Reiju was having a very bad week. It was Reverie time - The big meeting that occurs once every 4 years where a bunch of rulers from all over the world gathered together, each having their own agenda, and decided the fate of the world and discussed on how to make it a better place.
'What a joke!' she scoffed internally as she watched her brothers and a few other princes torturing a few slaves to impress other princesses, including herself. The Nobles didn't care about their own citizens let alone the world. They only wanted to gain more power for their own families and one of the major methods, after war of course, of how they did that was through marriage. And since she was the sole Princess of the Germa Kingdom, she had a lot of suitors. A lot of disgusting, morally corrupt and downright evil suitors. Like the ones standing in front of her right now.
She had attended the previous two Reveries, and it had been a nightmare both times. The first time she had attended, she was still just 12 and yet she already had people trying to woo her to get her family's power. The number had increased at the next one when she was 16. And this Reverie, she was 20 and the number of people who wanted to get in her and her family's good graces had exponentially risen. She had to sweetly talk to them no matter how disgustingly they were behaving and shoot down any proposals they would make in a non-hostile way.
"See how strong I am?!" an idiotic prince boasted as he broke the arm of an already broken slave as if it was the most impressive feat ever and she smiled as if she was impressed.
She, her brothers and a few other Noble children were currently at the slave death pit playing with some of the slaves - the almost dead/broken/hollow-eyed slaves who were thrown out here in the death pit because they were deemed as useless. That's what the death pit was - A dumping ground for anything useless. It was also a reminder to all the Kingdoms that attended the Reverie about a certain incident.
There was a certain country from West Blue that had once opposed the World Government a few decades ago. At the following Reverie, the entire Royal family of that country (including children) were publicly beaten up and thrown in the death pit, and a new family took over as Royals of that country. The old family was labeled as traitors for an entirely unrelated matter and thus were given the death verdict by the Celestial Dragons and thrown in the death pit, but everyone knew that it was all made up. That family was killed because they had opposed the WG, were deemed as useless by them, and thus were thrown into the death pit.
Since then, the death pit became an unspoken threat and a reminder to all the attending Kingdoms that if they ever opposed the WG, then they too would be deemed as useless, and their family would face the same fate as the slaves in the pit. They could argue and discuss matters sure, but if they ever outright opposed the WG, then they would find themselves in the death pit.
Most Nobles didn't care about it though as they never had any intention of opposing the WG, and most of them, especially the younger generations just treated the death pit as a playground where they could play with slaves. Just like the ones Reiju was with currently who thought breaking a couple of bones of a person who didn't even fight back was a superhuman feat which deserved all the praise in the world.
Reiju sighed internally as she looked around the pit and saw that a few other Nobles were also manhandling the slaves. There were also a few that looked at the pit with horrified expressions and there were even a couple that tried to talk to the slaves. But all the poor souls here were unresponsive. She could understand why as these slaves had been through a lot and had given up on life. All they wanted was the sweet release of death and escape from their hellish lives.
Reiju focused her gaze back to the idiotic prince when he started boasting about how he had a thousand slaves back in his Kingdom and she nodded with a smile as if she was impressed and interested.
She also overheard her own brothers boasting about all the ways they had tortured people to impress the other princesses with them. She was in close proximity with her brothers for the past few weeks, and she was extremely tired of them.
A murderous Father and 3 equally murderous brothers were the family she was a part of. Back at their Kingdom, she could kind of avoid them by shutting herself off in her own castle saying that she was performing certain experiments with poison. Not for long periods of time as they would still eat at least one meal together every day and spend time discussing the Kingdom governing matters, but she still got her own free time which was better than nothing.
Also, she and her brothers all had their own separate branches of the Germa Kingdom they were responsible for, and apart from reports, she didn't have to spend a lot of time with them. So, she usually got enough time away from them to keep her sanity in check. But because of the Reverie, she had to spend a lot of time in close proximity to them on the to and from journey from their Kingdom to Mariejois, and also at the Reverie. And the Reverie itself was a concentration of people who were similar to her monstrous family.
"Why don't you play too? Snap that one's neck! It's fun!" the idiot Prince interrupted her thoughts as he pointed at another slave with an excited grin.
"I don't like to get my hands dirty," Reiju answered with a smile, "I'm a fan of poisons you see"
"Yes-yes," Yonji chimed in excitedly, "You should see how some of her poisons work! It's amazing to watch how the person suffers!"
"Oh, I see!" the idiot Prince nodded in understanding, "You are Poison Pink after all!"
"Hehe yes" Reiju giggled pretending to enjoy the praise.
She had to keep up the façade with everyone. She had to smile when a stupid Prince made an inappropriate comment about her, she had to smile when she saw her brothers acting the same way towards other Princesses, she had to laugh at their disgusting jokes even when they basically called other races as subhuman, she had to laugh when they showed off their slaves and the cool tricks they could do, she had to laugh when her own brothers went to the death pit and started a game of who can make the slave scream the loudest. She hated them all but outwardly she had to keep a façade of liking the lavish lifestyle, the elitist mindset, the slaves, the torturing and even take pride in it. And she had to laugh. Smile and laugh…she was so tired of it…
She just wanted to get away from it all but she couldn't. She wanted to run away like her only sane brother did, but she knew her Father well enough to know it wouldn't work. Judge valued her too much to just let her get away. He would send armies after her if she ever tried anything like that and so, the only way she could escape from it all was through death.
And besides, as much as she hated it, she was a monster herself who did whatever her father ordered her to do because she was engineered to follow his every order. Be it torturing and killing a single man, or hordes of men- she did it without the slightest bit of hesitation. She was a cruel cold monster who could kill even a child without a second thought if her father ordered her to do it. So ultimately she was just like her father and brothers. Only in the quite lonely nights, would she allow herself to feel and cry herself to sleep remembering all the messed up shit she had done and all the blood she had on her hands, but in front of everyone else, she was a stone-cold monster who enjoyed tormenting others with her poisons.
Reiju watched as her brothers and all the other nobles continued playing while she giggled and commented at appropriate moments on reflex. It was currently the third day of the Reverie and as only the Heads of the families could actually attend the round table meeting, the other family members just had to wait outside the meeting room mingling with the other families.
That particular day in the evening, her brothers had asked her to go with them to the slave death pit to beat up the useless slaves. Again. They had done it on the past three days but still weren't satisfied with torturing the already broken people. Some other nobles overheard it and thus here she was, in the middle of the death pit playing with the slaves laughing at all the antics the others were performing on the poor slaves.
'You guys will soon get your wish' Reiju mentally said to all the slaves in the pit, 'They're gonna set you all ablaze on the last day of the Reverie, so you will get your death pretty soon. So, just hang in there…'
As her brothers continued their game and she was laughing with them, her instincts flared up and she felt an intense gaze on her. She looked around trying to find the source wondering if someone was planning to attack her but soon found out that it was a man lying in the death pit who was responsible.
He was on his back with his face turned towards her and his eyes were boring holes into her. He had cuts on pretty much his entire body, had dried and fresh blood mixing around his open wounds causing a blood sludge of sorts, was shirtless and his blue shorts was torn in most places that it was barely holding together, and his hand was clutching a straw-hat. What caught her attention the most were his eyes. They were resolute and unyielding unlike the rest of the others in the pit. She could feel power and a will to live behind those eyes. And he was gazing right at her. Feeling slightly intrigued, she made her way towards him which caused the lips of the man to turn slightly up.
'He smiled?' Feeling even more intrigued, she started observing him more carefully the closer she got to him. Pretty much his whole face was covered in red - dried blood no doubt. He was fairly short, and she couldn't see his complexion because of all the blood on him but the parts of his skin that were visible was purplish. She made the conclusion that he was probably poisoned as she finally reached him.
He was still staring at her with a small smile as his mouth started quivering a bit. He was trying to say something but either the poison seemed to be affecting him, or he was just that tired. Reiju just waited for him to muster up the energy to talk.
"H-Help…" the man finally managed to mutter.
She was a bit surprised as he was probably the first person she had seen in these pits who didn't want to die, and also because he had purposefully gotten her attention for some reason. But in the end, she didn't think much of the situation as she really couldn't just go around saving every man who asked for help. She had a persona to keep after all.
She just turned her back to him and was going to go back to her brothers but before she could take the first step away from him, she heard the man's voice again. "S-S-Sanji…k-know…"
That stopped her dead in her tracks. She snapped her head back at him and stared at the man incredulously. 'Did he just say Sanji?!'
