One Piece – Halfway Broken

Summary: On the way to Alabasta! And the first meeting with a certain someone...

Chapter 33: Voyage to the Desert Kingdom

It had taken a few hours the previous evening to get everything fully and finally squared away to leave the island. Hina had fallen in lust with the showers, Chopper had fallen in proper love with the medbay, and the introduction of both their new crewmember and guest to those of the crew they hadn't met yet had gone well. As planned, they hadn't left that night, but everyone was out on deck the next morning as Nami navigated them back out to the ocean. Thankfully, with the current now working in her favor instead of being an obstacle to overcome, his girlfriend didn't need the engines to work around the wrecks of Hina's former flotilla. Though, understandably, the pink haired woman was solemn as they bypassed the watery graves of her command. Thankfully, none of his crew were so heartless or tactless as to break that solemnity until they were out to sea. When they were, however, Luffy raised his voice to bring their attention back to the island for something he hoped would cheer them all up.

"Eyes peeled, everyone. Take a look back at the idea. Doctor Kureha said she had a last surprise for Chopper!"

Most of the crew was startled by Luffy's raised voice, with Chopper in particular looking extremely confused, as his old mentor had outright avoided him when he'd tried to tell her he was leaving. Luffy had gotten the timing almost exactly right, however, and their confusion was soon replaced by awe as the bombardment canons of the former Drum Castle fired Doctor Hiriluk's cherry-blossom powder into the near-perpetual snowfall around the island. The result surprised even Luffy, who had known roughly what to expect, in how much the resulting dispersal really did make the island look like a giant sakura tree shedding its petals.

The entire crew gasped, oohing and awing over the display, even as Chopper collapsed to his knees with streams of tears freely flowing from his eyes. Deciding to draw attention away from the little reindeer while he gathered himself a bit, Luffy spoke up to everyone else with an explanation.

"Hey... When do you think a person dies? When a bullet from a pistol pierces his heart? No... When he's attacked by an incurable disease? No! A man dies when people forget him…"

Luffy let that bit of wisdom sink in for a moment, before continuing.

"Dalton said those were the last words of Doctor Hiriluk, a man who believed every disease in the world could be cured. The man who invented the Cherry Blossom Powder that created the piece of fading art you now see. He believed it would be a cure for the Frozen Hearts of Drum, a state that had come about from Wapol's corrupt rule. He was right, in a way, too. As of this morning the Drum Kingdom no longer exists. Dalton was elected the new leader of the island, which has been officially renamed the Sakura Kingdom. Some good, I think, did come out of all the bad here, in the end."

There were nods all around, though for a moment no one seemed to know what to say to break the silence. Surprisingly, it was a Hina that did so with a gentle voice.

"Hina agrees, despite everything. She will make sure the change to the island's name is officially logged with the Marines."

Vivi was broken out of her own uncertainty by that, nodding firmly in agreement.

"The Royal Family of Alabasta will submit notice of the change to the World Government, as well as spread it to the various merchants that ply the trade routes through our territory. Given that no known survivors of the previous Royal family of Drum exist, and Dalton was the Captain of the Royal Guard the last anyone knew, I do not believe anyone will protest the change of name and leadership over much."

Chopper, with a supporting hand from Kaya, had managed to gather himself and face both women. With a small bow, he spoke with watery eyes but only a little bit of a rough edge in his voice.

"Thank you both, very much! I'm sure it will mean a lot to the people of the Sakura Kingdom! And…to those that cared for Doctor Hiriluk as well…"

Luffy let the happy, heartfelt moment linger for only a few more seconds as the illusion of a Sakura tree over the island finally faded fully. Then he grinned.

"Now, no more looking back! We've another kingdom to save, and training to make sure we can pull that off that needs doing! Nami, get us on course! Then it's time to get back to making sure we can give Crocodile the worst day of his life!"

There were cheers as everyone scattered, getting back to their individual jobs and duties as Nami called out orders…

... ...

Luffy watched the nonplused expression on Hina's face carefully as she watched most of his crew train. Luffy had made it a point to caution them against showing off Haki in front of her, telling them to focus more on their various other skills. He hadn't said the same thing about Geppo, Soru, and Rankyaku. He and his crew had simply been too prolific in their use of those 'powers' to really pretend they didn't know them. It was remotely possible the Marines didn't already have it noted down that some of them were capable of using the abilities, but he doubted it.

