The girl shared information about her past so readily not because she particularly wanted to talk or cry on someone's shoulder about her difficult fate. She had spent so many years fighting alone against every calamity raining down upon her that she identified a possible path to salvation on an instinctive level. And of course, she was also an exceptionally intelligent young woman. Robin remembered that 'the Queen' had once been known as 'the Merciful Queen.' If another person's sympathy could help her survive, why not use it?
"Luffy..."
Robin had not been wrong in her conclusions. The moment she placed the story of her difficult life before everyone, Nami reacted immediately. And the reaction was predictable to anyone who had known her for more than a couple of days. Every seed of dissatisfaction that had barely begun to germinate in Nami's soul was ruthlessly destroyed, and in its place flowers of pity, sympathy, concern, and solidarity instantly blossomed in abundance. The softhearted girl had found a new object for her care.
Placing her hands on Luffy's shoulders, Nami pressed touchingly against his back. She had polished her acting skills since childhood, and so in an instant she took on a weak and defenseless appearance while arranging a pitiful expression on her face. A strike, as they said. Something similar could often be seen in a toy shop into which a strict father had made the mistake of entering with his little, long-awaited, and therefore madly beloved daughter. A small, hesitant, weak, defenseless figure; eyes brimming with tears; a silent plea and expectation of a miracle. Refuse her, and guilt would torment you until you returned to that damned shop and bought that damned toy. Luffy understood perfectly that some battles simply were not worth winning. Like those occasions when one had to lose a battle to win the war. Besides, Robin's effort deserved appreciation.
"Bwa-ha-ha-ha!" The young man, who had remained silent the entire time, finally burst out laughing. "I was definitely wrong to call you an idiot!" Once he finished laughing, Luffy looked at the girl still seated on the ground with a satisfied smile. "You're a little clumsy and somewhat hopeless, but you definitely aren't stupid or an idiot. Every one of your attempts at manipulation is so charming and cute that I simply have no words."
"But we all know that everything she told us was true," Nami interjected, losing her weak and defenseless appearance as quickly as she had acquired it. She replaced the touching press against Luffy's back with a firm embrace, and the pitiful expression with a broad smile. "You can't blame the poor girl for wanting to preserve her life!"
The 'poor girl' was a full ten years older than Nami and, unlike Tashigi, did not look younger than her in the least. At present, Robin could even have been mistaken for somewhat older than her true age—the difficult night and broken arm took their toll. Exhaustion, fear, and anxiety had never made anyone prettier or younger. Her broken arm did not improve matters either; the constant aching pain left the girl looking unhealthily pale.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but have I understood you properly? If we leave you alive, you'll help us find an Ancient Weapon. Is that right?" Luffy asked Robin.
"Yes."
The young man's eyebrows rose slightly in silent surprise, and he was not alone. Robin had truthfully shared a considerable amount of interesting and personal information without lying once. Yet her answer to the latest question was an unequivocal lie. Naturally, the girl showed nothing outwardly, but she had chosen an exceptionally poor company in which to lie. Of everyone present, Robin had perhaps managed to fool only Law's three subordinates with certainty. Johnny and Sanji disbelieved more than they believed, Usopp was an entirely separate matter, and everyone else knew for certain that the girl had attempted to deceive them. The reason was simple: she had absolutely no intention of helping them find an Ancient Weapon.
"So it doesn't matter to you whom you work for, provided they help you reach the Poneglyph?" Nami asked experimentally.
"Yes. I must learn the truth."
A lie and a truth.
"Meaning you would have helped your Big Boss obtain an Ancient Weapon too?" Luffy clarified.
"Yes."
