The Journey

I could hardly believe it at the time. In the course of freeing Caimie-chan from the human shop on Sabaody Archipelago and assaulting the Celestial Dragons- unthinkable by most people's standards, but a day's work for the Straw Hat Pirates- we found ourselves face to face with the highest-ranking surviving member of the Roger Pirates, Silvers Rayleigh. Moreover, he was willing to help Luffy coat our ship, as a result of Luffy's friendship with his former subordinate, "Red-Hair" Shanks. Even though the situation looked bleak with the entire island on alert, this was an excellent opportunity that would prove useful on the dangerous journey to Fishman Island.

It took me a little while to realize that this encounter also had personal significance for me. This man was not only one of the Pirate King's most trusted friends, but he was also one of the people who reached the end of the Grand Line, the island known as Raftel, which was the most probable location of One Piece and the Rio Poneglyph. From the writing I found on the Poneglyph on Skypiea, I inferred that if he could write in that language, he could read it as well. If they had made it to Raftel, and had someone among them with the ability to read Poneglyphs, they most likely knew what was written on the Poneglyph- what had happened in a period of history known as the Void Century, vitally important to the world's history but all but forgotten.

I immediately asked Rayleigh-san whether he knew anything about this, and he seemed to confirm my expectation that he did. But he then advised me to go on with my journey, warning me that I might come to a different conclusion than theirs, since I was a scholar and they were not. Having given me fair warning, he decided to offer once again to share what he knew, but I decided to find the truth myself.

Usopp had some idea of the significance of this to me, despite how little I've told the others about my goal, and he asked me if I was sure of my decision to forfeit this opportunity. He immediately began to ask about the One Piece, but Luffy interrupted him before Rayleigh-san could answer his question. In an angry tone I've rarely heard him take, he said that if he heard anything about where or what the One Piece was, or if it even existed, he would quit being a pirate. It was an extreme promise, but Luffy was a man of his word; no one doubted that he would go through with it, and so no one considered asking Rayleigh-san after hearing his declaration.

This time, Rayleigh-san asked Luffy if he was sure he wished to refuse to hear any and all information on the One Piece, saying that the voyage from here on out would only get even more dangerous. None of us, not even Luffy, doubted the truth of that assertion; our journey had gotten more difficult over time, and there would only be greater challenges to face and enemies to defeat from here on out. Luffy, however, insisted on doing things his way, seeing the trip as an adventure and calling the Pirate king the freest person in the seas.

Luffy's decision regarding Rayleigh-san's advice and his attitude toward the journey caused me to reflect on my own. Having been pursuing the Rio Poneglyph for longer than Luffy has been alive, I spent long periods of time pursuing unlikely leads, many of which did not pan out. But with my home destroyed, my family and the few I could call friends dead, and a bounty on my head preventing me from settling down or living anything close to an ordinary life, my dream of finding the Rio Poneglyph was all I had, and I clung to it like a shipwrecked sailor might cling to a piece of flotsam.

One lead I heard about concerning a Poneglyph in a royal tomb of Alabasta, which put me into contact with Baroque Works and Sir Crocodile, was far from promising on its own, but it was the only one I had back then. It was a difficult plan, not to mention that it held the risk of having someone like Crocodile get his hands on a weapon of mass destruction, but I was desperate to cling to any hope, intending to betray Crocodile the moment I found the Poneglyph, the point at which both of us stopped being useful to the other. Such a mindset was ruthless and cynical, but when you've been betrayed as many times as I have, you learn when to expect treachery, as well as how to perform treacherous acts of your own to prevent your would-be betrayers from doing the same.

That hope turned out to be in vain, and I began to despair, more so after Crocodile learned of my treachery and stabbed me in the back with his hook. Bleeding from a wound to the chest while lying in a collapsing tomb, I believed my death was close at hand. It seemed as though the task I had set out to accomplish was simply too difficult to accomplish, and I resigned myself to my fate. What purpose was there in going on if the one hope that drove me forward had been extinguished? What could I do with my life if I could no longer achieve my goal?

But then Luffy, my enemy in this battle, intervened, carrying me to safety against my wishes. Out of danger but not knowing where to go, I decided to stow away on Luffy's ship. They say you have to take responsibility for the lives you save, which I believed applied to Luffy. But in retrospect, I suppose it also could apply to me, as I had pulled the badly injured Luffy from Crocodile's quicksand, and later gave him the antidote to Crocodile's poison, which I had originally kept on hand for myself.

I had expected my association with Luffy's Straw Hat Pirates to be temporary, and I would only be able to travel with them as far as they could get before the World Government sent someone after them that they could not defeat or escape. I was worth 79 million berries to the government, but I believed that, given that the bounty was calculated based on the false reason I became a wanted criminal (singlehandedly destroying six Marine ships; no small feat, but some with nine-digit bounties managed far more than that) rather than the true one, they considered me more dangerous than it implied. The World Government, with an especially delicious carrot and a stick that could crush entire islands, had all the power it needed to compel people to cooperate with bringing me to "justice".

