Chapter Text
𖥠
There were three things of note about Monkey D. Shanks.
1) He was not exactly a Monkey D. When he was a year old, a terrible accident happened on his home island, which left it completely destroyed, with not one trace of it left. Monkey D. Dragon had found him in the carnage and rescued him. He’d felt a sense of responsibility over the child and so decided to take him in and raise him with his father, Garp’s, help. Shanks was allowed to adopt the Monkey D. Name, as Dragon and Garp both had no idea which family the little infant belonged to.
2) Shanks was proud to be a Marine. Or, at least, he told himself he was. Dragon and Garp were both Marines, and he wanted to make his saviours proud. They’d saved his life and given him a stable home and family to grow up with—the least Shanks could do was be the Marine they wanted him to be, one who excelled at what he did best. Shanks specialised in intelligence work, and his Haki and swordplay skills were top-notch. They were proud of him, and he didn’t want to let them down with his unimportant feelings of not belonging there.
3) Shanks had a thing for lost causes. He loved to give chances to the people everyone had long disregarded. Perhaps he thought he was just that, once, too. He was a lost cause, a baby with a dead family, hidden in some crevice of a dead country. Dragon gave him a chance, and now Shanks wanted to find people forgotten or hiding in crevices and coax them out into the sun, give them a chance. However, lost causes in the Marines meant people who were too far gone—those who would commit unspeakable crimes, and repeat them. Shanks was interested in what led them to do such things. To carry them out would require immense willpower, which could only be willed by one thing—a good reason. Surely, everyone deserved to be heard out, even lost causes who hurt people.
The last point wasn’t a topic that Garp liked discussing at the dinner table, but Dragon seemed sympathetic to it in a different way. He could see where Shanks was coming from, but to Garp, crime was crime. Shanks understood that side of things, but he didn’t like how it lacked any nuance. People were complicated creatures, and it was surely a disservice to treat them as one-dimensional, good or evil.
Shanks had a fascination with criminals. Specifically, those with “no reason” for their actions. Specialising in intelligence, Shanks would be assigned cases to follow up on or investigate and write the file up on. He’d get files with numerous people who would do insane things for seemingly no reason, but to Shanks, he felt like there had to be one. It was true that some people did bad things for no reason, after all, but if the reason existed, he wanted to know it. He wanted to know what drove people to do the things they did, especially as the actions got worse and worse, and more unique. Getting into a fight was basic, and most of the reasons for such a thing were popularly known. More specific crimes weren’t well-explained, and therefore, more fascinating.
The latest was the case of a dead Marine squad.
Shanks looked over the photographs of their bodies. They’d been found off the coast of an island near a Marine base, so it was quick enough that the blood hadn’t fully dried yet. There were gashes on their bodies that could only be left by a blade of some sort, but Shanks pondered if they had died on the spot or if they’d bled out. The first pointed to more aggressive perpetrators, but the second pointed to more calculated ones with surgical precision, as some of the wounds weren’t in conventional attack areas. If the perpetrators had attacked with the intent of letting them bleed out, it’d give them time to escape. By the time the Marines were found, they would’ve been long gone.
“No name?” Shanks asked, flicking through the thin case file.
“Nope,” Jonathan answered, going through his coat pockets to search for a lighter. “Not much to go on. Some blade was used to attack them. Weapon’s still unconfirmed, but they’re thinking swords were used—the gashes seemed too long to be an axe or smaller. They couldn’t identify what kind of sword it was, though. They told me to hand the case to you.”
Shanks nodded, frowning. It was less starting material than he was usually given. “Thanks, Jon.”
Jonathan glanced down at him, working his lips around his cigarette as he continued to pat down his coat for that lighter. “You got this?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Shanks murmured, slightly unconvinced. He took a lighter out of his desk drawer and tossed it at Jonathan. “Just take it, man.”
“Thanks!” Jonathan said, grinning as he lit his cigarette. He silently offered Shanks one from the box, but the redhead declined it with a polite smile. “You’re such a good kid. You don’t smoke or get in fights. You just keep your head down and do your work. Wish my son were more like you. No wonder Dragon and Garp are so proud of you.”
“Yeah,” Shanks said distractedly. Sometimes, he felt like the pride was unearned or misdirected, but that wasn’t something to tell Jonathan. He took the lighter back and said, “Alright, I really have to work now.”
