Chapter Text
Kuzan stands at the edge of a half-frozen shoreline, cold mist curling around his boots. The sea hisses as ice creeps over the waves, barely audible beneath the hum of the Den Den Mushi signal cutting off behind him. He doesn’t turn when the faint mist glints off gold.
“Yo… Borsalino.”
Kizaru steps down from the air with deliberate ease, hands in pockets. No coat today. Just that lazy, mischievous gleam in his eyes, but it doesn’t quite reach him.
Not this time.
“Kuzan... long time no see.”
His voice is calm. Distant, but there's something stretched tight beneath it.
Something flickering.
Kuzan doesn’t answer at first. He exhales, slow and low, shoulders tensing with the movement.
“Yeah. Not long enough, maybe.”
Kizaru lifts an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching like he might joke.
Except he doesn’t.
“They haven’t issued a bounty yet,” Kizaru says, voice too casual. “But you knew that.”
“…Yeah.”
“You’re with Teach now.”
A statement, not a question.
“With is a strong word,” Kuzan murmurs. “But I’m not with the Marines. That’s not news.”
Kizaru tilts his head. The sun catches on his shades. He doesn’t look angry.
He looks… curious.
Sad.
Disappointed.
Maybe all three.
“Funny. Sakazuki hasn’t moved yet. No warrant, no declaration. No ‘former admiral gone rogue.’ Makes a guy wonder…”
Kuzan finally turns to face him, his breath misting in the air. Sunglasses mirroring the cold mist and gleaming once.
“…If it’s his call.”
Kizaru doesn’t deny it. His lips part, but whatever thought he had dies before it can form. There’s a long pause between them, thick with everything they never said back then. Between battles, in briefings, on the long silences during night patrols.
“You always looked the other way,” Kuzan says quietly, eyes narrowed. “Even when it counted.”
“And you always walked away,”
Kizaru answers, low and tired.
“From everything. Even us.”
A gust of wind curls off the frozen sea. Kizaru doesn’t flinch.
“You gonna try to bring me in?” Kuzan asks.
“…No. Not yet.”
He hesitates, eyes scanning Kuzan’s face like he’s trying to find the version of him that used to be there. The one in uniform. The one who used to laugh with him. With Sakazuki.
“I just wanted to see if you were still in there. Somewhere.”
Kuzan’s jaw shifts.
“I’m still in here. Whether that means anything…,” he shifts barely, “guess that depends on who’s asking.”
I'm still me.
Kizaru’s expression doesn’t change, but the space between them feels heavier now. Like both of them are standing on the edge of something that’s been cracking since the day Aokiji walked away from the burning ice of Punk Hazard.
“I’m not your enemy, Borsalino,” Kuzan adds.
“You sure?”
Kizaru says it almost gently. And maybe that’s what hurts the most.
There’s silence. Then a slow nod.
“…No. I’m not.”
Kizaru turns, hands still in pockets, back toward the sky. The light around him flickers like a pulse.
“Then don’t make me your enemy, Kuzan.”
And then he’s gone.
–
Leaving nothing but flickering lights,
and a shadow stretching between them, longer than it used to.