She could still see his defiant eyes but just muttering those words seemed to have taken a lot out of him and his eyes were now slowly closing. She went up to him, lifted him up by his throat and brought his face up to her eye level and whisper hissed "What the hell did you just say?!"
The man just stared back with half lidded eyes and his lips quivered slightly as he tried his hardest to speak. "Kn-know…S-San…."
'He knows Sanji?!' Reiju internally exclaimed and waited to hear more from him but he didn't say anything else as his eyes slowly closed. Couldn't say anything else she realized and started panicking a bit. The poison was killing him, and she didn't want to be left hanging after hearing a name she had thought she would never ever hear in her life again.
Reiju wanted to ask a million different things and think about what he had said, but if she needed answers, she needed to save him first. She immediately decided to take him back to their ship and started making her way towards the docking area.
"What are you doing?" Yonji asked suddenly popping up beside her startling her a bit but thankfully, she managed to school her expressions to remain neutral. She had forgotten about everything as soon as she had heard Sanji's name and her mind just wanted to know who this man was and what connection he had to Sanji.
Without missing a beat, she lied "I'm taking this one back to the ship. The poison in his system should have killed him immediately but he seems to have somehow held on for days. Need to run some tests on him…"
Yonji just shrugged buying the lie as he knew that Reiju was crazy about poisons and went back to his brothers and the others. Reiju quickly said her goodbyes and made her way to their ship hoping the man wouldn't die before she got her answers.
As soon as she made it to the ship, she speed-walked to her lab, quickly got inside, locked the door and brought the man to the bathroom. She put his head under the tap and ran a good amount of water while also wiping his face with some paper towels. She noticed more of his face had gone very purple now, so immediately locked lips with him and started sucking the poison out.
She sucked for a full minute as her powers worked, the poison traveling from the man's body into her own. Her body was genetically modified to handle poisons as it would break down the poisons into simpler elements and immediately create antibodies to combat it, so she wasn't in any danger. She also recognized the poison by its taste. It was a lethal poison that would slowly kill the person over a few days that was usually used to make sure that a person died a slow and painful death.
She sucked and licked all the poison out before breaking the lip lock and blew out some of the gaseous toxins. 'That was tasty' she thought licking her lips before looking down at the man's relatively healthier face as it slowly regained its color. And it was only then that she noticed how young he looked and realized he was just a boy of at most 16. She saw all the scars, burns, puncture wounds, broken bones, the sea stone cuffs and grimaced at the sight. He had been tortured a lot over many months judging by how old some of the wounds looked.
She decided to patch up some of the more serious wounds a bit so that he would have a better chance at living. It took an hour for her to clean and stitch up many of the serious wounds and once done, she placed him on a desk in her lab.
It was only after she was done that she finally sat down and took a minute to think about the whole situation. A random discarded slave had gotten her attention specifically and told her he knew Sanji. Assuming that he did in fact know Sanji, or someone who he thought was Sanji, had the boy just happened to spot a family member of Sanji at the moment of his death? She finally noticed how weird the situation actually was. The number of chances that led to this would have to have been insane. First, the boy had to know Sanji. Second, he had to know that Sanji was actually a Vinsmoke who was disowned. Third, he had to end up in the slave pit in Mariejois of all places. Fourth, he had to spot her and her brothers and realize they were related. And lastly, he had to specifically get her attention and not the other brothers, who wouldn't have given a second thought even if he had muttered Sanji's name.
That scenario was assuming he was just a normal boy who unfortunately got enslaved. She thought about another scenario where he was specifically sent here by Sanji. Sanji could have told him all about himself, about the Vinsmokes and the Reverie, and the boy was here to convey some message to her from him. But she quickly dismissed the thought as no one sane enough would have put themselves through that much torture just to end up almost dead in the death pit and be picked up by her. There were a ton of better ways to reach her.
Another scenario was that he was a spy. Again, the fact of someone willingly putting themselves through that much torture seemed insane, but she had seen some people who would actually go through worse things if they believed in something bigger. CP agents were a perfect example of this as she had seen some of them give up their own lives without a care if it meant serving the World Government.
'So, he could be a spy' Reiju concluded and then began starting to wonder what his goal could be. Learning that the third prince of Germa wasn't dead? Why would anyone even suspect that in the first place? And what would that even achieve?
Someone found Sanji and are now going to blackmail the Germa by holding him hostage? Yes, that could be a very real possibility. They could be doing this thinking that Judge actually gave a shit about Sanji and think they could blackmail the Germa by holding him hostage. But then again, why would they even get their attention in such a manner? Sending a boy, who had very clearly undergone severe torture, to negotiate with them? There were a million different ways that they could have used to discreetly get their attention.
Reiju's head was going through all sorts of possibilities. Their family had a lot of enemies, so he could be a spy from the multiple Kingdoms in North Blue that hated them as Judge was very vocal about his dream of conquering the entirety of North Blue. After a few minutes of an endless thought spiral, she finally concluded that she just didn't have enough information to make any accurate conclusions. She just had to talk to the guy and figure out what he wants and how he knows Sanji.
She frowned when she realized that the boy wasn't going to wake up any time soon, and she also didn't want to seem desperate to find out about Sanji in case he really was a spy. So, she had no other choice but to just wait for him to wake up. She chained him up to a desk so that he couldn't escape or try anything, then picked up a book, took a seat in her favorite comfy sofa chair and started to read as she waited for the boy to regain consciousness.
———
Luffy slowly opened his eyes, blinking repeatedly to clear his hazy vision and laid eyes on an unfamiliar stone ceiling. He tried to sit up hoping his body would move and fortunately, his body was responsive now.
As he sat up, he realized his hands were chained up to a desk and also noticed a pink haired woman sitting in a chair across the room from him who had clearly fallen asleep with a book in her hand. He looked down at himself and saw several layers of bandages wrapped around pretty much his entire body.
'So, it worked! Reiju actually saved me' he cheered with a smile.
He had waited patiently for 6 hours, without moving a muscle to conserve his energy before he finally caught a glimpse of her. After successfully catching her attention and using all his energy just to mutter a few words, he had lost consciousness hoping that she would save him. And it had worked.
Luffy looked around and noticed that the room was some kind of laboratory with all sorts of vials, beakers, chemicals and other chemistry equipment, and also a ton of books. Probably Reiju's lab he inferred.
His hand first went to his head and not feeling the rough texture of his hat, he started looking around for it everywhere before he spotted it on a desk at the opposite end of the room. He reflexively tried to launch his hand to grab it, but he still had sea stone cuffs on his wrists, so his arms didn't stretch making him sigh in annoyance.
He let it be for now as he turned his eyes back to Reiju and saw that her eyes were now wide open studying him curiously. Apparently, she had woken up at some point or she was never sleeping in the first place and just wanted to test what he would do if he found her asleep.
"H-Hi" Luffy greeted with a smile raising his hand.
Reiju, who had just pretended to be asleep to see what he would do just like Luffy had predicted, studied him curiously. She wanted to see what he would do first upon waking up and saw that he looked for his hat first, then tried to punch something?
Luffy continued when she didn't say anything, "F-first of all… thank you for…s-saving my life…. And also…for treating… my w-wounds" he muttered in a raspy voice his mouth very dry while bowing gratefully to her.
Seeing that he was struggling to speak, Reiju poured him a glass of water and offered it to him which Luffy gratefully accepted and gulped down.
"So, who are you?"
"Hi, I'm Luffy, Future Pirate King. Nice to meetcha" Luffy greeted with his signature D grin.
"You're a pirate?" Reiju asked surprised. Well, a pirate wasn't something she had thought of in all her delusions of who Luffy could be. She didn't care about the Pirate King claim though as a lot of pirates claimed that they were going to become the Pirate King and they all were delusional idiots without strength who would either break or die when they saw the real world. Besides, he was just a boy and wasn't all that strong, so she didn't take his claim seriously. The way he had said it as if it was just an offhand thing did intrigue her, but she didn't give it much thought.
"Not yet. I'm gonna set out at 17"
"Okay…So why did you say 'Sanji'?" she honestly wasn't interested about his life and just wanted to know why he had said Sanji's name.
"I was a bit out of it, so I don't know what I managed to mutter. What did I say?"
"You just said 'help', 'know', and 'Sanji'"
"That's it? Wow…well at least I managed to say that much"
Reiju just stared at him waiting for him to continue. She was getting impatient as she was dying to find out if this boy knew her brother but didn't let her desperation show on her face.
