Nico Robin leaned against the railing of the ship’s deck and watched the bright trail channel they had just sailed through dwindle into the distance.
It had been weeks since she’d left Baltigo. At the next port, she would disembark and take another ship that would deliver her to the Sabaody Archipelago.
“Excuse me, Robin. Would you like some coffee?” called out Bunny Joe, a revolutionary, with a tray holding a steaming mug in his hands. He’d seen her standing alone on the deck, and thought to bring her some refreshment.
“Thank you. I would.”
She reached out for the mug, and the two made eye contact. Bunny Joe startled and his muscles tensed. It had been two years since Robin had joined the Revolutionary Army, but even those who thought they had become accustomed to her found Robin’s gaze alarmingly powerful at times. Her black eyes were so dark they seemed to absorb all light and sound; when they were fixed upon you, it made you feel like your very soul might be whisked away.
Her hair was as black as her eyes, which were framed by crisp double lids. The bridge of her nose was straight and proud. Altogether, her distinctive features and elegant figure and mannerisms, perfect right down to her fingertips, drew one toward the conclusion that only God could have crafted such a creature.
“Is something the matter?” Robin asked, as Bunny Joe stood there, stock-still and silent.
His eyes flickered to life, as though awakening from a dream, and he replied quickly, “No! Nothing’s wrong!” then hurried back inside the ship. He was still holding the tray with the coffee he’d brought for Robin.
What was that all about? she wondered, turning back to the sea.
In this new region they’d reached, the sun seemed to sink earlier than before. The sea before them was so placid that it looked like you could walk on it, and the light of the setting sun touched down on the water like a shining bridge. With each lap of the waves, little orange reflections sparkled and danced.
In the past, she hadn’t liked looking at the sea at sunset. It reminded her of the way Ohara had looked, wreathed in flames, when as a child she’d rowed her little boat between the shards of broken ice stretching across the sea, turning back again and again to watch as her homeland burned. Thinking of who and what she had left behind, engulfed in those flames that reached up to the clouds, made her little body shiver as she desperately pushed the boat onward. The way the ice had reflected the raging flames back then was very much like the light of the setting sun on the sea.
Twenty years had passed since then, but it felt like an eternity.
I’m sixteen. I’ll do anything, she had said to the leaders of the criminal group she later joined, looking for a place to land. They’d taken her at her word. No matter how painful or demeaning the job, or how dangerous the mission, she’d never felt humiliated. All she needed was a place to belong. As long as she could fulfill her purpose of finding the Ponegliffs, she didn’t care what happened to her along the way.
Wherever she went, the world government would sniff her out. She’d survived thus far through betrayal and letting others bear the brunt of her infamy. But that was over now.
Robin pulled a carefully folded newspaper clipping from her shirt pocket. On it was a picture of her captain, his trademark straw hat held against his chest, observing a moment of silence.
Becoming a part of the Straw Hat Crew had helped Robin realize something: she’d lived on betrayal for twenty years because she’d never had anything to protect. When she met up with the companions that she would never, ever betray, she’d decided to give up on her dream for the first time in her life. She wanted them to survive, even if it meant setting the Ponegliffs aside, and even if it meant that the weapons of the past were brought back to threaten the balance of the world. Now she understood the final motivations of her mother and Saul almost painfully well.
“Robin,” said a calm, deep voice behind her. She turned around to see Sabo, wearing a dark-green apron over a plain white shirt, standing at the door to the deck. Hack was behind him.
The second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army…wearing an apron? she thought.
When he noticed the look on her face, Sabo pulled at the strap over his shoulder. “Oh, this? I’m on cooking duty today. Anyway, come with me, Robin. There’s something you can help me with.”