Even so, Robin didn't stop manipulating her Flower-Flower Fruit.
At the very least, Ain hadn't reached Arton's base. There were still plenty of spots there where Robin could use her tricks.
When Ain heard Arton's question, she couldn't answer for a moment. After all, there was no way she could talk about the diary copies.
Helpless, she could only choose to express her stance with actions instead. She lowered her head, and Arton immediately felt Ain's sincerity.
Even though, from beginning to end, he never did figure out why Ain had this level of sincerity.
Fortunately, he hadn't activated the diary system's recording function right now—otherwise Carina, Nami, and the others might have rushed straight to his room and cut off this offering Ain was making.
Arton lowered his head and gave the back of Ain's head a long, deep look.
In the end, he chose to lie down and let Ain do as she pleased.
Seeing this, Robin very cooperatively used her Flower-Flower Fruit to sprout arm after arm to support Arton's back, letting him lie there even more comfortably.
Arton simply stared blankly up at the ceiling, his gaze unfocused, as he pondered the real reason Ain was doing all this.
…
After some time, Arton looked at Ain, who was still bending over and working so hard while splitting her attention, and finally couldn't hold back from putting his hands on her shoulders and lifting her up.
"Arton, did I… disappoint you?" Ain pressed her lips together, looking at Arton a little nervously.
"It's not that I'm disappointed. It's just that, when it comes to you, I've always had some doubts in my heart." Arton shook his head and set Ain down on a chair to the side. "And that makes it hard for me to really calm down and enjoy this properly."
Seeing that, Robin immediately used her Devil Fruit powers to attack Arton's weak point.
Feeling Robin's offensive, Arton looked over at her.
In response, Robin only gave a faint smile and didn't stop using her ability.
You had to admit, Robin's power was truly impressive when it came to driving off the enemy.
Even Arton himself had a hard time blocking Robin's offensive.
Luckily, after transmigrating into this world, he'd gotten much stronger. So he at least had the stamina to take Robin on.
"Come to think of it, you've been on my ship for a while now. During that time, you've worked very hard. Whether it's cleaning or anything else, you've done a pretty good job."
"To be honest, for someone like you, willing to work on the ship without complaints, I do kind of want to keep you aboard…" Arton folded his arms, speaking to Ain with a serious expression.
"R-really? You mean it?" Ain looked at Arton excitedly.
"That's how I feel, yeah. But you're Zephyr's disciple—you're a Marine. You don't really have any reason to stay on my ship, do you?"
"At first, I thought the only reason you insisted on staying was to pass our position along to the Marines."
"But all this time, you haven't leaked our location even once." Arton said. "Even when I put a Den Den Mushi right along your usual path, you didn't use it. That's what I find strange."
Hearing that, Ain's heart gave a jolt.
During her time with the Flameblade Pirates, she really had run into Den Den Mushi more than once while walking the ship's corridors alone.
At those times, Arton hadn't been writing in his diary, so Ain had never realized he was actually watching her then.
Ain let out a long breath of relief. Thankfully, she had already decided she wanted to join Arton.
There was no way she could still tip off the Marines, so naturally she had never touched those Den Den Mushi.
"Go on, then—tell me the reason you want to stay on this ship badly enough to go this far." Arton said.
Chapter 422: Ain – It's All Because of the World Nobles!
"B… because of the World Nobles!" Ain took a deep breath and spoke.
"The World Nobles? Don't tell me you've got a grudge against them?" Arton raised a brow and asked.
He'd thought for sure Ain would mention some reason related to Zephyr.
In truth, Ain had planned to use Zephyr as her excuse to join Arton's Flameblade Pirates.
It was just that the Marines and the World Government hadn't made a move on Zephyr yet, so she couldn't use him directly as a reason right now.
Originally, she'd planned to wait until Arton took on Crocodile, which would cut down the Seven Warlords' numbers, and eventually cause the Marines and the World Government to actually make the pirate who once chopped off Zephyr's arm into a Warlord—then she'd use that as her excuse to join Arton.
But Arton's occasional remarks about wanting her to leave the Flameblade Pirates were making Ain less and less willing to keep waiting.
She was afraid that before Zephyr's enemy ever became a Warlord, she'd already left the Flameblade Pirates.
Robin boarding the ship had only made Ain even more nervous. On top of that, Arton might already have drawn a new template and all of this together made Ain completely unable to hold back the urge to come find him.
Ain took a deep breath and quickly laid it all out to Arton.
"Arton, you probably don't know, but I've always really hated the World Nobles. They often humiliate Teacher Zephyr."
"As his student, I should be defending his honor but as a Marine, I'm forced to keep fighting for the World Nobles."
"That makes me feel incredibly suffocated. What makes me even more uncomfortable is all the evil I've learned they've done."
"I originally became a Marine to pursue justice but the existence of the World Nobles constantly makes me doubt whether joining the Marines can really let me chase justice."
"Maybe, if it weren't for Teacher Zephyr, I would've already left the Marines."
In the past, Tashigi had earned Arton's trust by striking a World Noble. And Arton despised the World Nobles, to the point he'd planned to kill the two who had targeted him.
In fact, Arton had already killed one of them.
Because of all this, Ain understood that if she wanted to gain Arton's trust, the most promising angle was the World Nobles.
Since she had no way to actually find a World Noble and attack one right now, all she could do was show as clearly as possible how much she hated them in front of Arton.
Luckily, she'd already had a big issue with the World Nobles to begin with, so at this moment, she was really speaking from the heart.
"So you found out I killed a World Noble and started admiring me because of that?" Arton raised a brow and asked curiously.
Ain nodded, then looked with a trace of envy at Robin, who had just walked past her, crouched down in front of Arton, and taken over the job Ain had been doing earlier.
A bitter "I was clearly here first" welled up in Ain's chest.
But there was nothing she could do—Arton was in the middle of a serious conversation with her right now, after all.
Arton also lowered his head to glance at Robin. Since he could more or less guess that Robin was doing this for the sake of the Poneglyphs, he found it fairly natural to accept the benefits coming from her.
Because Ain had done the same thing just moments earlier, Arton couldn't help making an unbidden comparison between the two.
Judging purely in terms of skill, Robin really was a bit better—probably because her mindset was more mature.
What reassured Arton, though, was that even though Robin was trying her best to act experienced, that underlying unfamiliarity was still engraved into her body.
That made Arton more and more certain that she had never done something like this for anyone else.
Once he'd thought that through, Arton sat up straight, placed both hands on Robin's head, feeling quietly satisfied, and looked back at Ain.
"All right, I can more or less understand that you admire me for that… But weren't you trying to pursue justice?" Arton asked with a smile. "I'm a pirate—do I really look like someone who can offer you a path toward justice?"
....
For every 100 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.
Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon! [patreon.com/METARLN]