"Well," Luffy continued, "What I actually wanted to say was help me and I'll tell you about Sanji. I know him"
"You know my dead brother?" she deadpanned.
"Dead brother?" Luffy first panicked wondering if this was a universe in which Sanji had died by Judge's hands itself but soon calmed down when he recalled what had happened in the story. Sanji was declared as dead by Judge when he found out he hadn't manifested any powers, but in actuality he was locked up in a dungeon. And when Sanji escaped, Judge had told him that he would let him go on the condition that he would never claim to be a Vinsmoke. And so, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, the third son of the Germa Kingdom was dead.
Reiju frowned when he just went silent seemingly thinking about something. "Yes, dead brother" she reiterated now getting a bit annoyed.
"He's not dead. I know him" Luffy said her impatient tone bringing him out of his thoughts.
"He died a long time ago"
Luffy took a moment to think before responding with a chuckle, "Okay, then I saw his ghost?"
Reiju just glared at him, got up, came up to him, curled her fingers around his throat and dangerously growled, "You think this is a game? You do realize you're talking to the princess of the Germa Kingdom, right?"
"Uh huh" Luffy answered nonchalantly.
Seeing not even an ounce of fear when she threatened him, she reevaluated the boy in her mind. Him being a spy seemed more likely now…but then again, if he was a spy, he would have pretended to be scared and weak here to make her let her guard down. Also, a spy wouldn't make stupid jokes like that. She held off on making any conclusions for now as she let go of his throat slightly, but still kept her fingers loosely wrapped around his throat as she said "Talk. I'll hear you out at least before I kill you. I'm curious to see what kind of story you'll concoct"
"I'm trying to but if you deny he's alive and I say he's alive, and I turn out to be wrong, it'll just be me giving you false hope that he's alive…Do you see my dilemma?" Luffy said with a frown. This wasn't the manga, and it could be possible that in this universe, Sanji had in fact died at Judge's hand itself. It could be possible that he never escaped and Reiju was currently telling the truth. So, he did not want to give false hope to Reiju but judging by how she had reacted when she had heard his name back at the pit, he was pretty sure the events in the story had happened and Sanji had escaped. But he wasn't a 100% sure, so he tried to get her to talk more to judge whether he had escaped or not, but she just got annoyed by him instead.
"No, I don't. What do you mean you could be wrong? You don't know whether Sanji is alive or not?" Reiju asked still not admitting anything. 'Okay, it's more likely that he is a spy. He's trying to make me talk…Could he be sent by Judge? …No, he's the one who let Sanji go that day after telling him not to call himself a Vinsmoke anymore, so there would be no point to this…Some other country's spy?'
The day she had helped Sanji escape; she had also overheard the conversation between Judge and Sanji. When she saw that Sanji was seemingly caught by Judge, she had quickly run towards them but hid behind a building when she heard her father saying that he'll let him go if he disowned his family name. She was honestly happy for Sanji as she knew he didn't want to associate with their family either. So, Judge sending Luffy as a spy to probe if she knew Sanji was alive or not was meaningless. Besides, she had acted as the perfect child in front of him and had his complete trust.
Reiju had a steely calm look on her face, but her mind was in turmoil thinking about all kinds of scenarios of who Luffy could be.
"I might have seen him" Luffy said bringing her out of her thoughts.
"That's not possible" Reiju reiterated again before tightening her hold around his neck, "Who are you working for? And what's your goal here?"
Luffy didn't want to really trick her, but he saw that he was making her life harder by making her think he was some kind of spy. She was no doubt thinking that he was some spy from the World Government or some other country. If he revealed all the higher dimensional being and comic book stuff with no proof, he would only be making her more paranoid and wary of him. So, he decided that he had no choice but to tell a white lie. He didn't like it but decided he would come clean later.
"Listen Reiju, just hear me out, will you? You can check me for any listening devices, you can take me to some random place so that you're sure no one else is listening, you can poison me and hold the antidote over my head…do whatever the hell you want. I'm not working with anyone and all I'm trying to do here is to get help to escape this place. You already cured me of the poison that was killing me, so thank you for that. If you could also drop me off at the next island you stop at, I'll be grateful"
Reiju studied him for a few moments going through everything he said. "And in exchange you want to give me information about my dead brother?" she finally asked removing her hand from around his throat.
"Yeah" Luffy answered wondering why she let go. He watched as she went to one of the desks, picked up a black staff and walked back to him. She removed a sort of cap from the top of the staff revealing what looked like two iron rods sticking out and without warning, touched the rods to his skin. Luffy yelped in pain as a million volts of electricity coursed throughout his entire body as it jerked violently and Luffy's brain registered the fact that he was being electrocuted for some reason but couldn't form any other coherent thought.
Reiju electrocuted him for a good 20 seconds before finally breaking contact and Luffy slumped down panting hard, his whole body feeling like it had just been set on fire.
"Now we can talk" Reiju said capping the powerful taser staff back. "This room is soundproof and also any snails can't transmit outside as I've blocked it off with horned transponder snails that jam signals. I already checked you for any listening devices too, but I hadn't considered recorders. That shock just now would have fried any recorders you could have hidden inside your body"
"I-I s-see…" Luffy stammered pushing himself back up with his shaky hands. His whole body was feeling like it wasn't in his control, and he could barely form any coherent thought but after a good full minute, he finally regained enough senses to talk. And the whole time, Reiju just observed him. She definitely wanted to know more about Sanji and they both knew that he was alive. She still didn't drop the act of saying her brother was dead though and instead decided to pretend like she was just entertaining his story.
Luffy sighed finally getting control over his body back, "Isn't this a bit too much paranoia? Why do you even think I'm a spy? I was almost dying out there you know…"
"Yeah, I honestly didn't think much of you either. I cleaned all your wounds up, so I know you were severely tortured for months… All the checks I did previously were just a force of habit which I couldn't help but notice while treating you"
"What changed?"
"The way you talk, I guess. Fearless even when I threaten you… I would have expected you to at least feel a tiny bit of fear"
"A spy would have acted to be fearful of you and make you let your guard down you know…"
"And how would you know?"
"Ooh I've seen Black Widow in action! You should see how amazing she is in making people talk!"
"Who?"
"Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff" Luffy said with a smile as if that would explain everything. Seeing the blank look on her face, Luffy continued, "She works for SHIELD"
"Shield? Is that the organization you work for?"
"Shishishishi, no way would I work for anyone…but I want to go on a Helicarrier at least once…" he trailed off with a wistful look on his face.
Seeing the extremely confused look on Reiju's face, Luffy chuckled and came clean, "I'm talking about a movie."
"You were talking about a damn fictional character?!" she snapped.
"Oh, you poor sweet summer child" Luffy said with pity, "If only you knew…" They were also damn fictional characters in another universe just like Natasha. He was pretty sure the Marvel Universe would also be somewhere out there in the wide expanse of the multiverse. It was unsettling, exciting, horrifying and also amazing all at the same time.
"The fuck does that mean?! If only I knew what?!" Reiju demanded.
"Shishishishi don't worry about it" Luffy waved it off, "Let's stop talking about fictional stories yeah?"
"You're the one bringing up random stuff!"
"Shishishishi"
Reiju picked up the taser staff again and electrocuted him for a good minute, by the end of which Luffy was drooling and mumbling incomprehensibly on the floor. "I suggest you stop messing around and treating this like a game" she growled after he regained some of his senses.
"Yeah-yeah" Luffy wheezed shaking his head and getting control of his body back. 'Is this what facing Enel would be like without my rubber body?'. He sighed ridding his mind of all his random thoughts and concentrated on his current situation.
"Well judging by how much you're going through right now; I think I can safely assume that Sanji is alive… Wait! You thought about recorders but what about devil fruits? I could be using some sort of devil fruit to transmit whatever we're talking right now to someone else, right?"
"You're wearing sea stone cuffs. I already verified that they are real"
"So covered all your bases huh?"
"You know, if you really want to convince me that you're not some sort of spy, you're making a really bad case for yourself right now"
"Yeah, I know…but I haven't played mind chess like this before you know. It's kinda fun, Shishishishi. I love spy movies, and have even role played 007 when I was younger"
"I don't care!" Reiju snapped zapping him a couple more times.
"Okay okay…" Luffy placated before starting, "Well, about Sanji, let me tell you about the Sanji I know…deciding whether he's your brother or not is up to you…Okay?"
