One Piece – Halfway Broken

Summary: "Hina finds this unacceptable!"

Chapter 36: Consequences

There was a heavy feeling of annoyance in the silent office as two men waited for the last member summoned to this meeting to arrive. Both were powerful men, one the current Fleet Admiral of the Marines, the other the current Commander-in-Chief of the World Government. The third they waited for was not quite so high ranking, but was equally important in her own way. Tsuru, as the Staff Officer who handled all Marine fleet deployments worldwide, often had a better day-to-day knowledge of the state of said fleets and world than Sengoku or Kong. She was also a more pragmatic counter to the other two men, whose sense of justice made it difficult for them to work with the more…irregular assets the Marines technically had on tap.

Thankfully, it was only another minute before the woman arrived. She was the only one of the three who properly looked her age or older, despite being the youngest of the three, though she still moved with a spryness that any more normal women her age would envy. She'd entered without bothering to knock, her eyes sweeping the room instantly, and frowning at the lack of a fourth person. Taking a seat, she immediately pointed it out.

"Garp isn't here. Why?"

Sengoku grimaced, fielding the question.

"Because he wouldn't approve of the solution to our current problem. I made sure he was otherwise occupied and will be for a few weeks, handling some upstarts in the New World no one will care if he has fun thrashing."

The old woman scowled, a glare pinning Kong rather than Sengoku.

"The World Government refused the logical solution, I assume?"

Kong winced at the acid in her tone but nodded.

"They see this latest Monkey family drama as too big a slap in the face. That, and they haven't forgotten Dragon. Nor how little actual control they've ever managed to assert on Garp himself. They want a firmer hold on this particular Monkey. That, or for him to cease being an issue entirely."

Tsuru's glare shifted from Kong to Sengoku.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you that Monkey D. Luffy and his crew have yet to do anything illegal. Several things they have done are in grey areas, but nothing that properly qualifies as illegal."

Sengoku grimaced, but his rebuttal was firm.

"You know perfectly well that's by technicality only, Tsuru. Particularly their murder of King Wapol. Despite Captain Hina carefully phrasing it as the defeat of a pirate that had preyed on multiple Marine vessels, you know the World Government will never accept that version. Wapol was a regular part of the Levely Council, after all. Outright killing him was simply not acceptable to the various world leaders."

Tsuru snorted, her expression making it clear she thought that was moronic.

"So that's the official excuse, huh? Since you can't use the events on Alabasta can you? After all, the Alabasta Royal Family has made it extremely clear that they hired the group of bounty hunters to deal with the idiot Croc, haven't they?"

Sengoku outright scowled at that. That fool Crocodile had put them in a hell of a position. Not just by losing, but by so blatantly acting against a World Government affiliated state. One with enough military strength to matter. Not to rebel. Alabasta didn't have the strength for that. But their standing army was large, and they did have a few Zoan Devil Fruits. Worse, they might have the Suna Suna no Mi now, as well. No one knew what had happened to it after the warlord was killed, after all, and there's no question that Alabasta was smart enough to have gone looking for it in the aftermath.

"King Nefertari is a pacifist. As grateful as he is to the people that helped him, he's not going to risk the tentative stability of his country to gainsay us. So long as we don't outright try to arrest them, he'll keep his mouth shut. This makes our chosen solution the best course of action to put a leash on Garp's grandson without alienating an allied government."

Tsuru's eyes narrowed. After a few seconds, she put the pieces together and shook her head.

"You're going to make him a Warlord to replace Crocodile then. You'll offer to cover up the indiscretion with Wapol in favor of him taking the position. And since Alabasta outright announced him as the one to defeat and kill Crocodile, he falls neatly into having the reputation of being powerful enough. You only need to give him a retroactive bounty that was officially issued after Wapol's death, leaving it as Alabasta simply unknowingly hiring a dangerous element."

Both men nodded, with Kong reaching down into a bag at his side and pulling out a rolled-up poster. With a flick of his wrist, it unfurled on Sengoku's desk, showing a picture of a smirking Monkey D. Luffy.

"Bounties have already been issued, though not formalized, for him and those of his crew that fought at Rain Dinners. We've refrained from doing the same with those that fought on the ship, for now, despite at least one of them showing an ability that might have been a Devil Fruit."

