Another budget report.
How annoying, but less annoying than some other things he could think of. 'It's actually been rather quiet lately.' Sengoku mused to himself as he scribbled away at the paperwork atop his desk.
*Crunch*
*Crunch*
*Crunch*
Well, relatively quiet.
Sengoku cast an annoyed glance out of the corner of his eye at his oldest and most annoying friend lounging across the large couch that spanned the length of his office, munching on a bag of rice crackers.
…It was his fourth bag. Three empty sat on his left side.
Eleven more un-opened sat at his right.
To this day, even after decades of knowing the man, Monkey D. Garp's appetite completely baffled him.
He was used to the buffoon though, so he could ignore that through time honoured and intensively honed practice.
The sides of his lips twitched up in a semblance of a small smile as he went back to his paperwork.
Yes, things had been quite blissfully quiet in the world for the most part. The annoying Emperors were keeping to themselves, the uppity warlords were content with where they were at the moment and even those blasted revolutionaries hadn't done a single thing of note for a while now.
And there was even few pirate crews making all that of a ruckus they couldn't put a boot to beyond a few upstarts that weren't really all that concerning.
…Well there was one who he was keeping an eye on out of interest, but that was less to do with the boys career as a pirate, and everything to do with how he ended up on the path he was now.
Well, Sakazuki had made a stink not long ago, he was quite wroth over something he was keeping his eye on not working out. A promising young lad going rogue and killing one of their vice admirals on the way out, but then Sakazuki was always raging about something.
Personally, while it was of course aggravating Sengoku wasn't personally invested in the situation like Sakazuki who had been planning on taking the boy as a student, he was talented for sure but so were a lot of people, and Graydle wasn't exactly deserving of his rank as a Vice Admiral in strength or achievement and in fact Sengoku would never have promoted him anywhere close to Vice Admiral if not for pressure from above.
'Either way,' Sengoku hummed to himself as he continued on with the budget report in front of him, a report on the construction and cost of a new fleet of battleships, 'The boy was given an incredibly large bounty to start, if he knows what's good for him he'll keep a low profile from now on and not bo-'
The doors to his office slammed open, "Fleet Admiral!" one of his marines entered, a panicked look on his face and carrying a small proko, an older variant of den den mushi that could pick up visual transmissions from cameko den den mushi, "We have a situation!"
…Sengoku sighed, 'I just had to tempt fate.'
Garp of course barely reacted to the interrupted, merely raising an eyebrow, before tossing his empty rice cracker bag aside and picking up another.
"Report." Sengoku said simply.
And resisted the urge to massage his temples.
The marine, an Ensign going by his uniform saluted him, a nervous look on his face, "Sir! We…we received a transmission from the 16th branch, in the East Blue." he reported.
Oh.
Sengoku felt his shoulders relax almost instinctually, if it was just from the East Blue it wouldn't be anything of real note. This lad was young, he probably panicked about some pirate making a name for himself and running straight here.
Well no matter.
"I see," Sengoku smiled at him welcomingly, the lad was probably incredibly tense being in a room alone with both himself and Garp, who for some reason all the younger generation idolized, 'Garp the Hero', what a laugh worthy reputation for him, "Go on son, what's happened?"
Even assuming someone decently strong did pop up, it wouldn't be anyone Smoker who was stationed at Logue Town couldn't handle. His devil fruit while far from the most powerful of Logia's, came with few weaknesses that could be abused without Haki, and so it was all but impossible for someone from the East Blue to defeat him.
"Sir…we assumed the transmission would be from Captain Nezumi who leads the 16th branch….but…" the young lad trailed off nervously.
Sengoku frowned, that hesitation obviously didn't mean good news. Had some pirate assaulted the base then or something and killed Captain…Nezumi?
"I assume Captain Nezumi is in some way, unable to call himself then?" Sengoku asked gently.
"Well yes….he's dead Fleet Admiral," the young man reported, grimacing, "But…it's who is calling that is the problem."
His eyebrows rose, "Go on?" he prompted.
He caught sight of Garp sitting up straight on the couch and paying attention. Odd.
What had caught his attention?
"It's Crimson Kaden sir!" the young marine blurted out, "The traitor, he's somehow made it all the way from the New World to East Blue already and killed everyone stationed at the 16th branch and is demanding to speak to you!"