Reiju just sat down in her chair and leveled a glare at him "Go ahead"
"Okay. First, I noticed that your third brother is missing. There's Rei, Ichi, Ni and Yon so Sanji's the name of your third brother"
Reiju nodded. Reasonable deduction. She didn't question how he knew her and her brothers' names. They were pretty famous after all.
"And I have actually seen a guy named Sanji before"
Reiju frowned and with a low dangerous growl said "If you're saying that you talked to someone named Sanji and now telling me that that's my brother, I'm killing you right now"
"I said I saw him. I didn't actually talk to him" he corrected unperturbed by her threat before continuing, "The guy had swirly eyebrows and goes ga-ga with hearts in his eyes whenever he sees any girl and tries to flirt with them. Sounds just like your other brothers. Tell me it isn't a reasonable assumption to think he's related to you"
Reiju was unconvinced. "Not enough. You could just be using my other brothers as a reference to describe Sanji. Their obsessive tendencies towards women are well-known after all"
Luffy frowned and nodded at that. "Yeah, makes sense. Let me give you more details then. He's working in a restaurant right now and is a very good chef. Kind, caring, feeds anyone - even people who show up at the restaurant with no money, and beats up anyone who wastes food… Also, he's blonde and covers one of his eyes with his hair just like you do"
'Okay, that definitely sounds like Sanji!' Reiju exclaimed in her mind, now slightly convinced that it was her brother. His dream of becoming a cook was known only to her. She hoped that this boy was telling the truth and felt happy on the inside knowing that he was living his dream and had become a cook. But of course, she couldn't trust his words completely.
"Is that it?"
"Yes"
"So, you met a guy called Sanji who likes to flirt. And you jumped to the conclusion that he's a dead prince?"
"…well, when you put it like that…" Luffy trailed off thinking that he didn't really have a way to convince her that it was her Sanji without divulging that he knew about their childhoods. Which would require him to tell her about stuff which he should have had no way of knowing and that was another headache altogether. She was already paranoid of him and if he started talking about how she would first bully Sanji with all her brothers but would later secretly treat him, she would become extremely agitated and paranoid. He racked his brain for anything else that could convince her and thankfully, he remembered something. "Oh! Also, his eyebrows curl towards the right unlike the rest of the brothers"
Reiju blinked in honest surprise. That was certainly true and coupling this fact with him being a cook, she concluded that there might be some truth to what the boy was claiming.
She took a few moments to think before asking, "That's it?"
"Yes. I was in the pit dying and then I saw you guys. I knew Sanji and thought I could tell you about him and in exchange you can save my life. That's all"
"You specifically got my attention. There were a couple of others who were trying to talk and help the people in the pit. You could have gotten their attention too and gotten saved. Any reason for choosing me or was it just a random whim?" If the boy was telling the truth, then on top of all the coincidences, he also had to choose her specifically and tell her. No one else could have cured his poison.
"I think one girl did check up on me the first day I got thrown in the pit but moved on…not sure if that did happen though as I was pretty out of it. Anyway, I was poisoned, and it was killing me. You're Poison Pink. You were pretty much the only one here who could have helped me"
"I see" 'That makes sense of why he chose to specifically get my attention at least.' But still, all the other coincidences were a bit too much. He had to know Sanji, and at the moment of his death, run into her of all people… It seemed to be too coincidental. "Is that all?"
"Yep"
"Well, too bad for you, my brother died a long time ago. You saw someone who looked like him I guess"
"…I see" Luffy didn't want to argue anymore. She didn't want to let it slip that her brother was alive and he wasn't gonna force her either. "Okay then. I say he's your Sanji and you deny it saying he's dead…what now? That's all I had"
Reiju hummed in thought before saying, "Well, I guess since you had nothing of value to give to me, I should throw you back in the pit?"
"…I see"
"What? Not even gonna protest?"
"I would but you're just saying that. You have no intention of throwing me back in that hellhole"
"Why do you think that?"
"Because you're kind"
"…huh?" Reiju's mind blanked for a second hearing words she had never expected to hear in her life.
"Because you're kind" Luffy reiterated. "Your other brothers are monsters but not you."
Reiju was left speechless. That statement had caught her completely off guard. He had called her kind. This boy had just called her kind. This boy who had seen her torturing the others at the pit and electrocuted him so many times had just called her kind. Reiju couldn't focus on anything other than that fact and she had to know how and why the boy had come to such a conclusion.
"Are you out of your mind?! What makes you think I'm kind? I was laughing while my brothers were torturing those poor souls, and you just called me kind. Did you also forget I just electrocuted you a few minutes ago?!"
Luffy grinned, "See?! That just proves my point!"
"What?"
"Just now, you called them as 'poor souls'. Any other asshole here would have called them as slaves, toys, playthings…but you, on the other hand, didn't dehumanize them"
Reiju just sat in stunned silence cursing herself for her blunder.
"I observed you guys and the others a lot" Luffy continued not giving her a chance to spiral into any conclusions, "Couldn't do much considering I couldn't move. I saw you yourself didn't torture or play with any of them and just laughed at what your brothers were doing, which was horrendous by the way. The first day I saw you, I did think that you were just like all the others too but also noticed that you didn't participate and just watched. I had chalked it up to you not liking to touch dirty slaves and all…but considering how you treated me," he said pointing at all the bandages wrapped around him, "that's not the case at all. You just don't like this whole thing. Period. And to prove my point further, you called them as poor souls. You are kind"
Reiju was left speechless as she didn't know how to respond to that. People had called her many things before. Heartless, Monster, inhuman, ...but never kind. She herself believed that she was a heartless monster as she had done a lot of things she wasn't proud of because of her family, and she felt that she deserved those titles. But kind? She just sat there staring at the smiling boy not knowing how to proceed with the conversation. 'Wait! Is this some sort of new technique?! Yes, that must be it! He's appealing to my humanity to get close to me. He's good. Probably trained by the World Government. A CP0 agent maybe? Need to make him mess up and reveal himself' Reiju was making all kinds of assumptions in her mind and thinking of all sorts of ways she could extract the truth from him.
Not seeing any further movement from Reiju, Luffy just shrugged and started looking for any food in the room. He saw some chocolate bars on a nearby desk, so moved to pick them up. Seeing him move however alarmed Reiju, as she instantly went on guard and yelled, "What are you doing?!"
Luffy who was reaching out to the desk with the chocolate bars froze midway and stared at Reiju with a sweat drop. "Umm I just wanted those chocolate bars… Are you really that scared of me? I'm like, not even a quarter as powerful as you are even in my best condition…"
Reiju actually felt embarrassed on the inside as she had overreacted, but she couldn't help herself. Her mind had been thrown off by his comments and was running wild with all sorts of scenarios of who Luffy could be and when she saw him move suddenly, she became alarmed. She let her battle stance go and sat back in her chair with a small cough pretending as if that hadn't just happened and Luffy sweat dropped again before shrugging and grabbing the chocolate bars. Reiju also realized that she was going crazy with all her delusions. All the boys had done was call her kind. Maybe he was just appealing to her humanity.
She watched as he devoured the chocolate bars within two seconds (one and a half seconds of which was spent trying to get the chocolate out of its wrapper), and it looked like he wanted more.
Feeling extremely hungry, Luffy pleaded "Can you please get me some food? Meat preferably. I haven't eaten a proper meal in months. We can continue the conversation later."
That brought Reiju out of her speculations and she looked at his body. True, he did look like he had shriveled up and hadn't eaten for a long time. She had noticed all the wounds and the various burn and scar marks while treating him and if he was actually just a normal boy and not some spy, she felt bad for him. But she couldn't let her guard down so didn't acquiesce to his request as she would have to leave him alone in the room during which he could contact anyone on the outside or do something else. She also couldn't contact any maids from this part of the ship as it was off limits to everyone. She had told everyone that no one should come near her lab due to safety reasons, but the actual reason was so that she could get away from everyone and have some alone time. Her labs on every Germa ship were always hers and hers alone and no one else entered it or walked in its general vicinity.
"Can't do that. You might do something while I'm gone"
"Meanie…" Luffy whined slumping down sideways and sighing with a pout. Seeing him pout honestly surprised Reiju as the only word that was coming to her mind was 'cute'. She was building him up to be this master spy and interrogator trained from a young age by the WG and all sorts of other delusions, and then he just goes and calls her a 'Meanie' like a child and then pouts like a child. And on top of all that, she thought his pouting face looked really cute.
