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Tsuru finished hanging the last man. Stragglers of the revolutionary army believed they could flank due to it not being as heavily guarded on this side of the base, only to be met by the "Great Staff Officer".
“Tsk, damn brats” Tsuru mumbled to herself.
The wind picked up, the men on the line drying quicker than planned until eventually they are lifted into a current and over the base wall. She can sense it. She can sense him. The storm rolled in, the thrum of haki in the air and yet the storm did not touch her, the wind never moved a single hair out of place and the rain avoided her like oil. If anything, she had her own perfect climate, while the rest of the base was rocked by the ever worsening storm.
His shoes were nearly silent as he landed, green cloak attempting to mask the raw strength in his body but doing nothing to make him look smaller. Black hair wafting in the wind but never cutting over his face, silver eyes glinting as the lightning connects with the floor. Sharp features, like his father but also reminding her so much of her Shandian grandfather. A wide smirk that someone who did not know the man would mistake for sinister. Even absent from most of his life, she knew her son.
“What do I owe a visit from the most wanted man in the world?”
“Is a son not allowed to drop in on his mother from time to time” Dragon chuckled, warmly. The stark contrast to the storm made Tsuru narrow her eyes. They stood in the very eye of the tempest.
“During a raid on a marine base by your people? No, not particularly. Be plain Dragon, what do you want?”
Tsuru watches as Dragon pulls down his hood and she is reminded of the first time her son put on a marine coat, his hair neatly trimmed and pulled back under the hat. How proud she was, how he sought her out in the crowd and smiled up at her, waving energetically. Instead she is greeted by the deep red tattoo that marred his face and long untamed hair.
“I need help with my hair-”
“You damn welp.You have to be kidding me.”
“Mother-”
“Don't call me that brat”
Dragon's face falls more serious, the winds whipping around them.
“The knots are painful. I have not been able to go back to base. I can not get a brush through it myself, believe me i tried, and the winds are knotting it tighter whenever i need them. Please, Tsuru, help me.”
She sighs. She recalls having to do his hair for the day of his promotion. He didn't smile much that day either but she felt happier seeing him in a Marine uniform. The blue suit and green cloak he wore now wasn't a bad look on him, she approved of the smart attire but the green and the choice of a cravat were very telling of a certain someone he had been involved with…
“Sit down boy, but this is the last time you come here and once I am done, you and your men leave. Immediately.”
Tsuru closes her eyes as she gestures to the bench that had been placed in the courtyard for her. She should arrest him. She should drag him to the darkest depths of impel down… but she couldn't. How could she? It was her little boy.
Dragon practically glides over and sits down gently. Not making any fast movements and ensuring he isn't about to get seastone put on him, before sitting up bolt straight and making sure his mane of hair is over his cloak.
Tsuru sighs, taking the majority of his hair in hand. It was thick, knotted and greasy.
“Tsk, did you even bother to try and clean this boy.” She wishes her scolding had more bite but she was just… concerned. It didn't even look like he had bothered to get the sea breeze to carry any kind of water near the large shadowed mane.
“I have not had time.”
Tsuru is being more gentle than she likes. Combining her hand though the end of the locks starting to untie some of the worst chunks. A few more days and the fluff would be more akin to carpet.
“We should just cut this down”
“No.”
“Studdorn brat. It would weigh less and cause you less issues.”
“Hair holds memories, mother. You of all people know that.”
Of course.
Garp had always tried to force Dragon to keep his hair short, a desperate attempt to make him look more like a Marine, but the boy had always wanted his hair long, like his mother… and a reminder…
“Did you bring anything to help me or do you expect me to have brushes to hand, because-”
Reaching into his cloak, Dragon produces a brush and a small pair of scissors, Marine issued. A previous gift.
Sighing, Tsuru takes the instruments quickly and starts the oddly familiar job. In her mind's eye, she is just a young happy woman brushing her little boy's hair. But another explosion further in the base shatters the illusion swiftly.
With a lazy gesture of his hand, Dragon ensures the smoke is caught in a quick wind current, making sure the pair are spared from dust and debris as Tsuru continues to brush though his mane knot after knot. She swears she can see the Hagoromo clouds around Dragons shoulders and head, the proof of his awakened fruit, but it is gone before she can focus.
The two, at the center of a thunderous battle, the eye of a storm.
