The Past

Grandmas were about to tell their entire past. I knew a huge portion of it, but not the reason why they left.

Others were listening very closely. They might have guessed it, but they had no confirmation of that information unlike me.

Dorothea: "As you kids might have already guessed, we were officers in the marines"

Everyone nodded to it.

"Rear Admirals to be precise," Catherine said with a smug on her face.

This time everyone was shocked this time other than me. For the series watchers, Rear Admirals might not seem anything special, but for the citizens, it is the 4th highest rank.

Dorothea noticed this and asked

"You don't seem shocked Jai"

I knew the information previously, but I can't just say that I remembered it from a time when I was a few months old, so I replied

"I have sensed many marine captains' strength. Their strength does not even compare to you. In fact, I assumed that you are Vice-Admiral level in strength"

Lying to them is not easy, so I used a certain method. That is, I always tell the truth. The truth, might not be the answer to the question, but it was the truth nonetheless.

Like in my previous sentence, it was true that I sensed many captains' strengths and grandmas are far stronger than them. It was also a complete truth that I assumed their strength (not position) to be Vice-Admiral level.

Dorothea: "You are very perceptive. It is true that our current strengths are barely of Vice-Admiral level"

"But why did you leave the marines?" Drake asked. Being the son of an ex-marine, he had his curiosity.

Catherine: "We left because of a certain mission one day. Surprisingly, if we stayed in the marines for a few more months, we would have been promoted to Vice-Admirals"

Law asked, "What was the mission?" He had experienced the dark side of the government more than any of us. He naturally wanted to know if other people too had suffered the same pain as his.

That mission was straightforward, a bounty hunter attacked a celestial dragon in Sabaody Archipelago

We did not like those bubblehead bastards, but we had to carry out the mission. If we refused then someone else would have taken up that mission

Surprisingly, that day, there were no Admirals at the headquarters, so the Fleet Admiral Kong sent Garp, Tsuru, Kuzan, and both of us to handle the situation along with other lower-level officers and soldiers

Even if no Admiral were present, Garp's status and strength were actually greater than even admirals. None of us were fond of the celestial dragons, but our status was needed to handle the celestial dragon community since no Admirals were sent

We continued with the mission, and soon we reached the groves. The bounty hunter escaped from the scene along with someone. After searching for a while, we found the bounty hunter.

He was inside his house, and we could feel his emotional pain. We opened the door and saw something that moved us

His wife was lying in the bed all bloody and dead. The bounty hunter was sitting near the dead body of his wife and crying while holding her

There was another infant in a crib crying.

Kuzan: "So Samuel, both of you chose death rather than slavery?"

Samuel, the bounty hunter spoke

"Yes, the moment that bastard wanted my wife as a slave, we had no choice. She herself asked me to kill her. But I could never kill her like that, and neither could I live my life without her. So I attacked that bastard. If we are going to live in hell, might as well kill him and be there. But he survived and she took a few bullets"

All of us felt the pain.

He continued

"If you are anything like the newspapers say, then I request you to not harm my child and at least put him in an orphanage"

Garp felt bad, and he bowed down.

"I am sorry for protecting that piece of shit once. If I had left him to die that day, you would not have suffered"

All of us felt bad about it. Catherine and Garp looked like they will kill the celestial dragon. I put my hand on her shoulder and nodded my head in no.

She got it and stayed calm. I could not help it and said

"You have my word, I will personally take care of the child."

Tsuru, Kuzan, and Garp looked at me shocked, but Catherine said

"Not you alone, I will do it as well"

Both of us felt very bad about doing this mission. We will eventually be responsible for making the child an orphan. If we ever wanted to sleep peacefully after that, we have to make up at least by taking care of the child.

Tsuru wanted to say something, but she did not say it at that time.

Samuel saw this and was relieved. For him, his life did not matter now, his wife was already dead and his son was in good hands

He said, "Thank you, please take care of him. His name is Santiago."

Kuzan did not like this type of mission as well, but he was relieved that he did not have to partake in the murder of an infant. He finally said

"Samuel, I hate to do this, but if I leave you alive, you will be tortured. You will not able to escape this either, so I will put you out of this misery"

Samuel said, "I had welcomed death the moment I raised my weapon against that bastard."

Kuzan then formed an ice sword and stabbed it straight into Samuel's heart. He died.

We bought the dead bodies out and Catherine was looking for any baby supplies for Santiago.

A marine soldier ran to us and said "The celestial dragon is demanding the heads of the family members of Samuel. We also found out he has a newborn baby"

We were shaken by this. We could not kill an infant no matter what or worse hand him over to the celestial dragon. Tsuru thought of something and said

"We searched his house just now, but we did not find the child. Dorothea, go search the house again and you soldier, come with me"

As expected of Tsuru. She is very smart and she did not let the soldier notice anything weird. I quickly visited the house again and explained Catherine what had happened.

Catherine said, "That fucking bastard, he started this and now he even wants the child dead. What to do now? We can't leave the child alone here and taking him on our ship is very dangerous. If one person leaks out the information the child is doomed. There is no one trustworthy on this island that can keep the child either. Other than Marineford, it will take us days to reach any other island via air"

I thought and came up with a temporary solution

"Catherine, use these ropes and carefully tie up the child onto your body inside the clothes, fly up in the air, and stay in the air for now. This will help the child stay safe from all the ground searches. I will tell others that you are searching from the air"

Catherine thought and said: "That is good for now, but I have to come down sooner or later. Think of something till then"

I nodded. Catherine soon tied up Santiago to her bare body, and then wore her clothes on top of that very loosely, allowing the child to breathe. Now getting ready she transformed into her hybrid form and got ready to use her fastest of soru, geppo, and wing flight.

