In One Piece, as Hashirama Senju

[37] A Paradox

Chapter 37: A Paradox

—

"I wanted to say how you have changed," Nico Robin said as she followed behind him. "But then I recall how our first meeting happened. How did you turn out to build such a complicated mixture of personalities?"

"What do you mean by that?" asking that with a shrug, Hashirama turned his head to give her a look. He turned around and continued walking, submerging into the stairs that led under the ground. "You're confusing sometimes, Nico Robin."

"Just Robin should be fine at this point," Robin corrected. "I swear, you're not a bad guy, not evil, but still so mischievous and scheming. It's weird."

As if her words suddenly made sense, Hashirama went 'Aha!' though he didn't turn back this time.

"I see what you mean now," walking down to a stage where the light was barely visible, Hashirama said. "Well, maybe I was a bad man who turned a new leaf."

"You're 19, I met you at 16, and you've always been the same." Robin sighed from behind him and followed. "Anyhow, let's end the conversation here. I think we are close to where you're bringing me."

"Agreed," Hashirama said. A thin wooden log came out of his palm, and he lit a fire on it with a lighter. The dark hallways brightened, and with that in hand the duo took a turn in this intricate Royal Tomb; just then, both their eyes fell on the thing they came here for. "There it is. The blue rock."

In this place, dubbed the Tomb of the Kings where all of Alabasta's former Kings lay in eternal sleep, something extravagant stood in the middle of the building.

The Poneglyph.

Robin's next steps were slow, as she seemingly lagged in her mind, as her hand shakily approached to touch the solid stone tablet.

At the last moment, she pulled her hand back from the stone and turned to look at Hashirama. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I don't want to continue explaining how nice of a person I am. I am just living up to the promise I made, even though you broke it yourself. Don't question it and read it. I bet it will give you a mental orgasm." Hashirama said, with Robin opening her mouth, but she closed it when he said the last line. "Got you."

"..." Robin sighed and turned around to face the poneglyph again.

She squinted her eyes, unable to properly see the text in this dim light, until suddenly the room lit up brightly. Quickly turning around, Robin found a dozen wooden logs turned into flambeaus, sticking out of the ground with clones of Hashirama finishing planting them.

Robin's eyes instinctively moved to look at Hashirama who made a hand gesture and all the clones in the area turned into a ball of wood and rushed back to Hashirama, merging into his body.

"New trick?" Robin asked, and instead of waiting for his answer, she turned back to read the text that was much easier to read now.

"When I dispersed the clones, I could either leave a puppet of wood behind or turn the thing into energy that rushed back into me," Hashirama explained even though she may not be hearing. "The problem with that, it turned out, was the memories were not processed properly. Which caused headaches and other issues. But now, with this, when the wood rushes back to me, no such issue occurs. Though, as you can expect, I can only do this if the clone is close to me."

"Please be quiet."

"Sorry."

Hashirama stood beside her and looked forward at the gibberish that was written on the stone's surface. It truly was gibberish, nothing made sense.