[EotB] 056. From the Decks of the World (Patreon)

14 years, 11 months, 24 days before Romance Dawn (1524.05.12)

“Only alive, huh?”

Sengoku nodded. “By direct order of the Five Elders.”

A few days had passed since that night, and the city was already under reconstruction. The attack had badly spooked the city’s inhabitants, though, and they’d demanded an admiral take command of the garrison, at least until they could be assured the threat had passed.

Sengoku had drawn the short straw, apparently, so Garp had decided to pay his old friend a visit, by unceremoniously inviting himself into his borrowed office.

He groaned and leaned back in his seat, packet of crackers in hand. “These crumbling fossils are dipping their toes into this nonsense too, now? Ugh. They should be put out to pasture, already.”

Sengoku gave him a flat look. “Watch your words, Garp. And what did you expect, anyway? Marie-Joie was attacked. Several World Nobles were murdered. Even a Knight of God was... neutralized. That demands a response from the highest authority in the world.”

“’Neutralized’, right. What’s up with that, by the way? I was sure their misbegotten kind healed from every injury without a scratch.”

Sengoku sighed again. “So was I. This appears to be an unexpected exception. The current theory boils down to an unfortunate interaction between the power of the Love-Love Fruit and the source of the Knights’ immortality.”

“Which is?”

“Who knows?”

“Hmph. Keep your secrets, then.”

“It’s not a ‘secret’. I’m telling you I just don’t know.”

“Right, whatever. But an ‘unfortunate interaction’, huh?” Garp snickered to himself and picked a handful of crackers out of his bag before stuffing it in his mouth. He made sure to let plenty of crumbs sprinkle over his seat, just to watch the vein pulse at Sengoku’s temple. “That’s gotta sting. Walking around with a swollen head like that, only to get taken out by a little kid.”

Calderon, who’d also fallen victim to that Fruit and whose office this was supposed to be, unfortunately took some splash damage from that insult, but honestly, he deserved it too. Boy should have been more careful.

It was kinda pathetic to be petrified so easily. Garp himself had met the girl’s gaze head-on, and he hadn’t felt a thing!

They should all just train more.

“But anyway,” he went on, “if they want the kid so bad, the Knights should just get off their asses and hunt her down themselves, instead of having the navy do it! Only-alive bounties are a real pain in the ass to catch! You have to hold back constantly, and they know it.”

Sengoku shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. I know for a fact that the Five Elders have ordered the Knights not to approach her, under any circumstances.”

“Pfft, are you serious?!” When Sengoku nodded somberly, Garp spit out his half-chewed crackers and burst into laughter loud enough to shake the walls. “BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

That was hilarious! An entire order of hoity-toity Knights of God, scared shitless by a little kid a fifth Garp’s age! All talk and no trousers, the whole lot of them!

“Stop laughing, Garp! This is serious!” He looked down at the bounty poster on his desk. “The girl is the only one who can turn Saint Shaylyn back to life, now. We need to capture her, ASAP.”

Garp waved dismissively. “Well, it’s no skin off my back if the dumbass stays a hunk of stone for a while.” Calderon, though, was another matter. Then, a sudden idea struck. “Hey, what about Vegapunk? Isn’t he trying to duplicate Devil Fruits or something, these days? Maybe he could do something about all this.”

Sengoku pursed his lips. “You mean, duplicate the Love-Love Fruit for someone else and have them dispel the petrification?”

“Yeah!”

But Sengoku shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. It’s already been proven that the current user of that Fruit can only un-petrify the people they have themselves petrified. Passing the Fruit on to the next bearer – or duplicating it – wouldn’t work. Still, asking Vegapunk might not be a bad idea. The man is a genius, after all. I’ll kick it up the chain.”

“Huh. Girl really has them by the short hairs, then, huh?”

“Quite. Let’s just hope that, once we capture her, she can be... convinced... to cooperate and retract her power.”

Garp snorted gracelessly, both at the euphemism and at the wishful thinking. “Good luck with that.”

Sengoku scowled at him. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“She kinda reminds me of Dragon, is all.”

“Garp...” Sengoku said, voice thick with warning.

“What? I can’t even talk about my boy, now? Is that how it is?”

“Considering what ‘your boy’ is up to, these days, I’d really rather you not mention him, no. But that’s not the problem, here. You talked to the girl?!”

Oh. Oops.

Maybe, Garp shouldn’t have said that.

He looked away and whistled a few notes. “No?”

The heat of Sengoku’s glare warmed up the room. “Unbelievable. I had pretty much guessed something was up when I read that piece of poorly written fiction you called your report, but...” Seemingly lost for words, Sengoku slammed a fist onto his desk. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just done your job, you moron!”

Garp stuck a finger up his nose. “Me? I didn’t do nuthin’!”

“Exactly! You did nothing! You were right there in the city! How could a teenage girl, no matter how talented, possibly escape you?!”

“I wasn’t in the city! I was in the Red Port buying a birthday gift for my grandson! And then, I was busy dealing with the fire!”

“Yes, but then, you responded to a call for reinforcements and headed out to capture the culprit.” Sengoku pointed an accusing finger in Garp’s direction. “Don’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes, you dumb bastard! Everyone else might have taken you at your word, somehow, but I know you! And I know a fib when I hear one!”

“She fell off the Red Line! What was I supposed to do? Jump off after her?”

“Yes! Or have you forgotten your Moon Steps?”

Garp scoffed. “Hey, now. Do you have any idea how tough on the knees Moon Step is? I’m not so young anymore.”

