3/9

'At least they're not heading towards that smellyhead,' Yoko mused to herself as she followed the waddling books into the woods.

Away from the fake-Boss's impromptu saw mill, as it turned out, was towards a relatively recent addition to the village: the Grove of Unusual Animals. The Marine-girl hastily hid behind one of the trees surrounding the area, and she tried not to frown again (it was starting to give her a headache) at the sight of three of the female pirates standing within the grove. She wasn't able to stop a grimace, though, as she took in the angelic wings on one of them, and the former royal state of the other. How could pirates corrupt even the most wonderful people?

Then again, the image before her provided a decent answer: all three of the pirates were looking over the animals and reacting like any animal lover would, cooing over the cubs, hatchlings, or whatever else they were. The angel and princess were both cuddling the cuter animals, and the giant duck alongside them was preening as he lorded his size over the other birds in the grove's pond.

The source of the walking books, on the other hand, was leaning against a nearby tree with a book in hand. Beside her was a steadily growing stack of books, and through the foliage Yoko spotted a hand sprouted out of the ground on the other side of the tree, out of sight of the other pirates and tickling a pig-pug… pug-pig? A dog-faced piglet. Whatever it was, it had a face that would send even a mother screaming the other direction.

"Ooooh, these little guys are so cute!" the blue-haired ex-princess, Nefertari Vivi, squeed as she held up a turtle-duck and nuzzled its adorable beak. "It's like when Carue was a duckling all over again, all downy and adorable! No offense, Carue."

"None taken!" the duck, Carue apparently, replied. "Ah'm nawt adowable anymoah, but that's just because Ah'm badass now!"

"When you're not acting the coward and panicking, of course," the reading woman, Nico Robin, chuckled in a teasing tone, which drew an angered squawk and a bout of flapping from the duck.

Vivi snickered, most likely at her crewmates' antics, before giving the angel—Conis—a curious look. "What about Su, Conis? Was she this cute when she was younger?"

"Hm?" Conis glanced up from where she was dangling a foxtail over a fish-tailed cat-fish that was batting at the fern from within the pond. "Oh! Yes, she was, maybe even more! Just about the most adorable little ball of cotton you'd ever seen!" The angel glanced around the glade before puffing her cheeks out. "Now if only Su were around to be properly embarrassed…"

"Oh?" Vivi glanced around, starting in surprise as she noticed what was missing. "Hey, where is Su?"

"Oh, I saw her wandering off about… a half hour ago, I think?" Conis shrugged indifferently. "It's fine, she does this all the time. She'll be back when she feels like it. I just hope she's having fun!"

Yoko frowned at the information, and she toyed with the idea of jotting it down, but dismissed the notion with a shake of her head. After all, it was just one fox. What kind of trouble could the dumb animal get into?

-o-

Out on one of the rocky outcroppings that formed the island of Little East Blue's 'mandibles', a seagull was perched on the water-worn stone. Well, a lot of seagulls were perched on the water-worn stone, but this one was unusual. Mostly, it was the fact that it was wearing a trenchcoat, fedora and a pair of too-large sunglasses. Or maybe that it had its beak buried in a newspaper. Still, despite how much it stood out from the rest of the flock, it was still anonymous to the casual eye by dint of its apparel obscuring any distinguishable features.

Then again, it was a seagull. What were 'distinguishing features' for its kind might as well not exist in many other species' eyes.

Regardless, the seagull continued to casually read its newspaper, unflinching as waves broke against the outcropping and lightly misted it with saltwater, and unmoved as a small shadow trotted up from behind him and sat at his side, sending seagulls skyward in a cacophony of caws.

For several minutes, Su pointedly kept her gaze away from the seagull, her attention on the horizon. Suddenly, she asked, "How's the 'catch of the day'?" in a casual tone, as though the two animals had been discussing the weather since her arrival.

The seagull ruffled its feathers slightly, attention still fixed on its paper. "Still 'medium-rare' at this time, but…" The bird glanced at the fox from over the paper. "If the madam allows, the chef can have it as close to 'well done' as possible with time."

If the way the cloud fox snarled and snapped her head around to full on glare at the bird, that was the exact wrong thing to say. "Tell the chef to hurry," she warned him. "Or else my tastes will turn to a more…" She lunged forward and pinned the gull's tail feathers under her paw, so fast he couldn't even flinch. "Avian variety."

The incognito News Coo swallowed heavily and hastily nodded his desperate understanding. "S-S-So noted, I'll inform the chef at once." The second Su let his feathers go, the Coo tossed the paper into the ocean and flapped off as though its tail feathers were on fire.

