Grand Line Kaigun'in
A One Piece Fan Fiction
By Sacred Sakura
Chapter Title First Conceptualized: 3/20/2008
Conceptualized/Written: 3/16,19-20/2008, 10/12-13/2008
Published: 10/13/2008
Rating: T
Genre: Action-Adventure/General/Angst?
Disclaimer: If I owned One Piece, I'd be watching it right now.
Dedication: Mr. K., Lord of the Shadows, and AR1502599. And my faithful readers, especially Nezchan.
A/N: As you can see, I've been reformatting the pre- and post-story notes to make it easier on the eyes.
FYI: I've been posting some of my art from past years! Finally! Please go to "sacredsakura DOT deviantart DOT com" to review my work! There are some pics of my OCs in there, although I have a lot more I still need to upload!
Training Day Ten: The Uncrossable Line
It was a rainy day.
The dark clouds above were laced with alternating shades of gray as cold, needle-thin daggers of water pierced the heavy air. Dejected-looking trees and foliage uselessly resisted the cold barrage of moisture as the rainfall increased in intensity. Dark waves surged with fervor as they pummeled the island's coast with unmistakable fury.
Two shadowed figures emerged from opposite ends of the beach and converged beneath a melancholy weeping willow. Narrow wet leaves slapped their arms and faces as they each waited for the other to speak.
The taller of the two finally spoke. "What is it that you so desperately needed to discuss?"
"I need your help. I need that marine officer to leave…and never return."
"Am I correct in assuming this is due to the fact that you are not 'Arisuto Akino,' but the infamous rebel leader 'Sekidō Akino'—otherwise known to those further up the governing and militarist hierarchy as 'Hinode Fuyuka'?"
Akino gritted her teeth at the sound of the speaker's cold voice. "Yes. I am." 'Damn… How could he know so much? Who is he?'
"The world has been led to believe that Hinode Shūu currently rules the Eijiyan kingdom with an iron fist, subjecting every citizen to a cruel dictatorship beneath a façade of benevolence. Judging by your present reaction, am I to assume this is false?"
'Who is this Eishi?!' Her fists clenched, her shoulders shaking. "My father is a kind man. He is also a proud man, and because of this would never betray his people." She shook her head. "I myself was expatriated by my very own people. That was five years ago, and even now I still have no one left there who can openly support me in my mission—not even my father."
She raised her head to face the young man before her, determination—and desperation—evident in her blue eyes. "But that is all the more reason for me to keep working toward restoring Eijiyas' former glory and peace—even if I must end the lives of others. Even if it kills me. Too much blood has been shed for my sake for me to back out now."
"Then why didn't you ask your 'friend' Tashikame to do it? Or is she, too, upset by your failure to reveal everything about yourself to your closest companion here?"
Akino paused, momentarily lost in a swirl of dizzying emotions—guilt, regret, and sadness, among others—, before finally speaking. "Sei'i… She's too veracious for her own good. And her sense of justice and morality is admirable. But there are times when you must lie—even kill—for the good of everyone." She smiled sadly, remembering the loss of her own sense of virtue. "She's too pure. So that kind of thing…is a concept she will never be able to truly understand."
"Then why not yourself?"
"I don't possess the same sense of pride as my father. Not anymore. The last five years have changed me so much, I barely recognize myself. But one thing for certain has remained the same: I am too kind."
She returned her gaze to the young man standing before her. "That's why I need you. Because you possess such a great dearth of guilt, you're perfect for the task I need you to complete."
Kanshi Eishi stared back at her, his body quiescent and countenance devoid of expression despite her next words. "After all, you are a former assassin."
"I'm telling you, I don't know this 'Sekidō' person," Sei'i insisted with a hint of desperation in her voice. "I've met every single person in this camp, and I've never seen anyone who looks like the woman in this photograph!"
"Are you sure?" the marine officer pressed. He gave the nervous girl a piercing, searching stare. "Look at her face closely. Her hair color. Her eyes. Her figure. The way she holds herself. Are you telling me that there is absolutely nothing about her that you even remotely recognize?"
The trainee forced herself to keep her green eyes on the wisteria in the photograph. "No…nothing…"
He leaned back and sighed with frustration. "What about that Arisuto recruit Jinbu tells me you keep hanging out with? Sure, she may have dyed her hair, but her eyes are the same, don't you think?"
"It's not her." She paused, then decided to continue. "If it was, I'd know. Or she would have told me."
Sergeant Major Jinbu snorted at this. "Sekidō's been running from the law for five years now. And she couldn't've avoided arrest for this long unless she's an accomplished liar."