Garp promptly relaxed for whatever reason.
While Sengoku's jaw dropped at the sheer audacity he just heard of.
"…Since when do we give in to demands from pirates, and traitors for that matter?" Sengoku replied on instinct.
A vein pulsed on his forehead. What sheer gall this little upstart had!
"That's funny, I thought you were quite used to bending over and taking it from pirates." a voice he was completely unfamiliar with echoed from the microphone of the den den mushi.
Garp snorted.
The vein on his forehead doubled in size, "You didn't cover the receiver?" he growled at the young marine reporting to him.
"H-he said if we did sir he'd attack and destroy another marine base!" the lad spluttered, fear in his eyes, "S-since he is a former marine I thought it wouldn't matter as much and save our comrades lives in the East Blue, sir!"
…Well he couldn't fault him for that.
Sengoku gave an aggravated sigh and waved his arm, "Bring it over here." he ordered, collapsing in his chair in annoyance.
"Sir!" the young lad saluted, before walking over and placing the den den mushi on his desk.
"Good work." Sengoku praised him, before dismissing the boy. And only when the boy left the room behind, did he press the button on the shell of the den den mushi and display the full transmission.
Light erupted from the den den mushi snail's eyes and displayed the feed of the one it was connected to, way over in the East Blue.
And Sengoku got his first look at the so called 'Crimson Kaden'. Outside of his bounty poster at least.
His first thought of the boy, and he was just a boy.
Was, that he was a cocky little brat.
Large and broad of build for his age, with golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He was a handsome youth for sure that would no doubt catch the eye of many girls later down the line.
Too bad his face was ruined by a cocky, sneering smirk on his face as he reclined on a chair, feet resting arrogantly atop a desk.
And in the corner of the room being displayed, he could see a corpse facing away from the screen, dressed in a white cap and a marine captain coat.
'That would be Captain Nezumi then.' Sengoku grit his teeth.
Had there had been a pirate with such gall, that after murdering the force of a marine base would call the fleet admiral themselves…to what? Mock them?
Such audacity!
"What is the meaning of this, boy?" Sengoku leaned forward and growled out, gnashing his teeth angrily, "You dare make a call here and make demands, after what you've done?"
"Oh, Garp's there as well, crazy," the bratty upstart had the gall to laugh, "Hey Vice Admiral Garp, I copied your Galaxy Impact, it's got a lame name though so I'm giving it a better name."
A second vein joined the first pulsing on Sengoku's forehead.
"Doubt it." Garp replied without missing a beat and continued eating his crackers.
"Indeed, highly doubtful." Sengoku scoffed, "It's not so simple a technique that some upstart brat like you could copy just by hearing about it and how Garp trains, punching battleships only gets you so far boy."
Yes, he'd heard about that. He hadn't paid it any special attention, because the amount of people who tried to copy Garp's inane training were uncountable, only one he knew of had actually taken to it and got anything out of it.
"How ruthless, no faith," the brat just laughed, "Well I suppose you're not wrong, I was bluffing a bit, I'm not quite there yet." he continued, pulling one of the hands he had crossed behind his head and curling it into a fist before them.
And Sengoku's eyes widened as he watched bolts of black and crimson red crackle into existence around the boys fist!
Conqueror's Haki!
And what was worse, it was controlled! An awakened conqueror! No wonder the boy was so god damn audacious.
God damn conquerors! They always had the absolute worst attitudes to deal with!
"I'm not quite at the point where I can infuse Conqueror's Haki into my attacks, yet, but I'll get there some day soon." he told them sounding quite proud of himself.
That caught both of their attention, "You know of it!?" Sengoku hissed in shock, and even Garp's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
The advanced usage of Conquerors Haki was a technique they did their best to suppress the knowledge of. And even then, even if one had the knowledge of it and was an awakened conqueror, it wasn't something one could just learn. They had to have the will for it and the talent, not even your 'standard' conqueror could do it reliably.
The amount of people in the world that could use the technique, could be counted on Sengoku's hands with fingers left over. And a few on the list were already dead.
Like Roger.
"Yup, I know a lot of things actually, a lot of things you and your bosses wouldn't like anyone to know about." the brat smugly replied.