The problem, of course, is that they were supposed to be a set of Marine techniques. Luffy knew that many New World pirates, at least, had long ago figured out some variant of them. But seeing an entire crew of Bounty Hunters flagrantly training with them, Kuina and Zoro even using them to bounce around in a 3-dimensional high-speed spar, had set Hina's eye twitching. She'd been watching as the various crew rotated through training for the last few hours, and he decided he'd given her long enough to stew on what she was seeing. The pink haired woman was leaning against the railing of the upper deck, giving her a view down over where the crew were training. Luffy, having come up from the stairs behind her, casually joined her at the railing.

"You're wondering why most of my crew know one or more of the Rokushiki."

Hina twitched more strongly at him properly naming the school of techniques.

"Hina curious, yes. Your grandfather?"

Luffy chuckled at that.

"You know, you'd be surprised how many people don't make the connection between my name and his? I suppose there aren't that many who know he had a kid, let alone a grandkid. As to your guess, however, the answer is 'only indirectly.'"

Hina took a drag from the cigarette she'd been smoking, blowing out the smoke a second later. When she spoke, what she said raised his estimate of her intelligence, again.

"Hina guessed. Hina also assumes you mean that you saw him use them too often and were able to figure them out."

Seriously, that verbal tick was very misleading, and he was dying a little inside to ask why she kept it up.

"Exactly right. He sparred with me a great deal, whenever he could spare the time to visit. One of the few times I ever heard him properly curse was when he saw me copy Soru for the first time. He went on and on about how someone named 'Tsuru' was going to yell at him. It was too late by then, though."

Hina surprised him by chuckling.

"If you had met Tsuru, you would understand why Garp-san was worried. Still, it isn't the first time this has happened. It's just the first three powers you've figured out, Hina guesses?"

Luffy nodded slowly, surprised that Hina had figured that bit out. She snorted and explained easily enough.

"The first three powers are so physical that any fighter of sufficient skill will eventually figure out how they are done. It is not uncommon for non-Marines in the New World to have sorted out at least one, sometimes more, of those three techniques. The latter three powers require changes to mindset that are not so easily understood. Almost no one outside the Marines ever figures them out, as they lack the proper explanations behind how they work."

That…okay, yes. That made a lot of sense. Luffy actually did know how at least two of the three additional powers worked. He'd just never bothered with them because Observation and Armament Haki were superior in virtually every way to Kami-e and Tekkai. Both had niche uses that weren't fulfilled by Haki, but those uses simply weren't enough to justify the effort to learn them, based on the limited bit he knew. Garp never bothered with either of them, so he didn't have an excuse anyway. If he'd figured them out it would have been entirely based on knowledge he shouldn't have.

"I see. I suppose that's a relief, as my own efforts are the same. I know the other powers exist, but have little idea how to use them or any real interest in learning them. Still, I did make sure to train my own crew in the ones I do understand. Bounty Hunter crews are almost always much smaller than the pirate crews we hunt. Making sure we had a quality edge over the quantity of the enemy was something I deemed critical. Triply so here on the Grand Line where running into monsters, human or otherwise, is always possible."

Hina nodded, not speaking for a moment or two as she took another draw from her cigarette. Finally, she sighed.

"Hina understands the logic. But she wonders if you realize just how many little issues you are stacking up. Too many little things can become a big one to the World Government, even with who your Grandfather is."

Luffy shrugged.

"That's always been possible. I accepted it when I decided I wanted to do good but couldn't accept some of the less pleasant things that the WG forces on the Marines. My crew and I understand the risks. Though I still hope we won't fall afoul of them."

Hina hummed non-committally, and the two fell into a not-entirely-uncomfortable silence.

... ...

"I think I need a better weapon, or maybe a better fighting style?"

Luffy froze at the serious comment from Nami, then sighed as he pulled her into his side as they lay enjoying a bit of afterglow.

"I've had some ideas on that, but can I ask what specifically brought it on? Was it your fight against the Baroque Works agents?"

Nami nodded into his chest.

"Yes. I was more a liability than a help. Not only am I almost purely a point-blank fighter, but I don't hit that hard even when I can close the range. I really prefer not to fight at all, but if I have to…"

Luffy sighed and lifted one hand to run it through his girlfriend's mussed hair.