Before she could have any more spiraling thoughts, Luffy whined again, "C'mon, you already denied that the Sanji I know is not your Sanji. So, what can I even do? ...you can also take me along or something, can't you? I'm really hungry…"
Reiju sighed seeing his pitiful whining state and gave in. He was right after all. He had no information to pass on either way. But her entire life where she had distrusted pretty much everyone still warned her to be wary of him. She went to one of the cabinets, took out a syringe, came up to him and plunged it into his arm without warning.
"What's this?" Luffy asked curiously watching the liquid from the syringe entering his body.
"Paralyzing slash sleeping agent. So that you can't talk or even be awake while I'm gone to bring food"
"Oh o-" was all Luffy could say before his body fell forward and his world went black. When he regained consciousness again, Reiju was in front of him with a plate of food. And fortunately, it was meat.
"Meat!" Luffy cheered happily and devoured whatever was on the plate in just a second.
Reiju who had just gone to the kitchen, and brought the food was shocked at the seemingly magical way the food had disappeared. She hadn't even seen him eat it. One second the food was there and then the next it had disappeared. If not for the gulping sounds, she heard from Luffy, she would have assumed that she had actually forgotten to add food and had just brought an empty plate. Reiju stared at Luffy incredulously, who looked back at her pitifully and with a sad tone asked, "That's it?"
Reiju, without saying a word, injected him with the sleeping agent again, went out after locking the lab, went to the kitchen, grabbed a sack and stuffed as much food as she could, brought it back to the lab, injected him with the antidote, handed the sack of food to him when he regained consciousness, and watched him as he immediately started devouring the food with a bright smile.
She just sat there staring at the boy in disgust and awe as he devoured the food. Watching Luffy eat, she gained a whole new understanding of the phrase 'eats like a pig' that day.
"Thanks for the food!" Luffy cheered as he finished the last piece of meat in the sack. He definitely needed more but was satisfied for now. Besides he didn't feel like he had to eat more right now and wondered why as he had never felt that before.
"You must have been really hungry huh" Reiju commented with a sweat drop.
"Hm? Yeah, but I usually eat waay more…ahh I see, it's because of the sea stone! My stomach usually stretches the more I eat but now it can't, so I'm feeling full" Luffy concluded sagely. Ever since he was forced into the cuffs, he had never eaten more than a single plate's worth of food, so he hadn't noticed it before.
"…Did you say your stomach usually stretches?"
"Yep! I ate the Gum-Gum fruit, I'm a rubber human" he said with a grin and proceeded to stretch his lips horizontally no doubt expecting it to stretch. Obviously failing, he cursed the 'stupid sea stone!' and pouted again, which looked extremely cute and funny to Reiju. She tried to hold back her laughter but ultimately failed and a small giggle escaped her mouth. She didn't know if Luffy was being truthful or if he was some spy, but he sure was funny.
Realizing she had let her guard down, she shook her useless thoughts away and decided to continue the interrogation. "So, where were we?"
"I called you kind and you freaked out" Luffy stated simply.
Reiju again felt embarrassed at her overreaction as she coughed with a slight blush "Let's forget you ever said that as I am not kind. I've killed and tortured hundreds of people over my life without a shred of remorse"
"Sure" Luffy said nonchalantly. That again peeved her, and she wanted to argue with him more about this topic but decided to get back to Sanji.
"Now, about the Sanji you know… What have you done to him?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You seem to think I care about Sanji and so you're telling me Sanji is alive. Ignoring whether that is my brother or just some random person, you clearly want to use that fact to blackmail me"
"…" Luffy just stared at her feeling sad that she had to grow up in such an environment where she had no choice but to doubt people like this so much. He sighed rubbing his face and looked at her seriously, "Reiju, I already told you. I just want to escape from this place. I haven't even talked to Sanji let alone kidnap him or something…and I have no intention of blackmailing you or anything. I thought you would like to know he was doing good, that's all. If you want, you can even go and meet him…"
Reiju just stared at the boy not being able to make up her mind if he was telling the truth or not. "So what? You expect me to believe that you know Sanji and just happened to run into his family at the moment you were dying? This event is clearly orchestrated"
"Nah, I'm just lucky like that. You won't believe the amount of uncanny luck I have."
"Sure you do" Reiju intoned sarcastically.
Luffy sighed, "So what do you want to do? What can I possibly say to prove to you that I'm not some spy…What would I even have to gain by doing this to you? I just told you your brother is alive and asked for a ride out. You can cage me and keep me locked up or sedated or whatever the hell you want, as long as I get to leave this place. I got things to do and can't be stuck in this stupid place"
"I don't know your goals or motives and that's what makes you dangerous"
"Ugh" Luffy whined and pouted, "I already told you, my goal. I want to leave this place…"
'Don't concentrate on his cute pouting face!' Reiju berated herself when her thoughts again got occupied with thinking of how cute it looked. "You could be a spy sent by the World Government to confirm Sanji's existence and then blackmail the Germa saying you will kill him if we didn't obey you"
Luffy gave her a deadpan look. "Really? Will the others really give a shit about him?"
"So just me then?" Reiju growled, "You think I'm kind so you think you can blackmail me into doing things for you?"
To her surprise, Luffy gave her a shit eating grin, "Well for that, you'll first have to acknowledge you're kind…which you vehemently refuse to do so. So even if I was a World Government spy like you say I am and the Sanji I know is in fact your brother, you don't care, do you? So, I have nothing to blackmail you with. Shishishishi"
Reiju sat there stunned by his logic. He had somehow used her own words against her in a manner she had never imagined before. She was a master interrogator who had extracted information from all kinds of people, but she had just lost a battle of logic with a boy who wasn't even 17 yet.
Luffy couldn't hold back and just laughed out loud seeing her gob smacked expression which only pissed her off and she smacked him hard on the head, cutting his laughter off.
"Hey! I thought we were having a battle of wits here…" Luffy whined rubbing his head.
That only further confused her as she realized that he honestly thought that they were playing a game. She had absolutely no idea what to make of him and just sat there wondering if she should believe him or not. She let out a deep sigh clearing her mind of all her thoughts and began processing what all he had said from the beginning with a clean slate. She thought for a while before asking, "Okay let's assume that you did see this person who looks like Sanji… how come you remember him so well? If it was just another random person you hadn't even talked to, how can you recall everything about him to the point of even remembering which direction his eyebrows curled?"
"He's not some random person, he's a part of my crew"
"…huh?"
"He's my cook"
"Wait wait wait what?!" Reiju was once again gob smacked. Her brother was a pirate now!? And follows this boy as his cook? Before she could think more about it, she soon found a chink in his story and internally smiled finally catching him in a lie.
"He's a part of your pirate crew, is he?" Reiju asked holding back a smug smile.
"Yep"
"You just messed up!"
"Hm?"
"Just now, you said that he's a part of your supposed pirate crew…" Reiju paused giving a smug grin, "But earlier, you said you hadn't even talked to him yet. So how come he joined your crew without even talking to you? You're clearly lying"
"Oh, I haven't asked him yet" Luffy answered unperturbed, "I won't ask anyone to join my crew until I officially set out at 17 but I'm always on the lookout for potential people. I saw Sanji beating up a customer because they had wasted food by throwing it on the floor and he also gave some food to a poor starving guy who didn't have any money. When I saw that, I decided that he's gonna be my cook. He's a good person, knows the value of food, apparently makes delicious food and also knows how to fight. I'll ask him when I set out and convince him to join my crew… I've already decided that he's gonna be a part of my crew. He just doesn't know it yet" Luffy finished his explanation with a huge smile.
"…"
"…"
"WHAT KIND OF SELFISH BULLSHIT IS THAT!? YOU CAN'T JUST DECIDE THAT WITHOUT EVEN MEETING HIM, YOU IDIOT!" Reiju raged losing her composure uncharacteristically.
Luffy quickly cut in before she could rage further. "I'm not deciding it for him. I said I'll convince him to join. If he really, really doesn't want to, then I'll give up but if not, then I'll make him join me"
"…"
"…"
Reiju was dumbfounded by all his statements and for the umpteenth time that night, she sat in her chair speechless. She just couldn't get a read on the boy at all and couldn't determine if he was a spy or just a random boy who happened to know Sanji and luckily met her while he was dying. Not to mention the fact his selfish claims and carefree attitude as if this was all just a big game to him was throwing her off.