Sengoku barely resisted the urge to allow his hands to clench into fists, "What exactly is your goal here, you little upstart traitor?" he growled out, "What do you actually hope to accomplish? You killed your fellow marines, went rogue and now you're calling me to brag about it? To brag about what a threat you seem to think you'll be in the future?"
In return, the upstart had the gall to merely shrug, "Well I wouldn't call the fools I killed marines, they were corrupt, this whole base I'm in now were working with the pirate Arlong and his fishman crew," he replied uncaringly, "And Graydle and his lot were treating the people like slaves and outright stealing from them and raping the women of the place they were supposed to protect. But that's neither here nor there, I'm not really going to go into much in that regard, I've got a mission after all, old man seagull."
…What!?
Sengoku wished he could be surprised about Graydle, but he wasn't. The sixteenth branch however was a surprise. The boy could be lying he thought for a second, before dismissing it. His casual uncaring statement as if fact, and what he said at the end tickled something in his brain.
"You have a mission?" he prompted the boy, "From who?"
"Classified," Kaden just laughed, before reaching towards his back where two blade hilts hung over his shoulders and unsheathed one, showing it off to him, "Enough about that though. Check out this sword of mine, pretty badass right? It's Sandai Kitetsu, I picked it up here in East Blue, a pretty awesome find to get a sword of this quality in the weakest sea, right?"
Sengoku stilled as he processed the boys words. Showing off the sword was completely random. It seemed to be completely in character for the boy to brag about it, after he led off with bragging about copying Garp's technique, and then flashily showing off his Conqueror's haki.
He deepened his voice a bit every time he said the word sword as well.
A high tier prospect of theirs being trained in Haki going rogue. Murdering two full bases of marines now. A classified mission.
'SWORD, huh?' Sengoku grit his teeth in realisation.
So the boy wasn't a traitor at all. And it at least explained why he was wearing a marine coat right now, albeit one dyed crimson red.
…Also one that belong to him at all. And a Vice Admiral's coat. Had he been promoted without his or anyone else's knowledge?
Who had signed off on this? Kong? The five elders?
How annoying. But it didn't matter right now. What did matter, was just exactly why the boy had to call him specifically. And so blatantly at that.
What exactly was his mission? And why would a boy so young accept it? Giving up his entire career and becoming a pirate, when his psyche profile very specifically went into how much he hated pirates.
"Yes, it's a very nice sword," Sengoku nodded at him, and made a show of huffing in annoyance, crossing his arms, "Now get back on subject and stop showing off like a child with a new toy, what exactly have you called me for? Beyond bragging like the child you so clearly are."
"Can't I? I'm just showing my superiority to you marines," Kaden outright sneered at him, "I simply found the fact you gave me such a low bounty absolutely insulting."
…Eh?
Was he wrong?
Or did his mission require him to be assessed as some form of high tier threat towards the World Government?
Was he perhaps trying to infiltrate the revolutionaries? No, that didn't fit the pirate angle. Was he trying to get scouted by some crew?
"Shut up boy," Sengoku shot back half heartedly, "You're nothing truly special and only live now because you fled, you're no true threat to us."
That did it, a scowl appeared on the boys face, "Big talk coming from you, as far as I'm concerned the real traitors are you all," Kaden snapped back, "What exactly do the marines accomplish huh? You all sit on your asses and chase weaklings, meanwhile the people of places like Wano are enslaved by the likes of Kaido and you're all to chickenshit to fight him and free those people. And for that, because they're not part of the united countries, bullshit. You're all just cowards too afraid to lose a single thing. You expect me to believe that between you, Garp, the three admirals, the vice admirals and everyone else you couldn't beat Kaido?"
A strange turn. Was he right then that the boy was trying to be scouted by a specific pirate crew. And why did he bring up Kaido specifically. Was that his mission?
"Defeating Kaido would be only one part of the problem!" Sengoku thundered back. Could they beat the Beast Pirates? Undoubtably, but- "Doing so in his own territory, on his own terms without leaving our backs open to the other three and losing much of our forces in the process is an entirely different matter!"
