Robin did not see the attack itself, but before the rising wave knocked her from her feet, the girl managed to see the Monster standing on Banchi's back. Under the force of a monstrously powerful blow, the enormous turtle's shell exploded into pieces. Banchi's body arched, literally folding in half, while a whole fountain of blood and fragments of internal organs erupted from the turtle's mouth, guaranteeing his death. The strike had been delivered with such unimaginable strength that the resulting shockwave shoved the water back a full hundred meters in every direction, creating something like a localized tsunami. It was that rising wave that knocked Robin from her feet, spun her around, slammed her painfully against the ground several times with her back, head, and side, and then 'spat' her out only a few dozen meters from the very rock on which she had been sitting a minute earlier. Soaked, slightly disoriented, and dazed by the impacts, the girl lay on her back among the coastal stones and stared unfocused at the brightening sky. All around her, the water that had been so brazenly driven far inland slowly began to retreat.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Robin did not immediately understand what the sound was, where it came from, or why it was drawing closer—the heavy blow to her head made thought difficult. The girl required several long seconds to reach the correct conclusion, after which her gaze instantly sharpened and she found herself on her feet. Acid-colored shorts and shirt, hat, crown, glasses, sandals—the already familiar Monster approached at an unhurried walk. The strangest part was that the Monster looked noticeably older than he had only minutes before. Near Whisky Peak, Robin would not have given him more than seventeen years, while in truth he had looked closer to fifteen, making the comparison with that man seem even more absurd. Now? Now the Monster could easily pass for someone in his early twenties, and he seemed to have grown considerably taller as well. Robin immediately suspected she was facing another Devil Fruit user. Then the girl suddenly realized that while she studied the approaching Monster, the Monster was studying her in return. Although Robin could not see his eyes, every cell in her body could feel his intent stare upon her.
"You know, I like your eyes," the girl heard praise directed at her. "They're very beautiful. And from what I can see, the rest of you is quite nice too. I wouldn't even hesitate to call you a beauty, but I dislike stupid people far too much, and you are unbelievably stupid. Seriously!" The praise was followed immediately by an insult.
One could certainly argue about the statement concerning her intelligence, but there was no point disputing the first sentence. Robin truly had grown into a very beautiful woman. Enough had already been said about her captivating eyes, but everything else matched them perfectly well. She was tall, with a large bust, flawless proportions, and a beautiful face with a slender, elegant nose. Straight black hair fell slightly below her shoulders, while neatly trimmed bangs covered her forehead. Robin wore a short, low-cut purple top with cord fastenings, a miniskirt of the same color with white fringe along its lower edge, and purple high-heeled boots. She also wore a band around her left arm, decorated with white fringe and a gold badge bearing the emblem 'W.' The emblem signified her affiliation with Baroque Works. Until quite recently, a purple cowboy hat had also covered Robin's head, but it had vanished in an unknown direction when the girl went underwater. Overall, Robin's distinctive appearance and matching hairstyle made her resemble one of the priestesses of ancient Egypt. A very beautiful priestess.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.
"Or perhaps I'm accusing you unfairly?" Luffy—otherwise known as the Monster in the imagination and thoughts of a thoroughly frightened Robin—continued approaching at the same leisurely pace. Who else could it have been. "Maybe you aren't stupid, but deaf? Though in that case, what would be the point of sprouting your own ears? And you ran away rather briskly, as though you'd heard my warning perfectly well. Since you heard it, one question naturally comes to mind: which exact part of my warning did you fail to understand? Was it the part where I offered you the chance to surrender voluntarily? Or the part about how I would find you myself? Please, enlighten me regarding your thought process. I'm genuinely curious! Even mentally disabled people have their own logic, after all. An unusual logic, certainly, but logic nonetheless. Which means you too must have based your suicidal decision on something, am I right? Or perhaps you woke up yesterday morning, thought it over, and decided it was an excellent day to die? In that case, allow me to draw your attention to one small and insignificant fact. You see, tomorrow arrived quite some time ago, so yesterday's plans for a happy death have failed completely. Today, your death may be many things, but happy will not be one of them. I can personally guarantee that."
