? The girl in the photograph could barely have been ten, while this one's nearly thirty. Maybe she's a relative?"
"I already said I'm not entirely sure, but that photograph was taken who knows how many years ago, so it may well be her after all."
"What are you talking about?" Zoro asked, tired of their vague chatter.
"If we're right, this idiot has a bounty on her head, and it's seventy-nine million berries." Yosaku pointed at Robin as he explained. "The bounty was issued when she was ten at most. I don't know the story and can't remember the details, but her name was something like Hriko Bobin, or Riko Grobin... No, that's not it... Damn, I can't remember."
"Nico Robin," Luffy helpfully supplied, making the girl sitting on the ground jump slightly in surprise. Afterward, she looked even more frightened than before.
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