Jonathan nodded in understanding, saluting in farewell before he walked out of his office. Shanks was a relatively gifted intelligence officer for the Navy. He was charming and smart, and could talk his way into or out of anything. Despite being a strong combatant who mastered three forms of Haki fairly early in life, Dragon encouraged Shanks to get into intelligence work instead.
I can see your reluctance to fight, Dragon had said back then. Intelligence would be good for you. You get a nice office, and you get to sail out to investigate. It’s usually Cipher Pol’s thing, but there’s a chance you get to do some spy work, too.
Spy work seemed kind of fun, and Shanks had done it a few times by now. It felt like acting, which Shanks rather enjoyed. In another life, he could’ve been a star…
Shanks snuffed the obnoxious dream out in his head and looked back at the case file. The most information he had was the island they were found on and the photographs of the corpses. Shanks looked over each body carefully and surmised that the attackers were a small, organised group. Every wound looked identical in depth and formation, which meant they were all left by the same kind of sword—gang members could be more likely to all wield the same type of weapon as they were easier to get in bulk, as opposed to each one wielding a different blade that had to be sourced. Gang members were recruited and then given equipment. Crewmates were sourced out and would have different equipment on hand… This was probably not the work of pirates, but some new gang completely unheard of.
The Marine squad had been about eleven strong. To take out eleven armed men and get away before the blood had even dried meant it had to be a very tight-knit group. They had to be, to keep the getaway clean and quick. They had a strategy, and all of them stuck by it. This was premeditated. They probably followed the squad from another island and waited until they had their guard down to attack.
Shanks wrote some notes to add to the file: Could be a small group of gang members. Perpetrators wielded the same model of sword. Try looking into any mass purchases at any sword shops. Can’t identify the type of sword unless I get a look at the bodies in person. Guessed gang violence due to tight teamwork to kill and escape quickly, as well as everyone wielding the same weapon. Let me know once the sword shops have been checked.
Once he was done, he tossed the case file into the pile for one of his subordinates to take. Despite being only twenty-five, Shanks was already a fairly high-ranking officer in the Navy’s intelligence branch. As a rookie, he was smart and could solve cases quickly, so he climbed the ranks without much trouble. He commanded most of the agents there—he’d be given high-priority case files to take a look at, give his opinion on their next steps, then post the updated files to his subordinates to further the research for him. On rare occasions, the Navy would request him to go undercover and investigate things. Shanks looked forward to those missions most of all, because it meant he got to see the people he read about up close.
Lara arrived to take the file from him, flicking it open to read Shanks’s comments. “Now that you say it, it sounds obvious.”
“I could be wrong,” Shanks prefaced. “This is the safest opinion I could give.”
Lara peered at him from over the file. “And what’s the non-safe opinion?”
Shanks rapped his fingertips on the desk nervously. It had been a fleeting thought earlier as he looked at the identical gash wounds, but it felt too stupid to suggest, so he’d gone with the gang lead first. “It was one person.”
Lara stared at him, then at the crime scene photos. “You think one person could kill eleven trained, armed Marines?”
Shanks worked his jaw. “I don’t want to believe it any more than you do, Lara.”
She tucked the file under her arm and turned away, raising her eyebrows in incredulity. “I’ll follow up on the sword shop thing for you.”
𖥠
Some mass orders were made at these sword shops, but most of them were branches of Marine bases ordering standard-issue swords or known groups that were seen in other areas during the attack. Moran from cleanup said you could take a look at the bodies by tonight before they get sent for funeral processions tomorrow. - Lara
Shanks sighed at the dead-end lead. It meant his outlandish theory that it’d been done by only one person was still a possibility, but he knew nobody would entertain his idea, even as the acting superior. The only one who ranked above him in his branch was a Cipher Pol agent who dropped in every once in a while to follow up on things or hand over a case she didn’t care to run point on. It effectively meant Shanks was the main superior, but he was younger than most of the people working under him. They respected him, sure, but he knew there was a limit to crazy theories.
Shanks grabbed a notepad and a cam-snail and draped his Marine coat over his shoulders before making his way down to the base’s morgue. Bodies of Marines were sent there for preparation to be sent back to their families, and to run any preliminary investigations into their deaths if there was any need for one.
Moran was working as usual, and he’d already laid out the eleven dead Marines on gurneys for him. He gestured for Shanks to be quiet as he liked working in complete silence, then left him to do his job.
