Hello everyone! I struggled a little bit with this chapter for some reason, so that's why I was a little bit slow in posting. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 6 – Under Currents
Foodvalten, Grand Line – Present Day
Yanagi fell asleep with Marco's words running circles in her head, and dreamed of a little girl trapped in a maze running endlessly down corridors screaming for her parents. She woke with a start when the dream screaming merged into the real-life sound of a kettle whistling from the kitchen. The sound cut off abruptly accompanied by the sound of plates and cutlery, and Yanagi took that as her cue to get up. Her skirt from the day before was folded neatly on the foot of the bed, with a fresh blouse and what looked like freshly bought undergarments. She smiled at Ayana's thoughtfulness and made a mental note to find some way to pay it back to her.
The blouse she had been given today was slightly tighter, and Yanagi opted to tie the lower half at her navel instead of tucking it in. The skirt fit a little more loosely this way, but she found knotting it at the waist remedied the problem well enough and hiked the skirt a little bit higher up her ankles. When she was dressed, Yanagi wandered into the kitchen to find Ayana finishing setting the table for three. She had laid out bacon and eggs, along with an assortment of fruits and had filled two cups with steaming tea and one smaller glass with juice. Her host looked up as she entered and smiled.
"Looks like you're an early riser. 'Suppose that makes sense being a marine and all. I've made tea, I hope that's okay."
"Yes, of course. I prefer it actually. Did you want me to go wake Aidan for you?"
Ayana shook her head gently. "No, he'll get up on his own soon enough. The smell of bacon is magical."
As Yanagi had suspected the day before, the house was hardly big enough for a guest room. Instead, she had been granted Aidan's room, while the boy slept with his mother in the other room at the back of the house. Ayana had assured her it was no problem, but Yanagi resolved to make another attempt at convincing her the couch was acceptable sometime that day. For the moment however, she simply lowered herself into a chair across from her host. Ayana, forever mysterious, produced a brush from nowhere and slid it across the table to her. Yanagi smiled and set to work on her hair.
"There's a toothbrush for you in the bathroom as well. I imagine your mouth must be starting to taste like sand."
"Thank you. Really. For everything. It's much too kind of you."
Ayana smiled gently and shook her head. "Hardly. You do a lot everyday to make the world safer for all of us in your line of work."
"I thought you'd be against marines, what with how much everyone on this island loves Whitebeard's crew."
"We're lucky here. Whitebeard is kind." Yanagi snorted and Ayana shot her a pointed look. "He is. Not even just by pirate standards, but in general. He protects this island because he can and asks for nothing in return. But that's not to say we don't know what other pirates are like."
The next moment Aidan barrelled into the kitchen as though summoned out of thin air, and their conversation was cut short as their meal began.
After their meal, Aidan made big fuss about going back to the beach, but his mother reminded him that now his guest was awake he needed to catch up on his chores. He pouted and whined and stomped around, all but screaming and Yanagi watched impressed as Ayana put an end to it in a single sentence.
"Then you better hurry through your chores so that you have time."
Looking forlorn the boy sulked back towards his room as the two women began cleaning up the dishes. When that was finished Yanagi offered to help around the house and, though her host resisted at first, ended up hanging laundry outside while Ayana went to town for some groceries. From the backyard, Yanagi could see down the path to town and watched the woman recede into the distance, while through the windows of the house she kept tabs on Aidan's clean up.
. . . . .
The walk to the beach was significantly shorter the second time around. They stopped to chat with Ayana when they passed her on her way back to the house and she assured them she would come to the beach later, but otherwise Aidan was a man on a mission and would not be stopped. The beach itself was much livelier than the day before, more supplies had been unloaded and, from what Yanagi could see, most of the pirates were now on the beach. Most were lazing around doing nothing. She recognized a few of the pirates from the night before, but noticed the commanders suspiciously absent.
She watched Aidan all but fly to the camp making a bee-line to the landing boats. A few pirates, noticing the group, broke off and joined the little boy at the shore. Around her, the pirates retreated to whatever they had been doing before she arrived. Marco and Thatch had magically appeared while her attention was elsewhere and were sitting near one of the emptier fire pits further up the beach. Deciding they were probably her safest bet, she wandered over to them largely ignored by everyone else. They greeted her politely as she sank down across from them.
Further up the beach in a patch of clear sand, a handful of pirates were sparring ringed by a pack of spectators. From what she could see, Yanagi counted a handful of fights going on at the same time. Restricted to hand-to-hand, the combatants circled one another throwing punches and kicks. Occasionally, someone would get tossed into another fight and the two brawls would merge into one for a brief time before someone would decide to turn on their 'partner' and they would separate.
