NAKAMA IS NOT JUST A WORD
Chapter 1
Nico Robin didn't believe in nakama.
Intellectually, she knew that things like love, loyalty, and friendship existed in the world, but the only experience she had with such grand ideas were twenty years in the past.
She had run away from countless families. Not all of them had tried to turn her in for the bounty money. Many simply told her that they were sorry but they couldn't risk their lives and the lives of their families protecting someone like her. They had been willing to open up their homes until they realized the danger in doing so. Somehow, these were the betrayals that hurt the most. It was unbearable to know that the only reason keeping her from finding a home with such people was because of who she was.
So she became a pirate. At least she knew where she stood with them. They distrusted and feared her and made no attempt to hide it. She relished this fear. It kept them from doing more than leering and swearing at her. Her Devil Fruit abilities made her useful, and her potential as an emergency coin purse was irresistible. Of course, being pirates they couldn't just expect to walk down to the local Marine base and leave with the reward, but just having that possibility in their grasp seemed to please them very much.
It was just as well that she was left alone. She had always learned more by simply observing. And what she observed was that while many of her captains espoused the virtues of being nakama they were also the first to abandon their subordinates and run away when real danger appeared. Was that what nakama meant? To be comrades-in-arms until it was too inconvenient to do so?
She could never bring herself to feel sorry when her 'crewmates' were inevitably taken down by the Marines and she had to escape. After all, she was doing exactly what they would have done to her if the situation had been reversed.
In the beginning of her endless journey across the sea, it was Saulo's words that gave her strength. But as the years went by, she found little reason to continue to laugh or to dream. She no longer believed that nakama existed. At least not for her.
One day, nakama who will protect you will appear.
Yet the hope would never quite die.
But she had long resigned herself to the fact that she was a fool.
Revenge was now what she lived for. Finding the Rio Poneglyph and the True History was not so much her dream as her reason for not lying down to die. She would do anything to finish Ohara's research. She would die spitting in the World Government's face. That was how she ended up with the Shichibukai Crocodile and his mad plans. She would commit any crime and even destroy the world itself to avenge the deaths of her mother and her people. What was one more sin on an already blackened soul?
Robin didn't know why she saved him. She stared at the boy with the straw hat and the red shirt lying on the sand before her, weakly gasping his gratitude. She was a little astonished that he was still alive after being pierced with Crocodile's metal hook and thrown in a pit of quicksand.
He wasn't the first person she had spared from death. She had deliberately not given fatal blows to Igaram and Pell. She had allowed Nefertari Vivi to learn Mister Zero's true identity and done nothing to stop it. There were many other times in her travels when she chose not to kill when she easily could have.
These were strange actions for an assassin to take. Especially for one who believed that she was rotten to the core. She was under no illusion that the people she allowed to live made up for those that she killed. She had killed many people in her life directly and indirectly all in the name of survival. Most of the pirate crews who had harbored her were probably dead now at the hands of Marine 'justice.'
By helping Crocodile she had probably contributed to the deaths of many. Even if she didn't intend for him to have the weapon he sought, that wouldn't bring back the dead. She could tell herself that they would have died anyway and that she would have been captured and executed without Crocodile's protection, but she didn't like to make excuses.
So why did she repeatedly let mercy stay her hand? The answer was simple. There was enough death in the world. There was no need for her to add more to it than necessary.
That may have been why she allowed Vivi to find out who Mister Zero was. If the princess and her band of misfits managed the unlikely event of stopping Crocodile then that was good. If they didn't then that was simply one more tragedy in an already tragic world.
That didn't explain why she saved Straw Hat Luffy however. Deciding not to kill someone was different from taking actions to save a life. Maybe it was because he reminded her of Saulo. It had been a long time since she had seen a person with such conviction. It was easy for men like Crocodile to be smug and confident when they had the upper hand. To fight in the face of overwhelming odds was another thing entirely.
She had met a few men of D and the one trait they all shared was the belief that nothing was impossible. Once they made up their mind to do something, there was no obstacle short of death itself that could overcome their will to succeed. The power of their belief was limitless, and when she was around them, she couldn't help but believe as well.
So she left the boy in the hands of the Peregrine Falcon Pell and hurried on to the capital. Someone like that didn't deserve to die. Robin was a student of history. She knew that she was looking on someone truly special, someone who would accomplish great things. How could she deny history this boy's story?
That was why even though she hoped that she would not see him again, she was not terribly surprised when the tenacious young pirate showed up at the palace with a barrel strapped to his back. Robin did feel a swell of frustration though. She was so close to her goals that she could almost see the Poneglyph, and she still couldn't understand what motivated this pirate. Why was he willing to fight so hard for someone who was once his enemy?
Yet despite the seriousness of the situation, she could not help but laugh at the sight of 'Mizu Luffy.' He was so delightfully absurd. He didn't even seem to realize the mortal danger he was in. She hadn't laughed like that in a very long time, and it was with a pang of regret that she had to remind herself to get back to business.