After drinking at Blueno's bar with the other Galley-la foremen, Lucci inadvertently reveals details of the only official crime he had ever committed, and it was for Iceburg.

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, it belongs to Eiichiro Oda. However, the story belongs to me.

Notes: Writing from Lucci's perspective is interesting, obviously I want the reader to enjoy his internal dialogue but he can be quite arrogant at times. I'm trying to represent his own perspective of his personality as logical, unemotional and disdainful but we get hints here and there of something deeper... Things he doesn't necessarily recognise or want to recognise within himself just yet. The narrative is quite linear at the moment but that is by design. There are exciting plot lines and reveals ahead! At some point the storytelling will switch to be from the perspective of Iceburg.

The pristine canals of Water 7 glistened with the reflection of lit street lamps as the Galley-la group eventually emerged from Blueno's. At this time of night the waterside tavernas and street stalls did their best business. It was quieter on this walkway in particular, but passenger-bearing yagara bulls sped past towards the nearest market where the water was wide and deep enough for the unwieldy parade floats. It got darker here after hours than it ever had at Enies Lobby, but due to the nature of the paradise islands on the Grand Line the depths of night looked more like the blue-grey of stormy weather than a proper eventide. Lucci was used to this by now, but he sometimes yearned for the quiet dignity of a sky lit by nothing but stars.

And a bit of peace… He thought moodily to himself.

Water 7 was colourful and interesting, but it truly never stopped. There were always voices in the air, the hiss of meat being turned on skewers over open fire, the clink of glasses through open windows and the splash of fins and oars so frequent that after a while one barely even noticed them.

As he stepped over the threshold as the first to leave and onto the stone slabs of the sidewalk, his eye twitched at the racket the men were making behind him. Happily tipsy and full of the vigour that Water 7 men appeared to possess, Paulie and the others shouted over each other in order to be heard. Tilestone almost deafened them all with his hearty laughter as Lulu bumped into Paulie's back (who had stopped dead directly in the doorway when his denim jacket had caught on the handle). Kaku had played along perfectly with the drunkards of course, navigating every social cue with ease.

Lucci watched stonily as Kaku playfully grabbed a handful of Paulie's sleeve and freed him from the doorway, apparently trying to be "helpful". Paulie grinned and slung his arm around Kaku's shoulders.

"This guy-" Paulie announced gruffly, wobbling and patting Kaku's stomach with his other hand.

"This guy! Can drink !"

Kaku laughed as the others cheered their agreement behind them.

With his CP9 metabolism, Lucci knew that there was no way even a crate of beer would have much of an effect on Kaku. It was a testament to how good of an actor Kaku was that he could be the happy drunk with his colleagues, but Lucci abhorred how much fun he also seemed to have playing the part.

Lucci just couldn't understand it at all. Either Kaku was fully psychopathic knowing that he was duping these victims mercilessly or (much worse in Lucci's eyes) he was genuinely naive enough to forget they weren't actually his real friends. Lucci could believe it was the latter too. Kaku hadn't exactly been discreet with some of his abilities. He had more than pushed it when he had started jumping from building to building around the town as if he was flying.

Mountain wind? Oh please.

The brazen use of Soru and Geppou had been so obvious it made Lucci's teeth ache. He had not been happy about that at all , and had scolded Kaku at length in private.

Despite Lucci's aggressive warnings against blowing their covers and gaining the obvious disapproval of a commanding officer, Kaku hadn't seemed fazed in the slightest. He insolently pointed out that it was a bit too late to go back on it now. This had obviously infuriated Lucci, despite the fact he couldn't deny the logic of it. Lucci wondered if he should be worried that Kaku no longer seemed to fear him, or the repercussions of getting on his bad side.

The one small thing that Lucci didn't want to acknowledge was that he was actually very envious. It had been so long since he himself had been able to stretch his legs and full abilities properly. Watching Kaku zoom around in mid-air with all that freedom had gotten under his skin more than he liked. He missed the feel of the wind on his own face and the lightness of Geppou under his feet.

Lately, he had started to feel like a wild animal trapped in a cage that was altogether too small. He could feel his frustration welling up inside him into a monstrous lump that was becoming harder to ignore. The recent developments (and disappointments) with Iceburg, their hastily diminishing time remaining on the mission and his own turbulent emotions were beginning to take their toll.

"Good day today Lucci! I thought for sure we wouldn't get that frame finished, but we did!"

Lulu, who was able to carry himself decently even after more than a few drinks had casually levelled his pace with Lucci's as they started to make their way along the curb. Lucci barely cared to notice, but the older shipwright's calm and reasonable demeanour had always been the most tolerable of the foreman during his tenure. He was certainly Lucci's preferred company, second to not being spoken to at all.

Lucci nodded briefly, not looking at him. Hattori lifted a wing ready to mimic speech.

"Yes."

When Lucci offered nothing more, Lulu glanced sideways at him. Hattori blinked with one eye slightly after the other, then lowered his wing.

"Worrying about that crane? Don't. We would have dealt with anything, you know that."

Lucci furrowed his brows. He supposed he could understand why Lulu had made the assumption he was thinking about that. It was simply because Lulu had no idea what else Lucci had to think about.

Lulu was a perceptive sort, but only to the extent of his knowledge of the person he was walking beside. A very limited knowledge, in this case.

Lucci noted that the other man spoke gently, with measure. Lucci would have scoffed at the idea that Lulu was genuinely attempting to connect with him if he wasn't in the direct view of the others.

When Kaku glanced back at Lucci curiously having heard this exchange, Lucci knew he couldn't get away with not answering. Lucci inhaled, quickly searching for some words to form from the seat of his chest.

"I was thinking about our tethering pulleys." His thrown voice squeaked. "Considering that adverse instances of weather happen a lot here, we might benefit from integrating Iceburg's failsafe technology to the rope connectors."

