There is a deleted scene for this chapter that I plopped over in An Albatross Around Your Neck, so be sure to check that out!
I ended up rewriting this chapter several times, because holy crap Noir and Sengoku were not cooperating.
Six of Wands, upright - Victory, success, public reward...
July 1521
Sengoku needed a rubber stamp. One with his signature, so he didn't have to spend the majority of his day dealing with the stacks of hellspawn on his desk. This was not what he imagined doing when he first enlisted in the Marines all those years ago.
Taking the next stack of paperwork, Sengoku scanned the top document. He got as far as reading the transfer request for one of Noir's subordinates before he crumpled the form and tossed it at his trash can - which was already overflowing with similar bullshit requests. By the Sea, how stupid were people? There was a reason Noir's various crew members were transferred to her command in the first place.
The knock at his office door was regarded with suspicion. It could either herald a well-deserved break or even more of the blasted paperwork. "Enter."
It was Noir. Sengoku's brows shot to his hairline and he nearly did a double take. Noir was wearing her officer's coat. The woman never wore the officer's coat, claiming it got in her way. Annoying and against uniform policy, but as a Rear Admiral she had enough leeway to get away with it and as far as quirks went, it wasn't that bad.
Her hair was also down. Well, mostly down, she had about half of it held at the back of her head with a flower clip, but the rest of it was left to tumble down her back and the front of her chest. Sengoku didn't think he'd ever seen her hair not hiked back in a ponytail.
He wasn't going to ask. It wasn't his business, and he wasn't certain he'd like the answer anyway. Garp had trained her, and she'd already picked up a couple of his quirks. He didn't want to know if she'd picked up a couple others - from Garp or otherwise.
Besides, he had more important business than pondering Noir's sudden change to her appearance. "You're late." He expected her two weeks ago.
"My apologies, sir." The moment the door closed behind her, Noir shed the officer's coat and draped it over the chair in front of his desk. She tossed a file onto his desk, thankfully not knocking over any of the carefully balanced piles of paper. Sengoku opened her report and began to read as Noir gingerly sat in the chair.
It was an… interesting read. Mostly in what the report didn't say. A tip off received about pirates raiding an archipelago while en route to Headquarters. Not that surprising, from Noir. Somewhat vexing, she could have mentioned she'd be making a detour. No mention of who supplied the information, meaning it was one of Noir's many Underworld contacts. He didn't like it. Her contacts might be useful, but they were still criminals. Unfortunately, Noir kept her contacts well protected. Sengoku couldn't have them arrested if no one knew who they were.
The mention of Noir's injury had Sengoku pinning the Rear Admiral with a sharp look. Noir had swept the rest of her hair back, revealing the scar under her left breast bone. The circle of fresh healed skin was about an inch in diameter and concave like someone had taken a spoon and scooped out a portion of Noir's flesh. Sengoku recognized that kind of wound. That was the exit wound from someone shooting Noir in the back.
The woman was lucky to be alive.
He wanted to ask, but Sengoku forced himself to finish the report first. A sound decision, because the rest of the report only brought up more questions.
"Are the children alright?" He asked. Twenty children rescued. Only the Sea knew how many those pirates had captured before Noir took them down.
Noir nodded. "Bumps and bruises. One broken arm, but nothing Sin and Kita couldn't handle." She smiled, an unexpectedly soft expression crossing her face. "We returned them to their homes as best we could. I won't be surprised if a few enlist in several years. They took a serious shine to Rafi and Sile."
That was pleasing to hear. With the influx of pirates since Roger's thrice-damned speech, an influx that still hadn't subsided twenty years after the fact, the Marines always needed new recruits.
"How long are you benched?" That was not a simple flesh wound. Sengoku was amazed Noir wasn't dead - hell, it was probably only thanks to that damn good doctor of hers that she was still breathing at all, much less on her way to a full recovery.
The woman scowled. "Another month." Doctor's orders then, Sengoku was quite curious how the doctor was enforcing that. Stubborn was a polite way to describe Noir. "Cade will take over as commanding officer in my absence."
A more than acceptable choice. If Noir wouldn't be sure to make his life hell for it, Sengoku would have promoted the man to Rear Admiral and given him his own ship by now. Which meant Sengoku needed to prepare himself for another influx of requests for Noir's subordinates.
He tapped his finger against the paragraph mentioning Noir's injury, a frown marring his brow. Something was pinging on his memory. "How did someone get the drop on you?" It was near impossible to surprise the woman, and no one had ever managed to land a life threatening injury on her before now.
"I don't know."
"I beg your pardon?" Sengoku can't quite hide his disbelief.
Noir's face was thunderous. She dug something out of her pocket, tossing it on the desk. Sengoku opened the small paper envelop, dumping the remains of a bullet into his palm. "None of the living pirates had firearms. That bullet came out of nowhere."
Sengoku stared at the bullet and cursed. No wonder this sounded familiar. He opened a drawer and grabbed the top file, flipping it open. Damn. A picture of bullet fragments, identical to the ones Noir handed over a moment ago, stared up at him from the reports of two different attacks on Marine officers. A Vice Admiral and a Rear Admiral, both dead.
"I need everything you know about this shooter. Now." Someone was killing his Marines.
