Chapter Text
The moon filtering through the window gave his room a soft, washed-out kind of light, sitting lightly on sterile surfaces and blankets, and casting pale shadows on the unexpected increase in occupants that had arrived earlier in the afternoon. Like this, Rosinante could almost pretend that there was nothing left to worry about, such was the illusion of peace.
Almost.
Law had fallen asleep still tucked underneath Rosinante’s arm, fighting his clear exhaustion the entire way until it inevitably caught up with him. His friends had gone under over an hour before him, huddled together with little Bepo at the center on the thin rug.
Rosinante had mused about waking them and finding them a more comfortable berth than a hospital room floor, but Law had stopped him, implying that they’d had much worse places to spend the night in the past. The statement would have concerned him more than it already did, but Rosinante had seen the signs of neglect on the children and the wary way they made sure to never be too far apart from each other. He wasn’t going to push them more than necessary.
For now, he’s happy to just lie here, even if sleep is escaping him. Law’s breathing is even and strong; far stronger than he remembers, with none of the concerning rattling that had plagued his lungs the last time they’d seen each other. It helps, more than he can say; he’d never admit it out loud, but he’d been terrified Tsuru’s search would turn up nothing, and that he’d be wondering for the rest of his life if there was an unmarked grave somewhere in the North Blue, a silent monument to his failure.
“He’s a lot more endearing when he’s asleep, I see.”
Rosinante can’t help but chuckle as Sengoku makes his way quietly into the room, carefully sidestepping the pile of teenagers that were lightly snoring near the door. “Law’s a tricky one,” he acknowledges, glossing over just how many layers there really were to that statement. “He’s either the lightest sleeper you’ve ever met, or he’ll sleep through cannon fire. Looks like tonight it’s the latter.”
“It’s to be expected, I suppose,” Sengoku says, settling down in the chair he normally occupied when he came to visit. “Cross-ocean transit is never the smoothest trip, and we don’t kit our warships out with comfort in mind.”
“He’s actually a very good sailor,” Rosinante protests, even though there is nothing about what Sengoku had said that was technically untrue. “Clever hands, good with the lines, an absolute stickler for shipboard rules, you’d think he was getting graded on it or something—”
“Rosinante,” Sengoku says gently. “You do not have to justify the boy’s presence to me. It’s fine.”
The iron cage of stress that had been keeping Rosinante’s heart trapped between its bars loosens, and Rosinante slumps further back into the nest of pillows keeping him upright. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to hear those words until just now. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, there were always going to be conditions to this arrangement.
Sengoku looks tired, Rosinante thinks. It could just be that literal years had passed since Rosinante had spent this much time in his presence, but he’d been thinking these past few weeks how much older the man looks. Worn down, and, while by no means less sharp than he remembers, beset by some sort of melancholy.
Was that his fault? It had been hours since Law and his little posse had shown up at Rosinante’s door, fresh from their meeting with Sengoku. Had Sengoku been sitting in his office since then, mulling over his options? Rosinante hated doubting his adoptive father, but Sengoku had devoted his life to the Marines, and Rosinante’s actions had spit in the face of that. With every second Sengoku had failed to show up at his door that afternoon, after presumably hearing all the sordid details from Tsuru, his anxiety had grown, gnawing at the edges of his consciousness like a parasite.
But Sengoku just sighs, slumping back in his own chair. “I will admit to being…concerned. And confused, or at least I was at first.” He smiles, a soft, wistful sort of thing. “But then I remembered that one day I went out on a call and came back with a child, and all I got for months on end was questions. ‘Why, why, why,’ was all I heard from most people in those days, and the fact that I could never give them a concrete answer that satisfied them wasn’t acceptable. The child was a distraction, some said. Others claimed I was wasting my time.”
“Kong still thinks I’m a waste of time.”