She sighed deeply "I can't decide if you're a spy or just a delusional lucky idiot…"
"Well, what would you do for each case?"
"What?"
"If you decide I was a spy, what will you do? If you decide I'm being truthful, what will you do?"
"Torture you for information for the first case and… for the second case I guess I can leave you on some island we stop at"
Luffy hummed in acknowledgment knowing she had the power to decide his fate now.
"Same question right back at you" Reiju said staring at him, "What will you do if I decide to kill you?"
"Fight you of course" Luffy answered immediately. "I can't die here"
"And what makes you think you can defeat and kill me?"
"I'm not gonna kill you…neither do I have to defeat you. I just have to escape from here"
"You're bound by chains"
"I'll figure out a way"
Reiju sighed shaking her head, "You're delusional"
She was really mentally tired. She had had a very long tiring day at the Reverie and immediately after she had rescued Luffy, she had spent some time patching him up. Then she had waited for him to gain consciousness all the while wondering why he had mentioned Sanji's name, how he knew him and making up all sorts of theories of who he could be. And after he woke up, she had this very confusing conversation with him where she couldn't get a read on him and was now completely mentally tired. And on top of all this, she had to spend the next day again at the Reverie. She saw that the time was already half past 2, so decided to postpone the conversation with Luffy. He wasn't going anywhere if she gave him specific poisons and she would make sure he was paralyzed so even if someone somehow did enter her lab, which was already a hard task, he couldn't talk or exchange any information.
She stood up and saw that Luffy was watching her carefully while being highly on guard. She wondered if he really thought he could escape from her while being so injured and chained. She was going on another thought spiral about his strangeness again, so quickly shook her thoughts away and walked to the cabinet to get the paralyzing and sleeping agents.
Luffy watched silently as she picked a couple of things, came up to him, pulled his arm and injected a couple of liquids into him all the while eyeing him curiously, "Not afraid these will kill you?"
"Nah, you don't want to kill me"
"I could just be pretending to be injecting you with some sleeping agents. This could very well be poisons"
Luffy stared at her face for a while and said, "I'll choose to trust you. You're kind"
Reiju scoffed. "You're just appealing to my humanity"
"I am. Doesn't mean I'm wrong…and I really can't die here"
The two held each other's gazes for a few moments before Luffy smiled and reiterated, "I'll trust you" before he slumped down unconscious into her arms.
Reiju sighed at the optimistic idiot and lifted him off the ground. She opened a cabinet in which she usually kept highly volatile chemicals, threw him inside and locked it. On top of the paralyzing and sleeping agents, she had also put him in a highly secure cabinet, so there was no way he could talk to anyone on the outside.
———
Luffy was just talking to Reiju before his world blanked out and the next instant, he was opening his eyes to a differently dressed Reiju with a sack of food in her hand, which he immediately lunged for and started devouring. He didn't know what happened and wanted to ask how he seemingly skipped time, but he was more interested in eating first. While eating, he noticed that she seemed to be extremely tired for some reason as she sagged in her chair.
"You, okay?" he asked in between gulps, and she lifted her head in surprise.
After she had locked him in the lab the previous night, Reiju had gone to sleep but couldn't sleep much as her head was going through all that Luffy had said. She was half convinced that he was in fact talking about her Sanji itself and was glad to find that he was alive. And the more she thought about the conversation, the more she believed that he was just an idiotic delusional boy and not some spy.
The other half however was making up all sorts of speculations on who Luffy could be and whether he was here to gather some sort of information on her. She had spent the entire night thinking of what any faction could gain from Sanji being alive and telling it to her, but apart from holding him hostage and blackmailing her, she couldn't come up with anything else.
She couldn't sleep a wink all night and before she knew it, it was morning already and she had to go to the castle again. After a morning meeting with her family where Judge relayed what all had happened during the previous day, she had gone back to the castle to meet with all the horrible nobles again. Fortunately, the idiot prince who was trying to court her the previous day had found someone else and wasn't behind her anymore, so at least that was a silver lining.
But then the noon party where she was swarmed by other elitist princes and princesses while she had to act like an elitist noble too had tired her out. As soon as evening arrived and people were free to leave without it seeming rude (it was socially acceptable to not attend the night party as people usually hooked up), she excused herself to go back to the lab. Her brothers asked her to accompany them to the pit again, but she just said that she had found an interesting slave on whom poisons worked differently and she was returning early to run tests, and they relented.
She wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath and sleep until the next morning, but she also badly wanted to interrogate Luffy further and decide if he was a spy or not.
Thus, she was here in her lab, not forgetting to bring enough food on her way, watching him eat with disgust.
"You, okay?" Luffy asked again now pausing and staring at her when she didn't answer.
"Yeah, yeah" she dismissively waved it off with a tired sigh.
"That bad of a day huh?" Luffy looked at her with pity and with great reluctance offered her the piece of meat he was holding, "Here, you can have some of my meat if you want"
Reiju just stared at him dumbfounded. "…You do realize that I brought the food to you right?"
"So? I'm eating it so it's mine. And I'm sharing…here, eat up! Meat always cheers people up!" he said shoving the shank of meat as far as he could considering he was chained up.
"No, thank you. I already ate"
"Your loss" Luffy shrugged and went back to devouring the food while Reiju watched with bewilderment. 'What's wrong with this idiot?'
Luffy finished and clapped his hands in happiness, "Thank you for the food!"
He then looked at her and asked something that was bugging him, "What did you give me last night? One moment I was seeing you and the next I see a day has already passed. I don't even feel like I slept…It's almost like I time skipped"
"…It's a special sleeping and paralyzing agent I concocted. It deprives all your senses as soon as it enters your bloodstream and you won't even feel anything until I inject you with the antidote. You won't even realize you had fallen unconscious or how much time has passed. I use it as a torture method when I'm pressed for time. I inject a person with this, change the date and time on the clock, change my dress, and then wake the person up. I do it enough times and I can make the person think that weeks or months have passed when not even a week would have actually passed"
"Whoa! That's kinda neat. It's like a sensory deprivation tank but with just injections huh? Cool!"
Reiju grew a tick mark on her head as she was hoping to scare him by saying that, but he only got excited, remarked it was 'cool' and was completely unfazed by it. She realized that she was going to get a massive migraine if she tried analyzing this boy and was starting to realize that Luffy was an enigma no one could solve.
"Enough about that" Reiju grumbled annoyed, "Let's get back to the conversation. Tell me about yourself"
"Is this a job interview?" Luffy deadpanned with an unimpressed gaze, "Ask a better question"
She felt like snapping his neck and be done with him as he was really treating this like a game, but held herself back and breathed out slowly before asking, "What's with the hat?"
She watched in glee when she saw him flinch slightly and a smug smile spread across her face, "Don't think I haven't noticed that the first thing you did upon gaining consciousness each time was discreetly glance at that hat"
She had seen him do this discreetly every time she had woken him up and had even checked the hat when he was asleep, but didn't find anything special about it. It was just a simple Straw-hat.
Luffy sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, "Well yeah, should've expected you to catch me huh…the slavers never caught me so I thought I could fool you too…"
"What do you mean?"
"That hat is my greatest treasure. When I was initially caught, I realized that they were trying to see if I had any weaknesses…and I knew that if they ever knew how much I cared about my hat, they would definitely use it against me. So, I acted very casual about it and never once let it slip that it was anything important. I just let it be in my cage if they ever dragged me out and kept it out of sight as much as I could…and thus, it's here with me now"
Reiju had gotten up and grabbed the hat while he explained and was studying it carefully seeing if she had missed anything. "What's so special about it?" she asked twirling it.
"It represents a promise. I promised the man that gave me this hat that I would become a great pirate, recruit the greatest crew ever and after reaching the top, return it to him" he said reaching out for it.
"I see. So, a sentimental treasure then" she nodded and handed it to him. She could take it back any time she wanted, so didn't mind giving it to him. She watched as Luffy's face split into an impossibly huge D shaped grin as he put the hat on his head and even, she felt that the hat belonged on his head.
"Thanks!"
"Anyway, we're at a sort of impasse here. You say you saw someone that looked like Sanji, and I say that Sanji is dead…"
"Yeah"
"So, what else can you give me?"
"What?"
"What else can you give me so that I don't see saving you as a total waste of time? I've already saved you, so I might as well use you as my own slave"
"I'm nobody's slave" Luffy answered instantly.