"Usopp, Kaya, and I have been working on something. A new staff weapon. It's based, sort of, on what you and I came up with to make that storm. Only much more localized. The problem is the Clima-Tact is currently a bit…limited. I think you'll do well with it, but I wish we'd been able to figure out something better than the current design."

Nami shifted against him, looking up at him curiously.

"Clma-Tact? What does it do?"

Luffy smirked.

"In theory? It lets you change the weather…"

Luffy enjoyed Nami's widening eyes and the sparkle of excitement in them. The truth was, though, that he wasn't lying. He had no idea how Usopp had originally made Nami's staff work, before they'd had access to dials or weather tech. But he'd worked with Usopp and Kaya both to try and make something work. He was fairly sure that their best effort so far was better than Nami's original Clima-Tact would have been. It was able to generate more, and more controlled, amounts of hot and cold air. But only time would really tell for sure.

At least Nami's fundamentals would be stronger than they would have been, if it didn't work out. Which was the whole reason he hadn't tried to make it for her until recently. He'd wanted her to have a stronger physical foundation than she would have had otherwise. Still, he'd probably waited longer than he should have to introduce it, given what had happened when Mr. 3 attacked. Carefully setting her expectations to something reasonable, he began to tell her about what they'd come up with so far…

... ...

It only took two days for someone to finally crack. Two days where Luffy was desperately hoping it would be anyone other than him who did so. As it happened it was a twitchy-eyed Vivi who stabbed her spoon at Hina and demanded an explanation.

"WHY DO YOU DO THAT! You are extremely intelligent! But that third person thing is just…urg…"

The Princess slowly lost steam, turning increasingly pink as everyone stared at her. She started shrinking in her seat, only to be saved by Hina groaning. That drew a bit of attention away, as everyone noticed the pinkette had slumped, practically looking like she had a storm cloud over her head. The reaction caused confusion on more than one face, even as Luffy did the polite thing he really didn't want to do and gave the Marine a way out.

"You don't need to tell us, if you don't want to."

Hina seemed to perk up at that, only to slump again and shake her head. Finally, huffing, she stared at a wall, a bit of heat in her cheeks as she spoke.

"Hina embarrassed! And angry! But it is not any of your faults. Hina will have to get used to the question again, as most who already knew the answer were part of her fleet and are now lost."

A grimace of a different kind flashed across her face, the darker feeling of that recent loss seeming to help her push through whatever the other anger was.

"Hina hates the verbal tick! But she can't undo it, as it was the result of a Devil Fruit Hina ran into earlier in her career…"

The entire table blinked, practically in unison. That little tidbit was completely out of left field. Nojiko was the one that managed to get her mouth working first. Though it was without a whole lot of filter, sadly.

"Wait, what? What sort of screwy fruit makes someone talk like a childish bimbo?!"

Hina visibly winced at that description, shooting a heated glare at Nojiko, who quailed and made apologetic motions. Hina huffed but explained in spite of her obvious annoyance.

"The Compel-Compel Fruit is the only name Hina ever got for it. It gave its user a sort of hypnotic ability. If you got caught in its beam, you could be compelled to act a certain way. Hina was both lucky and unlucky. Lucky that the merchant she dragged in for being drunk and disorderly when Hina was a just a cadet wasn't really malicious. He drunkenly ordered Hina to 'act her age, like his daughter.' All that happened was Hina starting to speak in the third person. Hina thought it would wear off!"

Everyone was staring at her now, disbelief on every face. Hina's blush had returned and she resumed staring at the wall.

"It didn't. Hina tried to find the man again, but he was killed by a pirate before Hina could locate him to undo the effect. The command didn't fade even when he died, so Hina has been stuck. Hina embarrassed…"

No one seemed to know what to say to the story, until Vivi thunked her head on the table. She was blushing so hard that her ears were red.

"Oh, just kill me now. I'm sooooo sorry for bringing that up!"

That got a chuckle out of several people, and the flow of conversation slowly picked up again. Luffy, however, could sympathize with poor Vivi. He'd really wanted to know himself. And who would have thought it was something as bizarre and out of Hina's control as that? Though he did wonder about the mechanics of it. The fact that it hadn't failed when the man died seemed to indicate the Fruit had done something more lasting than hypnosis. Some sort of embedded command or change that made Hina's brain think it was supposed to work that way? Or had it faded, yet taken long enough to do so that Hina's own mind had tricked itself into thinking it was stuck? An interesting thought exercise, even if he would probably never know for sure…

... ...