“Hush,” Sengoku chides. “My point is, is that sometimes there’s going to be no explanation that people will accept. You just know the way things have to go in your gut, and you follow that. We praise that sort of instinct most times in the Marines; we call it a sign of leadership, and of good sense. And yet somehow, if someone else makes a choice we don’t understand, we do not consider it to be near as valid as one we had made ourselves.”
“So,” Sengoku finishes. “While I will not pretend to know what drove you to this choice in particular, I cannot sit here and say it was wrong. Because even if I had all the facts—and I have been given many in the past few hours—I did not see what you saw that made you choose this boy. I might never see it. But you did, and it’s done, and while I might wish the circumstances were different, they are what they are, and I can accept that and help or just be another obstacle. And that isn’t even a choice.” He smiles, his eyes crinkling gently at the edges. “Besides; it looks like removing him would take some doing. He looks quite attached.”
“I think he didn’t think he could trust this was real,” Rosinante says in a hushed voice, glancing down at the topic of conversation. Law had curled up carefully against his side, his head resting just over Rosinante’s heart. The roots of his hair look darker than he remembers it being before, now that he’s looking. Another sign that his health was recovering. “But that’s understandable, I suppose.”
“What reasons would he have to think he was being led on?”
“Aside from the fact that he hates the Marines with every fiber of his being? I lied to him,” Rosinante admits, running one finger down Law’s shoulder. He’s warm, though how much of that is due to the cuddling is anyone’s guess. Maybe his circulation had gotten better, too. “First about being a marine, and then about what Doffy would surely do when he caught up to us. Law’s trust is a fragile thing; frankly, I’m surprised he was willing to talk to me again.”
Sengoku goes deathly still.
“You knew?” he says, his voice barely audible, and Rosinante wants to flinch back from the raw pain in his voice. “Rosinante. What possessed you to put yourself in that kind of position?”
“How could I not?” Rosinante fires back. “The world had been so unkind, and he’s so smart, has so much to offer. I received a helping hand once, and it changed my entire life. Why shouldn’t I offer the same chance to another if given the opportunity? Besides—at that point you-know-who had already ratted us out to Doffy, so my options were limited.”
Sengoku doesn’t flinch at his allusion to Vergo, which confirms what Rosinante had suspected: Tsuru had told him everything she’d managed to get from Law. That meant he was here despite the fruit, despite Law’s origins, and despite Rosinante not speaking up about a clear threat sooner.
Oddly enough, that’s actually comforting.
“And what if you had actually died?” Sengoku counters. “What then? You know intimately, more than anyone should, what happens when a child experiences a traumatic death. From the sound of things, this boy has experienced several. What would it have done to him if you’d gone the same route?”
Rosinante freezes. “I—”
But he’d be free. He’d be free of Doffy and the Amber Lead and anything else that would hold him down. He could move forward, start his life anew with a fresh slate.
…couldn’t he?
“I am relieved you are alive, Rosinante,” Sengoku says fervently. “More than I can possibly say. I don’t think you’ve had all the necessary conversations you need to have with that boy yet, but I will not hound you about this any longer. Seas knows I will be thanking your lucky stars every day for the rest of your life that Tsuru was in a position to rescue you. But I think you need to take a long, hard look at your actions. If you are so intent on saving Law, you have to remember to take his feelings into account. Just because you have faith in his strength of character does not mean you can’t also be the thing that finally breaks him. Look at him,” he says, gesturing at Law once more. “He clearly loves you. Isn’t your being around going to be more beneficial to him than any sacrifice you could make on his behalf? Aside from his little gang of hooligans here, he doesn’t seem like he has much in the way of attachments to people.”
Rosinante latches on to the chance to change the conversation like, well—a dying man, shoving the implications of everything Sengoku’s said out of his brain for the time being. Seas, but he could use a cigarette. “Even I didn’t expect those three,” he chuckles awkwardly, trying to sound as unbothered as possible. “Though I don’t think Bepo qualifies as a hooligan. Jury’s out on the other two, but he’s quite polite. He liked your maps, by the way.”