"Well, you don't have a choice, do you? I hold your life in my hands after all. I can use you any way I want"
Luffy knew it was all an act as she really wasn't cruel, so just shrugged and said, "I don't mind helping you with things. What do you want me to do?"
Reiju wanted to really get back at him as he was partly responsible for her bad mood, so she decided to make him flustered.
"Lick my feet?" she drawled suggestively sticking out one of her legs towards him which was completely bare as she was wearing a very short dress shirt. Luffy was sitting on the floor with his back to a desk to which he was chained to, and she was in a sofa chair directly opposite him, so her stretched out leg was almost on him, and he got a very clear view of everything.
In Reiju's mind, he was going to blush profusely, stutter, gulp, avert his eyes (but also steal secret glances), and altogether become very flustered, after which she would reveal it to be a joke and ask him if he really expected something like that to happen and she could tease him about it relentlessly. He was still a boy after all and boys his age were very interested in the opposite sex. And not to seem egotistical, she knew she was insanely and sensually hot, so of course she expected him to get flustered. She really wanted to get back at him as he was partly responsible for the bad mood she had been in since the previous day and thus, tried to make him flustered…but reality turned out to be different.
"I'm sorry but I'm not interested in you." Luffy responded with an honest apologetic expression, "I guess you're hot, but I don't care. I don't have a foot or leg fetish either…"
Reiju awkwardly kept her leg up for a couple of seconds as the two stared into each other's eyes, before she slowly retreated it back without a word. There was a very light pink hue sporting her cheeks due to embarrassment as her plan had backfired.
She had never done something like this and had just done this on a whim so that she could see him getting flustered and tease him about it, but the big honest eyes, no hint of a blush, genuine apologetic expression made her feel like a pervert, and she chose to forget that this event ever happened.
"I was just kidding" she mumbled softly knowing it sounded like a lame excuse now.
"Sure" Luffy answered nonchalantly which only made her more flustered… and much to her further embarrassment, he added, "I can kiss you though. I'm pretty great at kissing if I do say so myself and I don't mind kissing anyone"
She coughed a couple of times before quickly changing the topic, "S-So how did you get caught anyway?"
Luffy gave an internal sigh of relief before answering, "I dozed off while fishing near my island and when I woke up, I couldn't see my island anywhere. Two days of random rowing, I finally found a ship and rocketed myself there. I ate some food they gave me and the next time I woke up; I was in a sea stone cage and cuffs-"
"Wait, you rocketed yourself?"
"That's what I call when I sling shot myself over distances"
"Right. Rubber fruit"
"Yep!"
"Okay continue"
"That's all, I guess. I was enslaved for a few months and a few days ago, they got tired of me and finally threw me out after poisoning me"
"Tired of you? Who got tired of you?"
"The slavers"
"You weren't sold to anyone?"
"Nope"
"...why?"
"I was stubborn, I guess. I didn't obey them whenever they asked me to do something. And after a couple of escape attempts, they got fed up with me, poisoned me and threw me away"
"…. you're saying you basically irritated them so much that they threw you out?"
"I guess it could be seen that way, yeah. Shishishishi"
Reiju blinked in honest bewilderment "…Somehow I can actually see that. I've met you just yesterday and you've managed to irritate me unlike no one ever…Man, those poor slavers. Having to deal with you for months"
"You're mean…" Luffy pouted.
'Again, with the cute pouting! Does he know how cute it is?! Is he doing it on purpose?! Is this a tactic?!' Reiju berated herself again and brought her thoughts back to sensible matters. She knew he wasn't telling her everything. The wounds she had seen on him had been awful, so the casual way he had said it was him obviously downplaying it. She didn't press further though as it was probably a lot of bad memories. "Okay, how about before you got caught? Where did you live?"
"I'm from Dawn Island in East Blue."
"Hmm if I remember correctly, that's where the Goa Kingdom is right? Cleanest kingdom in East Blue?"
Luffy's face scrunched up in disgust, "The place is only clean because they throw out all the trash outside the kingdom in the Gray Terminal…"
"I see. So, it's like that huh" Reiju nodded. A lot of countries did that actually and it was nothing new.
Reiju asked a few more questions and Luffy answered truthfully before the topic of Shanks came up. Reiju had asked why he wanted to become the Pirate King and with bubbling excitement, Luffy started telling her all about Shanks. How he had met Shanks, how they had hung out together, how he had accidentally eaten his devil fruit, all the stupid and idiotic stuff he did to get on his ship which had Reiju giggling, how Shanks had saved his life, and he finished the story with the promise they had made on the hat.
"By Shanks, you don't mean Red-haired Shanks, do you?" Reiju asked as Luffy completed his story.
"Yep, the same! He's pretty famous now huh. I heard he's a Yonko"
Reiju was astonished. This boy had a connection with one of the Pirate Emperors! And on top of that, he had made a promise with the emperor that he would surpass him and take the title of Pirate King. It didn't seem like he was lying. The excitedly animated way he had told his story of how he spent his time with Shanks, and his crew was all too real.
Luffy was surprisingly a good and engaging storyteller. The only flaw (if it can even be called as such) was he would sometimes name drop certain people as if expecting the other person to already know who that was, but as he goes on with his narration, it became apparent. For example, he had casually mentioned someone named Makino with no context, but it became apparent later in the story that she was the owner of the bar they hung out in.
She was also astonished that Shanks was such a childish person. She had heard of Shanks of course but it was only of how he had caused some big incidents and how ruthless and strong he was. But the Shanks in Luffy's story was completely different.
"Are you sure that that's the same Shanks? He seems so…childish from your stories but he's a powerful and ruthless Yonko you know"
"Shishishishi yeah he's childish alright…one of my friends even said that that's the cute side of him" Luffy smiled reminiscing the time Uta had called Shanks' childishness his cute side.
"Cute?!" Reiju asked bewildered. "Now I'm sure we're not thinking of the same Shanks. Red hair, three scars over his left eye, one arm?"
Luffy's mood deflated a bit, "Yeah, I'm the one responsible for the arm…he lost it when he saved my life…"
"Oh"
Luffy bounced back quick though, "But that's why I promised him! I'll create a crew greater than his and surpass him!"
"I see…" Reiju smiled. "He saved your life giving up one of his arms in the process and also indirectly gave you a devil fruit. No wonder you're so adamant. You must feel that you can't just disappoint him."
"Yeah, I don't mind dying while chasing my dream. But I hadn't even set out on my journey yet and I refuse to die before that. Only after I become the Pirate King, the freest man on the seas, will I be satisfied"
"I see"
'Freest man on the seas huh. Sounds wonderful' Reiju couldn't help but smile at that. She was even more astonished that Shanks was such a good person. She wondered if they were different people too but then again, she knew nothing personal about Shanks and the newspapers did embellish a lot when it came to pirates. Giving up his arm to save a random 7-year-old boy and then also acknowledging his dream… 'Did he see something special in this boy or is he such a good person to everyone?' she wondered. 'So, he's the reason why Luffy has such a good impression of Pirates'
Luffy went on to tell more stories about Shanks and his crew. Of all the stupid things he did to get Shanks to accept him in his crew and all the crazy stories they used to tell him and the amazing songs they used to sing at the bar. Reiju couldn't help but ask to follow up questions and have an engaging conversation with him. Without even realizing it, she was smiling or laughing the whole time. That's something she hadn't done in a long, long time. They talked well into the night bouncing questions off of each other and having a grand old time.
It was well after midnight that Reiju even realized that she was supposed to be interrogating him. She had actually planned to make him talk about his own life and see if she could find any holes or chinks in his story that could reveal he was a spy, but once the topic of Shanks came up and Luffy started telling her stories, she had forgotten all about it. She herself kept asking more questions about Shanks and his crew and listened with interest to whatever Luffy had to say.
She couldn't believe how the interrogation had turned into a story telling session but honestly, she had had a lot of fun. She never knew conversations could even be this fun and Luffy knew how to have an engaging conversation. He didn't make it one-sided either and involved her any chance he got which only made it more fun.
Once she realized that though, she decided to end the conversation then. Her bad mood had actually subsided, in fact she was feeling refreshed now, and she just wanted to take a nice nap now. She got up stretching a bit and went to inject him with the sleeping agents again.
"Can't you just paralyze me?" Luffy whined, "I feel like I'm skipping in time, and I don't have any time to think. I need to sort out a lot of things in my mind…"
"No"
"Meanie…" Luffy pouted.
