Flashback
In a café in a port city in the West Blue, a woman wearing dark glasses and a hat sat drinking a cup of coffee.
She was none other than Nico Robin, who was 23 at the time.
Everything seemed peaceful until two men in black suits appeared among the crowd as they walked through the streets.
They did not head toward the café but instead toward the building across the street, which served as a front for a local mafia group.
As they approached, one of them pulled out a wanted poster and showed it to the guard at the entrance.
"Where is Nico Robin?"
The guard, who had the appearance of a thug with a gold tooth and tattoos, smiled mockingly.
"No fucking idea! But do you know where you are?! This is Don—"
"Shigan."
Before the thug could finish speaking, one of the men pierced his throat with a finger.
The thug fell to the ground in horror, clutching his neck. The men ignored him and entered the building. Soon, screams and gunshots could be heard.
All of this was witnessed by Robin, whose expression turned grim.
'It's time to leave,' she said to herself.
Robin stood up and walked to the counter, leaving behind a stack of bills. The owner glanced at the money before making a gesture indicating she should leave through the back.
The girl nodded in gratitude and went that way, emerging into an alley. From there, she walked through the narrow passage and came out onto another street, only to enter yet another alley as she made her way toward the harbor.
Everything seemed natural, as if she had planned this escape long ago.
Once she arrived at the harbor, Robin stopped in confusion because the ship she had hired to escape was gone.
'Don't tell me...'
Robin clenched her teeth and crossed her arms. At that moment, countless flower petals bloomed around her.
She was a user of the Hana Hana no Mi (Flower-Flower Fruit), a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit. Despite its name, it did not grant her control over plants as one might assume. Instead, it allowed her to replicate parts of her body wherever her petals could reach.
As a result, numerous eyes and ears discreetly appeared throughout the harbor, and through them Robin quickly found the captain of the ship she had rented. He was speaking with two men in black suits.
She had been sold out.
'I don't have time.'
Robin knew she had to think fast. As a Devil Fruit user, swimming was impossible, and all exits from the harbor were most likely sealed.
"Cast off the lines!" shouted a man.
Robin's eyes shifted toward a ship that was about to depart. It was large and carried an emblem on its sails. It likely belonged to some noble.
...
(Ship's Hold)
The place was dark, damp, yet unexpectedly clean, which was to be expected on a noble's ship.
For Robin, infiltrating it was simple. She only needed to use her fruit to create distractions among the crew, and she managed to get inside without much trouble.
'I suppose I'm lucky.'
The government agents pursuing her could close the harbor and bribe whomever they wanted, but a noble's ship was not so easy to manipulate.
The ship began to move, causing Robin to release a sigh of relief before sitting against the wall.
"I'm sorry..." Robin murmured.
"Who are you apologizing to, big sister?"
"...!"
Robin nearly screamed in fright when she heard another voice inside the hold. For a moment, she thought it was a guard, so she crossed her arms to use her fruit and silence him, but she froze when she saw the source.
In front of her was a cage, and inside sat a boy. He couldn't have been older than thirteen.
"..."
Robin held her breath.
For a moment, she was hypnotized by the boy's appearance.
Even in the dim darkness, his eyes and hair seemed to emit their own light, making them visible.
He was thin, perhaps malnourished, but despite that, his skin looked healthy. As for his face, Robin rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was hallucinating.
"Don't worry, beautiful sister. I know I'm handsome, but you're an exceptional beauty too. You'd be even more beautiful if you didn't have the face of someone drowning in melancholy, exhaustion, and the complete loss of hope," he said with a smug smile.
Robin blinked and snapped out of her daze as if the boy's words had broken whatever spell his appearance had cast on her.
Even so, the most incredible thing was that this boy, dressed in rags and eating an apple that was close to rotting, was lounging against the bars as if he were on vacation.
"Hello~" the boy said with a grin. "Are you having problems?"
You have more problems than I do!
Robin wanted to curse.
Was she really being underestimated by a boy who was clearly in a far worse situation?
"Who are you?" Robin asked cautiously. If Allen shouted or called for the guards, she was finished. There was nowhere to escape on a ship.
"I'm Allen Walker. And you?"
Robin remained silent for a moment. For years she had been running from the government, creating countless aliases and false names. Partly so she couldn't be tracked, and partly because she hated the way people reacted when they learned her real name.