Sengoku doesn’t push him on the change in subject. “Good taste, then, for a child. I don’t suppose you got the story about these three? Tsuru only said that she thought it more beneficial to bring them along rather than leaving them on Swallow.”
Rosinante nods. “The two older boys—Shachi and Penguin—are a pair of local orphans. They mostly seem to have survived by sticking to each other like glue and subsisting on whatever they could catch and sell at Swallow’s fish market. I’m also guessing they performed the odd shake-down of travelers if they thought they could get away with it, because apparently Law met all three of them while they were harassing Bepo. Law took umbrage to the bullying and—hold on.” He snaps his fingers and summons a bubble of silence around them, ignoring the disapproving look that Sengoku gives him for pushing himself. “—and disconnected their legs from the rest of their bodies with his devil fruit.”
Sengoku blinks. “I thought the Ope-Ope no Mi was a medical devil fruit. That sounds like some variation on whichever one Roger’s little clown boy had.”
“In Law’s own words, ‘an amputation is a medical procedure.’ But it apparently causes no pain and the affected body parts can be seamlessly reattached. Law alluded to doing something similar to get the Amber Lead out of his body, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about the process, so I didn’t press him. And the boys assured me that the experience was more mentally scarring than anything else. Ever since then, they’ve been inseparable. Their own words.” He pauses. “Well, Shachi and Penguin’s own words, anyway. Law spent most of that conversation snarking at them.”
“Well, I’ve never pretended to understand adolescents,” Sengoku mutters. “I don’t think we’re meant to. Tsuru said the mink child was looking for his brother, but I’m not sure we can do much about that without knowing where he was going. The Marines have no contact with Zou, and though ships in the New World have certainly sighted it before, chances of getting him back there are very slim.”
Rosinante sighs. “I was afraid of that. Well, at least we can be sure he’ll be well taken care of here. I know they said they were all supposed to be enrolled in the training program, but who oversees that now? Not Matterly; he was about ready to retire when I left for the North Blue, and he’d been doing it since before I took part in the program.”
“No, last I heard he was enjoying his pension back home with his grandkids,” Sengoku says. “We don’t have anyone permanent for the position right now; too much pirate activity means we really don’t have the resources to devote a skilled officer to simply training children. Usually, the officers in charge of basic training will bring them along with the new recruits and give them a lighter version of whatever drills they’re running that day. Occasionally a higher-ranking officer might stop by to give a demonstration or two; Garp loves doing that, and I imagine he will make a concerted effort to meet your boy here as soon as he makes it back from the East Blue. You know how he is.”
Rosinante winces. “Yes,” he agrees. “Which is why we should probably do that in private; if Garp treats him anything like he did me when I was little, he’ll try picking him up and then Law will go on the attack, and these three will probably feel compelled to assist.”
Sengoku blinks and looks down at Law again. “Somehow, I doubt Garp will have too much trouble with that. You haven’t been subjected to as many stories about his grandson as I have. If anything, he might find it endearing. Especially if the boy gets a good hit in.” Sengoku chuckles. “Which I’d honestly pay to see. Law looks like he could use a good meal or twenty. Not the strongest looking child I’ve ever met, that’s for certain.”
“Yes, but he’s flipped me before,” Rosinante points out. “It’s less a strength thing and more an indecently good understanding of momentum.” He shakes his head. “But I think otherwise that arrangement should work fine. Are any of the current trainers Northerners?”
Sengoku shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Well, Tsuru told you where he’s from, right?” At Sengoku’s nod, he continues. “Law’s got an accent. He’s pretty good at hiding it, especially when he’s not speaking a Northern language, but when he gets tired or upset it gets much stronger. And I don’t want him to accidentally out his origins because a northern-born officer recognizes his particular way of speaking. Flevance hasn’t been gone long enough that people have forgotten what its people sounded like.”
