Hey guys! I do apologize for taking another hiatus without informing you all. There's more explanation in the A/N below, but for now, please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
Mindless chatter barely registers in the back of Nao's mind as she hums during her walk from the bustling cafeteria to the much more quiet section of the base that held the offices of the higher ups.
Two months have gone by since her accidental babysitter's promotion, and, in that time, she's transitioned from his pupil to what feels more like an errand girl. It's, of course, nothing that she's complaining about—he still kicks her ass around when he has the time to do it—it's just brought her into the clutches of a man who she'd rather not be all that close to.
Sakazuki—Akainu.
In fact, in this very moment, her egregiously tiny limbs are suffering under the combined weight of Kuzan and Akainu's endless amount of paperwork, though the former would much rather jump into the North Blue than be forced to sit down and sort through the waste of a forest. It had been with that sentiment in mind that a deal had been begrudgingly forged among the three of them.
Aokiji hated paperwork, thus Akainu would (sometimes quite literally) burn through both their workloads. Akainu hates people, so Aokiji lent him rights over Nao's errand girls duty so she could take care of all the formalities involved with being an Admiral. A diplomat is waiting to receive some nonsensical paper about a minor lawsuit happening in an island under Akainu's jurisdiction? No worries, send the child to deliver it with an uncannily sincere-seeming apology and a bright grin plastered onto her face.
And Nao, well, if anyone ever asked about her time spent as basically a marine, she'd be able to grumble and moan for hours about how she'd gotten the short end of the stick. After a few—or rather, more than a few—drinks, however, she'd probably be singing a different tune. Yes, the tasks were tedious, and yes, the extra time Aokiji now had had gone straight to her hours she had with him kicking her ass nearly right back into her past life.
But she—and she'll say this more quietly than anything she's ever said in her life—was happy.
She, against all odds, has wedged herself into the commonplace lives of these not-so commonplace men, and has somehow, to her own surprise, hasn't fuckin' lost it yet.
She sways to the side as the stack of papers teeters over, threatening to create a mess that many would consider worse than the not-so soon-to-come war on Marineford. If there's one thing Nao has learned during her time as the admirals' errand girl, it's that there's only one thing that can disgust a marine more than a pirate—trivial work.
A yelp reaches the tip of her tongue as she finds her sense of balance losing its battle with the paperwork. She finds herself feeling utterly defeated, succumbing to the fact that she'd probably be cursed with cleaning up the mess before she could report to Garp's office. He had asked for her earlier, but she had postponed in order to deliver this hellish paper tower. Only now, as she seems to slip in slow motion, does she regret procrastinating the request.
Before the stack(and her dignity) can go flying, however, ice wraps itself around Nao's waist, straightening her spine and replanting both of her feet onto the ground.
"I could hear you approaching from a mile away, kid," Kuzan chastises from inside his office, not sounding the least bit concerned for Nao after her almost-fall.
She resists the urge to reply with something cheeky—any attitude would translate into a few harder blows dealt to her during their training session. Instead, she shakes away any debris that might have made it onto her uniform and puts on a benign smile.
"Thank you," she speaks sweetly. This ridiculous stack had arisen from an equally ridiculous cause, and Nao had no intentions of riling up her superior before dropping the bad news.
Kuzan rolls his eyes, crossing his arms to ensure that Nao knows damn well that he isn't falling for any innocent act. "What bullshit had to happen for this much paperwork to go to me?"
She winces. Kuzan is getting a little too good at reading her mannerisms. "It's not a huge deal. Just a new recruit that seems... 'promising'... as some of the lieutenants put it. Apparently some of the higher ups think he could climb the ranks pretty quickly, and they wanna know if you or Akainu want anything to do with him."
Kuzan's stare expresses a level of boredom that Nao wasn't even aware could exist. "One guy needs that much paperwork?"
Nao returns his stare with an exasperated one of her own. "That's what I said when they told me to take this mess to you guys."
He offers her a hum, intending for it to sound like he was really considering going through the new guy's files. "Pass."
Nao resists the urge to shake her head in mock disdain for the newly promoted Admiral. She would be lying if she tried to claim that she expected any sort of different answer from the innately laid back man. The only times she ever saw him genuinely give a damn about anything was when he was kicking her ass with enough force to send her spiraling out of the stratosphere, and, even then, that interest only appeared because it offered him some sort of entertainment within the mundane base.
"You're slacking off again, Kuzan?" a new voice comments, clearly amused. The entrance brings the hall's temperature back up to that of a tropical island as he approaches them.
"I'd rather not do work that anyone else in this place could easily do for me," Kuzan drawls back, and if he's annoyed at the backhanded observation, he doesn't show it.
Nao, however, is much more blatant with her irritation. A few months of basically being the two men's personal secretary has weaned her away from any real fear of the two. Of course, she'd still probably be too petrified to move if either of the two were to face off with her in a battle setting, but the Marine Headquarters—at least, the current Marine Headquarters—aren't a battlezone. While safely within the echoey hallways of the base, Nao has no qualms about taking a piss at the two admirals.
With that being said, she still respects the hell out of them—though most of that respect is paid to the colder of the two. She just respects them in a tongue-in-cheek sort of manner.
"Can you two finish this debate after someone takes these papers out of my hands?" she requests. "You're going to be short of an errand girl if I get crushed under this bullshit."
"Not feeling like it, I'll just take the next brat that Garp drags home," Kuzan responds, knowing damn well the stack of papers is about to topple over.
"Alrighty then," she chirps back.