The Marines were relatively easy for the Straw Hats to deal with, as they had defeated many of varying ranks. But eventually, we encountered Admiral Aokiji, who had easily defeated Vice Admiral Jaguar D. Saul when he sought to protect me, and made it clear that I could only lived and escape to freedom because- and as long as- he allowed me to. In this encounter, he declared he had reached the end of his patience with me.

He froze me solid, easily overpowered Zoro and Sanji, and completely defeated Luffy, putting him at his mercy. Those three had defeated almost all enemies they had faced, even ones most people would consider impossible to defeat, but they were powerless against one of the Marines' strongest fighters. The fact that all of us survived was, like it was in the past, because Aokiji allowed us to do so. The writing was on the wall for my association with the Straw Hats, but this time, I began to feel a sense of loss I had not felt since I was forced to leave my mother and Professor Clover behind on the burning island of Ohara, and watched as Saul was frozen to death in front of me. If it was going to end the way all my other associations did, why was this parting more painful than any of the others?

When the CP9 closed in on us at the next island we reached, Water 7, threatening us with the Buster Call, I knew that the time had come for me to escape again. But I could not desert the Straw Hats, and chose to turn myself in, hoping for any opportunity for them to escape. I believed they would never forgive me, but they would survive, and was willing to pay any price to ensure their safety.

Then the unthinkable happened. The rest of the Straw Hats pursued me, using an extremely dangerous route through the Aqua Laguna and defeating many enemies. They decided that an opportunity to escape safely was not worth sacrificing a comrade, completely rejecting the ideas behind the sacrifice I intended to make. Reaching me in front of the heavily defended Enies Lobby, they declared that they would declare war on the entire world, all for the sake of one of their comrades. At that point, I realized what my home, my family, my reason to live was, and accepted their rescue.

In the process of journeying with my comrades, I learned much about their dreams. Many of them wanted to perform a great and unprecedented accomplishment in their chosen profession- Chopper wanted to cure all diseases, Nami wanted to draw a world map, Usopp hoped to be a great warrior of the sea, and Franky wanted to take his ship to the end of the Grand Line- just as I wanted an extremely desirable historical find. Some of them wanted to fulfill a promise to someone close to them- Zoro wanted to live up to his promise he made to his friend, Sanji wanted to find the All Blue he and his mentor Red-Foot Zeff had sought, Brook wanted to fulfill the promise he made to his crew and the whale they befriended, and Luffy wanted to return Shanks' hat to him as a great pirate- just like I pursued this goal so that I could be with my mother and accomplish the goal she and the other scholars of Ohara shared.

Everyone knew that their goals would be difficult, and almost impossible, albeit with them putting emphasis on the "almost". And yet, Luffy seemed to relish the difficulty and enjoy the adventure. Those with the Will of D were fearless, but I began to wonder if there was something more to it as well. Whenever I finished reading a history book, I felt a sense of accomplishment, but also realized I would not learn anything more from it. But when I occasionally read novels, lacking other reading material, I found myself watching for the twists and turns, wondering what would happen next. If someone told me how they would end, doing so would have compromised my enjoyment of it. Thinking about that, I could see why Luffy would believe that anyone telling him anything about the One Piece would constitute a spoiler. Finding the One Piece was the greatest adventure in the world, and he intended to enjoy every bit of it to the fullest extent.

And as I began to think about it, I realized that I was enjoying parts of my trip as well. If I had not struggled for so long, I would never have met the Straw Hat pirates, who were my friends and the only people to accept me. And I realized that they were not only one of the most promising crews for reaching the end of the Grand Line, but there was no one with whom I would rather make the journey.

Little did I realize at the time that I was about to encounter a rude awakening that caused us to take a two-year hiatus from our journey to become strong enough to face the New World. While we had to be determined, perhaps even reckless, enough to face any odds to reach our goals, we also had to be realistic enough to acknowledge that achieving our goals might be impossible at our present level of ability. But rather than see it as yet another setback, I would come to see it as a chance to become stronger for my friends, so that we could fulfill our respective goals in the New World, and looked forward to the day when we could meet again and continue our journey on the Grand Line, together.

Author's Notes

Thank you for reading this fic.

This was inspired by Robin's decision to accept Rayleigh's advice and pass on hearing about the Rio Poneglyph. Not only did she do it for the reasons he presented (they don't necessarily understand the Poneglyphs), but in the anime, you see an image of the Straw Hat pirates in Robin's mind before she makes her decision. There's also the contrast between how Robin is willing to consider taking a shortcut to her goal before refusing partly on the basis of practicality, whereas Luffy is adamantly opposed to Rayleigh spoiling anything. She also briefly comments in the Skypiea arc about how Luffy sees going onto the island as an adventure, and she had never thought of it as such before. As such, I decided to write about her attitude toward the journey and the crew changed over time.