Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Mother?”

Rue waded into the shallow water, the gently lapping waves warm around her ankles. She reached for the rowboat her mother was seated in, but Gloriosa used the oar to push the rowboat from the shore, the sanded railing slipping just past Rue’s fingertips. 

“Mother, where are you going?”

As the rowboat drifted farther from the shore, Rue followed, her pink dress growing heavy as it absorbed water. She stopped when the waves lapped at the white bow tied around her waist. 

“Mother?”

Gloriosa finally looked up from where her hands clutched the oars, her knuckles white. “I’m going back to Amazon Lily.”

The land of Rue’s mother’s people, and the land Gloriosa had been exiled from prior to Rue’s birth. A land that Rue knew her mother missed like Rue missed the sun on rainy days, but a land Rue would never be permitted to see, let alone stand on.

“Without me?” Rue asked.

“I’m sorry, Rue, but I can only return without you,” Gloriosa said. “You will be safer without me. With me as your mother, people can figure out who your father is. I’ve told you why that can never be known. With me gone, with everyone seeing you as an orphan, you will be free of your parentage. You will be free to be whoever you wish to be.”

Gloriosa began rowing away. Rue stood on her tiptoes, swaying with the movement of the mild waves, but didn’t follow her mother into deeper water. 

“Create a new name for yourself, Rue, and make yourself into whoever you want.”

In much too short a time, though the sun fell significantly from its high noon placement, Gloriosa and her rowboat disappeared from the sheltered bay. Rue remained in the sea long after her mother had departed, then finally waded from the water. She collapsed on her knees in the sand of the beach, her white braid falling over her shoulder. The petals of the purple roses plaited in her hair had crinkled from overexposure to the sun and salt. 

She sobbed, hot tears splashing onto the fistfuls of sand she clutched before her.

At age ten, Rocks D. Rue died.

At age ten, Roriosa Rue learned how to survive on her own.

[ ]

The undercover Marines didn’t phase Rue. With seven years of espionage work under her belt—seven years in which she had never failed a mission, had never even pinged as a person of interest to those she snooped on or to the Marines who knew of the criminal spy rings operating in every one of the Blues—she wasn’t worried about some fresh-from-training Marines who hadn’t done much to disguise their pistols and weren’t blending in with the crowd as seamlessly as they should. 

At least it was easy for Rue to identify who to avoid, giving the Marines a wide berth as she moved through the crowded square of Asahihana’s capital city. The floral North Blue island was in the throes of its annual summer solstice celebration, the locals donning bright colors of flashy materials. Some of the tourists had, in garish ways, tried to replicate the local look, but most of the tourists were wearing clothing from their points of origin. That meant Rue’s black outfit wasn’t out of place, despite the multitude of flashy colors, flower patterns, and bright floral arrangements cluttering the square—though her black leather pants did have purple roses printed on the thighs. The chaotic brightness of the city was only added to by the flower-shaped lamps strung across the streets, bright reds, blue, purples, and yellows, throwing color-tinted light across the crowds.

Slipping into a flower shop with sunflowers framing the doorway, Rue smiled at the young man she’d spoken to earlier in the day. Fukuro was younger than her twenty but older than fifteen, so he was of legal age to own and operate a shop without adult supervision by Asahihana law. Earlier in the day, when Rue was walking around the square as decorations went up and speaking to locals to get a feel for the place, she’d explained to Fukuro she was worried about being overwhelmed by the large crowd celebrating the solstice. Fukuro had told her most of the shops would remain open and often uncrowded, since most people wanted to stay outside for the festivities. 

“Taking a break from the crowds?” Fukuro asked. 

“Yeah.”

He must have recognized her from earlier. Not a surprise, given she hadn’t changed clothes. She wasn’t worried—there was nothing he knew about her for Rue to consider her cover blown. To Fukuro, she was just a visiting woman who disliked crowds and was told by him shops could be a break from said crowds before following his advice by stopping in his flower shop. If anyone questioned him, she wouldn’t stick out in his mind as ‘suspicious’ or ‘suspect.’ He wasn’t likely to be questioned, anyway—no one would connect Rue’s target and some poor florist.

Crossing her arms, Rue leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window at the front of the store, pressed between white daisies and pink roses. To Fukuro, she would look like she was observing the festivities from a secluded place—and, technically, she was, but she was really watching the Marines so she could hopefully glean why they were here.

If they were planning on arresting the rich bastard that Rue was here to collect a murder record report (her client’s words) from, they were going to seriously muck up her plans and cost her a good reward. Her client, a rich bastard from Modeer, was willing to pay a sizable chunk for proof that Kirk Mooreland on Asahihana had murdered his son. Personally, Rue thought the son deserved it, based on what she’d learned of him, but the money was good to prove the former pirate masquerading as a politician on Asahihana was the murderer. The money was also good to prove Captain Kirkland—known as Kirk Mooreland these days—wasn’t the killer. If Rue wasn’t able to prove anything one way or another, then there was no Berry.

If the Marines were here to arrest Mooreland for his crimes as Captain Kirkland, then the Navy was interfering with her work in a way she didn’t like—a way that left her without more Berry for her purse.

The only solace was that the Marines weren’t looking for her specifically. They probably didn’t even know she was here. Rue made sure she always covered her tracks. People knew she’d been there, that she’d exposed their secrets, but they never knew who she was. People who wanted to hire her could send letters to her cabin in the West Blue. All they knew was her code name, Purple Rose. Officially, the cabin was owned by some rich narcissist on the Grand Line, so not even the cabin could trace back to Rue, other than some decade-old documents proclaiming Rue was the hired help for the household when its wealthy patrons weren’t residing there—which was all the time.

Over the central plaza, fireworks exploded. Good, everyone would be looking up. 

Without saying goodbye to Fukuro, she went back outside. As more fireworks burst—washing the city in blues, greens, reds, and golds—Rue weaved among the crowd. Everyone’s focus was on the fireworks, even the undercover Marines (all young and inexperienced, fresh from whatever training base they’d been assigned to). The oohs and ahhs of the crowd covered the faint sound of Rue’s boots on the cobblestones. 

She found a side street without overhead lanterns and disappeared into the darkness, leaving the crowds and lights behind her.

There was light security at Mooreland’s manor. He was probably out enjoying the festivities with booze and women, one of which he would pay for and one he would assume wanted to be with him due to his status. Avoiding the front gate, Rue wiggled under the hedges lining the back of the property. Fortunately, her black leather jacket was easy to brush the dirt and leaves off of.

The secret to not being thought of as ‘un-belonging’ was to act like she belonged. Holding her head high and walking with enough swagger that her high ponytail swayed behind her, she crossed the garden toward a set of glass double doors. 

Though she’d brought a set of lockpicks, Rue didn’t need them as the doors opened, pulling out into the garden, distant fireworks reflecting on the glasswork. She stepped inside, then quickly closed the doors behind her. No sense in leaving evidence of her arrival.

Rue didn’t have an exact floor plan of the manor, but she had been in enough fancy, rich houses over the years that she knew how they typically tended to be laid out. It wasn’t too difficult for her to find Mooreland’s office on the third floor, an imposing desk of mahogany near the back wall. The red curtains with golden sunflower designs shifted a bit in the breeze coming from the open window behind the desk, but the draft wasn’t strong enough to rustle the papers on Mooreland’s desk. Aside from the scant paperwork, there wasn’t much else on the desk—a framed photo of Mooreland, his too young but pretty wife, and toddler son; a snoozing transponder snail with Mooreland’s monocle; a Mooreland estate seal, which Rue couldn’t believe he just kept out in the open; and a map of the North Blue, Asahihana marked by a blooming golden flower and little golden specks on other islands, probably places Mooreland had frequented as Captain Kirkland of the Gold Star Pirates. 

The room itself was scarce, just the desk and two dark leather armchairs with a small, wooden table between them, crystal bourbon glasses on the table next to a bottle of said alcohol. The walls were covered with photos of North Blue constellations.

There were no filing cabinets, which meant Mooreland probably kept his important documents in his desk or hidden somewhere in the room. If not this room, somewhere only he would frequent, or a spot only he and wife frequented—like their bedroom—since he probably wouldn’t consider his young wife to be smart or independent enough to be a threat. 

Rue checked the desk. Just the normal estate paperwork, plus some detailed maps of North Blue islands that indicated where Mooreland had hidden the various treasures the Gold Star Pirates had plundered. Rue considered them, but decided she would only come back for those if she couldn’t find the murder inventory. It was still something to use to blackmail Mooreland, so it might result in some payment from her client. 

She checked behind the constellation images. Nothing, no hidden panels in the walls. Then she checked the bourbon table. Finding a false bottom on the table, she wrenched it open, and a small red leather journal fell onto the green and gold paisley carpet. 

Flipping through the notebook, she saw a list of names, dates, and locations. Two names from the end of the list, she found the name of her client’s son, a date that coincided with his death, and a location—not the last known location of the missing son, but perhaps a disposal location. Beside the name was a listed reason for his death—he’d robbed and assaulted a young woman who was Mooreland’s niece—but that wasn’t Rue’s business. Besides, retribution had already come for him.

Replacing the false bottom on the table, Rue stood, pocketing the journal in an interior pocket of her jacket. 

She glanced back at the desk, then decided that she would be taking the treasure maps. Pulling them from the drawer, she folded them up and placed them in the opposite interior jacket pocket. A little extra treasure and Berry she could find herself wasn’t something she would turn down, and if there was nothing at those locations, well, nothing had been lost, either. 

A footstep out in the hall. Probably a maid, or maybe Mooreland’s wife returning. It was too heavy to be Mooreland’s son. Rue could have walked out of the office, head high, and pretended nothing was wrong, but walking confidently across a garden and walking confidently out of a private office were two very different things, especially depending on who saw her leave. Rue wasn’t in the habit of letting people see her leave.

She went to the window and swung it open. The night was silent, the fireworks having ended. There would be more rounds of fireworks throughout the night, but, for now, only faint music drifted from Asahihana. Rue was three stories up, but there was a covered porch on the ground floor. A two story drop was survivable, and though there was a risk in catching herself on the clay tiles of the porch roof, she was confident in her ability to do so. Then, she could hit the ground and exit the manor grounds through the hedge. From there, it would be a quick, unnoticed walk through the festivities within the capital city to her boat. 

Rue placed her right foot on the windowsill, then hung her left leg out as she crouched. She planned to grasp the windowsill in her hands, then lower her body, facing the wall, until her arms were fully extended. She’d have a shorter drop to the porch roof that way. However, just as she was about to swing herself out of the window, a sword pressed against the side of her neck, the sharp blade stinging cold against her jugular.  

“You have information I need,” a masculine voice said, tone deadpan and without infliction. 

From deeper in the room, a second voice—also masculine, but with a liveliness to the gruffness—said, “Bring her back inside without slitting her throat, Bogard.”

“See, no one has to get hurt,” the first—Bogard—said. “Just get out of the window, and we’ll talk.”

Biting back a sigh, only because she was afraid a deep breath would result in Bogard’s sword slicing her neck, Rue backed into the room. Once her feet were on the ground, Bogard removed his blade and stepped behind her, closing the window and blocking her exit.

The other exit—the closed door to the office—was blocked by a tall, broad man in a crisp, white suit, though his white shoes were athletic wear. A curved scar ran from his left temple to beneath his left eye. 

Glancing behind her just enough to catch Bogard in her peripheral, Rue saw a beige suit, a matching fedora, and a stern, clean-shaven face. He held his sword in a relaxed position at his side. 

Though neither wore Marine jackets, they carried themselves in a manner that implied they should be. 

“Marines,” Rue said. “Are you here for Captain Kirkland?”

“You know who he really is,” the Marine at the door said, crossing his arms.

“Yes, though my business was with Mooreland’s enterprises and not Kirkland’s,” Rue said. “I was after information on if Mooreland was involved with a murder on Modeer. If I could prove this death, and Mooreland’s involvement, I was to return to Modeer to deliver that proof. I have no business with Mooreland himself.”

“She’s an intel spy for hire,” Bogard said.

“Information gatherer,” Rue corrected. “In and out without anyone ever knowing I was there. I have no blood on my hands.”

“Trespassing and stealing is illegal,” the white-suited Marine said. “So is blackmail or aiding in the acquiring of blackmail material.”

