Hypocrisy

Characters: Shachi, Penguin. Rating: T. Warnings: implied minor character death

"Hey, Penguin," Shachi commented idly, perched precariously on the edge of the rails around the Polar Tang's top deck with his feet swaying out above the sea below. It was rare for them to be sailing above the water, but the engine was starting to run low on fuel so they'd decided to sail as far as the wind allowed.

His companion, sat rather more sensibly on the deck with his back to the rails in question, looked up from his hat, which he was repairing after it got caught while he was checking said engine oil levels earlier.

"Do you ever think… maybe we shouldn't have done this?" Shachi asked him, staring out at the waves as his knuckles clenched his makeshift perch tightly. "Left Swallow Island. Become pirates."

Penguin sighed and set his hat down on his lap.

"I have," he admitted, looking at the needle and thread in his hands. "You too, huh?"

"Yeah…" the ginger sighed. He took a hand off of the railing to pluck his own hat from his head, holding it in his hands. "It's not stupid, right?"

Penguin shook his head.

"We lost almost everything to pirates," he pointed out. "Now we've become the very thing we hated. All because some scrawny kid bested us in a fight."

"When you put it like that, it really does seem stupid," Shachi laughed. His mirth was short lived, their conversation dredging up memories he liked to keep buried. From Penguin's own silence, he wasn't the only one.

The smoke that had risen from their village had been the first clue something was amiss, and like the naïve children they had been, they'd run back home, wanting to see what was happening, what they could do to help. Piracy had been a rare concern for the island, small and sparse enough not to have any resources a pirate crew would want, and only a couple of islands away from a major marine outpost. With piracy being a minimal concern, Swallow Island had been peaceful.

Naïve.

The execution of the Pirate King in East Blue had far-reaching consequences, even across the Red Line and into North Blue. Piracy had gone from a minor concern to the most frequent threat overnight, and the small island's complacency killed them.

They didn't have much, but what they'd had the pirates took. Material possessions were not enough to stifle their greed; before long they pushed further, harder, and the first shots were fired. The slaughter had been unnecessary; Swallow Island's inhabitants had no idea how to defend themselves and their possessions. The pirates just wanted to make a name for themselves as the captain proclaimed loudly that he would be the one to claim the One Piece.

To the young Penguin and Shachi, it was incomprehensible. The hail of bullets that greeted them as they careened back into the village to see what was going on, to find their families, left nothing but blood and agony in their wake. No-one escaped unharmed.

A bullet to the arm, the leg, skimming the side of the face and cheating death by a fraction of an inch. Immobilised, in agony, they were the lucky ones. The cries of their mothers, running to them amongst the deadly rain, the howls of their fathers, charging forwards to protect their families, all cut abruptly short in bloody gurgles as bullets found their marks, snuffing out the lives just as the wind howling through the shutters on a winter's eve had no respect for the candles that tried to burn.

The survivors had banded together after the pirates finally deigned to leave and continue on their quest for destruction and death, rebuilding their shattered lives as best they could. For children like Penguin and Shachi, it was a push in the wrong direction, towards fights and away from their old peaceful lives.

"But, you know," Penguin mused, pulling both himself and Shachi out of their unpleasant memories. "Law hates pirates, too. And Bepo. We're a crew of pirate-hating pirates. We're not looking for One Piece, fame or fortune."

"At least Law remembers who it is that ruined his life," Shachi mused. "We don't know who they were, or if they're even alive anymore."

"We'll know them if we see them," Penguin said confidently, returning to stitching his hat. "And if we never see them, that's no skin off our backs."

"That's true," Shachi conceded, jamming his hat back on his head and clutching at the rails as he threatened to overbalance. "Whoops!" He caught himself, hauling his centre of gravity back to where it should be, safely away from the edge of the long fall. Just because he could swim didn't mean he wanted to; the water looked cold.

"Besides, we were never going to be content cooped up on that island for the rest of our lives. At least being hypocrites makes life fun."

They shared a chuckle, looking up at the black flag flying proudly above their heads. Maybe it wasn't what they'd thought they'd be doing when they grew up, but they never had been ones to follow the rules.

Once again, Oda please give me more backstory for these two. Otherwise I'll just have to keep expanding on my own headcanon here...

Thanks for reading!
Tsari