Shanks observed the depth of the wounds—some hit critical points, and others at non-lethal areas. It could be that some of the Marines were the main targets of the attacks, and the surrounding men were hit as collateral. This was a strong swordsman—if there was only one attacker. Multiple attackers would make sense, with some attacks being precisely aimed, and others seemingly haphazard. Still, they either died on the spot or bled to death, so the attackers knew what they were doing. From the looks of the wound, it was a very big blade—it pointed to attackers who were large in stature, to be able to wield such big weapons. It looked like either a large sword or one with a broad blade. Perhaps even both.
He took some photographs and notes on the bodies, finding it chilling as he considered the reality that it was truly one person who killed eleven well-trained Marines. Even if they had caught them off-guard, that was still eleven people to fight at one go. It didn’t even look like much of a fight, considering how the blood was still warm by the time the Marines were found. Shanks knew there were some strong criminals out there, but none that seemed the type to attack a random Marine squad that was just camping somewhere.
Whoever did it was no joke. Shanks needed to find out who did it before more people got hurt.
“Hey,” Moran called out. “You got any clue what happened to those Marines?”
“I had a lead, but it turned up empty,” Shanks replied, thinking about the failed sword shop purchase check. “I’ll keep looking into it, though.”
“Good,” Moran said, turning back to another body he was working on. “How are things at home?”
“Good,” Shanks replied vaguely. Dragon and Garp were actually really nice to him, all things considered. Dragon treated him like a son, and Garp was a bit of a stern grandfather, but it was otherwise fine. Shanks just couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t belong with them, or here with the Marines. It felt like there was something else he was meant to do, somewhere else he should be… “I think I’ll make a move. Thanks for letting me see the bodies, Moran.”
“No problem. If you need to come back, the bodies will be here until 5 AM tonight,” Moran told him. Shanks nodded, waved goodbye, and left.
𖥠
“They’re so cute… and they’ve got your red hair!”
“I hope they grow up to be as bright as you.”
“If we were to share a home…”
“This island won’t be around much longer.”
There was a recurring dream that’d been haunting Shanks for as long as he could remember, featuring blurry faces of people he didn’t know. Were they talking about him? Who were these people? What island? It was probably just a meaningless dream, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were more than that.
Shanks blinked awake, frowned, and sat up as he rubbed his tiredness out of his eyes. Yet another day that he’d have to look at that hopeless case file. He didn’t know what else to do about it. There were countless swordsmen in the world. It’d be impossible to find every single one that fit the bare-bones profile of the killers. All he knew was that the attackers had to be big to wield a sword of that size.
He washed up and got dressed, putting on his typical attire of a loose white shirt, a red sash around his waist, and Navy-standard black pants. He’d put on his boots and coat when he was leaving the house later.
Shanks went down to the dining table where Garp and Dragon would be having breakfast. He usually woke up the latest among the three of them—the least excited to get to work, frankly. It was good to help people, but Shanks secretly couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. Not to say he hadn’t helped people—Shanks had been saving and aiding civilians for years as a Marine—but it felt… off, somehow. Garp said he was just getting used to working as a Marine.
“Morning, Old Man,” Shanks greeted as he walked into the kitchen to see Garp making himself coffee. Dragon sat at the dining table with a finished plate of breakfast, sipping coffee, as he read the morning paper. “Morning, Dragon.”
It felt a bit odd to call him by name when he was more like a father to him, having been the one to raise Shanks since his infancy, but it also somehow felt too forthcoming, even now.
“Good morning,” Dragon greeted, smiling at him over the top of the paper. “What are you up to today?”
“Got a case to keep working on. The other stuff, I got my people on them, but this one’s tough,” Shanks said, sighing as he plopped down at the table. Garp laid out a plate of breakfast for him—eggs, ham, and a stack of pancakes. The older men must have eaten something grander, considering they worked more on the combat side of things than Shanks did and would need more energy.
Shanks dug in while Dragon asked, “What case?”
“Couple Marines got killed. A squad. An island near G3,” Shanks explained. “I’m not really sure how much I’m allowed to say, but it’s not like I know much in the first place anyway. Perpetrators are unknown, all I got is that they’re swordsmen and are probably big people wielding big weapons…”
“We’ll keep a lookout,” Dragon promised, finishing off his coffee. “So you know there are multiple attackers?”