'Again, with the pouting!' Reiju sighed, "Will you stop with the pouting already?! What are you, a child?!"
"Then stop being so mean!" Luffy shot back.
"Ugh…what do you even need to think about? How to escape and get in contact with whoever you're working for?"
Luffy just rolled his eyes, but then thinking of something, gave a shit eating grin to her which alarmed Reiju. "Well," he drawled mischievously, "I need to think about how to not become a sex slave to a pervert like you. You already asked me to lick your feet. Who knows? You might start asking me to suck your toes next, then your boobs, then y-"
Reiju quickly injected him with the agents before he could finish his sentence, and she watched him slump down with a small blush on her face.
'Why the hell did I even say that in the first place?' she groaned in embarrassment. She stared at the grinning face he still had even though he was unconscious and smacked him once feeling irritated. She sighed as she knew it was her own fault and after locking him up, went back to bed, feeling kinda refreshed.
By this time, she was 80% sure he was just a normal random boy and not some spy. The reason she even suspected that he could actually be a spy in the first place was because of the fearless way he talked and how he treated everything like a game. But by now, she had realized that that was just his personality.
The excited way he had talked about his childhood was all too real and unless he was a masterful actor, she was sure he was just a lucky idiot. And even if he was a masterful spy, she had made sure not to ask anything about Sanji as if she didn't care about it at all, so he should also think that she in fact didn't care about him one bit and actually thought he was dead. She decided to be the same and never ask about Sanji again and if the guy Luffy knew really was her Sanji, then she was happy that he was still alive somewhere and she didn't even want to know where exactly he was so that she could stay out of his life forever. If it was just some random look alike, then she didn't care about it anyway.
She decided to think about what to do with Luffy the next day and went to sleep. She honestly had enjoyed the night with him and wondered if this was what talking with friends was like. She never really had any friends before as any nobles she met were too haughty and after her power, and the people she did like back in the Kingdom worked for her, so they mostly treated her like a master. The people working under her in Germa weren't bad, but she could never call them as her friends. She also never had someone tease her like Luffy had either and if she was being completely honest with herself, she liked the teasing. Felt like he was treating her as an equal instead of some princess…
———
Luffy blinked and saw a differently dressed Reiju, seemingly having no feeling of having slept and groaned in annoyance. He needed time to sort out all the memories and think about what he needed to do but Reiju was not even giving him a chance to think. He actually felt like he was skipping time and the only way he even got some time to himself was when he went to the restroom, but he would get at most 10 minutes before Reiju started banging on the door, so he didn't even get a chance then. He grabbed the sack of meat which Reiju had brought and grumbled while eating.
"The hell are you grumbling about?" Reiju asked when she noticed his dissatisfied expression.
"Nothing" Luffy sighed and finished eating quickly. "So, what are we doing tonight?"
Reiju just stared at him for a few moments before sighing, "I took a step back and reviewed what all we talked about since the beginning…"
"…okay?"
"And I have to say that you're strange…"
Luffy tilted his head confused, "Umm…. okay?"
Reiju sighed again before explaining, "I mean…all you did since the beginning was tell me about someone who you thought was Sanji, and thought that you could exchange information about him in return for me saving your life. Your words and actions were definitely suspicious…but I realized yesterday after you told all those stories from your childhood that you're just plain weird…" She had thought about it the whole day while she was at the castle and had finally made up her mind that he wasn't a spy. And even on the off chance that he was a spy, then he had absolutely nothing on her and she would still be wary enough of him to not divulge anything that would put her at risk in the future. She still had one last test though, which she would enact tonight to confirm his innocence.
Luffy cheered internally 'Finally!'
"You're just an idiot. A lucky one sure but just an idiot"
"Stop being mean…" Luffy whined with a slight pout.
"And a child for pouting like that every damn time!"
Luffy sucked in his lips to stop his pout which only made the situation more funnier and caused Reiju to let out a giggle. Seeing her giggle though, Luffy wanted to tease her back, so with a shit eating grin, he opened his mouth again, "Well if I'm a child, then what are you who asked the child to lick her fe-"
Reiju smacked him hard before he could even finish the sentence, "You bring that up one more time and I'll actually kill you"
"Shishishishi okay okay" Luffy chuckled rubbing his head. "So what now?"
"I still haven't received anything from you for saving your life"
"What do you want? I don't have much to give you right now, but you can put it on my tab. I'll give you anything you want once I become the Pirate King"
"Didn't you also swindle the poor bar maid from your stories with the same promise?" Reiju teased.
"Hey! I will pay up my tab with Makino!" Luffy protested.
"Sure you will"
Luffy just shrugged and thought about what he could give her. "You can use me as a guinea pig for testing poisons?" he suggested.
Reiju blinked in surprise, "Really?"
"As long as I get to leave this place and you drop me off on some island, I'll do anything…" he said resolutely but then added, "anything non-sexual…"
"Don't push it" Reiju warned but then thought about his offer, "You don't understand. I have tons of poisons I want to test which can make a person feel all sorts of things like burning, freezing, give seizures, and a whole lot of pain"
"I don't mind. It will help train my endurance"
"Wow…you really are crazy"
"How do you usually test your poisons?"
"Oh we have lots of enemies, so I run into tons of people all the time who are out to kill me or my family, so there's no shortage of guinea pigs"
"Oh…"
"Well that's back at the Kingdom. I currently don't have anyone to test poisons on.."
"Great then! I'll be your guinea pig"
Reiju got a manic glint in her eye already thinking of all the experiments she had held off on as she didn't have anyone to test it on. "Okay then. I'll tell you where you'll get dropped off after the Reverie is done"
"What day of the Reverie is it?"
"Today was the 5th…two more days to go"
Luffy hummed in acknowledgment. "What's the deal with the death pit anyway? I mean this is supposed to be just a meeting right? Why is there even a death pit here in the first place?"
Reiju sighed and explained about the family of royals that was beaten and thrown in the death pit and how it was an unspoken threat by the WG to all the attending Kingdoms.
"They really are bastards huh" Luffy said after she finished the story. "Can't wait to take them all down one day"
"…huh? What did you just say?"
Luffy just shrugged, "Forget it"
"No! Tell me now. Who are you gonna take down?"
"The Celestial Dragons" Luffy said with a sigh.
That just made Reiju laugh out loud, "Hahaha the audacity of saying that right here in Mariejois! Wow, you sure are pretty stupid after all"
Luffy didn't comment anything. He would either directly or indirectly take them down one day. Either him becoming the Pirate King will lead to their downfall somehow or Dragon will succeed in dethroning them. 'Didn't know I even had a dad. And he's a pretty big deal in the world huh? And Sabo is with him right now! Sabo! Sabo! I want to meet him so bad! And Sabo wants to take down the Celestial Dragons too! So of course that dream of his will come true! Sh-'
Before he could think further, Reiju interrupted him again, and he sighed internally in annoyance. This kept happening since he had been rescued and he didn't get any time to think at all.
"Don't say that ever out loud okay? The Celestial Dragons are the Gods of this world. They need to be respected"
Luffy just gave her a deadpan look. He knew she was saying that because she had to keep up the façade of being an elitist royal herself, so didn't comment anything.
"Well anyway," Reiju got up stretching, "Imma go hit the sack. You will be here locked in this room itself. See you tomorrow"
Luffy gawked at her in surprise when she started making her way towards the door, "You're not gonna put me to sleep?"
"Yeah. Now that I've confirmed you're not some spy, I don't think there's a need to…" she then glanced back at him, "Is there?"
"No no" Luffy hastily and happily answered, "I finally get time to think! Thanks!"
She rolled her eyes before saying, "Don't touch my chemicals"
"Sure"
Reiju then locked the lab, went back to her room and turned on a visual transponder snail that was connected to a snail inside the lab. She had hid the snail inside a bookshelf such that Luffy wouldn't be able to see it and since he was chained, he wouldn't even get anywhere near it to find out about it. The snail had a perfect view of the spot where he was chained up, so she could watch his every action. She wanted to see what he would do if he was alone and this was the last test she had thought of. And thus, she laid down in her bed as the snail projected whatever was happening inside the lab and she observed what Luffy did throughout the entire night.
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Hello guys!
So, I just wanted you to know that this chapter is only half due to word count limit.
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I am uploading the rest on the next page.
Next chapter is not Chapter 3 but just the rest of chapter 2.