I told you guys that I'd try to be somewhat consistent with posting again! Thank you for the overwhelming support I've received throughout the entirety of this fic so far. I truly appreciate it.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
Nao stifles a snicker.
"You're complaining about a stab wound? You tossed the kid out a window," she speaks pointedly, earning confused looks from Garp and Kuzan.
"How did you—" Rosinante cuts himself off. There's no use in asking a question that will never be answered. Instead, he takes a second to recompose himself, lowering his voice so as to prevent the others in the room from hearing any potential dirty laundry.
"There's a kid here, Nao, a little brat from Flevance," he begins, and Nao leans against Garp's desk to steady herself in a casual manner. Even now, literal years before anything of much importance can happen, Nao is being handed a chance to alter bits and pieces of the future.
There's a bit of irony here that doesn't go unnoticed. Here Rosinante is—the boy who might as well have been Sengoku's son—complaining about the same boy who'd eventually aid in saving the life of Garp's own grandson, and Garp, standing mere feet from her, will probably never know it.
"What about him?" Her voice is shakier than it should be.
Garp is far too relaxed to take notice of the minor change in Nao's demeanor, but Kuzan is not as easily distracted.
He gives her a pointed look, but she subtly shakes her head, and he respects that.
Or at least, respect is the word Nao would usually like to use to describe why the icy admiral is so quick to let her have free reign over her own actions. In retrospect, though, it's probably just the man not giving enough of a damn about the amount of damage someone as small as Nao could possibly do. If the marine headquarters itself isn't mere seconds away from burning down, Kuzan wouldn't be budging an inch from his day-to-day routine.
"Is he… Is the kid going to die?" Rosinante asks, his voice barely above a whisper at this point. Nao doesn't know if it's for the sake of privacy or out of fear of jinxing Law's chance of survival.
Her head might as well have begun to spin at a hundred thousand miles per hour. There isn't much she can say that wouldn't screw the klutz of a marine over. If she lets him know that Law will somehow survive, he might not be as fervent in his pursuit of a cure for the kid. If she lies and says he'll die, Rosinante might just give up to begin with, and Law will never have the Ope Ope no Mi. It's a lose-lose situation, and there's no way for her to elaborate on an answer with an admiral and a vice admiral in the room.
So she settles for the full, honest truth.
"I don't know." And, in all honesty, she doesn't know if the timeline has become too convoluted for Law to survive.
"That's a shame—"
"But," Nao interrupts him, not wanting to leave the boy's survival up to Fate's fickleness, "keep him close. He might do you a favor one of these days."
To the others in the room, it's simply a word of advice for the awkward blond. To Rosinante, though, it's a hint of sorts—or perhaps some kind of discrete command. 'Keep him close, you have to.'
Garp adorns a shit-eating grin, looking at something behind Nao—or rather, a someone that's slowly approaching the slightly panicked girl.
"Sengoku! Congratulations on the grandson!" he announces, nearly barking with laughter as he does so. "You know, Rosinante sure does have a bad habit of picking up strays."
Sengoku crosses his arms, giving Garp a accusatory look. He gestures towards Nao. "You're the one whose stray is in the room."
"Me? Taking in a stray?" Garp raises his eyebrows in mock surprise, feigning a look of offense towards the fairly accurate accusation. He is, after all, the same guy who willingly fosters the son of the Pirate King himself—but no one really knows of that one yet. "I think we all can agree that this kid has already been passed onto Kuzan."
"I'm just taking care of that favor that I owe Rosinante," Kuzan speaks flatly.
"Nevermind that. What the hell are you going on about though, Garp? Rosinante's been trying to get rid of those three brats in that crew for the past two months. He threw one of them out a window."
"Threw him out a window?" Garp repeats, his smile growing wider than anyone had even thought possible. "Ah, according to Nao over here, that same brat that got punted is your kid's new protégé."
Sengoku grabs the Den Den Mushi from Nao.
"Rosinante! You're on a mission here, you know. You can't keep bringing back kids to the base! We're not an adoption agency or an orphanage," he chastises, though he's only doing so to keep up the strict image he's made for himself.
Unfortunately for Sengoku, though, everyone there has long since seen past his farce.
"Rosinante is one of the kids you brought back to the base—"
"How about we all just agree that everyone here at headquarters is shit at being a shitty person?" Nao chirps, butting in to prevent the two long-time friends from bickering with one another. Despite being two of the most arguably feared men within the marines, the two sure do have a knack for acting like harmless children.
But the same comment meant to get the conversation at hand back on track instead serves to garner a more lively response from the usually ambivalent admiral in the room. "Everyone? That hot headed idiot has done more than a few questionable things."
An awkward silence envelopes the office. There's no denying the slight hint of animosity that most of the more approachable members of the marines held towards Admiral Akainu.
Not even Nao, the unofficially assigned liaison between the two admirals, could say much in Sakazuki's defense. Hell, she is even more familiar with the horrendous things that that man is capable of doing—she is, after all, the only person there who knows just how much harm he'll eventually come to do to mostly innocent people.
But the Akainu of this year isn't that same murderous monster of the forthcoming years. This Akainu is just, well, a jerk, and it takes much more than a few morally wrong deeds done to make a man hated while in an organization as inherently brutal as this one. Until the ones that are suffering due to his actions are the people who his fellow marines hold dear to them, they'll turn a blind eye to whatever he does.
So this, Nao decides, is strange.