Su watched the bird fly off before turning away and trotting back to the island-proper, an annoyed sigh escaping her lips. "So hard to find good help these days…"

-o-

Putting thoughts of the fox out of her mind, Yoko pulled out her notebook again and scribbled down the obvious reason the pirates were here. "Scoping out… unusual animals… for poaching… and black market sale…" After a moment of consideration, she added another note. "Possible… morale boosting… effort…"

Her recon complete, Yoko spared a half-moment to give the animals a determined look, silently vowing that she'd see the adorable animals rescued from the pirate's heinous clutches, before she turned around and made a beeline for the village, intent on discovering what other nefarious schemes the pirates had in store.

-o-

"She's gone," Robin reported. "Honestly, you'd think if she were taking the time to form a vendetta against us she'd also take the time to learn our capabilities. Ah, and just to clarify, she was apparently unfazed by our innocuous behavior. Apparently, we are planning to poach and sell these adorable creatures to the highest bidder."

"Oh, what terrifying fiends we are," Vivi deadpanned.

"Well, we could hardly expect it to be that easy," Conis sighed. "It's times like this that make me miss the lack of overt discrimination that we had on Skypiea."

"Washn't that onwy because of how hawd it was foah anyone down hewe to adapt to sky wahfayah?" Carue asked.

Conis blinked at the duck in confusion. "Uh… I'm sorry, what was that last word, Carue?"

The supersonic duck grumbled something under his breath and then glanced skyward. "Tone it down a nahtch, would ya? And I said 'warfare'."

"Ah, yes. That probably did help, from what I learned in training."

"Either way, we'll leave that mess to the ones who can actually clean it up," Vivi said. "In the meantime…" she stood up and brushed her dress off before walking over to her older crewmate. "Robin, I've been meaning to ask you something for a while."

The archaeologist glanced up from her book and hummed a curious hum. "Hmm?"

"How hard was it for you to learn to read the Poneglyphs?"

Robin blinked twice, her whole body twitching slightly. Slowly, very slowly, she closed her book, eyes staring vaguely in Vivi's direction but really off into the distance. "I… will need a second."

"Ah, i-if that's a bad question—!"

"No, no, nothing like that," Robin assured, pausing to take a deep breath and pull herself together. "It's just, ah…" She gave the princess a sheepish smile. "You are… literally the first person to ask me that. I… I need to think about my answer."

Vivi nodded flashed Robin a sympathetic smile, stepping up to sit next to her. "Please, take your time."

Robin nodded absentmindedly. Her gaze remained unfocused for a bit longer as she mouthed a few calculations, and then she turned her full, somewhat unsettling attention to the princess.

"It took me roughly two years to learn, and that was with my already phenomenal IQ and… plenty of free time. The Void Language is not an easy tongue to learn. The alphabet is incomparable to any modern lexicon, and their grammar is… circuitous, to say the least, with as much emotional connotation involved in translation as clinical denotation. It's a feat, to say the absolute least."

Vivi nodded slowly, giving the Oharan a contemplative look out the corner of her eye. "Save that that was from first principles with limited reference information, in hiding, and nobody helping you, right?"

Robin nodded her head side to side, humming contemplatively. "Yes, I suppose you have a point there…" She then chuckled and glanced over at Vivi with a curious smile. "But why do you ask? Were you interested in learning the language for yourself?"

Robin's chuckling intensified at that, only to die a swift death when Vivi failed to make a sound. Eyes wide, she grabbed the princess' shoulder.

"This is the part where you tell me that that notion is entirely ridiculous, which it is," Robin said in a tone of voice that was more fearfully desperate than threatening.

Vivi's expression was pointedly neutral at first. Then it changed to solid determination as she fully faced the archaeologist.

"No, it isn't," she whispered solemnly. "You're exactly right. I want you to teach me the language of the Void Century…" Vivi's composure shook slightly, but she a steady inhalation restored it. "And I want you to teach me using the Alubarna Poneglyph."

The inscrutable Nico Robin paled in shock and horror. It wasn't a full-on sheet-white pale, but any shift in her expression was dramatic. The furrows her fingers dug in her book's leather hide spoke volumes, too.

"Vivi, that information—!" she started to protest in a weak voice.