"I am..."
Allen blinked expectantly. Being stuck in a cage all day was boring, so he was curious about the woman standing before him.
"I am Nico Robin..."
Robin sighed. Looking at his curious gaze, she couldn't bring herself to lie.
Unexpectedly, Allen showed no fear, hatred, or disgust. He simply nodded.
"Alright. Don't worry, I'm not Batman, so I won't be wearing tight spandex and fighting crime," Allen laughed.
Robin blinked, not understanding a single word.
"Sorry, I say weird things sometimes. Don't worry about it."
Allen gave a faint smile, finished his apple, placed his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
Robin widened her eyes.
What?
That was it?
Wasn't he going to ask anything else?
"Big sister, everyone has their own problems and secrets. Don't worry."
"You're a strange boy..." Robin smiled faintly before sitting down again.
Allen opened one eye.
"I hear that a lot, but you can trust that I'm the sanest person in this world."
"..."
Nearly a minute passed without Allen saying anything else, so this time Robin took the initiative.
"You... are a slave?"
"No, not at all."
Allen opened his eyes slightly and flashed a mocking smile.
"But the owner of this ship seems to think otherwise. Damn sons of bitches..."
Robin was stunned again.
This boy was fully aware of his situation, and yet what kind of attitude was that?
"What's with that look? The 'this kid is insane' look?" Allen sighed. "Relax, I have a plan to escape... sort of."
Robin had seen dozens of private guards while infiltrating the ship.
How was this skinny, malnourished boy supposed to escape from this situation?!
"You're very optimistic..."
Allen sat up and shrugged.
"What can I say? I take the good with the bad. I'm a positive person, but more than that, I trust my ability to survive. I've been doing it for years."
Robin remained silent.
In her entire life, this might have been the strangest person she had ever met.
It wasn't that Allen was hiding his despair behind a fake smile and empty optimism.
The boy genuinely believed he would get out of this hole through his own efforts.
That kind of absolute self-confidence was absurd.
Robin tilted her head.
"Let's say you somehow get out of that cage and avoid the guards. We're in the middle of the sea. What are you going to do?"
Allen looked offended and answered as if the response were obvious.
"Obviously, I'm going to steal a boat and escape like that..."
"And then what?" Robin smiled.
"..."
Allen remained silent before looking away.
"I haven't thought that far ahead."
Robin opened her mouth, speechless.
"Are you just an idiot?"
Allen snorted.
"Who are you calling an idiot? I'm smart. It's just that things in reality never go 100% according to plan, so my motto is to think three steps ahead and then improvise!"
Robin stared at the boy without words.
He was adorably arrogant. His confidence was the size of a mountain. He was ridiculously impulsive and foolishly positive. Maybe he was missing a screw.
Robin couldn't believe there was any place in the world that could naturally raise a boy like this.
The girl couldn't help herself and covered her mouth as she laughed.
"Haha."
"Hey, what are you laughing at?! You just haven't witnessed my perfection yet. For any normal human being, this situation would be absolute shit, but for me, it's only a minor inconvenience. You'll see!"
"Hahaha!"
"Stop laughing!"
....
...
....
"I'm sorry."
Robin wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to apologize to the boy, who had turned his back on her. It seemed he had genuinely gotten offended.
"It's just that it's been so long since I laughed that I couldn't help it."
"It must have been months without laughing if you did it for five straight minutes," Allen grumbled.
Robin's smile softened.
"I'd say years..."
Allen looked at her over his shoulder.
"That sounds sad... Is your situation really that bad?"
"Not as bad as yours." Robin scoffed.
The girl stood up and approached the cage. Then she pulled out a lockpick and opened it. Once it was unlocked, she stepped back.
Allen walked out and stood up, stretching his arms and back before looking at Robin.
"I told you I'd get out somehow," he said confidently.
Robin was speechless, but then she tugged on his ear, though not with any real force.
"In situations like this, you're supposed to say thank you," Robin scolded.
"Ouch! What are you talking about? It's obvious you fell for my charm and that's why you freed me. Besides, you just said you hadn't laughed in years, so you should be thanking me too!"
Robin released his ear.
This shameless brat had not only taken credit for his own rescue, but somehow he had also managed to create a situation where she was the one who should be grateful.
