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Kuzan isn’t slow in his ascension up the stairs to his mentor’s office. He can’t believe what he’s hearing, he needs to confirm the truth himself.
Sitting at his desk, Vice Admiral Garp looks up at him with a slow and heavy sigh.
“Kuzan,” he starts, eyes practically dead.
“You’re not actually leaving the Marines, are you?” He asks because he needs to know. Because he can't fathom why.
Garp looks away, sighing again.
“I'm on indefinite leave for now,” Garp says instead of what Kuzan wants to hear. “That's the most Senny would allow.”
Kuzan barely holds himself together. He wants to yell, demand an explanation. Demand he stay.
“Why?” Is all he says.
Garp slides a hand into his desk and withdraws a small piece of paper. A photograph, it seems. And he slides it forward so Kuzan can see.
It's Garp, grinning and laughing. From one hand hangs a kid with dark hair and freckles, scowling, and the other a blond kid with a top hat falling from his head and a missing tooth from his grimace. On Garp's shoulders is a third kid, smaller and younger with a golden straw hat on his head and a bright grin on his face.
Kuzan must make a confused hum because Garp gestures.
“Those are my grandsons,” Garp says, voice eerily quiet for such a usually loud man. “They're dead.”
It takes true willpower to hold back any sound of surprise or disbelief as he registers the words.
“There was a fire, set by the nobles to the slums and they were right in the middle of it,” Garp explains. “So I'm quitting.”
He doesn't even need to explain further. It's not a large leap in logic to understand where he's coming from. As marines, they'd be tasked with essentially defending said nobles and therefore their actions.
Kuzan doesn't stick around. He thinks of Robin, he thinks of Ohara, and he thinks of three more children to add to his conscience.
It’s an ordinary day on the Red Force when Yasopp spots something on the horizon making a beeline for them. Shanks keeps his haki tucked close, willing to wait patiently for whatever it is.
“Is that-”
Something crashes into the side of the boat and starts climbing. Loosening a bit of his conquers haki, Shanks breathes out slowly, letting a grin hide the underlying concern that this disturbance brings. It’s too small for some sea beast.
And, as he thought, a hand slams onto the deck, hauling over a large man with greying hair and a white marine uniform on. Dripping wet like a dog, stands Garp the fist.
His crew is armed in seconds. Shanks has a hand on Griffon but doesn’t yet draw, instead waiting. While Garp certainly is the type to pick fights on a whim and is probably still pissed from the whole ‘corrupting his grandson’ thing, there’s something off about this.
“Vice Admiral Garp, what do we owe the pleasure?” Shanks questions as Benn cocks his gun from beside him. “If this is about the hat thing again, I thought we went over it already.”
“Your hat is gone,” Garp says, stone cold. Shanks stiffens and then lets his conquers haki leak out. Garp, just like Luffy, is a terrible liar.
“What did you say?” Shanks questions but they both know he means for Garp to elaborate. It’s certainly a statement, but if Garp has really thrown away his straw hat, the one that he entrusted to Luffy, the one that Roger entrusted to him. Well, then, this won’t end well for either of them.
“There was a fire,” Garp starts, a soft sigh in his voice. “In the slums in Goa. Started by the nobles.”
“And what about it…” Shanks trails off.
“Luffy was there,” Garp states, completely calm but there’s pain in his eyes. “And so were his two older brothers. They’re all gone.”
Everything goes cold. Shanks feels a shiver carry down his back but he’s only half-aware of it, white noise overtaking his ears, a buzzing overtaking his senses as, in the distance, he hears the first wail from his crew.
“Luffy…” He whispers, hand shaking. “Luffy’s gone?”
He feels Benn come to his side, supporting his weight with a slight stumble.
Garp just nods, expression grim.
“You’re lying,” Shanks says even as he knows the man is not. He’s a bad liar. And he wouldn’t lie about it.
“I’m not,” Garp responds even though he doesn’t have to. “I just thought you should know.”
Shanks wants to grab Garp, to throw him to the floor and demand an explanation. An explanation of why. Why did this happen? Why wasn’t Garp there? He didn’t even know Luffy had brothers and now all three of them are just gone?
But, all he does, is turn his face away from the older man.
“I have to see Luffy’s father now,” Garp says, voice soft.
“How can you stay with them?” Benn asks, calm but there’s a simmer of fury if you know to listen for it. “How can you stay with the Marines? When they do this?”
Garp sighs and Shanks waits.
“I’m retired now.”
Is all he says.
And then he’s gone.
Shanks doesn’t remember him leaving. Doesn’t remember him disappearing into the ocean. He doesn’t remember Benn guiding him to sit down, doesn’t remember the drink getting shoved into his hand.
He does remember Lucky Roux crying, remembers Yasopp sniffling, remembers the crew mourning.