Tsuru gazed at the poster and sighed.

"You were right to send Garp away. He's never made any secret of the fact he intended to bring his grandson in as an officer after his bounty hunting career. I just hope you're ready for the consequences, if this Monkey proves as unpredictable as the rest of his family, there could be a great deal of trouble…"

... ...

Hina clenched her fists and glared at the Den Den Mushi, willing the fool on the other side of the connection to feel how pissed off she was. Her voice was not nearly as calm as she'd have liked it to have been when she growled out a response.

"Hina is sure she has misunderstood. She is certain you did not just claim that the Marines have issued a bounty for the Heroes of Alabasta."

The warped face of the snail, which had taken on the expression of Vice-Admiral Tsuru, appeared completely unmoved by her anger.

"Calm yourself, girl. You heard exactly what I said. The retroactive bounties will be put up the moment they leave Alabasta's waters. The disaster they've caused can't be ignored…but they won't be brought in. A suitable Vice Admiral will 'catch' them outside of Alabastian waters and extend an offer to replace Crocodile as a Warlord."

Hina had wrestled her temper under control, but only just barely, and there was still a bite her in voice as she snapped her reply.

"That will not work. Monkey D. Luffy will refuse any such offer, and any attempt to force him to accept will be met by severe repercussions by Alabasta."

A 'tsk' came across the Den Den Mushi from the Vice-Admiral.

"Alabasta won't risk that if he's dead, and he'll either accept or die per our orders from the World Government. The death of Wapol was not acceptable unless we get something useful out of it. Now, you have your orders, girl. Get to them."

The line dropped before Hina could muster a response and she glared a proverbial hole in the poor Den Den Mushi, which was wilting under her murderous look. The fools. The stone cold, moronic fools. They didn't know. Admittedly, part of that was Hina's fault. She'd…refrained from mentioning Nico Robin's presence and open offer of recruitment to the Strawhat crew. She, unfortunately, had come to believe the story Luffy had outlined about Ohara. Which meant she hadn't been quite willing to out the woman's presence here.

It also meant that any attempt to recruit him as a Warlord replacement was completely fucking doomed. Captain Luffy was well aware that the World Government wouldn't react well to him having Robin on his crew. But he'd offered her a place on it anyway if she wanted it, he hadn't attempted to conceal that decision even slightly. Worse, she'd seen firsthand that he had a remarkable degree of loyalty to that crew of crazy dreamers. Some of which had dreams just as dangerous as Nico Robin's. No, this was a disaster in the making. Now what in all the fucks she was almost out of was she going to do about it?

At that thought, Hina ruthlessly ground down her anger, forcing it under her mental bootheel and replacing it with ice-cold logic. Okay. She knew something the World Government didn't. Captain Luffy wouldn't accept their deal. How was that going to reflect on her, on Alabasta, and on the overall situation? Much of that depended on who they sent to deal with Luffy, didn't it? The Great Staff Officer had said a Vice-Admiral would do the job, and there was only so many of them that could possibly get here in time to intercept the crew 'just outside Alabasta's waters.' Since Hina was still the most senior officer in this region of Paradise, she knew who else was still nearby, and the information wasn't dated enough to matter.

Garp was out. He would never agree with this, given Luffy was his Grandson and he apparently wanted said Grandson to be a Marine Officer eventually. Vice Admiral Comil was in Paradise but stationed at G-2. He wouldn't be able to reach Alabasta in time. Doberman or Onigumo? They might be close enough, but they also had zero tolerance for any sort of pirate and hated the Warlords. They'd be terrible choices when the higher ups clearly preferred the diplomatic solution they weren't going to get. That mean…Strawberry or Dalmatian. Those were the only other two that could reach Alabasta fast enough to matter.

Fuck.

That complicated things.

Mostly because she was fairly certain neither of them could actually take Luffy. Let alone Luffy and the rest of the crew. In fact, she was virtually certain they couldn't do it. Possibly not even together. Not if the reports she had about his fight with Crocodile were accurate. Luffy would fight, the Vice-Admiral would lose, and then…what?

