Chapter 135: Finally Choose to Hide
"I never intended to discuss matters like this."
Law set Kikoku down beside him, leaning back on his hands against the cool courtyard stones. His gaze drifted upward toward the night sky, where stars were beginning to emerge through the fading haze of the day's destruction.
"You all saw what happened at Sabaody. The moment anyone lays a hand on a Celestial Dragon, the最低 standard response is an Admiral-level deployment. The full force of the Navy comes crashing down." His voice was flat. Clinical. The voice of a man who had long ago learned to discuss terrible things without letting them touch him. "Doflamingo may have forfeited his status in the Holy Land. But dealing with anyone connected to that bloodline... nothing good ever comes of it."
"That's right." Robin nodded. Her fair face, usually so composed, had taken on a shadowed quality—the particular darkness of someone remembering things she had spent years trying to forget. "The Celestial Dragons. The Void Century. The Twenty Kingdoms that became the World Government... how did all of it truly come to be?"
She wrapped her arms around her knees.
"Whenever someone tries to uncover the truth about those things, the World Government responds with absolute annihilation. No mercy. No hesitation. They will burn entire islands to protect their secrets."
A tremor ran through her shoulders. It might have been the cool night air. It might have been something else entirely.
Itachi rose from his meditation. He crossed the courtyard in silence, and when he reached Robin's side, he unfastened the black cloak from his shoulders and draped it over hers.
"Itachi..."
He shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. No words. Just the gesture.
Robin had spent her entire life running. From the Marines. From the Government. From everyone who had ever looked at her and seen only a demon child. She had learned to read people the way scholars read books—every expression, every gesture, every unspoken intention. And in Itachi's face, she saw something she had rarely seen in anyone outside the Straw Hats.
Understanding. The quiet recognition of someone who had also been hunted. Who had also carried burdens too heavy for a child's shoulders. Who had also learned to smile while bleeding inside.
"Thank you, Itachi."
"It's nothing. You were underdressed."
Robin pulled the cloak tighter around herself. It smelled of smoke and cedar and something else she couldn't name.
Sabo watched the exchange with a complicated expression. Then he sighed—a long, heavy sound that seemed to carry the weight of years.
"This world keeps getting more twisted under the World Government's rule. Century after century. Generation after generation." He looked up at the stars. "That's why the Revolutionary Army exists. To fight against the inequality. The oppression. The shadows that the Government tries to hide."
His voice began to rise with conviction.
"We have to—"
He stopped.
Zoro had fallen asleep on his back, his sake bottle still clutched loosely in one hand. Franky was absorbed in repairing the mechanical damage to his right eye, a tiny screwdriver extended from his fingertip. Law had returned to studying the stars with the detached expression of a man who had already thought about everything worth thinking about. Robin was wrapped in Itachi's cloak, her gaze distant and unreadable.
Only Itachi appeared to be listening. And even his attention seemed divided—his Sharingan absent, his dark eyes fixed on some middle distance.
"You guys..." Sabo's shoulders slumped. "Forget it. This is too heavy a topic for a night like this anyway. We just won. We should be celebrating, not brooding about the world's problems."
Itachi, in truth, had been listening to every word. But his mind was elsewhere, turning over information that he could not share. The visions the crooked old man had shown him in Rilke Callander. The secrets Doflamingo had whispered in the ruins of Acacia. The pieces of a puzzle that spanned centuries.
I can't tell them yet. Not now.
The history of the world. The true nature of the Celestial Dragons. The national treasure of Mariejois. The will that had been passed down through the ages, waiting for the right moment to awaken.
If he revealed what Doflamingo had told him—if he spoke aloud the secrets that the World Government had burned nations to protect—he would be painting a target on every person in this courtyard. Robin, who had already spent her whole life running. Luffy, who would charge blindly at any enemy regardless of the odds. Sabo, whose Revolutionary Army was already locked in a shadow war with the Government.
No. Some secrets are too dangerous to share before their time.