"A cowardly excuse," Kaden didn't miss a bit and fired back, almost like he had been practicing this exchange, "You're cowards that are afraid of the yonkou, I'm not. Not only that, the marines are rampant with pirate spies, and even the warlords you employ are completely working against you and you're just letting them get away it! You let them do whatever they want, because of your fear of the Four Emperors and wanting to use their power as backup."
Spies in the marines, and the immediately shifting to pointing blame at the warlords, and insulting them. So one or multiple of the seven warlords had spies within the marines that were sabotaging them in some form? Using them?
…As soon as the boy went rogue, he immediately targeted Graydle. So, then did that mean Graydle was one of such spies? And why exactly would he immediately go to East Blue? Unless Captain Nezumi and his branch were also traitors in cahoots with a warlord? But why would a warlord want to get involved with East Blue of all places?
There was a lot going on beneath the surface that he wasn't aware of. Traitors and spies galore and the one who was outed as a traitor by his own hands, was actually not a traitor and was at least partially on a mission to deal with them.
There was no evidence though. So nothing could be done by him legally.
Which was most likely exactly why the boy was in the position he was in now.
"Pointing fingers now are we?" Sengoku scoffed, "Such a childish thing to do. Go on then, tell me what of the seven warlords have infiltrated us with their subordinates then?" he fished for information.
"Don't worry about that, you don't need to know," Kaden smirked at him, the anger that was in him leaving almost immediately, "I'll deal with him in a few months from now, and once I do, you can be a good marine lapdog who's scared of the big bad four emperors and give that shiny cushy warlord title to me, I'll protect you from the big bad emperors."
One thing was for sure, the brat had a mouth on him. A cocky, arrogant mouth and a talent for being annoying.
'And it goes even deeper.' Sengoku frowned internally, thoughts racing. The focus on the Yonkou no doubt meant the boy had some form of mission that needed him to be involved with them in some form. He was also dealing with traitors and spies.
And his mission was to become a warlord of the sea. Strictly speaking, there was nothing stopping the warlords from challenging the Yonkou either. After all, they were still pirates. So the boy needed the reputation and power of a warlord for his mission then?
…Which meant the whole reason he was calling him now and being as abrasive as he was, was to let him know in advance for when he brought down whatever warlord he was talking about before, and to increase his notoriety to give him a grander reputation on the seas as well.
"You have balls boy," Sengoku outwards 'grudgingly' praised the boy, "Calling the fleet admiral himself to talk this nonsense. Don't think you'll get away with this lightly, I'll make it known well how much your head is wanted."
"Sounds fun," the boy merely smirked at him, unafraid, "And here I even went to the bother of taking a few heads while I was here to show you how good a candidate I'd be." he added, sheathing his sword over his back once more, before curling one of his fingers.
An orange cloud with something odd atop it floated into view from the other side of the room.
That odd something being heads, seven of them with bounty posters nailed into the forehead.
Boo Jack - 3,200,000 Beri
Skunk One - 6,000,000 Beri
PinJoker - 9,900,000 Beri
Bear King - 11,600,000 Beri
Kuroobi - 9,000,000 Beri
Chew - 5,500,000 Beri
Arlong - 20,000,000 Beri
Sixty five million or so beri in bounties, from seven top of the line pirates at least as far as the East Blue went.
'I didn't even know Arlong was in East Blue.' Sengoku grimaced, he and his crew had completely disappeared off of their radar years ago after they split from the Sun Pirates under Jinbei.
They weren't exactly high up, but the fact the boy had managed to hunt them all in just a few days, maybe even less than a day considering it was only a week ago he was still in the New world-
It was a testament to his strength and competency.
"I found Arlong here and his pansy crew terrorizing a few islands of people in East Blue they enslaved, making all kids pay 50,000 beri a month tand adults 100,000, if they couldn't meet it, they got killed by him and loser crew," the boy, Kaden snorted, waving at said fishmans head, "They were pretty much like a parody of those bubble headed freaks who like to cosplay as gods. It was disgusting, so I killed them. And then I killed all of marines over here in the sixteenth branch when I learned they had been being paid off by Arlong to hide what they were up to."
The boy then met Sengoku's eyes, "Do give Jinbei my regards, I might respect him, but these pieces of trash deserved to die." the boy said pointedly.
