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Head to toe, he is covered in blood. His mouth a thin grimace, cigarette smoke thinning in the morning air.
Not the sight Sakazuki expected upon getting up. The first lights peer through his veranda, settling on the damp, thick foliage. The golden rims of Aramaki's epaulets gleam too, and so does the blood—fresh blood. If any traces of sleep were left on Sakazuki's eyelids, they're gone now.
A copper-red trail stretches from the porch into his tatami, leading to the spot where Aramaki sits, elbows grazing his knees. Sakazuki was trimming one of his bonsai the evening before, and Aramaki leers at the result: only one branch crowned with leaves stands victorious over the rest.
The one path of Justice worth pursuing.
The wooden flooring creaks under Sakazuki's feet. Aramaki jolts his head up, his motions jerky, vigorous.
"Morning!"
Sakazuki winces at the familiarity. "I thought you were on leave."
"Yeah," Aramaki lets out a laugh. It's all out of place—the grin, the blood, his presence in this orderly room. Some curiosity levels Sakazuki's wariness. "Went north on a vacation."
"Vacation."
Aramaki gives him a long, satisfied nod. "Yes, y'know. Here and there…"
There's a question pressed behind Sakazuki's lips, but he knows it's useless to ask it; the answer will come soon, it's dying to come. In the form of a story. The story of whatever trouble Aramaki has pursued in that place he calls "the North".
The North, that is: difficult seas to navigate, unforgiving landscapes. Chaotic, terrible regions, most of them not subject to the World Government's rule. Disorderly places. It weighs on Sakazuki to think about them.
Yet…it makes sense for Aramaki to pick a fight there. To make his way to a wild, far-away island where nothing but the law of the strongest reigns, and assert himself at the top of that other, different, food chain.
A waste of energy, maybe. But Logia users, too, need training.
Sakazuki looks down at the tatami, deciding against taking a seat across from Aramaki. The bonsai's arm is a high, dignified torch, its leaves like flames. If Aramaki thinks he knows what they burn for, he's mistaken.
He thinks that Justice is a natural rule—one that puts them above the outside, and the Celestial Dragons above all. That the World Government needs to cast a great, black shadow…where monsters live. Only then can one be righteous, by comparison.
Sakazuki has wasted much breath in correcting him. Justice is order, it's consequence. It's peace, achieved through war. Order does not need chaos to exist.
After some time, two columns of smoke escape Aramaki's nostrils.
Vines crawl down from his hair and around his biceps, until they coil around his finger and smother the cigarette before merging into him again. The glowing ember snuffed out to ash in that vast, green wilderness.
"Nothing very nice to see there, boss."
"You don't say."
"I thought I'd motivate myself. Remind myself of why, well," he opens his palms up high, signals to the room, to everything. "Why we gotta do what we gotta do."
Sakazuki is listening. Skeptically, but he's listening.
"And?"
"Found many ghost towns. Places that must've been villages at some point. Maybe even small cities. Flevance's still all there." Without asking him to describe, Sakazuki finds himself picturing them. Empty skeletons of buildings, charred by fire. Derelict houses, coastal paths eaten by moss. Aramaki wandering alone, seeking… seeking what? "Many of the fishermen's towns, though…they didn't get so lucky. There was an archipelago there, close to Swallows Island."
Sakazuki feels something sinking in his gut. An echo of something that is dead. Something that should be dead. Torched and buried, abandoned like ruins.
Aramaki's finger stretches lazily into another vine. He caresses the bonsai. The sound of bark ruffling against bark is like a snake hissing temptation.
And it is tempting. For Sakazuki, to see himself as an agent of good just because he was once hurt. Just because they, the pirates, the enemy…they shot first.
For the first time in years, the incessant screams ring in his ears. The screams engulfed in flames, coming from the entrails of what he used to call home.
Home. Not anymore. Ruins now.
But appealing to his own tragedy always seemed like the path of least effort. No, his vision is bigger. He dreams of a world civilized and controlled to the very last corner. A world of harmony where the law is respected, and bad deeds are punished, and no one suffers in the twisted name of freedom. Where no man can be left to watch as everything he loves turns to coal in his hands.
