Originally, I was going to make this the Marineford chapter (because there will be one), but finally decided on something else :)
Chronology: A little over a month after the war at Marineford. Luffy pulled his stunt with Rayleigh and Jinbe at Marineford almost two weeks ago.
A Peaceful World
Once they had left Amazon Lily, and according to their captain's orders to wait before entering the New World, the Heart Pirates had settled on a small island off the Sabaody Archipelago for a little while.
The place was peaceful for now, given that most of the new pirate crews that had sprung out of nowhere motivated by Whitebeard's final words were some time away from reaching Sabaody (those of them who would manage it at all). At first the crew had been a little disappointed about the break in their adventures, but seeing the constant news of pirate crews being obliterated in the New World and the fights everywhere over Whitebeard's old territories, they had to agree that waiting had been the smartest idea on their captain's part.
And it wasn't as if they were going to take things easy once they did enter the New World.
"Oi! There's a boat out there!"
Bepo snapped out of his reverie and looked over at the coast, but he couldn't see more than a tiny dot far away.
"A boat? Here?" Penguin asked, incredulous. Not many boats would make it through this area of the sea, and Bepo doubted it was anyone's first choice when sailing the Grand Line.
"Yeah. And there's someo— OH, HOLY SHIT! CALL THE CAPTAIN!"
"What?" practically everybody asked at once.
Penguin stole the binoculars and paled.
"FUCK!"
Shachi stole them from Penguin, dropped them with a curse of his own, and ran off to call the captain, who was still in the room of the hotel they had to themselves (it turned out no civilians wanted to be anywhere near someone with the captain's reputation).
The binoculars started to pass around, and Bepo was truly worried by the time they reached him. He relaxed immediately when he looked through the lenses.
"Oh. It's fine guys, don't worry."
"It's fine?! THAT'S SENGOKU OUT THERE!"
Penguin felt equal parts confused, eager, and worried by the time the tiny boat with freaking Sengoku the Buddha made it to the port where they had been hanging out.
By the time they had spotted the boat it was realistically too late to flee the island safely (not even they could pull off two miraculous escapes from ridiculously overpowered marines in a little over a month) and they had been freaking over how to handle the situation. Then Bepo had relaxed for no reason, said it all was okay, and let them all continue to freak out when they refused to believe him.
To confuse things even further, when a frantic Shachi had dragged the captain here and pointed over at the already much larger dot, explaining the problem, the captain had laughed.
And now here they were, watching as the marine Fleet Admiral Sengoku threw the anchor over the edge of his boat before he calmly climbed out of it and turned to tie it in place.
Meanwhile, the captain sat on a crate, smirking in amusement, and the crew was left to watch helplessly from a little distance into the port. They had wanted to stand behind him, in a sign of support if nothing else (because Penguin liked to be a realist from time to time, and that was a hopeless fight if he had ever faced one), but the captain had ordered them to stand back and don't get in the way.
And Bepo was still perfectly calm, as if nothing was wrong.
Finally, the boat was tied to Sengoku's satisfaction and he turned around to face the captain.
"You have a lot of nerve," said Sengoku sternly.
Penguin had to agree with him.
The captain's smirk widened.
"Why would that be?" Also, he was absolutely insane. Being sassy to someone like Sengoku was above even the captain's brand of smartassery. Well… Penguin would like to say it was. Again, being a realist and all that.
They were so dead…
The captain summoned his Room right before Sengoku attacked, and barely got himself out of the way of a punch that destroyed the crate and a large area of the ground around it.
The entire crew was startled.
Fuck the orders, they were intervening.
That was when Bepo jumped before them to stop them.
"It's fine, guys! That's the captain's grandfather!"
They all froze. A wall was punched into rubble.
"…Grand… father?"
"Are you out of your mind?!" Sengoku yelled, and the shockwave he summoned sent Law flying. He transported himself behind Sengoku and managed to land on his feet.
"I think I should be the one asking that," he said, finally having the time to unsheathe Kikoku. He was completely unsurprised when Sengoku dodged his attack. "What's this about?"
"What is…?" Sengoku stopped, fortunately. Law didn't lower his guard. "Marineford. What the hell were you doing there?!"
"Oh, that. I like Strawhat, I thought it would be a pity if he died."
Sengoku faltered, blinked, and Law moved himself to a rooftop before the ground he had been standing on was blown to pieces.
"What sort of stupid reason is that?!"
Law was ready to dodge again (he was still far from being able to actually land a hit on Sengoku), but Sengoku sighed and dropped to sit on the rubble. Now, that was a good sign that he was done with the violent part of being angry. Or frustrated; Law guessed it was a mix of both in this case.
"Oi, Bepo!" he yelled. "Get the submarine ready to go!" There were no civilians around, but they had been this morning, so Law guessed they had panicked like his crew when they had spotted Sengoku and had fled the area.
Let them think the crew had somehow escaped capture.
Law walked up to Sengoku and sat next to him.
"If it makes you feel better, I hadn't planned to do it."
"It doesn't."
Law shrugged. He hadn't expected it would.
"Well, I can't say I'm sorry, because I'm not."
Sengoku sighed.
"Are you okay? You don't look like you received any serious injuries," Law asked, looking Sengoku up and down. He wasn't missing any body parts —fortunately— and if his little demonstration just now had proven anything it was that he had no trouble moving.
"Nothing a few bandages couldn't take care of. There are a lot of people worse off than me. And the island, of course. They did a number there."
Law hummed. At first, when the execution had been announced, he had half a mind to tell Sengoku how stupid it was to go to war with Whitebeard (even adding the fact that Fire Fist had been Roger's son), but he knew something of that magnitude wasn't Sengoku's choice, so he had ultimately discarded the idea. The World Government wasn't exactly a reasonable organization mindful of the citizens' wellbeing.
"Speaking of Marineford, shouldn't you be supervising things there? It's been barely over a month, they can't be happy with their precious Fleet Admiral ditching work to disappear on them."
Sengoku threw him an unimpressed look that said he knew exactly how much Law cared about what the marines were or weren't happy about.
"I won't be Fleet Admiral for much longer anyway. I've resigned; the news will be out once the marines can present a stronger front."
Law blinked. He hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected either of those things: Sengoku resigning, or him voicing the truth about how the marines weren't as strong after the battle as they were trying to appear.
"Feeling too old for the job?" Law asked, aiming for easygoing.
Sengoku didn't sigh or scoff, he just closed his eyes.
"Maybe. Maybe it's time the younger generations take over now. Besides," he opened his eyes and fixed Law with a hard stare, "I have a feeling you won't go back to playing the average super rookie now that you've pulled that stunt. It might be good for my health to take things easier."
Law smirked. There was a notebook in his cabin that listed every single pirate of any notoriety in the New World, following their steps and known whereabouts and hideouts. Many names had been scratched off the list in the past few weeks, but many more remained.
"Just don't make a habit of dropping by every time you don't like something."
Sengoku groaned and covered his eyes with a hand.
"I don't want to know."
Law chuckled.
It was about time I showed a little more interaction between these two, wasn't it? Law said Bepo had been with him for 10 years, that means 8 here, so of course he knows Sengoku and his relationship with Law.