Luffy truly adored the sound of his own voice; otherwise he would not have wasted so many words. Even the members of his own family let his monologues pass in one ear and out the other, so what could be expected from strangers—especially enemies? Robin, for example, did not appreciate the young man's brief speech at all. She appreciated it so little that the very first words of her response were the name of a technique she had devised specifically for confronting powerful and fast opponents. Normally, however, she used anywhere from two to sixteen 'flowers,' rather than a full hundred at once. Crossing her arms before her, Robin shouted:
"Cien Fleur (Hundred Flowers)!"
The effect was immediate. A slightly surprised Luffy—the characteristic rise of one eyebrow gave him away—froze in place, staring at a full hundred arms that had sprouted not only from the ground around him but from his own body as well. The arms growing from the ground immediately seized his legs, while those growing directly from his body grasped one another as though wrapping him in a straitjacket. When Robin finished, Luffy could do little more than speak, move his eyes, and slightly wiggle the fingers and toes of his hands and feet. It was an excellent way to deprive a fast and powerful opponent of both advantages. Running was impossible while someone held your legs, and the interlocked arms prevented proper use of superior strength. An excellent tactic. Unfortunately, it did not work against everyone. Logia users and opponents who were simply too strong could ignore it entirely.
"No, you're definitely genuinely stupid," Luffy declared. "Or should I say impossibly stupid? Seriously, what exactly are you trying to do right now? Fight me? Or are you so happy to see me that one pair of arms didn't seem sufficient for hugging me, so you decided to make an extra hundred? Please say yes! Otherwise I'll have to kill you, if only out of solidarity with the rest of humanity. Creatures this stupid must not be permitted to reproduce. I may dislike idiots, but there are plenty of less selective men in the world."
At that moment, the hands Robin had wrapped around Luffy's head attempted to twist his neck. It was not difficult to guess that 'attempted' was the key word. Despite all the girl's effort, the young man's head stubbornly continued facing straight forward.
"...So you really are trying to fight me." Genuine disappointment appeared on Luffy's face. No, the disappointment was almost certainly counterfeit, but it looked genuine all the same. "Then allow me to ask again that you explain your reasoning. Which of my actions allowed you to believe you possessed even the slightest chance of victory? Did I take too long to cross the five kilometers separating us? Fine, I admit it, that was my fault. I really wasn't in much of a hurry, but in my defense, moving quickly while wearing both a hat and a crown is rather difficult. There's air resistance, the danger of losing them, and if you aren't careful, the hat can easily tear. Or perhaps the blow I gave your turtle failed to impress you? Forgive me, but I simply saw no reason to turn it into bloody dust. The moment I saw it, I realized it ought to make a decent soup. Most importantly, unlike those Unluckies of yours, your turtle should be enough for a full meal rather than merely a snack to accompany drinks. Speaking of which, do you have any other animals in your organization? I'd like to sample the entire assortment."
Luffy habitually babbled his usual nonsense, but in doing so he only confirmed every conclusion Robin had drawn about him. In fact, had anyone bothered to compare, they would have noticed that the young man enjoyed babbling nonsense in front of his enemies far more than in front of his own family. They knew him. They knew his secrets, habits, hobbies, and interests, and so with time it became increasingly difficult to provoke any response from them. Not to mention that, at the end of his chatter, Luffy could hardly allow himself to kill one of his family members—Yosaku did not count—while no such restriction existed with enemies.
"Gran Fleur (Giant Hand)!"