He walked toward her. “But the fact that you haven’t killed anyone is something I can use.”

Stopping in front of her, he looked down at her. Rue met his gaze, unflinching. He was hardly the first man to try to use his size to intimidate her, but she wasn’t entirely sure he was doing so purposefully—he seemed like the type to just project an aura indicating his strength that demanded attention without doing so intentionally.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Purple Rose.”

“Not your code name. Your name.”

No one could ever know that.

“Roriosa Rue,” Rue admitted.

That had been her name for a decade now.

“Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp,” the Marine said. “The frowning man behind you is Bogard.”

Garp reached into the pocket of his suit jacket. Rue tensed, preparing to block a strike from a small blade, but Garp revealed a harmless piece of food, misshapen from having been in his pocket.

“Rice cracker?”

“No thanks.”

With a shrug, Garp ate the pocket food himself, then turned his back to Rue. It irritated her, Garp’s complete dismissal of her abilities that he left himself open. Unless it was a test, to see just how interested in a physical fight Rue was. Perhaps he was trying to see if Rue was willing to intellectually bargain her way out of the situation. 

He sat in one of the leather chairs. “Join me.”

Hesitantly, and walking warily on her toes, Rue approached the other chair. She would have stayed standing, but Garp gestured at the chair in a way that indicated he’d only talk when she sat, so she settled on the arm farthest from Garp. The vice admiral seemed satisfied with this, as he reached forward and poured himself a glass of bourbon. He gestured at Rue with the bottle, but she shook her head. 

Garp leaned back in his seat, taking a sip of his bourbon. 

“Hmm, there’s better whiskey in the world,” he commented. Holding up the drink, he looked at Rue through the bourbon glass. “You don’t seem surprised to see Marines.”

“Your men were poorly disguised in the city.”

“Subtly isn’t our strong suit,” Garp said. 

He drained the rest of his bourbon, then leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees. “Let me be clear with you, Rue. We weren’t here for you, had no idea you even existed, though we know about the intel gatherers for hire. Still, in the name of justice, now that we know you’re here, we have to arrest you. You’re not exactly an Impel Down threat, so you’ll just spend a decade or so in some Marine base prison.”

Rue had no doubt that would be exactly what happened. She could make a break for it, but Bogard was back in her peripheral vision, and she sensed Garp’s size belied a speed and agility she couldn’t guess the limits of. And he was a vice admiral. Marines of that rank were supposed to have powers, Haki and Devil Fruits and such. Rue had no idea what Garp was capable of.

Garp pulled another rice cracker from his suit jacket. “That’s one option. Let me present you with another.” He paused long enough to consume the rice cracker, and Rue used the word consume lightly—more like inhaled. “You join the Marines. You haven’t killed anyone, so I can vouch for you. You’ll train for a while, then be given a rank. As long as you remain a rule-abiding Marine, you’ll not be at risk of imprisonment for your past as a spy.”

“Why me?” Rue asked.

“You’ve got some skills we could use,” Garp said. “Perhaps you can coach some of the others in subtly and information gathering.”

He held out a third misshapen rice cracker, presenting it to Rue. 

“What do you say, Roriosa Rue? Are you walking out of this room as a prisoner or as a Marine?”

Rue considered her options. The Marines would at least offer a steady income, one without the risk of being caught and murdered…well, no, there was a risk of death in the Marines, too, but at least the fights would be out in the open and a match of strength, not subtly and subterfuge. The Marines had also killed her father, her mother had always told her that—the Marines plus the King of the Pirates, Gold Roger. They wouldn’t want the daughter of Rocks D. Xebec in their organization, but they didn’t know who she was—couldn’t know. To the Marines, she’d never existed until this moment, and she was, to them, nothing more than a young woman with no family ties who’d made herself into a spy.

Moving to sit properly in the chair, she reached into one of her interior jacket pockets. Bogard took a step closer, hand resting on his sword hilt, but Garp remained in his relaxed position, rice cracker still extended.

Rue held up the papers. “Captain Kirkland’s treasure hoards, probably, or just places the Gold Star Pirates plundered.” 

She took the rice cracker and replaced it with the maps. 

“This isn’t an exchange,” Garp said, looking at the maps.

“No.” Rue took a bite of the rice cracker. “This is me telling you the first thing I want to do as a Marine.”

Garp threw back his head in a hearty laugh. “I like you, Rue. You got spunk.” He handed the maps to Bogard. “But the first thing you’re going to do as a Marine is help us arrest Captain Kirkland. Then, you’re going to provide evidence of the murders he committed as Kirk Mooreland. With your help, we’ll punish him for crimes he committed under both personas.” 

Rue passed over the leather book, though she didn’t release the evidence when Garp grabbed it.

“Then we look into the possible treasure hoards,” she said.

“Then we can look into the possible treasure hoards,” Garp agreed.

With a nod, Rue released the red journal.

Garp stood. “Let’s make sure we greet Kirkland at the door once he returns from the celebrations.”

“He’ll be drunk,” Bogard said.

With a shrug, Garp said, “As long as he doesn’t throw up on my ship, I don’t care. Rue, follow me. This is your first official Marine mission, and you’ll be under my direct command.”

“Yes, sir,” Rue said. She’d meant for the words to be sarcastic, but they came across more enthusiastic and excited.

Following the vice admiral, Roriosa Rue stepped out of Kirk Mooreland’s office as a Marine.

[ ]

Once she got to Marineford, after a brief argument between Garp and Sengoku—an event that Rue spent the entirety of petting Sengoku’s friendly goat—Rue was plopped into a cadet class of several older cadets—older as in in their twenties and not teenagers—that were marked as having great potential. 

There was Rosinante, who’d been raised by Sengoku, which apparently gave him the leeway to just clumsily waltz over and demand the fleet admiral’s attention whenever he wanted. He had eaten the Calm-Calm Fruit, which allowed him to create soundproof barriers. His favorite thing to do was silently sneak up on the other cadets in their cohort and jump scare them. He failed as often as he succeeded, tripping over his feet and giving himself away half the time. He was soft-spoken, but steadfast in his morals, and a loyal, supportive friend. He was Rue’s favorite member of the cohort, and the best one to catch quiet, quick meals with, even if she did have to help him clean up spills most of the time.

There were a couple of older cadets, more mid-twenties, named Sakazuki and Borsalino. Both Devil Fruit users—Sakazuki had eaten the Magma-Magma Fruit and Borsalino the Glint-Glint Fruit—they were always seen together, Borsalino a taller, leaner shadow to Sakazuki. Though Sakazuki was a man of few words, Rue found him trustworthy and a good combat partner to spar with (as long as he didn’t start dissolving into magma). Sakazuki seemed to tolerate her, enough that he didn’t mind her calling him Saka. Borsalino was considerably easier to get along with, more talkative and proactive in cohort shenanigans and pranks. Thanks to a bet Rue lost to him, she ended up with the Marine emblem tattooed on her left ankle.

The other Devil Fruit user in the cohort was Kuzan, a recent acquirer of the Ice-Ice Fruit. Much like ice itself, he was quiet and slow to action, but deadly and slippery once he committed to action. Rue found him an interesting balance between Borsalino’s go-with-the-flow attitude and Sakazuki’s direct-the-flow personality. She didn’t understand Kuzan, or how he thought, but there were times when she caught him looking at her and thought he understood her perfectly. 

Other than Rue herself, there were two other non-Devil Fruit users in the cohort. The first was the youngest in the group, a loud, rebellious young woman named Belle-Mère. If Rue wanted to do something that would cause a stir—that would irritate Garp or Bogard without jeopardizing her place in the Marines—Rue would turn to Belle-Mère. She and Rue shared a room in the barracks, and they spent many a late night studying tactical maneuvers and Navy history together and gossiping about their fellow Marines or coming up with ridiculous assumptions about the higher ups.

The other non-Devil Fruit user was Monkey D. Dragon, the son of Monkey D. Garp, but the less said about that, the better. Rue liked Dragon, though sometimes his tendency to stare into space and contemplate life was unnerving. Occasionally, he asked probing questions, not about Rue’s history, but about her beliefs and morals. Her dismissal of World Noble authority seemed to please Dragon, but her unwillingness to rock the metaphorical boat always disappointed him. Still, he continued to press Rue about her moral standings, and how much she would stand by them. Would she, like Sakazuki, bend to the World Government’s will to be a Marine weapon, or would she, like Dragon and Rosinante, be willing to hold to her morals, regardless of the personal cost?

Rue didn’t have a good answer. She didn’t even know her own moral code sometimes. She didn’t want to hurt anyone—not directly, anyway—but she wasn’t above taking advantage of someone for profit. What was a little manipulation to earn a promotion when no one was hurt at the end of the day?

Dragon watched her toe the line and continued asking his questions. Rue responded by spending more time with Belle-Mère, Kuzan, and Borsalino (and, by association, Sakazuki, though she didn’t speak much with him) and taking meals with a quiet Rosinante. Sometimes, Rosinante broke the silence to ask questions like Dragon, but explaining herself always came easier when she was with Rosinante than Dragon. She suspected that Rosinante later told Dragon what she said, but that was fine. Better Dragon than Sengoku.

They were, despite their differences and some friction between Dragon and Sakazuki, a good unit. They understood how one another thought in combat situations, even if they didn’t understand one another on a civilian level, and they worked well together. Between the Devil Fruit users (Sakazuki, Borsalino, Kuzan, and Rosinante) and the Haki users (Rue, Dragon) and the wildcard with a shotgun and fast-flying fists (Belle-Mère) they made a strong cohort, and quickly rose through the ranks together. 

Rue had never questioned her decision to join the Marines, unlike Dragon, until the Buster Call on Ohara.

The Buster Call, Rue’s first, was horrifying enough. She should have known it would be, when Garp had said no non-Haki or non-Devil Fruit users were to go, excluding Belle-Mère from the mission, the first time the unit had been down one of their own since they entered the Marines as potential-rich cadets. Kuzan, Sakazuki, and Borsalino, all three vice admirals now, led the way. Dragon, a rear admiral, quickly realized that Rosinante and Rue, both commanders, were losing the will to continue wiping out an entire civilization of people—women, children, unarmed men—who were begging for their lives. At a gesture from him, they fell back toward the shore at a seaside town’s marina. 

They stood together at the base of the marina’s main dock, unmanned ships behind them—and beyond the dock, open water dotted with Marine ships.

“Ohara scholars only,” Dragon said. “You don’t have to hurt anyone who isn’t an Ohara scholar.”

Rosinante created a sound barrier before the marina, cutting off the sounds of pleading, shouting, and weapons fire emitting from the rest of the island. His Calm-Calm Fruit didn’t stop the sights though, and Rue couldn’t look away from the fires raging across the island, the dead bodies—Marines, Ohara scholars, and other civilians—the destruction of an entire civilization, the genocide of an entire people. Her chest constricted, her lungs shuddering but getting no air.

“Breathe,” Rosinante murmured to her, his voice loud in their pocket of silence.

Rue had seen combat with the Marines, of course she had. But the combat she’d partaken in had been against pirates, sea scum monsters who had murdered innocent civilians, not against civilians themselves. This wasn’t righteous or necessary. There could be no justice in this, despite whatever flowery language Sakazuki repeated from the higher ups.

Her shotgun slipped from her hands.

“Pick up the gun, Rue,” Dragon said.

She shook her head. “I will not hurt anyone.”

“Rue…” 

Dragon cut off Rosinante. “Pick it up.”

Rue rounded on Dragon. Like his father, he was tall and imposing, but Rue had seen him drop eggs off his fork and into his own lap before. He didn’t scare her.

“I will not harm anyone who hasn’t done anything wrong! I didn’t sign up for this!”

Dragon grabbed the front of her white suit jacket, the pink rose on the left lapel crinkling in his fist. 

“You did sign up for this, when you joined the Marines. Do you see what you signed up for now?”

He shoved her away. 

“You can figure out your standing later, but, right now, if you don’t pick up your gun, they’ll kill you for refusing to follow orders. You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.”

“Rue, please,” Rosinante plead. “You don’t have to use it, but you have to hold it.”

Rue bent down and picked up her shotgun with sweaty hands. She ejected the shell, then tossed it into the ocean. Her extra ammo followed.

“Oops, I lost my ammo,” she said.