Noir shifted, lips pursed as she ordered her thoughts, but grimaced, hand hovering over her injury. "Can't rely on Armament Haki. It tore through mine like it wasn't even there."
"A Haki user then?"
But Noir was already shaking her head. "I don't know. I had almost no warning at all. One moment, nothing; the next my instincts are screaming at me. No intent beforehand," Brown eyes locked with Sengoku's, deadly serious in a way that had iron settling into Sengoku's gut, "because there were no unaccounted shooters within my Haki range."
Sengoku's blood ran cold. Noir's range was a thirty mile radius. He needed to get spies and scientists working on this immediately, to figure out who this was and how the fuck they were doing it.
He should warn any officer above the rank of captain while he was at it. Just in case.
Sengoku extracted the last page of Noir's report, which wasn't part of the report at all. It was a request for a month long training sabbatical for Petty Officer Ten Sile. "What is the reason for this?" Noir didn't do training sabbaticals. She trained her crew on the job - in Paradise or the Blues if the New World was too dangerous.
"I intend to beat Sile into the ground until he wakens either his Observation or Armament Haki." Noir grumped.
Sengoku gave her a look. That could be done on her ship, by Commodore Cade or Commander Rafi during Noir's absence.
Noir sighed. "Sile awakened his Conqueror's Haki when I got shot."
This time, Sengoku did do a double take. Noir's young ropemaker - who was the most timid Marine Sengoku had ever seen - had Conqueror's Haki? "Why isn't that in your report?" He demanded. Damn it, that was crucial information!
The look Noir pinned Sengoku with was irritated, and her tone was clipped. "Sile cannot control his Conqueror's." She informed him shortly. "It's easy to call up, stupidly so, but he can't shut it off on his own. He knocked out over three quarters of the crew!" She blew out an explosive breath. "He needs time and space to train until he isn't a danger to his own comrades."
Shit. Sengoku wasn't certain if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The kid's Haki is strong enough to knock out most of Noir's crew - a crew that regularly clashed with the Red Hair pirates and was the most resistant to Conqueror's Haki of any Marine crew. Any other crew would get flattened if Sile couldn't control his Haki.
Not that the other officers would see it that way. They'd only see the Conqueror's Haki on top of the kid's Devil Fruit. They wouldn't understand that Conqueror's Haki needed to be trained, like any other skill. But from what Noir had mentioned in the past, it couldn't be trained conventionally like Observation or Armament. Sile would have to practice and figure it out for himself. Until then, anyone in the vicinity would simply be collateral.
Once Sile got it under control though? The boy was much stronger than Noir if he could take out nearly the entire crew without any effort. He doubted the kid was as strong as Red Hair, but Sengoku didn't think anyone would ever be as strong as Red Hair. Given how rare Conqueror's Haki was, the kid didn't need to be to become a force to be reckoned with. If Sile grew a spine alongside his Haki, Sengoku expected the boy would make a formidable officer in a few years.
The poaching attempts were going to triple. At least. Sengoku could already see the piles forming.
"How long will it take to train the boy?"
"It took me two years to control mine." Noir replied, tone thoughtful, and Sengoku raised his brows. Noir was the only Marine to know all three types of Haki before she enlisted. How young had she been when she awakened it? "Another five years to finesse it, but my training was rather specialized." She admitted. "For Sile? I'd guess two or three years."
Sengoku grunted, irritable and no longer bothered to hide it. "You've got a year. I might be able to get you a year and a half before he's transferred out." Noir scowled, but Sengoku silenced her with a glare. "You're only a Rear Admiral, Noir. I've stalled your superiors out of respect for Sile's age, but it doesn't change the facts! You've got four Devil Fruit users - twenty percent of the Marine Corps. Keeping that and both Marines capable of Conqueror's Haki is a waste of Marine resources. I know you've got a soft spot for the boy, but Sile turns eighteen next year. He's no longer a child."
Noir's expression could only be described as mulish. "What will it take for me to keep Sile?"
The only thing required was Sengoku's order. He knew that. Noir knew that. She was asking what Sengoku wanted her to do in order for him to give that order.
To be honest, Sengoku wanted to retire in the next few years. He was over seventy years old. He was already evaluating his Admirals for a successor, and so far Kuzan was his favored choice. However, he also needed a replacement Admiral, and out of all the Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals, Noir topped his short list of candidates. She was young, not yet forty, and not likely to retire for another two decades. She was also strong - stronger than all the Vice Admirals barring her own mentor Garp - without the perk of having a Devil Fruit.
The woman was also as stubborn as Garp. She'd refused the promotion to Rear Admiral for five years, only accepting after she picked up her ropemaker. She should have been a Vice Admiral over a decade ago - no one strong enough to clash with a Yonko on a regular basis deserved less.
From the sour look on Noir's face, she knew exactly what Sengoku wanted. But there was resignation as well, and Sengoku knew he'd won. "You have to stay for the promotion ceremony." He told her. The face she pulled in response to that was highly amusing. The same hatred of publicity as Garp, only Noir wasn't nearly as frustrating as Garp was.
Noir nodded once, grudgingly.
Sengoku signed his approval of Sile's training sabbatical. "Who's training him?" After all, Noir was still on medical leave.
She grinned, a lazy smirk that didn't bode well for her ropemaker. "I've already talked to Garp."
Oh no. That poor kid.
As always, please review!
