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the-bar-sinister · 4 months ago

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Deicide (29571 words) by VickytheSnake, thesavagesabretooth Chapters: 8/?

Summary: In the aftermath of the raid on Onigashima everything changes. The path to the One Piece is a course that can only be charted by those who agree to join together as friends and fight without taking the easy way out.

catch up here.

Crocodile lit a fresh cigar as Mihawk washed the blood from his face in the basin in the captains' quarters of the ship.Technically the quarters belonged to Buggy, but the two of them had been making themselves quite comfortable in it for the whole journey, and that included now as they took a moment to freshen up after the invigorating battle.

"Well, Hawk, good enough battle for you?" he chuckled, glancing over. He pulled a long puff of smoke into his mouth and held it there. It was a good brand. The kind he'd been smoking since they'd gotten settled in the New World. He resolved to offer one to their prisoner.

“It was satisfactory.” Mihawk’s smile was predatory as the water ran crimson from his fingers as he washed up. “There were a few worthy opponents in the bunch. Enough to make up for the fools I had to cut down to reach them.”

He strolled over and put his arms around Mihawk's shoulders, feeling safe even near the water in the heart of their cross guild ship, with their enemies in the brig, and the world's greatest swordsman in his arms.

Crocodile chuckled again, rolling the cigar between his fingers. "I'll take 'satisfactory'. You're a difficult man to please."

Mihawk chuckled.

“I’m aiming to stay the greatest swordsman, Crocodile. The average military grunt is too easy. That being said…there was some talent on that ship. Hampered by surprise as they were.”

He shook out his hands before drying them and his face with a towel.

"Glad it wasn't too boring for you," Croc grinned. "There were the fair share of challenges. This is the second time I've gotten Smoker in a brig you know. He's improved a lot since then."

Mihawk tilted his head. “The second time? When was the first? Alabasta?”

"Yep. Right before I got my ass kicked to hell and back by Straw Hat." He laughed roughly. The memory didn't sting as much now. After all, it had led to bigger and better things. "Had the two of em in the same little cage in fact. Didn't expect 'em to crawl out. Which is in fact why I'd like to go and talk to Smoker sooner rather than later."

He absolutely didn't want the man to find a way to worm his way out of the cage before he'd had a chance to give him his proposal.

Mihawk smirked thinly. “Of course, we wouldn’t want him to start rampaging about with his navy friends, would we? On your lead, Captain.”

Crocodile nuzzled his first mate from behind before he released him. He carefully adjusted his cravat, and he grabbed the box of cigars from the shelf.

This time, things were going to go differently.

Crocodile stayed well clear of the sea stone cages that had been installed in the brig. There were an even half-dozen of them, guarded by underlings without devil fruit powers, and three of them were currently occupied. All three of the prisoners were in separate cages– Crocodile had been very clear about that– and each of them additionally had a sea stone lined shackle.

Crocodile didn't even know if Smoker's second was actually a devil fruit user. He just wasn't taking any chances.

Mihawk regarded them with his hand on his chin and a cool stare from his sharp golden eyes. He hadn’t said a word since they’d walked in….but he was regarding them each seriously.

Smoker glowered at him from his cage, his mouth devoid of his usual cigar and set in a tense frown as he shifted in his shackles with the limpness expected of a man imprisoned by the weight of the sea. “Tch.”

The other woman, Rear Admiral “Black Cage” Hina…had no qualms about shouting out , however. She leaned forward in her restraints, her long, pale pink hair falling into her face as she grinned widely.

“Hey, Alabasta’s Hero. MInd getting these restraints off me? I can show you mine, they’re a lot more fun!”

The third woman– the one that Crocodile had less information on– just glowered at him from behind a pair of glasses.

"I'm afraid a demonstration won't be necessary at this time, Miss Hina," Crocodile purred courteously. "Perhaps we can have a conversation later. If things go well between Smoker and I."

He let his sharp gaze linger on the man he'd had in his grasp once before.

Smoker raised his eyebrow. “Unlike last time we ain’t even ‘ostensibly’ on the same side, Crocodile. Dunno what you’re expecting to get out of talkin’ with me.”

"I'll just bet you don't." Crocodile grinned, and nodded to the guard. "Bring him out for me, and take him to the back room."