She finally tore her eyes away from the photo and focused on a damp footprint in the dirt to her left, slowly tracing a peculiar circular symbol imprinted on the heel. "I've told you all I know. May I be excused?"
The marine officer frowned, displeased by the paucity of the results of his interrogation. However, knowing that at this moment he would not be able to get anything more out of her, he relented. "You can go."
Just as the girl saluted and left the cabin, he turned to Jinbu, the man sitting beside him. "I don't believe a single thing she says."
The hazel-eyed man gave a noncommittal grunt through a haze of cigarette smoke. "What else is new?"
"For now, we have no choice but to have her return for questioning later." Shaking his head, the officer referenced the list that lay flat on the decrepit table before him. "Next to be interviewed is…Morioka Meiyu."
"MORIOKA!" Jinbu roared. "GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!!"
A heavy sigh. "Must you be so…loud?"
Within seconds, a rather loud thump could be heard against the door despite the downpour outside. A dripping wet Meiyu stumbled into the cabin, wincing in pain as she rubbed sorely at a slowly growing lump on her left temple. "Owww… Yes, sir?"
"… What the hell is this?" the superior officer demanded with irritation. "Are we so desperate for recruits that we're robbing cradles now?"
The mousy-haired trainee flushed with embarrassment. Yes, she was small, but not that small…
"Can we get on with the damn investigation already?" Jinbu growled with clenched teeth. "If you want to be an effective lieutenant, Shuu, you're gonna have to ignore appearances and go with your gut. Morioka here's packed quite the punch when we needed her most."
The lieutenant scoffed. "Pigs will fly first before this skinny stick knocks out a Heiwa Michi."
"Oh, for crying out loud… Morioka! Does this person look familiar to you?" Jinbu jabbed a callused finger at the photo.
Meiyu pondered a moment. "I don't believe so…"
"Are you sure?" pressed Shuu. "Are you absolutely sure? She doesn't look like one of your fellow recruit members in any way?"
Her brow furrowed. "Her eyes kind of remind me of Arisuto's, but nothing else seems to be the same…. From what I can tell, her hair color, posture, and bone structure are completely different…."
Jinbu raised an eyebrow, surprised by the recondite knowledge evident in her observation. 'When did she become a detective?'
"Anything else, sir?"
The lieutenant waved her away. "No. You can now lea—"
"Wait a minute," interrupted the sergeant major, his tone thoughtful and serious. "Before you go, I just have one question for you, Morioka: How the hell did you manage to slaughter ten pirates all in one get-go?"
"… What?" The mousy-haired girl stared in disbelief, petrified by astonishment and an inkling fear. 'How did he…? No…'
"What the hell are you doing?" Shuu demanded, indignant. "That has absolutely nothing to do with the real issue here!"
Jinbu's hazel eyes narrowed. He could not understand for the life of him how such a meek disposition could so easily hide her deadly ferocity as a warrior. "Answer me, Morioka, unless you want me to gut you right this minute."
She shook her head repeatedly, as if trying to shake off the impalpable presence of an attached spirit. With each word, her mind began to fade into an alternate realm of reality, struggling to keep the truth buried. "No… I don't know what you mean… I didn't—I didn't kill that many… I wasn't trying to… I didn't mean for them to…"
"MORIOKA!!"
Startled back to the present reality by his outburst, the young recruit nearly jumped out of her skin with fright. "Yes, sir?!" she exclaimed, more due to impulse than anything else.
"What the hell is going on?" Jinbu slowly demanded, his gaze intense as he leaned over the decrepit desk. "What aren't you telling me about yourself? What are you capable of that you find so frightening?"
The sergeant major was, in two words, positively pissed. Not only had Morioka failed to answer his final question, but the following interviews had gone more than poorly. No, scratch that. "Poorly" was the understatement of the year.
Sakanmyō had been more than willing to toss seductive glances and not-so-surreptitious views of her cleavage, but was altogether unhelpful in her answers. Namiki had blushed a dangerous magenta under her two interrogators' gazes and could barely manage a weak "no" before promptly passing out. Yokurui, the unfortunate recruit burdened with the responsibility of dragging the comatose Namiki to her tent, was not much more forthcoming. His silent treatment quickly developed into a heated argument between himself and Shuu, with Jinbu mediating the ensuing fistfight—simply by clocking the two dunderheads.
