Chapter 495: The Devoted and the Goddess
Marineford.
In a tavern tucked into the town that sprawled behind the main fortress, a certain famous Vice Admiral was nursing a drink with the posture of a man being slowly crushed by his own feelings.
Navy Headquarters' Marineford wasn't only a military installation. Behind the fortress itself was a functioning town where Marines and their families lived their everyday lives. Off-duty hours often meant time in that town, and seeing a senior officer drinking at one of the local establishments wasn't unusual.
What was unusual was the scale of the drinking, and the tears.
Vice Admiral Chaton was going through cups at a pace that had attracted quiet, sidelong looks from the surrounding Marines. The man was not merely drinking. He was not even quietly suffering. He was on the edge of audibly breaking down, his face a map of undisguised misery, the wrinkles around his eyes deep enough to trap something small.
Sitting beside him and laughing with complete abandon was an Admiral.
"Alright, Kake, that's enough of this." Ryokugyu, better known to most as Aramaki, clapped a hand on Chaton's shoulder with the energy of a man who found this all deeply entertaining. "It's been a while now. Maybe just let yourself move on? There are plenty of lovely ladies here at Headquarters."
The contrast between them could not have been more complete.
"Gion-chan isn't comparable to anyone else." Chaton sent another cup of bitter alcohol down his throat. "I will love only Gion-chan. Forever."
"Then there's nothing I can do for you." Ryokugyu shook his head, resigned in a cheerful way. "Your only option at that point is to go bring her back."
Chaton blinked. Then something caught in his chest and he sat up straighter, a spark moving through him. "You're right. That's still an option."
"Even with whatever she's done, if she truly wants to come back and make things right, between her own efforts and the people who'd speak on her behalf, Sengoku and the others might still go easier on her. The Government might too."
Ryokugyu watched Chaton's expression shift through several emotions simultaneously, and noted that the speed of the transition was remarkable.
Chaton's murmuring was gaining conviction the longer it went on. "Yes. I have to make sure Gion-chan finds her way back to the right path."
"There you go. That's the spirit." Ryokugyu gave his shoulder a firm pat that was mostly a way of expressing amusement. "Only one problem. Where is Gion-chan right now?"
"..."
Chaton deflated instantly. He folded himself over the table, all the animation draining out of him at once.
Right. All the conviction in the world didn't help if he had no idea where she actually was.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!"
Ryokugyu's laughter filled the tavern.
That man.
Chaton turned his eyes toward the ceiling and said nothing.
When the night had properly settled in and the drinking had reached its natural conclusion, an unsteady Chaton made his way back to his quarters.
As a senior officer being groomed for promotion to Admiral, he had been allocated a small standalone villa rather than standard barracks. Not quite the private estate an Admiral commanded, but comfortable and private. It backed up against the shore, and there was a large terrace that caught the sea wind.
Chaton dragged a chair out onto the terrace and sat in it sideways, one leg dangling over the arm, staring out at the ocean under a sky full of stars.
He let out a slow, soft sigh.
"Gion-chan. What happened to you?"
"You were all deceived."
He blinked.
Was he hearing things?
He rubbed his ear carefully. His head was swimming pleasantly, and he wasn't entirely confident in his senses right now. Had he imagined Gion's voice?
He turned it over. Was he so consumed by missing her that his mind was conjuring her?
Chaton pushed himself upright. He rubbed his eyes.
A figure had jumped up from below the terrace and landed lightly on the railing. The woman he thought about on most days of his life stood there, looking at him steadily, composed and unreadable.
"Gion-chan?"
Chaton's mouth was open.
Then the hope rushed in and he leaned forward. "You came back. You realized you made a mistake and you came back."
"I haven't made any mistakes."
Momousagi said it simply, without heat.
Chaton's expression fell slightly. He noticed her hand was resting on the handle of her blade. She had come here ready to fight if she needed to.
"Then why did you come, Gion-chan?" He kept his voice low. "Surely not to recruit me."
"I'm very fond of you, but I'm also very fond of the Navy."
"I'm also fond of the Navy," she said. "But I've been forced onto its opposite side."
"Forced." Chaton picked up the word. "What do you mean by that?"
"Would you like to hear what actually happened at the Science Division base, Kake?" Momousagi looked at him with the steady certainty of a woman who had known him for a long time, and knew, under everything, what she was working with. "My version of events."
Chaton's mouth opened, then closed.
He was not a man whose judgment got swept away by infatuation. He was a battle-tested Marine with decades of experience and a mind that had stayed sharp through all of it. He understood perfectly well that the right thing to do at this moment, the correct and proper action, was to activate the alarm and alert the rest of Headquarters that Momousagi Gion was here.
But.
"I'll hear it," he said, and exhaled.
There was nothing to be done. He simply cared about her too much.
Momousagi let out a quiet breath of her own. Genuine relief moved through her.
She had trusted Brett's assessment. She had barely believed it. And yet here she was, and here Chaton was, and he was willing to sit and listen.
If he had known she was thinking that, he might have cried all over again.
He should be unreliable? After all these years, after everything?
Though perhaps it was precisely because there had been so many confessions, so many rejections, that she had stopped taking him seriously as a person.
Momousagi gathered her thoughts and began.
Below the cliff, down at the water's edge, Brett was lying on the ocean surface, feet trailing idly in the waves.
Convenient that Chaton was stationed right here at Headquarters. Finding him had taken about thirty seconds of expanding Observation Haki over the base.
Above him, on the terrace overhead, Momousagi's account was drawing to a close.
"That's what happened." She paused. "The Government deceived everyone."
"..."
Chaton was quiet.
He didn't know what to say.
Her account was completely different from the Government's. His reason told him she had no hard evidence, that the Science Division base had genuinely been destroyed, and that there was testimony from survivors placing her squarely at the scene as a combatant against Government forces.
But his instinct wouldn't let him dismiss her. It wouldn't let him act as though her words were nothing.
"I'm not asking you to believe me completely, Kake." Momousagi stepped forward, her voice serious in a way that left no room for anything but the words themselves. "I only want you to try to investigate. The Government isn't trustworthy. I want to make sure the people I care about don't get hurt by them."
She pressed her lips together. When Chaton looked at her face, there was something bright at the edges of her eyes. Not quite tears. Almost.
"Gion..."
The word came out of him before he had a thought to attach to it.
"That's all for now, Kake. I hope you'll do something with this."
Momousagi stepped back slowly toward the terrace railing and dropped off the edge, straight down into the water below.
Chaton stayed where he was, standing in the sea wind, his mind a storm.
Momousagi entered the water to find Brett floating on his back nearby, apparently without a care in the world.
He turned his head toward her and grinned. "Well done. That last moment was exquisite. Absolutely perfect."
"Your Observation Haki is offensive." Momousagi's tone was flat.
"Will he actually help?"
"Trust me. He's already wavering completely." Brett's expression settled into something satisfied. "He's going to work very hard to find a reason to believe you."
Momousagi said nothing.
She genuinely did not understand how that worked.