They were less than a week out from Alabasta when a meeting Luffy had desperately hoped would still happen finally occurred. He, Kaya, and Kuina all twitched, but Luffy signaled for them not to react just yet. He waited another minute for the person they'd all sensed approaching to 'sneak' up on the ship, positioning themselves up on the upper deck where no one was currently loitering. Others started reacting as she did so, but as with Kaya and Kuina, Luffy signaled them to wait. Before the 'sneaky' presence could actually speak, however, Luffy addressed her.

"Hello, Nico Robin."

The presence on the deck above them stiffened, caught completely off guard at being outed before she could say a word. Every set of eyes belonging to one of the crew that had awakened Observation Haki turned to look right at her in eerie unison, and she visibly reassessed everyone there, tensing as she did so.

"You'll come to no harm aboard the Discovery, Child of Ohara. Unless you are foolish enough to attack someone aboard. Yours is one bounty I will never willingly take."

Robin's already wide eyes blinked at the absolute seriousness in Luffy's voice, even as she saw several heads whip toward him. Vivi, having frozen at seeing Robin, was the first to react.

"What? Captain Luffy! That's Miss All Sunday! The one I followed to find out about Crocodile! She must be here on his orders!"

Luffy chuckled but didn't look away from Robin.

"Princess, if 'Miss All Sunday' is Nico Robin, she let you follow her. She's been avoiding professional World Government assassination and capture teams, the Cipher Pole units, since she was nine. There's no way she didn't spot you."

Robin finally managed to regain her equilibrium, even if she was now eyeing all possible escape vectors. Just the knowledge that Luffy was dropping so casually meant she'd badly underestimated this crew and shouldn't have shown herself. At least, that's what Luffy was getting from his empathy. She felt very much like someone who was forcing herself to be calm, despite all the alarm bells in her head screaming 'run.'

"My, my, I see I'm still famous. Though I'm surprised someone from the East Blue knows so much…"

Luffy chuckled again, and finally looked away. Specifically, toward Hina who was tense and ready to spring.

"You can't take her, Captain Hina. Not alone. And I won't help you. I suggest you leave her be."

Hina scowled at him, her fingers twitching in patterns he suspected were related to her Devil Fruit usage.

"Hina demands to know why! You are Bounty Hunters! Strong enough ones to defeat her with Hina's help!"

Luffy sighed, shoulders slumping. Hina being here is a complication, but one that he'd thought through already. He didn't know how this would go, or how it would affect relations with the Marines if she reported this conversation. But he'd already decided what he would do about it. Robin was far more important than Hina, or his relations with the WG that were bound to collapse sooner or later, anyway. Casually walking to one of the chairs out on the deck, he flopped into it with seemingly no care for the two tense women now shifting stares between him and each other.

"Because, Captain Hina, I only bring in people who are actually evil. Nico Robin is not that. Most of the blood on her hands is pirate, criminal, or from those who attacked her first. And not a drop of it comes from Ohara. It was the World Government that called a Buster Call on that island, not Nico Robin rampaging. She's only wanted by the government because she escaped said Buster Call. The last of the archeologists there that learned how to read Poneglyphs."

Hina's eyes bugled as she stared at Luffy fully now, stance shifting uncertainly. It was Robin that spoke up first, however. Her voice harsh.

"How? How do you know that!"

Luffy leveled his best playful smirk up at her, appreciating the confusion it caused in her eyes for a moment as she failed to detect an ounce of maliciousness in it.

"Miss Robin. You are a smart woman. So I'm amazed you haven't already figured it out. My name is Monkey D. Luffy. Just who else do you think I'm related to, with a name like that and knowing the things I do?"

It was bullshit, of course. Garp would never have willingly parted with information that would put Luffy more at odds with the Marines and World Government. But it was a good excuse. One that Robin and Hina both bought hook, line, and sinker as the former's eyes lit up with understanding and the latter outright gaped.

"You're related to the Hero of the Marines? Hmmm…a grandfather, perhaps? Or an uncle, I supposed."

Luffy smirked and tipped his hat toward Robin.