And now, before him, sat the first-prize winner for three years' standing in the perfected art of silent treatment: Kanshi Eishi. The raven-haired santōhei's gray eyes bored into Jinbu's hazel ones with an air of both disinterest and distracted reflection. He sat in a straight yet slightly languid position, his hands resting immobile in his lap. A façade of calm and obedience that even the marine officer could barely penetrate.
"I'll ask it again," seethed the sergeant major, "and if you don't answer, I swear I'll gut you on the spot." 'Screw orders, I'm in a bad mood today.' Jinbu could feel his hands itch for an opportunity to inflict pain on the nearest living thing on hand.
'I dare you,' Eishi's eyes seemed to say as they narrowed.
A cigarette jabbed at the photo. "Do you recognize the woman in this picture?"
Contemplation shadowed gray eyes, if only briefly. "No, I do not."
"Liar!" roared the lieutenant, pounding a fist on the table. His altercation with Yokurui had left him a tad temperamental. "Tell us the truth!"
"Shuu, you're not freaking helping!" Jinbu heaved an exasperated sigh as the rolls of tobacco wilted between his fiercely grinding teeth.
He didn't bat an eye. "While this woman appears to possess similar facial characteristics to that of Arisuto-santōhei, I can tell you with absolute certainty that they are not the same woman."
Jinbu's eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward in interest. "Explain."
Eishi crossed his arms. "The woman in the picture: Upon closer inspection, one can see that she is not a natural blonde, as that particular color is far too bright to be natural. While Arisuto's hair is auburn, dye could quite easily artificially create such a color. Although her eye color is blue, its hues lean more toward the Marine-issue navy blue than Arisuto's sky blue ones. There are no known methods of artificially altering a person's eye color; only dilation of the pupils.
"Furthermore, the woman is far thinner and shorter than Arisuto. While five years can certainly change a person's personality and figure, there is no remote bodily resemblance between the two. And finally, I noticed that this particular woman has an odd marking just below her ear. It appears to be either a birthmark or a tattoo, but I have seen no signs of such marking or even a scar from surgical removal on Arisuto.
"In other words, either the woman in this photo is an impostor—or Arisuto Akino is. That is," he added, "assuming that Arisuto is the woman you are looking for. If she isn't, then all of this is mere coincidence and conjecture."
Jinbu did not respond at first, instead choosing to meditatively smoke the five cigarettes in his mouth. 'Morioka nearly said the same thing.' His eyes narrowed. 'If what this Eishi says is true…then just who is this "Arisuto Akino"? Speaking of mysterious people, who the hell are Yokurui, Morioka, and Eishi? There's something "off" about the lot of them, and I don't like the weird vibes I keep getting…'
"Not bad," grunted the sergeant major. "On your way out, tell Arisuto to get her ass in here."
Eishi rose and left, but not before muttering, "That could be a problem, since she's disappeared from the camp. Good luck finding her," with a smirk lightly etched on his features.
"Shit!!" yelled the lieutenant, leaping to his feet and susequently knocking his chair to the floor. "We have to find her—fast!!"
"Hey, wait a minute—"
Shuu sprinted out the door and into the torrential downpour with the speed of a predator seeking its prey. Thunder rolled across the sable sky, the deafening rumble of ghostly chariots splitting the heavens above.
Crimson polluted the rainfall as a body plunged into the silty mud.
Jinbu rushed outside into the god-forsaken storm…and found himself alone with a fallen Shuu lying at his feet, blood coursing through the puddles as if forewarning of more bloodshed to come.
Explanations for the good of the order, stuff like that.
Marine Ranks: Instead of "Lieutenant," some sources say "captain" three levels lower than Captain Hina's rank. In the original Japanese, it's "Taii," 大尉. Some fanon backstory is coming up, so you can be certain that Shuu is a canon character. Jinbu is a "Master Chief Petty Officer," or "Sgt. Major"; in Japanese pronounced "Sōchō," spelled 曹長. "Santōhei" is "Seaman Recruit, 3rd Class," spelled 三等兵 in Japanese. Any confusion, just ask. (Note: Although I should be using "Master Chief Petty Officer" instead of "Sergeant Major," it's a bit late to be changing things, so I'm leaving it the way it is.)
Eishi stealing the spotlight: Only after I finished writing Eishi's segment did I realize that he was speaking Morioka's intended lines. Crap. Well, too late to change it now….
Cliffhanger!!: Nothing to be shouting about, I know. But hey, you gotta love the dramatic effect, right?
NEXT UPDATE: Since I suck at updates, I can't give you a specific date. Plus, college life is incredibly busy… Gomen-nasai…