Well, Alabasta certainly wouldn't fucking be quiet about. That was for fucking sure. She'd seen the looks the Princess sent at the bounty hunter Captain. She didn't think it was serious. Most likely just a crush. But between that and how much the country owed the crew…Alabasta was going to raise hell over the failed attack, particularly with as upset with the World Government was they already were. Now, what would the World Government do about that fact? They weren't going to back down. That was completely against their MO.

Hina tapped a cigarette out of a pack, quickly lighting it up as she went through the possible responses. Bringing Alabasta to heel by force would be a last resort. It was powerful enough that doing so would require a serious deployment of firepower. Possibly even a Buster Call fleet. Which…no, the WG wouldn't want that. Alabasta was a critical trade hub, one with a standing army of over half a million troops. No, they'd lean on Alabasta to try and get them to shut up, but they wouldn't actually attack. No, the government would double down, lay false evidence of more crimes. Try to eliminate the Strawhat crew. And…witnesses too.

Hina froze, then cursed aloud.

Fuck. She shouldn't have let herself be so obviously angry at the idea. Even if she liked the Strawhat crew. With virtually her entire command gone after she'd diverted it to fight Blackbeard, the Marines could easily make Hina herself vanish on court martial charges. If they made Hina vanish, and sealed her reports, they could easily make the Wapol situation look much worse. Possibly even blame all of Blackbeard's destruction on the Strawhats. Drum, or Sakura Kingdom now she supposed, wasn't going to be in a position to refute anything like Alabasta was.

Damn it. Now she had to decide what to do. File her own report to that effect, signaling that she was on board with the deception no matter how much she might not like it. Or…what? Flee? Warn the Kingdom and the Strawhats? Hina had a feeling she was going to need something stronger than her cigarette to figure this one out...

... ...

"Luffy! There you are!"

Luffy's head snapped up at the call of his name. At this range, it only took a single active pulse of his Observation Haki to find his brother, and a wide smile formed on his face. Said brother was already making his way across the market crowd to him and his crew, so Luffy only had to wait a few seconds for him to close the distance.

"Ace! I'd hoped you might still be in Alabasta! It's a big enough island I wasn't quite sure where to start looking for you, though!"

Which was unfortunately true. It wouldn't have been if he hadn't taught his adoptive brother enough about Haki to dampen his own presence somewhat. But he had done that, and as such his sweep of the island with his own Haki hadn't been able to pinpoint his brother, particularly with how big Alabasta was meaning he'd needed to do it from the air. He'd felt hints of Ace's presence but hadn't been able to localize those hints into his exact location. Though at this range, that went out the window, Ace wasn't that good at presence suppression.

"Oh? Got one of the messages I left?"

Luffy nodded, face falling a bit.

"Yeah. We stopped at Drum. Dalton passed on the message you left with him…along with the reason you're here in Paradise."

Ace's own expression shifted to a scowl, but he shook it off after a moment.

"Yeah. Well, seems like Blackbeard moved through without making trouble. Probably because of Croc. I was just getting ready to move on myself when you had it out with that psycho. You know the idiot actually tried to challenge Pops a few years ago?"

Luffy grinned.

"I did. In fact, I taunted him with that little detail during the fight. Pissed him the hell off, too."

Ace's still slightly strained expression shifted into a laugh, then settled on a grin.

"I'll bet. Arrogant little shit thought he was all that, only to get smacked down like a toddler. Still, what the fuck made you take on a Warlord? You know the WG is going to be pissed about someone claiming a frozen bounty like that…"

Luffy grinned and was about to start explaining, when he abruptly realized that half of his crew were still around and looking curious.

"Well, that's a bit of a story! If you can spare a few hours, you can get the whole thing and meet my crew at the same time if you want? And see the ship I was always telling you I'd build!"

Ace's eyes lit up at that.

"Ah! I already did see it at the port! But I'd love to get a closer look. Not to mention meeting your crew. I can spare an hour or two for that, at least. I'm already days behind anyway."

Luffy smiled and waved at Nami, who was clearly fighting her curiosity.

"Right, well we can start now. This is Nami, my navigator…and girlfriend!"

Ace gaped, Luffy laughed, and Nami grinned wink as she posed. This would be fun…