A/N: I do not own One Piece.

A/N: English is not my first language.


"I heard that you are a commander now"

Marco didn't hurry when he turned his head around so to look over his shoulder, searching with quite unconcerned eyes the owner of the voice that had basically appeared out of nowhere, even though it kind of was his job to be aware of anyone too close to their ship. It was not much problem to find said person when she was the only other person at the port besides him, sitting on the top of a quite large wall with crossed legs and her chin resting on her open calm, elbow resting on top of her knee like she was trying to portray the relaxed edge of his voice. That way of sitting was way too familiar for the man to feel comfortable with that feeling of automatic recognition, but as usual, he opted for ignoring it. There were a couple of lamps lit alongside the alley, but they were not of much help when trying to identify just where she was sitting, nonetheless, Marco was perfectly capable of making out the usual smile from within the night with the help of the bright moon shinning on top of their heads. She tilted her face while closing her eyes when she was sure he was looking at her, smile as wide as ever.

"Congratulations"

"What's this? A marine congratulating a pirate for ascending?" He snorted in a mocking way, turning the rest his body in her general direction, hands still tucked inside his pockets with no visible intentions of using them anytime soon. You would think that after making rounds for the past hours after drinking with his brothers, making sure nobody got into real trouble since they knew the marines were around, he would be wary at the sight of that annoying white and blue uniform, but thing was, he was not surprised at all. Possibly because it kind of had been happening the last three years of his life from time to time, maybe the reason behind why he was wondering what made her late, maybe. Marco needed some serious exercise since the only meet weaklings on their travels, and it had gotten kind of boring to spare with Thatch "This has to be the prove that something is seriously wrong with this world"

"Nothing we didn't know already- I mean, I've always been pretty incoherent, you know it" Kaede laughed heartily from what seemed the bottom of her stomach, lifting her head from her palm while uncrossing her legs, kind of swinging them over the edge of the wall as she did so, somehow avoiding to resemble a brat; how did she get there anyway? She was quite a jumper, but he didn't recall her being one to climb that high- He shrugged the thought off after a couple of seconds when it became obvious it didn't matter. Didn't even know why he thought about that.

"And I heard that you are finally going to be promoted to Ensign in a couple of days" He smirked, trying to copy the tone she had used before, allowing his lips to lose its mocking edge ever so slightly "Congratulations"

"The commander of the first division of the Whitebeards pirates himself is congratulating me! This is such an honor! You have made my day, I have to say" It was close to nerve wrecking how they both chuckle almost at the same time when she miserable fail at trying to wear a flattered expression on her face. It took a second for her to look at the man with what could only be called curiosity, and Marco was once more tempted to ask just how old she was, all because of the almost innocent atmosphere around the one who quite definitely was not as harmless as she looked. Ironically enough, that had all started because he had stated that to her face the first time around "How did you know, though? It's certainly not something as important as to be announced to the public"

"A little birdie told me" Had she been someone he actually loathed from her crew, it would have been a nice touch to say he had actually heard it from some marines talking he had just been at an hour or so ago. It was kind of interesting how they turned to be an excellent source of information when there was a little too much alcohol inside their system, even more amusing how they seemed oblivious to the crew that wasn't that far away from them. But she didn't exactly need to know that- To keep it to himself so to use it with someone who would actually react at that bit of information sounded better, not that someone as, say, Sengoku, would find it funny at all. As a matter of fact Marco was convinced Sengoku wouldn't be that amused to Kaede and him in this kind of situation, when a friendship flag could almost be seen on the background, waving at the rhythm of their harmless conversation.

Actually, there were moments when he doubted about it himself, those moments when he stayed around too long to listen to Thatch rambling about their tragic story, but when his crew was in the middle of a battle with their enemies the now commander was quickly to remember the impossibility of such a friendship to exist, of how difficult it would be for a pirate and a marine to be friends without having to kill each other when it proved to be dangerous.

But since they were nothing more than rivals, that kind of thinking was not needed.

It wasn't, and one day, he would believe it.

"About time, if you ask me"

"Oh, don't be like that"

"So" He raised an eyebrow in curiosity, hands still tucked inside his pockets, already feeling his fingers itching with the urge of jumping into the action he missed. She raised an eyebrow as well when she saw the almost unnoticeable gleam of amusement on his eyes, something she could see even from where she was sitting, even when some of his face was still covered in shadows "Are we going to fight to celebrate it, or you actually only came to socialize and tell me that?"

"Oh my, what makes you think that I want to socialize with you? I certainly didn't want to give that absurd impression" Her voice was like all those other times, as serious as she could get with her own particular and kind of absurd personality, but something in the way she tilted her face to a side while smiling just gave him the feeling that she was being sarcastic and was internally laughing her ass off. His left eye twitched a little in a rather funny way, knowing somewhere in his heart that she was making fun of him while looking completely innocent in the process, a notion that could have pissed him off had it not amused him so much "I merely wanted to test my new abilities with you, that's all"

"New abilities?" When he realized it was not something she said often, the pirate couldn't help but pause a minute to analyze the feeling that had settled itself on the bottom of his stomach, like rocks weighting him down or at least holding the promise of making him sick at any given moment. And it was not because of the alcohol, it never was because of the alcohol, he wished it were. The woman jumped off the building and into the ground without as much as a blink, and his hands were out of his pockets before he even had the chance to ask since when she was able to do that without falling flat on her face when the answered came to his head as quickly as the realization that she actually looked pleased "Kaede, tell me you didn't eat a-"

"Yep" When Kaede stood completely straight, shaking her legs and staring at them for a moment as if to confirm whenever they were actually alright or not, apparently just getting used to what she had done and how she had not gotten herself hurt, she turned to look at him "Because, you know, Marco" There was a slight curve of her lips when she lifted a hand until it was completely horizontal to her body, the other one resting near her hip, scratching so slightly it could be mistaken by a simple movement of her fingers. It was not like Marco liked noticing that, it was not like he wanted to notice strands of brown hair and classify them as longer than the last time –because there always was a last time-, because it all summed up to be too many details and too much to see in just one picture, so the blonde pirate focused on the hand and tried not to look somewhere else "I wouldn't be able to bear being left behind by you"

He watched with maybe not so hidden amazement how her arm slowly turned on itself until all he could see were feathers upon feathers upon feathers, brown colored that looked reddish under the light of the lamp hanging on the nearest wall. It was a color he had seen before, maybe on an island, maybe from a large bird flying close to their ship, but there for the moment being there was no name to go with the type of animal those feathers belonged to. He slowly looked at her face once more, realizing that her own pair of eyes, the honey colored ones that almost exploded with amusement, were already on his face; smiling, expecting a good reaction, not meaning any type of harm, like she was talking with an old friend. And in a sense, they were, kind of, sort of.

"And since the sky seems to be your limit, I figured I should reach it as well"

At first, his reaction was to press his lips tightly together, just because he didn't want to risk any chances of gaping or something similar. But there was just too much to say and he was doing too little besides staring. So he said what first came to mind as she looked at her own feathers.

"And your logical solution was to turn yourself into a really big chicken"

"Oh, but Marco" There was a second between the moment she glanced and him and the moment her lips formed a smile once more, and Marco just knew it was that moment when she said something that in his opinion, would be unnecessary to hear. He recalled that kind of things as the ones who started most of their first fights, so when it became kind of obvious it wouldn't lose its effect anytime soon, his smirk was quick to vanish even before he heard what she had to say "I think is cooler to be this than to be a giant peacock"


Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Royal Milano (Or, if you want to look for it, type Milano Real since I found it in Spanish and I'm just guessing the name in English. PS: Reason why I didn't write it on the fic)