"Join the Marines? You mean me?" Alonso looked astonished. "You do know who I am, right? How could the World Government possibly agree to something like that?"
"Of course I know who you are. Gion knows who you are, and Kikyo knows who you are too, but... the World Government doesn't know who you are!" Tokikake blinked.
Well, that was sudden. Even Alonso was left confused by Tokikake.
Looking to the side, Gion wore an expression as if she had seen nothing. Kikyo, meanwhile, stared at Alonso, and there was even a hint in her gaze that she hoped he would agree.
"Don't worry. Once you join the Marines, we'll pretend we never saw this little girl too." Tokikake continued leisurely, his gaze sweeping toward Robin.
Gion and Kikyo both looked utterly baffled. Clearly, neither had recognized Robin.
Although Tokikake's nickname was Pig, his strategic mind ranked among the top three in the Marines, second only to Sengoku and Tsuru. After noticing Alonso step forward just now, he had used Observation Haki to examine Robin's appearance.
Gion might have looked like an aloof, icy beauty, seemingly cold and distant, but in truth, she had a fiery and valiant temper and had not thought that deeply about it. Only after Tokikake spoke did she notice something odd about the little girl behind Alonso.
"She is... that little survivor from Ohara?" After sweeping her with Observation Haki and thinking for a long while, Gion finally remembered.
On one hand, the senses gained through Observation Haki were not quite the same as sight, and converting those sensations into a visual image often led to some discrepancies. On the other hand, Nico Robin's current age was vastly different from when she had been wanted at eight years old, so Gion had failed to recognize