The guard, one of Buggy's 'best men'-- Crocodile thought his name was Cabbage or something– grudgingly saluted and opened the sea stone cage.

"Let's try to keep this civil for a bit, Smoker. I'd really just like to talk."

Smoker grinned grimly. “Depending on what happens to Tashigi, Hina and Drake? I might humor you. Until I run outta patience.”

He stood slowly with a look that wasn’t at all disarming.

Smoker found himself in a small, barely furnished room. His sea stone cuffs were quickly locked to the back of the chair he was 'escorted' into. And a moment later, after the guard and former warlord had exchanged nods and the guard had departed, he and "Sir" Crocodile were alone.

Smoker was seething. This was the second time this man had gotten the drop on him. The second time he’d been locked up in a seastone cage. And this time he’d gotten Tashigi and Hina dragged into it.

He’d warned the World Government, the Admirals— Cross Guild may have seemed like a farce from the outside, but they were a legitimate threat. A powerhouse of Warlords and their collected power all coming together under the banner of destroying the Marines specifically.

They didn’t listen. They never did. His eyes bored into Crocodile’s, his lips tight as he snarled low under his breath. If this was another ‘Utopia’ pitch about toppling a nation he was going to go apeshit.

Crocodile was smiling that bastard smile of his, and the heels of his boots rang out sharp on the floorboards as he swaggered around behind Smoker.

"I'm sorry I can't make you any more comfortable, considering the circumstances. I can offer a small apology, though." He took a fresh cigar from his pocket and held it in front of Smoker. It smelled like a good one, and seemed to be the twin of the one hanging from the former warlord's lip.

“Trying to buy me off with a good cigar, eh?” Smoker chuckled roughly. “...I’m dying for a smoke, so I ain’t gonna refuse but that doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to shit, understood?”

"Obviously," Crocodile chuckled. "I wouldn't respect you if you were a man who could be bought with a damned cigar. Or a man who could be bought, period."

The pirate carefully and expertly held the cigar between Smoker's lips for him, and lit the tip of it with the end of his own. As he puffed the cherry, their faces were quite close, and he had a good look at the man who was his captor.

Crocodile wasn’t a bad looking man. Not by half. The crawling scar over his face was a mystery to Smoker, but it didn’t take away from his good looks one bit.

A shame he was a pirate. He puffed at the cigar with a low huff of breath. “Glad to hear you respect me then.”

"Frankly, Smoker, that's why you're here and not at the bottom of the sea." Croc smiled and pulled out of his personal space, puffing on his own cigar. "You're one of the few damned marines I have anything like respect for."

Smoker raised his eyebrow with a puff of his cigarette. “That's a high honor. Probably for the best nobody took up that bounty you boys took out on me, eh?”

"Hey, the poster might say dead or alive, but I'm not convinced the rabble could kill ya." He chuckled. "You're a hard bastard to get a hold of. Gave the crew a run for our money just now."

“And I’m glad for it.” Smoker grinned around his cigar. “See– I don’t like letting people run roughshod over my men. If we could give you a run for your money while surprised and …in the case of my Chief Petty Officer and my longtime friend…sloshed, then I’m gonna consider it a job well done.”

"That makes two of us then," Crocodile nodded. "I'm impressed with your crew. Hell, even Mihawk seemed impressed— in his way. I'm sure your man Drake would have given us trouble too, if he hadn't been bedridden."

“Probably, without a doubt.” Smoker puffed his cigar with lidded eyes. “You've got a lotta compliments for us. Makes me wonder when the ‘but’ is coming.”

"'But's pretty thick on the ground already, ain't it?" Crocodile huffed. He shrugged and puffed on his cigar, taking it out of his mouth for a moment and looking at it. "You did lose."

“Sure did.” Smoker gave him a grim smile around his cigar. “the boys back home should heeded my warnings about you pirates sooner.”

Crocodile leaned against the wall nearby. "Brass ain't listening to a word you say, are they?"

“Probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Smoker huffed out a long stream of smoke “...but they haven’t for months. Hell. Longer. Since fucking Dressrosa.”

"Doesn't surprise me a bit. You've never exactly toed the line, have you? I've heard other marines call you a mad dog. Might have used the phrase on you myself." He chuckled roughly.