"Right on the first guess. Gramps would never have told me anything himself…but he didn't always exactly bother to secure all his information. Did you know Saul apparently survived, too? Kuzan only froze him, and giants are tough as hell. He eventually thawed. The reports on his current whereabouts where the entire reason Gramps even had the old documentation about Ohara. They apparently pinned his location down to Elbaf…but not even the Government is stupid enough to try dragging him out of there. Even if they'd really rather like to, since he recovered as much from the Great Library as he could."

Robin's composure had completely broken down as Luffy spoke, disbelief on her face even as she sank down to brace herself on the rail.

"A-A…Are you serious?"

The hoarse whisper had such a mix of hope and pain in it that even Hina froze, her expression growing even more stunned as she saw a single tear track down the infamously stoic face of the Devil Child. Luffy leaned forward, meeting Robin's arrested eyes, no longer anything but deadly serious as he answered.

"Yes. The reports I saw were fragments only and half of them were outright encoded. So I can't be truly certain. But that's what I could make out from the bits I could puzzle through. As I understand it, Jaguar D. Saul is alive. With an unknown amount of the Great Library having been added to the library of Elbaf."

Robin outright collapsed…and Luffy turned and pinned the rest of the crew, Hina and Vivi with a look. Deliberately drawing their attention while she gathered herself. This part actually was 

from snooping on Garp's documents. The best lies had a grain of truth, and Luffy had been shocked to discover Saul's survival being reported in a recent dispatch to the higher-ranking admiralty when he'd gone snooping during one of Garp's visits. His previous life hadn't had any idea that the giant had lived. Still, the rest of his crew, and Hina, needed context at the moment, more than anything.

"The basics of the whole story are thus. The Archeologists of Ohara were found out as doing something extremely forbidden by the World Government. For reasons unknown. Specifically, they were researching the void century. The WG found out and were so desperate to suppress whatever the Archeologists had found, or even found a clue about, that they called a Buster Call down on the island. They were intent on completely destroying anyone that might even have even a hint of that knowledge. Every single native of the island died to the bombardment. Man, woman and child, most of whom with no association to the archeologists at all."

Most of his crew looked grim. Viva looked horrified and half-disbelieving. But only half. Hina looked…stone faced. He could see in her eyes she knew he was most likely telling the truth. No one rose to the rank of Captain in the Marines without at least some knowledge of the terrible things the WG got up to. Those eyes were far less cold than her expression, however, and he internally made a note of how angry they were. She was one of the ones like his grandfather, then. Hating the evil the WG did, but still deluding themselves that they could do more good in the Marines than anywhere else.

"They missed someone, though. Nico Robin is, without question, a genius. So much that she had become a fully recognized member of the Archeologists of Ohara at age 8. She escaped the Buster Call, taking the knowledge of how to read Poneglyphs with her. The WG, of course, put a huge bounty on her the moment they realized she'd slipped the net. This has forced her to spend her entire life running, despite having never once done anything to threaten them with her knowledge."

Luffy grinned, glancing up and spotting that Robin had mostly composed herself. She looked a little disbelieving that he was recounting the story so accurately, not to mention that he was doing so with a slant that painted the World Government in a very negative light. He grinned up at her before finishing the tale.

"I believe the official story is that the archaeologists were 'looking for Ancient Weapons,' which was nonsense. But more palatable to the public. And somehow an 8-year-old with a paramecia Devil Fruit, one suited more for assassination than direct combat, supposedly sank six battleships to escape. Complete bullshit to anyone who has more than a basic understanding of her Devil Fruit. But, again, more publicly palatable than admitting they were trying to capture or kill an 8-year-old simply because she could read a dead language."

He shifted his focus to Hina, who winced a little at his rather direct look.

"I hunt villains and monsters, Hina. Not victims whose only crime is attempting to live. It's why I'm a Bounty Hunter, not a Marine like Gramps. I get to choose who I fight. Rather than staining my hands and soul both with the sort of blood you can't just wash off."

That comment got an outright flinch from the Marine, and she finally stood down completely. She didn't say a word. But she turned away from Robin and very pointedly walked inside, making it clear she wasn't going to initiate a conflict. He nodded at her back and returned his gaze to Robin. Grinning broadly, he clapped his hands.

