In a small, inconspicuous room inside the Rain Dinners casino, a slender, beautiful hand quietly emerged from the corner of the ceiling. In the palm of this hand, an equally beautiful eye had grown.
The hand aimed the eye in its palm downward, turning it around once, quickly locking onto its target.
Inside the room was a man dressed in a casino waiter uniform. His appearance had no distinct features, the kind of person who would instantly disappear if thrown into a crowd.
At this moment, the waiter was placing one scroll after another into an iron cabinet. After finishing, he locked the cabinet, turned around, and left the room. The hand on the ceiling also retracted in sync.
A moment later, a tall figure carefully pushed the door open just a crack, then slipped inside.
Nico Robin walked up to the cabinet where the scrolls were stored and examined the lock.
The lock on the cabinet wasn't complicated. Even without using her ability, she could easily pick it open with just two wires…
Robin curled her lips into a faint smile, not wasting any more time. She swiftly opened it, quickly pulling out the scrolls, searching for the information she needed.
"Nico Robin… I didn't expect you to betray me so soon. Is it because you've found a better master to serve? That Hunter?"
Countless grains of sand seeped in through the gap of the door, gathering together into Crocodile form. Unlike his calm tone, Crocodile face was filled with killing intent.
Robin unhurriedly turned around, shaking the stack of papers in her hand with a light laugh.
"That right. I think you might not be able to win against him, so I've decided to abandon you and throw in my lot with him, and of course, I brought along a little token of sincerity."
After speaking, she stuffed the papers she had taken straight into her pocket in front of Crocodile, then tilted her head slightly and said in a teasing tone:
"Or… you could prove to me that the Hunter isn't your match. That way, I'll continue to work for you and translate the ancient texts."
"Hmph! Do you take me for one of those idiots you tricked to death?" Crocodile took a deep drag on his cigar, the curling smoke making his already vicious face look even more terrifying.
"Even if a person loses their hands and feet, they can still do translation work."
"Then you'll have your hands full," Robin retorted without backing down, activating her ability as countless arms sprouted from her body. "Because I have a lot of hands~"
Crocodile narrowed his eyes but didn't rush to attack, because…
This trap was actually very crude. Crocodile mainly set it up to test whether the newly joined or newly promoted officers were worth trusting.
Forget Nico Robin—even those not-so-bright veteran officers wouldn't be foolish enough to stumble into it.
Yet it was Robin, the one Crocodile considered the sharpest mind, who had taken the bait.
No, it wasn't accurate to say Robin fell for the trap—her actions looked more like she deliberately stepped into it to let him find out.
The problem was, leaving aside the fact that the Hunter was still wandering the desert and Robin couldn't contact him, even if by chance Sherwin group happened to be in Rainbase right now, Crocodile was confident he could eliminate Nico Robin before they arrived.
That was why he couldn't understand—where did her confidence come from?
Besides, if Robin had already defected to the Hunter, wouldn't it have been smarter to simply slip away quietly? Why deliberately trigger this shoddy trap?
As for the "token of sincerity" she mentioned earlier, Crocodile absolutely didn't believe it.
The information he had planted in that cabinet as bait mainly concerned spies he had embedded in the Alabasta royal palace and how he was manipulating the country people into forming a rebellion.
None of that was of any use to Sherwin, who sought the ancient weapons.
Unless…
"You're planning to defect to the Nefertari family?" Crocodile sneered in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
It wasn't that he looked down on the royal family of Alabasta, but he had toyed with them so thoroughly that King Cobra himself had even expressed gratitude to Crocodile—the very culprit behind their suffering.
Nico Robin should know all of this, so he truly couldn't understand why she would think siding with such fools would be of any value.
"Yes… why indeed?"
Robin had no interest in explaining anything to Crocodile. She withdrew most of the arms she had just manifested, leaving only two on her back, dangling loosely on either side of her head.
At the same time, with her real arms, Robin pulled from her pocket a white spherical doll and a brown jar.
Were these the cards she was relying on?
Instead of advancing, Crocodile cautiously stepped half a pace back, his face showing clear wariness.
When it came to matters related to the ancient weapons, Crocodile was always especially cautious. This was also why his reactions regarding Sherwin were so extreme.
The real issue wasn't Sherwin himself, but the fact that he happened to be in Alabasta, where the ancient weapons could be found, and that he had the ability to interfere with Crocodile plans.
Now, it was the same with Robin. In Crocodile eyes, Robin was the "Devil Child," someone who would sell out anyone and anything for her own survival. If she dared to confront him like this, then her trump card must be anything but ordinary.
Then Crocodile saw Nico Robin toss the white sphere toward him while pressing the brown jar against her abdomen.
Uncertain of what the white ball was, Crocodile instinctively formed a sand shield to block it. Before the sand completely obscured his vision, he caught sight of Robin covering her ears with the two arms sprouting from her back.
And then—
"WOOOM—!"
A terrifying shockwave instantly tore apart his half-elementalized body. At the same time, the dreadful resonance echoed endlessly in his ears, making his entire brain tremble. Crocodile couldn't even restore his body immediately.
This sensation was all too damn familiar—back when he had taken Whitebeard quake punch from afar, it had felt almost exactly the same…
Though in terms of raw destructive power it was far weaker than Whitebeard Gura Gura no Mi, the impact of the round sphere Robin had thrown was even greater in a different way.
After all, Whitebeard Tremor-Tremor Fruit didn't carry soundwave attacks. Without Armament Haki involved, the damage of the quake could be mostly offset through elementalization.
But this sonic blast? It bypassed all that. The soundwave attack made the completely unprepared Crocodile feel as though someone had poured an entire barrel of thick paste into his skull and was furiously stirring it around.
While Crocodile was being held in place by the Sonic Bomb, Nico Robin had already completed her transformation, her entire body wrapped in a somewhat comical cat plush suit.
However, after transforming, she didn't immediately flee. Instead, she stood still for a while to recover…
Even though she had blocked her ears in advance, and the combat suit crafted by Haibara Meow had some soundproofing function, she was still too close to the Sonic Bomb.
In such a situation, even the experienced Sherwin would be "numbed" for a few seconds.
But Robin had been prepared, so she recovered faster than Crocodile. The moment she regained her senses, she activated the plush suit built-in "Mink Tribe Mode," her entire body sparking with electricity as she dashed out through the door that had already been blasted open.
As she rushed out, she threw two more "fish-blasting" Sonic Bombs, crafted by Klee Meow, into the room.
And during her escape, Robin also triggered her ability to detonate the Boom-Boom Bombs she had hidden all around Rain Dinners…
"BOOM—! BOOM—! BOOM—!"
"Nico Robin!!!"
Amid the deafening explosions, Crocodile roar could faintly be heard.