“I remember. Alabasta.” Smoker leered “you called me a mad dog of the Navy…and you weren’t wrong. I’m not exactly ‘mr. plays by the rules’. I follow my own justice.”

"Not to be blunt," Crocodile said in a way that told Smoker that he should absolutely brace for him to be very blunt indeed. "How's that been working out for you?"

“As you can see, Crocodile, it’s going great. I’d say Aces, but the guy died back in Marineford for nothin’.”

The pirate grimaced and sucked on his cigar for a moment.

"That whole thing was a trash fire. Poor little bastard." Smoker was a little surprised by the rough, raw emotion in Crocodile's voice. Whatever it was was hard to put a name to– regret? bitterness? grief?-- but it was thick. "Yeah. That's about what I thought though. You ain't exactly climbing the ranks and changing the navy with your own brand of justice."

“The navy likes being stuck in its ways.” Smoker analyzed the emotion— it matched his own. He regretted Marineford. It was a travesty of justice. A televised trap that banked on the limits of human cruelty, too cruel even for a pirate’s execution. Ace was a pirate, he had to be caught…but that was above and beyond what Smoker could accept as ‘real justice’. That was a circus show of cruelty.

“I hit Vice Admiral, at least.”

"Sure did," he nodded. He blew a puff of smoke out of his mouth. "Aiming for Admiral? Better question– think they'll give it to you?"

“Nope.” Smoker answered honestly with a puff off his cigar. “They've already got a new guy. Had to deal with him in Wano. He’s a real treat. You’d love him.”

"I've heard rumors," Croc drawled. "If we get our hands on him, he and I won't be sharing cigars, I'll tell you that much."

Smoker laughed, smoke pouring from the corners of his mouth “yeah. He and I neither. He’s a real prick, Crocodile. A real Celestial Dragon bootlicker.”

"Disgusting," Crocodile sneered, and Smoker could tell he meant it. He was quiet for a moment, and sucked in a long breath of smoke, before blowing it out again. "So. When are you going to finally cram your commission up the brass' asshole and start giving them real hell, eh?"

There it was.

He’d been expecting this pitch. Ever since Alabasta when Crocodile had leaned in with that wide and dangerous smile and asked if they were ‘allies’.

“You’re asking when I’m gonna turn pirate.”

"Sure am," Crocodile nodded, that same dangerous smile planted on his face now.. "I check every time I see your name in the newspaper. I've been waiting to congratulate you. Gotta admit, you're a more patient man than I am."

“I’m a stubborn man, Crocodile.” Smoker grumbled “and one who ain’t the biggest fan of upstart pirates who think they can run roughshod over folks.”

"You seem to have a high tolerance for marines and government lackeys who run roughshod over folks though," he said, blandly. "All proper and legal like."

Smoker as a matter of fact, did not. Something that’d nearly gotten him court martialed many times before. His interference in Cipher Pol business– his fury at marines who’d treated the people no better than the pirates had…

And now the business with the damned Admiral and the ever oppressive hand of the Celestial Dragons since the Reverie.

“You’d be surprised.”

"Maybe," Crocodile said. "But you have to acknowledge that if justice and protecting people is what you want, there's so little that you can do from that side. What are you going to do if they call you in on something you really can't stomach? A buster call? guard duty for a grand hunt?"

Crocodile regarded him intensely with his dark, shrewd eyes. They were calculating yes, but far from cold. If anything the probing look that the pirate gave him was as hot as the desert sands.

He’d already narrowly avoided doing much more than hearing about the buster call on Enies Lobby. And the military had been getting more and more brazen with each passing day. More and more the ‘last resort’ seemed eager to be used.

And the hunts. The less said about them the better. They turned his stomach more than the devil fruit ever had.

“.....I’d give them a three days notice they’d never forget.” Smoker hissed smoke through his teeth. “It'd take them three damn days to clean it up.”

"I'll bet you would," he said. Finally he gathered up the empty chair and shoved it up close to Smoker's setting down in it face to face with him. "

You let them make you admiral, it ain't something you're going to be able to avoid you know. Smoker, the marines do a good job sweet talking justice like they're getting a woman into bed, but you and I both know all they are in the end is the hound dogs of the Celestial Dragons. I know you want 'em to be something better than that. But that's the way it is."