"That information is my heritage," Vivi interrupted in a heated, almost desperate tone of voice, her expression taking on a pleading demeanor. "And I don't just mean my heritage as a person born in this world, I mean me, personally. My ancestors were in the dead center of whatever the hell happened 800 years ago, and they had that stone in our family's crypt. And what was written on it…"

Vivi paused, biting her lip, and shook her head. "My ancestors… they knew. They knew, they had to know what they'd taken custody of, what they dedicated themselves to protecting, until the end of their lives, and even after that." Her gaze returned to Robin, eyes blazing. "And I want to have that knowledge, too. I want to know what was worth the lives of my countrymen. Mine… and yours. I want to know the knowledge of what happened in that lost century, what my ancestors did. I want to know what was so horrific that the government my ancestors helped found decided to kill an entire island to erase it. I…" Vivi trailed off helplessly before bowing her head. "I-I need to know. And I'll do whatever it takes to learn. So, please…"

Nefertari Vivi, Corsair Princess of Alabasta and descendant of one of the Twenty Kings who had founded the World Government, got on her knees and bowed her head before Nico Robin, the Devil Child of Ohara who posed one of the greatest existential threats to said government, and spoke blasphemy.

"Teach me the Void Language," she pleaded. "I beg of you."

Robin did not respond for a few moments. And ultimately, it was neither she nor Vivi who broke the silence.

"Actually… I'd like to know, too."

Devil Child and Corsair Princess both snapped their heads around to stare at…

"Conis!?" they chorused in disbelief.

The Skypiean bit her lip and shuffled nervously at the attention, but she still nodded an affirmative. "I'm sorry if this is out of place, but the war that shaped all of Skypiea's culture for the past four hundred years… I thought it was over the vearth, and on my ancestors' part, it was…"

She wrung her hands and looked to the side sadly. "But I talked to the Shandians during the victory party. And the whole reason that they fought for so long was to safeguard the Poneglyph in the Fire of Shandora. I may have only recently learned of the Void Century, but it's as much a part of my life as it has been yours, even if it was for a completely different reason."

Conis stepped forward and looked Robin in the eye, her earlier nervousness gone. "So many people suffered for so long for a single stone… and I want to know why. I want to know what was so important, I want to know why it existed to begin with, I want to know it all. So I'm sorry if this is forward…" Conis bowed as low as she could. "But I have to learn why, and to learn I need your help. So… please…"

Robin didn't move, didn't even blink, just staring incredulously at her two crewmates. This lasted for several seconds… and as those seconds stretched into minutes, Vivi and Conis exchanged looks. Silently coming to an agreement, Conis stood, planning to snap Robin out of her stupor.

Then, all at once, Robin burst out laughing.

"DERESHISHISHISHISHISHISHI! DERESHISHISHISHISHISHISHI!"

And this laugh wasn't like Robin's previous, if still genuine, bouts of laughter. Those, for all their sincerity, were still mild and controlled, easily muffled by a hand and closed jaw. This bout had Robin bent over, both hands clutching her gut and another pair sprouted from the tree she was leaning against holding her up. Tears streamed from her eyes, and if it went on much longer they'd probably be running from her nose. And a six-inch dragonfly could have flown in her mouth with room to spare, let alone a common housefly.

"Dereshishishi! Not just one, but two people asking me, of their own free will, to teach them the Void Language for the genuine pursuit of knowledge!" Robin giggled with ecstatic mirth. "And I honestly consider those same two people my friends! Ahh…" She wiped a wistful tear from her eye. "Life as a Straw Hat will never fail to reach new heights."

The would-be students perked up eagerly.

"So does this mean—?" Vivi queried.

Robin nodded at the princess, a hint of steel entering her gaze. "I warn the both of you: if you undertake this task, it will be like nothing you have ever experienced. I will not merely teach you, I will hold you to the standards of Ohara. I will work your eyes until they are little more than shriveled husks and drill your minds as they have never been drilled before. I caution you!" She stared at them with the utmost seriousness. "There will be pop quizzes. Are you truly prepared to live up to the standards of the greatest academic institution in the West Blue, if not the world?"

"Absolutely," Vivi said at once, her being brimming with confidence. Conis took a moment longer to nod firmly.

"Excellent! Then in that case," Robin said, an earnest smile on her face. "Let's begin!"

Without warning, simultaneous impacts to the backs of Vivi and Conis' legs brought the women to their knees, and in the same second they found their arms locked behind their backs and their heads yanked to attention.

"What the—!?" Conis exclaimed as Robin's expression contorted into an expression of childish bliss.

"Ohhh, this is going to be so much fun!" Both women straight-up froze with existential dread as Robin actually squeed with enthusiasm, a notebook suddenly in her hand with a pencil in the other scribbling furiously in it. "I just need to jot down what we'll be starting on, and I can update my lesson plan when we get back to the Sunny!"