That was Robin's answer to Luffy's latest monologue. Five or six meters in front of him, numerous arms sprouted from the ground all at once. More arms grew from those, and still more grew from them. The result was a gigantic arm composed of many ordinary arms. Two other things happened at the same time. A second large hand appeared behind Luffy and braced itself against his back, while the hands holding his head dissolved into pink petals. The girl's intention became obvious when the palm of the enormous hand slammed directly into the young man's head. Considering that his body had been rigidly fixed in place only an instant earlier, a broken neck was all but guaranteed. Or would have been guaranteed had anyone else stood in his place. And provided that 'anyone else' did not belong to the Hat family. Otherwise, there was no chance.
"...I don't think you fully understand the situation you've found yourself in," the young man finally said in a somewhat displeased voice when the girl dismissed her giant-hand technique.
It had to be acknowledged that Luffy was entirely wrong. The truth was exactly the opposite! Robin understood her situation perfectly. If the Monster before her and that man were cut from the same cloth, then the girl knew with absolute certainty that she had not the slightest chance of victory. But what else could she do? Not resist? Surrender voluntarily? After spending the last twenty years of her life running? Impossible. And it was at that moment that Robin felt savage pain in the muscles of her arms. As already mentioned, the chief weakness of her fruit was that any damage inflicted on the body parts she sprouted was transferred to her. The moment Luffy began forcing his way out of Robin's ring of arms, the girl proved utterly incapable of restraining him. He could have used Armament Haki and removed every foreign limb from his body in an instant, but such an easy method was obviously of no interest to him. Robin tried to hold Luffy back, but she might as well have attempted to stop a freight train that had already begun moving with her bare hands.
"And what happens if I do this?"
Freeing his right hand, Luffy seized one of Robin's sprouted arms and squeezed his fingers with such force that the crack of breaking bone rang out. The young man was instantly freed of every 'bond,' while the girl herself cried out in pain and collapsed to her knees. Her face pale and her forehead immediately covered in sweat, she carefully pressed her right arm against her chest. Luffy's grip had broken her radius. Upon seeing the result of his experiment, the young man's eyebrows shot upward in surprise and disappeared completely beneath the thick fringe of his black hair.
"...You know, I'd like to confess something honestly," Luffy said after a moment. "Up to now, I've mostly been joking whenever I called you stupid, but I'm beginning to think you truly are. What part of your body were you thinking with when you attacked me using your fruit's power? Certainly not your head! Someone this stupid could never have survived on the Grand Line. With a weakness like that, fighting isn't merely dangerous—you shouldn't even peel potatoes! A couple of accidental cuts spread across a hundred hands and you'd bleed to death. Where in the world did you come from? You're so hopeless I don't even have words for it!"
Without answering, Robin sprang to her feet and ran away from Luffy.
"...A-a-and she ran," the young man's commentary followed immediately. "I understand the basic idea. You don't want to die. But what's the point of running? It took you longer to cover two hundred meters than it took me to cover five kilometers. You can't hide from me on this island, and I won't let you sail away. Do you understand?" Luffy asked, but once again received no answer. "A-a-and she isn't listening to me. Definitely isn't listening. Then it's Plan B! Hey, you hopeless woman, this is your last chance!" the young man raised his voice. "Come back willingly, or it will be worse for you! No? Then you have only yourself to blame."
Of course Robin ran. She had already tried fighting, and she had no intention of surrendering, which left her no option other than attempting to escape. It did not matter how negligible her chances were. Long ago, on Ohara, she had not been meant to survive either, yet she had been spared. There had been many other occasions afterward when death seemed inevitable. Yet Robin never surrendered. She always ran, and in the end she always found a way out. Even if her present enemy surpassed all the others and reminded her, through his strength, of that man, the girl saw no reason to give up. After so many years of struggle, after so many sacrifices, Robin believed she simply had no right to surrender. Otherwise, every sacrifice would have been in vain.
"You're right. All our sacrifices were in vain!" A hoarse voice sounded from directly beneath Robin's feet in time with her thoughts, forcing the girl to leap aside in terror.
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