A Joke
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One Piece: Desperate
🕑 Added 2021-10-17 11:52:42 +0000 UTCChapter 141
***
As Robin woke up, she noticed that she was in a bedroom littered with plush toys and that she was laying on a very luxurious bed. Looking around she also noticed that the color pink was strewn everywhere.
Suddenly the door to her room opened and Max, with his huge figure, entered the room with a tray of food in his hands and a smile on his face. “Hello~ sorry for this. There was a necessary reason to kidnap you. Also, don’t worry, I won’t force you to read the Poneglyphs or anything like that either.”
Robin narrowed her eyes in suspicion but then smiled back politely too. She knew that being rude here would only lead to unnecessary problems, and she knew Max’s true nature so he wouldn’t be able to trick her. “Thank you, but if you don’t mind me asking. What was the reason for taking me away?”
“Hmmm~ how do I explain this?” Max had a thoughtful look on his face as he brought her breakfast to bed. “Well, essentially I need to start a war against the Strawhats.”
“I see, then why do you need to start a war? You don’t seem like the reckless kind of man.” Robin tried to get as much information out of him, but she could see that he wouldn't reveal anything more than he wanted to reveal.
“Why of course, I need to die,” Max said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I will tell you if you sleep with me. Xahahaha~”
Robin could tell that he was joking… possibly. But she wouldn’t lower herself like that to just get some plans that Max probably had pre-prepared to tell her. He didn’t seem like the kind of man to ruin his plans just for some woman.
“Please stop playing with a woman’s feelings, it makes you look bad,” Robin chuckled. “Also, didn’t you have something with Nami? The girl still has a crush on you.”
Max shrugged, uncaringly. “She conspired against me by entering Wano. That was the end of any possible relationship when she went against me.”
“Don’t you have Vinsmoke Reiju as one of your subordinates, possible girlfriends? She was with Germa 66 and genuinely tried to kill you at one time.” Robin tried to argue, she didn’t want Nami to ever settle for a manipulative man like Max.
But she wanted the monstrous man to think for a second before attacking the Strawhats. Any advantage against him could decide the battle in the end.
“Reiju is special,” Max said simply. Sitting at the end of her bed.
That was when Robin noticed something that she had thought would be impossible. A look of genuine love when he mentioned Reiju. “You like her,” she muttered before she could stop herself. It was such an unbelievable fact to her. “I wonder what she did to earn your affections?”
“Do you think I am some unfeeling monster? I am still human, and it isn’t as simple as just being unfeeling. As a human, I have a wide degree of emotions.” Max looked at his hand, smiled, and got up, walking away, he stopped at the door and turned to gaze at Robin. “I can feel love, hate, maliciousness, fondness, and friendship. Humans aren’t just two-dimensional, we can feel many emotions that sometimes might even contradict each other.”
With that said he walked off and closed the door behind him gently, leaving a confused Robin behind and she couldn’t help but feel like her analysis of him was based on Max’s actions and what he said wasn't necessarily the truth. People can lie easily.
Since Robin knew that she had nothing but time now, she decided to think about Max and what kind of man he was. Thinking of it as a game, a puzzle she needed to solve.
***
-Max POV-
As I walked along the hallways, a small smirk made its way into my face, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. No matter how many times people said that they weren’t affected by what they heard, or the news. It wasn’t necessarily true, humans are beings that will seek information and uncover what they assume to be a puzzle. I wasn’t any different either.
But this basic instinct can be used in many ways. Robin will contemplate what I told her. Even if she wanted to not think about it, her boredom of being alone in that room would catch up to her. She would inevitably contemplate it.
As long as she does that, she will start seeing me as a human and not some bad guy enemy. The most dangerous thing in war was to humanize the enemy.
Make them see that they are just like people like you, even the worst person you could think of in the world was someone who had done stupidly atrocious things was still a human.
What did that terrible person experience to end up like that? Was he abused as a child, what did he see? What did the other people see in him? Why did he do what he did?
That was when people started questioning the morality of humanity as a race and what we can do, and how each of us could turn into monsters. That was a hell-like slope that no one would want to fall through. Because you start sympathizing with your enemy and then…
Well, I can see where Robin will end up. But she might surprise me. Nothing was absolute in this world and I wasn’t some kind of omnipotent being that knew everything… yet.
Still, though, it was the basis of humans that everyone had a hidden side of them that they didn’t show publicly.
***
At the same time, in a certain room in the castle, Reiju was laying on her bed. At first glance, her room seemed normal. It had a wide king-sized bed, and many ornaments but as she stared at her ceiling lovingly, Reiju smiled, a small blush appearing on her face.
Hundreds, no, thousands of pictures of Max were glued in the ceiling. Each cut into different shapes. “Ahhh~” Reiju moaned, her hand slowly trailing down her thighs. “Max, Max, Max, Max, Max… you are just so amazing.”
A side she had never shown anyone, not even Max showed as Reiju kept pleasuring herself to her lover’s photos. In her mind, a scenario played out, of Raynare and Max doing things that made her so jealous, and this caused her heart to beat even heavier.
“Lady Reiju,” suddenly she was pulled out of her thoughts as one of her female attendants called out. Reiju sighed regretfully and got up, fixing her clothes and putting on a practiced smile. Opening the door, she saw a beautiful geisha, a traditional female dancer in Wano.
“Yes? Can I help you with something?” Asked Reiju, feeling a little irritated on the inside, but outwardly she didn’t show anything.
“Lord Max has scheduled a meeting with you, there are talks of war.”
Reiju nodded. “Okay, I will go immediately.”
She then went back into her room and changed clothes, looking at the photos on the ceiling regretfully, before creating a gas that hid all of the photos by creating an optic illusion that reflected the ceiling, and she casually walked out.
Then she went to meet Max as if what had happened here never existed, to begin with.
***
A/N: Everyone has a side they hide from others. Which is normal.