"Now! Sanji! Food and drinks! Including something for our guest, assuming she'll take anything from us. I suspect she'll be interested to know that the Poneglyph hidden in Alabasta is mostly useless to her. And that the one she's actually looking for is, to the best of my knowledge, in the New World. I wonder just how much that will change what she plans to do?"

Sanji lept into action with a happy 'Aye, Captain!' even as Nico Robin was left gaping at him again as he blindsided her with more information. It was sort of fun to see her lose control of her expression! Well, now that the serious danger of a fight was over, at least. He really hadn't been positive Hina would stand down. Though he was glad she had. Smiling, Luffy hooked arms with Vivi before she could escape, and began whispering to the Princess…

... ...

Robin was understandably cautious as she joined them, having put her back to the railing that would drop her off the rear of the aft deck, where Luffy and the others with Observation could feel the turtle she'd come in on swimming between the twin hulls. For all that wariness, however, there was a glint of cold determination in her eyes. A glint that made Luffy forcefully remind himself that this was Robin before any of the thawing she'd done with the Strawhat crew. That was fine, though. His knowledge of what Robin needed to know was extremely limited. Bit and pieces that Alex had picked up not from watching the show, but via secondhand osmosis from those that had. In this specific case, however, the fragmentary nature of the knowledge would only make it more easy to sell. It would have been unbelievable for him to have had all the details.

"You said the Poneglyph in Alabasta is nearly worthless to me. Why? And how did you even know I was after it?"

Luffy hummed, snacking on a delightful parfait that Sanji had made.

"I'll answer the latter question first by saying that it was admittedly a guess. I was aware of there being a Poneglyph in Alabasta, as well as what is on it. More or less, at least. That made the logical leap when you appeared on my ship an easy one to make. Nothing you've done has ever indicated you'd want something like Pluton. Which means what you're really looking for are history Poneglyphs. Are you aware that there are three types of Poneglyphs?"

Robin's eyes widened.

"Three? I know of only two."

Luffy nodded, having pretty much expected that.

"Three. I assume, if you've been seeking them, that you've encountered Instructional and Historical Poneglyphs. That is, ones that contain pieces of history, and others that contain instructions or clues about how to find the others?"

Robin was staring at him intensely now and nodded shallowly.

"What you're unaware of, since you haven't ventured into the New World so far as I know, is that there is another type. Road Poneglyphs. I know very little about them myself, aside from the fact that, between them, they apparently reveal the location of the final island on the Grand Line. The one that only the Roger Pirates have ever managed to visit in modern times, so far as anyone knows."

Everyone was staring at Luffy now, the mention of the Roger Pirates and the end of Grand Line have gotten all their attention fully. Even Sanji stopped doting on the girls and was locked onto him. Vivi, however, was looking nervous. He smiled reassuringly at her. She had a part to play in this, it was only a matter of convincing her to play that part. It was a little manipulative, but he could live with that, if it meant turning Robin into an ally.

"I truly don't know if what you are seeking is there. But I stumbled upon something, in the East Blue of all places, that told an interesting tale. One, I think, that will change your priorities, Miss Archaeologist. Vivi?"

Luffy rested a hand on Vivi's shoulder, willing her to be calm, even as the younger woman slowly brought out an item he'd given her shortly after their first meeting. The small journal, whose only markings were the name along the spine. Nefertari D. Lili. The journal had opened for Vivi easily, where it had resisted Luffy, and both of them had been surprised by the contents. Contents which he had spent the time Sanji was preparing food and drinks quietly encouraging Vivi to share. Thankfully, he'd been able to make her see just how valuable getting Robin to shift loyalties would be. The Princess also had little concept of just how important the information was, which helped.

"This journal belonged to a former Queen of Alabasta. One that disappeared at the end of the void century. Until Luffy brought me this, it had only been known that she vanished between the initial founding of the World Government and returning to Alabasta. Few remember, but Alabasta was one of the twenty nations that helped with that founding. Of those twenty, only Alabasta's royal family refused to become World Nobles. Instead, then Queen Nefertari bowed out, sailing for home. Except she never arrived. Eventually, her younger brother was forced to take up the throne, and it is from him that I and my father descend. Until this journal, that was the totality we knew about the affair."