Dragon grunted, but Rue thought she saw approval and respect in his gaze. She was defying the Marines, defying this genocidal Buster Call, but not in any way the Marines could use against her. Losing ammo sometimes happened in combat situations. Rue having done so provided a good reason for her, Dragon, and Rosinante to fall back for border watch.

The message came through that the island would be bombarded by cannon fire. Marines were to fall back to their ships. 

A horde of Marines began rushing toward their marina, along with refugees who were not Ohara natives. Perhaps they’d been visiting, or perhaps they were recent transplants to the island, but they had nothing to do with the Ohara scholars and whatever they had been researching.

Though what could one learn from historical archives that necessitated a Buster Call?

“They’re not Ohara scholars,” Rosinante said, dropping the sound barrier. Rue flinched at the sudden influx of sound.

“Let them pass,” Dragon said. “Let the refugees on a ship.”

The refugees piled on the first large ship they could find, several Marines who didn’t want to risk waiting for Marine ships joining them. Rosinante, Dragon, and Rue helped unmoor the ship from its place at the dock. Around them, other Marines boarded other ships, hastily posting Marines at the bow and stern and in the fighting tops so they would be recognized as Navy ships.

Rue stood on the uneven boards of the dock, watching as the refugee ship slipped from the docks and started toward open water. 

A wall of ice appeared before the ship. Its prow bumped into the ice wall. Fortunately, the ship hadn’t yet gained enough speed that the impact harmed it. 

“Kuzan, what are you doing?” Dragon asked.

Rue turned her head, watching as the rest of their unit walked toward them. Glints of yellow light danced around Borsalino, who looked bored and disinterested, despite all the bloodshed he’d just witnessed. Kuzan had that particular frown he got when Sakazuki annoyed him. Sakazuki stalked forward a few steps ahead of them, the dock boards steaming beneath his feet, though he hadn’t fully transitioned into magma. His head was angled down, the bill of his Marine cap and the hood of his cloak hiding his face.

“Just following orders,” Kuzan said as the trio of vice admirals reached them. His tone indicated he wasn’t pleased with the orders.

“We have to make sure there’s no Ohara scholars hiding on that ship,” Borsalino drawled. He wiggled his fingers, sparkles dancing lazily around them. Rue didn’t understand how he was so chill and disinterested all the time, aside from some late night card games when there were bets at stake. 

“There won’t be once I’m done with it,” Sakazuki growled. 

He started toward the end of the dock.

“Saka, wait!” 

Impulsively, Rue reached for Sakazuki’s arm to grasp him, but Rosinante pinned her arms. Probably for the best, since he prevented her from scalding her hands on Sakazuki’s skin. Still, the hasty maneuver unbalanced Rosinante, and he fell to the dock, taking Rue with him.

At the end of the dock, Sakazuki took a flying leap toward the refugee ship.

Rue freed herself from Rosinante’s grip, staggering to her feet and tripping over his long legs, and rushed to the end of the dock.

“Saka, there are Marines and innocent people on that ship!”

“He doesn’t care,” Dragon said, walking up beside her. 

Rosinante appeared on her other side, grasping her hand. His grip was too tight, betraying his own distress. Rue gripped his hand just as tightly, clinging to him in the hopes he could keep her upright. 

Borsalino and Kuzan were behind them, Borsalino silent aside from his approaching footsteps, echoing on the dock, but Kuzan snapped, “What a seas-damned fool.”

As much as Rue wanted to look away, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even blink.

Kuzan dissolved his wall of ice, chunks crumbling into the bay, but it was too late. The ship, the people, couldn’t escape Sakazuki. After he was finished, he stood on the upright, sinking stern, a being of magma, no sign of the man he should have been. Then, solidifying, he jumped back to the dock, landing as Sakazuki. Aside from some steam rising in delicate swirls from his shoulders, he appeared as any other man.

Rue looked for—searched for, hoped for, begged for—some glimmer of regret or grief or remorse in Sakazuki’s eyes and found none.

Kuzan pushed between Rue and Dragon. 

“You idiot!” he snapped. “We don’t even know if there was an Ohara scholar on that ship!”

“We couldn’t risk it,” Sakazuki said. “If even one scholar escapes, then the mission is a failure.” He turned away from them, to look at the line of Marine ships preparing to bombard the island, Sakazuki’s ship among them. “Kuzan, give us an ice line to our ship.”

Kuzan clenched his fists.

Sakazuki didn’t even look back before he snapped, “Now!”

A trail of ice shot across the bay, snaking toward the Marine ships. Without hesitation, Sakazuki stepped onto the ice, insultingly trusting of his comrade, though exactly who was being insulted—Sakazuki for taking his comrades for granted or Kuzan for not having the guts to make the ice thin—Rue didn’t know. Borsalino and Kuzan followed him, Borsalino subtly placing himself between the two. For all he appeared otherwise, Borsalino was intricately aware of the tensions between Sakazuki and Kuzan. 

“Come on,” Rosinante said to Rue. 

He pulled her toward the ice. They walked together, not letting go of each other’s hands. Dragon walked behind them, close enough that Rue might have worried he’d hit her heels with the toes of his shoes if she’d been capable of feeling anything other than numb.

She felt more adrift than she had when she was ten years old and her mother had rowed away, leaving her alone on the shore.

Rosinante and Dragon helped Rue scale the side of Sakazuki’s ship and clamber onto the deck. Sakazuki stood on the poop deck, ordering his men to prepare the cannons for the completion of the Buster Call. Borsalino stood next to him, hands in his pants pockets, but Kuzan had disappeared.

Without saying anything to Rosinante or Dragon, Rue went below deck. 

Though it was unusual for three vice admirals to be on one boat, no one had wanted to separate the powerhouses that were Sakazuki, Borsalino, and Kuzan. As the ship was Sakazuki’s, and he was technically the head of their unit, he had a single cabin to himself and Kuzan and Borsalino had to share, though Borsalino could be found in Sakazuki’s office or cabin more often than not. 

Dragon and Rosinante shared a cabin, across from Kuzan’s and Borsalino’s. Tucked in an out of the way corner near Sakazuki’s office was a small cabin that Belle-Mère and Rue shared. She ducked into it now, lamenting the fact that Belle-Mère wasn’t here, that she was all alone with no one to try to pick up the pieces.

She didn’t even understand why she had shattered into pieces in the first place. 

She kicked off her white heels, the shoes disappearing underneath Belle-Mère’s cot. Next, she shrugged off her Marine jacket, the custom one with the pink interior, and threw it onto her cot. The word ‘justice’ was warped and twisted, the jacket landing awkwardly. It seemed fitting and mocking all at once.

She wobbled, unsure if she should go to her bed or sit down at the small, single-drawer desk cramped on the back wall between her and Belle-Mère’s cots. In the end, her legs crumbled beneath her, and she collapsed on the floor. 

Rue ripped the pink rose off her lapel. She’d worn the rose since her promotion from cadet ranks, same as Sakazuki. They’d been the best male and female cadets in their class, and the roses, a permanent mark of their achievement, had been Sakazuki’s idea. Now, Rue never wanted to be compared to Sakazuki, not if that meant she had to let go of empathy and compassion. 

Feeling too hot, she threw off her white suit jacket too, leaving only her pink blouse, then buried her face in her hands and sobbed. She couldn’t stop the tears, and she didn’t care how loud she was. It wasn’t like Sakazuki was around to hear her.

Overhead, the cannons began firing. 

Rosinante entered the room. Other than Belle-Mère, he was the only one who ever walked in without announcing themselves first. He ungracefully sat down next to Rue, enveloping them in a sound barrier so the cannon fire disappeared, then held open his arms in invitation. Rue threw herself into the hug, burying her face into Rosinante’s shoulder as she sobbed. Rosinante ran his fingers through Rue’s hair. 

Eventually, her tears eased, and she turned her head, her temple pressing into Rosinante’s collarbone. She didn’t know how much time had passed, as they were still wrapped in Rosinante’s sound barrier, so she couldn’t tell if the cannons were still firing or if Sakazuki was now in his office or Kuzan in his cabin next to hers. She didn’t let go of Rosinante, and he didn’t let go of her. Maybe he needed someone, too.

“I finally figured it out,” Rue said.

“Figured what out?” Rosinante asked.

“What I’m not willing to accept, what lines I won’t cross for the Navy.”

Rosinante nodded, his chin moving on the top of Rue’s head. “That’s good.”

“I don’t know what to do now.”

“That’s the next thing for you to figure out.” Rosinante gave her a gentle squeeze. “But not right now. Now is for falling apart, then piecing yourself back together before we get back to Marineford.”

“Would Dragon say anything if you stayed here?”

“We don’t have to worry about Dragon. As long as Borsalino doesn’t see us leave the room together in the morning, we’ll be in the clear.”

Because Borsalino was a gossip who’d tell everyone they were together—or imply intimate activities had taken place—and then Sengoku would get curious about the woman his adopted son was mentioned to be with, and the fleet admiral was not someone you wanted interested in you the moment you decided the Navy might not be the guardians of righteousness and justice.

Rue took a deep breath, Rosinante subconsciously mirroring her. 

“Thank you, Rosi,” she murmured.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” Rosinante said. “You’re better company than Dragon right now.”

“You can always stay with me,” Rue said. “My door will always be open to you.”

[ ]

“Dragon’s gone,” Rosinante said, speaking as soon as the door to Rue’s and Belle-Mère’s barrack room closed behind him.

Rue looked up from the solitaire game she was playing. She and Belle-Mère were in a competition to see who could win a round of solitaire in the fewest moves. Currently, Belle-Mère was winning, though Rue’s luck had been good this round and she’d been anticipating a win, possibly a new record in their solitaire competition.

Across the table from her, Belle-Mère opened her mouth in shock, her cigarette nearly falling from her mouth before she snapped it shut.

“What do you mean, gone?” Rue asked.

“He wasn’t in our room this morning,” Rosinante said. He paced back and forth between Rue’s bed and Belle-Mère’s bed, his hands moving like he couldn’t decide what to do with them. The faint birdsong coming through the window disappeared as Rosinante placed the room in a sound barrier. “Not just him, but all his belongings, too. I reported his disappearance to Garp after breakfast. Reluctantly. I thought he might be back after the morning paperwork.”

Just three days back from Ohara, there was a bunch of paperwork. And a bit of an internal investigation. Nico Robin, a child, an Ohara scholar, had escaped. The Navy wanted to identify who had failed, who had let her survive. Sakazuki’s unit, due to their reputation, wasn’t under investigation, so it wasn’t like anyone had been pressuring Dragon, forcing him to admit that he, Rue, and Rosinante had purposefully stepped back from the Buster Call.

“Garp and Sengoku confirmed that one of the smaller vessels is missing. Dragon’s left the Marines,” Rosinante said.

“To do what?” Belle-Mère asked.

“I don’t know,” Rosinante said, spreading his arms wide and accidentally whacking a hand against the wall, “but the Ohara Incident really pushed him over the edge.”

“It pushed a lot of people over the edge,” Rue said.

Belle-Mère gave her a concerned look. When she had returned to Marineford, Rue had told her friend exactly what had happened at Ohara, what lines she’d seen the Navy and World Government willingly cross, what type of man Sakazuki really was, and what lines Rue would not cross for the sake of her soul and moral code.

Perhaps, like her, Dragon’s view of the Marines had changed. Perhaps, like her, Dragon had realized the Marines were far from the organization they claimed to be. In theory, the Navy should have been an altruistic organization concerned with the happiness and well-being of all, but, instead, they were an organization doing the bidding of a few under the guise of justice and righteousness. 

There were good Marines, Marines who truly believed in helping all innocent people, but the organization was designed to crush the morality out of them. Corruption and loyalty to the World Government won. 

The door to the room silently slammed open, Sakazuki gesturing at Rosinante, who promptly dropped the sound barrier.

“Rosinante, stop soundproofing rooms so you can’t hear when people knock,” Sakazuki said as he stepped into the room.

“Stop barging into rooms that aren’t open to you,” Belle-Mère snapped as Sakazuki approached Rosinante.

“Where’s Dragon?” Sakazuki asked Rosinante, who backed away from him. 

“How should I know?” Rosinante responded, the back of his thighs hitting the card table. Rue stood, gesturing for Belle-Mère to move away, which she did, reluctantly.

“You live with him.” Sakazuki pressed a finger to Rosinante’s chest. “What is his plan?”