"Huh? You didn't seem all that angry towards him when you two were promoted," Nao points out before she can stop herself, too bemused by Kuzan's sudden change in stance towards his fellow admiral.
She's more ignorant than she'd like to be to the events going on within the One Piece world during this year. Little had been given in the original timeline, but that didn't at all mean that nothing would happen. The scope of her information just happens to be fairly limited when the only person who can keep her up to date with current events just so happens to be the man who is quite possibly the most reserved marine to exist. Kuzan never talks, and until now, that hadn't been much of a problem.
But something has changed.
Kuzan shakes his head, and Garp and Sengoku refrain from jumping in to defend Sakazuki. "That promotion was before the survivors from Flevance came out with what really happened to their town."
Nao's face drains of all color.
There isn't supposed to be any survivors from Flevance—none aside from Law, at least. What the hell had gone on with the timeline to prevent the marines from being successful with their genocide mission?
The sound of a throat clearing draws her back to reality.
"That's what I was actually originally calling about," Rosinante starts. "There's interviews being released from the people of Flevance, but they're all being published in very niche newspapers. No one knows who's leaking all of the information, but people are losing trust in the World Government. Doflamingo wants Law and I to go and see if there are any more survivors who'd want to join his crew. He seems fixated on amassing more people with hatred against the government for his crew."
"Flevance… Sakazuki had requested for a fleet to be taken there earlier today," Garp breaks the news, looking more distraught that he should have been over what someone with Akainu's jurisdiction is capable of ordering.
The lighthearted air that the room had had is now nowhere to be found.
No one can find the proper words to articulate what it is that they're all wondering—'Will the marines have to go back and 'finish' the job?' They know all too well which course of action Akainu will take—maintaining stability is what he prioritizes above all—but it isn't one that anyone else is eager to do. Even men with as much blood on their hands as the ones in this room have a place where they draw the line.
"Kuzan," Garp leads off, disregarding the fact that the admiral is ranked above him and thus has no obligation to follow any orders. "I recall you having made a complaint about being stuck at headquarters for too long of a time. There's probably going to be nothing happening to the base that Sengoku and I can't handle if you'd want to go on one of those bike rides you enjoy so much. I'm sure Nao wants to revisit the North Blue either way."
"Garp…" Sengoku warns, but even he can't prevent himself from wanting to do something to prevent another massacre happening by their own hands.
"Kuzan, I need to see Nao to make sure that you've been keeping up with that favor, too," Rosinante adds, creating another excuse for the admiral to sabotage whatever it is the world government might have them do.
Nao wants to cackle. These men are truly far too kind hearted to be marines in this world. Here they all are—four widely revered men within the marines—flinging out excuse after excuse to justify momentarily betraying the world government that they were pretty much stationed to protect. It's funny, really, to look at all the under-the-table actions these men have done to stay true to their morals, and not a single one of them knows what the others have hidden.
(For fuck's sake, the amount of treason they've all committed is almost comical.) Garp's sheltering the goddamn son of the same Pirate King who nearly toppled the entire world's stability with a few words spoken on the execution stand. Kuzan had risked his entire livelihood to create an escape path for Robin, the only girl whose ability could quite literally set off a war that the likes of this world has never witnessed before. Rosinante would soon practically defect from the same institution that had saved him as a child for the sake of a sickened kid whose likelihood of surviving was practically zero. And while Sengoku had never done anything firsthand, his purposely blind eye towards all of his fellow marines' justice-fueled defections might as well have been counted as treason too.
Nao is glad that these fools are the ones that she's momentarily settled in with. Having waited for everyone else to discreetly put in their two cents, it's now her turn to try to convince Kuzan to piss off the World Government once again.
"You know… I hear it's a real nice time to go bike riding on the sea—"
Nao never gets to finish her own suggestion. Kuzan is already privy to what the 'right thing' to do in this situation is.
"I get it," Kuzan cuts her off, deadpanning the occupants in the room as a response to their not-so-concealed desires for him to go and sabotage whatever it is that Akainu might order a fleet of marines to do. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to go on a short trip."
No one wants to admit it, but a certain wave of relief has washed over the others in the room. They no longer have to fret over the possibility of becoming accessories to another genocide committed by a group formed to protect innocent citizens.
"Thanks for the information, Rosi," Sengoku speaks into the Den Den Mushi, absolutely aware that he's participating in a conspiracy against another admiral.
"No problem… Kuzan, Nao, I'll see you guys in Flevance in a week's time." He hangs up without waiting for a reply of affirmation.
Kuzan sighs, reaching his hand up to his face to fix the placement of his glasses. He walks past Nao, momentarily placing his hand on her head as he reaches Garp's desk. Taking off the coat usually draped over his shoulder and placing it down.
"I'm assuming this is something I'm doing off-duty?"
Garp nods, and Kuzan sighs.
He walks past Nao once again, this time heading for the door. She watches his movements carefully, unsure if she's completely processed everything yet. With one hand up, he beckons her to come with him using a single, short movement of the fingers.
"Come on, kid. Let's see just how much I've taught you."
OoooooOOO it's time for another adventure, and the little bit of peace Nao had found is about to come to an end. :( I hope you guys enjoy the characters' interactions, though.
Did you guys expect for there to be more survivors in Flevance? Who do you think is involved? :D
I hope you guys had a little bit of fun reading this chapter! Please leave a review, I'd love to see how many people have stuck around. (And it'd motivate me a heck of a lot more.)
Have a great day!