"H-H-How do you haf a wesson pwan if you nevah thought you'd be teaching anyone?" Carue stammered out.

"Why, I've had this lesson plan since I was a little girl, of course!" Robin replied, a perfectly sunny aura surrounding her as she continued to write. "I've always wanted students of my own, whom I could groom and teach and help mature into wonderful archaeologists! Every young scholar's dream!"

Vivi paled as the pieces all came together. "Oh, dear sweet Horus, we're her dollies," she squeaked.

Conis glanced at Carue in terror. "Help!"

The supersonic duck took one look at the humming archaeologist before affixing the newly minted students with a flat look. "Yeeeaaah… you two bwought this on yoahselves, and wheah Vivi is concewned, my job descwiption expwicitwy excwudes pwotection fwom tutahs. And on that note!" The pond exploded with displaced water as the duck shot away.

"Traitor…" Vivi sobbed tearfully.

"Lesson one!" Robin suddenly announced, smiling brightly as she flipped the notepad so that her students could see. "Basic forms of the characters. I expect you to pay close enough attention that you'll have no less than half of it done within the next five hours. Perhaps then we can take a break for dinner. Isn't that great?"

So far out in the woods, nobody could hear the girls' pleas for mercy. Well, nobody except a certain cloud fox, who immediately perked up and lost her bad mood upon hearing the sound.

"That sounds like Conis," she mused. "Maybe I should go check on her." As she considered that, her survival instincts fairly screamed at her to stay away. "On second thought, maybe I should go find someone else to bother…"

-o-

"I guess this is supposed to be flattery?" Perona deadpanned, looking at the haircuts and shirts of the four adolescents she and Nami had reluctantly followed into the island's cave system at their… enthusiastic insistence. "This is still the 'attraction' stage, right?"

"I wouldn't know," Nami replied with surprising calm. "I spent most of my adolescence away from teenage boys."

"Lucky."

Nami gave her… she would be generous and term the spirit a 'friend' a flat look. "Because all through puberty, I was a slave in all but chains to the bastard who killed my mother."

Perona had the good grace to cough heavily in her fist and avert her gaze so that she was looking anywhere but at the navigator. "…my condolences?"

The Straw Hat maintained her flat look for a few seconds more before raising her hands in a dismissive shrug. "It's fine, it's fine, you couldn't have known." Perona's guilt alleviated, she turned back to the four boys who, quite admirably, were visibly suppressing their excitement in light of what they'd just heard. "Same for you guys. Now, are we almost where you wanted to show me something?"

The members of the—Nami hid her grimace with expert ease—Orenami Fan Club all perked up at the reminder of why they were there, and picked up their pace. "Just a little farther, Lady Nami! Right around here!"

The four of them rounded another few columns before coming to a stone structure covered by a large sheet. Both women looked with a bit of apprehension as the boys, with a flourish, removed the cloth. Then they blinked.

It was an intricately carved, life-sized statue of Nami, apparently going off of the image on her wanted poster. The sunny but mischievous smile on her face, the tattoo on her shoulder, the revealing clothes, even the Clima-Tact and clouds were all carved with all the skill that the navigator would expect of an artist like Usopp.

"Oooookay, screw attraction, this is obsession…" Perona whistled. She then glanced at the subject of the teenager's 'admiration'. "Hold off on the lightning till I'm out of the line of fire. I don't know how that stuff affects my astral projection, and I don't want to know."

"Mmm…" Nami mused with a slight frown, her Eisen Tempo shifting around and her fingers playing with the other sections of her Clima-Tact.

And then, the cloud stilled and she brought her other hand up to cup her chin as she observed the statue. "To be honest… I don't really mind this. It's actually kind of flattering."

Perona straight up boggled at the pirate, her incredulous "Really!?" syncing up with the teenagers' eager remix.

"Well, sure," Nami nodded kindly, walking up and giving the statue an appreciative once-over. "It's a skillfully rendered version of me at my most badass, why wouldn't I like it? It's so good… you know what?" She clapped her hands and beamed at the nearly swooning fan club. "I think I wouldn't mind autographing this! Free of… of…" Nami trailed off, her mouth working but no sound coming out. Grimacing, she coughed into her fist and held her hand out, a blush staining her cheeks. "Five hundred berries for the autograph. For all four of you."

"Worth every bit!" one of them declared, counting out the bills and laying them in her palm.

"What, no pencil?" Perona snarked.

"Of course not!" another member of the club snorted pridefully. "Lady Nami is the world-class navigator who'll chart the world! She has a writing implement on her at all times!"