Another lie—and, it had to be acknowledged, a very good one. With Robin's life, it was hardly surprising that she had become a masterful liar. She controlled her face so perfectly that exposing the falsehood was almost impossible, but her current company truly was badly suited for deception. Robin was surrounded by people who had reached the very top of the food chain in two seas at once. Nearly everyone present could themselves 'boast' of a difficult path through life, not to mention intelligence, experience, and Luffy's specialized training. That did not even include ordinary interaction with him, which also left quite an imprint on everyone. Frequent jokes about Luffification had not appeared without reason. As for Luffy himself and Zoro, there was nothing to discuss. Observation Haki alone gave them an incredible advantage against anyone who did not possess it. In most cases, the two young men did not even need to exert themselves to know whether they were being told the truth.
"Incredible!" After hearing Robin's answers, Nami nearly squealed with delight. "Luffy, did you hear that?! No, did you hear it?!" the joyful girl began shaking him.
From the outside, it appeared that Nami had become wildly delighted by the fact that Robin would help them find an Ancient Weapon. That was precisely what the girl seated on the ground believed. Had she been in better condition, she might have sensed a trap, but Robin's clarity of thought was definitely impaired at the moment. The aching pain in her broken arm played a key role in that.
"Wait. Let me ask her one final question." Unlike the overly emotional Nami, Luffy did not hurry to draw a final conclusion. "Listen, I certainly wouldn't object to adding an Ancient Weapon to my arsenal, but are you aware of our reputation at all? If not, you can simply look around and see what remains of Whisky Peak. With an Ancient Weapon in our hands, we'd erase far more than one island or city from the face of the world. Are you certain you want to leave behind that kind of legacy?"
"...This world has meant nothing to me for a long time, so I don't care what you do with the Ancient Weapon you obtain," Robin answered after a pause. "All I dream of is learning the True History. Nothing else concerns me."
Now Nami truly squealed with delight. Hardly surprising. After everything that had happened to her, Robin still had not lost faith in something better. Somehow, she had not grown bitter toward the entire world or wished to see it burn in Hell. That meant somewhere deep inside Robin there was a core of remarkable strength that had prevented her from breaking beneath every misfortune that fell upon her. Was it a small thing to have the entire World Government among one's enemies? And this was not some ordinary crime that placed her outside the law, like every pirate without exception. Robin possessed knowledge capable of destroying the entire world! It made no difference who succeeded in using that knowledge—pirates, revolutionaries, or the World Government itself. The present order would be destroyed. Robin's knowledge could easily bring about another 'Void Century' or 'Lost Age.' Carrying such a burden of responsibility and trouble, she had somehow survived for twenty full years.
"Luffy! That's everything, right?! It's over, right?!" Nami began shaking the long-silent young man again.
"Calm down. Our game really is canceled," Luffy finally responded. "Besides, I have the feeling she would have had good chances of winning even if all six bullets of the revolver had been loaded."
The theory of Higher Powers? If it was true, then at that moment Karma was undoubtedly filing her nails and diligently ignoring Life, who lay on the floor convulsing and foaming at the mouth. After all, she had to spend all the points Robin had earned somewhere, did she not? This moment appeared most suitable, and everything resolved itself considerably better than she had expected. The game itself never even began. Who could have imagined Robin had accumulated so many points?
"With six bullets?" Johnny was surprised.
"Don't tell me that after all my explanations and examples, you're still incapable of recognizing such an obvious sign," Luffy said with some irritation.
"No, that's not it at all!" Johnny hurried to reject the accusation. "A girl who spent twenty years hiding from the World Government, capable through her knowledge alone of causing a full-scale apocalypse, ends up in the path of people whose plans include becoming enemies of that same Government? I'm nowhere near your level, of course, but only a blind man could miss a sign like that!" The young man involuntarily rolled his eyes. "No, I'm more interested in the six bullets specifically. Did you say it merely for effect, or did you mean it literally? The difference is enormous!"
"If not her, then who?" Luffy answered the question with one of his own.
"True enough..."
Everyone present looked at the seated Robin with entirely different eyes. Some for obvious reasons—for Ikkaku, Shachi, Clione, and Igaram, it was wild to hear that the girl's knowledge could cause the End of the World—and others for reasons hidden at first glance. To every Hat and to Law, it was crystal clear that today's events would have far-reaching consequences. Robin had not been 'thrown' into their path without purpose.