“I don’t know,” Rosinante said.

“Stop lying to me,” Sakazuki snarled.

“Sakazuki, back up.”

Rue shoved herself between the two men. Something, maybe the suddenness of her arrival, the tone of her voice, or the way she’d used Sakazuki’s full name, made him take a few steps back.

“He doesn’t know anything more than you,” she said. “Neither do we. You know Dragon liked to keep to himself.”

“There’s no rule against leaving the Navy,” Belle-Mère said from where she stood at the window.

“There is if you’re leaving to make yourself an enemy of the Marines,” Sakazuki said.

“There’s no evidence of that,” Rue said. “His own father is a Marine. You think Dragon would really turn against the Navy like that?”

Borsalino stepped into the room, closely followed by Kuzan. Rue and Belle-Mère had the smallest room, and it wasn’t really intended to hold so many people—especially people who carried powerful auras that demanded space.

“Dragon will turn against the Marines,” Borsalino said. “He so much as said so to Garp last night.”

“He talked to Garp last night?” Rosinante asked.

“Only vice admirals and up are supposed to know,” Sakazuki said, a warning in his voice as he looked at Borsalino. Unphased, Borsalino just slowly shrugged.

“They’re going to know anyway, being part of the unit,” Kuzan said. “We couldn’t keep the information from them if we tried.”

“What happened last night?” Rue asked.

Sakazuki and Kuzan glared at one another, Borsalino stepping back so he wasn’t between them anymore.

“If you won’t tell them, I will,” Kuzan said.

“You will do no such thing,” Sakazuki said.

“Borsalino, why don’t you tell us what happened?” Rosinante called.

Borsalino seemed to consider the proposition, then, looking down, drawled, “No.”

“Sakazuki.”

Only when he looked at her did Rue continue speaking. Meeting his gaze, much more human than it had been on that dock in Ohara but not human enough for Rue, she said, “Tell me what happened last night.”

A muscle twitched in Sakazuki’s jaw, then he said, “Dragon and Garp had an argument in Garp’s office. Dragon was proclaiming that the Navy wasn’t helping, that the Marines were a corrupt bunch pandering to an elite, oppressive few.”

It took a considerable amount of self-control for Rue to not glance at Rosinante. Those words sounded eerily similar to the conversation she and Rosinante had had on the ship back from Ohara. 

“Dragon left Garp’s office saying he was going to leave,” Sakazuki continued, “that he was going to build a means to free the world from its oppressors. He all but declared himself an enemy of the Marines.”

“You didn’t tell them the rest of it,” Kuzan said.

“What rest of it?” Rue demanded.

Sakazuki’s jaw clenched.

“What rest of it, Sakazuki?” Rue snapped, taking a step toward him.

“Dragon stole a Devil Fruit,” he said suddenly, like each word spoken pained him.

“What Devil Fruit?” Belle-Mère asked. 

When it became clear Sakazuki wasn’t going to share any more information, Kuzan said, “One Sengoku kept under lock and key.”

Rue looked at Rosinante, questioning. He shook his head. “Sengoku keeps several dangerous Devil Fruits locked away to prevent anyone from consuming them. He’s the only one who knows what they are. I don’t know what Dragon could have gotten, or what power he might have now.”

“There’s no ‘might have’ about it,” Sakazuki bit out. “Monkey D. Dragon is an enemy of the Navy, and one with an unknown, dangerous power.”

[ ]

Years later, Rue followed Kuzan off his ship, given to him by the higher ups two years prior. It had been decided that separating those with great power would be best, and Kuzan had been tasked by Garp with searching for Monkey D. Dragon. Predictably, Sakazuki and Borsalino had remained together, taking Belle-Mère with them as part of their new command. Kuzan had selected, or perhaps been left with, Rosinante and Rue. 

They’d traveled from island to island, searching so many over the past few years, that Rue couldn’t recall which Grand Line island this was. One nearing a calm belt, but she knew nothing else, except it was far away from the Red Line and Marineford. 

As she walked down the dock toward the small shoreside town, which Kuzan had identified as West Port, Rosinante matched her pace. He yawned, a silent affair that he’d probably subconsciously muffled. He’d picked up the habit as a child so Sengoku wouldn’t realize when his talking bored Rosinante. Mid-yawn, he staggered toward the edge of the dock, and Rue grabbed his belt loop and pulled him back.

Kuzan pointed at a red-hulled ship anchored away from the dock, a dragon figurehead bobbing as the ship moved with the waves. There wasn’t enough of a breeze for the ships’ flags to be fully extended, but there was no mistaking that the highest flag was a jolly roger, even if Rue couldn’t identify it.

“Now’s not the time for caring about pirates,” Kuzan said. “Unless they have information on Dragon.”

“What if they start a problem first?” Rue asked. 

“Don’t let them,” Kuzan said. 

“Sakazuki would go after the pirates anyway,” Rue said.

“Sakazuki isn’t here,” Kuzan snapped. “So, Commander, are you going to follow my orders or act out like Sakazuki?”

Bypassing Kuzan, Rue flicked his shoulder. “Don’t insult me, Kuzan. You coming, Rosi?”

Hurrying ahead, she heard a quick, quiet (but not Calm-Calm Fruit quieted) conversation, then Rosinante was back at her side, running a hand through his blond hair. 

“I can’t really tell who you’re trying to antagonize,” he said. “Kuzan is on our side, more or less. Sakazuki was the one who killed all those innocent people, and Borsalino just goes along with whatever. Kuzan actually listened to Garp’s lectures about developing a moral code and sticking to it.”

“Kuzan isn’t the problem,” Rue said. “I am.”

“What do you mean?” Rosinante asked.

“I can’t forget what happened, Rosi.”

The two began walking through the small town. A few West Port civilians gave them suspicious looks. Rue could understand why. From the rundown look of the place, and the evidence of past and recent fighting, it was likely they’d been dealing with pirates and criminals on their own for a while, without help from the Navy or World Government. Exactly what shouldn’t be happening in the world.

“It was years ago, but I can’t forget what the Navy did to Ohara and its people. And for what? Some information from hundreds of years ago? I can’t forget what Sakazuki did to those innocent people, and with no remorse. I can’t forget it, and I can’t sleep at night, not when I know that I’m more of a criminal now than when Garp caught me. I have innocent blood on my hands thanks to the Navy. Rosi, I don’t think I belong in the Marines anymore.”

“Okay, then leave.”

“But I don’t feel like that’s the right answer either,” Rue said. “I’d just be turning tail and running, and I can’t do that when I know what the World Government does, and what the Marines will do for the World Government.”

“Now you sound like Dragon,” Rosinante said.

“But Dragon was right,” Rue said. “The Marines are the bad guys pretending to be the good guys.” She reached up to straighten the rose on her lapel out of habit before she remembered she didn’t wear one anymore. “Dragon was wrong about the Marines, though. He thinks the organization as a whole should be dissolved, but it just needs to be purged of corruption. There are good Marines who actually care about helping everyone, and, if we could get them in charge, the Marines could change.”

“That’s a tall aspiration,” Rosinante said, “and, while admirable in theory, not entirely possible. Even a moral and true fleet admiral would still be at the mercy of the World Nobles. If they didn’t do as the World Government ordered, they’d simply be executed and a fleet admiral who did the World Government’s bidding would be put in their place. You’d have to raze and reestablish the World Government as well as the Navy.”

“Now you sound like Dragon,” Rue said. She pointed at a bar tucked at the edge of an alleyway, the overhead sign hanging by one corner. Sounds of talking and laughter came from inside. “That looks like a good place for pirates.”

“We’re not looking for pirates,” Rosinante said.

“No, but drinking pirates love to give away information.”

Without waiting to see if Rosinante would follow her, she started toward the bar. Pushing open the swinging doors, she stepped inside, purposefully stepping on an upraised board so it squeaked under her weight and announced her presence. Several of the bar’s patrons looked at her, many with suspicious looks and just as many with lustful leers. At the bar, a pistol sniper with ‘Yasopp’ written on his headband watched her warily though he didn’t move from his relaxed lean on the countertop. Two seats over, a large man continued chowing down on whatever slab of meat was before him. Between them, a red-haired man in a straw hat didn’t move, keeping his back to Rue. She kept walking toward him, hearing the board squeak behind her as Rosinante entered the bar.

“Do you know who sails on the red ship in the harbor?” she asked.

The sniper narrowed his eyes. Though his hands didn’t drift toward the pistols in his waist belt, his fingers twitched with anticipatory energy. “Why does it matter to you, Marine?”

“My name is Rue,” she said. Then, answering his question, she added, “It doesn’t, really, unless the pirates on that ship have information on a rogue Marine we’re searching for. If not, I’ll just ask around town.”

The red-haired man spun around on his stool, an intrigued look on his face. Three scars crossed his left eye, ending just past his sharp cheekbone. He leaned his back against the countertop, resting his elbows beside him. His mostly open shirt didn’t leave much to the imagination, fit torso on display, and while Rue could appreciate an in-shape man as well as any woman, it wasn’t like there was a shortage of abs and pectorals and muscled men at Marineford and on Navy ships.

“A rogue Marine? All right, Rue, consider me interested,” he said. “Which rogue Marine are you looking for?”

Rue took a step closer to him, ignoring the faint sound of warning and protest Rosinante made as she stepped within the straw-hatted man’s reach. “Do you know of more than one?”

He smirked. “I may know of one current one.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “And I may know of a pretty little Marine I can convince to go rogue.”

Rue stepped back, waving a hand dismissively. “He’s drunk and thinking with his manhood, Rosi. He’s no help to us.”

She turned, brushing past Rosinante, and sauntered away.

“You’re looking for Vice Admiral Garp’s son, yes?”

Rue looked over her shoulder. The redheaded man was just visible past her own white hair, but she didn’t want to turn back toward him. Not yet. “Perhaps. Depends on if you know anything about him.”

The red-haired man smirked. “What are you willing to give me for the information?”

“She’s not that type of lady,” Rosinante said, defensive on Rue’s behalf, crossing his arms.

“Rosi’s right. I’m not.” Rue walked back toward the pirate captain, pressing a hand to the small of Rosinante’s back as she passed him to signal that she had everything under control. Maneuvering between Yasopp, who moved aside for her, and the straw-hatted man, she mirrored his stance, leaning her weight on her elbows on the countertop. “Not anymore, at least. I might be convinced to go back to my old ways.”

He threw back his head in a hearty laugh, one hand clutching at his chest. The men closest to him—not just the ones at the counter—laughed too, probably his crew.

“I like you, Rue,” he said, wiping laughter-tears from the corners of his eyes. “I’ll give the information to you for free. Monkey D. Dragon came through yesterday, searching for a ship that could be manned by a single individual. No one had one to spare, so he headed across the island to the other town, East Port.”

“Thank you for your candor, pirate.” 

Rue ducked in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, enjoying the startled sound he made, and quickly departed before he could react. As she and Rosinante exited the bar, Rosinante tripping out of the establishment, she could hear the pirate’s crew laughing at him for his surprised reaction to the kiss. 

“She got you good, Shanks!” someone chortled. 

“Let’s find Kuzan,” Rue said. “Making an ice slide across the island might be faster than sailing around.”

“Kissing him was unnecessary,” Rosinate said, disapproving.

Rue grinned at him. “But it was seas-damned fun.”

Rosinante huffed, and Rue couldn’t tell if he was reluctantly agreeing with her or doubling down on being disappointed. Sengoku wouldn’t have approved, but Garp probably would have found Shanks’ flabbergasted response amusing. Just one reason Rue preferred Garp to Sengoku, but that wasn’t something she could say to Sengoku’s adopted son. 

After reuniting with Kuzan and relaying the information she’d gotten—and much more reluctantly revealing how she’d gotten that information when Kuzan wouldn’t believe it was just her Observation Haki at work; Kuzan seemed more confused and surprised by Rue’s intel gathering from pirates than anything—Rue, Kuzan, and Rosinante used an ice slide to cross the island. Kuzan instructed the rest of their crew to sail the ship around to East Port and contact Sakazuki and the other higher ups. Contacting them wasn’t what Kuzan wanted, but it was protocol.

Rue led the way through East Port, just as rundown and slapped together as West Port. One of the docks in the marina was submerged, a dark shadow under the bay. The townspeople here were a little more bold, openly jeering and hissing insults about the Marines under their breath as they passed. 