Benn sits beside him, shaking with barely restrained anger, and Shanks feels the mixture of emotions inside him twist and turn, making him sick. He’s barely sat down a second before he gets back up to throw up over the side of the ship, guilt and anger and sorrow and agony overwhelming him. Sliding to the ground against the railing, he covers his eyes with his only remaining hand, trying to stem the tears streaking down his face.
How the other pirates would laugh, he thinks idly. How they’d laugh at the crew crying for a single small child.
He should have taken Luffy with them. He should have been there.
Despite being unable to stem the tears, Shanks still lifts his hand to his head, where his hat once sat, and then to the stump where his arm used to be. The arm he sacrificed for Luffy. And he’d do it again. But, if he could do it again, that last day he’d place his hat on Luffy’s head and then lift him up, carrying him laughing to the Red Force, and leave.
“Captain?” Building Snake prompts, eyes red and puffy. “Where now?”
Shanks breathes in slowly, covering his mouth as he hiccups.
“Sabaody,” he gets out. “I have an old man to see.”
The Gray Terminal fire troubled Dragon, but it was nothing compared to the worry that spiked when he first heard his father was retiring. And then when he called, using a white den den, and asked to meet with Dragon.
They meet in the ruins of the Oykot Kingdom, a ghost town of a place but somewhere the World Government would never think to look. He’s hesitant, still, so he doesn’t take anyone with him, taking the trip alone which is fairly easy with his devil fruit powers.
Garp is a lone figure, standing there. Dragon hasn’t seen his father in years but finds they’ve been fairly kind to him. Sure, he’s greying but he’s still in one piece, which is a lot to say for how dangerous his job has been and the situations he throws himself into.
What does concern Dragon is the silence. It’s the lack of a marine coat over his shoulders, only the white suit jacket and white pants remaining of his marine identity, and the dark look in his eyes.
“What happened,” is the first thing Dragon asks.
“You were there, weren’t you?” His father asks, calm. “In Goa, when the fire happened.”
“I was,” Dragon confirms, not surprised that his father caught wind of his tricks, with how close Garp has always been to the island. “And?”
“Did you see anything there?”
It’s a roundabout way of asking, certainly, but Dragon has to answer all the same.
“Are you speaking of Luffy or Zou?”
Garp straightens.
“Luffy.”
“I did, I saw him and the boy that he’s declared his brother. Ace, was it?”
Garp grimaces.
“Roger’s son,” Dragon states because it’s not a question. Garp still nods in response.
“They were caught in the fire,” his father confesses. “Did you see them?”
Dragon closes his eyes, breathing in slowly. Because no, he did not. He doesn’t have them with him.
Garp can tell exactly what his answer is because he sighs.
“They’re gone.”
Dragon turns away from his father.
“You promised to keep him safe,” he states.
“I know,” Garp responds.
“We are not strong enough yet to take on the Goa Kingdom,” Dragon says.
“I know.”
“I don’t think we will meet again, father.”
It takes seconds and he’s in the wind, leaving his father far behind. He remembers seeing Luffy smile as he listened to Red-Hair’s stories of the sea.
He keeps that in mind and returns to Baltigo. As he sweeps past Kuma, the taller man softly asks if he’s okay.
He doesn’t respond and that’s an answer in itself.
Rayleigh watches Shanks collapse into a chair and Shakky pours him a drink without a second of hesitation. His first mate, Benn Beckman, stands like a looming guardian, on edge and ready to defend his captain in a matter of milliseconds.
But it’s the look on Shanks’s face that gets Rayleigh rounding the bar, stepping over to the man who is the closest thing he has to a son of his own, and lets Shanks fall into his arms, wet sobs muffled in Rayleigh’s coat. The whole bar of pirates is silent, watching their captain with eagle eyes as Rayleigh keeps one hand around Shanks’s shoulders and the other running down the back of Shanks’s head in comfort.
“He’s gone,” Shanks chokes out. “He’s gone.”
“Who?” Rayleigh asks, even though he has a feeling he knows.
“My boy,” Shanks sniffles quietly. “My child. Luffy. Anchor. I left him the hat and it’s gone too. They’re both gone.”
“How?” Rayleigh prompts.
“The nobles of Goa Kingdom,” Shanks says, voice full of hiccups and broken up but the words are clear enough. “They set a fire. I…”
Rayleigh lets Shanks gather himself. The red-haired man sits up, eyes dark, scars almost more pronounced. Rayleigh can feel his haki, no matter how well he’s keeping it coiled up tight. If unleashed, it could probably knock out all of the Sabaody Archipelago.
The only ones standing would likely be Shanks and himself.
“He was just a little boy,” Shanks says, rage simmering. “And they took him.”
Rayleigh doesn’t speak. Benn Beckman tightens his grip on the counter. Shakky has her eyes closed, anger sharpening her features into something dangerous.
“And they’ll regret it.”