"That's our version of training, oi."
The marine jumped in surprised at Marco's voice. He had been watching her across the fire, originally wary of her interest in the fights but quickly realizing it was pure curiosity rather than anything strategic.
"That's… an odd way to train."
Thatch butted in. "Well pirates are hardly the type to enjoy strict regimens."
If Yanagi noticed him poking fun at her she made no move to retaliate. Absorbed as she was in watching the different fights move around and through one another, Marco was surprised she answered at all.
"It looks fun."
The two commanders looked at each other. Not for the first time, the pirates wondered what marine training was like. Thatch, forever joking, waggled his eyebrows at her.
"Fancy having a go at it?"
Yanagi recoiled, more at his eyebrow gesture than his proposition, and Marco glared. A moment later she recovered and shook her head, lifting one bandaged hand to eye level and motioning to the rest of herself with the other. Undeterred Thatch motioned some over with a grand wave of his arm. A crowd was beginning to gather around them.
"She looks like she could handle a few rounds, right?"
"U-uh…"
"Exactly!"
Sensing she probably going to end up fighting someone, Yanagi took quick stock of her injuries. The rope burns on her hands and wrist were painful but superficial, as were the cuts and bruises that covered her limbs. She had broken two of the fingers on her left hand and sprained her right ankle, and she hoped if it came down to it reinforcing them with Busoshoku haki would be enough to make a fight manageable. The worst was her ribs, impossible to miss in the mirror while she changed, bruises lined both sides of her body and bloomed black across most of her torso. Breathing was a careful affair as it was, and no amount of armament would stop her doubling over if someone struck her.
Unfortunately, Thatch seemed to have decided she was healed enough and was well on his way to finding a volunteer. Marco looked disapproving, but made no move to stop him as he pulled a man from the crowd and proclaimed him adequate. Aidan had appeared, drawn by the chaos and was practically bouncing with glee. Too late to get out of it now.
As slowly as physically possible Yanagi stood from her seat, Aidan clinging to her hand and bouncing on his heels. She almost sat right back down when she realized the person Thatch had pulled from the crowd was actually Ace. She glared balefully at the white-clad man, realizing from his grin that this had been planned since he'd recognized her as the marine from Plimey. Ace looked equally as displeased, although he was masking it behind a cocky grin and a taunting look. Around them his crewmates were jokingly taking bets and jeering. He moved to an open patch of sand a little ways off and Yanagi followed after detaching Aidan and depositing him with Marco.
"Hope you're ready for this seaweed hair."
Yanagi's eye twitched. "Seaweed's green not blue you dunce. I hope you fight better than you see." She heard the crew erupt into laughter behind her.
The next second Ace was running at her. He threw a punch at her face and she twisted backwards out of the way, bringing her leg up to knee him in the stomach as he went by. She fell through fire instead and jerked away half surprised but unburned. He raised an eyebrow at her mockingly and she just huffed, blowing the hair out of her face. When he came at her again she stepped lightly to the side, ending up face to face he made to grab her but a haki imbued elbow shot up into his face, knocking him back. He seemed a little more impressed when he straightened this time, nursing the bruise already forming on his jaw.
"You're not half bad."
She acquiesced with a tilt of her head. "Neither are you. I was aiming for your nose."
This time Yanagi lunged at him, moving as though she was going for a punch but swivelling at the last second to kick him. He stepped backward out of the way and swiped toward her ribs with his knee. She dropped down out of the way and swung both legs at his. He jumped up over her, coming down towards her stomach with his feet together. She rolled out of the way, planting her hands and twisting into a flip to right herself. Half a second later he was in her space aiming another punch at her face. She blocked it with her forearm, but felt the impact jar her whole arm. She blinked and his other fist was already coming at her face from the other side. A half second of panic flashed through her and suddenly she could see the exact corner of her face that he was aiming at through his mind's eye. The flash of Kenbunshoku nearly blinded her with its onrush and she only just twisted out of the way.
She shook her head, struggling against herself as her haki pulled her deeper and suddenly she was getting flashes of memories instead of attack plans. Bandits sitting around laughing, a straw hat rolling across the floor, a blond with a toothy grin and a top hat. Disconcerted and struggling to separate herself from Ace's memories, Yanagi barely twisted out of the way of another punch.
She kicked up at him and he caught her ankle with one hand, altering his punch to hit her hard in the neck with a downswing of his forearm. She swallowed to stop her muscles seizing. Dropping her upper body down and using her hands to stand, she swung her other leg toward his head on the same side as her other leg. She clipped his elbow as he tossed her leg away from him and watched him try to flex some feeling back into his fingers as she straightened. Forced to use her haki just to touch him, her blows were easily as strong as a man twice her size, and she'd nailed him right on the delicate part of the joint.