He grits his teeth. Emotions and Justice have to be kept seperate. Justice is neither good nor bad. It is objective. It is absolute. It simply is. It -
Sakazuki's eyes narrow when he's pulled back from his contemplation, and Aramaki grins. They are only staring at each other in silence, it seems. Which means Aramaki has what he wants. His attention.
In spite of himself, Sakazuki asks, "And?"
"And then I made my way to the nearest place in the North Blue. The kind where the bad guys been campin' for many years. Got their own little lairs all set up and everything," Aramaki says. Yes, he used his streetwise ways; drawing inspiration to blend in from the rough young man he used to be. "Sellin' myself like a total admirer of the fuckers who used to terrorize those small islands. I asked around, here and there. Lots of stories, there in the North," he pauses, pressing his lips.
Yes…of course. That is what Aramaki was looking for. Sakazuki keeps his back straight, his body absolutely immobile. Don't let him think Sakazuki's dancing at the tune of his words.
"I heard about two young bounty hunters who made a bit of a name for themselves, 'round the time Roger still sailed. They know at least one of them is with the Marines right now," Aramaki licks his lips, the raw crimson starting to dry. "The sparkly one, they said. Not sure about the other. Those kids wanted to get every single one of the pirates responsible for the bouts of pillaging, all those years ago. Complicated business. Even back then."
Sakazuki gulps.
"We never got them all," he says through the knot in his throat. "Not for lack of trying."
Through his decades as an Admiral, he kept an eye on the area. Of course. It was outside of the Navy's jurisdiction, but that didn't mean he couldn't follow some leads, make some captures. All of them false alarms. The culprits seemed to be lost in the ever-shifting sea of alliances and crews that piracy was.
"Yeah, boss," Aramaki rakes his fingers through his hair, and when he shrugs, the coat moves with him. "If there's anything pirates are good at, it's gettin' away from Marines."
He leans forward to scrap the back pocket of his jeans for what Sakazuki assumes will be another cigarette. The shadow of his arm plays under the morning light.
But, scooped up on the palm of his hand, there are a few…stones?...which clack like marbles when he drops them on the low tabletop. Drops them next to Sakazuki's bonsai with blood-stained fingers.
"Good thing those fuckers didn't figure I was one."
Sakazuki's core burns when he sees the necklace. Beads, pearls interwoven with what looks like small bones, and with a Jolly Roger minted in worn silver…
The sight twists something unexpected inside him, a blurry memory he's watching through a curtain of fumes.
He can't recognize the symbol. Standing, he's not close enough to see it in detail. But he has a hunch he's heard it described before. Described, because Sakazuki's memories of the pillage had been shaken and rinsed away by the shock. Described, because Borsalino remembers.
It's impossible. It needs to be a mighty coincidence. It couldn't be any of the same men, claiming their own crimes. It happened too long ago.
More importantly, it's wrong. He knows. He takes a short breath to voice it, but the words fail him. He feels his eyes swell.
"The North is outside of our jurisdiction," he says instead, his voice hollow. "Justice is not revenge. It shouldn't. You shouldn't have."
"Relax, boss. I'm on vacation," Aramaki shrugs. "I didn't even take a bounty poster with me, really. Could be I got the right guy, could be that I didn't. Either way, the world is down a few very bad guys. Many bad guys."
Aramaki smiles at him. And that smile does kindle something deep inside Sakazuki, a grim, warm light.
This is an offering. Wrapped in devotion, appealing to Sakazuki's impassive justice and to the feelings buried deep beneath it. For once, Justice can fill him with emotion, and it can make his eyes swell. He knows he needs this relentless, stubborn soldier more than he needs any boundary, and the realization stings him deeply. He needs Aramaki out there, soaked in blood and hatred, urging to make Sakazuki's vision of the world palpable.
He looks down. Aramaki is at his feet now. His eyes are framed by inky lashes. Striking green eyes that think they know everything.
Sakazuki's palm cups the side of that bloodied face. Aramaki dives into the caress. He knows he will receive no preferential treatment, that his hunt will be treated like any other. But privileges are not what he's after.
"Well done," Sakazuki says. Under his gaze, Aramaki burns, he blooms.