“Ah, good point,” Sengoku says, and seems to consider for a bit. “Most people from the Blues do basic training in their own seas, so its mostly officers stationed here that are of concern. Tsuru already knows, so I think the only other officers of concern are Vice Admirals Borsalino and Sakazuki. Borsalino’s mostly assigned to guarding Vegapunk these days, so he’s rarely around, and Sakazuki only tends to be on base for as long as it takes to resupply before he’s off on his next assignment. With that in mind, I think your biggest concerns are going to be intelligence agents, and they usually have very little to do with new recruits unless one shows aptitude towards their kind of work. Just make sure you tell the boy to be careful.”
“Already did,” Rosinante confirms. That’s a better outcome than he was expecting, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the danger was still very real. Duty rosters changed all the time, and Law didn’t know which people to avoid yet. “About that, and about not using his devil fruit. Which I know is going to be the real hard part; I remember how much a new devil fruit wants to be used. He’s already tried to offer to use it on me, and I had to stop him. And with the medical training he’s going to be getting, the temptation is probably going to be really high.”
“Has he met your doctor yet?” Sengoku asks. “I didn’t see him around when I walked through.”
“No, but he did scare the shit out of the nurse who came to change my IV for the evening,” Rosinante chuckles. “Sat up in bed and started grilling her the second she walked through the door. I didn’t even understand some of the terms he used. I don’t think she’s going to be willing to come back in here without a spray bottle.”
“Yes, he struck me as a bit of a terror,” Sengoku remarks wryly. “Insulted me in my own office, even. I’d be interested in having a proper conversation with him once he’s settled in and calmed down a bit. Will he be only doing medical work, or will he be joining his friends for some of the camp program?”
“The latter, I think,” Rosinante says. “He’s incredibly competitive, and not very good at sitting still. And he was going on and on about how proper exercise was vital to helping him recover from his illness. Maybe we can work out a split time arrangement or something.”
“I’m sure that’s possible,” Sengoku says. “If only to give your doctor a break. Good medical staff is hard enough to find without running the ones we’ve got into the ground.”
“Now,” Sengoku continues, his voice shifting to something sterner. “I have to make this damn report to Kong, and you need to tell me everything that’s going on. Vergo, Doflamingo’s plans—all of it. We need to determine what we need to report and what we need to hide, and what the official story for all this will be, and then we need to stick to those stories like glue.” He grimaces. “I know you need your sleep, but the sooner we have this sorted the sooner the powers that be will start looking the other way.”
“I can do that,” Rosinante sighs. “It’s not like I was getting any sleep anyway.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Sengoku grumbles, pulling a familiar-looking paperweight out of his pocket. “Now drop your devil fruit. This is going to take far longer than you can keep that up for the time being.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dawn is barely beginning to threaten to breach the eastern skyline as Sengoku places the folder with Rosinante’s full report on Kong’s desk.
“Well,” his superior huffs, eyebrows inching upwards towards his receding hairline. “When I got on your case about the debrief, I hadn’t expected it to be so…thorough.” He flicks a finger to open the file, which is nearly two inches thick. “And we’re sure this is all accurate?”
“Rosinante was undercover for roughly four years,” Sengoku points out. “And during that time our communications, due to necessity, were brief. I chose not to push him into making his report too early because I wanted to make sure he was as cogent as possible and firm in his recollection of the facts before it went into any official documents. Considering the target of the investigation, I think caution is warranted; I do not want Doflamingo to be able to squirm out from under the burden of proof Rosinante went so far to acquire on a technicality.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Kong muses, idly leafing through the pile of neatly collated data. “Quite a troublesome family, the Donquixotes. No matter where they live.”
Sengoku recognizes the jab for what it is and remains at attention. That earns him another raised eyebrow, but if Kong is planning on pushing his boundaries today, Sengoku has no plans to let him feel he’s won the interaction.