Kaku raised an eyebrow, half incredulous, half impressed at the randomly informative answer.

Lulu rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he considered this, ignoring the honking of two yagaras that had inadvertently blocked each other's path and panicked pathetically.

Paulie turned. "What's up? You talkin' shop?"

As per usual, even a gutful of beers didn't stop the blonde's interest in shipwright matters.

Lulu let his hand fall back to his side as they turned the corner onto the parade canal.

"Lucci was thinking about something called "Iceburg's failsafe" for the tethering joins. What do you reckon, rope master ?"

Engineering discussion was one of the few circumstances in which Paulie was ever serious, despite Lulu's playful teasing. He screwed up his face in thought and it was clear he was doing some intense memory searching.

"Iceburg's failsafe?" He grunted after a second, at a loss.

Lulu and Kaku were also both looking back at Lucci questioningly, drawing blanks. Lucci disliked the scrutiny and regretted using this particular thought as a way of responding to Lulu's previous probing. Reluctantly, he began to explain. Hattori clicked his beak on his shoulder along with his words.

"It was one of his first ideas as a young man. He disregarded it back with Tom's Workers when it didn't contribute to the Puffing Tom design. It's complex but essentially involves a hard step splice with metal reinforcement. There would be a compound tackle system where the double running block only activates when the line tension exceeds the sheave. A reserve loop of rope deploys, catches."

This was the most Lucci had said all evening. The others stood in stunned silence as they listened, now on the corner of the open parade strip.

Paulie had pulled a cigar from his breast pocket. The match illuminated the architecture of his face in a flickering orange glow when he struck it and inhaled. It was sucked into hot glowing ashes and back through Paulie's lips, filling his lungs with spiced smoke.

They stood at the corner in an unspoken halt. Tilestone had approached a waterside market stall to loudly order two slow-roasted hocks of meat on the bone from a friendly oba-chan with no front teeth. They had automatically stopped to accommodate this without any objection. Tilestone was comically oblivious to what else was going on around him, as per usual.

Despite the activity and busyness of the floating night market, the space between the foremen was like a bubble, all of them now completely enveloped in the theory of "Iceburg's failsafe".

Kaku's arms were folded. Lucci wondered why he looked so unimpressed. But as thought this, he noticed that Paulie was also looking uncomfortable. All of them were quiet.

"What's a double block?" Lulu eventually asked with genuine interest.

Paulie took the time to exhale a long line of cigar smoke.

"What about dealing with friction?" He grunted.

Lucci reached behind his head and scratched his scalp, rearranging the bulk of his wavy hair to sit more sensibly on his shoulder, a sign of slight anxiety.

"It would be easier to explain with a diagram."

Kaku suddenly piped up. "Is this a published paper? I don't seem to remember coming across it."

Kaku's tone was light and inquisitive, but Lucci knew the young redhead well enough to realise this was a deception. They had both been assigned reading on Iceburg's prowess before they'd even become adults. This had involved articles, biographicals and witness statements, but more importantly literature that Iceburg himself had written on his shipwrighting experience, his theories for new technology and meticulously drawn architectural diagrams with ideas that were often awe-inspiringly progressive.

Even as a teenager Lucci had found the beauty of Iceburg's mathematics quite breath-taking. He would pour over the schematics late into the night, over and over again under his covers; his secret obsession, the comfort of a far away friend that was the only other person in the world that could see and treat the calculations with such care. Their prescribed reading hadn't been enough. He had needed more.

One fateful night at around age fourteen he had utilised his skills to creep out of his accommodation in the Tower of Justice and into Spandine's office (who was the chief of Cipher Pol at the time). Risking a great deal if he had been caught, he had broken through the various locks and measures that the dangerous chief had placed on his office which now belonged to his son, Spandam.

Disregarding the blackmailable records of several women that Spandine was apparently having an affair with, a top secret code key list and some private letters from someone called "Dr Vegapunk", Lucci had finally found what he had been looking for. A tattered case file that was full to bursting with documents crudely held together with a couple of strings simply labelled as "Project Pluton." Not wanting to linger but knowing he couldn't steal the whole thing, Lucci had grabbed a handful of the least important looking documents with Iceburg's name on and replaced the file.

As far as he was aware, this was the only actual crime against the World Government he had ever committed.

Back in his room, he devoured the content of the few pieces he had misappropriated with ecstasy: a ripped out diary page, a receipt for a small loan repayment to a wood merchant on the behalf of someone called Tom (who he now knew was Tom of Tom's Workers) and half crumpled hand drawn designs of Iceburg's failsafe- something he had apparently invented at just age sixteen.

It was remembering this that he suddenly realised that he just referenced something out loud that had never been released for public knowledge. Kaku narrowed his brown eyes slightly and Lucci could see the suspicion behind them. Lucci was mentally kicking himself- how could he have been so stupid? It wasn't like him to make such a fundamental error of judgement. He had been so lost in his thoughts about Iceburg and their mission that it had just come to him in the moment.

"I've never heard of it either." Paulie muttered through his cigar, which was now considerably shorter. He had been taking hard and frequent draws, distracted by his frustration that there could be a design by Iceburg that he had not known about.

Sensing the tension but not understanding why, Lulu put a smile on his face hoping to smooth over their exchanges. "Well, that sounds pretty interesting. Show us more about it tomorrow?"

Lucci nodded briskly and looked to the side, wanting nothing more than for this line of conversation to end.

With his usual misplaced timing Tilestone rejoined them, holding his large meat hocks in each hand by the bone like some kind of greasy candyfloss. He had one between his teeth, ripping out a huge chunk with impressive dental strength.

"THANKS FOR WAITING!" He bellowed through a full mouth.