“There. That is all the knots. I am going to start the washing now, tell me if you feel dizzy, brat.”
Tsuru’s Marine training tell her to use her devil fruit, capture this man, hang him out to dry and wait for back up. Even as she reaches out her hands, the suds and water manifesting there, she can not bring herself to do it. Dragon has his back turned to her, they had an agreement. He trusted her. After all, she was his mother, why wouldn't he.
Closing her eyes, she starts to carefully dampen and sud just his hair. The colour of the suds quickly turned dark.
“Tsk, where the hell have you been. If your hair wasn't already black, all this mess would have made it that way.”
“Training.”
“Thats a lie.” The texture was like soot or ash
“It's a revolution. People deserve to be free. By any means."
“I damn well know what you do. I wish you didn't and I wish I was ignorant."
The water starts to run clear as Tsuru grinds her teeth.
“Instead. I can't even tell people who my only son is.”
Tsuru gently tips Dragon's head back and rinses out the suds before redoing her previous work, lathering the long raven locks, the soap looking far cleaner. She pauses, spotting a slight shine in his hair, pure white.
“You are going grey.”
Dragon only hums in response.
Would he live to be old enough for his mane to all go white? How long would it take? To Tsuru, everything felt so familiar and so different all at once.
“I am sorry, Dragon, for that day. If i had known your unit-”
Dragon briefly puts up his hand.
“Please. I do not wish to have this conversation again. God valley opened my eyes. Dad nor you knew my unit would be deployed there, you had no reason to.”
“Things may have been different" Tsuru muses as she grabs a towel out of instinct.
“Only one thing would be different.” Dragon uses his devil fruit to swiftly dry his hair.
“Even without the fruit, eventually, the outcome would have been the same. I would have seen a different atrocity. A different island wiped from the map. Other innocents slaughtered in the so-called guise of justice.”
“You always were a bleeding heart Dragon. The baby den-dens you were caring for I found under your bed should have been a sign. You know it is not as simple as you state. Things are not so black and white within the world government. You were never cut out to be a marine, too gentle, soft-”
“Too human. Well the marines and the fruit saw to it, that that changed.” Dragon closed his eyes as Tsuru began to brush out his hair again, now clean and dry, but frizzy. If she could not tame the man, she would tame this mane for him.
They fall into a tense silence.
Tsuru takes the opportunity to reflect on what would have happened had she retired when she had Dragon. If she had sent him away to live with her sister in the quiet village far away from Marine bases. If the little boy had never idolised his father for the stories of him being a hero. She knows now that Dragon resents him. Watching them fight before Dragon left home for the last time, the only time she had ever seen Dragon truly fight to hurt and Garp, unable to bring himself to hit his little boy. She knew that had changed when Luffy had come into his life. Dragon having left a different kind of scar on Garp.
But right now, she told herself this was not the most wanted man in the world. This was her little boy.
Tsuru fluffs his hair to make sure it has the same volume Dragon likes, pushing it back and brushing the baby hairs back into his widows peak. She searched his eyes for any kind of warmth, a sparkle, anything to see her little boy. But there was just cold determination. No signs of the boy that would tell her about the different insects he had found with a big smile. No young man who ran into the lounge wearing his fathers uniform. Just calculating strength. Eyes to rival Imus.
Tsuru sighs
“All done, Dragon.”
“Thank you. That feels much better, mother.” Dragon stands, once again towering over Tsuru. Before bowing and starting to leave. The winds travelling into the base, a sign to his men?
This was her last chance. To apprehend him. To stop his foolishness. But in the end-
“Boy! Where do you think you are going? Forgetting something!?”
Dragon looks back before there is a slight smirk. The man kneels down and Tsuru plants a familial kiss onto Dragons forehead.
“Dont come to me for this again Dragon. For anything. I will perform my duty and I will take you into custody.” she hesitates a moment “I don't think the cells are as warm or comfortable as your army's base. Be safe. Please.”
Dragon stands before bowing again. Tsuru could see the revolutionaries retreating. Dragon joining them and keeping his word. With a gust of wind, they were gone, perhaps the last time she would see him until his inevitable end. She hoped she wouldn't be there for it. That she wouldn't be a marine or she would simply be gone. Looking down at her clothes, not a single spec of dust or debris had touched her, protected by the storm.