But Robin...
He looked at her—at the woman who had dedicated her life to uncovering the true history. She deserved to know. More than anyone, she had earned the right to hear what he had learned.
When we're alone. When there's time. I'll tell her what I can.
Sabo's voice broke through his thoughts. "Oh, right! Itachi!"
"What is it?"
The Revolutionary Chief of Staff was wearing a grin that Itachi had learned to associate with schemes and surprises.
"Tomorrow morning—early—can you come with me to the port? There's someone who wants to meet you."
"Someone from the Revolutionary Army?"
"Yes."
"Your leader. Monkey D. Dragon."
"Exactly." Sabo's grin widened. "Ever since I landed in Dressrosa, the boss has been on my case about it. 'If you encounter Uchiha Itachi, request a meeting. Politely. Don't scare him off.' His words, not mine."
Itachi considered this. "I've been wanting to learn more about the Revolutionary Army's objectives. Your methods. Your vision for the future." He nodded. "I'll go."
"Wait." Sabo leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. "Does that mean you're considering—"
"No."
Sabo deflated. His shoulders sagged. His head drooped. The broken hair that fell across his face made him look like a disappointed puppy.
"Not even a little consideration? We have excellent benefits. No dress code. You get to overthrow oppressive governments."
"I've only just joined one crew. I'm not looking to leave."
"Fine, fine." Sabo sighed dramatically. "At least meet the boss. He's been curious about you since Rilke Callander."
Robin stirred beneath the black cloak. "Sabo. If you're meeting with Dragon-san... would it be alright if I came along with Itachi?"
"Of course! The boss has been wanting to see you again for years. He asks about you every time we get an intelligence update from the field."
"That would be nice." Robin smiled. She turned to Itachi. "Itachi, you don't find anything unusual about the 'Dragon-san' that Sabo keeps mentioning?"
"Unusual?" Itachi thought for a moment. "I've never met the man. I can't form an assessment."
"No, I mean..." Robin's smile took on a mischievous edge. "Think about the name."
"Monkey D. Dragon."
"Yes?"
"Monkey D.... Luffy?"
Sabo and Robin exchanged knowing glances.
Law, who had been half-listening to the conversation, finally spoke up. "Itachi-ya. The Dragon that Sabo keeps referring to... is Luffy's father."
Itachi went completely still.
"Luffy's... father?"
"Yep." Sabo's grin had returned in full force. "The boss has a son. A son who, somehow, turned into that rubber idiot we all know and love. Believe me, I've spent years trying to figure out how the genes worked out that way."
"Luffy has a father." Itachi processed this. "Who leads the Revolutionary Army. The organization dedicated to overthrowing the World Government."
"That's the one."
"And his father wants to meet me."
"Specifically requested it. Multiple times. With increasing urgency."
Itachi closed his eyes. When he opened them, his expression was carefully neutral.
"I see."
"Are you nervous?" Robin's voice carried the faintest trace of amusement.
"I am not nervous."
"You're making the same face Usopp makes before we land on a new island."
"I am not."
A Small Island — Fifty Nautical Miles from Dressrosa
The Queen Mama Chanter was a ghost ship.
It drifted without sails, without direction, without the living soul that had once animated its timbers. The Homies were gone. The crew was dead. Only three survivors remained aboard the vessel that had once terrorized the seas under Big Mom's flag.
Capone Bege's cigar had burned down to a stub. He hadn't bothered to light a new one.
"Alright, Bege." Baron Chicken Cub—formerly Baron Tamago, currently in the intermediate stage of his Egg-Egg Fruit resurrection cycle—pushed the Den Den Mushi toward the mob boss with his tiny chicken wing. "You're making the call."
"Why me?!"
"Because Mother's punishments for her sons-in-law are less severe than for her biological sons. That's basic organizational survival strategy."
"VERY basic," Pekoms confirmed from where he lay bandaged against the mast. "Extremely basic. The most basic thing there is."