"Let's establish several rules immediately." Breaking Nami's ring of arms, Luffy approached Robin and took the revolver from her, collecting the cartridges lying beside her as well. "First, don't ever lie to us again. You don't want anyone to find an Ancient Weapon and turn it into the prologue of a story about the whole world's destruction? Fine, continue not wanting that. We personally aren't interested in the Ancient Weapons."
"Hey! Speak for yourself!" Johnny objected. "I'd love to see how powerful an explosion would have to be to destroy an entire city or island!"
"Why did you decide it would necessarily be an explosion?" Luffy asked in return.
"Because it's a Weapon! An Ancient one!"
"So what? Who can guarantee it isn't the formula for some super-poisonous gas or a strain of deadly virus? A particularly aggressive virus could wipe out the population of an entire island without difficulty, no matter how many tens of millions lived there. Depending on how the virus spread, the length of its incubation period, its symptoms, and the circumstances, such a virus could easily exterminate the entire population of the planet. How is that not an Ancient Weapon?"
"...If you're right, that wouldn't be fun at all," Johnny said, visibly disappointed. "A gigantic cannon firing super-shells sounds far cooler."
The other young men supported him with an approving hum. They too would not have refused the pleasure of seeing a cannon capable of erasing entire cities and islands from the face of the earth. What interest was there in watching a deadly virus or poisonous gas 'work'? An impossibly enormous explosion was something entirely different!
"In any case, don't think about lying to us again," Luffy returned his attention to Robin once Johnny, Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji began discussing what else an Ancient Weapon might be. "My second condition is that you don't try to run away from us. I give you my word that after Alabasta, if you wish, you'll be free to go wherever you please, but until then you're stuck with us. The Ancient Weapon may not interest me, but I certainly wouldn't mind learning this True History of yours. I'm curious too about what the World Government could have done in the past that makes them afraid people will learn the truth even eight hundred years later. Usually, after that much time passes, no one cares about any events from those days, however terrible they might have been. Such things genuinely interest only scholars, historians, and archaeologists, while ordinary people don't care. They have enough concerns of their own."
Luffy was not the only one thinking along those lines. Truly, what could possibly be so terrible behind the phrase 'True History'? Even if the World Government had exterminated ninety-nine percent of the planet's population in those distant times and turned the remaining one percent into slaves, what difference did it make now? Eight hundred years later! Naturally, someone would always be displeased, but the world already contained plenty of revolutionaries without any True History at all. An additional pair of dissatisfied people would change nothing. It would not be an exaggeration to say that most of those present had little faith in the existence of a truly interesting secret. Yet none of them would have refused the chance to know for certain.
"...You truly don't need an Ancient Weapon?"
Of everything said, that fact interested Robin most. She accepted with understanding that the pirates who captured her had recognized her lie so easily. Unlike the ordinary mediocrities with whom she usually dealt, the girl understood clearly that this time she had encountered a far more dangerous category of people. Not to mention the presence of two bearers of the mysterious Will of D. Yet Robin found it difficult to believe that any pirate in the world could so casually reject the opportunity to obtain one of the three most powerful weapons on the planet.
"Why would I need some Ancient Weapon of mass destruction when I am a weapon of mass destruction myself?" Luffy asked rhetorically. "And unlike an Ancient Weapon, no one can steal me from myself. Fewer problems, greater versatility, better maneuverability, absolute loyalty, and excellent mobility. My firepower is probably lower, but it can always be increased through training and additional attachments, better known in ordinary language as 'nakama' and 'allies.' The Emperors are an excellent example, especially Whitebeard, otherwise known as the 'Strongest Man in the World.' Once ordinary people, they can now force the World Government to comply with their demands. In my opinion, they qualify perfectly well as the modern version of your Ancient Weapons, and I intend to become stronger than all of them put together."
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