Both Kuzan and Sakazuki look at her quizzically. They know all too well that Nao isn't the type to take their more childish demands seriously. Before either of them can take the load out of her hands, Nao pretends to sway precariously to the side, successfully knocking off the first dozen or so sheets.
"Oops."
Kuzan instinctively smacks the back of her head, only to retract his hand in horror as the force shakes her just enough to send another dozen flying. The thought of having to actually clean is more than enough to terrify him out of giving Nao another disciplinary tap.
But Nao pauses then, no longer entertained by how easy it is to aggravate the two men who should probably have the most level heads in the base. Instead, her face pales in a way that it has only ever done when the most frightening pieces of the timeline begin to fall into her hands.
This time, it was quite literally in her hands, though now it lay on the floor.
Among the scattered stacks of useless bullshit that paperwork usually consists of, a common recruiter's casefile rests. Her hands tremble slightly—a miniscule motion only addressed by Aokiji with a slight furrow of the brow. He says nothing, though, effectively keeping the other admiral in the room out of the loop.
Sakazuki doesn't pay any attention to the slight crack in Nao's composure; he doesn't know her well enough to sense when something is off. He does, however, notice what she's looking at and goes picks it up.
"Vergo? Hm…" His eyes briefly skim over the various notes jotted down on the file. "He's getting a lot of praise for a new recruit."
Nao feels her stomach drop before anything is even said by the Admiral.
"I'll see to him," he volunteers, probably feeling like he's doing Nao a favor rather than damning another part of her plan.
Before Nao can protest, Akainu has easily taken the stack out of her arms. He doesn't spare her or Kuzan any word or gesture of farewell, and he ignores the other papers still left on the ground as he turns to walk back towards his office.
Nao finds herself internally wilting when pit against the whims of the more serious of the three admirals. That's just the kind of man that Akainu is—overpowering and all too much of an accidental hindrance to her goals.
But she has no time to go through the whole mental gymnastics act to calculate what the potential consequences of her little joke are. She has to be in Garp's office in three minutes, and unless a crazily suicidal urge is about to overcome her, she has no intentions of being late.
She pats Kuzan's arm to indicate that he, too, will be skinned alive if he doesn't hurry along with her.
Kuzan sighs from behind her as he notices her futile sprint towards Garp's office. Practically being twice her height, a slightly fast-paced walk places him next to her. He'd be amused by it on any other day, but the thought of pissing Garp off and subsequently being punished for doing so is enough for him to pass on the opportunity of being slightly amused by Nao's struggles.
Nao lets out a dog-like cry of surprise as Aokiji's cold arms wrap around her, bringing her up to sling her over his shoulder. The move garners snickers from the various marines that they pass as they traverse through the base, and Nao finds herself blushing a bright red. She doesn't try to leap off of him, though. In this rare occasion, it would be much better to be humiliated rather than late.
Garp's infamous guffaw can be heard long before they reach his door, and Nao feels her irritation coming back tenfold. He hadn't indulged her with the specifics of why he so desperately need her in his office that specific time, but it better have been for a good reason if Kuzan had to be her mode of transportation there.
Kuzan doesn't bother knocking.
"Garp," he speaks in a dull tone, disrupting the Vice Admiral in the middle of what looks to be a normal call through a Den Den Mushi.
"Where's the brat?"
Kuzan turns around to show Nao dangling from his shoulder, earning a shit-eating grin from Garp.
"Hey, Rosi, looks like your brat's become Kuzan's favorite punching bag on the base," Garp teases, getting a wide-eyed look from Nao at the mention of who it was exactly on the line.
Rosinante's reply is muffled to her, but she can detect some sort of lecturing tone that's probably directed towards everyone's favorite ice-man.
"Give me another year, and he'll become my punching bag," she snaps, knowing damn well that that much progress is far beyond the realm of possibility. Her snarky quip is, however, enough for Kuzan to decide that he's had enough of carrying her around, and he drops her without hesitation.
Or at least, he thinks he does.
But as Nao stares at the floor, bracing for the impact, she discovers that the pain of slamming into the wooden floorboards never comes. What does register, however, is an impressed 'Ooh' from Garp.
"... But I guess he has taught her something," Garp adds to his previous jab.
Nao stares down at her firmly planted feet in amazement. Sure, the past couple of months of training has allowed her to have some grasp over the whole replacement deal, but that always comes at the cost of a shit ton of blood loss. She looks around in wonder—perhaps she's fallen and scraped her knee in here sometimes before, and that blood somehow allowed her to move.
Her search is halted by Kuzan clearing his throat. His fingers are pinched together, and as she squints, she realizes he's holding a singular hair that had been picked off his shoulder.
"Sweet!" she exclaims, and one of those rare, begrudging half-smiles appears on Kuzan's face. "I didn't know that hair could work too!"
Garp gives a quick hand gesture, indicating for them to celebrate the accomplishment later. He holds out the snail receiver. "Rosinante has a… complaint to tell you."
Nao cocks her head to the side, confused, but grabs the Den Den Mushi anyways. "What is it?"
A heavy sigh is heard.
"You know so damn much about the future, right, kid? Did you know I was going to be stabbed by this brat over here, too?!"
The Marine HQ is a silly, light hearted mess at the moment, but fret not, drama and such will come hehe.
Again, I'm so sorry for being gone for so long. Life just hit me like a train after the accident, and I spent a week or so in the hospital just trying to recoup. I've somewhat gotten my life back together, though! I can't promise much, but I will try to get out weekly updates again!
Please comment if you can! I'd love to see who all is still here and hear your input on this chapter. I'm a little rusty, not gonna lie.
Have a great day y'all.