“Don’t they know the Marines are here to help?” Rosinante asked.

“Has the Navy bothered to help these people before?” Kuzan responded. “Why would they assume we are now?”

“They’re right,” Rue said. “We’re here to clean up some family drama between Garp and Dragon, and we’ll never be back. These people will be on their own again.”

She paused, whipping her head across the square they were in and looking down a street that led to the marina as a presence rippled at the edge of her awareness. Halfway between the central square and the marina, she saw a man in a dark green cloak walking away from them. His hood was up, and the cloak dragged the ground, so there were no identifying factors visible, but she knew. She could feel the truth of it singing in her very being.

Rue took off at a run for the cloaked man.

“Dragon!”

The man sprinted forward, toward the marina.

Rue caught Dragon at the marina, her hands darkening with Armament Haki before she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back, throwing him onto his back beside her. Her momentum moved her past him, then she pivoted on her foot to stand before Dragon, the black Armament Haki fading from her hands and forearms. He sat up as Kuzan and Rosinante ran up to them, the hood falling from his head. A red mark was inked onto his face, an intricate pattern of diamonds and dots.

“Is this all they sent to apprehend me?” Dragon asked.

“It doesn’t have to be an apprehension,” Rosinante said. “We can just talk some things out.”

“Garp would never allow that,” Dragon said, getting to his feet. 

“He would,” Rue said. “Garp’s not above bending the rules for people he considers his, and there’s no one that’s his more than his own son.”

Dragon narrowed his eyes at her. “You would know about Garp bending the rules, wouldn’t you, Roriosa Rue?”

The way he said it, the way Roriosa rolled off his tongue, Rue knew he knew. She didn’t know how. Not even Garp knew, though Garp was clever enough to know Rue’s missing childhood history and her claiming she had no family meant she was hiding something. And Garp had seen Rocks D. Xebec, had been there when he died at God Valley. Maybe he saw something of Xebec in her—perhaps her light purple eyes had come from her father, just as her white hair had come from her mother—but he knew to keep his mouth shut. Why Dragon knew anything, she didn’t know.

“I do know about Garp bending the rules, which is why I know he would bend them for you,” she said, keeping her voice even.

Dragon met her gaze. His face was stoic, so she didn’t know what he was thinking or might be searching for, but she didn’t look away.

“What happened to your face?” Kuzan asked, breaking the tension between Dragon and Rue. 

“This—” Dragon pointed to the mark on his face “—will be the mark that all oppressors fear. This will be the mark of freedom. This will be the symbol of the downfall of the World Government.”

“Seas, why would you say that, Dragon?” Rosinante asked, his shoulders curling forward. “Now it has to be an arrest.”

“No. This ends with me getting away.”

Dragon shoved past Rue, heading for the marina. Kuzan darted forward, jumping into the water. It froze beneath his feet. An ice sheet spread across the bay and shoreline, inches and inches of ice locking all ships in their place. 

As citizens shouted at Kuzan for interfering with their fishing vessels, and one brave man threw a bottle of liquor at the vice admiral, Dragon changed direction, heading back into the town. Rosinante and Rue followed after him.

“Dragon, stop! You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be!” Rue yelled.

“Rue, the sky!”

At Rosinante’s shout, Rue looked up. The once clear sky now roiled with dark gray and greenish clouds. The temperature dropped as rain began to lash down, the raindrops cold and immediately drenching Rue’s clothes. 

Though she’d caught Dragon easily before, Rue couldn’t seem to get any headway now. It felt like the weather itself fought against her, the rain falling into her eyes and blurring her vision, the wind pressing against her to slow her down. Rosinante wasn’t faring any better. If anything, he fared worse, struggling to maintain his balance and continuing to trip.

“Devil Fruit!” Rosinante shouted as they followed Dragon out of the town.

The weather, that must be Dragon’s newfound power. The storm overhead grew more violent as they ran through the woods. Dragon was going a different way than they had crossed the island earlier, heading for the jagged hillsides Kuzan had circumvented with his ice slide. Overhead, the trees bent back and forth, and lightning cracked across the sky. Dragon’s dark cloak was hard to see in the darkness and rain, but Rue kept pushing forward, trusting he would be there if she just kept going.

The chase took them up one of the hills, Rosinante and Rue losing their footing more than once and staining their clothes with mud, and then down the other side. Rue would have slipped down the hillside completely, but managed to catch herself on a tree, scraping her palms and forearms on the rough bark. At the base of the hill, Dragon jumped into a ravine, deep enough for his entire body to disappear. Rue jumped in after him.

Lightning ricocheted across the nearest treetops, whiting out her vision. Chunks of wood splintered in every direction. A bough struck Rosinante, taking him to his knees at the edge of the ravine. A bit disorientated, Rosinante slid into the ravine, not quite finding his feet. 

“Keep going!” he shouted. “I’ll be okay!”

Breathing hard, Rue continued after Dragon. The bottom of the ravine was mostly chunk rock, and she fell a few times, her knees bursting open, leaving smears of blood that the rain washed away. Rue lost ground to Dragon, then neared him again when he paused to climb out of the ravine. 

“Dragon!”

The ground rumbled beneath Rue’s feet. She looked away from Dragon, up the ravine, back toward where she had left Rosinante. A wall of water rushed toward her, small rocks and tree limbs caught at the front of the surge. Rue jumped for the top of the ravine, but her foot slipped, throwing her off. Her hands didn’t grasp the lip of the ravine, and she fell awkwardly on her hands and knees at the base of the ravine. Everything around her shook as the flash flood grew closer. 

As lightning flashed, she looked up again, spying Dragon looking down at her, his new facial marking dark in the bright white of the lightning flash. 

“Dragon, help me!” There was real fear in Rue’s voice. She felt no need to hide it.

For a moment, there was a softening in Dragon’s face, and she thought her former friend would help her. Then, his face turning stoic, he stepped back out of Rue’s sight.

“Dragon!”

The water hit, a shock of cold. Warmth burst along her body when the debris struck her. Rue tumbled through the dark current, pulled one way and then another, unsure which way would lead to air. Suddenly, her face broke the surface, and she gasped in a breath before a limb entangled her leg and pulled her back under. For some time—an unknown, never-ending time—Rue was carried by the water surge until her lungs burned, and each time she was certain she would drown, she managed to find a life-saving breath of air.

Somewhere, somehow, she managed to snag the edge of the ravine—or, rather, she slammed into the edge of the ravine, nothing more than a discarded piece of debris, her legs still pulling away from her with the current. With trembling arms, she pulled herself from the water. She coughed, muddy, gritty water dribbling from her mouth.

She tried to get to her feet—bare, the flood had stolen her shoes—but her legs collapsed beneath her, leaving her crawling forward on her bleeding palms and knees. The rain continued to fall, and it probably should have been cold, but Rue’s skin was numb, her fingers and toes feelingless. 

“Rosi!”

She didn’t know where she was going, she just kept moving.

“Rosi!”

He’d been farther up the ravine. The flash flood would have reached him first. Where had it taken him?

“Rosi!”

Her arms gave out beneath her, and Rue fell to the forest floor. She couldn’t find the strength or even the will to try to move again, aside from rolling onto her side.

“Rosinante!”

Her voice cracked. 

“Rosinante.”

Talking required too much effort.

“Rosinante.”

Despite something telling her she should fight it, Rue’s eyes began to close. 

“Rosinante…”

A shape moved closer to her. Rue tried to reach for it, but her body refused to cooperate, her arm flopping back to the ground. 

“Rosinante…”

He kneeled next to her, placing a warm hand on her shoulder.

“Rosi…”

Just before the darkness took her, Rue realized the man with her had red hair.

[ ]

Rue woke up by punching a doctor in the face. Given what she later learned about Hongo, he’d probably simply allowed this instead of risking hurting her by stopping her. Once Hongo had backed off, Rue got to her feet, wobbling a bit. 

Shanks was immediately in front of her, blocking her path but holding his hands up to show he wasn’t a threat. 

“Hey, that’s no way to treat a doctor,” he said. “We saved you from that storm.”

“What about Rosinante? Or Dragon?”

“Dragon’s hiding somewhere on the island. No one’s leaving the island. As for your Marine friend, I don’t know, but Kuzan is back at East Port, where you found Dragon.”

“I need to find Rosi.” 

Rue shoved past Shanks, bypassing Yasopp and a few other members of Shanks’ crew—who, unlike their captain and doctor, were all in various states of undress as if they’d just woken. Rue supposed she should be grateful she was still in her clothes, blood- and mud-stained and stiff as they were.

Shanks and his crew had sheltered in a rundown shack or house, and Rue shoved open the crooked door and stepped outside. Her steps faltered, and her breath caught in her throat.

She was back on the side of the island where she’d first met Shanks, the town of West Port silent at the base of the wooded slope the house sat at the crest of. Puddles covered the dirt streets of the town. Trees lay bent in odd directions, and there was roofing damage of some sort on all the structures…at least the structures that still had roofs. The marina and bay were frozen, all ships locked in place, including Shanks’. Dawn was in full swing, swaths of red covering the sky and reflecting on the puddles.

Shanks stepped out beside Rue. “Like I said, no one’s leaving the island. Kuzan froze the entire shoreline.” He gestured to ships sitting farther out in the ocean, specks just close enough that Rue could make out their mast shapes. “The Marines can get onto the island, though. Your friends Sakazuki and Borsalino should be arriving soon.”

“They’re not my friends,” Rue said.

“Marines don’t have friends?”

“Of course they do. Sakazuki and Borsalino just aren’t my friends.”

“This Rosinante fellow is?”

“Yes.”

“Then I hope he survived,” Shanks said, “though I don’t think Dragon cares one way or another if you and the others live or die.”

“Dragon did this,” Rue said.

“The storm?” Shanks let out an appreciative whistle. “That’s a heck of a Devil Fruit power.”

Rue sat down in the grass, uncaring if the earth underneath was still wet. Her pencil skirt was ruined anyway. Shanks sat down beside her.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“That you and your crew should hide,” Rue said. “Dragon and Sakazuki…it’s not going to end in Sakazuki’s favor, and he’s going to take it out on the pirates on the island. Your ship’s right there, broadcasting your presence.”

“Oh, I had Limejuice remove the jolly roger. Right now, it’s just a fancy civilian ship. We’re hiding in plain sight.”

Rue gave a curt nod. “Hiding in plain sight is an overlooked tactic. It works very well when employed correctly.”

“What do you know of it?”

“I was an information gatherer before I was in the Navy.”

Shanks let out a chuckle. “Now I see why you said you could be convinced to go back to your old ways. So, what do you say, are you a rogue Marine yet?”

Rue took a deep breath, choking back the words she wanted to say with air. “I can’t. Not until I make sure Rosi is safe.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know.” She turned to Shanks. “Have you ever made a decision only to realize the true consequences later?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do?”

He turned to her, his hazel gaze meeting hers. “I asked myself if I could live with the consequences.”

“And could you?”

“Would the son of a Holy Knight be a pirate if he could live with the consequences?”

Rue’s breath hitched. “You’re a World Noble.”

“Was. That lifestyle wasn’t for me.” His hand slid across the grass, closer to hers. “What about you, Rue? Can you keep working for the World Government, or do you want to be free?”

“I want to be free.”

Shanks’ hand found hers, his fingers curling over hers. She slowly pulled her hand away. 

“But I have to check on Rosinante.”

“Understandable.” Shanks looked back at the red dawn. “Perhaps not today. It’s a red dawn day, and everyone knows red dawn days are bad luck for sailors, Marine or pirate.”

Rue knew the old superstition, and as she looked at the red—the red sunlight, the red reflections on the ground, the red refractions on the ice, the red clouds in the sky, the rising red sun—she believed it. 

“Stay with me today,” Shanks said. “You can rest and recover, then check on Rosinante when the dawn gives a better omen.”

She should say no, she should decline. Rosinante could be injured somewhere on the island. But sitting next to Shanks didn’t make her skin prickle, like when she was around Sakazuki or Borsalino or the other Navy-loyalists. Talking to Shanks didn’t make her want to scream stop saying their lies, say what you truly believe like when she talked to Garp or Rosinante. 

“Do you have any food, or did the large guy eat it all?”

Shanks laughed. “We have food.” 