Kong had never been a fan of anything that he felt took his soldiers’ attention away from the mission of the Marines; he’d never married or had children himself, and while Sengoku knew he wasn’t opposed to familial bonds on principal, he had always found children on base to be a hindrance. Young trainees or approved mentorships were one thing; that was about educating the next generation of Marines. Eight-year-olds who were scared of guns, men in uniform, and raised voices were quite the opposite.
As a result, he’d not been terribly enthused when Sengoku—then a vice admiral—had brought a terrified child who also happened to be an exiled Celestial Dragon back to Marineford. And while Sengoku had proven that it certainly hadn’t affected his own dedication to the job, and Rosinante had served with distinction since he made the decision to enlist, Kong was very much the sort of person who had a hard time letting go of first impressions.
It made him, in Sengoku’s opinion, fundamentally flawed for the position he held. A Fleet Admiral needed to be, above all else, a politician. Someone who could balance the demands from above the Red Line with the needs of the people on the ground. While Kong’s heavy-handed approach seemed to be in favor with the Elder Stars and the rest of the Celestial Dragon ruling bodies, the tentative stalemate that had settled in place after Roger’s death across the waters of the New World was constantly at risk of falling. All it would take was one wrong move to tip the balance of the scales, and if that happened before the Marines or the World Government had a contingency plan in place, who knew how much havoc and destruction would result.
“This is some fairly damning stuff,” Kong murmurs after a moment, still leafing through the report. “Operation expansion, targeting markets…but it’s this part that has me the most concerned.” He taps a finger on the report, and Sengoku doesn’t even need to look to know what he’s referencing. “Plans for a coup against an original World Government nation? It’s audacious, I’ll give him that. Thematic, too. I was never the best student of history, but isn’t Dressrosa where the Donquixotes ruled before the Riku family took over?”
“It is,” Sengoku confirms. “I’d call it almost too predictable for the way Doflamingo normally operates, but from what Tsuru and Rosinante have both reported, he very much considers it his rightful due.”
Kong makes a disgusted noise. “Hopefully Tsuru will finally nab his entitled ass, but just in case we should send word to Dressrosa so they’re aware they are a target. It won’t be an imminent threat unless Doflamingo makes a move into the Grand Line, but the next Reverie is three years away and I don’t want us to be caught with our pants down because we thought the danger was negligible.”
Sengoku nods. “I’ll have a letter drafted and sent by private coo before lunch. And I can run point on coordinating any further support with Dressrosa’s leadership. I’ve met King Riku before; he’s a decent man.”
“See that you do,” Kong says firmly. “Now, before I send this novel down for Intelligence to comb through, is there anything else?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Sengoku says carefully. “Something that is not in the report, that I felt needed to be communicated…directly. And in private.”
He can see the flash of understanding in Kong’s eyes. Whatever his existing disagreements with the man were, the Fleet Admiral was not stupid, and he recognized Sengoku’s phrasing for what it was: an indication of a topic that would be dangerous to put in an official report.
Official reports went to the archives, and though they could be further classified and restricted behind levels of access, Marineford’s archives were enough of a warren that the archivists couldn’t keep track of everyone who went down there. Hell, it had been one of the places recruits snuck off to for some ‘alone time’ with their peers since before Sengoku had arrived on Marineford’s shores.
“Speak freely,” Kong says firmly. “At this time of the morning, there should be no one within earshot.”
Sengoku resists the urge to comment on how little trust he had in what ‘should’ be the case, but his own Observation haki couldn’t pick up anyone else on this floor aside from the night guard at the far end of the hallway leading to Kong’s office. This is probably the best chance he has to warn Kong of this particular problem without risking the information being intercepted.
“It concerns how Rosinante got shot in the first place,” Sengoku starts.
“His brother did the deed, was that not the case?” Kong says.