….He pointedly cut off any suspicions on Jinbei. So, a coincidence then as far as Arlong went, and the boy was saying it wasn't Jinbei that had his eyes on the East Blue?
"Well either way, I'm getting bored now so I'm going now, I've got some things to take care of here before I really get down to business," the boy snorted, "That was all I wanted to say, that you all suck and are pretend marines, I'm the real deal unlike you clowns, so you better give a real proper ally of justice like myself proper consideration going forward."
And before Sengoku could say a thing, the boy cut off the feed and left him staring at the blank wall.
"Well, wasn't that something wahahahahaha!" Garp laughed, "What a cheeky brat."
"Oh shut up," Sengoku snapped at him, head swivelling around to scowl at his oldest friend, and marched over to him, "Your personal attack name is completely unimpressive, just like the boy said, Galaxy Impact? Grow up Garp."
And then he snatched the freshly opened bag of rice crackers in his hands, the last one - somehow he'd eaten the rest of the bags bar this one over the process of that aggravating call - and proceeded to dump the entire bag into his mouth and chew them down.
"MY CRACKERS!?" Garp gaped, "You bastard Senny!"
Sengoku ignored his best friends outrage at him eating his food and weaved to the side of a massive fist lashing out at his face, 'On top of everything else…that cloud.' he frowned, forearm coming up automatically on instinct to block another punch that shook the the entire room while his thoughts continued on.
That was perhaps the most subtle part of that entire transmission. If any of it could be called subtle at all. Honestly the boy was about as blunt as Garp, it was a wonder he was the one chosen at all for this mission for SWORD.
Subtle he was not.
But perhaps that may have actually been just why he was chosen? Because he was bold, loud and proud. And he of course stood out maddeningly.
But what was that devil fruit? Only one devil fruit capable of controlling clouds like those came to mind, but it was currently in the hands of a monstrously strong person who was definitely not dead.
If he had died the whole world would know. It would be world news and-
The transmission from the den den mushi suddenly flickered back on and Kaden came back into view, while he and Garp had their arms locked together and were squabbling like children, "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, you can take this as the announcement of my newly formed pirate crew, the Dragon God pirates," he helpfully informed, "Later, cowards have fun with...your little old man lover spat." he laughed, sticking the finger up at them-
Before the transmission promptly flickered out once more.
Alright, that did it. SWORD or not. Actually fully loyal marine or not. Doing this all for the mission or not.
"I hate that upstart kid." Sengoku huffed.
…Dragon God pirates huh? Control over physical clouds huh? That told him all he needed to know about what Devil Fruit he had gotten his hands on.
Fucking Vegapunk.
Alright, here we are back again lads and ladies with chapter uno to the cinco, to the one to the five, that's right, chapter fifteen yaaaay.
Honestly, I was torn on what to update on here today? Systematic Huntsman? To Go Even Further Beyond? Systematic Shinobi? Systematic Shinobi: Multiverse Mayhem? In the end I settled with this simply because it had been a while and we're not far off 4k follows on it, so should break it with this chapter hopefully. Well either way, there's advanced chapters for all of them up on the Pa-atreon if you wanna read ahead, and of course I should be updating something on there today anyway as well since it's the 1st of a new month.
Welp moving, what can I say about this chapter? Refuge in audacity? It's kind of like that, but more Kaden taking advantage of something he should have no knowledge of by far in the marines and taking advantage of how secretive it is. He's abusing it to manipulate Sengoku into increasing his bounty so he can be a viable warlord candidate once he takes down Crocodile, but also keep the actual real higher up powers off of his back like Vice Admirals, with Sengoku keeping them off of his back he's much more free to do as he pleases. Kaden thought he was being clever and subtle. He was not. He might have been a little clever, but he's about as subtle as a brick to the face and a cock slap across the arse. But well, at the end of the day results matter, and he's got big ol' Senny convinced now he's still a loyal marine, albeit one that has a real cheeky mouth on him.
Welp, that's all for now I guess.
Oh wait, I'm probably gonna get a few people complaining about him showing off his devil fruit and not being secret and blah blah. He's not exactly...not gonna use his devil fruit I'll sat in advance, in fact he's gonna be using it quite a bit obviously so it would come out quickly anyway, there's no point hiding it.
Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.