He stood, then offered a hand to her. She took it, letting him pull her to her feet. He didn’t release her hand as they walked back into the half-falling down house. 

Rue liked that he didn’t let go.

Not long after, a storm rolled over the island, just as ferocious as the day before. Rue stood in the open doorway, hand extended to catch pebble-sized chunks of hail that plummeted from the dark clouds. 

“She’s letting the wind in,” Lucky Roux complained. 

“It’s messing up our card game,” Yasopp added.

“Why do you care? You were losing anyway.” After Benn Beckman’s statement, the other two fell silent.

Behind Rue, Hongo murmured something to Shanks. Shanks stepped forward to stand beside Rue. Throwing an arm out, he snatched a hailstone from the air before drawing his arm back in to look at the chunk of ice. 

“Kuzan?” Shanks asked.

Rue withdrew her arm from the storm as she shook her head. “Maybe some aftermath of a battle between Dragon and Kuzan, but not Kuzan’s doing directly.” She picked a wood splinter from the lopsided threshold. “Although this might be Dragon trying to destroy the ice sheet, which means that Kuzan will be busy trying to maintain the blockade.”

Shanks rolled the melting hailstone around in his palm. “Which Marines do you think are here?”

“All of the powerhouses, aside from Sengoku. He doesn’t really leave Marineford. Garp probably isn’t here, either, by order of Sengoku. He wouldn’t want family matters getting in the way of duty.”

Shanks flicked the remainder of the hailstone away. “If you had caught Dragon, what would you have done?”

Rue didn’t know. By Marine law she should apprehend all criminals, or all who declared the Navy their enemy, but Dragon was her friend. Or he had been. Whatever bond that had been between them had snapped when Dragon had stepped back and let the flash flood take her. Maybe that was him severing all ties to the Navy, maybe he really was an enemy of the Marines. But he’d saved her life more than once in combat situations, and Rue couldn’t just forget that and hand Dragon over to the higher ups for execution. 

She turned back into the house. “Benn, I want in on the next game.”

“What’re your stakes?” he asked around his cigarette.

“Embarrassing stories about certain Marine admirals and vice admirals,” she said. 

Benn grinned while Yasopp guffawed. Hongo smirked, and Lucky Roux slapped his knee with a hand. Rue hoped he was simply laughing with his mouth full and not choking.

“I like the way you play,” Shanks said as he closed the door, blocking out the wind.

It did nothing to disguise the sound of the hail striking the roof, some pieces clattering into the house through holes and leaks.

As night fell, the storm dissipated. The clouds wisped away, leaving a clear night sky. Rue slipped out of the house, stepping over a snoring Limejuice and Benn, and into the star-speckled night. Dragon’s storm had cooled the spring island throughout the day, and it was still chilly, though not uncomfortably so. Circling around the house, Rue looked at the island. 

One of the interior hillsides was a glowing mess, all red lava and dark igneous rock. A smoky haze hung low over the hill, reminding Rue of the new, anti-authority cadet she’d recently worked with that had a habit of annoying the hell out of his superior officers by simply refusing to do as they said. Embers sparked off the slope, dangerous specks of light.

Someone joined Rue, surveying the damage. Without looking, she knew it was Shanks.

“Sakazuki’s work,” Rue said.

“That’s a dangerous power,” Shanks said. “The damage lingers.”

“And he doesn’t care who gets caught in the magma, as long as the bad guys are some of them.”

Shanks took her hand in his. It wasn’t like all the times Rue had held Rosinante’s hand. That was companionship, the two of them silently supporting one another. This was something else, a different kind of connection, one that tingled warmly throughout Rue’s body.

“But you care,” he said.

Rue turned to him. He was looking at her, his face close enough that his breath ghosted against her cheek when he exhaled. The moonlight sparkled in his eyes. It made him seem more than a mere human, but there was a humanity in him that wasn’t in Sakazuki. 

“I do,” she breathed. 

“So why are you still with the Marines?”

“Because I’m scared to be against them. There are horrible things they could learn about me if they dug deep enough. I can’t let the truth be known, especially by the Navy.”

Shanks tightened his grip. For a moment, Rue thought he was going to ask her what the Navy could never know, but he didn’t.

He moved his face closer to hers, the brim of his straw hat brushing across the crown of her scalp, his nose just touching hers.

“If you can’t be against the Marines, can you at least go rogue for a bit?”

Instead of answering, Rue kissed him. Hard, with complete abandon, his scruff scraping at her cheeks and chin. Shanks’ arms wrapped around her, pulling her flush to him. 

There was no going back now. This was Rue committing a crime that the Navy would never be able to forgive.

And she did it without hesitation.

The following morning, the dawn was mostly pink, with dark crimsons low on the horizon. What little guilt churned in Rue’s gut when she said “Another red dawn, you think I should stay?” dissipated in the light of Shanks’ smile.

That day’s storm was worse than before, a chunk of the roof ripping off. Rue had sensed it coming, an unsettled feeling in her stomach, and Shanks seemed to as well, grabbing her and pulling her from that area of the house and yelling for his men to get to safety before the roof lifted off. A few cannonball-sized hailstones fell, fortunately none landing near the house, though Rue saw a few crash through structures in the town. 

The ice sheet cracked, the sound deafening even over the thunder crashes. Ice floes frothed in the sea, and ships bounced with the turbulent waves, a few taking damage to their hulls from the ice.

“The Red Force can handle it,” Shanks said before Rue could voice her concern.

The storm halted. No gentle dissipation, no clouds drifting away. Full cloud coverage to full sun in less time than it took to blink. The rain hissed to a halt as the wind stilled. The bay settled, ice floes beginning to drift apart and melt. 

“Dragon got away,” Rue said.

Instead of asking why Rue was so certain, Shanks just nodded, agreeing with her intuition. “He’s gone. The Navy will be leaving soon.”

“No, they’ll scour the island, make sure Dragon doesn’t have allies here,” Rue said. “They’ll probably go after pirates, too.”

“I’m not scared of the Marines, not when they lost to one man with a Devil Fruit,” Shanks said, “but I’m not going to look for a confrontation, either. We’ll stay here for a bit, hunkered down as storm-beaten civilians. The Red-Hair Pirates jolly roger isn’t on display, so it’s not like we’re really pirates at the moment.”

That wasn’t how it worked, Rue knew that wasn’t how it worked—after all, she was still Rocks D. Rue, no matter how long she’d called herself Roriosa Rue—but she smiled and agreed, nonetheless. 

That night, Shanks and Rue stole away through the town to the marina. Jumping from ice floe to ice floe, they made their way to the Red Force. As Shanks had claimed, the ship could take the beating, and she sat tall and proud in the water, ready to sail when the Marines weren’t nosing around the island.

She and Shanks sat on the deck, a full moon lighting their meal of bread and cheese Shanks had retrieved from the galley. 

“I’ve seen you before,” Shanks said, “at Loguetown. When they executed Roger.”

Rue had still been new to the Marines then, and still tagging along in Garp’s shadow since he was ‘sponsoring her,’ as Sengoku claimed. She’d been the only one of their cohort there, Sakazuki and the others on some training mission in the West Blue she’d been forbidden to go on by Garp, though he’d never told her why. Rosinante’s and Belle-Mère’s descriptions of the mission had never shone any light on Garp’s refusal to let her go.

Unless that was around the time Garp had put everything together and decided to keep a closer eye on her for a bit.

“I didn’t know you were there,” Rue said.

“Exactly as I wanted,” Shanks said. “It wouldn’t have been good if anyone saw that one of Roger’s crew was there.”

“Are you telling me the son of a Holy Knight joined the crew of one of the most infamous pirates of all time?”

“There is something so ironic and amusing about a child growing up to be exactly what their parents didn’t want them to be. That’s why Dragon’s leaving the Marines is hilarious. Poor Monkey D. Garp failed to make a loyal Marine of his own son.” He bopped Rue’s nose with his finger, and she thought the alcohol accompanying their food had been a bad idea. “Did he fail with you, too?”

“He did, but that doesn’t mean I can go with you,” Rue said.

“That’s something to discuss in the daylight,” Shanks said. “Right now, it’s just you and me, the moon, and this ship.”

Then his lips were on hers, and Rue’s world narrowed down to just Shanks and body-shuddering pleasure. 

The next morning, Rue woke back in the house, though she didn’t remember coming back from the ship. Maybe Shanks had brought her. Sunlight drifted down through the hole in the roof to pool around Shanks and her, warming her skin, though she was warm enough with Shank’s chest to her back and his arm thrown around her waist. 

Her name drifted on the wind, carried alongside the birdsong. 

Rue sat up, Shanks doing the same shortly after her. The rest of the Red-Hair Pirates stirred as well. Benn gave them a disapproving look, but it seemed he was more disappointed in Shanks than Rue. Yasopp made a vulgar gesture that resulted in Hongo kicking him in the shin.

“Rue!”

Closer now, and definitely her name.

“Rosi,” Rue breathed. 

She stood, picking her Marine jacket off the floor and putting it on over the rest of her clothes. She hurried to the door, opening it. Just as she was about to step out, Shanks’ hand gripped her wrist, not hard enough to stop her, but with enough strength she couldn’t just pull away. Rue turned back to him. Behind him, his crew did their best to pretend like they weren’t paying attention. 

“You don’t have to,” he said. “You can stay here, and they’ll never find you.”

“I’ll find you again,” Rue said, “but I can’t leave without saying goodbye.”

From the town, Rosinante yelled her name again. She had to go before he got close enough to see the house clearly, before he could find evidence of the group of men hiding there.

“Who are you really that you’re so scared to cut ties with the Navy? What have you done to earn their ire?”

“I’ll find you,” Rue insisted, ignoring Shanks’ questions. 

She kissed him, quickly and messily, and then pulled out of his grasp. She took off at a run for West Port. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t look back.

“Rosi!”

“Rue!”

Rosinante met her just outside the town limits, and Rue threw her arms around him, holding him tightly. He returned the hug, squeezing so hard her back popped. 

“I thought you’d drowned,” Rue said. 

“I thought you’d drowned,” Rosinante said. “I got out before the flash flood and went back to meet up with Kuzan.”

“I got caught in the surge. I’ve been wandering about in the wilderness for days,” Rue said. Jumping up, she gave him a platonic kiss on the cheek. “I’m so happy to see you again.”

The kiss he placed on her temple was brotherly, familiar and welcome. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“You found her. Good.”

Vice Admiral Garp joined them, Bogard a frowning, silent shadow trailing him. Pulling away from Rosinante’s hug, but still holding his hand, Rue looked at Garp. He looked exhausted, his eyes betraying a grief that didn’t show itself on his face or in the way he carried himself. 

“I’d hate to lose both Marines I sponsored,” he said. “That would be a bad look.” After clearing his throat, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Just a little scraped up,” Rue said. Then, remembering she was supposed to have been lost in the wilderness for a couple days, she added, “And starving.”

“Here, have a rice cracker.”

Rue took the offering from Garp with a smile. “Thank you, Vice Admiral.”

She ate the rice cracker as they walked through West Port toward the marina. 

“Are we going to do anything to help these people?” she asked.

“The Navy will provide them with the means to rebuild their structures,” Garp said. 

It was better than nothing, Rue supposed. 

Once on Garp’s ship, Rosinante pulled her into a secluded cabin. From the clothing thrown on the bed and the photo of a younger Sengoku and Rosinante haphazardly placed on a desk, she assumed it was where Rosinante was currently staying.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I told you, I got lost after I nearly drowned,” Rue said.

“Please don’t lie to me. You know secrets can’t be heard past my own ears.”

“Rosi, I can’t tell you. If the truth comes out, you can’t know, for your own safety.”

Rosinante closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. But my door is always open to you, Rue, if you decide to confide in me. I’d take that risk for you. You’re my closest friend.”

“And you’re mine, which is why I won’t tell you.”

He gripped her hands in his, meeting her gaze. “At least tell me this: did it involve that pirate?”

Rue couldn’t get the words out, even though she knew Rosinante had wrapped them in a sound barrier, so she just nodded.

With a deep sigh, Rosinante hugged her. “You have to forget him, Rue.”

“I know.”

But she knew she wouldn’t.