“Maybe we should put you out to pasture, then!”

Garp burst out of his seat and tossed his crackers at Sengoku. “Those are fighting words! Take them back!”

Sengoku jumped out of his own seat and caught the bag of crackers mid-air, before tilting his head back and emptying the whole thing into his mouth. He ignored Garp’s outraged shout and threw the empty bag aside. “Bring it on, you fool! And stop spitting crumbs all over my office!”

♦♦♦

The next day, Sengoku had to move to a different, less destroyed office.

♦♦♦

Captain Osmond pulled his pipe out of his mouth and stared at the newspaper, freshly delivered by news coo straight to the deck of the Bent Cutter.

“Huh. Well, goddamn.”

What had the kid said, back then? That she was ‘looking for two someones’, or something like that? Osmond wasn’t sure whether this was her finding these two someones, or the opposite.

He had been kind of worried, seeing Hancock head off into Sabaody, deliberately looking for trouble. He’d told her to be careful, that slavers would be very interested in a pretty girl like her.

Maybe, he should have been worried for everyone else on the archipelago.

Osmond pulled out the sheaf of bounty posters inserted among the pages of the newspaper and looked at her picture.

Well, she’d have a lot more than mere slavers after her, now, but she looked like she could handle it.

Heh. Maybe he should show this to Dalian. Osmond’s youngest recruit had been pining for Hancock ever since she first boarded the Bent Cutter. His reaction would be funny, when he realized that his already unattainable crush was now one of the most infamous criminals in Paradise.

♦♦♦

Reynard lay in the musty bed that had come with his cheap hotel room, arms crossed under his head, absently tracking the footsteps of one of the staff walking down the hallway outside.

Even while resting, it was hard to set aside the lessons in situational awareness – or was that ‘sheer paranoia’? – that had been drilled into him over the years.

That was all background, though, something he did almost unconsciously, at this point. Instead, his thoughts were on the newspaper lying on the bedside table.

There was an opportunity there, he thought.

Eventually, he sat up and leaned over to riffle through his canvas bag, looking for his transponder snail. Once he found it, he called a number he’d long since memorized.

“Silent Wave Trading Company, how may I help you?” a chirpy woman answered.

“I’d like to make a delivery to the four corners of the world. East, south, north, west, north, east.”

There was a pause before the voice lost all of its cheer. “Hold,” it ordered.

Reynard waited a good thirty seconds before the snail produced a series of quiet clicks, and a new voice came through. It was a man’s voice, deep, stentorian. It couldn’t have been called chirpy to save its life. It also crackled with the faint distortion characteristic of a white snail’s anti-eavesdropping field.

“You’re calling ahead of schedule,” the new voice said, and Reynard felt his spine instinctively straighten at the sound of it.

“Yes,” he said. “But I wanted to report a potential recruitment opportunity.”

“...I’m listening.”

♦♦♦

Tap, tap, tap...

Donquixote Doflamingo sat at his desk aboard the Numancia Flamingo, his eyes closed, a finger tapping absently at his desk. In the privacy of his cabin, his usual grin was in abeyance as he considered his next steps.

Someone had decided it would be a good idea to burn down his auction house on Sabaody, and kill his employees.

Doflamingo didn’t tolerate attacks on his businesses, but he had better shit to do than to head to Paradise and investigate the situation himself. Between building up his Underworld contacts, looking for the Op-Op Fruit, securing smuggling routes, recruiting more talent for his crew... His time was in short supply.

Fortunately, that was what subordinates were for.

Doflamingo opened his eyes and looked up at Vergo. The other man – his oldest friend; the only brother he cared to acknowledge, despite Rocinante’s recent return – stood patiently on the other side of the desk, waiting for his king to gather his thoughts.

“Vergo, I have a job for you,” he said finally, then paused a moment. “Actually, wait, do you have any outstanding tasks, right now?” Doflamingo didn’t think so, but better make sure. They were running so many different schemes at the same time; it was sometimes hard to keep track of them all.

Surprisingly, Vergo nodded. “I do. I need to find my lost sunglasses. I may accidentally have misplaced them, but I suspect Trebol hid them from me as a prank.”

“...Vergo, they’re on your face, right now.”

Without a shift in expression, Vergo raised a hand to lift his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “So they are,” he said blandly. “In that case, I’m free. What task did you have for me, Doffy?”

Doflamingo held in a sigh at his partner’s absentmindedness and explained the situation. “Get to Sabaody. Find out who was responsible, and make an example out of them.” He reached for the newspaper and bounties waiting on the side of his desk. “This... might just be a coincidence. Or it might not.”

Vergo flipped through the bounty posters and stared at them for a moment, his face carved from stone. “Understood.”

Doflamingo leaned back into his chair and stared silently at Vergo for a moment. “Once you get back, I think it’ll be time to finally set things in motion.” He knew it was a lot to ask, and though Vergo would obey him regardless, he still felt the need to reiterate his reasons. “We need a man in the navy, and you’re the best candidate.”

As expected, Vergo simply nodded stoically.

“If I depart from the crew,” he commented after a beat, “I will no longer be able to discharge my duties as Corazon. You will need a new Heart seat.”

“I assume you have a suggestion?”

“Rosinante.”

Doflamingo felt a frown settle onto his face. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his younger brother, exactly, but... Well, this might serve as a good test of his reliability, if nothing else. See how much of their worthless father he truly had in him.

In the end, if that was what Vergo wanted, Doflamingo could grant him that much.

“As you wish. The name is yours, and yours to pass on.”