Smoker’s eyes narrowed through the smoke from his cigar. “You don’t think I know that, Croc? Hard to miss when you got bastards like Ryokugyu running around and saying the damned quiet part out loud! The system’s fucked. I know it, you know it. My second knows it, Hina knows it. Even the damn crew knows it.”

"So why keep playing along, damn it? Why keep pretending the plundering pirates are the problem while you're escorting tribute ships to the celestial dragons with every windows' pennies?" Crocodile demanded. "I know you don't think much of pirates— hell, I don't think much of most pirates. But in the face of the World Government? My Cross Guild is practically the fucking good guys. At least we're putting power in the hands of the people."

“Just like the Revolutionary Army, eh?” Smoker’s teeth tightened on his cigar. The worst part about this was he was right. The Reverie was the clearest sign anyone could ever see of just what the Marines were in the face of the Celestial Dragons. Marineford was the prelude, a taste of that sick and cloying corruption….the Reverie, and the vanished island in the middle of the sea?

That was a reminder. The Celestial Dragons claimed to be the gods of the world, and they acted accordingly.

The people didn’t matter to them. “There are people relying on me, Crocodile.”

Crocodile hunched forward toward him, his arms on his knees so that they were completely face to face.

"What people, Smoker?" Crocodile asked plainly. "Who's out there relying on you and how are you planning to protect and serve them? Tell me that."

“My men. My subordinates.” Smoker grumbled low as he looked down “and I’m planning on doing whatever the hell it takes.”

The Marines were broken. Anyone with eyes could see it. He’d thought about it, time and time again…that if he’d found a pirate he could respect half as much as he respected Roger in his final moments…he’d consider trying to pursue his justice another way.

"Do your subordinates respect you, Smoker?" Crocodile asked. The smoke from both their cigars trailed upward and mingled. "My guess is the answer is yes. Because you're a hell of a man. So tell me, do they? Would they follow you into the belly of hell?"

“They already have, and they will again.” Smoker leaned forward until his chains clinked against the back of the chair “where I go, they go.”

Crocodile suddenly reached across and gripped his shoulder. "Then bring them with you, damn it. Join Cross Guild and damn the marines and the Celestial Dragons! You want to do good for the people? Sail with us, and put your voice on my council. Your voice on equal with us former warlords!"

Smoker grimaced as he was grabbed– but not from the contact. No…it was the war inside him. That sharp pull of justice at any cost, and the realization long found that the Marines weren't any more just than the Pirates.

Ryokugyu was the nail in the coffin of his faith in the Marines. In his faith that anything 'just' was hiding at its core. So what the hell was he doing, floating along on an unending series of punishable, unauthorized trips. What came after Wano? The rebuilt courts at New Marineford to face the music for his middle finger to authority?

He hissed sharply through his teeth “And Tashigi? Drake, Hina?”

"Bring them!" Crocodile repeated. "If they're men and women you want at your side, I want them in Cross Guild, Smoker. We're not just looking to tear the world down and stuff our pockets– unlike the Dragons. We're not just hypocritically following a set of rules laid down by our masters like the marine brass. Your men and women fight for the world they want to see like you do, don't they? Then they'll shine in my alliance."

It was logical…and it hit Smoker right in his shaken faith in the Marines. He tensed against the chair as the rant of the Admiral played through his head.

The Inferior exist for the superior to do whatever they wish to. The world government could conduct a genocide, the decimation of a people and it would be Just, simply due to their superiority. His stomach churned, and he closed his eyes tight before he replied.

“I’ll do it. I can’t work for a bunch of pricks who think they can massacre civilians during a fucking celebration because they ain’t the same as the people pushing the buster call’s button.”

A wide smile broke out on Crocodile's face– at once exactly the same sly, smug expression as usual and somehow at the same time quite genuinely thrilled and elated. He smacked Smoker's shoulder companionably.

"I knew you wouldn't let them keep you on the leash forever, pal. This calls for a fucking celebration!" He stood and turned, slamming his hook on the back of the door. "Cabaji!! Get a bottle of booze and get in here with the key!"

“.....” Smoker was stunned, but it only lasted a minute before leaning back on the chair with a hearty, rasping laugh. “You were excited for it. I didn’t know you cared, Crocodile.”