Once back at Marineford, she and Rosinante reunited with Belle-Mère, Kuzan, Borsalino, and Sakazuki before they were summoned to Sengoku’s office for an official statement. The criminal Dragon was to be listed as a dangerous enemy of the World Government. No one said anything about Dragon’s relation to Garp, and the official statement to the public only called him Dragon. There was no evidence that Dragon was a Monkey D. 

“I don’t understand,” Belle-Mère said as they walked back to their rooms. “Why can’t we discuss the connection between Dragon and Garp?”

“We can’t let it be known that a public hero of the Navy’s son is a highly wanted criminal who wants to take down the World Government,” Sakazuki said. “Marines who are associated with criminals are no better than criminals themselves.” 

Rosinante squeezed Rue’s hand, but neither of them reacted otherwise.

Rue didn’t agree with the reasoning, didn’t understand why the connection between Garp and Dragon had to be publicly denied and hidden, and she definitely didn’t agree with Sakazuki’s us-or-them black-and-white view. 

But she would hold her tongue about Monkey D. Dragon. Not because she was a loyal Marine following orders she fully believed, but because she respected Garp, who had tried to set her on what he believed to be the correct path. He might be too trusting of the organization as it was, but Rue saw through Garp what the Marines could be, and she would keep her silence out of respect to that ideal.

She didn’t yet know whether she’d keep her silence within the Navy or bar secrets from her tongue and lips somewhere free of the Marines.

[ ]

Rosinante disappeared. Sengoku may have known where he went, but the fleet admiral wasn’t talking, and he definitely wouldn’t give any information to Rue, no matter how much she begged. After one such session that ended with Rue sobbing into the neck of Sengoku’s goat while Sengoku yelled at her for bothering him with pointless questions, she’d taken to avoiding the fleet admiral like he had tree fever. Losing Rosinante was like losing one of her arms. Rue kept turning to talk to him, to confide in him, and found nothing. Sometimes, she walked into his old room only to find it empty.

Belle-Mère defected, or maybe she was dishonorably discharged. It was all a little unclear. All Rue knew was that Belle-Mère had permanently left the Marines to care for a couple of sick girls she’d found on a Oykot Kingdom battlefield. Rue had considered writing to Belle-Mère, to check in on her, but she didn’t have an exact location, just the vague ‘she’s in the Conomi Islands’ Bogard had given when Rue tried to press him for information. 

For a while, Rue got in the habit of sleeping in Belle-Mère’s old bed, but when it stopped having any sense of her friend’s essence, she went back to her own bed. With both Belle-Mère and Rosinante gone, Rue found herself hanging around Kuzan, Garp, and Bogard more to stave off isolation (and having weekly card game nights with Borsalino, one of the rare times Borsalino wasn’t around Sakazuki), but she just couldn’t connect with them as she had Rosinante and Belle-Mère.

Dragon’s leaving the Marines had opened a gaping wound within the unit. Rue had seen the blow coming, so she’d been prepared, but others, like Sakazuki and Borsalino, had been blindsided and let the wound fester and poison them. 

Rosinante’s sudden overnight disappearance, and the Navy’s refusal to acknowledge he had existed, had only worsened the wound. Belle-Mère’s dismissal had enlarged and poisoned the wound so much it even began to fester in Rue. Her stomach roiled with wrongness and the sense she was not where she was meant to be. 

At dawn—particularly red dawns, the dawns that sailors were meant to fear—she went to the highest rampart of Marineford and looked at the rosy and crimson waves. She thought of a warm smile, bright eyes crinkling and three scars wrinkling, and something deep in her chest screamed for freedom, for release, for anything but remaining here.

After the red dawns, when she went to the officers’ mess hall, she saw accusation in Sakazuki’s dark eyes, disinterest in Borsalino’s, and pity in Kuzan’s.

Garp’s expression scared her the most. He looked at Rue like he knew she wouldn’t be around much longer, like he was resigning himself to losing another good Marine. 

But Rue wasn’t a good Marine.

She loved a pirate. She’d broken Garp’s trust from day one. She’d never told him her true name, whatever his suspicions and whatever he thought was unspoken history between them.

Maybe Roriosa Rue was a good Marine, but Rue couldn’t deny her Rocks inheritance, the blood demanding freedom in her veins, and Rocks D. Rue was not a good Marine. 

[ ]

Without a mission or a current assignment, Rue found herself sitting in Rosinante’s old room. Someone, probably Sengoku, had come in and removed what little of Rosinante’s possessions he’d left. 

She’d intended to sit in the middle of the empty room—devoid of anything except an empty bed frame—and do paperwork, filing personnel notes about a cadet class she’d assessed (the standouts were Smoker and Hina, though for wildly different reasons), but she couldn’t focus. She kept biting back nausea, which had been building since that morning when Kuzan had said “You should watch your back” as Rue started to do her normal morning exercises. 

Kuzan’s words had been unprompted, undercut with a dark warning. It was like he was telling her that there was a target on her back. 

But for what? Rosinante was the only one who knew about Rue’s extended stay with Shanks, and she knew he wouldn’t have said anything, regardless of the circumstances of his disappearance. Kuzan knew that Rue had used a pirate for information on Dragon, but the info had been good, and no one had mentioned how it had been obtained in the follow-up debriefings. Garp might have passed along his suspicions about Rue’s past and lineage to Sengoku, but Rue didn’t believe he would do that. He was serious in his intention for Rue to remain in the Navy following Dragon’s departure.

Seas, she needed to eat or the nausea was not going to ease. She stood, papers that she couldn’t remember the importance of falling from her lap and fluttering to the floor. She had just reached the door, the brass handle in her hand, when she realized she should step back, away from the door.

Sakazuki swung open the door. If Rue had been where she was previously, she’d have a busted nose at best and major head trauma at worst. Behind Sakazuki, Rue caught a glimpse of Borsalino’s yellow suit. 

“Why are you never in your room?” Sakazuki snapped. The anger behind his gaze was about more than him having to look in a few different places for Rue. 

Rue raised her chin. “Why are you looking for me?”

“Why’d you do it?” Sakazuki asked. “You were one of the best. You would have been the best if you’d bothered to apply yourself to strengthening your Observation and Armament Haki. You were meant to be my contemporary, Rue. Borsalino is my second, but you were meant to be the strong woman at my side. Why would you throw all that away by making deals with a pirate?”

Rue didn’t know what Sakazuki meant about her being the powerful woman at his side. Perhaps he’d been trying to recreate the powerhouse triumvirate that had been Sengoku, Garp, and Tsuru from within his unit. Perhaps he meant he loved her, but someone without any humanity in them wouldn’t know how to love—maybe he just thought he did, or maybe his version of love was so twisted no one could recognize it.

She also didn’t know what Sakazuki thought had happened between her and Shanks, didn’t know what deal he’d thought had been made between them. Just a promise, and one Rue hadn’t yet found the courage to keep.

Who had even given that information? Not Rosinante, and Kuzan didn’t have the full story, not unless he’d relayed that Rue had gotten the information about Dragon from a pirate without providing any context for how she’d done that.

“Just what do you think I’ve done?” Rue asked.

“You share the same sentiments as Dragon—” Sakazuki spat his name like it was a vile thing “—and you freely shared your anti-Navy and anti-World Government opinions with a pirate. You also agreed to continue working with said pirate.”

The room shifted. Or, no, Rue’s center of balance warped as Sakazuki ripped the metaphorical rug out from under her feet.

How? How could anyone know this? And how could they twist it just so to make Rue seem like a supporter of Dragon’s and an ally of a pirate? 

Borsalino made his presence known, poking his head over Sakazuki’s shoulder. “Are you going to run, or are you going to come peacefully?”

Sakazuki looked like he wanted any excuse to hit her. Rue met his gaze.

“I’m not running.”

“Oh, good. I like when things are easy,” Borsalino drawled. 

“Follow me,” Sakazuki said. “If you run, I will end you.”

He turned and stalked out of Rosinante’s empty room. Rue followed him, brushing past Borsalino, who looked at her over the lenses of his sunglasses, as bored and unbothered as ever. It stung a little that her being treated like this—that her being believed a traitor—meant nothing to him. 

Kuzan stood in the hallway, having stayed out of sight as the other two approached her. He sidestepped as Sakazuki walked past him, mouthing I’m sorry to Rue just before she passed him. That really stung, that Kuzan was the one who’d reported her.

She followed Sakazuki confidently, head held high, as he led her through the base’s main courtyard and toward Sengoku’s office. Borsalino and Kuzan walked behind her. Much more time had passed than she’d thought, and the sky was darkening with the approaching evening.

“How long until my execution?” Rue asked.

“There will be a trial,” Sakazuki said. 

“We both know the decision of my guilt has already been made,” Rue said. 

Silence from Sakazuki, but Kuzan said, “Five days.”

Shanks had repeatedly asked her why she was so afraid of being an enemy of the Navy. Well, that time had come, and she wasn’t afraid. She was angry. Infusing her leg with Armament Haki, she swung into a kick. She caught Borsalino off-guard, just as she’d intended. He never reacted in time to initial attacks if he couldn’t see them coming. Catching his torso just below his ribs, she kicked him aside.

“Rue, no!”

“Rue!”

Both Sakazuki and Kuzan shouted at her, Kuzan in a desperate plea and Sakazuki in explosive anger. Steam rose from his shoulders as he lunged for Rue. Sensing his approach, Rue dodged, and his molten hand just missed her. Throwing her Marine jacket at Borsalino’s face before he could get to his feet, she took off in a sprint for Marineford Town and the marina beyond.

Realizing that direct route would be expected of her, Rue changed course at the edge of the courtyard, heading for the ramparts. She knew how to scale them on the western corner. She could then slip through Marineford Town along back alleys and commandeer a small vessel from the edge of the marina. 

Rue hurried to the western rampart, ignoring the alarm bells that began ringing. For the first time, her getaway had been noticed, but she still knew how to disappear in plain sight. That was even easier to do at night. Reaching the highest point of the corner, Rue looked down. The wall cannon was still there, perfectly aligned for her to use as a break in her fall before she swung to the outcropping of the lower levels of the fort, purposefully made thicker to help barricade Marineford. 

Hearing footsteps on the rampart, Rue pressed herself into a shadowy sniper niche. If she was spotted on the wall, she’d be an easy target. Her best bet was to let these searchers pass, then climb down.

Kuzan and Borsalino approached.

Rue pushed herself deeper into the niche, holding her breath. It was highly unlikely they wouldn’t notice her, but maybe, just maybe…

Kuzan spotted her, followed shortly by Borsalino. Borsalino took a step toward her, but Kuzan shot an arm out, placing his hand on Borsalino’s chest and halting him. 

“I don’t see anything,” he said. “Do you?”

Borsalino tilted his head, confused. Then, he drawled, “No, I don’t.”

Brushing past Kuzan, Borsalino walked past the niche, looking straight ahead. Kuzan followed him, also not looking at Rue.

She knew what this was. The one saving grace they could give her, the one ounce of help they could provide her. This was for the Rue they’d trained with, the Rue they’d played late-night card games with, the Rue they’d lost bets to and won bets over. This was so they could live with the parts of themselves that considered Rue a friend.

It was a gift Rue wasn’t going to let pass her by.

Sliding out of the niche, she dropped over the rampart, catching herself from free fall on the wall cannon. It wretched her shoulders and her ribs burned, but she wasn’t dead. She swung to the next level, twisting her left ankle on landing. Though it burned, she was still able to put weight on it as she reached the edge of the lower level. She jumped down to the ground, covering her mouth with her hands to muffle the pained sound that emitted from her throat as her ankle burned and throbbed on the impact. Ignoring the pain, she walked toward the town.

At the edge of Marineford Town, Sakazuki caught her. A magma hand latched onto her right forearm, the magma spreading up her upper arm. She screamed as heat blistered the side of her ribcage.

“Sakazuki, let me go!”

The words ripped from her throat, a sudden wind whipping her white hair around her head. Sakazuki grunted, surprised by something, and released her. Rue staggered a few paces from him, holding her burnt arm to her chest. 

“You’re a coward, Sakazuki,” Rue said, breathing hard, “nothing more than a dumb dog frothing at the end of your government leash.”

She took a step back, heat lashing up from her twisted ankle. 

“You won’t follow me, Sakazuki,” she said, the words strange in her mouth, like her voice had taken a new timbre. “You will let me go.”