Our observation haki was at its peak, and once everything seemed ideal, I opened the door and Catherine dashed out at her fastest speed.

At this speed, it was impossible for anyone under a certain level of power to see her. The only ones who could use haki already knew about this child, and others were not strong enough to see her.

Soon she was in the sky and flying in circles. I informed the soldiers that she was searching aerially and informed Tsuru, Garp, and Kuzan of the real thing.

Suddenly, Garp said "It is not that I know no one here. In fact, I sensed two very familiar presences"

I, Kuzan, and Tsuru were shocked. Soon we used our haki and searched the entire island and found that Garp was not lying at all. Kuzan obviously did not know those people.

Tsuru said, "Kuzan, go command the soldiers, we will be back"

Kuzan did not argue and he took on the role. We started moving towards them. Once we closed in, we sensed that they were slightly panicked and started running away as fast as possible. But was it so easy to run away from us? Garp aside, even I am much faster than them in my hybrid mode.

I chased them in my hybrid mode and Garp just used his soru. Soon, we caught up and I used my rankyaku right in front of them, making a line on the ground.

They looked back with a very grim expression. Tsuru too caught up soon with her soru. She said

"Long time no see Shakuyaku and Gloriosa. I did not expect both of you to be here together. Your crews did not have anything to do with each other if I remember correctly"

Shakuyaku said, "There is no merit to it Tsuru, we have already retired"

Gloriosa: "Is it to please the noble or the government?"

Garp: "Bwahahaha!!! Don't sweat the small stuff both of you. We are not here to arrest you today. In fact, we are here to cash in an old favor"

They looked at each other and got at ease.

Shakuyaku: "What favor do we owe you?"

Tsuru: "I did not capture you that day when your ex-captain fell. Is that not a big enough favor?"

Shakuyaku: "You decided to go after some other pirates, ignoring me, but I get what you want to say. It is indeed a favor since I could never have escaped you."

Gloriosa: "Either way we have to do your thing if we need to stay safe"

Garp laughed and said "That's right. You know the drill"

Shakuyaku: "So what is the job?"

Dorothea: "Nothing special, you know what has happened today right? I want you to temporarily take care of that bounty hunter's baby"

Shakuyaku said: "We are not nannies you know"

Hearing her reply, Garp just infused his haki on his fist. It had a red and black lightning-like aura. All of us knew what it meant.

Gloriosa and Shakuyaku gulped and then Gloriosa said

"But we can do the job. It is not that difficult"

Garp stopped his haki after hearing that.

Tsuru: "If you do this, we will not pursue you as long as you don't cause any trouble, but don't try to double-cross us"

Dorothea: "We will be back after a few weeks at most, so take care of him till then. If anything happens to the child, we will personally hunt you down"

Shakuyaku and Gloriosa agreed. They seemed to have understood my intentions and I did not sense any form of malice from them. Everyone present trusted their instincts and the other parties.

I quickly flew to Catherine and both of us visited Shakky's bar and handed over Santiago. Catherine was skeptical about it but nonetheless agreed, since, Santiago had the best shot of survival with them.

Shakuyaku and Gloriosa had a very warm feeling for the baby. It was probably their motherly instinct. Seeing this, we were even more glad.

Catherine: "Don't let us down, we are counting on you"

Garp: "Once I temporarily made an alliance with another pirate and this is the consequence of that. Hope this time I don't have any regrets"

Gloriosa: "Don't worry, we will keep the child safe"

Shakuyaku: "Just don't back out from your side of the deal"

Catherine: "If you do this, I will owe you a favor"

We left for the Marineford. Some soldiers stayed behind to find the child.

Once we reached Marineford, we confronted Tsuru

"Tsuru, we are resigning."

She was shocked.

"This is not the first time that we were involved in something like this. We can't carry on this any longer."

Tsuru: "No need to leave, I can assure you that you will not get a mission like this again. I will handle it. That baby can also be bought up in the best of the environment"

We went back and forth and finally, she allowed us. After a few days, when the Admirals returned, we informed the same to Garp, Sengoku, Zephyr, Kuzan, Gion, and Kong. Garp was the only one who understood us and he just gave us his best wishes.

Zephyr and Kuzan just insisted us to stay, while Sengoku and Kong offered us benefits.

Gion was crying hearing this. We were like her big sister after all. She begged us to stay, but we just hugged her. Our decision was clear.

We had to serve our notice period of a month.

Post that, we had our farewell and we decided to leave.

Tsuru: "I will visit Swallow Island when I get the chance. Both of you take care"

I, Catherine, Tsuru, and Gion had a group hug. Everyone had moist eyes, but we had to part.

Garp gave us a packet of his favorite rice crackers. It might not look much, but only we knew how much it meant to him.

We left for the Sabaody and visited Shakky's bar. She was beating up some people.

Once we arrived, they ran away losing all of their possessions. She called out

"Gloriosa, bring Santiago, they are here"

Gloriosa bought the baby and we held him. The baby giggled at this.

They were pirates, but they kept their promise. We were eternally grateful for that.

I said: "Thank you. We owe you one for this. You don't know what it means to us"

Shakuyaku said, "Just take him and go before he starts crying and we change our mind."

We smiled. It seems that even they grew attached to the child. We gave our farewells and departed.

We boarded a ship to North Blue and we arrived here and opened an orphanage.