“It was,” Sengoku confirms. “But Rosinante had been attempting to gather some last-minute information at my request to help make sure Doflamingo had nothing up his sleeve to bargain with once we took him in. We didn’t trust that, given his background, the possibility of him having a trump card was low enough to disregard, and since he’d found out about the trade for the Ope-Ope no Mi, we thought there should be more options in place to deter him if it started to look like he might get his hands on it before Barrels met with the World Government envoys.”
Rosinante and Sengoku had gone over what the best story to give Kong was long into the night. Obviously, they couldn’t say the real reason Rosinante had been on Minion; that was a recipe for any number of bad outcomes. But they also couldn’t deny that Rosinante had been present on the island at the time things had gone sideways, because Tsuru had already reported exactly where and in what state he’d been found.
Although Sengoku had been concerned on principle when Rosinante had admitted to shoving the entire Ope-Ope no Mi down Law’s throat as opposed to letting the boy just take a bite like a normal person, in reality he was relieved. With no evidence of the fruit remaining on Minion island, it became much harder to pin its disappearance on Rosinante. And Sengoku was willing to take the hit Kong might give him over perceived bad judgement if it meant obscuring Rosinante’s true involvement even further.
“Not the best idea you’ve had, given the outcome, but I can see the logic,” Kong grumbles. “If he was going to make a play for the fruit anyway, it would have been the best opportunity to catch him off guard while he was focused on that. I just wish we knew how he figured out about the trade in the first place.”
“But we do,” Sengoku corrects him, and watches as Kong’s eyes fly up to meet his. “Because Doflamingo was informed of the trade ahead of time.”
“How—" Kong starts, but Sengoku can see the exact moment he connects the dots. “A traitor?”
“One that we know of,” Sengoku says, stressing the latter half of his sentence. “A North Blue recruit named Vergo. Exemplary service record, pre-existing knowledge of haki—and from what Rosinante has indicated, a much better handle on it than he’s shown so far—and well liked by his peers to boot. There’s been no complaints about his behavior nor any reports on activities that would have made someone look twice at him. If he hadn’t assaulted Rosinante on Minion, we’d still be in the dark about his true allegiances.”
“Why are you bringing this up with only me, instead of calling for a meeting with the heads of the Intelligence Division?” Kong asks. “And why not report the matter immediately? Even a lower-ranking soldier acting as a mole is a huge security risk.”
“I do not think even Doflamingo audacious enough to attempt to subvert the loyalties of a Fleet Admiral,” Sengoku says. “Which is why I am comfortable telling you this. But Rosinante has said that even at the level of trust he’d managed to obtain within the Donquixote Pirates, Vergo’s undercover mission was a complete shock to him. Which means—”
“Which means we have to consider the possibility that there might be more,” Kong finishes. “Damn.”
He sighs and leans back in his chair, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he sighs again, and fixes Sengoku with a stern look. “Do we know the current status of this Vergo?”
“We do,” Sengoku confirms. “Shortly before the Minion operation, he requested a transfer to the G-5 base, which was approved. In fact, Minion Island was to be his last posting with a North Blue unit; his service record thus far had merited a transfer to a more prestigious location for officer training. In fact, he was sent to me directly on recommendation he be posted at Marineford and he argued for his transfer to G-5 personally. I was the one who approved his transfer in the first place.”
“And I bet you’re kicking yourself that you didn’t arrange it to be sooner,” Kong says. “Don’t. If he’s been playing the good soldier all this time, there was no way you could have known. Still, G-5? Why there? We send our troublemakers there. Most of our star recruits wouldn’t set foot in the place unless so ordered.”
“Doflamingo is an unusual pirate,” Sengoku points out. “Remember, he works far more in the lanes of commerce and black-market deals than most of the pirates you or I have encountered. We have to consider what he might consider valuable, and how he is likely to approach acquiring what he wants.”