“Not really. They killed eleven Marines, so I’m inclined to believe a group took them on, but it could also…” Shanks trailed off, then shook his head. “Yeah, it could be a new, obscure gang. Maybe they obtained their standard-issue swords from some backdoor deal that doesn’t show up on sword store sale records. I don’t know.”
Dragon gave him a sympathetic smile and clapped a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You’re a smart kid, Shanks. You’ll figure it out. Just don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“There’s a reason they handed the case to you,” Garp added from the kitchen. “You got a gift, Shanks.”
“Yeah,” Shanks murmured, unconvinced.
“Look, I get you want to find the attackers before they hurt more people, but take it easy. If you rush things, you risk arresting the wrong people, too,” Dragon pointed out. “Look at whatever you have, consider all options, and make sure that when you find a name, it’s the right one. You’ve always been smart and logical. I’m sure you’ll be able to find these people and stop them.”
Shanks nodded, feeling a bit more encouraged by Dragon’s words. “You’re right.”
Garp passed them, patting each man on the shoulder, and said, “I’m heading to work now. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck dealing with Bum-goku,” Shanks joked, and Garp burst out laughing as he stepped out of the door.
𖥠
The bar on Pirate Island was congested, rowdy, and the smell was unbearable.
Pirates of all kinds demanded drinks across the counter, loudly chatting and laughing. Some who were too drunk were passed out on various surfaces—worst of all, the floor—and others picked a fight with another pirate. Back when the bar had been owned by the Kuja pirate Shakuyaku, fights were nonexistent. One or two caved to the alcohol and were making out in dark corners, away from prying eyes.
Dracule Mihawk sat in a corner of the bar, drinking a nice, tall glass of red wine alone. He hated being around other people like this, when they were so noisy and disgusting.
“Hey, it’s him,” another pirate slurred drunkenly. “That new, little swordsman with the big sword.”
Mihawk wasn’t that little—he was twenty-nine, and already slightly taller than the average man of his age group. Still, he supposed, in comparison to Yoru, he was considerably little. He paid the pirate no mind and continued drinking.
“Hey,” the pirate said again, now feeling egged on by his friends. “Where’d you get that sword? You know where it came from, right?”
“Of course, I do,” Mihawk replied without sparing him a glance. He placed his finished glass on the bar and tossed some Berry at the bartender as payment before he began making his way out. The pirate suddenly grabbed Mihawk’s jacket and pulled him back, to his surprise.
“Hey!” The pirate called one more time, grinning with a flushed face at Mihawk. His smile was disgusting to look at, full of rotted teeth, and his eyes looked bloodshot. He’d probably been on a bender. “Show us how you use that.”
“I’m not a circus animal who performs for pathetic people like you,” Mihawk said through gritted teeth, annoyed. “Unhand me.”
“What a big ego for a little thing like you,” the pirate said, clicking his tongue and turning back to his friends for a laugh. He looked at Mihawk again and said, “Show us, or we’ll take that off you and play with it ourselves.”
Mihawk debated whether he wanted to come back to this bar in the future. He turned to the bartender and called, “You, bartender. Who do you get your red wine from?”
“Ah? Um,” the bartender stammered. He clearly didn’t want to give up where he got his drinks from, but was already pondering if he wanted to get into a fight with Mihawk. “An importer from Micqueot. Lona’s Wines.”
“Lona’s Wines,” Mihawk echoed under his breath to remember the name, then he tossed a couple more Berry at the bartender, who caught the coins. “Thank you.”
“Hey!” The pirate shouted again. “I’m a big deal in North Blue, you know! You want to get on my good side.”
“Which one is that?” Mihawk asked, before he rushed at the pirate and knocked him down on his ass. Some other pirates stopped to watch, only now noticing that the famous swordsman had been in the same bar the whole time. The pirate groaned as he hit the ground, and Mihawk got down to bring him into a chokehold. He leaned down, his mouth beside the pirate’s left ear, and asked, “Which side is it?”
“Let me go!” the pirate choked out.
Mihawk removed one arm, and it reached for Yoru on his back. “What was your good side I was supposed to get on?”
At the sight of the huge sword, the pirate began to panic. “Okay, wait. I’m sorry. Just let me go.”
“You brought it up.”
The pirate found a thin window of opportunity to slide out of Mihawk’s grip, but Mihawk grabbed his ankle, and the pirate collapsed on the wooden floor again. He suddenly let out a scream, “Help!”
