The Gulls of Navarone


Chapter 10 : Admiral Kizaru


"Ne, Borsalino-san...", Jonathan starts spacing out when he glimpses a bunch of bananas.

"Want onne~?", Borsalino offers.

"Oh. No.", he quickly rejects the fruit. And falls back into confused silence.

"Soo~...What is ittt~?"

Jonathan looks up at those glinting eyes behind the golden glasses. He still won't trust this man.

But...he had to know.

"Do you think Kuzan gave Sakazuki-san a bad concussion?"

"Whhattt~?!"

Borsalino's expression is...flabbergasted? He's looking at him with a dropped jaw and wide open eyes and perfect confusion.

Uh-oh. Yesterday was definitely a dream. He shouldn't have started this conversation. If Sakazuki-san seemed 'normal' to Kizaru then...he probably was.

"Doesn't he seem to have...changed?", asks Jonathan sheepishly. He shouldn't have brought this up. He couldn't think of what else had changed with Sakazuki at all.

Jonathan is more startled when realization glints golden in little sparks and an excited Kizaru leaps up in his seat.

"I knowww righttt~!", he exclaims suddenly pulling himself straight and slamming the desk with both hands at the same time. Whoever named him Kizaru...got it so right.

"That beard looks stuupid! Stuuupppid! Thaat Bakainuu~!"

'Eh...', thinks Jonathan. 'What bea...oh right. He didn't always have that beard.'

What friends these guys were...Seriously!

"He's begun to look like Garp-san", Jonathan realizes suddenly.

"Pfft..."

Jonathan is certain Borsalino articulated each of the alphabets in slow motion before bursting into cackling laughter. Jonathan politely smiles looking as alarmed as the bodyguards who are peering through the door.

After what may have been an hour for Borsalino but was probably two minutes by the Marine wall clock, Borsalino's laughter ceases and he slumps back in chair.

The entire floor's staff is gathered at his door in curiosity and yet the man simply smiles at them and waves.

"Don't ever let him hear that, n~e Jo~nnn..."

Jonathan's own luxuriant mustache twitches in amusement. "No"

"But that's not what you meant, is it?", Borsalino asks shrewdly.

"No", Jonathan agrees,"He's using too old a pack of bait."

"Quite so...", muses Borsalino, eyes half closed.


While still musing on that 'great fight', Jonathan prepares bait. He has been studying the currents for the last couple of hours and realizes at once Marineford is done for.

'Sakazuki-san definitely got the idea to shift HQ over the Red Line while fishing.'

Who knew what really went on in that head.

Punk Hazard : Admirals Akainu and Aokiji fought on Punk Hazard turf. Jonathan couldn't bring himself to stray from that thought too long.

That place held too many memories. He shakes his head a little recalling those times.

He was supposed to worry about Drake right now; supposedly.

Sakazuki-san had his focus on Bonney. (Borsalino had some good jokes on that...)

Admiral Kizaru was single-handedly dealing with the Shichibukai and cleaning out the whale tank.

They'd put off making any efforts in curbing the majority of newbies and the remainder of the worst generation.

He was concerned though - If the Strawhats made a return...nobody had plans. They were underestimating them too much at this point, leaving it to whoever wanted to take it up - as randomly as that.

So long as everything went their way, it would be their victory.

Probably.

There were far too many fish in the ocean and just not enough number of nets.

One single miscalculation and they'll lose too much.


"Soooo~"

Sakazuki looks up with a grimace to find Borsalino sitting beside him. Trust him to appear out of thin air...

"For a long, lo~ng time, we sta~red deeply into the eye of the otherrr~."

"Shuddup 'zaru. I'm busy"

He'd already returned to the papers on his desk.

Borsalino chuckles, "Jonn is sooo righ~t!"

"And youuu are so wroong...!", Sakazuki mimics, shaking his head.

"I can't believe yo~u're talking ba~ck to mee~!", Borsalino pouts.

"Well Admiral. May I remind you, your current seating in itself is insubordination."

"It's 3 in the morning slowpoke! And who~os supposed to fol~low regulationnns..."

"You."

"Noo~, Fleet Admiral sirrr, noo~!"

"What!?", says Sakazuki starting to get irritated.

"Don't e~verr, forget them that bullied you~u", Kizaru says ominously.

Sakazuki by now has put down his pen and put his head in his hands. If he could have, he'd be shrieking right now.

Why was Borsalino behaving this way tonight?

And just why was he himself...also?

The past few days were too much, maybe.

"Fine...", he sighs at last. "What do you want?"

"Ohh~! Yo~u kno~w wha~t!", Borsalino beams at him.

'No I don't want to have known', thinks Sakazuki, deciding not to say it.

"Want a light?", he says instead and almost facepalms when Borsalino starts laughing.

'Why the hell did I say that?'

He lights his cigar in the meanwhile and pushes the papers out of reach. Just in time as Borsalino puts up his feet on 'his' desk.

"Its ni~ce having a human lighterr~, ne Bakazuukii~?"

No. He won't respond. Certainly not.

They smoke for a while in silence before Borsalino straightens up suddenly.

'That's surprising-he never...Oh.'

Borsalino reaches out across the desk to pick up a photoframe. It was taken at Marineford. He just...always had it on his table. He wouldn't just swap it out for...habit's sake. It was a little random and he'd long forgotten the occasion - John Giant, Saul, Ronse, Lacroix, Doberman, Onigumo, Dalmatian, Momonga, Strawberry, Borsalino, himself, Otsuru-san, Garp and even Kuzan. And Zephyr sensei.

At whom he knows Borsalino is looking even though he cannot tell from the opaqued glasses.

"Are you ok?", he asks the man who'd had to kill Zephyr.

"We ne~ver really got alo~ng you kno~w. Me and himmm~..."

Sakazuki impulsively pats him on the back and then almost draws back.

"See~e!?"

"I can't...", Sakazuki replies simply.

Borsalino looks a little troubled before continuing, "Jo~n seemed perplexed by ho~w you'd cha~nged. Yo~u must have said so~mething, nne~?"

Sakazuki doesn't reply. He cannot trust Borsalino in this one.

"Wel~l...you have changeddd.", Borsalino emphasizes. "So. Did Ku~zan hit youu~ on the he~ad?"

"Eh?! Where'd that come from bastard!?"

'Kuzan'..not good. He was seeing red.

"Oh...no~oo. You're still Bakazuuu~ki."

After a tense silence, Sakazuki suddenly says, "The new head of CP-0 is a greenhorn."

"Luc~ci...", Borsalino mumbles absentmindedly.

'That brat!'

Ok, his blood pressure was shooting sky high.

Sakazuki knows what they both meant. He was not acting like himself before. That ends right now.

"That damned thing thinks he can order me around! Can you believe him?!", he practically yells.

The cigar has completely vaporized and Borsalino looks a little relieved, a little disappointed.

His mind, as Sakazuki correctly guesses, was elsewhere.

"How co~uld you and Kuzan mes~s up such a simple mis~sionn?"