Kong pauses. “The shipping lanes,” he finally says quietly. “G-5 is central to all World Government economic activity in the New World, and the closest to the territories of the Emperors. It’s also the closest base to—"
“Dressrosa,” Sengoku finishes. “It’s a staging ploy. If he can neutralize the nearest marine base completely undetected, then there will be no one to respond if and when he makes a run at the country.”
Kong makes a disgusted noise. “It used to be that pirates had the decency to perform their villainy in the light of day. None of this skulking about or subterfuge. What is the world coming to? At least with menaces like Kaido or Whitebeard you can expect them to be up front about their intentions.”
“The more we press them, the more they are bound to adapt,” Sengoku says. “We simply have to adapt with them. Rosinante has volunteered to examine records looking for anything that might fit Doflamingo’s interests in hopes of detecting any further people we should be wary of. And, at the very least, we know where Vergo is, so we can keep him contained there and perhaps station a watchdog of our own to keep an eye on him. Better than tipping our hand early, anyway.”
“Yes,” Kong grumbles. “We are going to have to take this nice and slow, aren’t we? Damn. No rest for the wicked, as they say.” He shuts the folder with the report. “Well, you’ve left me with plenty to think on and even more to do, so if that’s everything concerning Rosinante’s debrief, I just have a couple more questions for you.”
“Sir?”
“I hear your son has attached himself to a little urchin of his own.” He taps another sheet of paper on his desk. “I wasn’t expecting to have visitors, but Tsuru’s report indicated there was a young teen Rosinante had shown interest in.”
Sengoku had been prepared for this; Tsuru would have had to have handed over a full report on all personnel and cargo and other miscellany she’d brought with her upon landing at Marineford, and she could not lie about it. It would be too easy to notice the discrepancies, especially if Kong thought he was paying undue attention to Law.
So instead, he opts to act as if it is a point of no concern.
“Yes. Rosinante had picked him up with the intention of getting him some proper schooling for his talents, as the boy is something of a medical prodigy. That area of the North Blue is perilously underserved as far as medical access goes, and it seemed a waste of his gifts to not get him the education he needs. I have been assured that he has a good head on his shoulders and is willing to take direction as needed.”
Well. That part might be a lie.
“And the other three? The manifests reported four boys total coming in on Tsuru’s ship.”
“Those were a surprise,” Sengoku admits entirely honestly. “But I find Tsuru’s logic to be unimpeachable in this case; leaving aside how they’re all clearly attached to each other, giving the two older boys a firm direction to follow is likely to prevent them regressing into criminal activities. As a potential bonus, if they choose to pursue a further career with the Marines and perform well, it might go a long way towards bolstering recruitment efforts in the more rural areas of the North.”
Sengoku’s impression of the two older boys had not been that of potential dedicated soldiers, but Rosinante clearly liked them, and one of them had also clearly done his best to not accidentally give away Law’s possession of the Ope-Ope no Mi when they’d met in Sengoku’s office earlier. If they were told up front what their roles needed to be, there was a good chance they’d do their best to play them.
“Yes, Northerners from up that way are famously reticent about working with our soldiers,” Kong muses. “What about the mink?”
“Tsuru was afraid he was at risk of being picked up as a slave, or even killed due to how unfamiliar people in the Blues are with minks in general.”
“Reasonable,” Kong agrees. “Well, perhaps we can convince him to talk to the recruits here on Marineford. I very much doubt any of them will run into a mink any time soon, but I’m familiar enough with their martial prowess to not ignore the chance to educate the soldiers on just what they’re capable of. And maybe one day if he makes it back home, this child will speak kindly of us towards his people. Can’t hurt, anyway.”
Sengoku makes a show of considering the proposition. He wasn’t going to bully a child into doing something he didn’t want to do just to satisfy a training curriculum. “He strikes me as the shy sort, but I’m sure he’d be willing to try. I can ask, at the very least.”
Kong nods curtly. “Good. Then I’ll leave you to get the arrangements set up with the necessary parties. I think the trainers are taking the new recruits out on the ships today, so they can start tomorrow. Dismissed.”