Robin's intense stare had shifted to Vivi, eyes now alight with something new. A fervent desire for knowing that you could practically feel, and which caused the Princess to trail off and gulp. Luffy squeezed her shoulder again, and gave her a bit of a break from that stare by taking up the narrative for the moment.

"The journal is somehow bound to Vivi's family. I couldn't open it, but its pages parted for her like any other book. Within it was a log of the last trip Nefertari D. Lili made. A years long voyage where she dropped off the Poneglyphs in new locations. All thirty of them."

Robin's back straightened, eyes wide.

"There are thirty? And it reveals their locations?"

Vivi hesitantly spoke up again.

"It reveals where they were initially dropped off. The deals made with local tribes and kingdom to protect them. But…it's possible any number of them have long since been moved. It does categorize and name them, though. Apparently the 'Rio Poneglyph' is actually a set of nine, which tell the True History of the world. One of them is marked as having not been moved, as it was 'too dangerous.' Captain Luffy thinks that one is probably the one containing the Void Century information, while the other eight of that set all tell other important bits to give the whole picture."

Robin was looking the oddest mix of deathly pale and incredibly satisfied. Knowing her dream, Luffy thought he understood. She'd just been told the key, or at least a bit part of the key, to the information she wanted. At the same time, however, she was now aware just how far she still was from that goal. Well, Luffy could throw her a lifeline.

"Those nine are apparently all along the Grand Line. Meaning that the one in Alabasta likely does contain a small amount of what you need. I'm also fairly certain I know what happened to one other, which is on an island I'm intending to visit. Then, of course, there's the fact that this crew intends to eventually map the entire Grand Line, which means we will be visiting every single island…including the final island, eventually."

Robin's eyes narrowed as she focused on him again.

"You want me to travel with you?"

Luffy grinned.

"Yep! There is a reason this ship is called the Discovery. My greatest sin is that I'm curious. Which means I wish to see the whole world…and know it's story. And I don't particularly care who tells me I can't. As it happens, parts of that story are decipherable only to you, among all those living in this world. So of course I want you along. It benefits you, as well, since we've been hired to help eliminate your current boss. I've already spoken to the Princess here, and part of our payment can be the right to read the Poneglyph in Alabasta, anyway."

That hadn't been an easy concession to get from Vivi. It had, in fact, taken the majority of the time Sanji was preparing food. She didn't trust Robin for obvious reasons, and he'd had to pour on every bit of charm he could to convince her to trust him not to let Robin do anything with the knowledge of Pluton, which is the only thing they knew for certain was on the local Poneglyph.

"Of course, that right is only for the Strawhat crew. Which means you'd have to be a member in order to make use of that permission. Otherwise, we'll just have to take a copy and hope we find someone else that can decipher it…"

Robin had an extremely good poker face, but Luffy's empathy was able to tell him just how much at war with herself she was internally. She didn't trust Crocodile, yet she had no reason to trust him either. Not yet. Which meant she was potentially exchanging a relatively known quantity with a complete unknown. A complete unknown who seemed to know entirely too much about her. He wanted to sigh, having suspected this was going to be a problem. The original Luffy had been such a simple soul that he'd been essentially incapable of manipulation or dishonesty. Which is why Robin had been able to trust him so easily. Unfortunately, that wasn't true of him, so getting Robin to realize he was serious was going to be much more of a struggle.

"How about this. I don't think you want Crocodile to succeed, whatever else happens. So, you provide us with the information we need to deal with his plans, and in exchange you're considered a temporary member of the crew for purposes of reading the Poneglyph. If you don't want to keep traveling with us after Alabasta, we part ways on good terms. If you do, then you become a permanent member."

Luffy could feel Vivi wanting to protest, but silenced her by letting his hand, which had drifted downward, squeeze her thigh instead of her shoulder. She squeaked, flushing and distracted, her protest dying. The action also, surprisingly enough, seemed to solidify Robin's thoughts. Amusement shot through her emotions and seemed to settle the rest of her warring thoughts down as it did so.

"Ara Ara, to think a pirate could make a Princess flush so~. It's like a proper dirty novel, hmmm Princess?" Shifting away from the now-even-more-nuclear-red Vivi, Robin focused on Luffy and gave him a nod. "Very well, Captain. I shall give you enough information to be able to confront my boss. Which of you comes out on top is, of course, up to you to determine. The first thing you need to know is that he has identified your entire crew via the Unluckies…"