Thatch called from the sidelines. "Starting to enjoy yourself?"
Truthfully she was, but instead of answering she shot him a glare and nearly flipped him off before remembering the young child somewhere in the audience. Her broken fingers were throbbing from the force of twisting herself upright after Ace had thrown her and sprained ankle was beginning to feel weak.
"How long do these usually go on for?" Her ribs pulsed to her heart rate as she asked.
"Until someone concedes." Marco called, "Or until someone sensible steps in."
"In this case, that will be me."
Every pirate on the beach stiffened visible as Ayana's voice resounded from behind them. Aidan, oblivious of his mother's displeasure, ran right up to her and began recounting everything in detail. When he was finished, she sent him off to play in a much calmer voice than anyone had expected, and he ran off blissfully unaware. When she turned back to the pirates, they all shifted uncomfortably.
"Right then, so who's idea was this?"
Some of the crew began mumbling incoherently, while the vast majority drifted away from the scene as though they had never been involved. Eventually, it became clear that Thatch was the main perpetrator and Ace was labelled his accomplice. Marco washed his hands of the whole affair and beckoned Yanagi over to the fire. She dropped into the sand and reclined against a log. Her injuries were throbbing, and her hands burned where sand had wormed into her bandages and rubbed against her rope burns. Her head was worse, a constant pain building behind her eyeballs as though something was compressing her skull.
"You're a good fighter, oi."
No strength for sarcasm, she took the bait. "Been in the navy my whole life."
Marco seemed surprised. "Really, oi?"
"I was placed in the navy's custody after some sailors found me in a shipwreck. No one knew what happened so they assumed it was a commercial ship that got attacked by pirates. Been with the navy ever since."
Ace had joined the pair at this point, though Yanagi barely noticed. Her head was spinning and her injuries felt like they were only getting worse.
"And that's why you hate pirates?"
Yanagi jumped at Ace's voice. "Guess so. S'kinda trained into you over there too, 'specially at HQ."
Marco frowned. "You were trained at Marineford?"
"It's the only time I've ever left the New World."
There was a long pause as the two commanders considered this. Shipwrecks in the New World weren't uncommon. The islands themselves were dangerous but it was the sea in the New World that claimed the most victims. With weather patterns more extreme and unpredictable than the first half of the Grand Line, and Sea Kings braver than anywhere else in the world the waters were a terror all their own. The ship being in the New World at all, with a child on board no less, was a testament that the crew had been confident in its ability to survive. Pirate attacks weren't uncommon, but then again neither were navy ships. What was uncommon in the New World were commercial ships that went between islands carrying children. Marco frowned, but Ace forever filter-less blurted out the thought as it struck him.
"What if it wasn't pirates though?"
Yanagi, half sedated with pain roused herself at the question. "What?"
"What if it wasn't pirates that shipwrecked you when you were a kid?"
Fully awake now, she sat up. "What else could it be?"
Marco, sensing things were taking a turn for the worst attempted to intervene. "Ace-"
"Marines!"
Marco glared at Ace and Yanagi sat dumbstruck. The older commander tried to mend the situation as best he could.
"It could just as easily have been a storm, or some other tragedy. It seems odd that they would label it a pirate attack like that without solid proof."
Yanagi sucked in a shuddering breath. "The full report is in my file but I've never seen it." And then to Ace, "Marines don't go making children orphans, that's a pirate's work."
Ace glared. "They make children orphans all the time!"
"When?"
"When they execute pirates and their families!" He stood violently and stormed off.
Yanagi blinked and Marco watched Ace head off down the beach silently. When he turned back to the woman nearby she was staring angrily at the fire ahead of her. Marco sighed and weighed his options.
"It's not like I don't know it's a flawed system…"
Marco's head swivelled back to the marine in surprise. She didn't look as though she were talking to anyone in particular. It occurred to him that she had probably already thought all the different scenarios through, had probably turned over every possible logical explanation and ended up rejecting them all for different reasons. In the end, through her induction into the navy, the scenario presented by her superiors became the only acceptable explanation.
"I just… don't know any other way…"
Marco wondered what her life would have been like if that shipwreck had never happened. Who would she be in the endless struggle for power out here? He dropped a sympathetic hand onto her shoulder and was surprised when she didn't immediately snap. She just closed her eyes and pulled her knees to her chest.
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So, let me know what you think!