Sengoku nods and turns to go. Mentally, he runs through the entire conversation. He thinks it went well, and Kong was too distracted by the overarching threat of Vergo to dig too closely into the boys or Rosinante’s involvement. That might change, but for now things looked stable. Or at least as stable as they were bound to get.
“Sengoku?” Kong calls out as he reaches the door of the office. “Before you go, I don’t suppose there has been any sign of the damned devil fruit?”
Sengoku turns back, shaking his head. “No. We’ve more or less confirmed at this point that Doflamingo doesn’t have it, or if he does he’s being unusually circumspect about it. Multiple teams have combed Minion Island from top to bottom looking for it with no luck. And unfortunately, Doflamingo slaughtered Barrels and his entire crew, so we can’t even interrogate them for more information. It may just be lost, sir.”
“Damn. That’s not going to go over well during my next meeting with the Elder Stars,” Kong grumbles. “Especially since I’m not inclined to mention the traitor in our midst. We’d have those damn Cipher Pol agents up our asses before you could blink, and I will not be treated as if I cannot get my own house in order.”
That, at least, was something that Sengoku and Kong were in total agreement about. Cipher Pol’s methods tended to be no-holds barred, with no consideration about bystanders or rules of engagement beyond how they might impede the success of their mission. And if they inserted agents of their own into the ranks, it would just muddy their attempts to monitor Vergo.
“I will, of course, let you know as soon as I hear otherwise,” Sengoku assures the Fleet Admiral. “Now, I need to go draft that letter to King Riku. If you’ll excuse me.”
He breathes a sigh of relief after he’s closed the door behind him and walked several feet down the hallway. That was one hurdle overcome, at least for the moment. Now to continue dealing with all the fallout.
And work on corralling four boys long enough to get them registered with the training program.
“Maybe if I bring them breakfast,” he muses, and then heads for the canteen. That was the way to a teenage boy’s heart, right? Food? Seas, but he was out of practice with having children around, and now there were four of them!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kong sits at his desk, idly turning through the report Sengoku had brought him for the fifth time that morning. The sun had long since risen, and his secretary had brought him his preferred simple breakfast of a cup of coffee and some toast with jam, but they sat mostly untouched by his elbow as he went over what Sengoku had told him for what felt like the umpteenth time.
It was a very comprehensive report. But then, Sengoku was always fastidious about things like paperwork. That was nothing new. Still, something about this report bothered Kong all the same, and that was what had his head turning in circles.
It was almost too neat. And its timing was suspect. All that stalling to provide information only to produce it as soon as this child and his friends arrive? Maybe Rosinante had really been as shaken as Sengoku had claimed, but if so, it seems to have cleared up rather fortuitously to be able to provide this much information.
And what had Rosinante been doing, picking up a random child in the middle of an undercover mission like that? At the very least it was improper, and for all that Kong had never been terribly fond of Sengoku’s inconvenient foundling, he had always been a model of professionalism. Had Tsuru been asked to look for him specifically while out on her rounds? That spoke to a more personal attachment than simple interest in the boy’s future job prospects.
No, there was something going on here that Kong wasn’t seeing, and he hated feeling like he was missing something. It was like a loose tooth constantly wobbling around his mouth, uncomfortable and swollen.
On a whim, he rings the bell on his desk, and shortly his personal secretary is pushing the door to his office open.
“Fleet Admiral, sir?”
“Get me the head of North Blue intelligence, please. And a list of anyone and everyone who has been stationed or traveled within fifty leagues of Minion Island in the last year.”
“Sir.”
Maybe he was being paranoid, but Kong hadn’t gotten his position by ignoring his instincts. It couldn’t hurt to look a little closer at the situation. And, if it revealed anything important, then the necessary steps could be taken to rectify the problem or problems at hand.
Starting with the mystery of Rosinante and his boy.