"You two bastards..." Bege ground his teeth. But he took the receiver anyway.
The snail rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
The voice that answered was not loud. It did not need to be. It carried weight simply by existing—the voice of a woman who had crushed armies and devoured nations and was only ever truly satisfied when she was hungry for more.
"Mmm? The three from Bege's group."
"M-Mama..." Bege's voice came out several pitches higher than he intended. He cleared his throat. "It's good to hear your voice. Truly. An honor."
"You finally got in touch. How goes the mission?"
Bege's face was covered in cold sweat. He turned toward Baron Chicken Cub and Pekoms, his eyes screaming for help. Both of them were frantically gesturing—waving their hands, shaking their heads, mouthing variations of just tell her the truth but make it not our fault.
Bege nodded as if he understood perfectly.
Then he shoved the receiver into Baron Chicken Cub's wing.
"Mama, Baron Tamago says he wants to deliver the status report personally!"
"WHAT?!" The tiny chicken's beak dropped open. His murderous glare promised a thousand deaths. But Bege had already stepped back, lighting a fresh cigar with the calm of a man who had just sacrificed a subordinate to save himself.
"Mama..." Baron Chicken Cub's voice trembled. "I... we... the situation..."
"Spit it out."
The words came out in a flood. The Queen Mama Chanter. The ambush. The Straw Hats. The man in the black cloak with eyes like spinning blood. The destroyed sails. The slaughtered crew. The ship stripped of its Homies. Three survivors, and only because their Devil Fruits had saved them from what should have been certain death.
When he finished, the silence on the other end of the line was absolute.
"Mama?" Baron Chicken Cub's beak chattered. The only sound from the receiver was a wet, sizzling noise—saliva dripping onto something that might have been a floor or might have been a living creature.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
The roar was so loud that the Den Den Mushi's eyes bulged. Bege's cigar fell from his lips. Pekoms curled into his tortoise shell on pure instinct. Baron Chicken Cub nearly reverted to his egg form from sheer terror.
"A SINGLE PIRATE CREW! CHILDREN PLAYING AT PIRATES! AND THE THREE OF YOU COULDN'T EVEN—THE ANTHEM IS DAMAGED?!"
"Mama, please forgive us! Their strength was far beyond anything we anticipated! The one named Uchiha Itachi—none of us could even touch him! He was a monster! A complete monster!"
The sizzling sound intensified.
"Uchiha Itachi..."
In Whole Cake Island, in the throne room of the Big Mom Pirates, Charlotte Linlin sat on her massive throne. Her enormous fingers, each one thicker than a grown man's torso, held two bounty posters.
One showed a dark-haired man with crimson eyes and a skull of fire blazing behind him. "Hellfire" Uchiha Itachi. Bounty: 600,000,000 Berries.
The other showed a blond man with a curly eyebrow and a cigarette. "Black Leg" Sanji. Bounty: 177,000,000 Berries.
"Mama?" Baron Chicken Cub's voice was very small. "Your orders...?"
Big Mom did not answer immediately. Her eyes—those bottomless, hungry eyes—moved slowly from one poster to the other.
"When I'm ready," she said at last, "I will deal with the Straw Hats personally. As for you three..."
She smiled.
"Come home. We'll discuss your punishment in person."
The Den Den Mushi clicked off.
Baron Chicken Cub collapsed onto the deck, his tiny chicken body trembling. Pekoms emerged from his shell, his lion face pale beneath his fur. Bege finally retrieved his cigar from where it had fallen, though his hands were shaking too badly to light it.
"Home," Pekoms whispered. "She said to come home."
"She said to come home and discuss our punishment," Baron Chicken Cub corrected.
They looked at each other.
No one spoke.
The Queen Mama Chanter drifted on through the darkness, carrying its three survivors toward a fate they could only imagine—and wished they couldn't.
(End of Chapter)
✨ If you're enjoying this story, please consider supporting me on Patreon:
Patreon.com/TofuChan