Nami smiled and blushed bashfully as she confirmed the words by drawing a pencil from her back pocket. "These boys have my number, alright." And with that, she signed her name on the statue's un-tattooed shoulder with a flourish. She then stepped back so that the fan club could admire it. "Enjoy, boys!"

And enjoy they did, crowding around the statue and admiring the signature with glee. Nami, for her part, stood back and watched with an inflating sense of pride while Perona floated off, her interest in the ongoing spectacle expended.

"We actually got an autograph from Lady Nami! The Lady Nami!"

"Do you think the island'll have good weather all the time now? I bet it will!"

"I told you guys showing her this would be awesome, I told you!"

"Good thing she didn't find the other one, huh?"

And with that one line, everyone in the cavern froze up.

After a moment, Nami said "'Other one'?", one brow climbing towards her hairline.

The teenager who'd spoken winced miserably. "Whoops…"

"Duuuuude."

"Yeaaah, about that…" Perona droned.

Seeing the expression on her face, Nami followed the pink-haired woman's gaze to where, tucked into an alcove of the cave, there was another statue. This statue had two main differences from the one on the pedestal: first, it was by all appearances a nude statue, though thankfully without much anatomical detail… and second, the face looked like one of Luffy's paintings.

She honestly wasn't sure which was worse.

"Some fans you've got here," Perona deadpanned.

"Boys?" Nami asked tightly, her Eisen Tempo starting to writhe, though it still maintained its white coloration.

The boys' survival instincts promptly showed their worth, as they immediately fell to their knees, pressed their foreheads to the stone, and began pleading for forgiveness.

"We're so sorry, Lady Nami!"/"We couldn't get it right the first time, so we succumbed to our whims!"/"We swear we didn't mean any offense!"/"Please forgive us!"

Nami glared at them for a few moments longer before turning on her heel with a huff. "Because the final draft is this good, I'll let you off this once. And I expect you to destroy that abomination ASAP."

The teenagers all sighed in relief.

"Thank you most merciful Lady Nami!"/ "You are a goddess!"/ "We're the luckiest bastards alive!" /"It's a really good thing she didn't find the rest!"

And hello freeze again.

Perona shoved her fingers in her ears with a defeated sigh. "Oh, this is going to be loud."

"DUDE!"

Before the other three teens could lambast their friend, all four were frozen by the reek of ozone suddenly ramming its way into their nostrils.

Shivering in terror, the boys returned their attention to Nami, to find that not only was she trembling and scowling with fury and not only had she deployed her Clima-Tact to its full length, but her Eisen Tempo was looming over them all like a tempest born of hell itself.

"'The rest'?" Nami repeated in a frigid tone.

"I'd say it was nice knowing you boys, but…" Perona trailed off as she slowly backed out of the zone of fire.

"'THE REST!?'"

The flickering lights from her clouds served to illuminate another alcove. And this one had at least a dozen statues in it. And while the face improved steadily with each one… every last one of them was nude, with the craftsmanship of the chest and pelvic regions particularly impeccable.

And the instant that Nami comprehended that sight, the boys' world became light, sound, and pain.

-o-

Yoko blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the spots in her eyesight as fast as possible. It had been a long time since she had been on her father's ship, since she had dealt with an assault on her eardrums like a cannon going off beside her. Too long, judging by the fact that her ears were ringing as badly as the first time she remembered, but going by how she could almost feel the latent charge crackling in her clothes, the endurance would have been something of a cold comfort even if she still had it.

"Any comments, Perona?"

Yoko hastily silenced a curse, pressing herself further behind the stalagmite she'd been using as cover as she watched the pirates pass by. The one who'd spoken was the ginger, whose mood was still quite stormy.

The girl took a second to muffle a snicker at her pun before listening in as the ghost girl gave her reply in a faux-pleasant voice.

"…Well, off the top of my head, I wanna say that this isn't normally what they mean by the 'destruction' stage, but—!" The ghost girl trailed off into a coughing fit as the weather-woman's cloud started to darken. "Ah, I mean, no, no comment."

Yoko's eyes twitched at the exchange, and she waited for the pair to pass before doubling back to check the stretch of cavern she'd evacuated.

Within a minute, she reached the scene of the carnage. She took in the charred, still-groveling forms of the four adolescents. She took in the stretch of cavern that had almost certainly been magnetized from the lightning and the rubble that had once been finely carved stone. She glanced back in the direction of the pirates who were stalking off, obviously responsible for the devastation and clearly devoid of remorse.