Robin frowned and pinched both of his cheeks.
"Who taught you to be this shameless?"
"Hey, leave my face alone! This is world heritage! You're committing a crime against the future King of the World!"
Robin snorted.
"Well, Your Majesty was sitting in a tiny cage as a slave."
"Tsk, what an aggressive big sister."
Allen rubbed his reddened cheeks.
"And it's not my fault, but women, especially rich and noble women, tend to want to kidnap me. It's a curse being this handsome."
Robin didn't laugh.
Instead, she reached out and gently patted Allen's head.
He froze in confusion.
"What are you doing?"
"I..."
Robin was about to make fun of him, but when she saw the genuine confusion in Allen's eyes, she couldn't.
Then she realized that no one had ever patted his head before, which was why he didn't understand what she was doing.
"It's nothing." Robin looked away.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Allen was speechless.
This woman who had been mocking his perfection suddenly looked sad out of nowhere.
...
An hour later, the two sat against the wall side by side.
"So your homeland was destroyed?" Allen asked with a frown.
Robin sighed.
"In this world, there was something called the Void Century."
"What's that?"
Robin gripped her arm tightly, frustration filling her expression.
"There is a blank period in history that took place roughly between 900 and 800 years before the present day."
"It is a period of exactly one hundred years for which almost no official records exist. Everything related to that era was erased by those who founded the World Government."
"That's possible?" Allen blinked in disbelief.
A hundred years wasn't a short period of time.
How the hell could every trace of information simply disappear like that?
"The archaeologists of Ohara asked themselves the same question. My homeland began investigating and discovered that some records had survived. That information was preserved in..." Robin hesitated, unsure if she should tell Allen. Not because she didn't trust him, but because the information was dangerous. However, when she saw his serious and attentive gaze, completely different from the Allen of a few moments ago, she decided to continue. "They're called Poneglyphs."
"Poneglyphs..."
Allen widened his eyes.
He felt as though he had heard that name before, but he couldn't remember where.
Meanwhile, Robin continued.
"The Poneglyphs are enormous stone cubes covered in inscriptions written in an ancient language. The scholars of Ohara theorized that they contained all the information about the Void Century."
"Wait..." Allen interrupted. "You're saying the government erased all information about the Void Century. As ridiculous as that sounds, I'll accept it. But if that's true, why haven't they destroyed these Poneglyphs?"
"I don't think they can," Robin said with a hollow look in her eyes. "The Poneglyphs are made of an indestructible material. At least, no one has found a way to destroy them. That's why they've survived throughout the centuries. I suppose that once the government realized they couldn't destroy them, they came up with another solution... eliminate anyone capable of reading them."
Allen frowned.
"Don't tell me..."
Robin smiled as her hair hid her eyes.
"That's right. To ensure the truth of history was never uncovered, researching it was forbidden. And of course, once the government learned that the archaeologists of Ohara had learned how to read the Poneglyphs, they were eliminated."
"..."
"Everyone except an eight-year-old girl—they offered a huge reward for her capture, branded her a demon, and have been relentlessly pursuing her for fifteen years."
Robin felt a strange sense of relief as she told the truth for the first time.
The government had labeled her a demon and convinced the entire world that she was evil. For years she had endured meaningless hatred and fear, so long that she thought she had become used to it. But, this brief time with Allen made her realize how frustrated she truly was.
The world was always cruel to innocent people.
A hand reached out and gently patted her head.
Robin was startled before looking up at Allen, who now stood in front of her.
"It must have been hard..." he said with a gentle smile.
Robin trembled and pressed her lips together, refusing to cry.
She gently took Allen's hand and lowered it.
"You don't have to do that. You've been through a lot too..."
Robin smiled weakly.
Before telling her story, Allen had told her his own, though he had done so in a way that sounded almost comical.
The boy had been born with an appearance that seemed out of this world and a strange charm that attracted women like moths to a flame, constantly getting him into trouble.
Whether he was being kidnapped, sold as a slave, or nearly killed by some jealous man.
Allen scratched his cheek.
"Well, maybe I wasn't completely honest. Being absolute and perfect causes me problems, but let's say that's less than half of them. Let's just say I have a curse that makes people get angry at me very easily."