The other pirates didn’t make a move—even his own friends, who were debating how to save him. The pirate tried to crawl away, digging his nails into crevices of the floorboards for footing, but Mihawk pinned him in place by sinking Yoru through the right side of his body.
“Fuck!” The pirate screamed, staring wide-eyed in horror at the impalement. “What’s wrong with you? I was just fucking with you!”
“I don’t like being ‘fucked with’,” Mihawk muttered, standing up. “Is that your good side or not?”
The pirate grimaced. “You’re fucking with me!”
“If that’s not the good side, I’ll flip you over and get on the other side instead.”
“You’re crazy!” the pirate shouted. “The papers just made you sound like some loner sword nerd!”
Mihawk stared down at the pirate with an unreadable expression. “Loner? Are you not one, too? I’ve been fighting you this whole time, and not one person has stepped up to help you. Are you not on your own, too?” He turned to the pirate’s friends, then slowly began pulling Yoru’s blade out of him.
The pirate let out a strangled sound. “Wait, put it back in.”
“Now you want it in.”
“I’ll bleed out if you pull it out now,” the pirate said with a sinking realisation.
Mihawk muttered, “There is a clinic ten minutes away from this bar. If your friends can convince themselves to help you this time, they could save you. Act fast.” He pulled the sword out, and the pirate’s friends immediately dove to pick him up. “Let that be a lesson not to provoke people you don’t know… and that being on your good side is unimportant.”
Mihawk stepped out of the bar, pondering if it used to be so undesirable to visit when it was run by the original owner. He heard the Kuja pirate had started a new bar with the same name on the Sabaody Archipelago many years ago, but he’d never bothered going. Her drinks were overpriced, and even if fights between patrons were banned, Mihawk wasn’t looking to waste his Berry.
Glancing at a clock in the town square, he headed into an alley near the bar—he’d gone in to wait for his appointment, and it was finally time. He made a few turns into a darker corner of the town, where Crocodile was waiting.
“Dracule Mihawk,” Crocodile greeted. “Good work on the gangster kill.”
“Where’s my money?” Mihawk asked, holding out a hand expectantly.
“Straight to business as usual,” Crocodile muttered, reaching into his coat to pull out a small sack of Berry. He tossed it to Mihawk, who undid its rope ties to look into the contents. “A million Berry, as promised.”
Satisfied with what he counted, Mihawk tucked the bag away and turned to leave. “Alright. Forward me the next high-paying one. Goodbye.”
“Wait,” Crocodile said, and Mihawk reluctantly paused in his steps. “Are you sure that’s a smart move?”
“I know what I’m doing, Crocodile,” Mihawk replied. He knew what Crocodile was asking about—that stunt he pulled with the squad of eleven Marines half a week ago.
“It will put a target on your back eventually. You can’t hide forever,” Crocodile warned. “If it jeopardises Baroque Works’ security, you will be shoved to the backseat.”
Mihawk assured, “Relax. It’ll be fine.” Even if it somehow all backfired on Mihawk, it was a cause he was willing to die for, and he didn’t much care if Baroque Works survived the crossfire, anyway.
Crocodile stared at him, then said, “Given how you’re the best mercenary Baroque Works currently has in its arsenal… I will keep ears out for whether the Navy are looking in your direction in their investigations and warn you. Perhaps, if someone realises it’s you, you can take them out early and stop them from tracing your steps.”
“Fine,” Mihawk said. He supposed it’d benefit him to stop anyone who would put a target on his back—that way, he could continue his personal mission. He trusted the leader of Baroque Works about as far as he could throw him. That was, he trusted him enough to give him legitimate mercenary work that he’d be correctly paid for, but not enough to entrust his well-being to him. He trusted Crocodile’s ability to put the thriving nature of his business first, which meant the security of his top-performing mercenary, who raked in the business, was of utmost importance. However, he knew that once he became a liability, Crocodile wouldn’t hesitate to give him the boot, then he’d be out of a paying job.
“No gratitude?”
Mihawk scoffed, turning to leave once again. “The 5% commission fee I let you take is enough.”
“Fifty thousand Berry isn’t a lot.”
“I’m exactly that amount of grateful,” Mihawk replied, and raised one hand in farewell. “Again, send me the next job. Goodbye.”