Crocodile laughed a throaty chuckle as he let himself down into the chair again. "Caught me. I'm sure I have a lot of surprises for you in the future. We pirates are deeper than you might think."

“Guess I’ll have plenty of time to get used to the depths you pirates can sink to then.” Smoker joked with a sharp grin. “Now that I am one.”

Crocodile, last out of the room after Vice-Admiral Smoker was led out of it, flashed Mihawk a sly smile before he departed leaving him alone in the brig with the guards and the two remaining marine prisoners.

He watched them carefully, taking every detail he could into account as he slowly paced back and forth before the bars. The two of them had been clearly drunk when Cross Guild assailed the ship, quite obviously while they were deep into the cups. And yet.

And yet both fought with a ferocity that was impressive for their state, and held their own well enough to survive long enough to be locked up behind seastone bars.

The pink haired woman glared at him, baring her teeth in a grin as she whistled for him to come closer.

He didn’t comply.

The one with dark hair watched him carefully, her arms crossed close around herself. She was flushed– she'd been flushed when she joined the battle— but was more so now after the beating he'd given her. She was a swordswoman, it seemed. Certainly not worth his time, however…

He gave them the thinnest smile he could manage as he tilted his hat downwards. “Are the accommodations to your taste?”

“Not really.” ‘Black Cage Hina’ shrugged her shoulders. “planning on selling us back to the Marines? You should know they’re not really the types to bargain with ransomers.”

The other woman glanced over at Hina with an incredulous look on her face. She opened her mouth to say something, and then seemed to think better of it, or perhaps just hesitate. She rested her shoulders up against the bars of the cage, which made it more obvious that she was not a devil fruit user.

“Not even for the niece of an Admiral?” he asked with a raise of his eyebrow. ‘Know your Enemy’. It was a fundamental strategy for anyone who sought to live a world of strife…and Mihawk the Marine Hunter knew the marines quite well. He knew the open secret behind Hina’s rise up the ranks despite the troublemaking company she kept and her own tendencies towards open defiance of Military Protocol.

Hina went pale, and he watched her grimace uncomfortably as the question left his lips.

“Don’t worry. We’re not planning on ransoming you. My captain has another idea in mind.” Mihawk turned his gaze to the non-devil fruit user and pointed at her. “You. You were going to speak.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "Not… really. I have nothing to say to pirates." She lifted her chin bravely, despite the situation.

'Know thy enemy'. He didn't know this one, unfortunately. She didn't seem to have made a name for herself, despite her usual– if inferior– demonstrated skill with the blade. Her insignias marked her as a captain, and she seemed to be attached to Vice-Admiral Smoker.

“Not even a proper introduction?” Mihawk crossed his arms. “I know Rear Admiral HIna Borsalino’s reputation…but not you, Captain.”

“Aw, screw you.” Hina grumbled in annoyance as he used her surname. “Don’t go bothering her, Marine Hunter!” '

The dark haired woman grimaced toward Hina– perhaps at the use of the name– but then turned her defiant if drunken and bespectacled look back at Mihawk. "Marine Captain Tashigi, serving as flag-aide to Vice-Admiral Smoker."

Only one name. Not unheard of. But curious. Unlikely that she was the niece of an admiral as well.

“Tashigi, hm? I suppose I remember reports of Smoker having a subordinate.” Mihawk crossed his arms, framed by his world class blade as he turned fully towards her and leaned towards the bars.

"And you're the famous Dracule Mihawk, right?"

“That I am. I stand as a pillar of the Cross Guild, as well as my captain’s first mate. A pleasure.”

Hina shifted to thunk against the bars, only to sink down in visible discomfort at the seastone. He smiled thinly before he turned his attention back to Tashigi.

“Heard you went back to hunting marines after you were done hunting pirates.” Hina murmured. “a real return to form.”

"Does putting out leaflets count as hunting?" Tashigi asked. There was something like a challenge in it.

Mihawk raised his eyebrow at Tashigi, even as he heard Hina weakly snicker.

He placed his hand on the outside of the cage as his eyes bored down into Tashigi over the grim line of his mouth.