Sakazuki took a step forward, then his face twisted like he was in pain. His next step was to the side, not toward Rue. She didn’t understand why, but she knew Sakazuki would heed her words.

She turned and ran toward the marina, ignoring the pain shooting from her ankle and ricocheting from her burns in waves. Behind her, Sakazuki bellowed in frustration, but he didn’t follow her.

A few women and children and retired Navy officers poked their heads out of their homes as Rue ran through Marineford Town, but none of them said anything to her or tried to stop her. Maybe they weren’t sure she was the one the bells were clanging for.

The marina had posted guards, noncommissioned sailors and cadets, and Rue changed direction before they could see her. She headed for the old ship graveyard, where Garp used to take her and Kuzan for extra training. Rue had given up on the battleship punching bags pretty quickly, but she knew Kuzan had continued to use them for a long time.

Finding the derelict ship that’s hull had crumpled under years of being abused by Garp’s fists, Rue sat down in the concave space, pressing far back into the shadows. Holding back a pained sob, she looked over her injuries. 

Her left ankle hurt, but it wasn’t swelling and she could fully rotate her foot—just a bad sprain, then. Her right arm was covered in burns, where Sakazuki had first grabbed her the worst of it, a charred mess of outer muscles on her forearm and elbow. Her hand and upper arm and a part of her neck were all red skin, covered in white blisters. There were a few blisters on the side of her ribcage, but it was the least concerning burn, mostly just red skin.

She covered her mouth with her unburned hand and let out a few muffled screams and strangled sobs. She’d give anything to have Rosinante and his sound barriers right now.

Footsteps approached, thudding on the dirt like someone was purposefully announcing their presence. Two sets. Rue silenced herself, remaining still, hoping the darkness of the concave hull would be enough to hide her.

She still wasn’t scared of being caught by the Marines, but she didn’t have any anger anymore. Her will to fight had left her. While she clung to the hope she wouldn’t be spotted, if she was, then it was just meant to be.

Two people stopped just outside her hiding spot. She recognized Garp’s white athletic wear shoes, which meant the dress shoes and slacks must belong to Bogard.

“Did you secure the ship?” Garp asked.

“It’s at the shore,” Bogard said. “No one’s getting there past us.”

“Well said,” Garp said. “Come, we’ll set our perimeter farther up.”

Garp and Bogard continued on, their footsteps much quieter than they had been before.

Another gift, just like with Kuzan and Borsalino. 

Slowly dragging herself from the concave space, Rue looked back toward Marineford. Garp and Bogard were nearby, she could tell, but she knew they wouldn’t look back. They wouldn’t see her.

She limped toward the muddy shoreline, holding her burnt arm to her torso. More than once, she staggered into the sides of the dead ships—wounded in battle, then discarded by the Marines, left to suffer alone. 

At the edge of the shore, Rue found a small dory, essentially a rickety rowboat that had been fitted with a large sail. With its ship to sail ratio, it would move quickly across the sea. These types of boats were used in the Marineford marina to ferry supplies and men to and from ships anchored away from the docks. There was no reason for Garp and Bogard to have taken one to the ship graveyard, but they had, and they’d directed Rue to it.

She’d never be able to thank them for it, just like she’d never be able to thank Borsalino and Kuzan. Though her successfully escaping would be thanks in its own way—at least then their efforts wouldn’t have been a waste.

Rue shoved the boat from the shore, then clambered in, sitting ungracefully on the bottom. She couldn’t find the strength to sit properly on a bench. 

The wind—a fortunate wind, contradicting the red dawn Rue had watched this morning—caught the sail, moving the boat away from Marineford. She lay tense in the bottom of the boat, but no one yelled about seeing a small boat, no spotlight landed on her, and no cannons were fired in her direction. The boat continued to carry her away.

When the clanging of the warning bells faded, she finally closed her eyes. 

[ ]

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

Rue opened her eyes, blinking away dark emerald and black sunspots. She had no idea where she was. Everything hurt, and everything was somehow numb at the same time. Her boat still bobbed with small waves, but she must have been in shallow water, because Shanks leaned over the railing, frowning at her. 

“You’re a seas-damned mess,” he said.

Rue tried to think of a response, something clever and witty, but the words and phrases slipped around in her brain. The only thing that came out of her parched, cracked lips was, “Not dead?”

“No, you’re not dead,” Shanks said. “Just rest some more. Hongo will take care of you.”

The next time Rue opened her eyes, she was lying on a hammock in the shade of a lean-to at the edge of a palm forest, a stretch of sandy beach before her. Her little dory had been pulled onto the shore, alongside some sail-less rowboats that must have belonged to Shanks’ crew. The Red Force was anchored farther out in the sea.

Though it was mid-morning, Shanks and his crew lay sleeping in various states of undress on the beach—aside from Hongo, who slept fully-clothed sitting up next to Rue’s hammock. 

Someone had changed her clothes, putting her in a red slip that she had no idea how they’d acquired. Her previous clothes, including her heels, were missing, not even among the discarded clothes of the Red-Hair Pirates. Hongo had wrapped her arm in layers of cloth bandages, and there was probably a salve of some sort under all the wrapping. Her other burns had been bandaged, too, though not as tightly or layered as her arm. 

Swinging out of the hammock, Rue stood, testing her ankle. It didn’t even twinge as she put her weight on it. Stepping over Hongo’s legs, Rue began walking toward Shanks. 

She poked his bare shoulder with her big toe. “Hey.”

With a grunt, he opened his eyes. “Oh, you’re able to move around.” He sat up and stretched his arms above his head. “That’s good. It means I won’t feel guilty about telling you that you have to leave.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Shanks stood, readjusting his pants so they didn’t hang so low on his hips. His straw hat had been next to him on the ground, and he bent down to scoop it up. Placing it on his head, he turned to Rue.

“I said I would find you, and I did,” Rue said.

“You happened across us,” Shanks said. “I couldn’t just let you die, but I can’t let you stay.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a wanted woman, Rue.”

“And you’re a wanted pirate. What’s the difference?”

“I’m not from an illegal bloodline,” Shanks snapped. “And not just any illegal bloodline, but a dangerous, vile one at that.”

“Who are you to talk down to me, Figarland Shanks?”

“Who are you to threaten me, Rocks D. Rue?”

Shanks’ crew, awake now, stood around in a lazy semicircle, not even trying to act disinterested in the argument. Most looked like they were enjoying the drama, but Hongo looked concerned for Rue and Benn like the situation wasn’t sitting right with him. 

“You…”

“I got curious,” Shanks said, “about what information was so worth hiding from the Navy that you would willingly go back to the very organization you couldn’t stand to prevent them from looking into your past. I know how to get the intel gatherers to work for me, and work for me they did.”

“Of course a World Noble would know how to gather blackmail,” Rue spat.

Shanks pointed at her. “Don’t act like you weren’t one of those blackmail gatherers. You know, Rocks D. Xebec was supposed to have died without fathering any children. Your mother did well hiding you from Roger and Garp. She just didn’t cover her tracks quite enough. Out in the West Blue, on some nothing island that the World Government barely bothers to put on the world map, a small village knew of orphan girl Roriosa Rue, and they knew what name her mother sometimes whispered around her, the name that could never be repeated and should be forgotten. Only, it wasn’t quite forgotten.”

Rue hadn’t thought of that seaside home on that quiet bay, a pleasantly long walk from that small village, in years. So small of a place that everyone knew everyone, that there were no secrets among the inhabitants. 

“I may be a wanted man,” Shanks said, “but you’ll be the most hunted person in the world when they realize you’re Rocks D. Rue. I tried to get you executed quickly and swiftly without the full truth being known. Just a bit of information was given to Sengoku that one of his commanders had been spotted with the Red-Hair Pirates in West Port. Coincidentally, that info was concurrently presented with a debriefing from Vice Admiral Kuzan that Commander Rue had gotten information on Dragon from a pirate.”

“You turned me in,” Rue breathed. “You twisted our time together.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t report your true heritage, or the Navy wouldn’t be so lowkey about your escape from Marineford.”

Rue stepped closer to Shanks. “Why? Why would you do this?”

“Because you don’t know why your bloodline had to die,” Shanks said. “You don’t know your own power.” He gestured at her arm. “You think Sakazuki just happened to let you go? You know the people he burns don’t just walk away.”

“I got away thanks to some good Marines,” Rue said.

“What? Your Rosinante?” Shanks sneered. “The things I could tell you about him and his family.”

“Don’t you dare talk about Rosinante,” Rue snapped. “You don’t have the right.” She flicked the brim of Shanks’ hat. “Rosinante and I have no secrets from one another.”

“He told you he was a Donquixote, and you never returned the favor?”

“I didn’t so he couldn’t be accused of withholding information for me. Not sharing was for his sake.”

“How’d that work out for him, now that Sengoku’s made him disappear?”

“Shut your seas-damned mouth!” Rue hissed. “You’re not the man I thought you were.”

“My dear, I’m a pirate. You, well, you’re the daughter of a man who was the enemy of the whole world.”

“But I’m not your enemy.” Rue took a step back from Shanks. “Or, at least, I wasn’t, but you seem to think I am.”

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Rocks D. Rue, especially if the world knows who you are. The manhunt that would come after you, I can’t have that pressure on me. You don’t want that pressure on you, either.”

“But no one knows,” Rue said.

“But they could,” Shanks said. “I’d just have to tell a few certain people, and then the daughter of Rocks D. Xebec would be World Government enemy number one. They’d hate you more than they hate Dragon and whatever he’s planning.”

“Are you planning on reporting me in exchange for some leeway from the Navy?” Rue asked.

“I thought about it,” Shanks admitted, “but I really do like you. I’ll show you some mercy.”

Grabbing her unburnt arm, he dragged her toward her boat. They passed a pile of ash in the sand, a few unburnt tassels from her Marine jacket mixed in with the dead embers.

“You’re going to fade away into obscurity, Rue. You’re going to go to some far-flung island on some nothing sea.”

He shoved her into the dory, gripping the bow.

“You’re going to disappear, do you understand me?”

He pushed the dory into the surf. The Red-Hair Pirates stood on the shore behind him, aside from Hongo, who rushed forward to throw a bag of medical supplies and food into the boat. It opened upon landing, the contents rolling across the floor of the dory.

“If you ever draw attention to yourself,” Shanks said, shoving the boat and Rue away from where he stood waist-deep in the water, “I will expose you to the world as Rocks D. Rue.”

“Did you ever love me?” Rue asked. She tried to keep her voice low, but it was possible Shanks’ crew could hear where they stood at the edge of the surf.

“I love a good time. You were that, at least.”

Shanks turned and waded back to the shore, to his crew. 

Rue busied herself with adjusting the sail until it caught the wind, a complicated endeavor with one hand. Her trajectory took her out to open sea, giving the Red Force a wide berth. She felt sick, somehow both cold and warm, cycling through grief, anger, and numbness.

She wanted Garp to appear and offer her another deal. She wanted Sakazuki to finish what he’d started. She wanted Shanks to welcome her. She wanted Rosinante to hug her and block out the rest of the world. She wanted a host of things that could never happen.

She didn’t let herself cry until the island was nothing more than a smudge on the horizon.

[ ]

Roriosa Rue died in the bottom of a dory aimlessly drifting across the East Blue. Even as she stared sightlessly at an oppressive sun, even as she knew her end was coming, something stirred in her belly. 

The dead woman’s hands rested on her stomach, enlarging as the rest of her withered away. She felt her soul waver in harmony with the being inside her.

Roriosa Rue died in the middle of the East Blue.

Sumire Rose beached near a seaside town, half-dehydrated and starved, her womb swollen with an unborn child.

Sumire Rose, a shipwreck survivor whose husband had been lost to the burning wreckage that had scarred her, was ushered to the doctor that lived in Boer Village. Under his care, she regained her strength, and her baby was not lost, as so many had worried would happen when they’d first found her.

Sumire Rose gave birth to a healthy son on Caprine Island, a son she did not give her family name. She claimed no family for herself, despite having first introduced herself with a family name. In time, everyone forgot there’d once been a clan name before her given name. Sumire Rose simply became Rose, a common, unnoteworthy name, and her son was named Koby for the fine dusting of kobi pink hair he’d been born with. 

If anyone had listened closely in the darkest portions of the night, when it was just mother and baby and weak candlelight, they would have heard a family clan name, one that would strike terror into their hearts.