"Oh really?" Robin smiled mockingly. "Sure, because seducing a queen and stealing the king's crown wasn't your fault at all."
Allen raised a finger.
"In my defense, the guy was an idiot who tried to frame me out of jealousy because he was ugly beyond reason."
"Hehe. And what about the time you started a war between two noble families over a so-called dragon egg that was actually an ostrich egg?~"
"Leave me alone. I just wanted to earn a few hundred berries. How was I supposed to know that the tavern owner knew someone who knew the lord of the city, and once the rumor reached him, it reached the neighboring nobles who had been feuding for ten years because the current lord's brother slept with the fiancée of the lord from the other territory. Anyway..."
"The real culprit is ignorance. How could they believe something that stupid enough to start a war without first checking whether it was actually a dragon egg? Everyone is an idiot," Allen huffed.
"No, I'm pretty sure that was your fault."
Robin rolled her eyes before sighing.
"I suppose convincing half a village that horse semen could prevent baldness wasn't your fault either."
Allen blinked in disbelief.
"Honestly, I didn't think that shit would work. I mean, it was such a stupid lie."
Robin trembled before bursting into laughter.
Allen laughed too.
....
After forming a sort of alliance, they decided to become stowaways together.
The journey would last a month.
During that time, not only did they get to know each other better, forming a strange bond between two people hunted by the world, but they also exchanged knowledge.
Robin was astonished by Allen's creativity when it came to survival.
He was an ingenious scoundrel capable of convincing his victims to help him count the money he had swindled from them. His methods were unorthodox, reckless on the surface, and often looked completely insane, yet they somehow worked.
Because of this, Robin learned new ways to escape and survive, realizing that Allen's confidence was not unfounded.
The brat was a sort of evil genius of shamelessness and deception.
For his part, Allen learned many things from Robin, especially essential knowledge that he lacked because he had never received a formal education.
This surprised Robin because Allen had taught himself how to read, write, and perform basic mathematics.
He really wasn't stupid.
Allen was offended that everyone thought he was stupid.
At some point, they began calling each other big sister and little brother.
This meant a great deal to Robin because her mother had also had white hair.
As for Allen, it was the first time he had ever experienced something close to a family relationship, which felt strange to him, but he didn't reject it.
Unfortunately, the journey had to end.
At the end of the month, they reached land.
Robin put the entire crew to "sleep" with her fruit by snapping their necks.
Then they descended into the harbor under the cover of night.
At one point, Robin stopped running.
Allen stopped as well and looked back with wide eyes, but he quickly understood.
The two stared at each other in silence.
Robin had spent her life fleeing, and behind her was a mountain of corpses from organizations destroyed by the government simply because they had been associated with her.
Allen understood that staying close to Robin would put her in mortal danger.
He wasn't strong enough to protect her.
She wasn't strong enough to protect him.
Both were survivors, but remaining together was a death sentence.
To protect her new little brother.
To protect his new big sister.
They couldn't stay together...
There was no verbal goodbye.
Neither of them had the strength for that.
Allen knew that if he ran to her, if he said even a single word, she would give in.
But sooner or later she would sacrifice herself to save him, and that was unacceptable.
So, like a boy forced to act like a man, he turned around and walked away.
He knew that if he didn't, Robin herself would never leave.
Robin sat on the ground and began to cry.
For a moment Allen stopped, but he kept walking.
He couldn't stop.
He had to keep walking, or he never would.
He had gone through many things in his life, but Allen had never shed tears.
This time was different.
For the first time, he cried as he walked away.
End of Flashback
...
That was the last day they saw each other, and for five years it seemed like a final farewell.
A moment of silence passed between them as Allen took Robin's hand from his head and held it.
When Robin noticed that his hands were now larger than hers, she couldn't stop the tears.
"You've really grown..." she smiled.
Allen smiled gently and pulled her into his arms.
Robin couldn't hold back and began crying uncontrollably again, but this time Allen was able to comfort her, embrace her, and reassure her.
"That's right. I've come back. This time to take everything back, to reclaim the world from those bastards, and of course, for you too... sister."
Allen's gaze became serious and determined.
"No one will ever take anything from you again! I swear it!"
The girls could only watch in silence.
They didn't understand, but they were deeply moved by what they were witnessing.
====
A/N: Sorry for the delay guys 🍷🗿
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