“One cannot enact great change alone, ‘Captain Tashigi’. The leaflets are a first step in a far grander plan.” He gestured down towards them “...I still find time to have my fun as I strive to stay the world’s greatest swordsman. Fighting you both and your marines was…nostalgic. I thank you.”

“Yeah. no problem.” Hina murmured darkly, “still haven’t answered what the plan is here.”

"I doubt he's going to tell us, Hina."

Tashigi's gaze burned back at Mihawk's– defiant despite the beating he'd handed her. He noticed, however, that one of her eyes was very slightly crossed. Perhaps that had accounted for the particular compensation he'd noticed on the battlefield.

“Interesting.” he didn’t elaborate, though he filed it away. Be it from an injury, or from an ocular abnormality…it certainly accounted for aspects of her fighting style.

He looked at Hina with a tilt of her head. “I’ll tell you a little, actually. Consider it a thanks for the decent fight.”

“Wow, you’re more generous than ya look.” Hina’s smile had turned as sharp as a blade.

“Try not to forget that,” Mihawk drawled before he gestured to the door “...we’re attempting to recruit you.”

That broke Tashigi's defiant expression. She slapped the floor of the cell as her mouth dropped open. "You're what?"

Hina sputtered, and grabbed the seastone cage in her cuffed hands before making a sick sound and falling back. “Are you insane??”

“Hardly,” Mihawk stared them down. “It's no secret I despise the Marines– but my captain and the others seem convinced that the Vice Admiral, and those he spent his time with, are people who’ll see reason when pointed towards the World Government’s sins.”

“You’re pirates!” Hina said weakly as she reeled from the seastone. “not the damn Revolutionary Army!”

Tashigi had gone quiet. She was staring at the floor at the moment, her brow furrowed as if she was deeply in thought. Mihawk noticed her glance at Hina, and then away at the floor again.

Mihawk nodded slowly.

“That is true. We are not the Revolutionary Army. But as men and women who had worked with the World Government for years as their Warlords, we are pirates who’ve seen the depravity of the Celestial Dragons and the moral compromises of the Marines firsthand and often.”

He leaned on the bars, his sharp eyes boring into Hina as her own brow furrowed in likely thought. “I’d be surprised if you told me you hadn’t noticed.”

“Tch.” Hina set her jaw, “anyone with eyes can see it… But it ain’t like a pirate alliance is much different.”

It was an admission, which was a crack in the armor to exploit.

“It’s more honest.” Mihawk countered.

"Calling piracy honest is a bold claim," Tashigi said finally, looking up again. The defiant look was still there, but it had softened, joined by something that might have been curiosity.

Mihawk chuckled sharply. “We don’t hide our crimes under layers of excuses and call it justice. Marineford was a uniquely federal atrocity. Pirates may lay siege to ports, but Cipher Pol can decimate an island and call it Justice.”

His fingers clenched against the bars. “they can slaughter a people for the sake of a few berries more in tribute to the looming Celestial Dragons.I watched that very scenario play out before my eyes as a lad. Native Hunting Competitions, authorized slavery…Buster Calls on the innocent…all barely hidden secrets held by the World Government.”

He watched Hina curl in on herself somewhat, her teeth gritting together. She knew, of course. She had to know. Between her own position, and her family’s ingrained status in the World Government, he knew it couldn’t be far from her mind.

She had to know that he was speaking the truth.

"Ah," Tashigi's tongue clicked and she looked away. "That kind of honest…"

She hadn't deflated quite the same way that Hina had, but she was staring off at the ceiling now instead. She obviously didn't have a refutation either.

MIhawk tilted his head. “I know you marines make a big deal out of your sense of Justice. So how is your Justice faring lately?”

Tashigi turned her head, away from him, and away from Hina as well. "You're wasting your breath on me, I'm afraid, first-mate Mihawk."

Hina sighed a soft huff of breath, raising her hands to her face with a clink of the chains. There was a sad note to the way she murmured “Tashigi…”

Mihawk watched Tashigi carefully, scrutinizing her “I see. I believe I understand. Then allow me to say this. There is purpose to be found on the sea. Many who follow a pirate’s flag claim it’s a life of freedom…and while I feel that is perhaps idealistic, there is some truth to that.”

"First pirate honest," Tashigi murmured. "Now pirate idealism. What a time to be alive."

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